COURSE SCHEDULE

Introduction

8/22 Introduction: "What are national cinemas? Why should we study them?"
8/27 Reading: Cinema & Nation 63-119
     

Early Cinema in Europe

8/28 Screening: Compilation of Early French and British Films
8/29 Reading: Gunning, "Primitive Cinema: A Frame-up?"*
  Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 3-23
9/3 Labor Day: No Class
     

Avant-Garde Cinema and German Expressionism

9/4 Screening: Luis Buñuel, An Andalusian Dog (France, 1929)
    F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu (Germany, 1922)
9/5 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 95-105, 136-151
9/10 Reading: Barlow, "Introduction: The Expressionist Sensibility"*
     

Soviet Montage Cinema

9/11 Screening: Sergei Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin (Soviet Union, 1925)
9/12 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 159-174
9/17 Reading: Eisenstein, "The Dramaturgy of Film Form"*
  Reading: Eisenstein, "Methods of Montage"*
     

Early Sound Cinema in Europe

9/18 Screening: Fritz Lang, M (Germany, 1931)
9/19 Reading: Gomery, "Tri-Ergon, Tobis Klangfilm, and the Coming of Sound"*
  Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 211-219, 248-259
9/24 Reading: Burch, "Fritz Lang: German Period"*
  Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 374-382
    PAPER #1 DUE
     

French Poetic Realism

9/25 Screening: Jean Renoir, Grand Illusion (France, 1937)
9/26 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 112-123, 344-352
10/1 Reading: O'Shaughnessy, Jean Renoir (sel)*
     

Italian Neorealism

10/2 Screening: Roberto Rossellini, Open City (Italy, 1946)
10/3 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 123-130, 353-361
10/8 Reading: Zavattini, "Some Ideas on the Cinema"*
  Reading: Bazin, "An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism"*
     

Japanese Cinema in the 1950s

10/9 Screening: Kenji Mizoguchi, Sansho the Bailiff (Japan, 1954)
10/10 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 413-422, 714-721
10/15 Reading: Sato, "On Kenji Mizoguchi"*
     

European Art Cinema in the 1960s (I)

10/16 Screening: Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless (France, 1960)
10/17 Reading: Bordwell, "Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"*
  Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 567-575
10/22 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 576-586
  Reading: Hillier, "Introduction to Cahiers du Cinema"*
  Reading: Truffaut, "A Certain Tendency in the French Cinema"*
     

European Art Cinema in the 1960s (II)

10/23 Screening: Ingmar Bergman, Persona (Sweden, 1967)
10/24 Reading: Soila et al., Nordic National Cinemas 189-232*
10/29 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 490-497, 537-550
    PAPER #2 DUE
     

New German Cinema in the 1970s

10/30 Screening: Werner Herzog, Aguirre (Germany, 1972)
10/31 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 614-627
11/5 Reading: Peucker, "In Quest of the Sublime"*
  Reading: Cinema & Nation 260-277
     

Latin American Cinema / Third Cinema

11/6 Screening: Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Memories of Underdevelopment (Cuba, 1968)
11/7 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 427-435, 740-749
11/12 Reading: Solanas and Gettino, "Towards a Third Cinema"*
  Reading: Gabriel, "Towards a Critical Theory of Third World Films"*
     

The Cinemas of Sub-Saharan Africa

11/13 Screening: Ousmane Sembene, Xala (Senegal, 1974)
11/14 Reading: Vierya, "African Cinema: Solidarity and Difference"*
  Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 667-672
11/19 Reading: Fanon, "On National Culture"*
  Reading: Fischer, "Xala: A Study in Black Humor"*
     

British "Heritage Films" of the 1980s and 1990s

11/20 Screening: James Ivory, A Room with a View (UK, 1986)
11/21 Thanksgiving: No Class
11/26 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 604-613
  Reading: Higson, "Re-presenting the National Past"*
     

Indian Cinema

11/27 Screening: Mira Nair, Salaam Bombay! (India, 1988)
11/28 Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 398-409, 678-690
12/3   No Class
     

New Chinese Cinemas

12/4 Screening: John Woo, The Killer (Hong Kong, 1989)
12/5 Reading: Williams, "Space, Place, and Spectacle"*
  Reading: Oxford History of World Cinema 693-714
  Reading: Cinema & Nation 278-297
    PAPER #3 DUE
     
12/11 Final Exam: 10:30 am -12:30 pm

Top of Page