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Courses for 2011 / 2012
Fall/Winter 2011-2012
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2100 Level
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4400 Level
First Year
1020E: Introduction to Film Studies
As a yearlong introduction to film studies, this course will explore the concepts of film form, film aesthetics, and film style, while remaining attentive to the various ways in which cinema always also involves an interaction with both specific audiences and larger social structures. Throughout the course, we will closely examine the construction of a variety of film forms and styles—including the classical Hollywood style, new wave cinemas, experimental films, and contemporary independent and global cinemas. We will pay particular attention to the construction of film images, systems of film editing, film sound, and the varied modes of organizing these core elements (narrative, non-narrative, etc.). The second term of the course will focus on key perspectives in the history of film theory, including theories of realism, montage, spectatorship, stardom and genre. Overall, the goal of the course is to help you develop a set of skills that will enable you both to experience and analyze all forms of cinema in newly exciting (and critical) ways.
Instructors:
J. Blankenship 001 - view or download the course syllabus for this section here
M. Banks 002 - view or download the course syllabus for this section here
C. Burnetts 003 - view or download the course syllabus for this section here
2100 Level
2194B: Special Topics: Superheroes! (Banks)Superhero films and the broad-scale representation of the superhero in cinema offer multiple avenues of discussion and critique. This class will track a path in a roughly chronological fashion beginning with the first major superhero/comics adaptation, Superman (Richard Donner) in 1978, through to Christopher Nolan’s two Batman movies, Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), exploring the manners by which superhero films repeat with a difference. We will consider questions of genre, adaptation, originality, repetition, the Hollywood studio blockbuster (the politics of the sequel), and use some source intertexts in print media (here we may take advantage of recent digital archives of comics, ie. Marvel Digital Comics and The Digital Comics Museum). Likewise we will consider issues of race, gender, sexuality, nation and citizenship, violence, technology and CGI, theoretical issues of the real and simulacra, psychoanalysis, materialism, concerns of history, origins, and belonging, and the relationships between public and private identities and responsibilities and the ethics of community.
Possible course films include:
Superman (Richard Donner, 1978)
Batman (Tim Burton, 1989)
The Crow (Alex Proyas, 1994)
Blade (Stephen Norrington, 1998)
X-Men (Bryan Singer, 2000)
Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002)
Hulk (Ang Lee, 2003)
Catwoman (Pitof, 2004)
The Incredibles (2004)
Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005)
V for Vendetta (James Mc Teigue, 2006)
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (Joss Whedon, 2008)
The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
2198B: Special Topics: Ancient Greece in Film (Olson)
Is a course designed to familiarize students with the epic films of the twentieth century set in Greek antiquity, as well as more recent treatments of the topic. We will view and discuss: Clash of the Titans (1981 and 2010); Jason and the Argonauts (1963 and 2000); Helen of Troy (1955); Troy (2004); Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (2010); Alexander the Great (1960) and Alexander (2004); O Brother Where Art Thou (2000) and The Odyssey (1997); The 300 Spartans (1962) and 300 (2007). Topics will include the cinematic uses of the past; the differences between history and Hollywood mythology; and how the portrayal of cinematic Greece has changed over time. In viewing and discussion, students will be encouraged to explore the selection and presentation of historical facts and situations, mytho-historical accuracy, and the conventions inherent in epic films.
2200 Level
2200F: Film Theories, Criticisms, Histories (Falkowska)
The course will provide an introductory overview of some of the major trends and methods of analyzing film. We will examine a range of the most important approaches of film theory, criticism, and history focusing on key representative writings. Across the course, we will explore how these writings either set apart or engage with the broader social, political, historical, and (trans) national contexts of a film text. Specifically, we will learn how to engage in theoretical arguments in order to produce a stronger reading of film texts.
In this writing-intensive course, you will learn how to shape film theoretical, critical, and historical writings of your own and supplement your own readings of a film with these ideas. You will also learn how to apply these complex historical and theoretical ideas in your essay and how to engage in a dialogue with both the cinematic and written materials we encounter.
