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 107-090 Film History and Discourse: Theory and Cinema

Availability

3rd and 4th year

Credit Points

25

Coordinator

Dr Jeanette Hoorn

Prerequisites

see Prerequisites

Semester

Not Offered (view timetable)

Contact

A 2-hour seminar, a 1-hour lecture, and a 2-hour screening per week

Subject Description

This subject introduces students to the history and theory of film discourse through a study of key films and major critiques surrounding them. It examines the way in which critical discourses establish the canon as well as influencing the way ideas and theory about films are circulated in the academy. Writing on a range of concepts such as authorship, spectatorship, narrative, realism and the emergence of the avant-garde are central to the course. Texts include Griffith's 'Intolerance', Eisenstein's 'Ivan the Terrible', Well's 'Citizen Kane', Godard's 'Breathless', De Sica's 'The Bicycle Thief', Kurosawa's 'Rashomon' and Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'. Issues of major concern in contemporary cinema such as those surrounding postmodern and postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis, gender and queer theory are studied through such films as Coen's 'Fargo' Tarrantino's 'Pulp Fiction', Cronenberg's 'Crash', Lee's 'Jungle Fever', Potter's 'Orlando'. Key texts relating to documentary, scientific, medical, ethnographic cinema, television and video, and Asian cinema are studied as well as Hollywood and European Cinema.

Assessment

An essay of 3000 words, and two tutorial papers of 1500 words each, and an examination of 2000 words for 3rd-year. An essay of 4000 words, and two tutorial papers of 2000 words each, and an examination of 2000 words for 4th-year.

Prescribed Texts

A course Reader will be supplied

  • R Labsley & M Westlake, Film Theory: An Introduction. Manchester University Press.


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Email Enquiries:          Course_Information@registrar.unimelb.edu.au