2018-2019

This seminar undertakes a study of primarily post-World War II French and Belgian film and art movements in order to query the different status and conceptualization of the image and its relationship to history. We will begin our study with a brief look into pre-WWII of avant-garde art and film movements, and classic theories of the avant-garde. Turning our attention to late Surrealist practices, and the rise of neo-avant-garde movements such as Lettrism and the Situationist International, we will grapple with how these groups both understood the stakes of the image and history, as well as developed theoretical models to transform the agency of both within their political aesthetics. We will subsequently ask similar questions of the films and theories that eventually define the French New Wave before moving on to think about social documentary, politically militant image production, and collective film and art practices. 

Reading knowledge of French is not required, but may prove beneficial. Screenings are mandatory. With some possible exceptions, all films will be subtitled. Students enrolled through the FREN section will be required to complete all reading and writing in French

On the fiftieth anniversary of 1968 our course couples the study of revolutionary films (and films about revolution) with seminal readings on revolutionary ideology and on the theory of film and video. The goal will be to articulate the mechanics of revolution and its representation in time-based media. Students will produce a video or videos adapting the rich archive of revolutionary film for today's situation. The films screened will be drawn primarily from Soviet and US cinema, from the 1920s to the present day, proceeding more or less chronologically. We begin with newsreels and a "poetic documentary" by Dziga Vertov; they will be paired with classic readings from revolutionary theory, from Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to Fidel Castro and Bill Ayres, and from film theory, including Vertov, Andre Bazin and Jean-Luc Godard. Readings will acquaint students with contemporary assessments of the emancipatory potential of film.

Cinema is, unarguably, the medium most apposite for thinking through the complexities of democratic politics, especially so in a place like India. While Indian cinema has recently gained international currency through the song and dance ensembles of Bollywood, there remains much more to be said about that body of films. Moreover, Bollywood is a small (though very important) part of Indian cinema. Through a close analysis of a wide range of films in Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, and Urdu, this course will ask if Indian cinema can be thought of as a form of knowledge of the twentieth century.

This course introduces basic concepts of film analysis, which are discussed through examples from different national cinemas, genres, and directorial oeuvres. Along with questions of film technique and style, we consider the notion of the cinema as an institution that comprises an industrial system of production, social and aesthetic norms and codes, and particular modes of reception. Films discussed include works by Hitchcock, Porter, Griffith, Eisenstein, Lang, Renoir, Sternberg, and Welles.