Introduction To Film Studies: Course Syllabus
Introduction To Film Studies: Course Syllabus
Introduction To Film Studies: Course Syllabus
Course Syllabus
Schedules/Venues
Lectures: Mondays 17:30-21:00 (Executive Seminar Room, 2nd Floor of WKWSCI)
Tutorials: Thursdays 14:00-15:15 (TR1), 16:00-17:15 (TR2)/CS-TR1, 1st Floor of
SCI)
Learning Outcomes
The major outcomes of this prerequisite course are:
2) To offer students a series of basic social, political, and cultural ideas or questions
that key historical movements and generic tendencies of cinema have triggered.
4) To provide students with an overview of the basic theories, ideas, and methods of
film and media studies. Accordingly, readings and screenings will introduce important
concepts (e.g. realism, authorship, narrative, genre, national cinema), modes of film
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practice, and critical approaches, preparing students to be ready for taking other
advanced elective courses of the minor in the future.
Assigned Texts
All materials are downloadable in PDFs on the course site of edveNTUre with
detailed reference information, except Film Art acquirable in Yunnan Bookstore.
Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction Film, 9th edition
(New York, McGraw-Hill, 2009)
Maria Pramaggiore and Tom Wallis, Film: A Critical Introduction, 3rd edition (New
York and London: Pearson, 2011) - FCI
Bordwell and Thompson, Film History: An Introduction, 3rd edition (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2009) - FH
R.L. Rutsky and Jeffrey Geiger (eds.), Film Analysis (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2005) FA
Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen (eds.), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory
Readings, 7th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) FTC
Recommended Books
Students are also encouraged to expand their readings beyond the lecture material,
readings, & assigned text. Several recommended books available at the NTU library
are listed below. Please note that this supplementary book list is not exhaustive and
that other relevant critical literature is also available in the library.
Corrigan, Timothy and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction, 2nd
edition (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008).
Corrigan, Timothy, Short Guide to Writing about Film, 8th edition (New York:
Longman, 2011).
Hayward, Susan, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, 3rd edition (New York and
London: Routledge, 2006).
Cook, Pam (ed.) The Cinema Book, 3rd edition (London: British Film Institute, 2008).
Furstenau, Marc (ed.), Film Theory Reader: Debates & Arguments (New York and
London: Routledge, 2010).
Gibbs, John and Douglas Pye (eds.), Style and Meaning: Studies in the Detailed
Analysis of Film (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2005).
Gomery, Douglas and Clara Pafort-Overduin, Movie History: A Survey, 2nd edition
(New York and London: Routledge, 2011).
Monaco, James, How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, and Beyond, 4th edition (New
York, Oxford University Press, 2009).
Nichols, Bill, Engaging Cinema: An Introduction to Film Studies (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2010).
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (ed.), Oxford History of World Cinema (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997).
Simpson, P., Andrew U., & Shepherdson K.J. (eds.), Film Theory: Critical Concepts
in Media and Cultural Studies (New York and London: Routledge, 2004).
Stam, Robert, Film Theory: An Introduction (London: Blackwell, 2000).
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Course Contents
The course is divided into two themes, Film Form and Film Content respectively.
For the part 1 (Film Form), students will become fluent with the fundamental
vocabulary necessary to analyze various aspects of film form and style including
narrative, mise-en-scne, cinematography, editing, and sound. For the part 2 (Film
Content), students will investigate such critical issues in film theory and history as
ideology, new waves, genre, authorship, industry, technology, and new media. The
overall flow leads from the cinematic mechanism to its social environment, while
each class attempts to look at the entirety of each main films form and content.
The course offers a weekly lecture that includes a film screening. Please note that all
the screenings are part of the lecture time and so attendance to them is mandatory.
Besides the lectures, there are weekly tutorials, in which the students present group
projects to demonstrate their understanding of the films involved in the course and
the assigned readings, discuss the films watched, raise questions or debates on the
material covered in the assigned readings as well as in the lecture(s). Through this
process students will sharpen their critical eye on film and the moving image in
general, and enhance their creative capacity for organizing intuitive interpretation into
convincing criticism.
