Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1 – The cinematic image

• Andrew, Dudley, ‘Cinema & Culture’ Humanities 6:4 (August 1985) pp. 24-25.
  Screening: Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir, 1939, 77 min.)

Week 2 – Affinities

• Kracauer, Siegfried, ‘The Establishment of Physical Existence’ and ‘Inherent Affinities’ from Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (Oxford University Press, 1960) pp. 41-74.
  Screening: The Gleaners & I (Agnès Varda, 2000, 82 min.)

Week 3 – Movement

• Metz, Christian. ‘On the Impression of Reality in the Cinema’ in Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema. (Oxford University Press: 1974) pp. 3-15.
  Screening: The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass, 2007, 115 min.)

Week 4 – Affect

• Sontag, Susan. ‘Against Interpretation’ in Against Interpretation, and Other Essays. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966) 3-14.
  Screening: Il posto (Ermanno Olmi, 1961, 93 min.)

Week 5 – Ideology

• Comolli, Jean-Luc, and Paul Narboni. ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’ Screen (1971) 12 (1): pp. 27-38.
  Screening: Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956, 99 min.)

Week 6 – Reading Week

Week 7 – The Male Gaze

• Mulvey, Laura. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ Screen (1975) 16(3): pp. 6-18.
  Screening: Gilda (Vidor, 1956) 110 min.

Week 8 – The Raced Gaze

• Gaines, Jane. ‘White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory.’ Cultural Critique, No. 4 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 59-79.
  Screening: Mahogany (Berry Gordy, 1975) 109 min.

Week 9 – Gaming and POV

• Galloway, Alex. ‘Origins of the First-Person Shooter’ in Critical Visions in Film Theory, edited by White & Corrigan, (Boston/New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2011) pp. 1070-1081.
  Screening: South Park, “Make Love, Not Warcraft” (writer/director Trey Parker), Ep. 8, Season 10, Comedy Central (US air date: 4 October 2006).

Week 10 – The Digital Multitude

• Whissel, Kristin. ‘The Digital Multitude’ Cinema Journal vol. 49. no. 4 (Summer 2010) 90-110.
  Screening: Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997) 129 min.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a sound understanding of the key questions of theoretical debates around the moving image.
• Understand how theory differs from other forms of inquiry.
• Demonstrate an ability to deploy and to analyse argument in a rigorous way.
• Demonstrate an ability to apply the theory to specific films, adding other dimensions to close textual analysis.
• Demonstrate an ability to use a close analysis of a theoretical text using an analysis of a film to open up, expand, or trouble the theoretical text’s conceptual framework.

Indicative reading list

Dictionaries

Hayward, Susan. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge, 2006.

Kuhn, Annette, and Guy Westwell. A Dictionary of Film Studies. [Oxford]; [New York]: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Cook, Pam. The Cinema Book. London: BFI, 2007.

Basics of film aesthetics

Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.

Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012.

Yale Film Analysis website: http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/

Key anthologies of film theory [i.e., collections of key film theory essays]

Braudy, Leo, and Marshall Cohen. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Corrigan, Timothy, Patricia White, and Meta Mazaj. Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011.

Rosen, Philip. Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.

Stam, Robert, and Toby Miller. Film and Theory: An Anthology. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000.

Elsaesser, Thomas, and Malte Hagener. Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Feminist Film Theory

Kaplan, E. Ann. Feminism and Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Thornham, Sue. Feminist Film Theory: A Reader. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

McCabe, Janet. Feminist Film Studies: Writing the Woman into Cinema. London; New York: Wallflower, 2004.
* Shortcuts series

Subject specific skills

No subject specific skills defined for this module.

Transferable skills

No transferable skills defined for this module.