Revised Syllabus

Course: FILM 2400 – Film Theory
Term: Fall-Winter 2008/2009 (full year course)
Prerequisite: FA/FILM 1010 3.00, FA/FILM 1020 3.00, FA/FILM 1400 6.00. Corequisites: FA/FILM 2010 6.00, FA/FILM 2020 3.00, FA/FILM 2120 6.00.
Course Instructor: Temenuga Trifonova
Office: Centre for Film and Theatre, Room 215
Office Hours: Thursdays 12-1pm, or by appointment
E-mail: temenuga@yorku.ca
Tutors: Malcolm Morton, Elijah Horwatt, Cameron Moneo
Time and Location:
Lectures: Curtis Lecture Hall G, Thursdays 8:30-11:30am

Expanded Course Description
What is the relationship between film and reality? What distinguishes film from the other arts? How do films signify? Is cinema a kind of language? How is the film viewer’s subjectivity constructed by the cinematographic apparatus and by particular film techniques? This course provides an overview of the major areas of film theory indispensable for an understanding of the cinema. Topics include: Antecedents of Film Theory, Classical Film Theory, Authorship and Auteur Theory, Genre Theory, Cinema and Ideology, Structuralism, Semiotics, Psychoanalysis, Performance Theory, Feminist Theory, Reception Theory, Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction and Postmodernism, Queer Theory, Cognitive and Analytic Theory, Historiography, Race and Representation, National and Transnational Cinemas, Film Remakes and Sequels, Philosophy of Film. Lectures will be supplemented by film screenings. Tutorial meetings will be the main locus for discussion of required and recommended reading and assignments in the course. The required readings are central to the course. The lectures and tutorials will serve to enrich, clarify, and illustrate crucial issues from the assigned readings.

Course Learning Objectives
(1) The purpose of this course is to help students critically evaluate the major developments in film theory from the early period to the present, to look for meaningful connections between the various texts they read, and to consider the changes in their critical reception over the years.
(2) The specific objectives of the course are that students will be able to:
• acquire a firm grasp of the history of film theory
• read critically dense theoretical texts
• apply a variety of theoretical approaches to a range of cinematic texts

Course Text / Readings
Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism, 6th ed. (New York & Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004). Available at the university bookstore.
Additional readings may be assigned or recommended during the course.

Grading: The grading scheme for the course conforms to the 9-point grading system used in undergraduate programs at York (e.g., A+ = 9, A = 8, B+ - 7, C+ = 5, etc.). Assignments and tests will bear either a letter grade designation or a corresponding number grade (e.g. A+ = 90 to 100, A = 80 to 90, B+ = 75 to 79, etc.)
(For a full description of York grading system see the York University Undergraduate Calendar - http://calendars.registrar.yorku.ca/pdfs/ug2004cal/calug04_5_acadinfo.pdf)

Assignment submission: Proper academic performance depends on students doing their work not only well, but on time. Accordingly, assignments for this course must be received on the due date specified for the assignment. Assignments are to be handed in at the end of class.

Lateness Penalty: Assignments received later than the due date will be penalized one-half letter grade (1 grade point) per day that the assignment is late. Exceptions to the lateness penalty for valid reasons such as illness, compassionate grounds etc. may be entertained by the Course Instructor but will require supporting documentation (e.g., a doctor’s letter).

Missed Tests: Students with a documented reason for missing a course test, such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc., which is confirmed by supporting documentation (e.g., doctor’s letter) may request accommodation from the Course Instructor (e.g. they may be allowed to write a make-up test on a date specified by the Course Instructor.) Further extensions or accommodation will require students to submit a formal petition to the Faculty.

IMPORTANT COURSE INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS
All students are expected to familiarize themselves with the following information, available on the Senate Committee on Curriculum & Academic Standards webpage (see Reports, Initiatives, Documents)
http://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/senate_cte_main_pages/ccas.htm
* York’s Academic Honesty Policy and Procedures/Academic Integrity Website
* Ethics Review Process for research involving human participants
* Course requirement accommodation for students with disabilities, including physical, medical, systemic, learning and psychiatric disabilities
* Student Conduct Standards
* Religious Observance Accommodation

