PROF. NICK DAVIS [email protected] University Hall 307 Office Hours: Wed 3:30-4:30pm, Fri 11am-12pm

GENDER STUDIES 373, SPR ’11 MW 2:00-3:20, UNIV HALL 318

COURSE DESCRIPTION The awarding in 2010 of the Best Director Oscar to Kathryn Bigelow, the first-ever female recipient of that prize, lent new energy to popular and critical conversations about gender and commercial filmmaking—not just about the number of women directors employed in the modern marketplace but about how, when, or why the gender of a filmmaker affects our formal, thematic, historical, or political response to a given film or body of work. These debates are most fruitfully pursued in relation to other contextual frames, including the cinematic traditions of different nations, and the ways in which race, sexuality, history, theory, and other forces shape a movie’s production, storytelling, style, and reception. Through a series of screenings, readings, in-class conversations, writing assignments, and independent research projects, students will explore these questions in relation to major figures including Chantal Akerman, Dorothy Arzner, Jane Campion, Julie Dash, Claire Denis, and , whose careers bear importantly different relations to genre, gender, aesthetics, industry, history, and scholarship. Given our close attention to these landmark artists, this course also tutors students in the methods and goals of studying a filmmaker’s body of work as such, similarly to how we form ideas about major writers, thinkers, or artists in other media. Previous coursework at the 200-level in Gender Studies or previous coursework in film studies is recommended but not required.

KEY OBJECTIVES To inculcate a new level of fluency in thinking and arguing about cinema, its formal properties, and its historical, political, and theoretical frameworks; to apply different modes of gender and sexuality studies and of film scholarship to the study of these texts; to grow acquainted with major directors’ bodies of work; to practice skills of critical conversation, textual analysis, oral presentation (including formal response), and high-level research on film-related topics.

REQUIRED TEXTS Blackboard: Streaming videos and assigned readings can be accessed here Course Reserves: Most films will also be available in the Library for 4-hour checkout. Some students wisely opt to buy a few of the DVDs, especially those on which they write or present. ASSIGNMENTS Your primary assignments will comprise:

1 close-reading analysis of a film (1200-1500 words) 10% or 15% of your grade 1 essay responding to a group presentation (1200 words) 10% or 15% of your grade

One of these essays must be e-mailed to me by Friday, April 29, the other by Friday, May 27. Whichever essay draws the higher grade will count for 15% of your final grade.

1 group presentation in which you participate (handout) 25% of your grade 1 final research-based essay (2000-2500 words) 30% of your grade

Short responses may be solicited over Blackboard or in class at any point during the term.

ATTENDANCE & PARTICIPATION Your attentive, informed engagement in the seminar is crucial to absorbing and exchanging ideas in the course—to include your volunteering of opinions and impressions, your ability to respond directly to classmates or to questions from me, the fluency with which you learn each other’s names, and your preparedness each week to speak succinctly and specifically about readings and films, on which I expect you to have taken careful notes. Active listening is, of course, crucial to the class functioning well. Given these expectations, you are only allowed two absences (not counting family or health emergencies) before your participation grade begins to decline. Attendance and participation fulfill the 20% of your grade not covered by other assignments.

OFFICE HOURS Please come! They offer great chances for me to get to know you, for more personalized feedback and encouragement, and for you to voice your questions or impressions. The more involved you are in the course and the more you take pride in your writing, thinking, and conversation, the more likely it is that you will enjoy and profit from the experience of this class.

FEEDBACK You should expect clear, helpful comments on your written work. If you have trouble grasping my comments or disagree strongly with something that I have said, please visit my office hours and/or contact me by e-mail.

PROVISIONS FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES Any student with a verified disability requiring special accommodations should speak to me and to the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities (847-467-5530) as early as possible in the quarter. All discussions will remain confidential.

PLAGIARISM & ACADEMIC INTEGRITY Plagiarism comprises the unattributed disguising of any portion of another person's thoughts or writing—whether quoted verbatim or superficially rephrased—as your own original work. Also forbidden is resubmitting old work under the guise of new work. Northwestern rightly considers such behavior intolerable to genuine, responsible education. Therefore, any student engaging in any plagiarist practice is automatically vulnerable to a range of severe punishments, as determined by the office of the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies. Official college policies are available here: http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/advising/academic.html.

Weekly Schedule of Lecture Topics and Group Presentations Make sure to screen the assigned films and read the assigned texts in advance of the class where they are indicated. All assigned readings will be available on the Blackboard site for the course.

