EAST-ENGL279 Syllabus Fall 2020 PDF

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FILM279 Syllabus...

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EAST 279/ ENGL 279 (former FILM 279) Introduction to Film History Autumn 2020 Monday 2:35pm-6:25pm Remote Delivery Instructors Professor Xinyu Dong (Department of East Asian Studies) Email: [email protected] Office Hours: TBA Professor Ara Osterweil (Department of English) Email: [email protected] Office Hours: TBA Teaching Assistants David Hoyos Garcia (LLC): [email protected] Office Hours: TBA Holly Vestad (English): [email protected] Office Hours: TBA COURSE DESCRIPTION: Designed as one of the two core courses for World Cinemas Minors, this course introduces key historical moments, cinematic movements, formal styles, as well as historiographical and theoretical debates in the history of world cinema. The course maps out diverging trajectories and merging paths of exemplary filmmakers and filmmaking collectives in various nations and geopolitical regions against the backdrop of the changing technological media environments. While we distinguish chronology from history, the course follows the transformation of cinema from its emergent era to the present. Students will read both historical and contemporary texts to gain a broad sense of the seminal debates in film studies, reception and criticism. This course aims to foster a critical understanding of cinema as an international, distributed and polycentric phenomenon. COURSE DELIVERY GUIDE: Pre-recorded Lectures: This course is team taught, with the professors alternating in the delivery of the lectures based on their areas of expertise. A lecture (two- or multiple-part) per week is pre-recorded along with a PowerPoint slide show, delivered by the professor(s). The recording will be available on MyCourses by the end of Sunday before class, unless otherwise noted. Note: Lecture recordings are copyrighted material. We ask your cooperation in ensuring that the recording and associated material are not circulated outside this class, reproduced in any form or placed in the public domain. Zoom Q&A Session: Professor(s) will hold a 30-60 minute Zoom Q&A session (optional) on Monday starting @ 4pm. Mandatory Reading and Home Viewing: Students are expected to view the film and read the materials before watching the lecture recording and be prepared to discuss them during the weekly conference (see below).

Conferences: Students will attend a smaller (20-30 student) 40-minute conference per week, led by the Teaching Assistants. Students are expected to sign up for ONE conference and attend that one regularly throughout the semester. Discussion Board: Please write a two-sentence (max) post that demonstrates an insightful observation about the course material of the week. You can discuss the readings, the lecture, or the film in relation to the readings and/or the lecture (not just your personal impression of the film). We encourage you to include an open-ended discussion question as your third sentence. This can be a question you had while engaging with the material, or one you would like to pose to the classmates in your conference. These conference sessions will not be recorded; thus, if a student cannot attend any of them, they should delay taking this course until another year (this course is regularly offered every year). COURSE MATERIALS: All readings will be available in weekly folders on the course website (MyCourses-Content). All screenings are available for steaming with links provided. To access those on Kanopy, log in to your McGill library account with your email and password. EVALUATION: Conference Attendance Conference Participation Discussion Board Posts Midterm Take-home Quiz (Weeks 1-6; due Oct. 25) Final Take-home Quiz (Week 7-13; due Dec. 15)

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NOTE: (1) McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information). (2) In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded. (3) In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University’s control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject to change. (4) If you have a disability please contact the instructor to arrange a time to discuss your situation. It would be helpful if you contact the Office for Students with Disabilities at 514-398-6009 before you do this. WEEKLY SCREENINGS (subject to change) Week 1 September 14 Early Cinema Screening: A selection of early short films (1895-1912) Free view: all films are embedded in the lecture PowerPoint Readings: - Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, “Early Filmmaking and Exhibition” (excerpt from Chapter 1) & “The Problem of Narrative Clarity” (excerpt from Chapter 2), Film History: An Introduction. - Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the AvantGarde,” Wide Angle, Vol. 8, nos. 3 & 4, Fall, 1986. Week 2 September 21 Soviet Cinema and Montage Screening: Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925, USSR, 75 min)