2) Suggested Films: The suggested films refer to those related to each sessions
main topics and main film. They will also be used for students writing assignments.
Students are encouraged to see as many suggested films as possible individually
and use them to do assignments and extend their knowledge beyond the lecture. All
these are available on DVD in the Universitys libraries, including ACRC. Clips from
these or other relevant films may be shown in class.
Assignment Components
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1. Online Postings (5%): Students are strongly encouraged to post your response to
each main film, supplementary film clips (both shown or not shown in the lecture),
and discussion topics intermittently raised by the instructor or tutor. The postings will
be mainly made in the Facebook page of the course, but students will post in the
edveNTUres discussion board if they are willing to write a longer response to the
screened film, or are asked to engage in the discussion topics.
* Assessment Criteria:
- Rather than simply responding to the clips or posts made by the instructors and
other students, students are expected to provide key issues and concepts contained
in the readings or raised in the lecture and tutorial for each week, in relation to the
films that they saw at the class or on other occasions. It is also encouraged for
students to raise any other topic that he/she wants to discuss with others and the
instructors.
Thus the assessment criteria for online postings will be (1) ability to identify key
issues, concepts, and arguments (2) ability to explain the students major ideas and
thoughts (3) the ability to apply the ideas and thoughts to other examples (e.g.
examples from films, or writings by other theorists or critics).
Each group, which will consist of two students, is required to do at least one
presentation throughout the semester. The presentation will last 20 minutes
(including screening clips), and the group will lead a 10-minute discussion between
other students. The presentation must be accompanied by the submission of a log
report along with other materials for it (such as PowerPoint). The log report should
underline each students contribution and demonstrate his/her understanding of the
concepts and arguments related to the weekly lecture and readings, his/her ability to
analyze the main film and its key scenes, and read it critically, and the capacity to
construct a record of other ideas and experiences for discussion that he/she feels are
pertinent to the weekly topics. A hardcopy of the tutorial presentations must be
submitted to the tutor right after the end of each tutorial.
The format and length of the log report is dependent upon your choice, but you
should provide the full bibliographic details of the article/s being discussed (including
author name and bibliographic details). When quoting from the articles, include the
page number in brackets at the end of the quote. Make sure to indicate when you are
quoting directly from an article by using quotation marks. (It is essential that you
learn to do this correctly in order to avoid plagiarism).
The specific dates of the tutorial presentations will be assigned on a rotational basis
based on choices by lot or on a first-come-first-serve basis during the courses first
tutorial. Advance email requests will not be entertained, as priority will be given to
students who specify their preference during our first tutorial meeting. Students who
miss the first tutorial will be assigned tutorial presentation dates at the instructors
discretion.
You should try to engage with the readings, screening and weekly lecture as well as
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with any extra research you have done. Please do not merely provide a summary of
the readings. You need to think critically about the topic and related concepts. The
content of the tutorial presentation cannot be reused in the two paper/essay
assessments.
It is essential that all of you, whether presenting or not in a specific week, are fully
prepared for it, and come ready to ask questions, raise issues, listen carefully to
others, and reflect upon the perspectives you form on the basis of your studies.
Assessment Criteria
(15% for Presentation and Discussion, 5% for Log Report and Materials)
You will write a mid-term paper on one suggested film from Week 3 to Week 7
according to the theoretical concepts and critical/technical vocabulary acquired in
class. The paper is required to contain a shot-by-shot analysis of at least one scene
or sequence of the chosen film. The main purpose of this exercise is to train you to
observe in detail and to describe accurately how meaning is produced through the
production techniques and formal qualities of film, using the methods and terms
outlined in lectures, readings and tutorials. Follow the instructions presented in the
Chapter 11 (Film Criticism: Sample Analyses) and the Appendix in Film Art. Include
scene segmentations of the film as an appendix, by capturing key screenshots of the
scenes and endowing them with proper numbers. All references must be properly
cited using either MLA (Modern Language Association) Style
(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/) or Chicago Manual Style
(http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html)
* It is prohibited to select main films shown in the class as well as the films that the
sample essays in the Chapter 11 of Film Art deal with.
