Cinema Studies, Innis College, University of Toronto

INI 214Y: FILM THEORY
Schedule of Films and Readings - 1999-2000

Professor Kay Armatage, Innis College Rm 224. Tel. 416-978-8572; Fax 416-978-5503.


Invaluable Resources:
Cinema Studies Research Guide http://www.utoronto.ca/cinema/cinema-resources.html
Film Theory Resources http://www.utoronto.ca/cinema/INI214Y_FilmTheory.html

 
Mon. Sept. 13 Introduction & Course Mechanics 

THE POLEMIC DUALISM OF FILM THEORY 
V.F Perkins, "Sins of the Pioneers," Film as Film (London: Penguin, 1972), 9-27. (xerox)

Tue. Sept. 14 Animals in Motion. John Straiton, Canada, 1963 
Early Edison shorts 
Lumiere program 
Melies program
Mon. Sept. 20 CLASSICAL FILM THEORY IN CONTEXT  
Rudolf Arnheim, "On the Nature of Photography", The Camera Viewed: Writings on 20th-Century Photography, vol. 2, ed. P.R. Petruck (New York: Dutton, 1979), 147-160. (xerox) 
Jonathan Crary, "Modernizing Vision", Viewing Positions, ed. Linda Willams (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 23-35. (xerox)
Tue. Sept.21 Broken Blossoms. D.W. Griffith, USA, 1919.
Mon. Sept. 27 PERCEPTION AND FORMATIVE THEORY, cont'd 
Rudolph Arnheim, "Film and Reality", "The Making of a Film", & "The Complete Film", Film Theory and Criticism (FTC) 312-321 & 212-215.
Tue. Sept. 28 Sunrise. F.W. Murnau, USA, 1927.
Mon. Oct. 4 CRITICAL THEORY: THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL  
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", FTC 731-751.
Tue. Oct. 5 Berlin, Symphony of a Great City. Walter Ruttman, Germany, 1927. 
Diving and Marathon sequences from Olympia, Leni Reifenstahl, Germany, 1936.
Mon. Oct. 11 THANKSGIVING - NO CLASS
Tue. Oct. 12 The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks. Lev Kuleshov, Russia, 1923. 
Excerpts, Sennet and Keaton comedies. 

SOVIET THEORY: KULESHOV & RUSSIAN FORMALISM 
A. Lunacharsky, "Cinema: The Greatest of the Arts", The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents, ed. R. Taylor & I. Christie (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1988), 154-156. (xerox) 
Victor Schlovsky, "Art as Technique", Russian Formalist Criticism, ed. L.T. Lemon & M.J. Reis (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1965), 3-23. (xerox) 

Hand-Out: Constructivism

Mon. Oct. 18 SOVIET THEORY: EISENSTEIN'S DISPUTE WITH KULESHOV 
Sergei Eisenstein, "Beyond the Shot," FTC 15-24.
Tue. Oct. 19 Strike. Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1924.
Mon. Oct. 25 SOVIET THEORY: DIALECTICAL MONTAGE  
Sergei Eisenstein, "The Dramaturgy of Film Form,"FTC 25-42. 
Vsevolod Pudovkin, "On Editing," FTC 9-14.
Tue. Oct. 26 The General Line. Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1929.
Mon. Nov. 1 POST-WAR CINEMA & REALIST THEORY: ONTOLOGIES AND HISTORIOGRAPHIES   
Sigfried Kracauer, "Basic Concepts" & "The Establishment of Physical Existence", FTC 171-182 & 293-303. 
S. Kracauer, "Film in Our Time," Theory of Film, (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1960), 285-309. (xerox)
Tue. Nov. 2 Pather Panchali. Satyajit Ray, India, 1955.
Mon. Nov. 8 POST-WAR CINEMA & REALIST THEORY: SOCIAL REALISM - AMERICAN STYLE   
Andre Bazin, "The Ontology of the Photographic Image"& "The Myth of Total Cinema,  FTC 195-202. 

Recommended Reading: Raymond Williams, "Realism, Naturalism and their Alternatives", Cine-Tracts vol. 1 no. 3, 1977-78.

Tue. Nov. 9 The Magnificent Ambersons. Orson Welles, USA, 1942.
Mon. Nov. 15 POST-WAR CINEMA & REALIST THEORY: NEO-REALISM  
A. Bazin, "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema," FTC 43-56 & "De Sica: Metteur-en-Scene," FTC 203-211.
Tue. Nov. 16 Umberto D. Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1952.
Mon. Nov. 22 POST-WAR CINEMA & REALIST THEORY: REALISM, AUTEURISM & ART CINEMA   
Andre Bazin, "La Politique des Auteurs", The New Wave, ed. Peter Graham (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 137-155. (xerox) 
Andrew Sarris, "Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962," FTC 515-518. 
Peter Wollen, "The Auteur Theory," FTC 519-535.
Tue. Nov. 23 Only Angels Have Wings Howard Hawks, USA, 1939
Mon. Nov. 29 POST-WAR CINEMA AND REALIST THEORY: CRITIQUE OF AUTEURISM   
Jean-Luc Godard, "9: Defence and Illustration of Classical Construction" & "19: The Wrong Man," Godard on Godard, ed. T. Milne & Jean Narboni (NY: Da Capo, 1992). (xerox) 
Christian Metz, "Modern Cinema and Narrativity," Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema (NY: Oxford, 1974), 185-227. (xerox)
Tue. Nov. 30 Hiroshima, Mon Amour. Alain Resnais, France, 1959.
Mon. Dec. 6 TERM WRAP-UP
Tue. Dec. 7 TERM TEST 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!


