RTF 370 Film Analysis and Criticism Topic: Eastwood (Spring 2011) Instructor: Professor Thomas Schatz (WWH 415; [email protected]) Office hours: TTH, 3:30‐5:00pm or by appointment Assistant: Annie Petersen ([email protected]) Office Hours: 1:00‐2:00pm or by appointment (in CMA lobby) Requirements: • attendance and class participation [25% of grade] • blog posts [25% of grade] – assignment on separate handout • research paper (10‐12 pages) [25% of grade] – assignment on separate handout • Final essay exam [25% of grade] Readings: Books (available at the University Coop): • Clint Eastwood: Interviews, Robert E. Kapsis, Kathie Coblentz, eds. (Univ. of Mississippi Press, 1999) • Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: New Perspecitves, Leonard Engel, ed. (Univ. of Utah Press, 2007) 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 on the course blog (see below). Screenings: • Required "lab" (CinemaTexas) screenings in CMA 3.116 on Wednesdays at 7:30pm. • Recommended screenings: Note that there are a number of recommended screenings (one per week) throughout the semester. While these are not required, they will be covered in lectures. All are readily available via Netflix, VOD, etc. You are encouraged to screen these films on your own. Course blog: A website for the course has been created at http://rtfeastwood.wordpress.com. This blog will be utilized for a range of course‐related activities and assignments, including a least four posts in the course of the semester – “thought pieces” of 400‐600 words responding to a specific film or reading or issue raised in class lectures and discussions. (This assignment will be outlined in more detail in a separate handout.) 2 Course description: This course examines the career of Clint Eastwood, from his rise to stardom in Sergio Leone's "spaghetti Westerns" and the iconic Dirty Harry films, through his steady development as an important filmmaker in his own right (and a distinctive “hyphenate” producer‐director‐ star), to his eventual status as a celebrated 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 various approaches – principally star, genre, and auteur analysis; narrative and textual analysis; and theories of gender and sexuality. We also will consider how Eastwood's career as both star and filmmaker relates to the development of the Hollywood movie industry at large over the past half‐century, as well as the concurrent development of independent American film. This is a major writing component course and thus the brunt of the work will involve critical writing, including several blog posts, a major research paper and in‐class essay final. 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: Tues (1/18) intro course Wed (1/19) screening: A Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964/67) Thurs [1/20] Eastwood as star, auteur, independent producer and cultural icon Read: Denby, “Out of the West” [online class blog] Schatz, Clint Eastwood: Icon, “Introduction” [online class blog] [recommended screening: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1968)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (1/25) Leone's spaghetti Westerns and the emergence of Eastwood's star persona Read: Frayling, “Sergio Leone and the Western” [in packet] Frayling, “The Leone Legacy” [in packet] Wed (1/26) screening: Coogan’s Bluff (Siegel, 1968) 3 Thurs (1/27) Eastwood in Hollywood: A man with a name Read: Bingham, “Introduction: ‘I’m Not Really a Man…’” [in packet] Britton, “Stars and Genre” [in packet] Reed, “No tumbleweed Ties for Clint” [Eastwood Interviews] [recommended screening: Hang ‘Em High (Post, 1968)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (2/1) Recasting the Leone Westerner Read: Bingham, “Men with No Names” [in packet] Kaminsky, “Eastwood on Eastwood” [Eastwood Interviews] Wed (2/2) screening: Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971) Thurs (2/3) Eastwood as ‘urban cowboy’ Read: Engel, Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director, “Introduction” Matt Wanat, “Irony as Absolution…” [ch 3 in Engel] [recommended screening: Magnum Force (Post, 1973)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (2/8) Eastwood and the Dirty Harry ‘franchise’ Read: Bingham, “Authority of One: The Dirty Harry Films” [in packet] Wed (2/9) screening: The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood, 1976) Thurs (2/10) The Outlaw Josey Wales: first glimpse of an auteur Read: Knapp, “Clint Eastwood, ‘Starteur’” [in packet] Knapp, “The Outlaw Josey Wales” [in packet] [recommended screening: High Plains Drifter (Eastwood, 1973)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (2/15) Irony, parody, genre