sem film studies spring 2004

English 399:
Seminar in Film Studies:
Animation, Documentary, Avant Garde
Spring 2004
Centenary College
Jefferson Hendricks

texts | policies and requirements | contact information | webliography

Wk 1 From the Lumière Bros. and Méliès to D. W. Griffith: Storytelling, Representation, Genre

Jan 13

Introduction to Course

Jan 15

Film History Before 1920 -- Tim Dirks, Greatest Films
"The Invention of Motion Pictures: 1895-1910" -- Aristides Gazetas, An Introduction to World Cinema (PDF file; must have Adobe Abcrobat reader)
"Early Narratives and the Nicklelodeons" -- Aristides Gazetas, An Introduction to World Cinema (PDF file; must have Adobe Abcrobat reader)
"Toward an Ontology of Film: A Phenomenological Approach" -- Robert Wood, Film--Philosophy

Further Reading:

From Still Photographs to Moving Pictures -- The Bill Douglas Centre for the Study of Cinema and Popular Culture
Pioneers of Cinema: The Lumiere Brothers (PDF file; must have Adobe Abcrobat reader)
"The Lumiere Brothers First Films" -- Gary Johnson, Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture
D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Cinema -- Lee Grieveson, The Bill Douglas Centre for the Study of Cinema and Popular Culture
EarlyCinema.com

Wk 2 Experimenting with the Reel: Documentary and the Avant Garde in the 1920s

Jan 20 -- Häxan

Nichols, Chapter 4: "What Are Documentaries About?"
Nichols, Chapter 5: "How Did Documentary Filmmaking Get Started?"
"A Witches's Brew of Fact, Fiction and Spectacle" -- James Kendrick, Kino-Eye
"Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble" -- David Sanjek, Pop Matters
"The Life and Death of Superimposition" -- André Bazin (1946)

Jan 22 -- Man With a Movie Camera

Nichols, Chapter 2: " How Are Documentaries Different from Other Types of Films?"
review -- John Nesbit, CultureDose.net
review -- Grant Tracey, Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture
review -- Kara Anderson, Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies
review -- TVGuide.com

"Dziga Vertov and the Film of Money" -- Johnathan L. Beller, Boundary 2

Further Reading:

"Documentary Films" -- Tim Dirks, Greatest Films
Documentary and Ethnographic Film: A Short Bibliography of Books and Articles in the UC Berkeley Libraries

Wk 3 Dada/Surrealism and the Movies: French Experimental Films from the 1920s/1930s and Hollywood's Response

Jan 27 -- Man Ray shorts; The Fall of the House of Usher

"The French Avant Garde Tradition and Surrealism" -- Aristides Gazetas, An Introduction to World Cinema
a page explaining Dada
official site of the Man Ray Trust (bio, images, etc.)
review of The Fall... -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
dvd reveiw of The Fall... -- Gary Morris, Bright Lights Film Journal
dvd review of The Fall... -- Carl Bennett, Silent Era

Jan 29 -- Un Chien Andalou (France, 1929. Dirs. Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali); Freaks (USA, 1932. Dir. Tod Browning)

review/essay: Un Chien Andalou -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
review/essay: Un Chien Andalou -- John Koller, Senses of Cinema
review/essay: Un Chien Andalou -- Ed Gongalez, Slant Magazine
stills from Un Chien Andalou
a page on Surrealism and Bunuel
Bunuel comments on Surrealism and the cinema
"Tod Browning's Freaks: Production Notes and Analysis" -- Mark Vieira, Bright Lights Film Journal
review/essay: Freaks -- Ed Gonzalez, Slant
review/essay: Freaks -- Rumsey Taylor, Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Further Reading:

Dada/Surrealist Film Bibliography -- U.C., Berkeley
Modernist and Post-Modernist Artists, Performers, and Film Makers: A Selective Bibliography -- U.C., Berkeley
Avant-garde, Underground, and Experimental Cinema: A Selected Bibliography/Videography -- U.C., Berkeley
Surrealist Art Links
"Speed Ramping" -- David Cox, CTheory.net

Wk 4 Documenting the Political and the Personal

Feb 3 -- excerpts from Triumph of the Will (Germany, 1934. Dir. Leni Riefenstahl); Night and Fog (France, 1955. Dir. Alain Resnais)