Week One Mon, 3/28: Introductions and syllabus review; primer in film analysis In-class viewing: Peel (Jane Campion, 1982; 9min)

Wed, 3/30: Film: The Smiling Madame Beudet (Germaine Dulac, 1922; 26min) Film: Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943; 14min) Readings: Cinematography/Mise-en-scène and Editing/Montage worksheets

Week Two Mon, 4/4: Film: Merrily We Go to Hell (Dorothy Arzner, 1932; 83min) and/or: Christopher Strong (Dorothy Arzner, 1933; 79min) Short Formal Analysis of one scene due by midnight on Sunday (500 words)

Wed, 4/6: Film: Dance, Girl, Dance (Dorothy Arzner, 1940; 90min) Reading: Claire Johnston, ed., The Work of Dorothy Arzner: Toward a Feminist Cinema

Week Three Mon, 4/11: Film: The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953; 71min) Reading: Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”

Wed, 4/13: Film: Saute ma ville (Chantal Akerman, 1968; 13min) Film: Riddles of the Sphinx (Laura Mulvey & Peter Wollen, 1977; 92min) Group #1: Mulvey’s essay and 1970s avant-garde feminist film practice

Week Four Mon, 4/18: Film: Je tu il elle (Chantal Akerman, 1975; 82min) Film: Jollies (Sadie Benning, 1990; 11min) Reading: Patricia White, “Lesbian Minor Cinema”

Required Screening: Jeanne Dielman, 7:30pm in Library Forum Room, 2-South

Wed, 4/20: Film: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975; 201min) Reading: Angela McRobbie, “Passionate Uncertainty” Group #2: Chantal Akerman: the lesbian as major filmmaker and “minor” auteur

Week Five Mon, 4/25: Film: Illusions (Julie Dash, 1982; 34min) Film: Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991; 113min) Reading: Toni Cade Bambara, “Reading the Signs, Empowering the Eye”

Week Five, continued Wed, 4/27: Film: Compensation (Zeinabu Irene Davis, 1999; 95min) Reading: bell hooks, “The Oppositional Gaze” Group #3: The UCLA School and independent black women’s cinema

Fri, 4/29: DEADLINE: Either formal analysis essay or presentation response due by 5pm

Week Six Mon, 5/2: Film: The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993; 120min) Reading: Lynda Dyson, “The Return of the Repressed? Whiteness, Femininity, and Colonialism in The Piano”

Wed, 5/4: Reading: Laleen Jayamanne, “Postcolonial Gothic” Group #4: Gendered and postcolonial debates over The Piano

Week Seven Mon, 5/9: Film: Holy Smoke (Jane Campion, 1999; 113min) and/or: In the Cut (Jane Campion, 2003; 119min)

Wed, 5/11: Film: Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988; 106min) Group #5: Chocolat: Another white woman’s postcolonial period piece

Fri, 5/13: DEADLINE for conferring with me about your plans for your final project

Week Eight Mon, 5/16: Film: No Fear, No Die (Claire Denis, 1990; 90min) Reading: Judith Mayne, “Border Patrols: Chocolat and No Fear, No Die”

Wed, 5/18: Film: Beau travail (Claire Denis, 1999; 90min) Readings: Sarah Cooper, “Je sais bien, mais quand meme...”; Forbes Morlock, “Solid Cinema” Group #6: Claire Denis: Masculinity, foreignness, and marginal spaces

Week Nine Mon, 5/23: Film: Excerpt from 11’09”01 (Samira Makhmalbaf, 9min) Film: The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf, 86min) Reading: Hannah McGill, “Iranian House Style”

Wed, 5/25: Film: At Five in the Afternoon (Samira Makhmalbaf, 105min) Reading: Lindsey Moore, “Women in a Widening Frame” Group #7: The dynasty and the veil: does Samira Makhmalbaf “represent” Iran?

Fri, 5/27: DEADLINE: Either formal analysis essay or presentation response due by 5pm

Exam Week Wed, 6/8: Final paper: Your essay and annotated bibliography are due over e-mail by 2pm

WEEK TWO: DOROTHY ARZNER (MY SAMPLE PRESENTATION) Dance, Girl, Dance was arguably the key text around which the sudden, important avalanche of Arzner scholarship took shape in the 1970s and 1980s, before and after Mulvey altered feminist film theory. What sense has been made of Arzner’s films, and of this film in particular? In what ways is or isn’t Dance prototypical of Arzner’s work as a whole, or of feminist film criticism?

WEEK THREE: MULVEY’S ESSAY AND 1970S AVANT-GARDE FEMINIST FILM PRACTICE Mulvey’s canonical essay largely addresses itself to “classic Hollywood” films from the 1930s through the 1950s, as we’ll discuss on Monday. But what about her recommendations for a new, radical feminist film practice? How do we square her essay against avant-garde films made by feminist artists and directors around the time the essay appeared, including by Mulvey herself?