subversion Read: McGilligan, “Clint Eastwood” [Eastwood Interviews] Westbrook, “Feminism and the Limits of Genre…” [ch 1 in Engel] Wed (2/16) screening: Every Which Way But Loose (James Fargo, 1978) 4 Thurs (2/17) Letting loose Read: Leger Grindon, “Mocking Success in Every Which Way But Loose” [ch 5 in Engel] Dyer, “Introduction” to Heavenly Bodies [in packet] [recommended screening: Bronco Billy (Eastwood, 1980)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (2/22) Going soft Read: Gentry, “Director Clint Eastwood: Attention to Detail…” [Eastwood Interviews] Champlin, “Eastwood: An Auteur to Reckon With” [Eastwood Interviews] Wed (2/23) screening: Tightrope (Tuggle [& Eastwood], 1984) Thurs (2/24) Back to basics Read: Thomson, “Cop on a Hot Tightrope” [Eastwood Interviews] [recommended screening: Sudden Impact (Eastwood, 1983)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (3/1) Surviving the 1980s: a "supply‐side star" in a blockbuster era Read: Cahill, “The Rolling Stone Interview” [Eastwood Interviews] Cremean, “A Fistful of Anarchy…” [ch 2 in Engel] Wed (3/2) screening: Pale Rider (Eastwood, 1985) Thurs (3/3) Revisiting the West, reviving the genre Read: McVeigh, Subverting Shane: Ambiguities in Eastwood’s Politics… [ch 6 in Engel] [recommended screening: Heartbreak Ridge (Eastwood, 1986)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (3/8) Eastwood as ideologue Read: Frayling, “Eastwood on Eastwood” [Eastwood Interviews] Fred Erisman, “Clint Eastwood’s Western Films and the Evolving Mythic Hero” [ch 9 in Engel] Wed (3/9) screening: Black Hunter, White Heart (Eastwood, 1990) Thurs (3/10) New directions Read: Ciment, “Interview with Clint Eastwood” [Eastwood Interviews] Pavolvic, “Clint Eastwood interviewed by Milan Pavolvic” [Eastwood Interviews] Hentoff, “Flight of Fancy” [Eastwood Interviews] [recommended screening: Bird (Eastwood, 1988) 5 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ SPRING BREAK‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (3/22) Eastwood, Malpaso and Warner Bros. in the 1990s Read: Cornell, “Introduction: Shooting Eastwood” [packet] Kapsis, “Clint Eastwood’s Politics of Reputation” [in packet] Wed (3/23) screening: Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992) Thurs (3/24) Regeneration and redemption Read: Plantinga, “Spectacles of Death…” [in packet] Jousse & Nevers, “Interview with Clint Eastwood” [Eastwood interviews] Behar, “Portrait of the Gunslinger as a Wise Old Man…” [Eastwood interviews] Klypchack, “‘All on Accounta Pullin’ the Trigger’…” [ch 7 in Engel] skim [recommended screening: A Perfect World (Eastwood, 1993)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (3/29) The long goodbye to Eastwood's Westerner Read: Cornell, ch 1. “Writing the Showdown” [in packet] Bingham, “‘Deserves Got Nothin’ to Do with It’ or Men with No Names II” [in packet] Tibbets, “The Machinery of Violence…” [ch 8 in Engel] skim Wed (3/30) screening: In the Line of Fire (Petersen, 1993) Thurs (3/31) One for them, one for me: star turns and serious films Read: Biskind, “Any Which Way He Can” [Eastwood Interviews] Hampton, “Sympathy for the Devil” [in packet] [recommended screening: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Eastwood, 1997)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (4/5) Prestige projects Read: Cornell, ch 2. “Dancing with the Double…” [in packet] Verniere, “Clint Eastwood Stepping Out” [Eastwood interviews] Behar, “America on the Brink of the Void” [Eastwood interviews] Wed (4/6) screening: The Bridges of Madison County (Eastwood, 1995) Thurs (4/7) The ultimate irony of Madison County: redeeming a maudlin best‐seller Read: Metz, “Another being we have created called ‘us’…” [in packet] Erisman, “Narrative Pacing and the Eye of the Other…” [ch 10 in Engel] 6 [recommended screening: Space Cowboys (Eastwood, 2000)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (4/12) Eastwood as “mature” artist Read: Cornell, ch 3. “Ties That Bind…” [in packet] Metz, “The Old Man and the C: Masculinity and Age…” [ch 11 in Engel] Wed (4/13) screening: Mystic River (Eastwood, 2003) Thurs (4/14) Lost boys and haunted men in another dark masterpiece Read: Roberts, “Q&A with a Western Icon” [Eastwood interviews] Cornell & Berkowitz, “Parables of Revenge and Masculinity…” [in packet] [recommended screening: Blood Work (Eastwood, 2002)] ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Tues (4/19) Reflections on vigilante justice Read: Rothermel, “Mystical Moral Miasma in Mystic River” [ch 12 in Engel] Wed (4/20) screening: Million Dollar Baby (Eastwood, 2004) Thurs