The maximum length of the paper is 1,500 words (excluding bibliography, figures,
and captions), and its format is times new roman (12 point), double-space, and 1inch
margin on each side. All the papers should be submitted on hard copy at the lecture
on 8 Oct (Mon).
Assessment Criteria
Detailed observation and description of shots.
Thoughtful description of meaning.
Attention to production techniques/formal qualities of film.
Use of film studies methods and terms.
Students are asked to write a 1,000 word critical review on one of the suggested
films in relation to one weekly topic from Week 8 to Week 12 (namely, Documentary
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and Experimental Film, Film and Ideology, Social Context and Film Style, Film
Genre, and Film Authorship). While students are allowed to cover more than two
films, including the main film screened, their essays arguments and analyses must
focus on a single film that they will choose.
A few illustrative topics for film criticism are as follows:
- Dark Knight and the ideology of terrorism in the Post-911 America
- Ringu and the Specificities of J-Horror
- Social Network and David Finchers authorship
The criticism should not be a journalist film review you can find from newspapers or
online film websites, but a critical essay that will present your research on the
readings of a weekly topic, your key arguments on the film, and your analysis on its
key cinematic elements in order to support the arguments. You are required to cite at
least one article of the course readings, along with other academic sources drawn
from your research. All the reviews should be submitted on soft copy via the
edveNTUres Turin Assignment by 12 Nov (Mon).
* Assessment Criteria
Originality and rigor of argument. (All claims and interpretations must be supported
with detailed argument. This means providing empirical evidence from the films, key
historical facts and a lucid presentation of material. Please avoid presenting
unsubstantiated opinion or value judgments lacking cogent argument)
Evidence of substantial research a wide reading on the topic. (Your research should
include academic sources like refereed journals and books held in the library. Under
no circumstances should you limit your research to Internet sources).
Essays and assignments must reflect an engagement with issues and ideas central
to the course.
Treatment of film as a specific medium. In other words, you must make an effort to
come to terms with the formal (stylistic and technical) as well as the thematic
qualities of the films that you choose to write about. A film is not a book. Your essays
and assignments must highlight this.
Proper punctuation, grammar and sentence structure.
Care in matters of spelling and factual information concerning dates, names and
titles.
Use of proper and consistent academic referencing system in footnotes and
bibliography.
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Course Schedule
Suggested Films:
Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924, 45m),
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954,
112m), Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe
Tornatore, 1988, 155m)
WK2 No Lecture No Screening Teaching how to
20/23 (This Monday is a conduct film analysis
Aug holiday followed by and write about film
Hari Rara Puasa on 19 (Read Film Arts
Aug (Sun)) Chapter 11
beforehand)
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Suggested Films:
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
(Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926, 95m),
Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966, 85m),
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick,
1968, 141m), Blue Velvet (David Lynch,
1986, 120m), Werckmeister Harmonies
(Bla Tarr, 2000, 145m), Le Fils (Jean-
Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2002, 101m),
Elephant (Gus van Sant, 2003, 80m)
Suggested films:
Early Summer (Ozu Yasujiro, 1951, 135
m), The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl
Theodor Dreyer, 1928, 110m), Pierre le
Fou (Jean-luc Godard, 1965, 110m),
Requiem for a Dream (Darren
Aronofsky, 2001, 102m), In the Mood for
Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2003, 98m), The
Social Network (David Fincher, 2010,
120m)
Suggested Films:
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942, 101m,
Rashomon (Kurosawa Akira, 1950, 88m),
Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais,
1961, 94m) Pulp Fiction (Quentin
Tarantino, 1994, 154m), Run, Lola Run
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(Tom Tykwer, 1998, 81m), Syndromes
and a Century (Apichatpong
Weerasethakul, 2007, 105m)
WK7 Film Sound and Music Chapter 7, Sound in the Cinema Presentation and
24/27 discussion of the
Sep Chion, Michel, Projections of Sound on readings and film in
Image and Phantom Audio-vision, Week 7
Audio-vision: Sound on Screen, trans.
and ed. by Claudia Gorbman (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 3-
24, pp. 123-137.