Academic Honesty and Integrity
York students are required to maintain high standards of academic integrity and are subject to the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty
(http://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/legislation/senate/acadhone.htm).
There is also an academic integrity website with complete information about academic honesty. Students are expected to review the materials on the Academic Integrity website (http://www.yorku.ca/academicintegrity/students.htm).
Access/Disability
York provides services for students with disabilities (including physical, medical, learning and psychiatric disabilities) needing accommodation related to teaching and evaluation methods/materials. It is the student's responsibility to register with disability services as early as possible to ensure that appropriate academic accommodation can be provided with advance notice. You are encouraged to schedule a time early in the term to meet with each professor to discuss your accommodation needs. Failure to make these arrangements may jeopardize your opportunity to receive academic accommodations.
Additional information is available at www.yorku.ca/disabilityservices or from disability service providers:
• Office for Persons with Disabilities: N108 Ross, 416-736-5140, www.yorku.ca/opd
• Learning and Psychiatric Disabilities Programs - Counselling & Development Centre: 130 BSB, 416-736-5297, www.yorku.ca/cdc
• Atkinson students - Atkinson Counselling & Supervision Centre: 114 Atkinson, 416-736- 5225, www.yorku.ca/atkcsc
• Glendon students - Glendon Counselling & Career Centre: Glendon Hall 111, 416-487- 6709, www.glendon.yorku.ca/counselling

Ethics Review Process
York students are subject to the York University Policy for the Ethics Review Process for Research Involving Human Participants. In particular, students proposing to undertake research involving human participants (e.g., interviewing the director of a company or government agency, having students complete a questionnaire, etc.) are required to submit an Application for Ethical Approval of Research Involving Human Participants at least one month before you plan to begin the research. If you are in doubt as to whether this requirement applies to you, contact your Course Director immediately.

Religious Observance Accommodation
York University is committed to respecting the religious beliefs and practices of all members of the community, and making accommodations for observances of special significance to adherents. Should any of the dates specified in this syllabus for an in-class test or examination pose such a conflict for you, contact the Course Director within the first three weeks of class. Similarly, should an assignment to be completed in a lab, practicum placement, workshop, etc., scheduled later in the term pose such a conflict, contact the Course director immediately. Please note that to arrange an alternative date or time for an examination scheduled in the formal examination periods (December and April/May), students must complete an Examination Accommodation Form, which can be obtained from Student Client Services, Student Services Centre or online at http://www.registrar.yorku.ca/pdf/exam_accommodation.pdf

Student Conduct
Students and instructors are expected to maintain a professional relationship characterized by courtesy and mutual respect and to refrain from actions disruptive to such a relationship. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the instructor to maintain an appropriate academic atmosphere in the classroom, and the responsibility of the student to cooperate in that endeavour. Further, the instructor is the best person to decide, in the first instance, whether such an atmosphere is present in the class. A statement of the policy and procedures involving disruptive and/or harassing behaviour by students in academic situations is available on the York website
http://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/legislation/senate/harass.htm
Please note that this information is subject to periodic update. For the most current information, please go to the CCAS webpage (see Reports, Initiatives, Documents): http://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/senate_cte_main_pages/ccas.htm.

FALL TERM

Evaluation
Tutorial attendance and participation: 10%
Tutorial quizzes (best 4 of 5): 10%
Short essay I (4 pages): 20%
Exam I (Take Home Exam Distributed February 19, Due February 26): 30%
Essay I (7-10 pages, Due March 5): 30%

September 4: What is Film Theory?
Screening:
C’est arrivé près de chez vous / Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992)
Readings:
Branston, Gill. “Why Theory?” in Reinventing Film Studies 18-33 (reserve)
Dyer, Richard. “Introduction to Film Studies” in Film Studies: Critical Approaches, eds. John Hill and Pamela Higson 1-8 (reserve)
Stam, Robert. “The Antecedents of Film Theory” and “Film and Film Theory: The Beginnings” in Robert Stam, Film Theory: An Introduction 10-22 (reserve)

September 11: Classical Film Theory: The Formalist Impulse
Screening:
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Readings:
Eisenstein, Sergei. “Beyond the Shot [The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram]”, Braudy and Cohen 13-23
Eisenstein, Sergei. “The Dramaturgy of Film Form [The Dialectical Approach to Film Form]”, Braudy and Cohen 23-40
Arnheim, Rudolf. “Film and Reality”, Braudy and Cohen 322-326
Arnheim, Rudolf. “The Making of a Film”, Braudy and Cohen 326-331
Carroll, Noël. “Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory: The Specificity Theory”, Braudy and Cohen 332-338

September 18: Classical Film Theory: The Ontology of Film
Screening:
Il Deserto rosso / Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964)
Readings:
Bazin, André. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”, Braudy and Cohen 166-170
Bazin, André. “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema”, Braudy and Cohen 41-53

