This course is an introduction to film analysis through the viewing and discussing of French masterpieces from the birth of the cinema to the present. We will study a number of films selected not only for their artistic qualities, but also as cultural documents embedded in specific socio-political contexts. Our viewings will include a film by famous local New Wave filmmaker Jacques Demy, and we will also visit the places where Demy’s films were shot in Nantes.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Discover canonical films which prompt the viewers to think about the relationships between art, society, politics and history and which showcase the richness of French cinema.
Acquire a rigorous training in the theory and history of cinema which are useful for the critical decoding of the visual culture which surrounds us.
Master the vocabulary necessary to analyze films critically and in a foreign language.
Produce original research on a specific film.
Develop critical thinking skills, as well as of written and oral expression in a foreign language
Develop self-confidence to speak in public and/or as leader of a group
Learn ethical collaboration through active participation in group activities
Method of presentation:
lectures, discussions, student presentations, group work, field study
Required work and form of assessment:
Participation 15%, In-class and homework 10%, Mid-Term Examination 25%, Final Examination 25%, Oral presentation 10%, Paper 15%.
Participation: Includes in-class and homework assignments (one blog entry per film to be posted on Moodle at the end of every unit) and discussion on assigned topics
Mid-Term Exam: sequence analysis and short-answer questions on issues discussed in class
Final Exam: short-answer questions and one essay synthesizing issues discussed in class
Oral Presentation: presentations based on the field study (see instructions in the “contents” section)
Paper: 8-page (double spaced) argumentative paper on a film discussed in class. Students should incorporate at least one critical article or book in their papers, as well as at least one sequence analysis.
content:
It is the students’ responsibility to watch the film(s) assigned for each meeting before coming to class. All films studied can be found in the IES film library and viewed in the IES TV room. Every class meeting will include several sequence analyses.
Unit 1. Early Cinema
General Topic: Realism and the Magical
-Film to Be Discussed : shorts from the Frères Lumière and Georges Méliès
-Readings Due on This Date: “Le cinéma des premiers temps, un défi à l’histoire du cinéma?”, “Cinema de synthèse et cinéma des premiers temps” ; “No One-Way Ticket to the Moon”
Unit 2. The 1920’s Avant-Garde
General Topic: Technology and Primitivism
-Films to Be Discussed : Jean Renoir, Sur un air de Charleston (1926), Fernand Leger, Ballet mecanique (1924).
- Readings Due on This Date Excerpts from Le tumulte noir: modernist art and popular entertainment in Jazz-age Paris, 1900; excerpt from L’âge du rythme
Unit 3. 1930’s Realism
-General Topic: the Popular Front and Rise of Fascism
-Film to be Discussed : Jean Renoir, Le crime de Monsieur Lange (1936)
-Readings Due on This Date : excerpt from Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in classic French Cinema; “Audiences on the Verge of a Fascist Breakdown: Male Anxieties and late 1930’ s French film”
Unit 4. Colonial Cinema
-General Topic : Orientalism
-Film to Be Discussed : Julien Duvivier, Pépé le Moko (1937)
-Reading Due on This Date : “Pépé le Moko and the Discourse of Orientalism”
Unit 5. Cinema under the Occupation (1939-1945)
-General Topic: Suspicion, Fear and Betrayal
-Film to Be Discussed : Henri-Georges Clouzot, Le corbeau (1943)
-Reading Due on This Date : “Henri G .Clouzot and the Crimes of Woman”;
Extraits de Jean-Yves Le Naour, Le corbeau : Histoire vraie d'une rumeur (Paris : Hachette, 2006)
Unit 6. Post-War Cinema
General Topic: Modernization and Americanization
-Film to Be Discussed : Jacques Tati, Mon oncle (1958)
-Readings Due on This Date : Excerpts from Rouler plus vite, laver plus blanc. Modernisation de la France et décolonisation au tournant des années 60 ;
Vincent Guigueno , “L'écran de la productivité: "Jour de fête" et l'américanisation de la société française”, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire, No. 46, Numéro spécial: Cinéma, le temps de l'Histoire (Apr. - Jun., 1995), pp. 117-124
Unit 7. The New Wave (1958-1968)
-General Topic: The Poetics of Everyday Life
-Films to Be Discussed: Jacques Demy, Lola (1961)
-Reading Due on This Date : « Images de femmes dans le cinéma de la Nouvelle Vague: A bout de souffle, Les Bonnes Femmes, Cléo de 5 à 7, Hiroshima mon amour »; “Entretien avec Agnès Varda sur Jaquot de Nantes“
Unit 8. Field study: Nantes in Jacques Demy’s films (self-guided tour)
Assignment: Prepare an oral presentation in connection with your tour. Record your impressions (smells, sights, sounds, feelings etc…) as you walk around the city in Demy’s footsteps. Then, choose one specific space that appears in Lola and compare its current use by the French population to Demy’s own use of it in his film. Interview passersby to find out what their associations are with this particular place. Does your physical knowledge of these places bring something to your appreciation of the movie? How so? Finally, what do you think of the format of a self-guided tour to pay tribute to a filmmaker? etc. Organize your thoughts into a coherent and captivating presentation for next week.