To download the course syllabus click here
Film 2220G: Special Topics: Archive Images (Bello)
The objective of this course is to present the students the broad horizon of possibilities inherent to the use of pre-existent images to tell stories. The course will be focused on the basic skills to deal with photos and film archives and databases, and the use of these records as a source for documentary storytelling. Students will receive information about preservation, restoration and management of still and moving images.
Film 2242F: National Cinemas: From Berlin to Hollywood: German Exile Cinema (Nagl)
This course explores the transnational dialectics between German cinema and Hollywood, with a special focus on directors and actors who emigrated to the U.S. including Fritz Lang, Marlene Dietrich, F. W. Murnau, Peter Lorre, Billy Wilder, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Ernst Lubitsch. We will trace the influence of Weimar cinema on Hollywood productions of the 1930s and 1940s, taking into consideration diverse genres including melodrama, film noir, the anti-Nazi film, comedy, and horror. We will explore how the experience of displacement shaped the exiles’ sense of identity and film-making and we will examine the ways how German film-makers in Hollywood reacted to fascism and World War II.
To download the course syllabus click here
Film 2243G: National Cinemas: Haunted Screen: Early German Cinema (Nagl)
This course focuses on the sensational origins of cinema and the first three decades of film history in Germany. We will examine cinema as part of a wider social and technological exhibition culture that includes 19th century phantasmagoria ghost projections, magic lanterns, and the “edutainment” of microscopes, X-rays and stereoscopes. Our “media archaeology” of cinema begins with the film pioneers and showmen Max and Emil Skladanowsky (who in 1895 projected moving pictures to a paying audience several months before the Lumière brothers in Paris) and ends with early Weimar horror classics such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922). Topics might include: the transition from “attractions” to narrative; the history of film exhibition; the early star system and the European film economy; gender and genre (comedy, the detective film); cinema reformers, early film theory and the “auteur/art film”; modernity and the fantastic; propaganda and World War I; film style and problems in writing a national film history.
Please note: If you took Film 2243F/G during the previous academic year, you are still able to enroll in this course this year as the topic has changed. If you run into any registration problems, please contact Jennifer Tramble at jtramble@uwo.ca
Film 2245F: National Cinemas: The Transatlantic Hispanic World in Text and Film (Wolff)
This course will provide students with a unique opportunity to read and understand colonial texts, challenge preconceived notions of the transatlantic Hispanic colonial world, and show how colonial discourses are present in contemporary popular culture and continue to impact the world in which we live. The course will be divided into thematic modules that will explore the American, Iberian, and African worlds on the verge of conquest, the politics of the encounter (1492-1992), competing visions of the conquest, and the role of women in conquest, colonization, and colonial life. Some of the important colonial figures of the transatlantic Hispanic world that we will study in text and in film are Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, La Malinche, Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Lope de Aguirre, Catalina de Erauso or The Lieutenant Nun, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The films we will watch come from the Hispanic World, Hollywood, and the world of performance art, ethnographic, and documentary film.
This course is crosslisted with Spanish 3330F and Comparative Literature and Culture 2294F
2250F: European Movements (Falkowska)
Formerly known as Film 2252E
The course “Movements in European Film” will provide a historical background, an ideological foundation and an in-depth analysis of crucial European film movements and “waves” such as German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, Free British Cinema, French New Wave, New German Cinema, Czech New Wave, Polish School, Spanish Surrealism, Berlin School and Dogma Movement. One or two representative films for each movement will be studied for their aesthetics, narratives and ideology. Additionally, we will study the impact of these movements on world cinemas.
To download the course syllabus click here
2251E: World Cinema (Burucua)
The course will reflect upon issues and concepts in World Cinema, referring to a body of films made in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The first module of the course is organized around these geographic divisions, beginning with Latin America, where the concept of Third Cinema, which lies at the core of the later articulation of that of World Cinema, was originally formulated. Following a geographical (and somewhat chronological) order, throughout the module we shall integrate and discuss the key theoretical categories and the main historiographic strands which guide our understanding of World Cinema. In the second module of the course, the consecutive units focus on different critical approaches to particular case studies of non-Western cinemas, successively concentrating on questions concerning the representation of racial, ethnic and cultural identities, on the matter of female authorship, and on issues of genre and stardom.
