Fall 2008 Courses
Film Studies 1 (4 units)
Liz Constable
LECTURE: MW 2:10 - 3:00
FILM VIEWING: W 6:10 - 9:00
DISCUSSION SECTIONS:
- Section 1 (R 9:00 - 9:50), CRN 64909
- Section 2 (T 4:10 - 5:00), CRN 64910
- Section 3 (R 3:10 - 4:00), CRN 64911
- Section 4 (M 5:10 - 6:00), CRN 64912
- Section 5 (F 9:00 - 9:50), CRN 64913
- Section 6 (F 12:10 - 1:00), CRN 64914
- Section 7 (M 6:10 - 7:00), CRN 64915
- Section 8 (T 3:10 - 4:00), CRN 64916
Description of Course: GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.
Prerequisite: None.
Textbook(s): Bordwell, Film Art (w/cd).
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Film Studies 124 (4 units): U.S. Film History
Eric Smoodin, CRN: 84174
LECTURE: TR 9:00 - 10:20
FILM VIEWING: T 3:10 - 4:00
Description of Course: This quarter we will engage in an intensive examination of a single year in US film history: 1934. The year is marked by a number of significant films: It Happened One Night,
The Merry Widow, The Gay Divorcee, and The Thin Man, to name just a few. But concentrating on this year alone also lets us study important developments in the film industry, in relations between the
industry and the audience, and in the development of a number of institutional practices related to film (in government, journalism, education, etc.). So, we will use a single year to understand issues
related to, among other things, film style, censorship, audience, business practices, and the international scope of American cinema. GE Credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Course format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours.
Prerequisite: Course 1.
Textbooks: A reader will be available.
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Film Studies 125 (4 units): FILM GENRES: Science Fiction Films
Joshua Clover, CRN: 83279
LECTURE: MWF 12:10 - 1:00
FILM VIEWING: W 6:10 - 9:00
Description of Course: We will watch science fiction films and read books in order to think about the problem of ideology in the contemporary world. Sometimes these connections will be obvious, as
in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Cold War; sometimes less so, as in The Matrix and the end-of-the-century information worker.
Among the many descriptions of science fiction, one suggests that it is a way to address the crises of the present moment by displacing those crises in time and space -- shifting them into more and
less different situations in which otherwise unimaginable problems and solutions become imaginable. Meanwhile, "ideology" might be described as the invisible limits on apparently free thought. Thus these
two categories, science fiction and ideology, intersect at crossroads of "what is imaginable."
We'll view 10 largely-contemporary films, along with varied reading, in an attempt to understand what SF cinema might think, and might tell us, about ideology; what ideologies such films might offer;
and perhaps most importantly, how such films seem to find ways of visualizing this least visible of social forces.
Prerequisite: Course 1.
Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours.
Textbook(s): J. Clover, The Matrix; S. Bukatman, Blade Runner; W. Gibson, Neuromancer; M. Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction.
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Film Studies 189 (4 units): Chinese Cinema
Sheldon Lu, CRN: 83278
LECTURE: TR 1:40 - 3:00
FILM VIEWING: R 6:10 - 10:00
Description of Course: This quarter we focus on Chinese cinema. We begin with early Chinese cinema and move all the way to the twenty-first century. Students will explore the themes, styles,
aesthetics, and socio-political contexts of particular films as well as the evolution of the entire Chinese film industry. Special emphasis will be given to the New Chinese Cinema from the early 1980s to
the present moment. Representative directors and internationally renowned filmmakers will be discussed. We examine the New Chinese Cinema as an outgrowth of indigenous, national roots as well as a
necessary response to international film culture. We look at how films engage in social critique and cultural reflection, and how film artists react to the conditions and forces of socialist politics,
capitalist economics, tradition, modernization, and globalization in China and Taiwan.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours.
Prerequisite: Course 1, upper-division standing, or consent of instructor.
Textbook(s): Gary Xu, Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema; Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema.
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Film Studies 189 (4 units): New Italian Cinema
Margherita Heyer-Caput, CRN: 83339
LECTURE: TR 4:40 - 6:00
FILM VIEWING: T 7:10 - 10:00
Description of Course: This course will explore the thriving Italian cinema of the twenty-first century in relationship with the deep cultural and social changes that Italy has experienced in the
last two decades. We will witness how a young generation of Italian film-makers, from Marco Tullio Giordana to Gabriele Muccino, has overcome a paralyzing sense of "afterness" and infused Italian cinema
with a new vitality. These directors-writers-producers-lead actors have successfully coped with the inspiring but also challenging legacy of the great /auteurs/ of Italian Neorealism of the '40s and '50s
(Rossellini, De Sica, etc.) and of the art cinema of the '60s and '70s (Antonioni, Fellini, etc.), and with the disillusions suffered by the political cinema of the '80s and '90s (Rosi, Petri, the
Tavianis, etc.). The movies analyzed revisit classic genres of Italian cinema, from the /commedia all'italiana/ to historical productions, and reinvent film as a powerful art form with a social reference
and a moral accountability.
N.B.: 1) This course counts toward the Italian Major as a course in Related Fields.
2)FMS 189 may be repeated three times for credit when topics differ.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours.
Prerequisite: Course 1, upper-division standing, or consent of instructor.
Textbook(s): Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing about Film. A reader will also be used, New Italian American Cinema.
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