Course Timeline >> Summer

Summer

Part I. Culture and Ideology in Film

Week 1  

Section One  Introduction to the Course 
Reader (see required text on syllabus)
Simmons, “Ideology and Multicultural Film”
Walter Lippmann, “Stereotypes,” “Codes and Their Enemies.”

Lecture  (note: all lectures will open in a separate browser window)
Hi bandwidth (56K or higher); Lo bandwidth (28.8K or lower)

In Class  Possible Selections from The Great Primitives and Battle at Elderbush Gulch.

Real media version available at: http://video1.xoom.com/ramgen/BattleatElderbrush.rm
 

Section Two  Film Language in Classical Hollywood Cinema 
Reader
Belton, “Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style” 
Bordwell/Thompson, “Style in Citizen Kane”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Citizen Kane
 

Section Three  Ideology 
Reader
Kavanagh, “Ideology”
Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”
Austin, “Marxist Criticism”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  The Truman Show

 Part II.  Inetersectionalities and Various Approaches to Film Criticism

Week 2  

Section One  Ideology and Race
Reader
Omi and Winant, “Racial Formation”
McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege”
Dyer, White, Chapters VI (optional) 
Snead, “Spectatorship . . . “ (optional) 
Hooks, “Oppositional Gaze” (optional)

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Imitation of Life 
 

Section Two  Psychoanalysis and Gender
Reader
Gail Houston, “Psychoanalytic Criticism”
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Freud, “On Fetishism” (optional)
Merck “Psychoanalysis and Subjectivity” (optional)
McKahan, “Rethinking the Gaze” (optional)

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Marnie
 

Week 3  

Section One  Sexuality, Gender, Ideology
Reader
Rubin, “Thinking Sex” 
Weber, “A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Race, Class, Gender & Sexuality”
Rubin, “Trafficking in Women” (optional) 
Benshoff, Chapter I (optional) 

Lecture
6A: Hi band; Lo band
6B: Hi band; Lo band

In Class  Selections from Celluloid Closet

Assigned Film  Strawberry and Chocolate

May 23-24: Review and Midterm Exam

May 27: No Classes - Memorial Day
 

Week 4

Section One  Love and Ideology
Reader
Belton, “Genre and the Genre System”
Wright, “Genre Films and the Status Quo”
Cooper, “Love, Danger and the Professional Ideology of Hollywood Cinema”
Wood, “Ideology, Gender and the Auteur”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Titanic 
 

Section Two  Independent Films
Reader
Belton, “Into the 1990s: Bringing it all back Home” 
Simmons, “Contemporary American Independent Film Classical or Radical?”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Being John Malkovich

Part III.  Case Study:  The Evolution of Frankenstein Films

Week 5  

Section One  The Politics of the Gaze: Anxieties of Gender & Technology in Frankenstein Films
Reader
Picart, Chapter I, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein
Picart, Chapter II, Section II, on Whale’s Frankenstein, and Section IV, on Son of Frankenstein

Lecture
11A:  Hi band; Lo band
11B:  Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Frankenstein
 

Section Two  Monstrosity, Sex and Gender
Reader
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter II, Section III, on “Bride of Frankenstein”
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter III, Section V, on “Frankenstein Created Woman”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Bride of Frankenstein
 

Section Three  Class, Race and the Horror Film
Reader
Bordwell/Thompson, “The Horror Film”
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter III, Section IV, on “Evil of Frankenstein”
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter III, Section VII, on “Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Evil of Frankenstein
 

Week 6  

Section One Masculinities and Femininities in Frankenstein Films
Reader
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter III, Section VI, on “Frankenstein Must be Destroyed”
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter II, Section VII, on “House of Frankenstein”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Frankenstein Must be Destroyed OR House of Frankenstein
 

Section Two  Contemporary Renditions of the Frankenstein Myth
Reader
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter IV, Section II, on “Frankenstein 1970”
Picart, The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein, Chapter IV, Section III, on “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”

Lecture
Hi band; Lo band

Assigned Film  Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Review and Final Exam