Spring

Movement is central to the history of cinema, from its earliest origins and antecedents to the GoPro and related videos that currently populate.YouTube, and to the history of thinking about it. This course investigates the various ways in which movement has appeared and been talked about. Combining philosophical, critical, and historical readings with careful analysis of films, we will cover topics that include the appeal of moving image itself, movement that exists within the world shown in the frame, problems posed by the history of camera movement, and different technologies for recording and producing movement. Readings will include Bergson, Eisenstein, Merleau-Ponty, McLaren, Michotte, Deleuze, and Gunning; films will be from the Lumière Brothers, Murnau, Renoir, Mizoguchi, Ophuls, Breer, Gehr, Raimi, Malick, and others.

We will attempt to define Non-Fiction cinema by examining its major modes. These include the Documentary, Essay, Ethnographic, and Political/Agit-prop film, as well as personal/autobiographical and Experimental works that are less easily classifiable. We will explore some of the theoretical discourses that surround this most philosophical of film genres, such as the ethics and politics of representation, and the shifting lines between fact and fiction, truth and reality. The relationship between the Documentary and the State will be examined in light of the genre’s tendency to inform and instruct. We will consider the tensions of filmmaking and the performative aspects in front of the lens, as well as the performance of the camera itself. Finally, we will look at the ways in which distribution and television effect the production and content of Non-fiction film.

From the treaty port of Shanghai to the imperial capital of Beijing, from the “re-colonized” city of Taipei to the “floating city” of Hong Kong, and from an anonymous city in inland China to global Chinatowns, cities in Chinese-language cinemas at once reflect and participate in the historical transformations of modern China and the negotiation between national, local and cosmopolitan identities. Meanwhile, throughout its history, the motion-picture medium has shown an affinity with the city as an audio-visual ensemble, which in turn has provided constant inspiration for cinematic experimentation. Taking the chronotope of the “sinophone city” as an entry point, this course participates in both the on-going discussion of cinematic cities and the emerging discourse on the phonic articulation and visual mediation of a global sinophone culture. No knowledge of Chinese is required.

This course investigates how data visualizations are made and used today.  Addressing a lack of both critical attention and technical literacy in how our society engages with increasingly common and sophisticated data-driven representations, we will retrace some history of the form as well as investigate its production and consumption. From uses in the sciences to economics to the popular media, data visualization serves various purposes framed by divergent intentions. Through reading, discussion, and crucially, team-based production, we will examine these myriad forms. While the course will not dwell on the deep computational details of data processing and requires no special technical skills, we will introduce various methodologies for creation and distribution such as D3, Processing, and P5.js. Projects and critique resulting from these inquiries enable an understanding for how any data visualization is the result of countless subjective judgments, design decisions, and persuasive intentions.

Description to come.

This seminar examines the L.A. Rebellion, a group of predominantly African and African American filmmakers working at and around UCLA in the 1970s-80s including Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Charles Burnett, Billy Woodberry, Barbara McCullough, and others. We will look at their films in the larger contexts of the politics of Black filmmaking, race in American cinema, Black film cultures of the 1970s, independent film practices, and the social, political, and cultural environments of the films' production. Topics include representations of urban life; class, gender, and family; race and representation; post-Watts Rebellion Los Angeles; Hollywood and Blaxploitation; documentary practices; the avant-garde. We will also discuss debates around collective art movements; archival practices; and critical models for the study of African American cinema. Screenings will include films and video work recently preserved and restored as part of the L.A. Rebellion Preservation Project.

This course will survey Latin American cinema from the 1930s to the present. We will begin by considering the efforts of the Brazilian and Mexican states to create commercially-viable, popular, national cinemas in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Our screenings will include Maria Candelaría (Emilio Fernandez, Mexico, 1943) and Carnaval Atlântida (José Carlos Burle and Carlos Manga, Brazil, 1952). In the second unit we will examine the classic works of the New Latin American Cinema from the 60s and 70s. These were the challenging political films that “introduced” Latin American cinema to the rest of the world. Our screenings will include Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Cuba,1968) and The Jackal of Nahueltoro (Miguel Littín, Chile, 1969). In the third unit we will come to the twenty-first century, examining the newest new wave of Latin American film—its thematics, its sources of funding, its circuits of distribution, and its global reach. Our screenings will include The Swamp (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina, 2001), Edifício Master (Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 2002), Additions and Subtractions (Víctor Gaviria, Colombia, 2004), Leap Year(Michael Rowe, Mexico, 2010), and Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça, Brazil, 2012).

The goal of this intensive laboratory course is to give its students a working knowledge of film production using the 16mm gauge. The course will emphasize how students can use 16mm technology towards successful cinematography and image design (for use in both analog and digital post production scenarios) and how to develop their ideas towards constructing meaning through moving pictures. Through a series of group exercises, students will put their hands on equipment and solve technical and aesthetic problems, learning to operate and care for the 16mm Bolex film camera; prime lenses; Sekonic light meter; Sachtler tripod; and Arri light kit and accessories. For a final project, students will plan and produce footage for an individual or small group short film. The first half the class will be highly structured, with demonstrations, in-class shoots and lectures. As the semester continues, classtime will open up to more of a workshop format to address the specific concerns and issues that arise in the production of the final projects. This course is made possible by the Charles Roven Fund for Cinema and Media Studies.

In this course we explore the idea of an international “ludic cinema” in the first half of the twentieth century. Our goal is two-fold: on the one hand, we will identify the trajectory of a ludic modernism in film history by rereading canons and introducing underexposed films; on the other hand, we will examine the interdisciplinary writings on the notion of play, ranging from anthropology and psychology to education and literary studies, through the prism of cinematic modernity. Readings include seminal texts by Walter Benjamin, Johan Huizinga, Roger Caillois, D. W. Winnicott, and Gregory Bateson, as well as more recent scholarly works by Miriam Hansen, Bill Brown, David Bordwell and Kristine Thompson. Films include early short and experimental films, city symphonies, American slapstick comedies, and films by Ernst Lubitsch, Jean Renoir, Frank Capra, Fei Mu, Yasujiro Ozu, and Jacques Tati.

Description to come.