Introductory description

As a recorded audiovisual medium, cinema is especially suited to the representation of place and movement through the simultaneous registration of space and time. This module will examine the implications of this proposition in a series of film texts that mainly privilege the representation of a particular city or geographical landscape, often in relation to the underlying narrative trope of the journey.

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 One
Urban Modernities and ‘The City Symphony’ Film

SCREENING
Regen/Rain (Joris Ivens, 1929); A Propos de Nice (Jean Vigo, 1929); Berlin - Sinfonie einer Großstadt/Berlin, Symphony of a Big City (Walter Ruttmann, 1927)

Week Two
Walking Paris I: Beyond the Flaneur?

SCREENING
Cléo de 5 à 7 (Agnès Varda, 1961)

Week Three
Walking Paris II: Eric Rohmer’s Paris as Cinematographic Cartography

SCREENING
Rohmer in Paris (Richard Misek, 2014) http://www.vimeo.com/richardmisek/rohmerinparis (password: Losange)
L’Amour, l’après-midi/Love in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, 1972)

Week Four
Cities and Landscapes in Motion I: Agnès Varda and the Essay Film

SCREENING
Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse/The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000) + Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse … 2 ans après/The Gleaners and I, 2 Years Later (Agnès Varda, 2002)

Cities and Landscapes in Motion II: Migration and Exile in Contemporary Europe

SCREENING
In This World (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)

Week Seven
Theorising Landscape: New Iranian Cinema

SCREENINGS
Where is the Friend’s Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
Roads of Kiarostami (Abbas Kiarostami, 2006)

Week Eight
Landscape and Memory I: The Past in the Present
Week One
Urban Modernities and ‘The City Symphony’ Film

SCREENING
Regen/Rain (Joris Ivens, 1929); A Propos de Nice (Jean Vigo, 1929); Berlin - Sinfonie einer Großstadt/Berlin, Symphony of a Big City (Walter Ruttmann, 1927)

Week Two
Walking Paris I: Beyond the Flaneur?

SCREENING
Cléo de 5 à 7 (Agnès Varda, 1961)

Week Three
Walking Paris II: Eric Rohmer’s Paris as Cinematographic Cartography

SCREENING
Rohmer in Paris (Richard Misek, 2014) http://www.vimeo.com/richardmisek/rohmerinparis (password: Losange)
L’Amour, l’après-midi/Love in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, 1972)

Week Four
Cities and Landscapes in Motion I: Agnès Varda and the Essay Film

SCREENING
Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse/The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000) + Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse … 2 ans après/The Gleaners and I, 2 Years Later (Agnès Varda, 2002)

Cities and Landscapes in Motion II: Migration and Exile in Contemporary Europe

SCREENING
In This World (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)

Week Seven
Theorising Landscape: New Iranian Cinema

SCREENINGS
Where is the Friend’s Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
Roads of Kiarostami (Abbas Kiarostami, 2006)

Week Eight
Landscape and Memory I: The Past in the Present

SCREENING

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)

Week Nine
Landscape and Memory II: Documentation and National Identity

SCREENING
Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, 2006)

Week Ten
Landscape and Memory III: Memories of the Local and the Universal

SCREENING
Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)

Learning outcomes

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

• By the end of the module, students will be able to Demonstrate familiarity with a range of relevant literature related to the representation of landscape and place in contemporary film studies, demonstrate critical awareness of the methodologies necessary to construct an independent research project on a selected topic germane to the overall aims of the module, integrate conceptual awareness of these debates with precise and sustained local textual analysis of a range of a sample case studies

