UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
COVER SHEET FOR A NEW OR REVISED COURSE
Section A
Course title
Cinema History
Teaching Unit (eg
Department)
Film Studies/ DELC
Course code
School
Literatures, Languages
and Cultures
Collaborating Body eg Department
or other Institution
Replacement course
UG
PG
New course
Revised course
Yes No
(X)
(X)
()
(X)
()
X
If Replacement course, give
Name of Course
Code
details of course (s) which this
Introduction to European Cinema LC0001
course replaces
No. SCQF credit
40
Level eg
Credit
points
SCQF 8
points
No.
No. of
Scheduled class hours - include day, start
Scheduled
Hours per weeks 11
and finish times and term
Teaching
week
Two hours of lecture on M & W’s
Contact Teaching
4
11
Two hours of tutorial on Tuesday and
Other required
4 hours of 10
Thursday or Friday
attendance
screening
Course operational with effect
Sept. 2010
from (date)
Any costs which may have to be met by students eg materials
Students will have to pay a fee to see the films at film house for 30 pounds per semester / and we will need
resources to scan all of the readings and post them to WebCT or to ask students to purchase a course reader
Give details of any Prerequisite Course(s) none
Name of Course (s)
Course Code (s)
Give details of programme(s) for which the course is mandatory
Programme Code(s)
Name of Programme (s)
Course(s) which cannot be taken with this course and counted towards a minimum qualifying curriculum
Name of Course (s)
Course Code (s)
Short description of course: This course covers the history and thinking about cinema from its
inception in the late 19th century to contemporary world cinema
URL for supporting course
documentation
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
See attached
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes:
To comprehend the significance in the changing aesthetics in Cinema
To read and critically discuss films and film theory
To understand why certain theories emerge within specific contexts
To think and write clearly about aesthetic and film theory
To be able to evaluate and discuss complex ideas orally and in writing
Components of Assessment:
Continuous assessment (presentations in tutorial, 10%), 2 essays of 2000-2500 words in length
(60%), one final exam (30%).
Approval Track
Approved by Teaching Unit or equivalent
body eg department
Approved by Board of Studies (or
equivalent body)
Noted/Approved by Faculty
Approved by UGSC/SPGSC
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Date
Authorised signature
Registry Use
Name
Designation
Date received
Date record created
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
COVER SHEET FOR A NEW OR REVISED COURSE
Section B
ALL COURSES
Course organiser, if known. If not known, give interim contact
Name:
Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli
Tel: 6513237
Secretarial/administrative contact in Teaching Unit
Email: k.ravetto@ed.ac.uk
Name:
Tel:
Email:
If the course will appear in a departmental
website, please give the URL
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES ONLY
Year in which the course is normally taken in a structured Honours programme ()
1
1 or 2
X
2
2 or 3
3
3 or 4
4
4 or 5
5
Year in which the course is normally taken in a modular or non Honours programme ()
1
1 or 2
2
2 or 3
3
3 or 4
4
4 or 5
5
1 or 2 or 3
or 4 or 5
Are class exams required ? ()
Yes
X
No
No. of exam papers required (eg how many papers
No. exam papers
Duration
will each student be required to answer)
2
3 hours
Class Exams
Degree Exams
When are the exams to be taken ()
May
X
June
June
Sept X
1st attempt
Resit
Has a quota for the course been approved by Faculty? ()
Yes
No
If yes, what is the maximum number of students permitted?
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
School of Language and Literature
History of Cinema
Semester 1: Cinema and The Invention of Modern Life
(40 Credit Points)
Proposed Session 2010/2011
Course Instructors:
Dr. Kriss Ravetto (Course Convener) Email: k.ravetto@ed.ac.uk
Tel: 6513237 Office: DHT908 Office Hours: Weds. 10:00-11:00
Professor Martine Beugnet
Dr. Jane Sillars
Dr. Alexandra Smith
Dr. Luana Babini
Dr. Bjarne Thompsen
Lectures:
Monday and Wednesday 12-1
Place:
Tutorials: Time and Place
Students need to sign up for tutorials online WebCT
Screenings: Screenings at XXX in DHT Lecture Theatre and Film House
Course Description:
This course examines the cultural context from which cinema emerged. The invention of
cinema will be looked at in the context of the visual and spatial arts. The course as a
whole will discuss film as a product of the age of industrialization and conquest, as an
element of urban culture, and as means of imaginary transportation. The concentration of
the course will be on the presentation of a variety of films, from early utopias to
contemporary times, on the subject of home(land), cityscape, and voyage. The course will
follow a relatively chronological framework. The course is organized around specific topics
pertinent to understanding early cinema and the experience of everyday life in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries.
Course Aims:
 To give a broad overview to the important issues and innovative aesthetic and narrative
trends in the history of cinema up to the 1950s.
