Course detail
The Art of Interpreting Film 1
FaVU-TAIFAcad. year: 2023/2024
This year's edition will focus on Hollywood and European art house films from the 1940s to 1970s. We will cover the USA, France, and Czechoslovakia. Special focus will be placed on the political construction of gender reflected in the films themselves and in film theory of the 1970s to present. The course is by no means a survey course of the history of cinema, but it implicitly follows a chronological line.
Language of instruction
Number of ECTS credits
Mode of study
Guarantor
Offered to foreign students
Entry knowledge
Rules for evaluation and completion of the course
Students will be assesed from discussing and writing short, in-class response papers about the assigned texts.
The answered quiz questions regarding each text for homework have to be uploaded to the shared drive a day before the class. Before the last class in the semester, students will have to have fulfilled at least 60% of the assignments in order to be able to finish the remaining assignments by the end of the exam period.
Students will be assessed from the regular, continuous work during the semester.
Min. 75% attendance at the MS Teams videoconferences, active and relevant participation in discussions regarding the film + accompanying text assigned for the respective week. Apart from spoken discussion, short online writing during the videocinference (chat or some other written form).
Aims
Students will improve their language and communication skills.
By studying theoretical articles about films they will be aware of the variety of interpretaion tools and strategies.
Students will widen their horizons in a discipline which is not customarily taught at a fine art faculty.
The course will cultivate students' critical and analytical abilities.
Students will be trained to understand the essential points of academic texts, but will at the same time learn to coherently voice their opinions and interpretations of a particular film/text in written form.
During the semester, students will write several short tests checking their reading progress.
Study aids
Prerequisites and corequisites
Basic literature
Laura Mulvey - Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (EN)
Bordwell and Thompson: Film Art: An Introduction (EN)
Robin Wood: Hitchcok's Films Revisited (EN)
Alexander Dotty: Making Things Perfectly Queer (EN)
Robert J. Corber: Cold War Femme. Lesbianism, National Identity, and Holywood Cinema. (EN)
Robert J. Corber: In the Name of National Security. Hitchcock, Homophobia, and (EN)
Andrea Slováková: Co je nového ve filmové vědě. (EN)
Recommended reading
Mast, Gerald - A SHort History of the Movies (EN)
Christine Ross: Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonisation and Reordering of French Culture. (EN)
Erens, Patricia: Issues in Feminist Film Criticism (EN)
Sherman Frazer E. Screen Enemies of the Americans (EN)
András Bálint Kovács: Screening Modernism (EN)
Lee Edelman: No Future. Queer Theory and the Death Drive. (EN)
Classification of course in study plans
- Programme VUB Bachelor's
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective - Programme VUM Master's
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective - Programme FAAD Master's 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional - Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
3 year of study, winter semester, elective
4 year of study, winter semester, elective - Programme DES_B Bachelor's 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
- Programme ZST-BX Bachelor's
branch ZST , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
Type of course unit
Lecture
Teacher / Lecturer
Syllabus
2.Todd Haynes and the reflection of normalizing 1950s in postmodern Hollywood: Far From Heaven.
3. Hollywood classical cinema of the 1950s: Hitchcock, family romance, and homophobia. North By Northwest. Robert J. Corber: In the Name of National Security> Hithcock, Homophobia, and the Political Construction of Gender in Postwar America.
4. Art cinema and high modernism in European cinema. Michelangelo Antonioni and THe Passenger. Typology of modernist genres according to Kovács.
5. POstmodern cinema: David Lynch: Twin Peaks (Fire Walk With Me)
7. Lynch: Twin Peaks III. The quest as white man's Deal in TV format. Kovacs: Screening Modernism.
8. 1960s. French New Wave. Agnes Varga. Sans toit ni loi (1988) - a different version of a quest - a homeless girl in her 20s.
9. Holywood romanticising of a female vagabond: Angelina Jollie in Foxfire (1996).
10. Sophia Coppola: The Virgin Suicides (1999).
11. Catherine Breillat. Bluebeard (2009). A feminist and drastic reinterpretation of the classic fairy tale.
12. Desiréé Akhavan. The Miseducation of Cameron Post. (2018) When education turns horribly wrong.