Winter 2008 Courses
For a full listing of all WINTER 2008 courses that fulfill Film studies lower and upper division requirements, please click here.
Film Studies 1 (4 units)
Joshua Clover
LECTURE: MW 3:10 - 4:00
FILM VIEWING: M 6:10 - 9:00
DISCUSSION SECTIONS:
- Section 1 (T 3:10 - 4:00), CRN 25090
- Section 2 (T 5:10 - 6:00), CRN 25091
- Section 3 (R 3:10 - 4:00), CRN 25092
- Section 4 (T 11:00 - 11:50), CRN 25093
- Section 5 (R 5:10 - 6:00), CRN 25094
- Section 6 (F 12:10 - 1:00), CRN 25095
Description of Course: WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT MOVIES: This is an introduction to the serious analysis of film. We will watch "movies about movies": films in which movies are made, watched, and/or discussed inside the film's frame. The goal is not to study that category, but to use it as a stage for asking two basic questions: "What makes a movie a movie and not something else?" and "What were the conditions that allowed film to become the exemplary mass art of the 20th century?" In addition to acquiring and using the formal vocabulary of film and film analysis, we will focus on the relationship between culture and economics, and the ways in which cinema shapes and is shaped by our own understandings of the world. There will be quizzes and regular written assignments. Not open to students who have completed HUM 10. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.
Prerequisite: None.
Textbook: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction with Tutorial CD-ROM.
Film Studies 124 (4 units): REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN AMERICAN FILM HISTORY
Michelle Yates, CRN: 43409
LECTURE: TR 2:10 - 3:00
FILM VIEWING: T 5:10 - 8:00
Description of Course: This course will focus on Hollywood films from the 1920s to the 1970s for which the environment and human-nature relationships are central to the narrative structure. From Nanook of the North (1922) to Them! (1954), Bambi (1942) to Soylent Green (1973), the three main modes of film production and genre this course will cover are: documentary, animation, and narrative film. How do these films represent ecological crisis as well aswho or what is responsible for environmental degradation? Do these films represent humans as part of nature or somehow separate from it? Do these films represent nature as a force controllable by humans or somehow a force for humans to reckon with? In asking these focal questions, this course will also cover broader issues around technology and science, culture, economics and history as it relates to the development of the American cinema from the 1920s to the 1970s. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Prerequisite: Course 1.
Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours.
Textbooks: A Reader will be available for purchase.
Film Studies 142 (4 units): NEW GERMAN CINEMA
Harriett Jernigan, CRN: 43496
LECTURE: TR 12:10 - 1:30
Description of Course: German filmmakers of the 1960s-1980s such as Fassbinder, Herzog, Syberberg, Brückner, Schlõndorf, Kluge, Wenders. Knowledge of German not required. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. (Same course as Film Studies 142). GE Credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Course Format: Lecture and discussion - 3 hours.
Prerequisite: None.
Textbook: Julia Knight, New German Cinema: Images of a Generation.
Courses from Other Departments
UWP 102A-1: Writing in Film Studies
Pamela Demory, University Writing Program phdemory@ucdavis.edu, CRN: 42204
LECTURE: MW 4:40 - 6
This course is designed for upper-division students in Film Studies, Technocultural Studies, English, American Studies, or any other discipline that includes the analysis and understanding of film as a medium. In class, we will analyze and discuss a number of classic and contemporary Hollywood films (which will be required viewing outside of class) and a selection of essays (including analyses of individual films, film theory, movie reviews, academic research papers). The course is primarily a discussion and workshop course - not a lecture course - so students will often work together in small groups and present their ideas orally as well as in writing. Students will write papers of various kinds, including an analysis of film form, a critical analysis (employing genre, auteur, historical, ideological, or popular culture approaches), a research paper or script proposal, and a film review. We will discuss how to analyze the rhetorical situation of a given writing task; how to effectively use the terminology of film studies; how to plan, draft, and revise papers; and how to do research in film studies - including using specialized library databases.
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