Spring

How do rhetorical figures – metaphor, metonymy, synechdoche, allegory, among other tropes so extensively studied in the verbal arts – mediate our perception? how do they inform stylistic and even theoretical conceptions of the moving image? Do they just mimic, or translate literary devices? Do they function merely as ornaments or puns, offering occasional poetic maneuvers in ambitious films? In this seminar we shall explore ways in which tropes can be seen to deeply inform the cinema's means of articulation and the dynamic workings of the image -- the coalescing and mutation of signs, the relation of visual and narrative or expository forms, the differentiation of styles, the very consciousness of the medium with respect to traditions and conventions. Readings will include some influential texts in poetics (eg. Dante, Coleridge, Auerbach, Fletcher, Benjamin, Jakobson, De Man) as well as writings devoted to questions of cinematic figuration (Munsterberg, Eisenstein, Kracauer, Perez, Williams, Rodowick). We shall discuss these in view of films by Eisenstein, Bunuel, Bresson, Franju, Pasolini, Snow, Burnett, Ruiz, and others.

This seminar will look at the history of editing from early attempts at multi-shot sequencing to the self-conscious experiments in “intellectual montage;” at editing techniques ranging from cross-cutting to CGI sequences; and at a variety of montage theories from Eisenstein and Pudovkin to Bazin. ,This seminar will look at the history of editing from early attempts at multi-shot sequencing to the self-conscious experiments in “intellectual montage;” at editing techniques ranging from cross-cutting to CGI sequences; and at a variety of montage theories from Eisenstein and Pudovkin to Bazin.

This course explores the styles and functions of Chinese independent documentary since 1989, with particular attention to the institutional, social, economic, and political contexts that underpin its flourishing. We will discuss the ways in which recent Chinese documentaries challenge current theories of the genre, how they redefine the relationship between fiction and non-fiction, and the problems of form, political intervention, and ethics of representation that they pose. We will look at their channels of circulation in Asia and elsewhere, and will discuss the political implications and limits of “independent” documentary in the wake of intensified globalization. In addition, we will consider recent influential feature films characterized by a “documentary style.” Readings will include theorizations of the documentary genre in relation to other visual media and narrative forms, analyses of specific works, and overviews of recent transformations in Chinese media.

Eastern Europe has menaced the "enlightened" West for centuries. It remains to this day a valuable source for negotiating the West’s phantasies. One need only look at the rich and varied story of the vampire through popular culture from the 18th-century revenant to the 21st-century sex symbol and family man to confirm this fascination. Eastern Europe (and I use this term here to conform to popular discourse) is the West’s necessary construct to enforce the ideation of its own health and weal. In this course contemporary horror film produced both within and without Eastern Europe—and at times in partnership with the “West”—but all with the East as haunt, landscape, and affect are discussed with the West’s and East’s anxieties (social, political, artistic) in mind. Films include Eli Roth’s Hostel franchise, Julie Delpy’s The Countess, Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch and Day Watch, Pavel Ruminov’s Dead Daughters, Nacho Cerdà’s The Abandoned, György Palfi’s Taxidermia, and the highly controversial A Serbian Film directed by Srđan Spasojević. Readings range from work on defining the horror genre to philosophies of anxiety to critical interrogations of specific films. This class contains films with scenes that ought to be disturbing.

The introduction of new media, such as the Internet, satellite television and cell phones, in the Arab/Muslim world imposed new realities and invited new dynamics, whether in the political, social, cultural or communication landscapes. This course tackles the complexities and implications of this new digital age, with all its multi-faceted dimensions. In the communication arena, it pays special attention to the discourses and deliberations exchanged in cyberspace between Muslims and non-Muslims, on one hand, as well as between Muslims belonging to different sects, on the other hand. In doing so, it pays special attention to the myriad of complex factors which could be conducive, or constraining, to digital dialogue. Politically, it unveils the multiple roles played by new media in mobilizing and catalyzing resistance movements in many parts of the Muslim world, with a special emphasis on the phenomenon of “cyberactivism,” or the deployment of new media to boost socio-political change, as manifested in the “Arab Awakening” movements, in particular. Socially, it tackles the contemporary tides of social change in Muslim societies, which have been both conducive to, as well as reflective of, new patterns and forms of communication, and investigates how and why they have been closely related to each other. Culturally, it investigates the shifts in Arab and Muslim identities cross-generationally and cross-culturally, with a special emphasis on diasporic Muslim communities, in an attempt to deeply understand the interplay of different variables, including new media consumption, in shaping, as well as reflecting, the complexity of Muslim identities today.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the invention of two distinctly American literary archetypes: the cowboy and the hobo.  Based on historical conditions of labor, economics, and westward expansion, the cowboy and the hobo, though both itinerant workers primarily employed seasonally in agriculture and ranching, were depicted very differently in literature and, later, film, during the decades in which they held influence over America’s imagination and mythologization of itself.  Evoking responses from fear to admiration and from pity to envy, the cowboy and the hobo, both as historical figures and as fictional types, reflected the evolving realities of—and the broad range of attitudes toward—labor, masculinity, and place in a modernizing America.

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. 

Alternative cinemas are a subset of independent or art house movies that propose alternatives to mainstream cinema in terms of style, content, modes of production, and spectatorship. This class will survey a wide variety of alternative contemporary film practices from Europe. The course does not provide a comprehensive survey of European film production (which totals over a 1,000 films per year), but rather embarks on a journey of discovery. We will critically examine films by emerging and established filmmakers, certain groups of filmmakers, as well as national or transnational movements, trends, or “genres” identified by critics and scholars such as the Black British cinema, beur cinema, Dogma 95, the New Berlin School, docudrama, accented cinema, slow cinema, and new realism. Screenings will include works by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, Thomas Arslan, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Susana de Sousa Dias, Isaac Julien, Sally Potter, Béla Tarr, Agnès Varda, Peter Watkins, and Thomas Vinterberg. Students who want to take this kind of course should be ready to be put inside unfamiliar conditions of viewing rather than expecting that the unfamiliar is brought handily to them. Prerequisite(s): PQ: CMST 10100 Introduction to Film, or consent of instructor.

This seminar is devoted to Stanley Cavell’s writings on film as read in the context of his larger philosophical project. Two principle ideas unite Cavell’s writings on film and philosophy. These are less separate ideas than iterations of the same ethical problem that succeed one another more or less chronologically; namely, the philosophical confrontation with skepticism and the concept of moral perfectionism. Keeping in mind Cavell’s emphasis that film is not separate from philosophy, but is, rather, a philosophical accompaniment to our everyday lives, we will discuss all of his major works on cinema and many of the occasional essays while examining his major conceptual contributions to the study of photography and moving images. Cavell’s original contributions to the critical study of Hollywood and European cinema, the phenomenology of film and photography, the concept of genres, the study of gender, acting, and film stardom, and to relation between psychoanalysis and film will also be discussed.

Henri Bergson famously said in his 1900 essay on Laughter that the “mechanical inelasticity” of the living is the source of the comic. Taking this claim as the point of departure for our inquiry, this course looks into the ways “machine” informs our understanding of comedy in the age of technological modernity, which is significantly mediated by the cinematic apparatus. What were the new forms of comedy emerged in the twentieth century? How did filmmakers update the timeless art of comedy in the machine-age? We will review both established and recent theorizations of film comedy as we sample representative works from international cinema, including early trick films, animation, slapstick, inter-war avant-garde cinema, as well as masterpieces by the great comic minds from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to Yasujiro Ozu, Yuan Muzhi, and Jacques Tati.