Free view: https://mcgill.kanopy.com/video/battleship-potemkin Readings: - Sergei Eisenstein, “The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram,” and Eisenstein, “A Dialectical Approach to Film Form,” from Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, ed. Jay Leyda (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1977) Week 3 September 28 German Expressionism & Transition to Sound Screening: M (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1931, 110 min) Free view: https://mcgill.kanopy.com/video/m Readings: - Siegfried Kracauer, “Dialogue and Sound” from Film Sound: Theory and Practice - Janet Bergstrom, “Psychological Explanation in the Films of Lang and Pabst” in Psychoanalysis and Cinema, ed. E. Ann Kaplan Week 4 October 5 Chinese Cinema and the Late Silent Era Screening: The Goddess (Wu, Yonggang, China, 1934, 73min) Free view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_DXMCrB5Q8 Readings: - William Rothman, “The Goddess: Reflections on Melodrama East and West,” in Wimal Dissanayake ed., Melodrama and Asian Cinema. - Kristine Harris, “The Goddess: Fallen Woman of Shanghai,” in Chris Berry ed., Chinese Films in Focus II: 25 New Takes. Week 5 October 12 French Realism and the Popular Front [Lecture recording available on Sunday, October 11] [No optional Q&A on Thanksgiving Monday] [Conferences meet as usual] Screening: The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, France, 1939, 106 min) Free view: https://mcgill.kanopy.com/video/rules-game-1 Readings: - André Bazin, “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema” from What is Cinema?, Volume 1, trans. & ed. Hugh Gray. - Gerry Turvey, “1936, the culture of the Popular Front and Jean Renoir” from Media, Culture and Society Week 6 October 19 Italian Neorealism and World War II Screening: Rome Open City (Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1945, 103 min) Free view: https://mcgill.kanopy.com/video/rome-open-city Readings: - Cesare Zavattini, “Some Ideas on the Cinema,” Sight and Sound 23:2, October-December 1953. - André Bazin, “An Aesthetic of Reality: Cinematic Realism and the Italian School of the Liberation” from What is Cinema?: Volume II. Midterm Take-home Exam due on MyCourses - Assignments @11:59pm, October 25.

Week 7 October 26 Art Cinema and Postwar Japan Screening: Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1950, 88 min) Free view: https://mcgill.kanopy.com/video/rashomon Readings: - Donald Richie, “Rashomon,” in The Films of Akira Kurosawa - Parker Tyler, “Rashomon as Modern Art,” Cinema 16 (1952) Week 8 November 2 Third Cinema: Africa Screening: Black Girl (Ousmane Sembene, 1966, Senegal, 65 min) Free view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O43y9sBxAIY Rental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ6P8yTXz20 Readings: - Teshome H. Gabriel, “Towards a Critical Theory of Third World Films,” in Film and Theory: An Anthology. - Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Toward a Third Cinema,” in Film and Theory: An Anthology, eds. Robert Stam and Toby Miller - Aimé Césaire, excerpts from “Discourses on Colonialism” Week 9 November 9 Cinema Novo Screening: Macunaíma (Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, 1969, Brazil, 110 min) Free view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoyYFumkOqU Readings: - Julio García Espinosa, “For an Imperfect Cinema,” in Film and Theory: An Anthology, eds. Robert Stam and Toby Miller. - Oswald de Andrade, “The Cannibalist Manifesto” - Randal Johnson, “Cinema Novo and Cannibalism: Macunaíma,” in Brazilian Cinema, eds. Randal Johnson and Robert Stam Week 10 November 16 The Feminist New Wave Screening: One Sings, The Other Doesn’t (Agnes Varda, France, 1977, 121 min) https://wetransfer.com/downloads/7722535ce841922ef641c56ecd60a5d220200902034752/b3a03 4f712c0ce917a41f93abe1ea61520200902034811/a1ad11 Readings: - Claire Johnston, “Women’s Cinema as Counter Cinema” - Genevieve Sellier, “A New Generation Marked by the Emergence of Women’ in Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema Week 11 November 23 Taiwan New Wave Screening: Dust in the Wind (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 1986, Taiwan, 109 min) Free view: https://www.asiancrush.com/video/009247v/dust-in-the-wind/ Readings: - Haden Guest, “Reflections on the Screen: Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Dust in the Wind and the Rhythm of the Taiwan New Cinema,” in Chris Berry and Feii Lu, eds., Island on the Edge: Taiwan New Cinema and After. - James Tweedie, “The Urbanization of Hou Hsiao-hsien,” in The Age of New Waves: Art Cinema and the Staging of Globalization.

Week 12 November 30 Hong Kong New Wave Screening: Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994, Hong Kong, 102min) Free View: https://archive.org/details/ce94_20200508 (click on closed captions and select English subtitles) Rental: https://www.criterionchannel.com/chungking-express Readings: - David Bordwell, “Avant-Pop Cinema” and “Romance on Your Menu,” in Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Week 13 December 7 Korean Cinema and Transnational Genres Screening: The Host (Bong Joon-ho, 2006, South Korea, 119 min) Free View: https://www.facebook.com/191036067614169/videos/1290591424325289/?video_source=permal ink Rental: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/title/139845 Readings: - Christina Klein, “Why American Studies Needs to Think about Korean Cinema, or Transnational Genres in the Films of Bong Joon-ho,” American Quarterly, V. 60, No. 4, December 2008. Final Take-home Exam due on MyCourses - Assignments @11:59pm, December 15....