Unit 9. The Birth of African Cinema
-General Topic : Decolonization
-Oral Presentations based on the self-guided tour
-Film to Be Discussed : Ousmane Sembène, La Noire de… (1966)
-Readings Due on This Date : “Ousmane Sembène et le cinéma politique”; Ousmane Sembène, La Noire de… (the short story)
Unit 10. Committed Cinema in the 1970
-General Topic: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany
-Oral Presentations
-Film to Be Discussed: Louis Malle, Lacombe Lucien (1974)
-Reading Due on This Date : excerpt from Lacombe Lucien de Louis Malle
Unit 11. Cinema du look in the 1980’s
-General Topic: The Mal de Vivre
-Film to Be Discussed : Luc Besson, Le grand bleu (1988)
-Readings Due on This Date : “ Trois néobaroques français - Beineix, Besson, Carax - de Diva au Grand Bleu”; “ The sinking of the self: Freudian hydraulic patterns in Le Grand Bleu”
Unit 12. The 1990’s: New Realism
-General Topic: Immigration, State Violence and National Identity
-Film to Be Discussed : Mathieu Kassovitz, La haine (1995)
-Reading Due on This Date : “ Entre présent et possible : la difficile recomposition du paysage de la banlieue dans le film de Mathieu Kassovitz, La Haine“
Unit 13. 21st-Century Cinema
-General Topic: Nostalgia for Poetic Realism
-Film to Be Discussed : Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)
-Reading Due on This Date : “ Amélie ou le fabuleux destin du cinéma français“
Required readings:
COURSEPACK with full-length articles or excerpts from longer works.
Raphaël Bassan, “ Trois néobaroques français - Beineix, Besson, Carax - de Diva au Grand Bleu,” Revue du cinéma 449 (1989): 44-50
Robin Bates, “Audiences on the Verge of a Fascist Breakdown: Male Anxieties and late 1930’ s French film,” Cinema Journal 36.3 (1997): 25-55
Jody Blake, Le tumulte noir: modernist art and popular entertainment in Jazz-age Paris, 1900, University Park, Penn State University Press, 2003
Jean Decock, “Entretien avec Agnès Varda sur Jaquot de Nantes,“ The French Review 66:6 (1933), pp. 947-958
Andrew Dudley, “Amélie ou le fabuleux destin du cinéma français,” Film Quarterly 57.3 (Spring 2004), Berkeley, University of California Press
Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Film, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995
André Gaudreault, Tom Gunning, “Le cinéma des premiers temps, un défi à l’histoire du cinéma?” Histoire du cinéma. Nouvelles approches, Jacques Aumont, André Gaudreault and Michel Marie (dir.), Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1989, pp. 49-63
Laurent Guido, L’âge du rythme. Cinéma, musicalité et culture du corps dans les théories françaises des années 1910-1930, Lausanne, 2007, pp. 83-170
Vincent Guigueno , “L'écran de la productivité: "Jour de fête" et l'américanisation de la société française, ” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire, No. 46, Numéro spécial: Cinéma, le temps de l'Histoire (Apr. - Jun., 1995), pp. 117-124
Laurent Jullier, “ The sinking of the self: Freudian hydraulic patterns in Le Grand bleu” in Hayward and Powrie (dir.) The Films of Luc Besson: Master of Spectacle, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2009
Jean-Yves La Naour, Le corbeau : Histoire vraie d'une rumeur (Paris : Hachette, 2006)
Deborah Linderman, “Pépé le Moko and the Discourse of Orientalism,” Literature and Psychology 42.1-2 (1996): 1-17
Judith Mayne, “Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Corbeau and the Crimes of Women,” The Journal of Twentieth Century French Studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2000, pp. 319-341
