Syllabus

CTCS 200: History of International Cinema I F A L L 2 0 0 9 Mondays 2:00 - 5:50pm • Norris Theater Prof. René Bruckner • [email protected] Office location and hours: SCA 318, Mondays, 11:00 am-1:00 pm (or by appointment) Lead TA: Brett Service • [email protected] • Office hours: Thursdays, 12:30-1:30pm in the Critical Studies T.A. Office (IMS Building on campus map)

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course surveys the history of cinema’s first half-century, exploring its technological, economic, and social determinants from its beginnings in the 1890s through the end of World War II. The lectures, screenings, readings and discussions will explore the formal diversity of international cinema and examine the impact of the global circulation of film in relation to the complicated and contested dominance of the American film industry.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS: The requirements for this course include: attendance, three film critiques, five pop quizzes (administered in section), a mandatory in-class midterm exam, and a mandatory final exam. All of these requirements must be fulfilled in order to pass the course. The date of the midterm is October 12 (as marked clearly on the course schedule). Attendance is mandatory and will be taken at each class session. The following is a grade calculation breakdown: Attendance/Participation 10% Film Critiques 15% (Choose 3 “outside viewings,” 5 points each) Pop Quizzes 20% (Top 4 out of 5 quizzes, 5 pts. each; lowest score dropped) Midterm Exam 25% (October 12th, week 8) Final Exam 30% (Date and time TBA)

TEXTBOOKS AND OTHER READINGS: All readings for the course are listed on the course schedule. They can be found either on Blackboard (Bb) under “Course Readings,” or in the two required textbooks, available at the campus bookstore: (1) Kristin Thompson & David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, 3rd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009) (T&B) (2) Luigi Pirandello, Shoot! The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinematograph Operator (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005)

1 SECTIONS: Each student will be assigned to a discussion section, which will meet in an assigned classroom every Monday after lecture and screenings (@5:00-5:50). Classrooms will be assigned the first day of class, but are subject to change. The Teaching Assistant (TA) who is your section leader will become your primary interface for the course: TAs will take attendance and grade your exams and assignments. TAs will hold office hours (to be announced in section) and will be available by email.

TEACHING ASSISTANTS: Brett Service - [email protected] Adan Avalos - [email protected] Mike Dillon - [email protected] Mei Heberer - [email protected] Joshua Moss - [email protected] Je Cheol Park - [email protected] Emily Perez - [email protected] Garrett Thompson - [email protected] Andrew White - [email protected]

BLACKBOARD: CTCS 200 has a course management website that will be used to distribute essential course information. To access Blackboard, go to: https://blackboard.usc.edu/, click the Login button, enter your USC user name and password, and click the link to CTCS 200. Certain readings and assignments will be accessed on the site, along with a list of useful web resources. Please check Blackboard often for announcements and possible revisions to course screenings and readings. Announcements posted through Blackboard will be delivered to your USC email address. Please check this email account regularly.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FILM CRITIQUES: During the semester, you must view three films chosen from those listed on the Course Schedule as “optional outside screenings,” and post on Blackboard three concise but thoughtful critical reviews of the films. Critiques should be 1-2 pages, typed, double-spaced, and uploaded on Blackboard under “Assignments,” and also through Blackboard’s “Turnitin.” Failure to do so will aversely affect your grade. Each critique is due by 12:00 noon on the day under which the film is listed in the schedule (2 hours before class). More detailed instructions regarding content and expectations will be given in section by your TA.

ATTENDANCE/MISSED EXAM POLICY: Missed classes and exams will not be excused, except when there are extenuating circumstances with documentation of cause. Missed exams cannot be made up unless you can supply official documentation (e.g., a doctor’s note) substantiating your absence. Whenever possible, please inform your TA at least 24 hours in advance of the time of any absence. Attendance and participation in assigned sections are required and comprise 10% of your final grade.

DISABILITY SERVICES: Students requesting accommodations based on a disability must register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. Obtain letter of verification for approved accommodations, and please be sure the letter is delivered to your TA as early in the term as possible. DSP is located in STU 301, open 8:30am – 5:00pm, Mon. – Fri. DSP phone: (213) 740-0776.

ACADEMIC HONESTY: All students will be held accountable to USC’s Policy on Academic Integrity. Please familiarize yourself with these policies, available online at: http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/pages/students/community_standards.html. Plagiarism in any form will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct (see your Scampus), will result in failure of the course, and could lead to dismissal from the university.

