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Course Offerings for 2013-2014
First Year course offerings
Theories of National Cinema (9373A) - Fall term (Burucua)
Required course
Mondays 10:30-1:30 uc 12
Wednesdays 11:30-1:30 uc 12
Throughout this course, students will become familiar with questions concerning ideas of nation, the national and the transnational, associated to film and the complex relationships between the medium, its history within different national contexts, the development of national and/or regional film industries, different modes of production (industrial, cultural, “third cinema”) and various schemes of financing. By thinking about theories of nation in terms of the debates around them, readings of the ‘national’ as an organic, homogeneous and unitary entity will be troubled. Equally, the idea of a national identity, and its representation, will be challenged and complemented by understandings of class, gender, race and sexuality. Films from different contexts of production will be analized as case studies and examined in the light of key essays written on those matters by leading scholars in the field.
Far away, so close: the scales of far and near (9211A) - Fall term (Coates)
Elective course
Mondays 2:30-5:30 uc 12
Thursdays 4:30-6:30 uc 12
Film begins…with the long-shot of the Lumières; but also, in a sense, with the close-up Griffith wished to patent and Béla Balázs deemed foundational. Jean-Luc Godard voiced a characteristically paradoxical desire to make spectators feel distant even when close (importing the alienation effect into the close-up usually eschewed by cinematic Brechtians); Wim Wenders, however, described his angels as ‘far away, so close’ – as a reality, albeit an invisible super-reality, no mere desideratum. Bearing in mind the issues raised by the juxtaposition of these facts, this course will examine what is at stake in the camera’s, and the spectator’s, emotional and/or spatial closeness to or distance from the film. Among other things, it will consider such notions as those of alienation and the haptic, and such techniques as those of the close-up, the zoom lens, and the telephoto lens, along with their use in various works – possibly including ones by Godard and Wenders, but definitely including Charulata, The Conversation, Images of the World and the Inscription of War, and Fontane Effi Briest, where adaptation distances a novel to which the filmmaker is very close.
Wartime Image Culture in Japan and its Territories (9212A) - Fall term (Raine)
Elective course
Tuesdays 10:30-1:30 uc 12
Thursdays 12:30-2:30 uc 12
This seminar explores the history and theory of cinema as part of a visual culture of "propaganda and agitation" during Japan's wars in Asia and the Pacific, 1937-1945. We will study Japanese films as part of a global 1930s "illiberal modernism" while also exploring more local sources, in prewar studio cinema, the documentary film movement, and the broader image culture of wartime Japan. Those ancillary media will include popular music, war painting, propaganda posters, photography, and advertising. We will also study how the medium was deployed in Japan's colonies (Taiwan and Korea), client states (Manchuria), and occupied territories (Eastern China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc.) during the war. All readings on the course are in English; no Japanese is required.
Research Methods (9100B) - Winter term (Falkowksa)
Required course
Mondays 1:30-4:30 uc 12
Wednesdays 1:30-3:30 uc 12
Film Theories, Criticisms, Histories (9200B) - Winter term (Falkowska)
Required course
Tuesdays 10:30-1:30 uc 12
Thursdays 12:30-2:30 uc 12
The course provides an overview of some of the major methods of analyzing film, focusing especially on some of the mid-to-late-twentieth century theoretical ideas that have shaped film studies as a discipline. We will examine the distinct but sometimes intersecting approaches of film theory, criticism and history, concentrating in particular on some of the key concepts of film theory: cinema as a system of meaning-production; theories of realism and ideology; theories of the cinematic apparatus and the construction of vision; semiotics, psychoanalytic, and feminist film theories; theories of spectatorship and cinematic address; the historical turn; theories of globalization and post- coloniality. Thus, the course shapes a meta-theoretical analysis of some of the key methods and ideas informing the history of film studies.
We will meet twice each week, first for a screening and then for seminar. The seminar will discuss the screened material and readings. Each week organizes a larger set of questions and issues under keywords that have shaped film studies. Students will be evaluated on their constructive participation in discussions, a one-hour long presentation, a written proposal and a bibliography for a final research paper, and the final paper (20-25 pages). You are encouraged to meet with me during office hours to discuss the final paper. There are two required books for the course, Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, edited by Philip Rosen and Reinventing Film Studies edited by Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams. Lastly, the course website is at http://owl.uwo.ca. Please log in for any additional material, updates and posts.
Second Year course offerings
Far away, so close: the scales of far and near (9211A) - Fall term (Coates)
Special Topics course
Mondays 2:30-5:30 uc 12
Thursdays 4:30-6:30 uc 12
Film begins…with the long-shot of the Lumières; but also, in a sense, with the close-up Griffith wished to patent and Béla Balázs deemed foundational. Jean-Luc Godard voiced a characteristically paradoxical desire to make spectators feel distant even when close (importing the alienation effect into the close-up usually eschewed by cinematic Brechtians); Wim Wenders, however, described his angels as ‘far away, so close’ – as a reality, albeit an invisible super-reality, no mere desideratum. Bearing in mind the issues raised by the juxtaposition of these facts, this course will examine what is at stake in the camera’s, and the spectator’s, emotional and/or spatial closeness to or distance from the film. Among other things, it will consider such notions as those of alienation and the haptic, and such techniques as those of the close-up, the zoom lens, and the telephoto lens, along with their use in various works – possibly including ones by Godard and Wenders, but definitely including Charulata, The Conversation, Images of the World and the Inscription of War, and Fontane Effi Briest, where adaptation distances a novel to which the filmmaker is very close.
Wartime Image Culture in Japan and its Territories (9212A) - Fall term (Raine)
Special Topics course
Tuesdays 10:30-1:30 uc 12
Thursdays 12:30-2:30 uc 12
This seminar explores the history and theory of cinema as part of a visual culture of "propaganda and agitation" during Japan's wars in Asia and the Pacific, 1937-1945. We will study Japanese films as part of a global 1930s "illiberal modernism" while also exploring more local sources, in prewar studio cinema, the documentary film movement, and the broader image culture of wartime Japan. Those ancillary media will include popular music, war painting, propaganda posters, photography, and advertising. We will also study how the medium was deployed in Japan's colonies (Taiwan and Korea), client states (Manchuria), and occupied territories (Eastern China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc.) during the war. All readings on the course are in English; no Japanese is required.