FMA4697 History of Narrative Film

DRAFT

Chris Cagle, Temple University

COURSE SCHEDULE

Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History, second edition (FH)

EMERGENCE OF CINEMA (1895-1919) AND THE SILENT ERA (1919-1929)

WEEK 1

M. Early and Transitional Cinema

August and Louis Lumière shorts (France, 1895):

Workers Leaving a Factory; Baby’s Meal; Demolition of a Wall; Arroseur Arrosé/Waterer Watered aka Watering the Garden

Voyage dans la lune/A Trip to the Moon (George Melies, France, 1902, 12m)

Thomas Edison shorts (W.K.L. Dickson or Billy Bitzer, cameraman, US):

A Sneeze (1894); Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895); Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895); McKinley Parade (1896); Electrocuting an elephant (1 min., 30 sec.); Life of an American Fireman (1903, 6m) Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Edwin S. Porter, 1903, US, 10m)

La Course des Sergents de Ville/Policeman’s Little Run (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907, France, 6m)

The Thieving Hand (anon [Vitagraph], 1908, US, 5m)

Le Medicin du chateau/Physician of the Castle (anon [Pathé], 1908, France, 6m)

The Lonely Villa (D.W. Griffith, 1909, US, 8m)

Max Reprends sa Liberté/Troubles of a Grass Widower (Max Linder, 1908, France, 10m)

Musketeers of Pig Alley (D.W. Griffith, 1912, US, 17m)

Making an American Citizen (Alice Guy-Blaché, 1912, US, 16m)

Les Vampires, episode one (Louis Feuillade, 1915, France, 30m)

FH, Introduction: Film History and How It’s Done

T. Narrative Development and the Formation of Film Industries

Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914, Italy, excerpt)

The Immigrant (Charles Chaplin, 1917, US, 20m)

The Outlaw and His Wife (Victor Sjöstrom, 1919, Sweden, 73m)

FH, Chapter 1: The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema, 1880s-1904

FH, Chapter 2: The International Expansion of the Cinema, 1905-1912

Barry Salt, “The Physician of the Castle”

Richard de Cordova, “Emergence of the Star System”

Primary text reading: Norma Talmidge, “Close Ups” (Saturday Evening Post, 1929)

“Film: A Democratic Art?” (The Nation, 1913)

W. Classical Narrative, the American Film Industry and Cinema's Social Dimensions

Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915, US, excerpt)

Blood and Sand (Fred Niblo, 1922, US, excerpt)

Lady Windemere’s Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925, US, 89m [excerpt])

Speedy! (Ted Wilde, 1928, US, 86m)

FH, Chapter 3: National Cinema, Hollywood Classicism, and World War I, 1905-1919, pp. 68-76

FH, Chapter 7: The Late Silent Era in Hollywood, 1920-1928

Robert Sklar, from Movie Made America

Primary text reading: Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915)
WEEK 2

T. The Emergence of National Cinemas

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/ Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, Germany, 1920, 71m)

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924, Germany, 143m [excerpt])

La Glace à trois faces/Three-Way Mirror (Jean Epstein, 1927, France, 30m)

FH, Chapter 3: National Cinema, Hollywood Classicism, and World War I, 1905-1919, pp. 57-67

FH, Chapter 5: Germany in the 1920s

Siegfried Kracauer, from From Caligari to Hitler

Paul Monaco, from Cinema and Society: France and Germany in the Twenties

Primary text reading: Louis Delluc, "Cinema: The Outlaw and His Wife" (1919)

W. The Avant-Garde/Seventh Art

Konets Sankt-Peterburga/End of St. Petersburg (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1927, 80m [excerpt])

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc/The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl-Theodor Dreyer, 1928, 82m)

FH, Chapter 4: France in the 1920s

FH, Chapter 6: Soviet Cinema in the 1920s

FH, Chapter 8: International Trends of the 1920s, pp. 170-173

Steve Neale, "Art Cinema as Institution," esp. pp. 16-24

Primary text reading: Richard Watts, Jr., “A Dying Art Offers a Masterpiece” (New York Herald)

1930s MoMA Film programs

Jean Epstein, “On Certain Characteristics of Photogénie” and "For a New Avant-Garde" (1924/5)

Germaine Dulac, "Aesthetics, Obstacles, Integral Cinégraphie" (1926)

Th. The Arrival of Sound

Sunrise (F. W. Murnau, 1927, excerpt)

Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927, US, excerpt)

Applause (Rouben Mamoulien, 1929, US, 79m)

FH, Chapter 9: The Introduction of Sound

Donald Crafton, from The Talkies

Douglas Gomery, “Writing the History of the American Film Industry: Warner Brothers and Sound”