 To analyze major movements in American and European Cinema
 To understand the historical context in which these films emerge
 To understand the theoretical assessment and responses to film
To study how new technologies have affected Cinematic trends
 To understand transformation of narrative styles, social and archetypal roles in Early
Cinema
To gain knowledge about the political and intellectual contexts which have informed
Cinematic developments
Learning Outcomes:
 To comprehend the significance in the changing aesthetics in Cinema
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
 To read and critically discuss films and film theory
 To understand why certain theories emerge within specific contexts
 To think and write clearly about aesthetic and film theory
 To be able to evaluate and discuss complex ideas orally and in writing
Teaching Methods:
This is a two-hour Lecture course, with two hours of tutorial per week. Students are
required to complete the reading before class and to attend the film screenings. The
readings and films will be on reserve.
Course Organization:
The course teaching will be based on two- hour lectures and two hours of seminar per
week. Attendance at all classes for is compulsory. Attendance registers will be
taken in seminar sections, and attendance records will be reflected in the Seminar
Assessment Mark. Poor attendance is regarded very seriously, and will be penalized
heavily through the Seminar Assessment Mark. The penalties are likely to affect the
overall degree classification of Hounors students.
It is especially important that students attend the first meeting of all courses for which
they are enrolled, since in those meetings the aims and objectives of the course are
explained. Failure to attend the first meeting of a course will be regarded with special
gravity.
.
Course Assessment: Participation: 10% (this includes preparing questions and
synopsis of readings and films). Two essays of 4-6 pages (2000-2500 words) in length
on selected topics 50% (25% each), and one final exam 40% (2000-2500 words in
length).
Essay: Essays should be between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length, including
quotations, footnotes and bibliography. Students should not that they will be penalized
for work that is either too long or too short.
Essays should be word-processed using 12-point Times or Times-Roman font, and
double-spaced. You should use the conventions of reference as set out in the Good
Writing Guide. Please take note of the following statement:
Good essays will be identified by the quality of argument, use of evidence, relevance to
topic and quality of expression. Inaccuracies in punctuation, spelling, grammar, idiom,
referencing and bibliography, and sloppiness in presentation (insertions, deletions,
coffee stains) will be penalized by the deduction of up to 4 marks.
Late Submission of Written Work: 3 marks will be deducted for late submission (up to a
week late) without supportive medical evidence. Essays submitted after this date will
receive a NIL mark.
Extensions: can be granted by tutors for up to one week on medical grounds or other good
reasons. Further extensions beyond one week can be granted only by the programme coordinator..
Submission and Arrangement for Essays: There will normally be no tutorial meetings of
the course in week 1. Essays must be submitted to the School office by the class hour on
(Monday of the last week of classes).
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Research Assessment Mark will be determined by:
1) Regularity of Attendance. Course Regulations state that attendance at each meeting of
every course is compulsory.
2) Frequency of participation: It is expected that all students will participate voluntarily in
open forum and in group work as appropriate. Participation includes asking questions of the
course leader or of other students, exploring or contesting views expressed by others,
summarising discussion, etc., etc. To obtain a first-class assessment for frequency of
participation, regular participation in each class is required; to obtain a 2i grade, regular
participation in a majority of classes attended will be expected; those who contribute to
discussion only occasionally will be awarded a 2ii grade, while persistent silence will merit a
3rd-class grade.
3) Quality of participation: The quality of participation will be measured by the nature of the
arguments or perceptions or evidence offered to the seminar; relevant knowledge; evidence
of the care with which the text or film has been read, or data interpreted; evidence of having
prepared the assignments; willingness to initiate discussion; intellectual interaction with other
members of the seminar.
Examination:
The examination will cover the whole course at the end of the term. It will be a three hour
examination, and you will be expect to answer 3 short questions, and one long essay
questions (the 3 questions will amount to 40%, while the essay will account for 60%).
Set Films:
Electrocuting an Elephant / (Thomas Edison, USA, 1903, 10m)
Atcualités / Shorts ( Auguste and Lois Lumière, France, 1985, 20m)
The Great Train Robbery (Porter, USA, 1987, 10m.)
Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès, France, 1902, 6 m)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1926, 95m)
Man With a Movie Camera/Cheovek s Kinoappartem (Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1929, 90m)
Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, USA, 1936, 87m)
The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, USA, 1928, 67m)
Das Triadische Ballett (Oskar Schlemmer, Germany, 1921, 15m)
The Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau, France, 1930, 58m)
Anemic Cinema (Marcel Duchamp, France, 1926, 7m)
Un chien andalou (Luis Buñuel, France, 1928, 20m)
Ghosts before Breakfast (Hans Richter, Germany, 1929, 11 m)
Meshes in the Afternoon (Maya Deren & Alexander Hammond, USA, 1943, 18m)
Napoleon (Abel Gance, France, 1927, 235m)
Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, USA, 1939, 222m)*
M (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1931, 100m)
Public Enemy (William Wellman, USA, 1931, 83m)
Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, USA, 1922, 79m)
Tabu (Friedrich Murnau, Germany & Great Britain, 1931, 84m)
Oktybar (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1927,114 m)
Triumph of the Will (Leni Reifenstahl, Germany, 1934, 120 m)
Citizen Kane (Victor Fleming, USA, 1941, 119m)
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, USA, 1941, 104m)
Accattone (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1961, 120m)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Required Texts:
Film Analysis, Jeff Geiger & Randy Rutsky (eds.) (New York, Norton, 2005)
A Course Reader, available in the office of Language and Literatures.
WEEK 1: Bodies in Motion:
This week explores the invention of cinema, looking specifically at early cinema’s mixing
images of science, alchemy and magic. Early cinema seems to be fascinated with the body
in motion. We will discuss the different modes of representation from the Lumières brother’s
attempt to visualize reality to Méliès trick films, and its transition to modern documentary on
the one hand and epics and drama on the other.
Viewing:
Electrocuting an Elephant (Thomas Edison, USA, 1903, 10m)
Atcualités / Shorts ( Auguste and Lois Lumière, France, 1985, 20m)
The Magic of Méliès (Georges Méliès, France, 1987, 25m.)
Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès, France, 1902, 6 m)
Required Readings:
Karin Littau “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” (in Film Analysis)
Tom Gunning “A Trip to the Moon” (in Film Analysis)
Catherine Russell, “The Body as the Main Attraction” (Reader)
Lisa Cartwright, selections from Screening the Body (Reader)
Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, it’s Spectator and the AvantGarde” (Reader)
Further Readings:
Richard Abel, The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema 1986-1914
(Berkeley, UC Press, 1998)
Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (New York, Columbia UP, 2007)
Angela Dalle Vacche Body in the mirror (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1992)
Lee Grieveson (ed.), The Silent Cinema Reader (London, Routledge, 2003)
Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907
(Berkeley, UC Press, 1994)
Week 2: The City and the Modern Urban Experience
Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger argued that
modernity transforms the registers of subjective experience, characterized by the
perceptual ‘shocks’ of the modern urban environment. This week will explore the
transformation of the texture of experience and the visualization of experience.
Viewing:
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1926, 95m)
Man With a Movie Camera/Cheovek s Kinoappartem (Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1929, 90m)
Required Readings:
Leo Charney, “In a Moment: Film and the Philosophy of Modernity” (Reader)
Andreas Huyssen, Ch. 1 & 4 of After the Great Divide (Reader)
Randy Rutsky, “Metropolis” (in Film Analysis)
Dziga Vertov, selections from Kino-Eye (Reader)
Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (online at
http://condor.depaul.edu/~dweinste/intro/simmel_M&ML.htm
Further Reading:
Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer The Dialectic of Enlightenment
(New York, Herder, 1972)
Jay Leyda, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (London:
George Allen & Unwin, 1960)
Vlada Petric, Constructivism in Film – A Cinematic Analysis: The Man With
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
the Movie Camera (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)
Graham Roberts, The Man With the Movie Camera (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001)
Mark Shiel (ed.), Screening the City (London. Verso, 2003)
Further Viewing:
Berlin: Die Sinfonie de Großstadt (Walter Ruttman, Germany, 1927)
City Girl (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1930)
The Crowd (King Vidor, USA, 1928)
Entr’acte (René Clair, France, 1924)
Paris qui dort / Crazy Ray (René Clair, France, 1925)
Sunrise (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1927)
Week 3: The Machine Age
“Modernity” points to the emergence of instrumental rationality as the intellectual framework
through which the world is perceived and constructed. Yet, this type of instrumentality, the
automation of work, mass industrialization, also greatly effected social relations, creating
great class divisions and political strife, as well as questioning traditional values. This week
will explore the connections of dehumanization, mechanical ways of seeing, and urban
corruption as they relate to modernity.
Viewing:
Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, USA, 1936, 87m)
The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, USA, 1928, 67m)
Das Triadische Ballett (Oskar Schlemmer, Germany, 1921, 15m)
Required Readings:
Hal Gladfelder, “Sherlock Jr.” (first 5 pp. in Film Analysis)
Charles Maland, “Modern Times (in Film Analysis)
Siegfried Kracauer, selections from The Mass Ornament : “Photography,” Travel
and Dance,” “The Mass Ornament,” “Georg Simmel” (in Reader)
Béla Belász, “The Close-up,” and “The Face of Man”
Rudof Arnheim, selections from Film as Art: “Film and Reality,”
Further Readings:
Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (Stanford,
Stanford Up, 2002)
Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (New York, Beacon, 1991)
Charles Maland, Charlie Chaplin and American Culture (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1991)
Robert Knopf, Theater and Cinema of Buster Keaton (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1999)
Week 4: Avant-garde and the Aesthetics of the Unconscious
This week will concentrate on the attempt of avant-garde artists to represent dreams, desires
and the unconscious. The work of avant-garde film is often designed to subvert conventional
notions of political and aesthetic culture, as well as narrative forms. We will focus primarily
on surrealism and Dada.