September 25: Questions of Realism
Screening:
The Lumière Brothers’ first films (selections):
Sortie des usines Lumière (Lumière bros., France, 1895)
Démolition d’un mur (Lumière bros., France, 1895)
Déjeuner de bébé (Lumière bros., France, 1895)
Enfants aux jouets (Lumière bros., France, 1895)
Partie d’écarté (Lumière bros., France, 1895)
Arroseur arrosé (Lumière bros., France, 1895)
Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica, 1952)
Readings:
Kracauer, Siegfried. “The Establishment of Physical Existence”, Braudy and Cohen 303-314
Panofsky, Erwin. “Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures”, Braudy and Cohen 289-302
Prince, Stephen. “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory”, Braudy and Cohen 270-282

October 2: Film and the Other Arts
DUE: Short Essay
Screening:
Beckett on Film, 2001
Not I / directed by Neil Jordan
Ohio impromptu / directed by Charles Sturridge
Play / directed by Anthony Minghella
Act without words I / directed by Karel Reisz
Breath / directed by Damien Hirst
Une partie de campange / A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1936)
Readings:
Münsterberg, Hugo. “The Means of the Photoplay”, Braudy and Cohen 411-418
Arnheim, Rudolf. “The Complete Film”, Braudy and Cohen 183-186
Bazin, André. “Theater and Cinema”, Braudy and Cohen 418-429
Sontag, Susan. “Theater and Film”, Styles of Radical Will 99-123 (reserve)
Chatman, Seymour. “What Novels Can Do That Films Can’t (and Vice Versa)”, Braudy and Cohen 445-461

October 9 Yom Kippur. No class.

October 16: Authorship and Auteur Theory
Screening:
Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
Readings:
Sarris, Andrew. “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”, Braudy and Cohen 561-565
Wollen, Peter. “The Auteur Theory,” Braudy and Cohen 565-581
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author” in Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern (reserve)
Andrew, Dudley. “The Unauthorized Auteur Today” in Film Theory Goes to the Movies, 77-86 (reserve)
October 23: Genre Theory
Screening:
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
Readings:
Altman, Rick. A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre”, Braudy and Cohen 680-691
Krutnik, Frank. “Genre and the Problem of Film Noir”, In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity, 15-29 (reserve)
Borde, Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton. “Toward a Definition of Film Noir” (pp. 5-13) and “The Sources of Film Noir” (pp.15-28) in Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, A Panorama of American Film Noir (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002) (reserve)

February 5: Cinema and Ideology
Screening:
Rambo: First Blood, part II (George Cosmatos, 1985)
Readings:
Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (reserve)
Comolli, Jean-Luc and Jean Narboni, “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism”, Braudy and Cohen 812-820

February 12: Structuralism
Screening:
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)
Readings:
Barthes, Roland. “Myth Today,” Mythologies, 109-159 (reserve)

February 19: Semiotics TAKE HOME EXAMS DISTRIBUTED
Screening:
Two or Three Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
Readings:
Rosen, Philip. “Introduction: The Saussurian Impulse and Cinema Semiotics” in Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, Philip Rosen, ed. (reserve)
Metz, Christian. “Some Points in the Semiotics of the Cinema”, Braudy and Cohen 65-72
Metz, Christian. “Problems of Denotation in the Fiction Film”, Braudy and Cohen 72-87
Wollen, Peter. “Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent d’Est”, Braudy and Cohen 525-533

WINTER TERM

Evaluation
Tutorial attendance and participation: 10%
Tutorial quizzes (best 5 of 6): 10%
Short essay II (4 pages, due April 9): 20%
Exam II (April 16): 30%
Essay II (7-10 pages, Due May 25): 30%

March 5: Spectatorship
Screening:
Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
Readings:
Metz, Christian. “From The Imaginary Signifier”, Baudry and Cohen 820-836
Baudry, Jean-Louis. “The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema”, Baudry and Cohen 206-223
Carroll, Noël. “Jan-Louis Baudry and ‘The Apparatus’”, Baudry and Cohen 224-239
Heath, Stephen. “On Suture” in Questions of Cinema, 76-113 (reserve)
Pribram, E. Diedre. “Spectatorship and Subjectivity” in Toby Miller and Robert Stam, eds. A Companion to Film Theory (optional)

MARCH 6: Thomas Elsaesser IN PERSON at Cinematheque Ontario

March 12: Cinematic Excess
Screening:
Ichi the Killer (Takashi Miike, 2001)
Readings:
Thompson, Kristin. “The Concept of Cinematic Excess”, Braudy and Cohen 513-525
Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess”, Braudy and Cohen 727-742
Sconce, Jeffrey. “‘Trashing’ the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style,” Braudy and Cohen 534-553

