RTF 370 Film Analysis and Criticism Topic: The Films of Clint Eastwood Fall 2016
Instructor: Professor Thomas Schatz (CMA 6.128B; [email protected]) Office hours: Mon 3:00 – 5:00 pm; Thurs 4:00 – 5:00pm (or by appointment)
Assistant: Lucia Palmer (CMA 6.156; [email protected]) Office hours: Wed 2:30 – 4:30 pm (or by appointment)
Requirements: • Attendance and class participation [20% of grade] • Weekly online discussions [10% of grade] – assignment on separate handout • Two 4-5 page critiques [20% of grade] – assignment on separate handout o due dates: September 22; October 20 • Research paper (10-12 pages) [25% of grade] – assignment on separate handout o abstract due November 3; paper due on December 1 (last class day) • Final essay exam [20% of grade] – on Wednesday, December 14, 2:00 - 5:00 pm
Readings: Books (available at the University Coop): • Clint Eastwood: Interviews, revised and updated ed., Robert E. Kapsis, Kathie Coblentz, eds. (Univ. of Mississippi Press, 2013) • Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: New Perspecitves, Leonard Engel, ed. (Univ. of Utah Press, 2007) • Clint Eastwood’s America, Sam B. Girgus (Polity, 2014) Reading Packet (available at Jenn’s on 26th and Guadalupe) • Additional required readings are included in a reading packet Other miscellaneous readings, etc., will be posted online.
Weekly online discussion: Each week, you will engage in an online conversation about the films, readings, and topics of the week with your fellow classmates. The discussion will be hosted on Canvas, and you will be expected to reply both to a guiding prompt question and to the responses of your classmates. Your responses should demonstrate that you are completing the assigned readings, participating in class, and thinking critically about the films.
Screenings: • Required screenings in CMA 3.116 on Mondays at 7:30 pm. • Recommended screenings: There are a number of recommended screenings (generally one per week) through most of the semester. While these films are not required, they will be 2
referred to in lectures. All are readily available via Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc. You are encouraged to screen these (and other) films on your own.
Course description: This course examines the career of Clint Eastwood, from his rise to stardom in Sergio Leone's "spaghetti Westerns" in the 1960s and the iconic Dirty Harry films in the 1970s; through his steady development as an important filmmaker in his own right (as a “hyphenate” producer- director-star) in the 1970s and ’80s; to his eventual stature since the early 1990s as a bona fide American auteur with films like Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, et al. While the structure of the course will be historical (and chronological), the main thrust will be critical and analytical, combining a wide range of approaches – principally star, genre, and auteur analysis; narrative and textual analysis; theories of gender and sexuality; and ideological and ethical analysis. We also will consider Eastwood's career as both star and filmmaker in the context of the Hollywood movie industry since the late 1960s, particularly his role as an independent producer (via his company, Malpaso Productions, launched in 1967). This is writing “flag” course, in which the brunt of your work will involve critical writing, including several online posts, two critiques, a research paper and a final essay exam. There will be a moderate amount of reading for the course as well (roughly 20-40 pages per class meeting), along with weekly required and recommended screenings. You are expected to attend all class meetings and required screenings, to keep up with the readings, and to demonstrate your command of these materials (and the lectures) in our class discussions as well as your writing.
