THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
Department of Global Communications
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Department of Media, Culture, and Communication
Course Title: Propaganda and Persuasion in International Cinema
Course No.: CM 591 (AUP)/E.58.2170 (NYU)
Professors: John Downing (AUP) and Terence P. Moran (NYU)
Credits:
4 Credits (AUP) 4 Credits (NYU)
Class Schedule: Tuesday 31 May to Friday 17 June 2011
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course examines selected film classics of propaganda with particular emphasis
on American and French culture and history. Background readings, class lectures,
and models for analyzing the intersections of communication, film, myth, and
propaganda, and visits to the Musee de l’Armee, Napoleon’s Tomb, the Dome
Church, Cinemateque Francaise, and the Arc de Triomphe will be used to structure a
learning environment in which the class will analyze specific films for their
aesthetic, cultural, informative, mythic, and persuasive communication. In our
analyses and discussions, we will examine the relationships between
communication and propaganda, art and propaganda, information and propaganda,
and myth and propaganda, with the goal of gaining some understanding of the roles
played by moving image media (film, video, digital) in national and global
persuasion. Our goal is to provide students with some critical thinking models and
techniques that will allow them to conduct their own analyses of contemporary
efforts to use moving image media to convey both political and sociological
propaganda.
The course will be structured as a seminar in which all of us will share our own
critical thinking analyses with each other. At the end of the course, we should all
have a richer knowledge and understanding of the history of film as propaganda and
of how to analyze films for their mythic and propagandistic structures and impacts.
Three papers will compare three sets of two propaganda films: American and
French History as Propaganda, Propaganda and War, and The Colonial and AntiColonial Cinema.
REQUIREMENTS:
I. Absence Policy/Participation
Active participation by all students is required for this course, which will meet for
three weeks. It is designed to be an intensive class experience. Students are
expected to complete the assigned readings for each class session and to come
to class with specific responses to and questions about the readings for our class
discussions. You should plan to give at least two hours of study for each class, plus
time for screenings of the films to be studied. If you miss a class, please ask a
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classmate for his/her notes. Any absence will affect your work/grade, and
four absences will result in your administrative withdrawal from the course.
For each of the films, you will write a two-page response that answers the
following questions:
1. What is the central myth and who is the hero in the film?
2. What are the central propaganda messages in the film?
3. What film techniques and technology are used to carry and/or reinforce the
mythic and propaganda messages?
4. What is your own response to the film, its messages, and its form?
Value = 25%
II. Essay Assignments
You write three six (6) page scholarly papers comparing three sets of
assigned films, using your own critical analyses and proper use/citation
of the readings assigned for the films.
1. The Silent Cinema: The Birth of a Nation (USA 1914) and Napoleon (France
1927) Due Monday 6 June
Value = 25%
2.
Propaganda and War: Paths of Glory (USA 1957) and La Grande Illusion
(France 1937).
Due Tuesday 14 June
Value = 25%
3.
The Colonial and Anti-Colonial Cinema : Casablanca (USA 1943) and The
Battle of Algiers (Algeria - Italy 1965).
Due Monday 20 June
Value = 25%
Each essay should be organized to respond to the following protocols in the order
given by answering four clustered questions in separate paragraphs for each
cluster. Use the assigned readings, the films, and your own critical thinking.
1.
Identify and compare the context for each film. What was the historical
environment within which each film was made? Who were the central people
involved? What was the cultural, economic, political, etc. structure of the film’s
production? What were the techniques and technologies of filmmaking
available to the filmmakers? Was the film an example of what Jacques Ellul calls
agitative/political or integrative/sociological propaganda?
2. Identify and compare the central myth and hero in each film. How are they
similar and how are they different? Be specific and concrete.
3. Identify and compare the central propaganda messages carried by the hero and
the myth in each film. How are they similar and how are they different? Be
specific and concrete.
4. What is your own response to each film? What aspects (filmic, mythic,
propagandistic) did you respond to most strongly (positively or negatively)?
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Why do you think you responded as you did? What did you learn from the
comparison?
NOTE: All written work (responses and comparisons) must be submitted on
the dates due, must conform to an identified style guide, must be typed and
double-spaced using standard typeface, must be paginated, and must be
fastened with a single staple or paper clip. Proper scholarly style and source
referencing are expected to be the norm for graduate coursework.
