Existentialism in Film (Optional Assignment)
Basic Instructions:
For ONE Reading Response (of your choice) this semester, I will accept an existentialist interpretation of any one of the following, often said to be ‘existentialist’ films or TV series. Keep in mind, this is a partial list of some of my favorites, and that this proves to be a very amorphous genre. If you would like to try your existential-analytic skills on a film not listed, you may, but you need to get approval first. I have tried to provide a fairly comprehensive spread of film directors often thought to be influenced by existentialism. So other films by the same director should be fine without a check-in. Note: the same academic standards and the same rubric will be applied to this Reading Response.
Additional Requirements:
Note well: It is not enough to just watch the film, and then write a personal response on its themes, plots, characters, and existentialist concepts, etc. As a core part of this assignment, I require you to do some additional research, i.e. read up on the film using google.com and google.com/books or google.com/scholar, and attempt to find at least one critical review or interpretation of your film preferably (but not necessarily) from an existentialist standpoint. Engage and cite the author on at least two important points they make about the film. State if you agree or disagree, and why, and offer an alternative interpretation if you have one. In some cases, finding an existentialist take may prove difficult, in which case, it is fine to quote any piece you find interesting, and develop your own existentialist reading.
Un Chien Andalou & L’Age D’Or (Dalí & Buñuel, 1929) Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936) Bringing up the Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) The Maltese Falcon (Sam Spade, 1941) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus, 1959) The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962) Juliet of the Spirits (Pasolini, 1965) Oedipus Rex (Pasolini, 1967) Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) Zabriskie’s Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970) Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971) Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci, 1972) Jeremiah Johnson (Sydney Pollack, 1972) The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973) Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog, 1974) Love and Death (Woody Allen, 1975) Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa, 1975) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman, 1975) Woyzeck (Werner Herzog, 1979) Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) Nosferatu (Werner Herzog, 1979) Altered States (Ken Russell, 1980) Fitzcaraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982) The Neverending Story (Wolfgang Petersen, 1984) Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman, 1988) Jacob’s Ladder (Adrian Lyne, 1990) Barton Fink (Coen Brothers, 1991) Dead Man (Jim Marmusch, 1995) The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998) The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998) eXistenZ (David Cronenberg, 1999) Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999) Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) Momento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001) Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann, 2001) Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001) Howl’s Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004) The Fountain (Darren Aronovsky, 2006) The Bäader-Meinhoff Complex (Uli Edel, 2008) Synecdoche New York (P.S. Hoffmann, 2008) Séraphine (Martin Provost, 2008) Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé, 2009) Black Swan (Darren Aronovsky, 2010) Being in the World (Tao Ruspoli, 2010) Magic Trip (Gibney & Ellwood, 2011) Life of Pi (Ang Lee, 2012) Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) Cloud Atlas (Tykwer & Wachowski, 2012) Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2012) The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013) Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas (Arnaud des Pallières, 2013) Hannah Arendt (Margarethe von Trotta, 2013) Venus in Furs (Roman Polanski, 2014) Beloved Sisters (Dominik Graf, 2015) Chi-raq (Spike Lee, 2015) Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon Prime Original Series, 2014-) Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick, 2015) The Get Down (Baz Luhrmann, Netflix Original Series, 2016-)