Nichols, Chapter 1: "Why Are Ethical Issues Central to Documentary Filmmaking?"
NIchols, Chapter 7: "How Have Documentaries Addressed Social and Political Issues?"
a Riefenstahl biography -- The German-Hollywood Connection
"Just What Did Leni Riefenstahl's Lens See?" -- The New York Times (1994)
"Fascinating Facism" -- Susan Sontag, The New York Review of Books
review/essay: Triumph of the Will -- Brian Winston, History Today
The Blue Light -- The Art of Lini Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl official site

Feb 5 -- Don't Look Back (USA, 1967. Dir. D. A. Pennebaker)

Nichols, Chapter 3: "What Gives Documentary Their Distinctive Voice?"
review/essay: Don't Look Back -- Alan Vanneman, Bright Lights Film Journal
"Do Look Back: The Story of Cinema Verité" -- Chris Buck

Further Reading:

extensive Riefenstahl links
"Eisler's Music for Resnais' Night and Fog (1955): A Musical Counterpoint to the Cinematic Portrayal ofTterror" -- Albrecht Dumling, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Wk 5 Documentary Today, Part I: Eric Stange at Centenary
Eric Stange is an award-winning independent documentary film producer, director, and writer specializing in cultural and social history. His public television credits include Can You Stop People From Drinking (for Nova), which contrasted U.S. and Russian approaches to alcohol policy and treatment; Love in the Cold War (for The American Experience), winner of a CINE Golden Eagle and a Chicago Interational Film Festival Silver Plaque; Picking up the Pieces, one episode of the PBS series Making Sense of the '60s; Children of the Left, which received an American Film & Video Festival Red Ribbon and an American Library Association citation; and several segments of The Health Quarterly, a national PBS documentary series on health care policy. Before his film work, Stange wrote about art and culture for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic Monthly, The Independent, and other publications. He is presently the Executive Producer and Director of Spy Pond Productions. Eric's recent productions include Zamir: Jewish Voices Return to Poland; Brother Can you Spare a Billion: The Story of Jesse H. Jones; and Engineering From the Inside Out.

Feb 10 -- Eric Stange will introduce his film Children of the Left and answer questions afterwards

Spy Pond Productions

Feb. 11 -- Wednesday night at 7:00 pm in Jackson Hall 304, Eric Stange will introduce his film Murder at Harvard and answer questions afterwards

Murder at Harvard web site at PBS.org
"Shooting Back" -- Eric Stange, Common-Place

Feb 12 -- Eric Stange will introduce his film Love in the Cold War and answer questions afterwards

"Liten Up" -- Eric Stange, Common-Place

What to think about when you're writing on documentary films

Wk 6 The Birth of Film Animation: From Windsor McCay to Walt Disney

Feb 17 -- early animated shorts: selected shorts from The Van Beuren Brothers and Ub Iwerks

"Animated Films" -- Tim Dirks, Greatest Films

Feb 19 -- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

review/essay -- Tim Dirks, Greatest Films
review/essay -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Wk 7 -- Mardi Gras Break

Wk 8 Documentary Today, Part II: Laura Dunn at Centenary

Mar 2 -- Laura Dunn -- Laura will be in class to answer questions about her film Become The Sky
Laura Dunn, Founder and Executive Director of Two Birds Film in Austin, Texas. MFA Film, University of Texas at Austin, 2002. THE SUBTEXT OF A YALE EDUCATION (1999, 31 minutes, video) documents a labor strike at Yale, won best documentary at the 1999 National Student Film Festival and toured to 40 universities with the nationwide Michael-Moore sponsored McCollege Tour. BABY (1999, 5 minutes, 16mm), which connects sex to population control, was a college winner in the World Population Film and Video Festival 1999. It was featured at Exit Art's annual exhibition of new artists, NYC, summer 2000 and Aldrich Museum of Art. GREEN (2000, 47 minutes, 16mm) documents pollution along the Mississippi River Petrochemical Corridor. It won the 2001 Academy Award for Best Student Documentary, Hollywood, CA; Global Vision Grand Prize for World Population Film Festival; Best Documentary at the Making Waves National Student Film Festival, NYC; Gecko Award at Cinematexas, Austin; Honorable Mention at Flicker Film Festival, Chicago, IL; and played at SXSW, Doubletake Documentary, and Great Plains Film Festivals. BECOME THE SKY (2002, 53 minutes) maps energy and politics 4,000 miles across Texas and was nominated for the 2002 Student Academy Award. Dunn was recently awarded a Rockefeller Media Fellowship for Mai Mayim, a documentary that looks at the Middle East conflict from within the context of the ecological need for water in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
We Mar 3: Wednesday night at 7:00 pm in Mickle Hall 114, Laura Dunn will answer questions and lead a discussion after the screening of her film Green