Introductory description

Two Filmmakers provides an opportunity for students to examine the works of two significant filmmakers in depth. It seeks to acquaint students with key films from these filmmakers’ oeuvres, and situate them within the critical discourses surrounding these figures and their work.
Figures studied on the module will vary from year, and may include directors, producers, writers, actors and/or studios. Figures discussed might range from major, "canonical" filmmakers, to “lesser,” or underappreciated/underrepresented filmmakers, though all will serve as interesting case studies against which ideas relating to auteurism may be considered and evaluated.

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.

This is an indicative syllabus and subject to variation depending on module tutor, current research and various other factors:

Harmony Korine:
Week One: Korine's "mixed media" aesthetics (Kids/Gummo)
Week Two: Documentary and Dogme 95 (Julien Donkey Boy/Above the Below)
Week Three: Art cinema/35mm (Mister Lonely)
Week Four: Underground cinema/analogue video (Trash Humpers)
Week Five: Korine and the digital (Spring Breakers/The Beach Bum)

Week Six: Reading week

Peter Greenaway:
Week Seven: Experimental filmmaking (Vertical Features Remake and The Falls)
Week Eight: Greenaway’s narratives of visuality (The Draughtsman’s Contract)
Week Nine: Mainstream success (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover)
Week Ten: Greenaway and the digital (Goltzius and the Pelican Company)

Learning outcomes

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

• By the end of the module, you will have a detailed understanding of the theoretical and conceptual issues studied (most notably in regard to authorship, and how it has been theorised in relation to cinema) and be able to communicate these clearly and with precision.
• By the end of the module you will be able to confidently test and apply your knowledge of a range of different areas of film history, theory and analysis. 

• By the end of the module you will have a confident understanding of the work of the filmmakers studied, and the critical discourses surrounding these figures and their films.
• By the end of the module you will be able to offer detailed critical, evaluative textual analyses of works associated with these filmmakers.

Indicative reading list

• Pansy Duncan, 'Bored and Boringer: Avant-Garde and Trash in Harmony Korine's Gummo,' Textual Practice, vol. 29, no. 4 (2015), pp. 717-743.
• Douglas Keesey, The films of Peter Greenaway: Sex, Death, and Provocation (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2006).
• Harmony Korine, 'A Comprehensive and Forthright Guide to "Mistakist Cinema",' in Shari Roman, Digital Babylon: Hollywood Indiewood & Dogme 95 (Hollywood: iFilm Publishing, 2001), pp. viii-xi.
• Harmony Korine, Collected Screenplays 1: Jokes, Gummo, julien donkey-boy (London: Faber and Faber, 2002).
• Amy Lawrence, The Films of Peter Greenaway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
• David Pascoe, Peter Greenway: Museums and Moving Images (London: Reaktion, 1997).
• Nicholas Rombes (ed.), New Punk Cinema (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005).
• Jeffrey Sconce, 'Indecipherable Films: Teaching Gummo,' Cinema Journal, vol. 47, no. 1, (Autumn 2007), pp. 112-115.
• Paula Willoquet-Maricondi & Mary Alemany-Galway, Peter Greenaway’s Postmodern/Post Structuralist Cinema (London: Scarecrow, 2008).
• Duncan White, 'Seeing is Believing: Harmony Korine and the Cinema of Self-Destruction,' New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, vol. 3, no. 2 (2005), pp. 115-28.
• Alan Woods, Being Naked, Playing Dead: The Art of Peter Greenaway (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996).

Research element

Students will have to write an essay that will involve research into relevant concepts, contexts and texts.

Subject specific skills

This module develops skills of audio-visual literacy, through close textual and/or contextual analysis in relation to the moving image and sound. It may also develops understandings of historical, theoretical and conceptual frameworks relevant to screen arts and cultures.

Transferable skills

• critical and analytical thinking
• independent research skills
• team work
• clarity and effectiveness of communication, oral and written
• accurate, concise and persuasive writing
• audio-visual literacy
• ethical awareness
• intercultural sensitivity