To download the course syllabus click here
2253E: American Cinema (Wlodarz)
This yearlong course surveys the central industrial, technological, aesthetic, and ideological developments in the history of American cinema. We will begin with an analysis of the origins of the medium and its place in American culture at the turn-of-the-century. We will then examine the development of narrative cinematic standards and the rise and consolidation of the Hollywood studio system, paying close attention to genre, stardom, marketing, and popular reception from the 1920s to the 1960s. In addition to key technological developments such as the coming of sound and the emergence of widescreen cinema, we will also explore social anxieties about cinema's "effects," the institution of the Production Code, and the complex relationship of Hollywood film to key social crises (The Depression, WWII, McCarthyism, Civil Rights) of the period.
The second term of the course will focus on the emergence of "post-classical" Hollywood and the parallel growth of American independent cinema. Here we will explore the economic, aesthetic, and ideological transformations in American film from the social upheavals of the '60s and '70s to the contemporary era of conglomeration, globalization, and digital media. Key topics will include: the politics of genre revision, feminism and popular cinema, the fall of the Production Code, and the emergence of the international blockbuster. We will also look at the narrative and/or documentary work of African-American, Asian-American, and queer filmmakers in order to further explore the relationship of American cinema to the politics of social difference and national identity.
To download the course syllabus click here
2256G: Avant-Garde Cinema (Nagl)
This course explores the history, politics and aesthetics of American and European avant-garde film practices. We will examine the development, major trends and techniques of experimental and non-narrative film-making in relation to key art movements and theoretical debates of the 20th century. Topics include formalism, surrealism, political modernism, the culture industry, pop art, and feminism.
2258G: Canadian Cinema: Documents, Storytelling, Experiments (Norton)
This course seeks to answer historical, cultural, ideological and aesthetic questions about Canadian cinema. We will explore how cinema has reflected the complex and unstable notion of Canada as a nation, focusing upon problems of distribution and exhibition, the relation between the Canadian film industry and Hollywood, and the problem of canonization. Questions addressed include: What is the influence of the documentary tradition on Canadian cinema as a whole? Is there an innate division between Canadian “art” cinema and popular cinema? Does Canadian cinema embody two linguistic and cultural “solitudes” or are there in fact a variety of regional Canadian cinemas? Is there such a thing as a Canadian genre? Can experimental cinema provide the basis for a national cinematic movement? Can personal vision be understood in national terms?
2270F: Film Aesthetics (Bello)
This course will explore the narrative and artistic functions of basic film elements, e.g., composition, script, lightning, sound, music and editing. The main concepts will be illustrated with a wide range of audiovisual material: feature and short films,
documentaries, TV series, Internet clips and developing new media. The course will also offer an introduction to the audiovisual production process.
To download the course syllabus click here
3300 Level
3312G: Special Topics: Service Learning Experiences (Bello)
The objective of this course is to provide students with the opportunity of taking part in different community service experiences: their responsibility will be to create a visual record (journal) and produce a series of clips or shorts to communicate the experience.
3330G: National Cinemas: The Fog of War: Screening the Vietnam Conflict (Wlodarz)
Over thirty years after the fall of Saigon, America continues to fight the Vietnam War in a wide variety of political, social, and cultural contexts. Far from conquering “the Vietnam syndrome,” the U.S. has instead remained thoroughly haunted (and blinded) by its greatest military defeat. This course will explore the various ways that American film and media have documented, critiqued, and negotiated the Vietnam conflict. Although considered by many to be elusive and “unrepresentable,” the Vietnam War was also the most thoroughly mediated conflict in American history, and American film and television have long struggled to clarify (and contain) the trauma of the crisis.
Sampling a wide variety of film, media, and critical theory from the early sixties to the present, we will examine the following issues/topics: mediating history; the representation of trauma and violence; TV news and documentary interventions; gender, race, and Orientalism; anti-war films and the counterculture; Vietnam and genre revision; women and the Vietnam war; memory and memorialization; and the rehabilitation of veteran and nation. Potential screenings include: The Green Berets; The Year of the Pig; Full Metal Jacket; Platoon; Apocalypse Now; Surname Viet: Given Name Nam; China Beach; Rambo: First Blood, Part II; Hearts and Minds; Deathdream; The Quiet American; Coming Home; Medium Cool; Rolling Thunder; The Deer Hunter; Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision; Hamburger Hill; Dogfight and more.