Viewing:
The Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau, France, 1930, 58m)
Un chien andalou (Luis Buñuel, France, 1928, 20m)
Ghosts before Breakfast (Hans Richter, Germany, 1929, 11 m)
Anemic Cinema (Marcel Duchamp, France, 1926, 7m) Can be seen at:
http://www.ubu.com/film/duchamp.html
Meshes in the Afternoon (Maya Deren & Alexander Hammond, USA, 1943, 18m)
Required Readings:
Tom Conley, “Un Chien Andalou” (in Film Analysis)
Thomas Elsaesser, “Dada/Cinema? (Reader)
Andre Breton, “Surrealist Manifesto” (Reader)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Hugo Ball, “Dada Manifesto” (Reader)
Further Readings:
Maurice Nadeau, History of Surrealism (New York, Belknap, 1989)
Michael Gould, Surrealism and the Cinema: Open-Eyed Screening (London:
A.S. Barnes, 1976)
Walter Benjamin, “Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia” In
Reflections (New York, Schocken, 1978)
Paul Hammond (ed), The Shadow and its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the
Cinema (London, British Film Institute, 1978)
Rudolf Kuenzli (ed) Dada and Surrealist Film (Cambridge, MIT, 1987)
Further Viewing:
Emak Bakia (Man Ray, USA, 1926)
La Coquille et le clergyman (Germaine Dulac, France, 1928)
Ballet Mécanique (Fernand Léger, France, 1924)
Week 5: Murderers are Among Us
With the massive urbanization and the emergence of new relations of power, and the
image of the new woman and the new man, a different type of violence occurred —
specifically urban crime. This week we will look at films that deal with the psychology of
the street, and how the new social reality for the underclass helped to produce organized
crime.
Viewing:
M (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1931, 100m)
Public Enemy (William Wellman, USA, 1931, 83m)
Required Reading:
Lottie Eisner, Selections from The Haunted Screen and Fritz Lang(Reader)
Jonathan Munby, Selections from Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening
the Gangster (Reader)
Alain Silver and James Ursini (eds), Selections from The Gangster Film Reader (Reader)
Further Reading:
Maria Tartar, Lustmord (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1995)
Anton Kaes, M, (London, BFI, 2000)
David Goldberg, Discontented America (Baltimore,Johns Hopkins UP, 1999)
Suggested Viewing:
Angels With Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938)
Dr. Mabuse, I&2 (Fritz Lang 1922-1923)
Die Freudlose Gasse (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1925)
Little Ceasar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1930)
Pandora’s Box (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1929)
The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, USA, 1939, 104m)
Scarface: The Shame of a Nation (Howard Hawks, 1937)
Week 6: The National Epic
During the early 20th century, while Imperial Europe was in decline, political forces became
progressively more ethnocentric, calling for new forms of nationalism and the nation state.
Such demands necessitated a large scale re-historicizing so as to create a national
cultural identity. Cinema provided not only such mythic narratives, but also iconic images
of the nation and national heroes.
Viewing:
Napoleon (Abel Gance, France, 1927, selections 235m)
Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, USA, 1939, 222m)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Required Reading:
Anthony Smith, “Images of the Nation” (Reader)
Jane Gaines, “Birthing Nations” (Reader)
Ernst Gellner, Selections from Nations and Nationalism (Reader)
Laurent Véray, “The Apotheosis of the French Historical Film” (Reader)
Further Reading:
Richard Abel, French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1929 (Princeton, Princeton UP 1984)
Norman King, Abel Gance: A Politics of Spectacle (Champaign, Illinois UP, 1984)
Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1990)
Further Viewing:
Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, USA, 1914)
Siegfried (Fritz Lang Germany, 1924)
Cimarron (Wesley Ruggles, 1931, USA)
Union Pacific (Cecil B. DeMille, USA, 1939)
Alexander Nevsky, (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1938)
Week 7: Framing the Other (paper due on Monday at 4:00)
One of the main concerns of many of early cinema was coming to terms with problems of
identity, history and politics caused by colonialism, nationalism and traditionalism. Often
colonial subjects were exoticized, patronized or presented as primitive, savage or simply
“close to nature.” Therefore we will discuss the processes of identifying oneself and others,
and establishing systems of power based on hierarchical notions of difference and identity.