FOOD AND DRINK POLICY: Bringing food and drinks (other than bottled water) in Norris Theater is NOT allowed. If you enter the theater with food or drinks you will be asked to dispose of them in the trashcans in the lobby.

2 COURSE SCHEDULE Week 1 — August 24 — Introduction: A History of Movement Screen: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

Week 2 — August 31 — Early Film as “Attraction” Read: • Maxim Gorky, “Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows” [Blackboard (Bb)] • Tom Gunning, “A Cinema of Attractions” [Bb] • “The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema, 1880s-1904” [Thompson & Bordwell (T&B), ch. 1, pp. 3-21] Screen: Early short films (see class handout for details)

Week 3 — September 7 — No Class (Labor Day holiday)

Week 4 — September 14 — Toward “Narrative Integration” Read: • Pirandello, Shoot! [entire novel] • “The International Expansion of the Cinema: Film Production in Europe” [T&B, ch. 2, pp. 22-26] Screen: The Lonedale Operator (D.W. Griffith, 1911) Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) [excerpts] Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916) Outside viewing option: Regeneration (Raoul Walsh, 1915)

Week 5 — September 21 — Film as “Photoplay” Read: • NAACP pamphlet, “Fighting a Vicious Film” [Bb] • D.W. Griffith, “The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America” [Bb] • “The Struggle for the Expanding American Film Industry” to end of ch. 2 [T&B, pp. 26-42] Screen: The Immigrant (Charles Chaplin, 1917) Cops (Buster Keaton, 1922) Sherlock, jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924) Outside viewing option: Flesh and the Devil (Clarence Brown, 1926)

Week 6 — September 28 — What Is Hollywood (and Why)? Read: • “National Cinemas, Hollywood Classicism, and WWI, 1913-1919” [T&B, ch. 3, pp. 43-67] • “The Late Silent Era in Hollywood” [T&B, ch. 7, pp. 128-51] Screen: Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) Outside viewing options: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Weine, 1920) Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

Week 7 — October 5 — German Expressionism and “the German genius” Read: • Lucy Fischer, “Silence/Sound” & “City/Country” [Bb] • “Germany in the 1920s” [T&B, ch. 5, pp. 87-104] Screen: Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922) [excerpt] Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927) Outside viewing option: The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924)

3 Week 8 — October 12 — MIDTERM EXAM (in class) Screen: Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) [excerpts] Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

Week 9 — October 19 — Theory and Practice: Soviet Montage Read: • Dziga Vertov, “WE: Variant of a Manifesto” [Bb] • “Soviet Cinema in the 1920s” [T&B, ch. 6, pp. 105-27] Screen: The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)

Week 10 — October 26 — The Ends of the Silent Film (The Arrival of Sound) Read: • James Card, “Silent Film in a State of Grace” [Bb] • “International Trends of the 1920s” [T&B, ch. 8, pp. 152-74] Screen: M (Fritz Lang, 1931) Outside viewing option: Hallelujah! (King Vidor, 1929)

Week 11 — November 02 — Lingering Silence Read: • Anton Kaes, “Berlin, 1931” [Bb] • “The Introduction of Sound” [T&B, ch. 9, pp. 175-194] Screen: Shen Nu [Goddess] (Yonggang Wu, 1934) Outside viewing option: Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932)

Week 12 — November 9 — Realisms Read: • William Rothman, “The Goddess: Reflections on Melodrama East and West” [Bb] • “China: Filmmaking Caught Between Left and Right” [T&B, pp. 237-38] Screen: Zero for Conduct (Jean Vigo, 1932) The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir, 1936) Outside viewing option: À Nous la Liberté [Freedom for Us] (René Clair, 1931)

Week 13 — November 16 — Persuasion Read: • André Bazin, “The Evolution of the Language of Film” [Bb] • “France: Poetic Realism, the Popular Front, and the Occupation, 1930-1945” [T&B, ch. 13, pp. 259-276] Screen: Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935) [excerpt] The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940) Outside viewing option: Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936)

Week 14 — November 23 — Worlds at War Read: • “The Hollywood Studio System, 1930-1945” [T&B, ch. 10, pp. 195-218] Screen: Ossessione (Lucchino Visconti, 1943) Outside viewing option: Le Jour Se Lève (Marcel Carné, 1939)

Week 15 — November 30 — Moving toward a conclusion Read: • “Cinema and the State: The U.S.S.R, Germany, and Italy” [T&B, ch. 12, pp. 239-258] Screen: To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944)

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