English 393:  Film Genre (Desire vs. Fear)

Dr.  Kuzmanovich

TR 11-12:15;  TW 7:15-9:30 in Perkins

Office:  Siberia 01

 

 

TEXTS

Cook, The Cinema Book    (Cook)   

Solomon, The Philosophy of Erotic Love         (POEL)  

Ondaatje, The English Patient                                                         
Byatt, Angels and Insects                                                                 

Cather, My Antonia                                                                                            

Greene, The End of the Affair

Bordwell, et al, Film Art (RECOMMENDED for students who have not had English 293)

                                                               

FILMS (To choose from)

The Piano; Walkabout; Belle du Jour; Woman in the Dunes; Casablanca; Annie Hall; Play it Again, Sam; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; Harold and Maude; Breaking the Waves; Falling Down;

Student Choices TBA:
PUFF

This is not a course in which we parade our pain or give advice to the lovelorn, trot out neuroses or learn to forgive.  But it is still an immodest and wholly foolish undertaking.  And an ambitious one, too:  though it’s mostly literary/film  analysis it is also part philosophy, part psychology, part history, part film theory, part creative writing and filmmaking.  For to begin to speak of love is to speak of desire, beauty, goodness (St. Augustine), creation, immortality (Plato), psychic anatomy and anatomical memory, prophetic dreams, conscious irrationality, obsession, transgression, suffering, repression, sublimation (Freud), selfhood, otherness, will to power, slavery, mastery, surrender (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Sartre, DeBeauvoir), prostitution (Marx and Engels), male conspiracy (Firestone).  Lines between  eros, philia, nomos, agape, and theoria grow faint and not only because they happen to be Greek words and thus equally strange. Appetites sometimes merge and sometimes squabble with reason and spirit.  Loving oneself, loving others, loving God, loving God in others, passion, intimacy, commitment, these states bring up only the first questions: Who/what should be loved? How does a lover choose a/the beloved? What causes love? What does love cause? Egotism? Idealism? Blindness? Self-knowledge? Marriage? Companionate marriage? Partnership? The sense that the lovers are heroes/heroines of their own stories which they can finally tell? If one's love is a story, or becomes a story, what is the genre of that story? Does love become a story only in love’s absence? Is love good? Is love a good? Is there a hierarchy of loves and lovers? What connects love to sexual desire? Do causes and connections differ among cultures and historical periods? What differentiates falling in love from being or staying in love? All of these are good philosophical questions and psychological categories, but talking about love only philosophically or treating it as something amenable to psychologizing invariably causes us, as the philosopher Arthur Danto said, "to lose touch with the reality everyone cherishes." 

 

Thus, though we need philosophers and psychologists to formulate the questions, for answers the cherished rightness of which we feel rather than merely nod agreement to, we must turn to art and artists. 

 

These books and films treat love and its impediments, or more exactly love through its impediments. Sex may very well be one of those impediments, but like any other subject sex can be discussed with crude insistence or witty tactfulness and civility.   Since students have a right to their own language, I will not stop you from saying anything, but if crude insistence is your method, don’t be surprised if the class responds in kind.

WARNING

If you even suspect that you may find objectionable some of the course materials (like vulgar language or brief scenes of frontal nudity) and the discussions those materials may occasion, please do the right, candid,  and dignified thing and walk away now. 

 

LATE PAPERS

All written work  and projects are due in my office by 5:00 PM of the day for which they are assigned, and late work (when accepted) is penalized one full letter grade for every twenty four hours of lateness. All work must be (1) original and (2) pledged. Paper must follow the current MLA guidelines.

REQUIRE-MENTS

In addition to reading everything on the syllabus, each student will be required to act as the "facilitator" of discussion during one or two class meeting. The number depends on the size of the class at the end of Add/Drop.  The facilitators/discussion leaders will also select and prepare the necessary visual materials for that discussion.  Discussion leaders should meet with me at least two days prior to their scheduled discussion. A write-up of the goals and accomplishments of the discussion makes up one of your five one-page journals.  Class Participation accounts for 33% of the final grade. There will be two  researched papers (seven-to-ten pages) or one paper and a project (34%), and in-class final exam (33%).

PROJECT

ANY AGREEMENT WE COME TO ABOUT A SHORT VIDEO PRODUCTION, A SERIES OF PAINTINGS OR PHOTOGRAPHS, ILLUSTRATED STORIES OR POEMS, ETC.  IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO A VIDEO PROJECT,  NO SHOOTING MAY BEGIN WITHOUT MY PRIOR APPROVAL OF SCRIPT, CASTING, SET, PROPS, and IRB PERMISSION FORMS, etc.  IF YOU INTEND TO WRITE YOUR OWN SCRIPT, SEE ME AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE.

CLASS

TALK

Class Participation includes both leading your discussion and helping others lead theirs.  In order to participate in the discussions, voice your opinions, and be helpful to your classmates and to me, you need to attend. Your grade will be lowered by one full letter grade should you miss more that FOUR classes (or TWO discussions) without a valid excuse, and college policy requires that you receive a failing grade if you miss one fourth or more of your classes. In our case, one fourth is six (6) classes. 

