ENG 263, 264 Postwar British Theatre and Film
This course explores what has been called the "second renaissance" of British drama - "the new drama" of 1956 and after - and the parallel British New Wave of cinema. We will begin by examining the cultural and social influences leading up to the "annus mirabilis" of 1956. We will then trace the emergence of John Osborne and other "Angry Young Men," and the development of a drama overtly engaged with issues of class, gender, and sexuality. We will then look at the ways these plays helped to revitalize the British cinema of the postwar era, creating a cinematic scene in which the free cinema and "kitchen sink" films of the 1950s gave way to the bold, taboo-breaking movies of the 1960s. Playwrights may include John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, Ann Jellicoe, Harold Pinter, Joe Orton, Edward Bond, and Shelagh Delaney. Films are likely to include Billy Liar, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Alfie, Tom Jones, The Servant, The Knack and How To Get It, and A Hard Day's Night.
Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 264).
ENG 280 Native American Literature & Film
This course covers written and visual stories told by Native Americans: tribal mythologies, oral histories, contemporary novels, poetry, and films. Themes will include connections to land, the legacies of colonialism, spirituality, reservation life versus urban life, racial and cultural identities, and family ties. We will also study the relation between culture and artistic choices, interpreting the use of humor, non-linear narratives, and imagery of the natural and super-natural, among other distinct aspects of Native American aesthetics.
Meets general academic requirements HU and DE.
FLM 280 ST Cinema of Latin America
Having won five academy-awards for best director in the last eight years, Latin-American filmmakers have emerged as major forces in world cinema. But cross-over English-language films like Birdman, Gravity, and the Chilean Pablo Larraín’s 2016 Jackie should not obscure the fact that some of the very best efforts by Larraín and the other directors in question—Alejandro Gonzáez Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro—have been exclusively Latin-American affairs. Nor should they obscure the powerfully social approach to cinematic expression favored by Latin American filmmakers going back as far as Cuba’s Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) and Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement to more recent films like La Ciénaga (2001) and Neighboring Sounds (2012). Other films screened in this Special Topics course will likely include Amores Perros, Y Tu Mamá También, Japón, and Güeros (Mexico); The Official Story, Viola, and Zama (Argentina); Central Station, City of God, Madame Satã, and Pixote (Brazil); and possibly Larraín’s most caustic film Tony Manero (Chile), named after the John Travolta character in Saturday Night Fever. Screenings and discussions of the films will be supplemented by pertinent readings and guest presentations. Open to all students at all levels.
Meets general academic requirements HU and DE
FLM 325 French New Wave Cinema
This course explores the very rich period in French Cinema during the 1950s and 1960s that is known as the French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague ). Spearheaded by a group of young directors who also wrote their own screenplays (Truffaut, Godard, Malle, Chabrol, Resnais, among others), this movement gave rise to "Le cinema d'auteur " as an innovative and influential way to produce films. To understand this very important film movement, we will study the uses of script, image, and sound in the films themselves with special emphasis on storyline, subplot, and character. We will also pay considerable attention to the cultural and economic contexts in which the films were produced and the biographies of the directors themselves.
Attendance at weekly screenings is required.
FLM 330 New Asian Cinemas
This course surveys contemporary cinema in Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and the Philippines. Though the course addresses seminal developments in national cinematic traditions, such as the postwar Japanese nuclear-horror film Godzilla and the avant-garde Face of Another , it concentrates on films produced in the last 10-15 years. These will likely include the cyber revenge fantasy, Tetsuo Iron Man, from Japan; Hong Kong "new wave" films such as Chungking Express ; Jia Zhangke's Touch of Sin and 24 City , and experimental docudrama on the effects of China's rapid urban re-development; films that explore directionless Asian youth subcultures (The Power of Kangwon Province and Goodbye South, Goodbye ); the pleasantly bewildering Uncle Bonnmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives from Thailand and the relentlessly shocking Oldboy from S. Korea, among others.
