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Cinematic Spectacle and the Genre FilmComparative Literature 41 E: Forms of the Cinema Fall 1998 and Spring 2000 Instructor: Despina Kakoudaki This class was taught as a Freshman Seminar, aiming to introduce students to the principles of film study and film criticism. It combines silent, classic and popular films, and emphasizes what we learn when we see films from different periods, genres or traditions together. Course Description Course DescriptionCinematic Spectacle and the Genre FilmIn this class we will explore how film assaults or alters human vision through the self-conscious representation of the spectacular. We will focus on the moments that make us notice film as a medium for astonishment: extravagant visual detail, impossibly closed or open spaces, running crowds, helicopter/car/rocket/motorcycle chases, fantastic human or non-human bodies, super-fast whirling dance or martial arts sequences, hallucinatory colors, impossible filming techniques, or impossible narratives. We will formulate a theoretical background for the many different kinds of techniques for spectacle, trace their historical developments, and discuss contemporary theories of film art and spectatorship. In order to enable a historical and theoretical understanding of spectacle, each week we will focus on two films which explore similar formal experiments but in different genres. How do the formal "codes" change when they are transposed from a classic Hollywood melodrama to an action film? Since genre difference is considered primary in most film criticism, we will study the specific formal makeup of a variety of genres, but at the same time attempt an integrative theory of the spectacular moment.
Semester ScheduleCinematic Spectacle and the Genre FilmWeek-by-Week Schedule and Film List Part One: Definitions and Some Film History 1. Introduction: Seeing/ Cinema/ Persistence of Vision Un Chien Andalou (1929) Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali Blow-up (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni 2. Introduction to Film Terms: Frames, Angles and Continuity (short films) Fantasia (1940) Walt Disney La Jetee (1962) Chris Marker The Man With A Movie Camera (1928) Dziga Vertov Dog Star Man (1961-64) Stan Brakhage 3. The Experience of Complex Narrative Modern Times (1936) Charles Chaplin Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Alain Resnais Part Two: What is Spectacle? History, the Future, and Space 4. Spectacles of History: The Cast of Millions, The Set, The Epic Intolerance (1916) D.W. Griffith Spartacus (1960) Stanley Kubrick 5. Controlled Vision: Politics and Propaganda Triumph of the Will (1935) Leni Riefenstahl The Manchurian Candidate (1962) John Frankenheimer 6. Spectacles of History II: From Modern to Postmodern Histories Citizen Kane (1941) Orson Welles Fellini Satyricon (1970) Federico Fellini 7. The Future as Spectacle: Experiencing Difference Things to Come (1936) William Cameron Menzies Metropolis (1926) Fritz Lang 8. The Future as Spectacle II: Experiencing Space and Speed 2001 (1968) Stanley Kubrick Mad Max (1979) George Miller Part Three: Motion, Emotion and Visible Bodies 9. Versions of Melodrama: Seeing Virtue Way Down East (1920) D.W. Griffith Gone With the Wind (1939) Victor Fleming 10. Bodies in Action: Seeing Gender in the Action Film Enter The Dragon (1973) Robert Clouse Strange Days (1995) Kathryn Bigelow 11. Wide Eyes and Claustrophobic Narration Diabolique (1955) Henri-Georges Clouzot Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock 12. The Musical as Metanarrative: Motion Pictures Top Hat (1935) Mark Sandrich Singin' In The Rain (1952) Gene Kelly Part Four: Postmodern Themes 13. Revisiting History, Revising Myths Brazil (1985) Terry Gilliam The Piano (1993) Jane Campion 14. "Passing" - "Making It" - "To Be Real": The Self as Spectacle Saturday Night Fever (1977) John Badham Zoot Suit (1981) Luis Valdez Paris is Burning (1990) Jennie Livingston 15. The Non-Human Factor: Special Effects and New Technologies of Spectacle Alien (1979) Ridley Scott Jurassic Park (1993) Steven Spielberg Textbooks David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson, Film Art Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle Linda Williams ed, Viewing Positions Yvonne Tasker, Spectacular Bodies (recommended) Gerald Mast, A Short History of the Movies (recommended) See Handouts for this class
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