Sylabus
1
Hand out syllabi/students sign up for in-class presentation; dish out copy of article on Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report to read for 14.2; Recommended (not required) viewing related to the first four weeks of the course that students may wish to find and to pursue on their own, e.g. FAMU film library, etc.: classic American film noir such as: Dark Passage; In a Lonely Place; Mildred Pierce; Murder, My Sweet; Out of the Past; The Big Heat; The Night of the Hunter; The Postman Always Rings Twice
Screening:
The Lady from Shanghai (1948, 87 minutes, dir. Orson Welles). 2
Screening session only of Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report (The Comprehensive Version, 1955, 105 minutes, dir. Orson Welles). Hand out syllabi/students sign up for in-class presentation.The Lady from Shanghai (1948, 87 minutes, dir. Orson Welles). 3
Orson Welles & American Film Noir I
Post-film lecture and discussion on The Lady from Shanghai
Readings:
D. Cook: pp. 327-53; J. Naremore: pp. 125-35.
Clips: 2006 Criterion Collection 3-disc version of Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report.
Post-film lecture/discussion on Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report
Readings:
G. Deleuze: pp. 98-155 in Cinema 2: The Time-Image.
E. Roraback: "Circulating within Orson Welles's Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report for a Newly Armed Eye" published in the conference proceedings from the 8th Brno Conference of English, American and Canadian Studies, 2005.
F. Truffaut: "Foreword" to André Bazin's Orson Welles: A Critical View, pp. 1-27
Clips:
The Stranger (1946, dir. OW), The Trial (1963, dir. OW); F for Fake (1975, dir. OW). 4
Orson Welles and American Film Noir II
Screening:
Touch of Evil (1958, recently released 111 minute version)
Readings:
Deleuze; Naremore pp. 146-71; Lecture to be given in class: E.R.: "Excessively Noirish Film: Orson Welles´s Early-Style The Lady from Shanghai (1948) and Mid-Style Touch of Evil (1958)" 5
After Italian Neorealism and Contemporary Eros
Pre-film lecture and screening:
L'Avventura (1959, English,141 minutes, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni). 13 March: Post-film lecture/discussion on L'Avventura
Readings:
D. Cook: A History, pp. 553-59.
E. Roraback: "The Colors and the Spinozist Bodies of Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (The Adventure or The Fling, 1959)" EREA 3.1 (printemps 2005): ix-xviii, Univ. de Provence.
S. Shaviro: The Cinematic Body, pp. 255-69
Clips:
L'Eclisse (1962, dir. MA); Blow-Up (1966, dir. MA), The Passenger (1975, dir. MA). 6
The French New Wave and Cinematic Hallucinations
Pre-film lecture and screening
Muriel, 1965, French with English subtitles, 119 minutes, dir. Alain Resnais. 7
Post-film lecture/discussion on Muriel
Readings:
L. Bersani and U. Dutoit: pp. 1-9, 147-208, 221-25.
D. Cook: A History, pp. 456-58.
G. Deleuze: pp. 116-25 and 204-16 in Cinema 2.
E. Roraback: "Time and Memory in Alain Resnais". 8
Post French New Wave Cinema, Life and Death
Pre-film lecture and screening:
Providence (1976, English, 102 minutes, dir. Alain Resnais). 17 April: Post-film lecture and discussion on Providence
Readings:
L. Bersani and U. Dutoit: pp. 147-208, 221-25.
E. Roraback: "Time and Memory in Alain Resnais".
Clips:
Lancelot of the Lake (1974, dir. Robert Bresson). 9
Soviet Cinema and Medieval Art
Pre-film lecture and screening:
Andrei Rublev (1966, Russian with English subtitles, 205 minutes, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky). 10
Screening contd. and post-film lecture/discussion on Andrei Rublev
Readings:
D. Cook: A History, pp. 696-98.
E. Roraback: "Medieval Immobilizings in Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev".
CD extract:
F. Couturier: "Andrei" (to Eduard Artemiev) 7:05 minutes from F. Couturier, Nostalghia-Song for Tarkovsky (Munich: ECM, 2006) 11
Das Neue Kino I: Fassbinder (New German Cinema)
Pre-film lecture and screening:
The Merchant of Four Seasons (Der Händler der vier Jahreszeiten, 1971, German with English subtitles, 88 minutes, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder). 12
Das Neue Kino II: Fassbinder (New German Cinema)
Readings:
D. Cook: A History, pp. 582-604.
E. Roraback: "Fassbinder and Cinematic Intensity".
C. B. Thomsen: "The Double Man", "Bavaria and Hollywood" and
"Querelle" in Fassbinder: The Life and Work of a Provocative Genius, trans. Martin Chalmers (Faber and Faber, 1997) pp. 1-44, 101-10 and 302-11.
Clips:
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980, German with English subtitles, dir. RWF, 940 minutes).
Anotace
OBJECTIVES
This seminar is a select assessment of seven major films from the post war era with special emphasis given to those cinematic moments that might teach and train us in new non-dominatory viewing strategies, in new creative ways of circulating, and in new non-sadistic ways of engaging with the most basic element of cinema: the image. Film criticism and film philosophy from Leo Bersani-Ulysse Dutoit, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Ranciere, Erik Roraback, Steven Shaviro, and
Francois Truffaut will be employed toward this end. All films are either in English or have English inter-titles or sub-titles. Clips from other films and special features from the DVDs will also be shown. The course is conducted in English.
MATERIAL
DVD and VHS tapes: see schedule
ASSESSMENT
To receive credit for the seminar students must: have no more than three absences, give one oral presentation on a film and on the required text(s) for that week, submit a mid-term essay and a final essay in response to one of several subjects/questions that will be given two weeks before the essay is due.
Final essay (3000 words): 40%, Mid-term essay (2000 words): 20%, Oral presentation: 20%, Attendance and participation: 20%.