Jean Mottet, “Entre présent et possible : la difficile recomposition du paysage de la banlieue dans le film de Mathieu Kassovitz, La Haine,” Cinémas : revue d'études cinématographiques, vol. 12, no.1, 2001, pp. 71-8
Jacqueline Nacache, Lacombe Lucien de Louis Malle, Paris, Atlande, 2008
Viva Paci, “Cinéma de synthèse et cinéma des premiers temps : des correspondances examinées à la loupe du système des attractions, in Francesco Casetti (dir.), Maragrazia Fanchi (dir.), Cinéma et Cie. International Film Studies Journal, n. 5, “ Transitions”, fall 2004, pp. 112-4
“No One-Way Ticket to the Moon”, in Solomon (dir.), Fantastic Voyages: Méliès, A Trip to the Moon, and the Cinematic Imagination, New York, State University of New York Press, 2010.
Kristin Ross, Rouler plus vite, laver plus blanc. Modernisation de la France et decolonisation au tournant des annees 60, Paris, Flammarion, 2006, trans. Sylvie Durastanti
Gadjigo Samba, ”Ousmane Sembène et le cinéma politique.” Présence Francophone : Revue Internationale de Langue et de Littérature 57 (2001) :78-86
Geneviève Sellier, ”Images de femmes dans le cinéma de la Nouvelle Vague: A bout de souffle, Les Bonnes Femmes, Cléo de 5 à 7, Hiroshima mon amour.” Clio, Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés n°10, Toulouse, Presses universitaires du Mirail, 1999
Recommended readings:
Jacques Aumont, Michel Marié, Alain Bergala, Marc Vernet, Esthétique du film, 2004.
Anne Goliot-Lété, Francis Vanoye, Précis d’analyse filmique, 2005.
André Gaudreault, François Jost, Le récit cinématographique, 2005.
This course is an introduction to film analysis through the viewing and discussing of French masterpieces from the birth of the cinema to the present. We will study a number of films selected not only for their artistic qualities, but also as cultural documents embedded in specific socio-political contexts. Our viewings will include a film by famous local New Wave filmmaker Jacques Demy, and we will also visit the places where Demy’s films were shot in Nantes.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
lectures, discussions, student presentations, group work, field study
Participation 15%, In-class and homework 10%, Mid-Term Examination 25%, Final Examination 25%, Oral presentation 10%, Paper 15%.
Participation: Includes in-class and homework assignments (one blog entry per film to be posted on Moodle at the end of every unit) and discussion on assigned topics
Mid-Term Exam: sequence analysis and short-answer questions on issues discussed in class
Final Exam: short-answer questions and one essay synthesizing issues discussed in class
Oral Presentation: presentations based on the field study (see instructions in the “contents” section)
Paper: 8-page (double spaced) argumentative paper on a film discussed in class. Students should incorporate at least one critical article or book in their papers, as well as at least one sequence analysis.
It is the students’ responsibility to watch the film(s) assigned for each meeting before coming to class. All films studied can be found in the IES film library and viewed in the IES TV room. Every class meeting will include several sequence analyses.
Unit 1. Early Cinema
General Topic: Realism and the Magical
-Film to Be Discussed : shorts from the Frères Lumière and Georges Méliès
-Readings Due on This Date: “Le cinéma des premiers temps, un défi à l’histoire du cinéma?”, “Cinema de synthèse et cinéma des premiers temps” ; “No One-Way Ticket to the Moon”
Unit 2. The 1920’s Avant-Garde
General Topic: Technology and Primitivism
-Films to Be Discussed : Jean Renoir, Sur un air de Charleston (1926), Fernand Leger, Ballet mecanique (1924).