Primary text reading: Variety returns, August 1927

WEEK 3

THE GOLDEN AGE(S) (1930-1939)

M. A Mature Industry: Oligopoly, Double Features, and Censorship

Dames (Ray Enright, 1934, US, excerpt)

Mystery Ranch (David Howard, 1932, 55m)

The Guilty Generation (Rowland V. Lee, 1931, US, 82m)

Chapter 10: The Hollywood Studio System, 1930-1945, pp. 213-235

Richard Maltby, “Baby Face: How Joe Breen Made Barbara Stanwyck Atone for… the Wall Street Crash”

Primary text reading: The MPPDA Production Code (1930)

Contemporary source: Robert Chambers, “The Double Feature as a Sales Problem” (Harvard Business Review, 1938)

T. Classical French Cinema

Le Crime de Monsieur Lange/The Crime of M. Lange (Jean Renoir, 1935, France, 78m)

La Maternelle (Marie Epstein and Jean Benôit-Levy, France, 1933, 83m)

Quai des Brumes/Port of Shadows (Marcel Carne, 1938, France, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 13: France: Poetic Realism, the Popular Front and the Occupation, 1930-1945

Colin Crisp, from The Classic French Cinema

Primary text reading: Jean Renoir, “How I Give Life to My Characters”

Marcel Carné, “When Will the Cinema Go Down Into the Street?”

W. The Golden Age: the “Genius of the System” and Hollywood Mannerism

OUTSIDE VIEWING Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper. 1942, US, 119m)

The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942, US, 88m)

Daisy Kenyon (Otto Preminger, 1947, US, excerpt)

Richard B. Jewell, “How Howard Hawks Brought Baby Up: An Apologia for the Studio System”

Jeanne Allen, "Now, Voyager as Women's Film: Coming of Age Hollywood Style"

Primary text reading: Warner Brothers memos (1941)

Th. Classical Hollywood in Transition: Realism and Noir

On the Town (Stanley Donen, 1949, US, 98m)

The Narrow Margin (Richard Fleischer, 1952, US, 71m)

Gentleman’s Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947, US, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 15: American Cinema in the Post War Era, 1946-1960, pp. 324-327, 336-351

Paul Kerr, “Out of What Past? Notes on the B film noir”

Chris Cagle, "Two Modes of Prestige Film"

Primary text reading; The United States v. Paramount Pictures (1948)

Hugh Fordin, “On the Town”

WEEK 4

M. Classical Japanese Cinema

The Story of Late Chrysanthemums (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1939, Japan, 143m)

FH, Chapter 11: Other Studio Systems

Noël Burch, from To a Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema

THE WANING OF CLASSICAL NARRATIVE (1945-1964)

T. Neorealism in Europe and Abroad

Ladri di Biciclette/Bicycle Thieves (Vittoria di Sica, 1948, Italy, 96m)

Paisan, “Partisans” segment (Roberto Rossellini, 1946, Italy, 20m)

Borom Sarret (Ousmane Sembene, 1966, Senegal, 20m)

FH, Chapter 16: Postwar European Cinema: Neorealism and its Context: 1945-1959

Rachel Gabara, "'A Poetics of Refusals': Neorealism from Italy to Africa"

Primary text reading: Cesare Zavattini on neorealism

American ads for neorealist films

W. The Transatlantic Film Market: Art Cinemas, Generic Mimicry, and the British Prestige Film

The Man in the White Suit (Alexander McKendrick, 1951, Great Britain, 85m)

Hell is a City (Val Guest, 1960, Great Britain, 98m [excerpt])

The Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947, Great Britain, excerpt)

Down to Earth (Alexander Hall, 1947, US, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 17: Postwar European Cinema: France, Scandinavia, and Britain, 1945-1959

Barbara Wilinsky, from Sure Seaters

Andrew Spicer, “Emergence of the British Tough Guy”

Primary text reading: Bosley Crowther, “Best Films” articles (1946-50)

Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952)

Th. An Industry Adjusts: Melodrama, Spectacle, and Seriousness

Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955, US, 113m)

The Defiant Ones (Stanley Kramer, 1958, US, excerpt)

Ben Hur (William Wyler, 1956, US, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 15: American Cinema in the Post War Era, 1946-1960, pp. 328-336

John Belton, “CinemaScope and Historical Methodology”

Jerold Simmons, "The Production Code Under New Management"

Douglas Gomery, “The Movies and TV: a Revisionist History”

Thomas Schatz, “The Family Melodrama”

Contemporary source: Dallas Smythe, et al. “Portrait of a First Run Audience” (Quar of Film, Radio, TV, 1955)

WEEK 5

NEW WAVES (1959-1975)

