Cinema Studies, Innis College, University of Toronto

INI 330Y: CONTEMPORARY FILM THEORY
Schedule of Films and Readings 2005-06

Professor Kay Armatage, Innis College Rm 224.

Tel. 416-978-8572; Fax 416-978-5503. kay.armatage@utoronto.ca

Cinema Studies Research Guide http://www.utoronto.ca/innis/library/cinema.html
 
Tues. Sept. 13 Introduction: Readings and Assignments
Thur. Sept. 15 Repeat Introduction: Readings and Assignments
Tues. Sept. 20

Lecture: Introduction to Post-Metzian Film Theory
Letter to Jane. Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, France, 1972. 52 min.
Thur. Sept. 22

Philip Rosen, "Introduction: The Saussurian Impulse and Cinema Semiotics,"Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, ed. Philip Rosen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 3-16.
Stephen Heath, "On Screen, in Frame: Film and Ideology,"Questions of Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 1-18.

Tues. Sept. 27

The Classic Realist Text
Stagecoach. John Ford, USA, 1939.
Thur. Sept. 29

Colin MacCabe, "Realism and the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses," Theoretical Essays: Film, Linguistics, Literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 33-57.
Tues. Oct. 4

Category "E"
Marnie. Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1964.
Thur. Oct. 6

Jean-Louis Comolli & Jean Narboni, "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism," Cahiers du Cinema, 1969.
Raymond Bellour, "Hitchcock the Enunciator,"Camera Obscura No. 2 Fall 1977, 66-87.
Raymond Bellour, "The Unattainable Text," The Analysis of Film, ed. C. Penley (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 21-27.
Raymond Bellour, "System of a Fragment (on The Birds)," The Analysis of Film, 28-67.
Tues. Oct. 11

Apparatus and the Subject
The General Line. Sergei Eisenstein, Russia, 1929.

Thur. Oct. 13

Stephen Heath, "The Cinematic Apparatus: Technology as Historical and Cultural Form", Questions of Cinema, 221-235.
Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," Lenin and Philosophy (London: NLF, 1971), 121-173.
Jean-Louis Baudry, "The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema," Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, 286- 318.
Tues. Oct. 18

Psychoanalysis and Cinema: Suture & The Subject
Vertigo. Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1958.

Thur. Oct. 20 Kaja Silverman, "The Subject," The Subject of Semiotics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 126-193.
Stephen Heath, "On Suture,"Questions of Cinema, 76-112.
Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, ed. Patricia Erens (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 28-40.
Tues. Oct. 25

The Feminist Intervention
Riddle of the Sphinx. Laura Mulvey/Peter Wollen. Great Britain, 1975.
Thur. Oct. 27

Thriller. Sally Potter. Great Britain, 1979. 

Mary Ann Doane, "Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator", Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, ed. Patricia Erens (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 41-57. 
Laura Mulvey, "Afterthoughts on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' inspired by Duel in the Sun," Feminism and Film Theory, ed. Constance Penley (New York: Routledge, 1988), 69-79.
Kaja Silverman, "Dis-Embodying the Female Voice," IFFC, 309-327.

Tues. Nov. 1

The Postcolonial Subject
Looking for Langston. Isaac Julian. Great Britain, 1988 (45 min)
The Body Beautiful. Ngozi Onwurah, GB, 1991 (30 min)

Thur. Nov. 3

Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation." Ex-Iles: Essays on Caribbean Cinema, ed. Mbye Cham (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1992), 220-236.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography," In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (London: Routlegde, 1988), 197-221.
Tues. Nov. 8

The Subject of Vision
Peeping Tom. Michael Powell, Great Britain, 1960.
Thur. Nov. 10

Jonathan Crary, "Modernity and the Problem of the Observer," Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990), 1-24.
Jonathan Crary, "The Camera Obscura and its Subject," Techniques of the Observer, 25-66.
Tues. Nov. 15

Apparatus: Sound
(nostalgia). Hollis Frampton, USA, 1971.
The Central Character. Patricia Gruben, Canada, 1979. (15 min.)
Flirt. Hal Hartley, USA, 1995 (30 min.)

Thur. Nov. 17

Michel Chion, "Projections of Sound on Image," Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, trans/ed. Claudia Gorbman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 3-24.
James Lastra, "Sound Theory," Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 123-153.
Mary Ann Doane, "The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space," Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, 335-348.

Tues. Nov. 22

Narrative Space
Touch of Evil. Orson Welles, USA, 1958.