Attendance at weekly screenings is required.
Meets general academic requirement DE and HU.
FLM 332 Film Cultures of North Africa & the Middle East
This course will focus on the development of national cinematic traditions in Egypt, on the struggle for cultural self-definition in the former French colonies of Algeria and Tunisia, on cinematic representations of post-revolutionary Iran, and on how Arab and Israeli filmmakers address the so-called “question” of Palestine. In order to provide students with a grounding in the film cultures in question, the course will also explore literary works and the commercial, social, and political conditions that inform film production, distribution, and reception.
Meets general academic requirement DE.
FLM 334 Bollywood: Indian Popular Cinema
India’s Bombay/Mumbai-based cinema is one of the world’s few challenges to the influence of American film. This course examines the world’s largest film industry with the aim of understanding the place of popular cinema outside of the Hollywood model. We will consider the role of popular film in the development of Indian nationhood, its influence on notions of gender and caste, and its function as a binding influence on the Indian Diaspora.
Attendance at weekly screenings is required.
Meets general academic requirement DE.
FLM 336 African American Cinema
This course surveys African American filmmaking from the silent ear to the present, along with a few films that represent the broader African Diaspora. In addition, readings put all the films in the context of theoretical discussions concerning what constitutes “black,” “African,” or “Third Cinema,” politically and aesthetically. As the course proceeds chronologically, it briefly demonstrates images of African Americans in mainstream Hollywood films, but focuses primarily on how filmmakers of African descent have sought to respond to mainstream representations and create their own narratives and styles. The emphasis is on narrative films, with some attention to experimental films.
Attendance at weekly screenings is required.
Meets general academic requirement DE.
FLM 385 Cinema of New Europe
This course examines films that emerged after the expansion of the European Union in the 1990s, especially those made in response to the immigration to Western Europe of migrants from Eastern Europe and from the Middle East and Africa, who have radically altered the ethnic composition of many Western European societies, particularly France. We will explore representations of both largely monocultural (Austria, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden) and multicultural European societies, the conflicts generated and connections forged by encounters between newly-arrived immigrants and more deeply-rooted European citizens. We will also attend closely to the wide range of cinematic styles in which these concerns are embedded and expressed. Directors whose work will be screened and discussed will likely include Fatih Akin (Edge of Heaven), Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum), Valeska Griesebach (Western), Michael Haneke (Code Unknown), Mathieu Kassovitz (La Haine), Abdulatif Kechiche (The Silence of the Grain), Lukas Moodyson (Lilya 4-Ever), Ruben Ostlund (The Square), and Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro), among others. Open to students at all levels.
Meets general academic requirement HU and DE.
GRM 316, 317 German Cinema
A survey of German films from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Contemporary works with special emphasis on the Golden Age of Weimar cinema and the so-called New German Cinema (Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Sanders-Brahms and less well known directors.) Though a close analysis of these films, the student will gain an understanding and appreciation of cinematic techniques as well as the cultural, social and political background which shaped these works. Taught in English.
Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 317).
ITL 321 Italian Cinema Cities
The title of this course recalls the name of the Italian national film studio, Cinecittà, which translates literally as "Cinema City." Taking its cue from this compound neologism, the course will pursue a double objective: we will explore Italian cinema by watching, studying and analyzing major works of Italian film culture from the post-war period to the present from a wide variety of genres and styles; and we will examine the astounding transformation of Italian society, politics, and culture from 1945 to the present, as embodied in the country's urban landscapes. In so doing, we will learn to read and interpret Italian films on their own turf, so to speak, and with attention to their particular systems of code (cinematic and architectural); and we will learn to read and interpret Italian cities, not as the shiny, Disneyfied tourist destinations featured in Hollywood movies or tourism websites, but as living organisms, shaped by politics, greed, crime, war, artistic ideals, the daily struggles and joys of residents, and even by cinema itself. This course is taught in English and no knowledge of Italian language is necessary. Meets general academic requirement HU