- Readings Due on This Date Excerpts from Le tumulte noir: modernist art and popular entertainment in Jazz-age Paris, 1900; excerpt from L’âge du rythme
Unit 3. 1930’s Realism
-General Topic: the Popular Front and Rise of Fascism
-Film to be Discussed : Jean Renoir, Le crime de Monsieur Lange (1936)
-Readings Due on This Date : excerpt from Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in classic French Cinema; “Audiences on the Verge of a Fascist Breakdown: Male Anxieties and late 1930’ s French film”
Unit 4. Colonial Cinema
-General Topic : Orientalism
-Film to Be Discussed : Julien Duvivier, Pépé le Moko (1937)
-Reading Due on This Date : “Pépé le Moko and the Discourse of Orientalism”
Unit 5. Cinema under the Occupation (1939-1945)
-General Topic: Suspicion, Fear and Betrayal
-Film to Be Discussed : Henri-Georges Clouzot, Le corbeau (1943)
-Reading Due on This Date : “Henri G .Clouzot and the Crimes of Woman”;
Extraits de Jean-Yves Le Naour, Le corbeau : Histoire vraie d'une rumeur (Paris : Hachette, 2006)
Unit 6. Post-War Cinema
General Topic: Modernization and Americanization
-Film to Be Discussed : Jacques Tati, Mon oncle (1958)
-Readings Due on This Date : Excerpts from Rouler plus vite, laver plus blanc. Modernisation de la France et décolonisation au tournant des années 60 ;
Vincent Guigueno , “L'écran de la productivité: "Jour de fête" et l'américanisation de la société française”, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire, No. 46, Numéro spécial: Cinéma, le temps de l'Histoire (Apr. - Jun., 1995), pp. 117-124
Unit 7. The New Wave (1958-1968)
-General Topic: The Poetics of Everyday Life
-Films to Be Discussed: Jacques Demy, Lola (1961)
-Reading Due on This Date : « Images de femmes dans le cinéma de la Nouvelle Vague: A bout de souffle, Les Bonnes Femmes, Cléo de 5 à 7, Hiroshima mon amour »; “Entretien avec Agnès Varda sur Jaquot de Nantes“
Unit 8. Field study: Nantes in Jacques Demy’s films (self-guided tour)
Assignment: Prepare an oral presentation in connection with your tour. Record your impressions (smells, sights, sounds, feelings etc…) as you walk around the city in Demy’s footsteps. Then, choose one specific space that appears in Lola and compare its current use by the French population to Demy’s own use of it in his film. Interview passersby to find out what their associations are with this particular place. Does your physical knowledge of these places bring something to your appreciation of the movie? How so? Finally, what do you think of the format of a self-guided tour to pay tribute to a filmmaker? etc. Organize your thoughts into a coherent and captivating presentation for next week.
Unit 9. The Birth of African Cinema
-General Topic : Decolonization
-Oral Presentations based on the self-guided tour
-Film to Be Discussed : Ousmane Sembène, La Noire de… (1966)
-Readings Due on This Date : “Ousmane Sembène et le cinéma politique”; Ousmane Sembène, La Noire de… (the short story)
Unit 10. Committed Cinema in the 1970
-General Topic: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany
-Oral Presentations
-Film to Be Discussed: Louis Malle, Lacombe Lucien (1974)
-Reading Due on This Date : excerpt from Lacombe Lucien de Louis Malle
Unit 11. Cinema du look in the 1980’s
-General Topic: The Mal de Vivre
-Film to Be Discussed : Luc Besson, Le grand bleu (1988)
-Readings Due on This Date : “ Trois néobaroques français - Beineix, Besson, Carax - de Diva au Grand Bleu”; “ The sinking of the self: Freudian hydraulic patterns in Le Grand Bleu”
Unit 12. The 1990’s: New Realism
-General Topic: Immigration, State Violence and National Identity
-Film to Be Discussed : Mathieu Kassovitz, La haine (1995)
-Reading Due on This Date : “ Entre présent et possible : la difficile recomposition du paysage de la banlieue dans le film de Mathieu Kassovitz, La Haine“
Unit 13. 21st-Century Cinema
-General Topic: Nostalgia for Poetic Realism
-Film to Be Discussed : Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)
-Reading Due on This Date : “ Amélie ou le fabuleux destin du cinéma français“
COURSEPACK with full-length articles or excerpts from longer works.