Cmm-140 Film Criticism

I. Course Description:

• This course presents a survey of the first century of film as an art form and as a medium of mass communication.
• The course will broadly orient students to the fundamentals of film studies.
• We will examine the formal aspects of film that constitute the “language” of the medium (i.e., narrative, cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing, sound).
• Along with reading films, the course will introduce issues in film theory (e.g., auteurism), the political economy of the industry, and present background on the conditions under which films on the syllabus were produced.
• The films that will be screened span the decades between the 1920s and the new millennium and they range from commercially viable to “art house” films.
• They are drawn from several national film industries (i.e., United States, Spain, Denmark, Mexico, Germany, Japan, People’s Republic of China) and are also distinct with respect to genre.

II. Sequence of Films and Readings:

Week I

• Introduction
• Bordwell & Thompson, pp.8-37 (“Production, Distribution, and Exhibition”)
• Screening: El Mariachi (Dir: Robert Rodriguez, 1992, USA-Mexico)
• Reader: Robert Rodríguez, Rebel Without a Crew (excerpts)
• Journal Entry Assigned

Week II

• Screening: North by Northwest (Dir: Alfred Hitchcock, 1959, USA)
• Bordwell and Thompson, pp.59-78 (“Narrative as a Formal System”)
• Reader: Alfred Hitchcock and Françoise Truffaut, “The MacGuffin”; James Wolcott, “Death and the Master”
• Journal Entry Due

Week III

• Screening: The Big Lebowski (Dir: Joel Coen, 1998, USA)
• Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 7 (“Cinematography”)
• Reader: William Preston Robertson, “The Storyboards”

Week IV

• Screening: Metropolis (Dir: Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany)
• Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 6 (“Mise-en-Scene”)
• Reader: Reader: Jonathan L. Bowen, “Metropolis”

Week V

• Screening: The Celebration (Festen) (Dir: Thomas Vinterberg, 1998, Denmark)
• Bordwell & Thompson, Chapter 8 (“Editing”)
• Reader: Jeremy Lehrer, “Denmark’s DV Director Thomas Vinterberg Delves into ‘The Celebration’”; Richard Combs, “Rules of the Game”
• First Essay Assigned

Week VI

• Screening: Dr. Strangelove (Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1963, United Kingdom)
• Bordwell and Thompson, pp.291-315 (“Sound in Cinema”)
• Reader: Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Dr. Strangelove”
• First Essay Due

Week VII

• Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) (Dir: Thomas Tykwer, 1998, Germany)
• Reader: Margit Sinka, “Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run”
• Mid-Term Examination

Week VIII

• Mid-Semester Holiday: ¡No Classes Will Convene!

Week IX

• Screening: The Thin Blue Line (Dir: Erroll Morris, 1988, USA)
• Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 4 (“Film Genres”) and pp.380-86
• Margaret Carlson, “Recrossing The Thin Blue Line”; Alan Pendergrast, “The Thin Blue Line”

Week X

• Screening: Viridiana (Dir: Luis Buñuel, 1961, Spain)
• Reader: José de la Colina & Tómas Pérez Turrent, “The Return to Spain”
• All Campus Holiday

Week XI

• The Big Sleep (Dir: Howard Hawks, 1946, USA)
• Reader: Roger Ebert, “The Big Sleep”; Janey Place, “Women in Film Noir”

Week XII

• Yojimbo (The Bodyguard) (Dir: Akira Kurosawa, 1961, Japan)
• Reader: Tadao Sato, “Akira Kurosawa: Tradition in a Time of Transition”; Robert Stam, “The Author”

Week XIII

• Screening: Chinatown (Dir: Roman Polanski, 1974, USA)
• Bordwell and Thompson, pp.46-49
• Reader: Michael Sragow, “Chinatown: The Roman Version”; Roman Polanski, from Roman; John Cawelti, “Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films”
• Second Essay Assigned

Week XIV

• Screening: Bonnie and Clyde (Dir: Arthur Penn, 1967, USA)
• Reader: Newsweek, “Crime: The Law Cancels a few Debts With the Underworld”; Bonnie Parker, “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde”; John Toland, from The Dillinger Days; David Cook, from A History of Narrative Film; Bosley Crowther, “Screen: ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ Arrives”
• Second Essay Due

Week XV

• Screening: Twelve Monkeys (Dir: Terry Gilliam, 1995, USA)
• Reader: Terry Gilliam with Nick James, “Time and the Machine”; Thomas Roy, “From the Evangelist”; J.D. Lafrance, “Dangerous Visions”

Week XVI

• Screening: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo hu cang long) (Dir: Ang Lee, 2000, China-Hong Kong-Taiwan-USA)
• Reader: Philip Kemp, “Stealth and Duty”; Stephanie Zacharek, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”

Week XVII

• Final Examination