Concordia University Department of Cinema 1992—1993 FILM STUDIES SEMINARS, NEW COURSES, AND SUMMER SESSION I. FILM STUDIES SEMINARS Are you acing B+ or higher work in your Film Studies courses? If you are, then think seriously about taking the Film Studies seminars in 1992-1993. There will be four seminars limited to 12 students each. The seminars are described below, and you can get more information by talking to the instructor or a Film Studies advisor. You will find that the seminars allow a level of participation not usually possible in the larger classes and also that students often have more independence in selecting the topic for their term work in seminars. Permission is required to register in the seminars. It is best if you talk to the instructor to get permission, but you may also ask Film Studies advisers for permission. The Film Studies advisers are: Professors Rist, Russell, Falsetto and Zucker. Film Production students are encouraged to take these seminars, and there will be a Film Studies adviser at each of the April Film Production group advising days (April 8 & 9). However, since some of the seminars may be full by that time, you should ask for a letter of permission before then. FMST 409/4 Seminar in Women and Film (3 credits) Prerequisite: Written permission of the Department of Cinema. [It is also recommended that students have taken FMST 329 (Women and Film)]. Instructor: Katie Russell This seminar provides an opportunity to further explore the issues introduced in FMST 329 (Women and Film). We will look at the ways that feminist film theory and criticism has developed in terms of a double thrust: on one hand, the critique of mainstream, realist and patriarchal cinema, and on the other, women’s alternative cultural practice. The theoretical orientation of the course will be largely framed through poststructuralist and postmodern readings and writings of gender. In other words, a great deal of the theory we will be reading approaches Hollywood cinema in terms of resistance and internal critique, and appreciates the heterogeneous address and audience of women’s cinema. Selected readings and films will further address the intersection of gender with discourses of race, class, ethnicity and sexual orientation. FMST 416C/2 Seminar: Problems in Film History I (3 credits) Special Subject: Revolutionary Cuban Cinema —NEW— Prerequisite: Written permission of the Department of Cinema. Instructor: Peter Rist Abandoned by its East European allies, Cuba’s isolation and economic woes are more pronounced now than at any time since the revolution. Understandably, film production is virtually at a stand still. Nevertheless, nothing can diminish the great achievements in Cuban Cinema of the 1960’s and 1970’s, when so many challenging works were made, providing a model of revolutionary film form for people involved in film movements in Latin America and other, emerging Third World nations. This limited enrolment course will investigate the most significant tendencies followed by ICAIC filmmakers from the mid—sixties to the present day, including a commitment to documentary style and Julio Garcia Espinosa’s notion of “imperfect cinema.” The writings of other Third World film theorists such as Rocha and Solanas will also be considered in relation to the films screened in— class as will Brecht’s principles of epic theatre. In particular, we will explore the attempts made by Cuban directors such as Solas, Giral, Vega, Gutierrez Alea, Tabio, Manuel Octavio and —— Sarah Gomez ——at creating popular works which simultaneously challenge the spectator to develop 1 a clearer understanding of Cuban history and film aesthetics (wherein a connection between th phenomenally successful Cuban literacy programme and film education will be drawn). Solas’ Luc~ will provide the focus for an extended analysis of Cuban/film history, while some lesser knowr films e.g., The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin, The First Charge of the Machete, The Other —— Francisco, House for Swap will be featured. At least one of the two course requirements wi~_ —— consist of an in—class presentation. FMST 4~9/4 Seminar sur Le cinema québecois (3 credits) Prealable: Film Studies 315 (215), ou COMS 316 avec permission ecrite du départementde Cinema. Un seminaire dans lequel des aspects selectifs du cinema québecois sont analyses et discutes. Les sujets d’étudechoisis varient selon la spécialisationde l’instructeur. FMST 424/2 Seminar in Film Narrative (3 credits) Prerequisite: Written permission of the Department of Cinema (See Instructor, Carole Zucker) The course will deal with a variety of issues concerning the way in which stories are told in cinema. Different styles of narrative: classical, “art—cinema,” and parametric will be examined. The way in which time and space are used as narrative techniques will be studied as well. Other issues to be investigated will be: the viewer’s activity in constructing the story, various types of point—of—view, character theory, archetypal criticism and the use of the fairy tale structure in narrative. Films will be screened each week during the class time, to be studied in relation to a specific narrative theory. Texts will include works by Aristotle, Booth, Bordwell, Chatman, Eagleton, Frye, Genette, Propp, and Tcdorov, among others. Students will be required to do an in- class oral presentation as well as a term paper. II. SPECIM~ FILM STUDIES COURSES The courses listed below are courses which are not among the courses given every year or every second year in Film Studies. Hence, they may not be given again while you are at Concordia. FMST 335B/4 Aspects of National Cinemas (3 credits) Special Subject: Indian Cinema Prerequisite: Second Year Standing*, or written permission of the Department of Cinema. Instructor: Thomas Waugh This survey of the cinema of the largest film industry and the most dynamic film culture in the world is offered again in 1992. A range of historical, generic and regional styles will be scrutinized: from the mythological epic and the Bombay/Madras musical extravaganza to the “New Wave” art fiction of the last generation by such directors as Mrinal