Thur. Nov. 24 Rick Altman, "Cinema as Event," Sound Theory, Sound Practice (New York: Routledge, 1992), 1-14.
Edward Branigan, "Narrative Schema,"Narrative Comprehension and Film (New York: Routledge, 1992), 1-32.
Tues. Nov. 29 Death By Hanging. Oshima Nagisa, Japan, 1976.
Thur. Nov. 30 Stephen Heath, "Narrative Space,"Questions of Cinema, 19-75.
Tues. Dec. 6 Betrayal, David Hugh Jones, UK, 1983 (95 min.)
Thur. Dec. 8 Term Test
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 
Tues. Jan. 10

Post-Modernism: Simulation
The Truman Show. Peter Weir, USA, 1998 (103 min.)
Thur. Jan. 12

Jean Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra," Simulations (New York: Semiotext[e], 1983), 1-80.
Tues. Jan. 17

Post-Modernism: the Cultural Subject
Thomas in Love. Pierre-Paul Renders, Austria, 2000 (97 min.)
Thur. Jan. 19

Frederic Jameson, "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), 1-54.

Tues. Jan. 24

Globalization
The Terrorizer. Edward Yang. Shanghai, China, 1986 (109 min.)
Thur. Jan. 26

Fredric Jameson, "Remapping Taipei," The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 114-157.

Tues. Jan. 31

Flaneurie
Window Shopping. Chantal Akerman, France 1986.

Thur. Feb. 2

Anne Friedberg, "The Passage from Arcade to Cinema," Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern (Berkley: University of California Press, 1993), 47-94.
Anne Friedberg, "Les Flaneures/Flaneuses du Mall," Window Shopping, 109-155.

Tues. Feb. 7

Nomadism
Yeelen. Souleymane Cisse, Burkino Faso, 1987 (105 min.)

Thur. Feb. 9

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, "Introduction: Rhizome,"A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 3-25.
Dudley Andrew, "The Roots of the Nomadic: Gilles Deleuze and the Cinema of West Africa," The Brain is the Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema, ed. G. Flaxman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesta Press, 2000), 215-249.

Tues. Feb. 14

Collapsing the Cartesian Binary/Much Ado About Deleuze
Chungking Express. Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong, 1994 (102 min.)

Thur. Feb. 16

Gilles Deleuze, "Montage," Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 29-55.
Patricia Pisters, "The Universe as Metacinema," The Matrix of Visual Culture: Working with Deleuze in Film Theory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 14-44.
Tues. Feb. 21 Reading Week: No Class
Thur. Feb. 23 Reading Week: No Class
Tues. Feb. 28

The Real Cinematic Body
The Virgin Machine, Monika Treut, Germany, 1988 (84 min.
Thur. Mar. 2

Caryl Flinn, "The Body in the (Virgin) Machine,"Arachne Vol. 3 no. 2 (1996), 48-66.
Judith Butler, "Arguing with the Real," Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (New York: Routledge, 1993), 187-222.
Tues. Mar. 7

Pomo Poco
Bamboozled. Spike Lee, USA, 2000 (137 min.)
Thur. Mar. 9

Homi K. Bhabha, "The Postcolonial and the Postmodern: The Question of Agency," The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 171-197.

Tues. Mar. 14

Zizek on Hitchcock
Notorious. Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1946 (101 min.)
Thur. Mar. 16

Slavoj Zizek, "One Can Never Know Too Much about Hitchcock," Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991), 69-122.
Tues. Mar. 21

Enjoy Your Symptom
City Lights, Charles Chaplin, USA, 1931 (87 min.)
Zizek! Astra Taylor, Canada/USA, 2005 (71 min.)

Thur. Mar. 23

Slavoj Zizek, "Why does a letter always arrive at its destination?" Enjoy Your Symptom: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (New York: Routledge, 1992), 1-29.
Tues. Mar. 28

The Ridiculous Sublime
Lost Highway. David Lynch, USA 1997 (135 min.)
Thur. Mar. 30 Slavoj Zizek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch's Lost Highway (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2000), 1-48.
Tues. Apr. 4 Digital Technology and the Cinematic Experience
Sexual Dependency. Rodrigo Bellott, Bolivia, 2003 (105 min.)
Thur. Apr. 6 Mischa Peters, "Exit Meat: Digital Bodies in a Virtual World," New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, ed. Anna Everett & J.T. Caldwell (New York: Routledge, 2003), 47-59.
Mark Williams, "Real-Time Fairy Tales; Cinema Prefiguring Digital Anxiety," New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, ed. Anna Everett & J.T. Caldwell (New York: Routledge, 2003), 159-178.
Tues. Apr. 11 End of Course Review - No Film
Thur. Apr. 13 Term Test
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