Indicative reading list

Charlotte Brunsdon (2012) ‘The Attractions of the Cinematic City’ in
Screen 53:3
Anton Kaes (1998) ‘Leaving Home: Film, Migration, and the Urban
Experience’ in New German Critique no. 74
Lutz Koepnick (2009) ’The Bearable Lightness of Being: People on
Sunday’ in Isenberg (ed.) Weimar Cinema.An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era
Mark Betz (2009) Beyond the Subtitle. Remapping European Art Cinema
(Chapter 3)
Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau (2017) ‘Beyond the Flaneur: An
Introduction’ in Phillips and Vincendeau (eds.) Paris in the Cinema: Beyond the Flaneur
Sébastien Caquard & D.R. Fraser Taylor (2009), 'What is Cinematic
Cartography', editorial of the 'Cinematic Cartography' special issue of The Cartographic Journal 46.1
Neil Archer (2012) The French Road Movie: Space, Mobility, Identity
Landscapes
Daniela Berghahn (2010) ‘Locating Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in
Contemporary Europe’ in Berghahn and Sternberg (eds.) European Cinema in Motion
Malini Guha (2015) From Empire to the World: Migrant London and Paris
in Cinema
Stephen Bransford (2003) ‘Days in the Country: Representations of Rural
Space and Place in Abbas Kiarostami’s Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees and The Wind Will Carry Us in Senses of Cinema 29
Martin Lefebvre (2006) ‘Between Setting and Landscape in the Cinema’
in Lefebvre (ed.) Landscape and Film
Tim Ingold (1993) ‘The Temporality of Landscape’ in World Archeology
Vol. 25 no. 2
Russell Kilbourn (2012) Cinema, Memory, Modernity: The Representation
of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema
Charlotte Brunsdon (2012) ‘The Attractions of the Cinematic City’ in
Screen 53:3
Anton Kaes (1998) ‘Leaving Home: Film, Migration, and the Urban
Experience’ in New German Critique no. 74
Lutz Koepnick (2009) ’The Bearable Lightness of Being: People on
Sunday’ in Isenberg (ed.) Weimar Cinema.An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era
Mark Betz (2009) Beyond the Subtitle. Remapping European Art Cinema
(Chapter 3)
Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau (2017) ‘Beyond the Flaneur: An
Introduction’ in Phillips and Vincendeau (eds.) Paris in the Cinema: Beyond the Flaneur
Sébastien Caquard & D.R. Fraser Taylor (2009), 'What is Cinematic
Cartography', editorial of the 'Cinematic Cartography' special issue of The Cartographic Journal 46.1
Neil Archer (2012) The French Road Movie: Space, Mobility, Identity
Landscapes
Daniela Berghahn (2010) ‘Locating Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in
Contemporary Europe’ in Berghahn and Sternberg (eds.) European Cinema in Motion
Malini Guha (2015) From Empire to the World: Migrant London and Paris
in Cinema
Stephen Bransford (2003) ‘Days in the Country: Representations of Rural
Space and Place in Abbas Kiarostami’s Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees and The Wind Will Carry Us in Senses of Cinema 29
Martin Lefebvre (2006) ‘Between Setting and Landscape in the Cinema’
in Lefebvre (ed.) Landscape and Film
Tim Ingold (1993) ‘The Temporality of Landscape’ in World Archeology
Vol. 25 no. 2
Russell Kilbourn (2012) Cinema, Memory, Modernity: The Representation
of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema
Chris Berry (2009) ‘Jia Zhangke and the Temporality of Postsocialist
Chinese Cinema’ in Olivia Khoo and Sean Metzger (eds.) Futures of Chinese Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures
Ping Zhu (2011) ‘Destruction, Moral Nihilism and the Poetics of Debris
in Jia Zhangke's Still Life’ in Visual Anthropology Vol. 24 no. 4
Macarena GomezBarris ‘Atacama Remains and Post Memory’ in Media
Fields Journal 5 (2012)
David Martin Jones (2013) ‘Archival Landscapes and a Non-
Anthropocentric ‘Universe Memory’ in Third Text Vol. 27 no. 6

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 in relation
• independent research skills
• team work
• clarity and effectiveness of communication, oral and written
• accurate, concise and persuasive writing
• audio-visual literacy