Sen and Shyam Benegal. Special topics given particular emphasis will be the current renaissance of independent socia_ issue documentary, and the cinema of Bengali director Satyajit Ray. Weekly meetings on Tuesday evenings from 18:00 to 22:00, in the second term note the change, —— from Wednesday, first term include screenings of feature films, lectures and discussion. —— Course requirements will include a term essay on a selected aspect of Indian cinema, and a screening diary. FMST 337BJ4L Topics in American Cinema I (3 credits) Special SuIject: The 1970’s Prerequisite: Second Year Standing* Instructor: Mario Falsetto An examination of the most crucial decade in the history of contemporary American cinema. This was a decade that saw a tremendous number of key filmmakers create major work. The course will 2 study films and filmmakers within a cultural, social, political and aesthetic context with a focu. on feature—length, fiction film. The changing structure of the film industry will be explore as well as issues related to audience reception of films. The course will also examine th relationship of narrative film and the Vietnam war and Watergatre scandal. How and why did thesE two key events impact on so many films of the decade? Course topics will range from generic t auteur studies, with a particular focus on the narrative and aesthetic experimentation found ii many films of the decade. Among the filmmakers to be studied are: Scorsese, Coppola, Altman Kubrick, Penn, Malick, Cassavetes, DePalma, Polanski and Spielberg. Weekly screenings, lectures and discussions. FMST 398G/2 Special Topics in Film Studies (3 credits) Special Subject: Film Theory —NEW— Prerequisite: Second Year Standing*; Written permission of the Department of Cinema Instructor: Katie Russell Film Theory from the 1950’s to the 1990’s will be the focus of this class. The course wil. provide an introduction to semiotics, structuralism, post—structuralism, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, feminist film theory and cultural studies, as they pertain to film practice anc film criticism. We will study the central authors, issues and texts associated with thesE approaches to cinema in order to understand them, but also to criticize them and situate thee historically. Weekly screenings will include films that have generated some of this theory, a~ well as work that enables us to question the assumptions of different theorists. FMST 399A/3 Special Topics in Film Studies (6 credits) Special Subject: Lesbian and Gay Cinema -NEW— Prerequisite: Written permission of the Department of Cinema** Instructors: Thomas Waugh/Ms. X (TEA) An undergraduate lecture course surveying the history and theory of lesbian and gay representatior in the cinema. Interdisciplinary in orientation, the course is crosslisted in two othei programmes, both in the Faculty of Arts and Science, Communication Studies and Women’s Studies and may be taken as an elective if registered through those departments: COMS 499/3 “Advanced Topics in Communication Studies!v WSDB 399/3 “Selected Topics in Women’s Studies” The course’s historical component would begin with the first stirrings of international lesbiar and gay cinema in the post-World War I generation, high—lighting such directors as Jean Coctea~ and Dorothy Arzner. the subsequent periods of this chronology will include, for example, avant- garde work in the U.S. beginning in the l950s, and the emerging directors of the European ar~ cinema, from Pasolini and Fassbinder to Jacqueline Audry and Chantal Akerman. At the same time, the problematic of lesbian and gay authorship will be explored: unknown voices will be reclaimec and known authors will be “re—read.” the interdisciplinary theoretical approach of the coursE will engage with feminist scholarship around gender and representation and with recent debates around alterity and poetcolonialism, with a view to defining a specific lesbian and gay critica practice. Emphasis will be placed on the multicultural origins of lesbian and gay voices withi: artistic and critical practice. The theory of stereotype and the visual representation oi minorities will also be addressed, alongside the historical factor of the aesthetics of scarcit~ in lesbian representation. Weekly class meetings on Monday evenings 18:00 to 22:00 will include screenings and regula~ tutorials. FMST 411A/2 Advanced Studies in Film Genres Special Subject: Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy Film Prerequisite: FMST 211, FMST 322 or COMS 310 Instructor: Carole Zucker The course will be a chronological examination of the three intersecting and overlapping genres Films will be looked at in relation to a variety of art forms, such as literature and painting 3 and methodologies or modes of thought, e.g. psychoanalysis and feminism. Emphasis will be plac~c on understanding the meaning, construction and historical evolution of genre. Films screened will range from Surrealist and German Expressionist works to films by James Whale, Jacques Tourneur, Brian De Palma, David Crcnenberg, Wes Craven, Dario Argento and George Romero, among others. Written work required. III SUMNER FILM STUDIES COURSE FMST 313/1 Film Comedy I Prerequisite: Second—year standing* Instructor: TBA Film Comedy I provides a survey of both silent and sound comedy and a theoretical introduction to the art of film comedy. Films are analyzed to understand the mechanics of their humour. Such factors as comic persona, plot structure, sound, editing, camera angle and distance are isolated to understand how they contribute to create the film’s “comic climate.” Although the course surveys the development of comic traditions and of major comic artists, the organization of the course is according to topic as well as period. Analysis of the types of comedy, historical sources, national traditions and theories of humour accompany a presentation of films from the beginning of the century to the present. Fewer than 66 credits remaining in the programme. * Students with second—year standing* in any programme do not need ** written permission of the Department of Cinema. Students may register for this course under one number only.