Viewing:
Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, UK, 1922, 79m)
Tabu (Friedrich Murnau, Germany & Great Britain, 1931, 84m)
Reading:
Jeff Geiger, “Nanook of the North” (in Film Analysis)
Edward Said, Introduction to Orientalism (Reader)
Fatimah Rony, Selections from The Third Eye (Reader)
Further Reading:
Catherine Russell, Experimental Ethnography (Durham, Duke UP, 1999)
Micheal Renov, Theorizing Documentary (New York, Routledge, 1993)
Ali Behdad, Belated Travelers (Durham, Duke, 1994)
Jeffrey Geiger, Facing the Pacific (Honolulu, Hawaii UP, 2007)
Further Viewing:
Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, France, 1937, 97m)
White Shadows in the South Seas (W.S. Van Dyke, USA, 1928)
King Kong (Merian Cooper, USA, 1933)
Man of Aran (Robert Flaherty, UK, 1934)
Princess Tam Tam (Edmond Gréville, France, 1934)
Essays will be due on the Friday of Week 8 at 12:30 PM.
Week 9: Depression and Pre-War Comedy
Viewing:
A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood, USA, 1935, 91m)
The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, USA, 1940, 124m)
Required Readings:
GL Ulmer’s “A Night at the Text,” selections from Maurice Charney’s The Comic World of
the Marx Brothers, Robert Cole, “Anglo-American Anti-Fascist Propaganda in a Time of
Neutrality,” Charlie Chaplin “I made the Great Dictator Because.”
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Week 9: Propaganda of the State
Early cinema presents modernity as a dynamic force that empowers not only the modern
state but all social relations, giving them a new rhythm and image. As a socio-economic
concept, modernity designates an array of technological and social changes: rapid
industrialization, urbanization, the proliferation of technologies and the explosion of
Ideological politics.
Viewing:
Oktybar (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1927,114 m)
Triumph of the Will (Leni Reifenstahl, Germany, 1934, 120 m)
Required Readings:
Siegfried Kracauer, selections from Caligari to Hitler (Reader)
Sergei Eisenstein, selections from Film Form (Reader)
Benjamin, Walter, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (Reader)
Further Reading:
Leon Trotsky, The Russian Revolution (New York, Pathfinder, 1994)
Youngblood, Denise, Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era
Richard Taylor, Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi
Germany (London, I.B. Tauras, 1998)
Eric Rentschler, Ministry of Illusion (Cambridge, Harvard UP, 1996)
Further Viewing:
Siegfried (Fritz Lang Germany, 1924, 98 m)
Jud Süß (Viet Harlan, 1940)
Scipione l’africano (Gallone, Italy, 193)
Mussolini Speaks, (Lowell, Italy, 1933, 60 m)
Alexander Dovzhenko, Zemlya/Earth (Soviet Union, 1930)
Week 10: The Aesthetics of Reality as a form of Social Criticism
During the early 20th century, while Imperial Europe was in decline, political forces became
progressively more ethnocentric, calling for new forms of nationalism and the nation state.
Such demands necessitated a large scale re-historicizing so as to create a national
cultural identity. Cinema provided not only such mythic narratives, but also the critic of
such images of the nation and national heroes
Viewing:
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, USA, 1941, 104m)
Citizen Kane (Victor Fleming, USA, 1941, 119m)
Required Reading:
Anthony Smith, “Images of the Nation” (Reader)
Jane Gaines, “Birthing Nations” (Reader)
Chrittopher Faulkner (Film Analysis)
James Naremore (Film Analysis)
Further Reading:
Richard Abel, French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1939 (Princeton, Princeton UP 1984)
Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (Cambridge,
Cambridge UP, 1990)
Further Viewing:
The Big Parade (King Vidor, USA, 1925)
All Quiet On the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, USA, 1930)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capa, USA, 1939)
Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, USA, 1940)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, USA, 1942)
Paisà (Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1946)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
School of Language and Literature
History of Cinema
Semester 2: Cinema and Crisis
(40 Credit Points)
Proposed Session 2010/2011
Course Instructor:
Dr. Kriss Ravetto (Course Convener) Email: k.ravetto@ed.ac.uk
Tel: 6513237
Office: DHT908 Office Hours: Weds. 10:00-11:00
Lectures:
Monday and Wednesday 12-1
Place:
Tutorials: Time and Place
Students need to sign up for tutorials online WebCT
Screenings: Screenings at XXX in DHT Lecture Theatre and Film House
Course Description : Examine the economic and socio-political circumstances that caused for
an opening in the film industry for new innovative work. Rather than strictly chronological this
course will follow a series of themes and theoretical issues starting with question of the
cinematic gaze and the fetishization of the image. While in classical cinema this fetish image
has traditionally been a feminine one, many contemporary films challenge this strict gender
divide by fetishizing masculinity, technology, politics, and special effects. Criticize feminist and
psychoanalytic theories about the cinematic gaze and the family structure, and how they
reinforce and reproduce certain conceptions about gender and power. Trace the question of
subjectivity to cinema’s own self-referentiality, which challenge conventional narratives and
historical images. The first section will deal specifically with questions of the imaginary, the
surreal, sexual and racial identities. The next section will look at cinema that engages with
ethical questions regarding war and masculine identity, the dissolution of a new set of icons.
