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1 Landscape and Cinema RTF 1 Landscape and Cinema RTF 345 (08315) Fall 2011 Professor: Lalitha Gopalan Office Hours: Monday 12-3PM Seminar: Wednesday 5-8PM, CMA A3.112 Screening: Monday 5-7:30PM, CMA A3.120 You may purchase the following required texts 1. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art. The latest edition 2. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, L’Avventura. (London: BFI: 1992) 3. Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dead Man. (London: BFI: 2000) Please note that a reading packet is also available for purchase at Jenn’s Copy and Binding. REQUIREMENTS Attendance: You are expected to be on time for class sessions and screenings. If for some unexpected reason you are absent for a class, you are expected to inform me via telephone or email. Please note that two or more absences will result in a lower final grade: B+ to B and so on. Class sessions: Please note that this course will be taught as a seminar class and not as a series of lectures. You are expected to bring the relevant texts to class and come fully prepared for class discussions. Please be prepared to respond to my questions on particular aspects of the readings and films in class as well as initiating your own formulations on the texts. Be warned that you will be marked absent if you fail to bring the relevant texts to class. Grades Please note that this course has a substantial writing component and hence your final grade will be based on the following written assignments: 1. 50%: Based on 10-12 page paper to be submitted in two parts, two 5-7 page papers. You are expected to choose one film not assigned on the syllabus as your primary text for the entire semester. Please consult with me on your choice of films. Your first 2-page paper submission on this film (not graded) should offer a detailed segmenting of the entire film with a short bibliography. September 22: 2-page segmenting and bibliography October 7: First 4-5-page paper. December 3: Second 5-page paper 2 2. 25%: Class presentation of a theoretical essay. After the first two weeks of class, I expect you to sign up for a class presentation of one of the assigned essays in your syllabus. You will be allotted the entire class session to lead the discussion of an essay with ample help from the class. A draft version of your reading of the essay and film should be posted on Blackboard the next day before midnight and during the following class session we will collectively comment on your draft. A revised version (4-5 pages) is due the following Friday. 3. 25%: A weekly journal that records your responses to the film screenings and on occasion, to the readings. I expect you to write for 5-10 minutes after each screening session on Monday. This is a designated quiet time that allows you to both respond and formulate your thoughts on the screening before launching into a more audible discussion of the projected images. Please note that you are encouraged to expand on these initial impressions by incorporating your engagements with the assigned readings. I expect this writing assignment to be about a page or more for each session. Papers are due in my mailbox by 5pm on the date of submission. Please be aware that your papers have to abide by the prevailing Honor Code of the university. I strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with the services of the Writing Center. Please be advised that readings and film screenings are subject to revision. Class Schedule August 24 Introduction Screening August 29: L’Avventura (1960) dir. Michelangelo Antonioni August 31 Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, L’Avventura Noa Steimatsky, “From the air: A genealogy of Antonioni’s modernism.” READER Paul Virillio, “Traveling shot.” READER Film Art Chapter on Cinematography Screening September 5 (HOLIDAY): Walkabout (1971) dir. Nicholas Roeg September 7 Neil Feinman, “Nicholas who?” & “Walkabout.” READER Beverle Houston and Marsha Kinder, “Cultural and Cinematic Codes in The Man who fell to Earth and Walkabout: Insiders and Outsiders in the Films of Nicholas Roeg.” READER Film Art: Chapter on Editing 3 Screening September 12: Calendar (1993) dir. Atom Egoyan September 14 Jonathan Romney, “Introduction” & “Calendar.” READER Brenda Longfellow, “Globalization