March 19: Stars and Performance
Screening:
Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945)
Reading:
Ellis, John. “Stars as a Cinematic Phenomenon”, Braudy and Cohen 598-606
Allen, Robert. “The Role of the Star in Film History [Joan Crawford]”, Braudy and Cohen 606-620
Haskell, Molly. “Female Stars of the 1940s”, Braudy and Cohen 620-634
Heath, Stephen. “Film Performance” in Questions of Cinema, 113-131 (reserve)
Miriam Hansen, “Valentino and Female Spectatorship,” 634-652 (optional)

March 26: NO CLASS (I am away at a conference)

April 2: Feminist Theory
Screening:
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Reading:
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Braudy and Cohen 837-848
de Lauretis, Teresa. “Rethinking Women’s Cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist Theory” in
Stam, Robert and Toby Miller, eds. Film & Theory: An Anthology (reserve)
Doane, Mary Ann. “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator” in The Film Studies Reader, J. Hollows, P. Hutchings & Mark Jancovich, eds. (reserve)
Modleski, Tania. “The Master’s Dollhouse: Rear Window”, Braudy and Cohen 849-862

April 9: Reception Theory SHORT ESSAY DUE
Screening:
All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)
Reading:
Thomas Elsaesser, “Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama” in Home is Where the Heart Is (ed. Christine Gledhill) (reserve)
King, Noel. “Hermeneutics, Reception Aesthetics, and Film Interpretation” in John Hill & Pamela Church Gibson, eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies
Staiger, Janet. “Modes of Reception” and “The Perversity of Spectators: Expanding the History of the Classical Hollywood Cinema” in Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception
Pribram, E. Diedre. “Spectatorship and Subjectivity” in Toby Miller and Robert Stam, eds. A Companion to Film Theory

April 16: The Cinematic Avant-Garde IN CLASS EXAM
Screening:
The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Stan Brakhage, 1971)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, US, 1943)
Readings:
Deren, Maya. “Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality”, Braudy and Cohen 187-198
Brakhage, Stan. “From Metaphors of Vision”, Braudy and Cohen 199-205
Gunning, Tom. “An Aesthetics of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator,” Braudy and Cohen 862-877

April 23: Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction and Post Modernism
Screening:
Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999)
Reading:
Brunette, Peter. “Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction” in John Hill & Pamela Church Gibson, eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (reserve)
Hill, John. “Film and Postmodernism” in John Hill & Pamela Church Gibson, eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (reserve)
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. eds., 6th ed. Film Theory and Criticism, 791-812

April 30: Queer Theory
Screening:
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
Reading:
“Everyone’s Here for Love: Bisexuality and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” 131-155 in Alexander Doty, Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon (reserve)
Smelik, Anneke. “Gay and Lesbian Criticism” in John Hill & Pamela Church Gibson, eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (reserve)
Doty, Alexander. “There’s Something Queer Here” in The Film Studies Reader, J. Hollows, P. Hutchings & Mark Jancovich, eds. (reserve)
Erhart, Julia. “Laura Mulvey Meets Catherine Tramell Meets the She-Man: Counter History, Reclamation, and Incongruity in Lesbian, Gay, Queer Film and Media Criticism” in Toby Miller and Robert Stam, eds., A Companion to Film Theory (reserve)

May 7: Cognitive and Analytic Theory
Screening:
Un Chien Andalou (Luis Bunuel, 1929) and Following (Christopher Nolan, 1998)
Readings:
Prince, Stephen. “The Discourse of Pictures: Iconicity and Film Studies”, Braudy and Cohen 87-105
Bordwell, David. “Contemporary Film Studies and the Vicissitudes of Grand Theory” in Post Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (reserve)
Bordwell, David. “Making Films Mean” (1-18) and “Routines and Practices” (19-40) in Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (reserve)

May 14: Postcolonial theory
Screening:
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1971)
Readings:
Stam, Robert and Louise Spence. “Colonialism, Racism, and Representation: An Introduction,” Braudy and Cohen 877-892
Teshome Gabriel, “Toward a Critical Theory of Third World Films” in Cinemas of the Black Diaspora, 70-90 (reserve)
Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam, “The Third Worldist Film” in Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, 248-292 (reserve)

May 21: Film and Philosophy
Screening:
Eclipse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
Readings:
Deleuze, Gilles. “Beyond the Movement Image,” Braudy and Cohen 250-270
Hanson, Karen. “Minerva in the Movies: Relations between Philosophy and Film” in Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology, Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi, eds. (reserve)
Russell, Bruce. “The Philosophical Limits of Film” in Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology, Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi, eds. (reserve)