This section explores social issues, and the role of social critique in cinema, as well as the
transformation from the studio system to New Wave and contemporary independent cinema.
Analyze realist aesthetics and various alternative aesthetic approaches to real social problems.
The last section of the course concerns issues and thinking about the role of globalism and
new technology in cinema. This section focuses on special effects, the digital image, and its
appeal to youth culture, as well as the emergence of world cinema that reflects new cinematic
markets and ways of presenting global identity. Each week will study a specific set of
historical, aesthetic and theoretical issues.
SET FILM (Subject to Change)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Smultronstället /Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Pather Panchali, (Satyajit Ray, 1955, India,107m)
Accattone (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1961, 120m)
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alan Resnais, France, 1957, 91 m.)
La jetee (Chris Marker, France, 1962, 28.m)
Contempt / Le mépris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963, France/ Italy, 103m)
Antonioni’s Il deserto rosso/ Red Desert (Italy, 1964, 116m.)
Terra em Transe / Anguished Land (Glauber Rocha, Brazil, 1967, 106m)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Black Girl/La noire de… (Ousmane Sembene,1966 Senegal 59 m)
The Battle For Algiers (Gilles Pontecorvo, Italy, 1962, 125 m)
Ali Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1974, 93m)
La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995, 96m)
Idioterne / The Idiots (Lars Von Trier, Denmark, 2000, 117)
Close-up (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1989, 90m).
Days of Being Wild / A Fei zheng chuan (Kar-Wei Wong, 1991, Taiwan, 94 m)
Vendredi Soir, Claire Denis, 2002, France, 90m.)
Russkiy kovcheg /Russian Ark ( Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia, 2002 99m.)
Earth (1998, Deepa Mehta, India, 104m)
Dong / The Hole (Ming-liang Tsai, Tawain 1998, 95 m)
Werckmeister harmóniák (Bela Tarr, Hungary, 2000, 145m)
These films are available in LLC Language Centre for additional viewing. You are
expected to read weekly assigned materials before each seminar. All films studied on the
course will be re-shown for revision purposes during revision week.
Lecture and Viewing Programme
Week 1: Introduction: Post Studio Hollywood and the Cinema of the Seer
Mon: 1pm C11
Thu: 1pm C11
Viewing: Tue. 2-5 C11
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Smultronstället /Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957, 91m.)
Reading: Michel Chion “Projections of Sound on Image,” and Laura Mulvey “Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (In Film Theory), selections from Deleuze’s Cinema 1 & 2
Suggested Reading:
Mulvey, Laura Death 24x a Second (London: Reaktion, 2006)
Week 2: A New Image of Reality
This week we look at how Neorealism and Social Realism. How they blend politics and
aesthetics in the postwar period. We will focus on a shift of narrative style, particularly social
and class issues to analyze how Neorealism achieved a certain appearance of transparency
via a tragic-romantic narrative of the proletariat. We will question its value in terms of historical
representation.
Viewing:
Pather Panchali, (Satyajit Ray, 1955, India,107m)
Accattone (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1961, 120m)
Required Reading:
Andrè Bazin, selections from What is Cinema (Reader))
Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Cinema of Poetry (Reader)
Noa Streimatsky, “Archaic: Pasolini on the Face of the Earth”
Further Readings:
Armes, Roy, Patterns of Realism
Rossellini, Roberto, My Method
Millicent Marcus Film in the age of Neorealism
Further Viewing:
Umberto D (De Sica, Italy, 1952)
Germania Anno Zero (Roberto Rossellini, Germany, 1948)
Aparajito (Satyajit Ray,1956, India, 105m)
Ladri di biciclette, (Vittorio De Sica,1948, Italy, 93m)
Règle du jeu, La (Jean Renoir, 1939, France, 110m)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
WEEK 3: French New Wave
French New Wave films expose the emotional, spiritual and intellectual vacancy of the
bourgeoisie, and the inability of filmmakers, artists and intellectuals to promote national
heroes, notions of solidarity, and cultural critiques based on “accepted” ideological truths.
Here we will examine Godard’s and Resnais’s experimentation with plot construction by
referencing and juxtaposing other cinematic narratives, aesthetics and films genres.