and national identity in Canadian film.” READER Film Art: Chapter on Sound Screening September 19:Through the Olive Trees (1994) dir. Abbas Kiarostami September 21 Stephen Bransford, “Days in the Country: Representations of Rural Space in Abbas Kiarostami’s Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees and The Wind will Carry Us.” READER Hamid Dabashi, “Re-reading reality: Kiraostami’s Through the Olive Tree and the cultural policies of a post-revolutionary aesthetics.” READER Laura Mulvey, “Afterword.” READER Film Art: Chapter on Mise-En-Scene Screening September 26: Ulysses Gaze (1995) dir. Theo Anglopoulos September 28 Andrew Horton, “The voyage beyond the borders”, “Ulysses’ Gaze: “We are dying people’, & “From the cinematic gaze to a culture of links.” READER Andrew Horton, “Introduction.” READER David Bordwell, “Modernism, minimalism, melancholy: Angelopolous and visual style.” READER Fredric Jameson, “Theo Angelpoulos: the past as history, the future as form.” READER Anne Rutherford, “Precarious boundaries: affect, mise-en-scene and the senses in Anglopoulos’ Balkanas epic.” Recommended for purchase: Too Early, Too late (1981) dir. Jean Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Intense materialism: Too soon, Too Late.” READER Screening October 3: Solaris (1972) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky October 5 Donato Totaro, “Time and the film aesthetics of Andrei Tarkovsky.” READER Salvestroni Simonetta, “The science fiction films of Andrei Tarkovsky.” READER Roumania Deltcheva and Eduard Vlasov, “Back to the House II: On the chronotopic and ideological reinterpretation of Lem’s Solaris in Tarkovsky’s film.” READER 4 Screening October 10: Jurassic Park (1993) dir. Steven Spielberg October 12 Sean Cubbitt , “Introduction. Le reel, c’est l’impossible: the sublime time of special effects.” READER Warren Buckland, “Between science fact and science fiction: Steve Spielberg’s digital dinosaurs and new aesthetics of realism.” READER C. Paul Sellors, “The impossibility of science fiction: against Buckland’s possible worlds.” READER Constance Balides, “Jurassic post-Fordism: tall tales of economics in the theme park.” READER Screening October 17: Dead Man (1995) dir. Jim Jarmusch October 19 Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dead Man Screening October 24: At least one of the following FILMS BY JAMES BENNING (1) 81/2 X 11 DISTRIBUTED BY FILM-MAKERS COOPERATIVE, NEW YORK (2) 11 x 14 DISTRIBUTED BY CANYON CINEMA AND CANADIAN FILMMAKERS DISTRIBUTION CENTRE (3) DESERET DISTRIBUTED BY CANYON FILMS October 26 Scott MacDonald, “Re-envisioning the American West.” READER Berenice Reynaud, “James Benning: The filmmaker as haunted landscape.” READER “Circling James Benning: The California Trilogy and beyond.” READER Screening October 31: Johanna d’Arc Mongolia (1989) dir. Ulrike Ottinger November 2 Kristen Whissle, “Racialized spectacle, exchange relations and the western in Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia.” READER Brenda Longfellow, “Lesbian fantasy and the other woman in Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia.” READER Julia Knight, “Observing rituals: Ulrike Ottinger’s Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia.” READER Screening November 7: Fresh Kill (1993) dir. Shu Lea Sheng November 9 Gina Marchetti, “Cinema frames, videoscapes, and cyberspace: exploiting Shu Lea Cheang’s Fresh Kill.” READER 5 Interview with Shu Lea Sheng READER Screening November 14: Gleaners and I (2000) dir. Agnes Varda November 16 Melissa Anderson, “The modest gesture of the filmmaker: an interview with Agnes Varda.” READER Chris Darke, “Refuseniks.” Sight and Sound vol 11.1, pp 30-33 READER Jake Wilson, “Trash and Treasure: The Gleaners and I.” READER Screening November 21: Still Life (2006) dir. Jia Zhangke November 23 Sheldon H. Lu, ‘Gorgeous Three Gorges at Last Sight.’ READER Hongbing Zhang, ‘Ruins and Grassroots.’ READER Screening November 28: Tree of Life (2011) dir. Terence Malick November 30 Jonathan Bordo, “Picture and Witness at the Site of the Wilderness” In W.J.T. Mitchell, Landscape and Power 2nd Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2002). READER Henry David Thoreau, Walden. In Class discussion of final papers on November 23 and 30 .
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