------Schedule of class meetings, reading assignments, and screenings:
Thurs (8/25) Intro course
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Mon (8/29) screening (7:30 pm, CMA 3.116): A Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964/67)
[recommended: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1968)]
Tues (8/30) A Fistful of Dollars: first glimpse of an American icon Read: Engel, Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director, “Introduction” Frayling, “Sergio Leone and the Western” [in packet]
Thurs (9/1) Leone's spaghetti Westerns and the formation of Eastwood's star persona Read: Girgus, Clint Eastwood’s America, “Introduction” Frayling, “The Leone Legacy” [in packet] – skim
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Mon (9/5) screening: Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971)
[recommended: Coogan’s Bluff (Siegel, 1968)]
Tues (9/6) Eastwood in Hollywood: Recasting the Leone antihero Read: Bingham, “Introduction: ‘I’m Not Really a Man, But I Play One in the Movies’” and “Men with No Names” [in packet] Britton, “Stars and Genre” [in packet] Reed, “No tumbleweed Ties for Clint” [Eastwood Interviews]
Thurs (9/8) Dirty Harry, franchise star Read: Bingham, “Authority of One: The Dirty Harry Films” [in packet] Matt Wanat, “Irony as Absolution” [ch 3 in Engel] Kaminsky, “Eastwood on Eastwood” [Eastwood Interviews] ------
Mon (9/12) screening: The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood, 1976)
[recommended screening: High Plains Drifter (Eastwood, 1973)]
Tues (9/13) The Outlaw Josey Wales: first glimpse of an auteur Read: Knapp, “Clint Eastwood, ‘Starteur’” [in packet] Thompson and Hunter, “Eastwood Direction” [Eastwood Interviews]
Thurs (9/15) Irony, parody, and genre subversion Read: Westbrook, “Feminism and the Limits of Genre…” [ch 1 in Engel] Knapp, “The Outlaw Josey Wales” [in packet]
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Mon (9/19) screening: Every Which Way But Loose (James Fargo, 1978)
[recommended screening: Bronco Billy (Eastwood, 1980)]
Tues (9/20) Letting loose Read: Leger Grindon, “Mocking Success in Every Which Way But Loose” [ch 5 in Engel] Dyer, “Introduction” to Heavenly Bodies [in packet] Champlin, “Eastwood: An Auteur to Reckon With” [Eastwood Interviews]
Thurs (9/22) Going soft Read: Gentry, “Director Clint Eastwood: Attention to Detail…” [Eastwood Interviews] Wilson, “‘Whether I Succeed or Fail…,’” [Eastwood Interviews] ***first critique due*** ------4
Mon (9/26) screening: Tightrope (Tuggle [& Eastwood], 1984)
[recommended screening: Sudden Impact (Eastwood, 1983)]
Tues (9/27) Back to basics – with a dark twist Read: Thomson, “Cop on a Hot Tightrope” [Eastwood Interviews] Cahill, “The Rolling Stone Interview” [Eastwood Interviews]
Thurs (9/29) Surviving the 1980s: a "supply-side star" in a blockbuster era Read: Cremean, “A Fistful of Anarchy…” [ch 2 in Engel]
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Mon (10/3) screening: Pale Rider (Eastwood, 1985)
[recommended screening: Shane (George Stevens, 1953)]
Tues (10/4) Revisiting the West, reviving the genre Read: McVeigh, “Subverting Shane: Ambiguities in Eastwood’s Politics…” [ch 6 in Engel] Cornell, ch 1, “Writing the Showdown” – read the High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider sections [in packet] Frayling, “Eastwood on Eastwood” [Eastwood Interviews] – skim
Thurs (10/6) Eastwood at mid-career Read: Girgus, ch 1, “The First Twenty Years” – read “A Western State of Mind” section and skim the rest Erisman, “Clint Eastwood’s Western Films and the Evolving Mythic Hero” [ch 9 in Engel]
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Mon (10/10) screening: White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood, 1990)
[recommended screening: Bird (Eastwood, 1988)
Tues (10/11) New directions Read: Hentoff, “Flight of Fancy” [Eastwood Interviews] Ciment, “Interview with Clint Eastwood” [Eastwood Interviews] Biskind, “Any Which Way He Can” [Eastwood Interviews]