GRADING

Although all grading is to some degree subjective, I want to clue you in on what my particular criteria are. I am convinced that written assignments help you to develop and clarify your understanding of a text, thus giving you a firmer grasp of it than reading, lecture, or discussion can provide. What I look for in your writing are the following elements. Words like sense and feeling hint at the subjectivity; remember, however, that I am a trained reader and that these criteria are constants for everyone in this class:

  • a sense that you have understood and considered all aspects of the assignment and have something interesting to say in response to it (rather than answering the obvious questions or latching on to something already trodden over in lecture and discussion)
  • depth of understanding of the work under discussion (considering evidence which might be interpreted quite differently from the way you read it, anticipating those objections and fending them off rather than conveniently forgetting about them; appropriate details brought forth to convince me of your contention; citations, always with page numbers, thoroughly interpreted and commented upon)
  • a feeling (very early in your response to the assignment) of some insightful point being made and of the method you plan to use in demonstrating that point (the more I have to guess what it is you are getting at, the more you'll have to wonder about your grade; mystery has a better place on late-night television)
  • a sense that you have profited from doing the assignment itself, a new insight perhaps, usually evident in a conclusion which does not merely summarize but speculates, conjectures, surmises, theorizes, meditates, ponders, reflects, ruminates (yes, I use a thesaurus and so should you) or gives other indication of an ongoing engagement with the text/film at hand
  • rhetorical awareness: when you write for me, you write for an interested and sympathetic but also skeptical reader. To convince me that you are making the best possible case for your reading, assume an authoritative interested tone (achieved through precise propositions which are qualified where necessary and through a consideration of other points of view); carefully selected and contextualized citations; coherent exposition and sufficient development of your insight gained by clear transitions between sentences and paragraphs; fair use of outside materials in observance of the honor code.

NB: I am distressed and irritated by carelessness in handling of logic, grammar, and textual evidence, and, as a result, every time I have to correct something, your grade is affected accordingly. For me, teaching provides a type of satisfaction no other activity can provide, so I care about all aspects of it, including your writing. I hope you will care about it as much as I do. I applaud good intentions, encourage aspiration, and value hard work, but I reward only achievement.

 

 

 

 

 

Calendar

Day

Date

Reading

Film

Writing

Discussion

 

T

1/13

Methods and Goals

Casablanca

 

 

W

1/14

Cook: Classical Holywood Cinema, 39-67

Play It Again, Sam

 

 

R

1/15

POEL: 451-467 (Rilke and non-Possessive Love); Cook: 137-147

 

 

 Dr. K.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Romantic Comedy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

1/20

Cook: 223-228;

In class viewing:  Romantic Comedy

Annie Hall

 

 

W

1/21

 

Annie Hall

 

 

R

1/22

POEL: 153-177: (Freud in Debasement in Love, Narcissism, Neurosis)

 

 

Dr. K.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Melodrama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

1/27

POEL: 104-117 (Rousseau, Emile, New Heloise)

The Piano

 

 

W

1/28

Cook: 341-366

Written on The Wind

 

 

R

1/29

Cook: 157-172

 

 

x

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

2/3

Angels and Insects

Angels and Insects

 

 

W

2/4

POEL: 233-241 (De Beauvoir and the Second Sex)

Belle de Jour

 

 

R

2/5

 

 

 

 x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

2/10

POEL: 177-202 (Jung on the Psychology of Marriage)

Solaris

 

 

W

2/11

Zizek, “The Thing from Outer Space”

http://www.artmargins.com/content/feature/zizek1.html

Solaris 2003

 

 

R

2/12

Cook: 191-209

 

 

x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horror

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

2/17

Student Choice

???

 

 

W

2/18

Carol J. Clover, “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film”—On Reserve 

???

 

 

R

2/19

 

 

 

x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Foreign/Art Film

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

2/24

 

Woman in the Dunes

 

 

W

2/25

Cook:  114-120

Walkabout

 

 

R

2/26

 

 

Paper #1 Due

 x

 

 
2/28-3/7       Spring Break

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
The War Film

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

T

3/9

The English Patient

The English Patient

 

 

W

3/10

 

The English Patient

 

 

R

3/11

 

 

Paper and Project Topics Due

x

T

3/16

Film and history; Cook: 253-264; 282-284; 305-306

Les Carabiniers

 

 

W

3/27

POEL: 477-492 (Love as Theater)

Full Metal jacket

 

 

R

3/18

 

 

 

 x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Western

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

3/23

My Antonia

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Scripts and Shooting Schedules Due

 

W

3/24

Cook: 147-154; 299-302

Falling Down

 

 

R

3/25

 

 

 

x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cult Film

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

3/30

Cook:366-372

Barbarella

 

 

W

4/1

POEL: 259-279 (Singer on the Nature of Love)

Harold and Maude

 

 

R

4/2

 

 

 

 x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Film Noir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

4/6

The Killers The Killers

The Killers

 

 

W

4/7

Cook: 172-191

In a Lonely Place

 

 

R

4/8

 

????

 

x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4/10-4/13   No Class

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Short Film

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W

4/14

Cook: 319-341

TBA

 

 

R

4/15

 

 

 

X

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Religious Film

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T

4/20

The End of the Affair

Breaking the Waves

 

 

W

4/21

POEL: 44-56 (St. Augie on City of God)

Breaking the Waves

 

 

R

4/22

 

 

Paper # 2 or

Project Due

 x

T

4/27

 

The Sacrifice