3370F: Advanced Film Aesthetics (Bello)
This course will be focused on the understanding of the process of making a film and the underlying aesthetic/ethic decisions involved in it, through the study of a selection of contemporary documentaries and short films. The students will be also provided with notions concerning the different stages of audiovisual production and basic production skills.
To download the course syllabus click here
3371F: Film Theory (Coates)
This course might best be called ‘Pre-“Theory” and Post-“Theory”’, for it will examine some of the alternatives to the form of theorization still dominant in Film Studies: that is, to that amalgam of Marxism, feminism and post-structuralism forged so tumultuously in the aftermath of the contestation of 1968, usually known in colloquial shorthand as ‘Theory’, and oriented primarily towards ideological critique.
In order to do so, it will both acquaint students with, and remind them of, many of the key issues in what is known as classical film theory: namely, the theory of the period from the early twentieth century to the mid-‘sixties. It will be shown how the period is haunted by the persistence of questions concerning the relationship between film and the other arts, its status as perhaps not even an art, the degree of validity of the notion of film as a ‘language’, the possible specificity of the medium, the status of the cinematic body and of the unseen authorial one, and cinema’s relations with pre-existing genres, in particular the contested and problematic one designated ‘melodrama’.
It will also consider various alternatives to ‘Theory’ that have either arisen alongside it, or – as of the 1990s - in the aftermath of the ending of the period of its greatest dominance. Some of this work is virulently hostile to ‘Theory’, while some is sympathetically critical. The course will take a (hopefully representative) sample of both approaches.
To download the course syllabus click here
3373G: Theories of National Cinemas (Burucua)
The course will provide students with a critical interrogation of the concept of ²national cinema². Informed by theories of nation developed by Benedict Anderson and others, the course begins by troubling notions of nation as an organic, homogeneous, unitary entity before shifting into a study of ideology and cinematic representations of nation, and the political economies that facilitate the production of national cinemas. Readings of the ‘national’ will be underpinned by understandings of class, gender, race and sexuality. Films from various imperial, colonial, national and diasporic cinemas will be examined in the context of debates about what constitutes a national cinema.
4400 Level
4409E: Undergraduate ThesisIndividual instruction in the selection of a topic, the preparation of materials, and the writing of a thesis. Students who wish to take this course must apply to the Chair of the Department. The course is restricted to students in fourth year of an Honors Specialization in Film Studies with a high "B" average.
Note: You cannot register for the course online. You will be registered in Film 4409E by the Department once your application form has been accepted.
Application form
Evaluation form
4470G: Seminar: Film Aesthetics (Bello)
The aim of this seminar is to provide students with information and challenges that can aid them in the development of their own style as filmmakers. The sessions will be focused on asking aesthetic, ethical, organizational and technical questions, the purpose of which will lead to the discovery of the participants’ own interests and to help them to gain the necessary skills for a satisfactory completion of their projects. Understanding the filmmaking process as a communicative action, we will make special emphasis on the importance of thinking and acknowledging the presence of the potential audience while making creative decisions.
Enrollment is limited to ten students and based on the mandatory submission of a project proposal (for a video or film), along with samples of your previous work.
Note: You cannot register for this course online. You will be registered in Film 4470G by the Department once your application has been accepted.
4474F: Seminar: Blaxploitation (Wlodarz)
In the history of black cinema, seldom has a body of filmmaking been as controversial and as rife with contradiction as the so-called blaxploitation films of the early 1970s. An outgrowth of the collapse of the Hollywood studio system, the civil rights and Black Power movements, the counterculture, feminism, and gay liberation, the blaxploitation films embody the cultural crises of ‘70s America. Although the short-lived era remains tainted in the eyes of many due to valid charges of opportunism and exploitation, the cultural significance of blaxploitation cinema cannot be overestimated given its influence on both hip-hop culture and contemporary filmmaking (from Tarantino to John Singleton to the Hughes Brothers). The primary goal of this course will be to unpack the culturally loaded term "blaxploitation" in terms of its relationship to economics, audience, identity politics, art, music, stardom, and genre.
To download the course syllabus click here