WEEK FOUR: CHANTAL AKERMAN AS MAJOR AND “MINOR” AUTEUR What paradoxes are created by Akerman’s career as a producer of the kinds of “minor” texts White describes and of such a monolithic work as Jeanne Dielman? How and to what extent does that work hold sway in critical accounts of Akerman? What might be interesting to know about Jeanne Dielman’s critical reception, or about views of Akerman’s body of work?

WEEK FIVE: THE UCLA SCHOOL AND BLACK WOMEN’S FILMMAKING What critical legacies attach to the late 70s/early 80s generation of African-American film- makers, men and women, among whom Dash and Davis emerged? What aesthetics and politics are associated with their work? What movements did they align themselves with or against?

WEEK SIX: GENDERED AND POSTCOLONIAL DEBATES OVER THE PIANO As the first woman-directed movie to win the top prize at Cannes and the second to earn an Oscar nod for Best Director—and as a surprise global hit—The Piano was a major flashpoint of critical discussion as soon as it opened. How did ideas about gender, sexuality, and colonialism percolate in these conversations, among U.S. viewers or those in Australia and New Zealand?

WEEK SEVEN: CHOCOLAT: ANOTHER WHITE WOMAN’S POSTCOLONIAL PERIOD PIECE Through what lenses was Chocolat interpreted and assessed upon its release in 1988, here or in France? What terms have guided some of the most interesting critical assessments and arguments it has spawned? In what ways have Denis and her film been evaluated differently, in terms of gender as well as colonialism, from what we observed in relation to The Piano?

WEEK EIGHT: CLAIRE DENIS: MASCULINITY, FOREIGNNESS, AND MARGINAL SPACES In what context and with what goals was Claire Denis commissioned to make Beau travail, and what have been some of the key refrains in its reception? How can we think specifically about the film’s setting in present-day Djibouti, or about Denis’s preoccupation with relations among men—rather unusually for a major female auteur, and evidenced, too, in No Fear, No Die?

WEEK NINE: SAMIRA MAKHMALBAF: THE DYNASTY AND THE VEIL Given her youth and Western preconceptions about Iranian women, Makhmalbaf is often treated as a miraculous success story. Given her family, she is just as often treated as a beneficiary of nepotistic advantage, making films for Westerners and elites. How do these biases operate in critiques of Makhmalbaf, especially around films like At Five in the Afternoon or Two-Legged Horse (2008), which, after the blazing start of her career, were never even released in the U.S.?

More Contemporary Women Filmmakers Consider these names, titles, and groupings as you pursue a topic for your final paper. There are, of course, many other names to consider, so speak with me if you’d like help in brainstorming!

USA & CANADA Kathryn Bigelow: Near Dark, Point Break, Strange Days, The Hurt Locker Lisa Cholodenko: High Art, Laurel Canyon, Cavedweller, The Kids Are All Right Sofia Coppola: The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere Debra Granik: Down to the Bone, Winter’s Bone Mary Harron: I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho, The Notorious Bettie Page Nicole Holofcener: Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing, Friends with Money Kasi Lemmons: The Caveman’s Valentine, Eve’s Bayou, Talk to Me Patricia Rozema: I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, When Night Is Falling, Mansfield Park

CARIBBEAN & LATIN AMERICA Claudia Llosa (Peru): Madeinusa, The Milk of Sorrow Lucrecia Martel (Argentina): La Ciénaga, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman Euzhan Palcy (Martinique): Sugar Cane Alley, A Dry White Season

EUROPE Andrea Arnold (UK): Wasp, Red Road, Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights Catherine Breillat (France): 36 fillette, Romance, Fat Girl, Anatomy of Hell, Bluebeard Isabel Coixet (Spain): My Life without Me, Elegy, Map of the Sounds of Tokyo Marleen Gorris (The Netherlands): A Question of Silence, Antonia’s Line, Mrs. Dalloway Sally Potter (UK): Thriller, The Gold Diggers, Orlando, The Tango Lesson, Yes Lynne Ramsay (Scotland): Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin Lina Wertmüller (Italy): Love & Anarchy, Swept Away, Seven Beauties, Ciao Professore!

NORTH AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (Iran): The May Lady, Under the Skin of the City Moufida Tlatli (Tunisia): The Silences of the Palace, The Season of Men, Nadia and Sarra

WEST AFRICA Fanta Régina Nacro (Burkina Faso): Bintou, The Night of Truth

INDIA & ASIA Deepa Mehta (India/Canada): Fire, Earth, Water, Heaven on Earth

AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND Gillian Armstrong (Australia): My Brilliant Career, Oscar and Lucinda, Charlotte Gray Niki Caro (New Zealand): Whale Rider, North Country, The Vintner’s Luck

DOCUMENTARY Rachel Grady & Heidi Ewing: The Boys of Baraka, Jesus Camp, 12th & Delaware Barbara Kopple: American Dream, Harlan County U.S.A., Shut Up & Sing