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SCHEDULE OF CLASS MEETINGS AND FILMS
WEEK ONE
Mon. 30 May
HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Tues. 31 May
9-12 Introduction and Orientation : Film, Myth, and Propaganda
1-4 Silent Film: The Birth of a Nation (USA 1915)
Wed. 1 June
9-11 Silent Film: Napoleon (France 1927)
12-3 Silent Film: Napolean (France 1927)
Thurs. 2 June
Fri.
3 June
HOLIDAY - NO CLASS
9-12 Comparison of The Birth of a Nation and Napoleon as Film,
Myth, and Propaganda. Visit to Hotel des Invalides –
Napoleon’s Tomb
WEEK TWO
Mon.
6 June
9-11 Propaganda and War
Tues.
7 June
9-12 World War I Film: Paths of Glory (USA 1957)
Weds.
8 June
9-11 World War I Film: La Grande Illusion (France 1937)
Thurs. 9 June
9-11 World War I: Comparison of Paths of Glory and La Grande
Illusion as Film, Myth, and Propaganda.
Fri.
9-12 Visit to Hotel des Invalides – Musee de l’Armee (World War I)
10 June
WEEK THREE
Mon.
13 June
HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Tues.
14 June 9-12 Colonial and Anti-Colonial Cinema
1-3 Colonial Film: Casablanca (USA 1943)
Wed.
15 June 9-11 Anti-Colonial Film : The Battle of Algiers (Algeria – Italy
1966)
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Thurs.
16 June 9-11 Comparison of Casablanca and The Battle of Algiers as Film,
Myth, and Propaganda
Fri.
17 June 9-12 Final Class: All Questions Answered; All Answers
Questioned.
Visit to the Arc de Triomphe
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SCHEDULE OF REQUIRED READINGS
WEEK ONE
Mon. 30 May
HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Tues. 31 May
Film (Monoco 3-45, 121-191); Myth (Campbell 1-37, 329-337);
Propaganda (Ellul v-xviii, 6-87); The Birth of a Nation (Schickel 212250) and (Silva i-viii, 1-15)
Wed.
Napoleon (Brownlow 9-11, 31-45, 150-160, 257-286)
1 June
Thurs. 2 June
HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Fri.
3 June
None
Sat.
4 June
None
WEEK TWO
Mon.
6 June
Introduction to War Films ( AMC filmsite, War Films);
(Secunda/Moran 1-10)
Tues.
7 June
Paths of Glory (Dirks)
Wed.
8 June
La Grande Illusion (Cowie)
Thurs. 9 June
None
Fri.
None
10 June
WEEK THREE
Mon.
13 June HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Tues. 14 June Casablanca (Secunda/ Moran 47-74); (Koppes and Black 287- 290)
Wed. 15 June The Battle of Algiers (Horne 183-207) and (Solinas, ix-xviii, 161202)
Thurs. 16 June
None
Fri.
None
17 June
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RECOMMENDED TEXTS
WEEK ONE:
Film, Myth, and Propaganda
James Monaco, How to Read a Film: The Art, Technology, Language, History, and
Theory of Film and Media, revised edition (New York: Oxford University Press,
1981).
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton University Press,
1949).
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1965).
The Birth of a Nation
Richard Schickel, D.W. Griffith (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).
Fred Silva, ed. Focus on “Birth of a Nation” (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc.,
1971).
Napoleon
Kevin Brownlow, Napoleon (London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1983).
WEEK TWO:
Tim Dirks, AMCfilmsite, War Films (www.filmsite.org/warfilms).
Eugene Secunda and Terence P. Moran, Selling War to America: From the Spanish
American War to the Global War on Terror (Westport CT: Praeger Security
International, 2007), Introduction.
La Grande Illusion
Jean Renoir, My Life and My Films, 3rd edition (Da Capo Paperback, 2000).
Jean Renoir et al. The Complete Films (Taschen, 2007).
Paths of Glory
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Anthony Clayton, Paths to Glory: The French Army 1914-1918 (Cassell Military
Paperbacks, 2007).
Humphrey Cobb et al. Paths of Glory (Penguin Classic, 2010)
Rodney Hill and Gene D. Phillips, The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick (Library of
Great Filmmakers (Checkmark Books, 2002).
Lawrence H. Suid, Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film
(Louisville: University of Kentucky Press, 2002).
WEEK THREE:
Casablanca
Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Goes to War (New York: The
Free Press, 1987).
Secunda and Moran, Chapter 3: The Good War – World War II.
The Battle of Algiers
Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York: The Viking
Press, 1978).
Piernico Solinas, ed., Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers” (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1978).