 
Mon. Jan. 3 SEMIOTICS & THE CINEMA: INTRODUCTION 
Roland Barthes, "The Photographic Message,"Image, Music, Text (London: Fontana Press, 1977), 15-31. (xerox) 
Christian Metz, "Some Points in the Semiotics of the Cinema," FTC 68-75. 

Barthes Handout

Tue. Jan. 4 City of Gold. Colin Low and Wolf Koenig, Canada, 1957. 
Une Femme Mariee. Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1964.
Mon. Jan. 10 SEMIOTICS OF THE CINEMA: IMAGE OR MONTAGE?  
Christian Metz, "Cinema: Language or Language System?" Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema (New York: Oxford, 1974), 31-91. (xerox)
Tue. Jan. 11 Point Blank. John Boorman, USA, 1967.
Mon. Jan. 17 SEMIOTICS OF THE CINEMA: A PARADIGM OF SYNTAGMAS   
Christian Metz, "Problems of Denotation in the Fiction Film," FTC 75-90. 

Metz Handout

Tue. Jan. 18 The Metz Tape
Mon. Jan. 24 SEMIOTICS OF THE CINEMA: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS 
Raymond Bellour, "The Obvious and the Code," Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, ed. Philip Rosen (New York: Columbia, 1991), 93-101. (xerox)
Tue. Jan. 25 The Big Sleep. Howard Hawks, USA, 1946.
Mon. Jan. 31 IDEOLOGY AND APPARATUS  
Jean-Louis Baudry, "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus," FTC 345-356. 
Stan Brakhage, ""From Metaphors on Vision," FTC 228-235. 

Baudry Handout

Tue. Feb. 1 Titicut Follies. Frederick Wiseman, USA, 1967.
Mon. Feb. 7 IDEOLOGY & APPARATUS cont'd.  
J. L. Comolli & J. Narboni, "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism," FTC 752-760. 
Jean-Louis Baudry, "The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema", FTC 760-778. 
Tue. Feb. 8 Spellbound. Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1945.
Mon. Feb. 14 READING WEEK
Tue. Feb. 15 READING WEEK
Mon. Feb. 21 IDEOLOGY & APPARATUS: SOUND 
Christian Metz, "Aural Objects," FTC 356-360. 
S. Eisenstein, V. Pudovkin, G. Alexandrov, "Statement on Sound," FTC 360-363. 
Mary Ann Doane, "The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space," FTC 363-376. 
Tue. Feb. 22 The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach. Jean-Marie Straub & Danielle Huillet, France, 1967.
Mon. Feb. 28 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FILM THEORY: CINEMA, DESIRING MACHINE  
Christian Metz, "Identification, Mirror," "The Passion for Perceiving, & "Disavowal, Fetishism," FTC 800-818. 
Supplementary Reading: Terry Eagleton, "Psychoanalysis," Literary Theory (London: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 151-193 (on reserve). 

Lacan Handout

Tue. Feb. 29 Mildred Pierce. Michael Curtiz, USA, 1945.
Mon. Mar. 6 SUTURE: SPECTATOR POSITIONS  
Daniel Dayan, "The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema," FTC 118-129. 
Kaja Silverman, "On Suture," FTC 137-147.
Tue. Mar. 7 Rear Window. Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1959.
Mon. Mar. 13 GENDERED SPECTATORSHIP 
Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," FTC 833-845.
Tue. Mar. 14 Blonde Venus. Joseph von Sternberg, USA, 1932.
Mon. Mar. 20 FILM THEORY & ITS DISCONTENTS 
Gilbert Harman, "Semiotics and the Cinema: Metz and Wollen," FTC 90-98. 
Stephen Prince, "The Discourse of Pictures: Iconicity and Film Studies," FTC 99-117. 
Christine Gledhill, "Recent Developments in Feminist Criticism," FTC 251-272.
Tue. Mar. 21 Sans Soleil. Chris Marker, France, 1982.
Mon. Mar. 27 DISPERSAL: CULTURAL STUDIES 
Robert Stam, "Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction," FTC 235-251. 
Richard Dyer, "White," Screen 29:4, 1988. (xerox) 
Manthia Diawara, "Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance," FTC 845-853.
Tue. Mar. 28 Double Happiness. Mina Shum, Canada, 1996.
Mon. Apr. 3 TERM WRAP-UP
Tue. Apr. 4 TERM TEST

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