Thurs (10/13) Eastwood’s ‘mature’ period Read: Cornell, “Introduction: Shooting Eastwood” [packet] Kapsis, “Clint Eastwood’s Politics of Reputation” [in packet] Girgus, “Introduction” – review/skim 5
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Mon (10/17) screening: Unforgiven (Eastwood 1992)
[recommended: A Perfect World (Eastwood, 1993)
Tues (10/18) Revision, regeneration and reversion Read: Cornell, ch 1. “Writing the Showdown” – read the Unforgiven sections [in packet] Plantinga, “Spectacles of Death…” [in packet] Bingham, “‘Deserves Got Nothin’ to Do with It’ or Men with No Names II” [packet]
Thurs (10/20) The prospect of redemption for Eastwood's Westerner Read: Girgus, ch 2. “Unforgiven: The Search for Redemption” ***second critique due***
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Mon (10/24) screening: The Bridges of Madison County (Eastwood, 1995)
[recommended screening: In the Line of Fire (Petersen, 1993)
Tues (10/25) Madison County: recasting a maudlin best-seller Read: Cornell, Ch 3, “Ties That Bind: The Legacy of a Mother’s Love” [in packet] Metz, “Another being we have created called ‘us’…” [in packet] Foery, “Narrative Pacing and the Eye of the Other…” [ch 10 in Engel]
Thurs (10/27) ‘One for them, one for me’: star turns and serious films Read: Metz, “The Old Man and the C: Masculinity and Age…” [ch 11 in Engel] Hampton, “Sympathy for the Devil” [in packet] Cornell, ch 2. “Dancing with the Double…” [in packet] – skim
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Mon (10/31) screening: Mystic River (Eastwood, 2003)
[recommended screening: Space Cowboys (Eastwood, 2000)]
Tues (11/1) Lost boys and haunted men Read: Cornell & Berkowitz, “Parables of Revenge and Masculinity…” [in packet] Rothermel, “Mystical Moral Miasma in Mystic River” [ch 12 in Engel] Rose, “A Conversation with Clint Eastwood about Mystic River” [Eastwood Interviews] Groves, “‘We all have it coming, Kid’: Clint Eastwood and the Dying of the Light” [in packet] - skim 6
Thurs (11/3) Personal ethics and vigilante justice Read: Girgus, ch 4, “Cries from Mystic River: God, Transcendence, and a Troubled Humanity” Blumenthal, “Mystic River: Eastwood without Anger or Forgiveness” [Eastwood Interviews] ***abstracts due***
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Mon (11/7) screening: Million Dollar Baby (Eastwood, 2004)
Tues (11/8) Another championship season Read: Taubin, “Staying Power” [Eastwood interviews] Gourlie, “Million Dollar Baby: The Deep Heart’s Core” [ch 13 in Engel] Macklin, “‘Plant Your Feet and Tell the Truth’…” [in packet]
Thurs (11/10) Heroism, ethics, and Eastwood’s father figures Read: Girgus, ch 3, “Mo Cuishle: A New Religion in Million Dollar Baby” Pinkerton, “Shadow Boxing: Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby” [in packet]
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Mon (11/14) screening: Letters from Iwo Jima (Eastwood, 2006)
[recommended screening: Flags of Our Fathers (Eastwood, 2006)]
Tues (11/19) Eastwood’s WWII films Read: Gross, “Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima” [Eastwood Interviews] Andrew, “The Quiet American” [Eastwood Interviews]
Thurs (11/21) Read: Girgus, ch5, “Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima: History Lessons on Time and the Stranger”
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Mon (11/21) screening: Gran Torino (Eastwood, 2008)
Tues (11/22) Gran Torino: revising or revisiting the ‘old’ Eastwood? Read: Foundas, “Clint Eastwood, America’s Director: The Searcher” [Eastwood Interviews]
Thurs (11/24) Thanksgiving (no class)
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Mon (11/28) screening: American Sniper (Eastwood, 2014)
[recommended: Sully (Eastwood, 2016)]
Tues (11/29) Gran Torino and American Sniper: last(ing) impressions of an American auteur No readings
Thur (12/1) Last class – wrap-up, review for final ***research papers due***
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2:00 – 5:00 pm – FINAL EXAM
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