Viewing: Alan Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour (France, 1957, 91 m.),
La jetee (Chris Marker, France, 1962, 28.m), Contempt / Le mépris (JeanLuc Godard, 1963, France/ Italy, 103m)
Required Readings:
Roy Armes, selections from The French Cinema Since 1946
Hillier, Jim, ed. Cahiers du Cinéma
Suggested Readings:
Roy Armes, The French Cinema since 1946 (on reserve)
Godard, Jean-Luc, selections from Godard on Godard
WEEK 4: Politics and Disillusionment
The dystopia of Europe’s entrance into its “Dolce Vita.” Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La dolce
vita and Luchino Visconti’s Rocco e suoi fratelli (both made in 1960), mark more than the
economic boom years of 1958-1963, like the French New Wave they indicate the emotional,
spiritual and intellectual vacancy of the bourgeoisie. This decline ideology, as Pasolini saw it,
resulted from a multiplicity of factors: ranging from the “great compromise” of the European
Left in the reconstruction after WWII, the ultimate expulsion of the Left from the governments
of De Gasperi, De Gaulle, and Adenauer, the presence of neo-fascist parties in “legitimate”
European politics, the economic miracle, the global conformity capitalism, and mass
advertising. Among the effects of such economic booms, expanding markets, and massive
advertising campaigns, was the homogenization of cultural desires, and simultaneously the
entrenching of political and intellectual discourse in the truths or the institutions of the past.
Viewing:
Antonioni’s Il deserto rosso/ Red Desert (Italy, 1964, 116m.)
Terra em Transe / Anguished Land (Glauber Rocha, Brazil, 1967, 106m)
Required Reading:
Fernando Sola nas and Octavio Getino “Towards a Third Cinema”
Adam Sitney, selections from Vital Crisis
Suggested Readings:
Gianni Vattimo The End of Modernity (on reserve)
Gilles Deleuze, “Fellini and the Crystals of Time”
Robert Stam, Brazilian Cinema
Suggested Viewing:
Xica da Silva (Carlos Diegues, 1976, Brazil, 107m)
Bye Bye Brazil (Carlos Diegues, 1979, Brazil, 100m)
La dolce vita (Federico Fellini, Italy, 1960, 174m.)
Week 5: Political Cinema / Third Cinema
Political Cinema often is seen coming to terms with problems of identity, history and
politics caused by colonialism, nationalism and traditionalism. We will discuss the
processes of identifying oneself and others, and of establishing systems of power based
on hierarchical notions of difference and identity.
Screening:
Black Girl/La noire de… (Ousmane Sembene,1966 Senegal 59 m)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
The Battle For Algiers (Gilles Pontecorvo, Italy, 1962, 125 m)
Reading: Selections from Hamid Naficy’s An Accented Cinema &
Robert Stam and Ella Shohat, Unthinking Eurocentrism
Suggested Reading:
Fanon, Franz, A Dying Colonialism (New York: Grove Press, 1994) Originally published in
France as L’An Cinq, de la Révolution Algérienne.
Pontecorvo, Gillo Interview with Joan Mellen, in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Fall 1972.
— Using the Contradictions of the System," an interview with H. Kalishman, in
Cineaste (New York), vol. 6, no. 2, 1974.
— Interview with C. Lucas, in Cineaste (New York), Fall 1980
Suggested Viewing:
Barrevento (Glauber Rocha, Brazil, 1962, 76 m)
Blood of the Condor / Yawar Mallko, (Jorge Sanjines, Bolivia, 1969, 85 m)
Hora de los hornos (Octavio Getino & Fernando E. Solanas, 1968, Argentina, 260m)
WEEK 6: Assimilation / Integration / Interracial Politics
We will examine how these films diverge from, as well as respond to, the visual language of
Hollywood and European Cinema. In addition we will question Western interpretations of
history, and how these historical narratives have been aestheticized and visually
represented. One of the main concerns of many Trans-cultural cinema, and Third World
films is coming to terms with problems of identity, history and politics caused by colonialism,
nationalism and traditionalism. We will discuss the processes of identifying oneself and
others, and of establishing systems of power based on hierarchical notions of difference and
identity.
Viewing: Angst essen Seele auf / Ali Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner
Fassbinder, Germany, 1974, 93m).
Viewing @ Film House: La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995, 96m)
Reading: Selections from Franz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks, Judith Mayne,
“Fassbinder: Ali Fear Eats the Soul and Spectatorship,” and Shohini Chaudhuri from Film
Analysis
Suggested Reading:
Sabine Hake, German National Cinema (London: Routledge, 2001)
Naficy, Hamid, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton UP, 2001).
Robert Stam and Ella Shohat, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media
(New York and London: Routledge, 1994).