M. The French New Wave (… and British and Japanese)

Cléo de 5 à 7/Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1961, France, 89m)

Masculin-Feminin (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966, France, excerpt)

Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963, UK, excerpt)

This Sporting Life (Lindsay Anderson, UK, excerpt)

Shinjû: Ten no amijima / Double Suicide (Masahiro Shinoda, 1969, Japan, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 19: Art Cinema and the Idea of Authorship

FH, Chapter 20: New Waves and Young Cinema, 1958-1967

Richard Neupert, introduction, A History of The French New Wave

Primary text reading: François Truffaut, “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema”

T. The Modernist Art Film

L'Eclisse/Eclipse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961, Italy, 125m)

Muriel (Alain Resnais, 1963, France, excerpt)

Mark Betz, "The Name Above the (Sub)Title: Internationalism, Coproduction and Polyglot European Art Cinema"

Andrew Tudor, "The Rise and Fall of the Art (House) Movie"

Primary text reading: Franco-Italian Film Agreements, 1949, 1966

W. Writing Workshop

Th. Political Modernism: Counter-Cinema, Third Cinema and Eastern European "thaws"

Tout Va Bien (Jean-Luc Godard, 1971, France, 95m)

De Cierta Manera/One Way or Another (Sara Gomez, 1978, Cuba, 78m)

Terra em Transe/Land in Anguish (Glauber Rocha, 1970, Brazil, excerpt)

Csillagosok, Katonák/Red and the White (Miklós Jancsó, Hungary, 1968, excerpt

Chapter 23: Critical Political Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s

Primary text reading: Peter Wollen, “Counter-cinema and Le Vent d’Est”

Fernando Solanas/Octavio Getino, “Towards a Third Cinema”

Paul Willemen, “Interview with Haile Gerima”

WEEK 6

M. The Hollywood Renaissance

Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975, US, 159m)

FH, Chapter 22: Hollywood's Fall and Rise, 1960-1980, pp. 511-529

Primary text reading: popular press reviews

CONTEMPORARY CINEMA (1975-2008)

T. The Age of the Blockbuster and High Concept

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975, US, excerpt)

Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984, US, 105m)

Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, France, 1981, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 27: American Cinema and the Entertainment Economy, pp. 679-694, 701-703

FH, Chapter 25: “France: Cinema du Look,” pp. 620-21

Justin Wyatt, from High Concept

Ken Feil, “From Disaster Parody to Parodic Disaster”

Primary text reading: Sample movie advertisements

W. Cultural Mode of Production: New German Cinema

Ali, Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974, West Germany, 92m)

Deutschland im Herbst/Germany in Autumn, “Antigone” and “Funeral” segments (Volker Schlöndorff, Heinrich Böll, Alexander Kluge, 1978, West Germany, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 20: New Waves and Young Cinema, 1958-1967, pp. 456-457

FH, Chapter 23: Critical Political Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, pp. 572-576

Thomas Elsaesser, from New German Cinema

Sheila Johnston, "Making of an International Star: Fassbinder and The New German Cinema"

Primary text reading: Oberhausen Manifesto

Th. American Independent Cinema

Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977, US, 83m)

Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch, 1989, US, 110m [excerpt])

FH, Chapter 22: Hollywood's Fall and Rise, 1960-1980, pp. 530-532

FH, Chapter 27: American Cinema and the Entertainment Economy: The 1980s and After, pp. 694-701

Youris Tzioumakis, from American Independent Cinema

Christina Lane, “Just Another Girl Outside the Neo-Indie”

WEEK 7

M. Post-Classicism and Contemporary Art Film Style

La Ciénega/The Swamp (Lucrecia Martel, 2001, Argentina, 103m)

Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen, 1992, US, excerpt)

LA Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997, US, excerpt)

Inside Man (Spike Lee, 2004, US, excerpt)

FH, Chapter 25: New Cinemas and New Developments: Europe and the USSR since the 1970s

FH, Chapter 26: New Cinema in Latin America, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Africa since the 1970s

David Bordwell, “Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film”

T. National Cinema in the Age of Coproduction and Globalization: the case of Dogme, “Europudding,” and Diasporic Cinema

OUTSIDE VIEWING: Italian for Beginners (Lone Scherfig, 2000, Denmark/Sweden, 118m)

L’Auberge Espagnol (Cedric Klapish, 2002, France, excerpt)

In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008, Great Britain/Belgium, excerpt)

Homecoming (Gil Portes, 2003, Philippines, excerpt)

Chunguang Zhaxie/Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1999, Hong Kong, 97m)

FH, Chapter 28: Toward a Global Film Culture

Stephen Crofts, “Reconceptualising National Cinema(s)”

Primary text reading: Dogme 96 manifesto