Suggested films:
The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927,
88m), The Great Dictator (Charlie
Chaplin, 1940), A Man Escaped (Robert
Bresson, 1956, 100m), Mon Oncle
(Jacques Tati, 1958, 117m), Apocalypse
Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979, 153m),
Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier,
2000, 140m)
Recess Week (No Class and Tutorials)
WK8 Non-narrative Film Chapter 10, Documentary, Presentation and
8/11 Forms Experimental, and Animated Cinema discussion of the
Oct readings and film in
Nichols, Bill. What Types of Week 11
* Mid-term paper Documentaries Are There? Introduction
Due Date: 8 Oct to Documentary (Bloomington, IN:
(submission on hard Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 99-
copy at the lecture) 138.
Suggested films:
* Documentary: Nanook of the North
(Robert Flaherty, 1922, 79m), Triumph of
the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935, 116m),
Primary (Robert Drew, 1963, 53m),
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004,
122m), Standard Operating Procedure
(Errol Morris, 2008, 116m)
* Experimental film:
Entracte (Ren Clair, 1924, 22m), Un
chien andalou (Luis Buuel, 1929, 10m),
Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger, 1963,
30m), (nostalgia) (Hollis Frampton,
1971, 38m), Je tu il elle (Chantal
Akerman, 1976 83m)
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Part 2: Contexts of Film Content
WK9 Film and Ideology FCI chap. 11 Film and Ideology Presentation and
15/18 discussion of the
Oct Kellner, Douglas, "Film, Politics, and readings and film in
Ideology: Reflections on Hollywood Film Week 9
in the Reagan Era," The Velvet Light
Trap, No. 27 (Spring 1991), 9-24.
WK10 Social Context and FCI chap. 10 Social Context and Film Presentation and
22/25 Film Style Style discussion of the
Oct readings and film in
FH chapter 16 (Neorealism and its Week 10
Context, 1945-1959), chapter 23
(Politically Critical Cinema of the 1960s
and 1970s)
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in the Age of Transnationalism, Film
Genre Reader III, pp. 516-536.
Suggested films:
The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946,
114m), Written on the Wind (Douglas
Sirk, 1956, 99m), Taxi Driver (Martin
Scorsese, 1976, 113m), Cure (Kiyoshi
Kurosawa, 1997, 115m), Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000, 120m),
The Host (Pong Chun-go, 2006, 119m)
Suggested films:
400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959,
99m), 8 (Federico Fellini, 1963,
138m), The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky,
1974, 106m), Schindlers List (Steven
Spielberg, 1993, 196m), The River (Cai
Mingliang, 1997, 115m), Cach (Michael
Haneke, 2006, 118m)
WK13 Cinema and New FCI chap. 15, Cinema as Industry Presentation and
Nov Technology: discussion of the
12/15 Industrial Changes Manovich, Lev, What is Cinema? The readings and film in
and New Forms Language of New Media (Cambridge, Week 13
MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 287-333.
Film Review Due
Date: Nov 12 Friedberg, Anne, The End of Cinema:
Multimedia and Technological Change,
Reinventing Film Studies, eds. Christine
Gledhill and Linda Williams (London:
Arnold, 2000), pp. 438-452.
Suggested films:
The Matrix (Andy and Lana Wachowski,
1999, 136m), Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis,
2007, 115m), Waltz with Bashir (Ari
Folman, 2008, 90m), Timecode (Mike
Figgis, 2000, 97m), Russian Ark
(Alexandre Sokurov, 2002, 96m)
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