Suggested Viewing:
Un prophète/ A prophet (Jacques Audiard, France, 2009, 150m)Memorias del
subdesarrollo (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea,1968, Cuba, 97))
Muerte de un burócrata, La (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea,1966, Cuba, 85m)
Dersu Uzala, (Akira Kurosawa, 1975, Russia, 141 m)
Dialogue of Exiles (Raúl Ruiz, France/Switzerland, 1975, 115m)
Week 7: New Dogmas and New realisms
Dogma and its Obstructions
Viewing: Idioterne / The Idiots (Lars Von Trier, Denmark, 2000, 117)
Viewing @ Film House: Close-up (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1989, 90m).
Reading: Selections from Mette Hjort’s Small Nation Global Cinema: The New Danish
Cinema, Hamid Naficy from Film Analysis, and S. Chaundhuri “The Open Image,” from
Screen (2003)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Suggested Reading:
Jameson, Fredric, The Geopolitical Aesthetic (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995)
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP,
1999)
Minh-ha, Trinh T., Framer Framed (London: Routledge, 1992)
MacDougall, David, Transcultural Cinema (Princeton: Princeton UP,1998)
Suggested Viewing:
Ta’me guilass/ Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997, Iran, 95m)
De fem benspænd / Five Obstructions (Jørgen Leth, Denmark, 2003, 90m).
Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier, Denmark, 2000, 140m)
Ladybird/Ladybird (Ken Loach UK, 1994, 101m.)
Red Road (Andrea Arnold, UK, 2006, 113m)
Week 8: Cinema, Hapitics and the visualization of embodiment
Days of Being Wild / A Fei zheng chuan (Kar-Wei Wong, 1991, Taiwan, 94 m)
Viewing @ Film House: Vendredi Soir, Claire Denis, 2002, France, 90m.)
Reading: Selections from Martine Beugnet, Claire Denis, and Cinema and Sensation
Suggested Reading:
Cartwright, Lisa, Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine’s Visual Culture; (Minneapolis:
Minnesota UPress, 1995)
Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986).
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality (London: Penguin, 1979-1990)
Marks, Laura U., The Skin of the Film : Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses;
Durham, London: Duke University Press, 2000.
— Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media (Minneapolis: Minnesota
UPress,2002)
Shaviro, Steven, The Cinematic Body (Minneapolis: Minnesota UPress, 2004)
Suggested Viewing:
Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle (Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, France, 2006,90m).
35 rhums / 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis, France, 2008, 100m)
Week 9: Post-Colonial Rifts: Hybrids Exiles, and the Poetry of Disintegration
The focus of this section will be on the breakdown of national identities, historical legitimacy
and an ethno-cultural traditions, and the role that myth plays in the formation of such
conventions. The films chosen to are designed 1) to introduce the politics of identity that are
played out in filmic, literary, historical and sociological contexts, 2) to abstract conventional
mythic images by taking them out of the context of linear and spatial narratives, and 3) to
use epic forms as devices for diffusing ethnocentrism, history and national politics.
Viewing: Russkiy kovcheg /Russian Ark ( Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia, 2002 99m.) Viewing @
Film House: Earth (1998, Deepa Mehta, India, 104m)
Readings: Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli, “Floating on the Borders of Europe,” and Ackbar Abbas,
“Cosmopolitan De-scriptions: Shanghai and Hong Kong”
Suggested Films:
Alexandria Why? (Youssef Chahine, 1979, Egypt, 133m)
Beiquing chengshi / City of Sadness (Hsaio-hsein Huo 1989, Taiwan, 157 m)
Huang tu di / To Live (1984) Kaige Chen China, 89 m)
Ni neibian jidian / What Time is it There (Ming-liang Tsai, Taiwan, 2001, 116 m)
Hong gao liang / Red Soghum (Yimou Zhang,1987, China, 91m)
Dong / The Hole (Ming-liang Tsai, Tawain 1998, 95 m)
Suggested Reading:
Berry, Chris, China on Screen (New York: Columbia UP, 2006)
Jaikumar, Priya, Cinema at the End of Empire (Durham: Duke UP, 2006)
LLC BoS 27 January 2010
Yau, Ester, At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema (Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 2001)
Yeh , Yueh-yu and Darrell Davis Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island (New York:
Columbia UP, 2002)
Kriss Ravetto, “Mytho-Poetic Cinema”
Week 10: Things Fall Apart/ New Minimalist Cinema
Viewing: Dong / The Hole (Ming-liang Tsai, Tawain 1998, 95 m)
Viewing @ Film House: Werckmeister harmóniák (Bela Tarr, Hungary,
2000, 145m).
Reading: Selections from Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer
Suggested Viewing:
Zui hao de shi guang /Three Times, (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tawain, 2005, 120m)
Ossos / Bones (Pedro Costa, Portugal, 1997, 94m.)
Üç Maymun /Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, 2008, 109)
Week 11. REVIEW
LLC BoS 27 January 2010