Classes

Each week there is a three-hour teaching block incorporating a lecture and film screenings on Tuesday 10-1pm in Y3A T1 and a one-hour tutorial on Monday. It is an assessment requirement of this unit that students attend ALL classes in order to pass the unit.

The timetable for classes can be found online at: https://timetables.mq.edu.au/2014/

Failure to attend more than 2 tutorials without adequate explanation may result in a fail. 

All assignments must be attempted in order to pass this course.

 

Required and Recommended Texts and/or Materials

Prescribed textbook(s): None

The MAS 304 Unit Reader can be purchased from the Co-op Bookshop. It is an essential text for the study of this unit. 

 

Technology Used and Required

No special technology required but access to ilearn, to university library databases and a computer to complete written assignments is essential. 

 

Learning and Teaching Activities

In order to participate fully in weekly tutorial discussions students should have watched the previous week's film screening, heard the previous week's lecture, and read the set tutorial readings contained in the MAS 304 Unit Reader. Note: these readings are also intended to assist you in the writing of your essays, and it may not be the case that every reading will be discussed in tutorials.

 

 

Weekly schedule: At a Glance

 

WEEK & LECTURE DATE/DAY	LECTURE & SCREENING TUESDAYS 10am	TUTORIALS MONDAYS	ASSESSMENT
Block One: From High-concept Hollywood to Iranian minimalism: Global worlds/divided communities
Week 1 Aug 4	The Day After Tomorrow & Rise of Cli Fi (Introductory Lecture)	*No tutorials this week*	Read the study guide, and ilearn site. Buy reader and start reading for Week 2’s tutes
Week 2 Aug 11	Digital Technology and Political filmmaking: cinema of a stateless nation (Turtles Can Fly)	See week one readings. Organise students into groups for our ‘At the Movies’ activity	Please make sure you do readings on DAT before your tutorial on Thursday & Friday
Week 3 Aug 18	Under Cover On Screen: women in Iranian cinema (Persepolis)	Week two readings and expectations for presentations and other assessment items	Start working on your film log
Week 4 Aug 26	Politics of Childhood and trafficking women (Lilya-4-Ever)	Week Three readings & ‘At the Movies’ presentations start this week	Make sure you’re up-to-date with your film log
Week 5 Sept 1	Politics of Animal Exploitation: Non-fiction	Week Four Readings (presentations continue)	Remember: FINALISE FILM LOG – due next week
Week 6 Sept 8	Mira Nair & Diasporic Desire (Monsoon Wedding & Salaam Bombay)	Week Five Readings (presentations continue)	First film log due: Friday September 12th: post to ilearn and submit to Turnitin
Week 7 Sept 15	Bollywood, Nationhood & cricket (Lagaan)	Week Six Readings (presentations continue)	Post peer feedback on film logs to ilearn
MID SEMESTER BREAK
Block Two: Auteurs & Non-conformists
Week 8 Oct 6	Spike Lee and ethnicity (Jungle Fever)	**NO TUTES THIS WEEK – MONDAY PUBLIC HOLIDAY**	Post peer feedback on film logs to ilearn
Week 9 Oct 13	Transnational Turkish Cinema & impossible homecomings: Fatih Akin	Week Eight Readings (presentations continue) Final essays – expectations, criteria, how to write an abstract	Start working on second film log
Week 10 Oct 20	Post-TV viewing & The Wire	Week Nine Readings (presentations continue)	Remember abstract for final essay due next week – don’t forget to include your bibliography
Week 11 Oct 27	NITV: Beyond Good/ Should/Bad  (The Sapphires, First Australians)	Week Ten Readings (presentations continue)	Draft Abstract due Friday October 24th (**post to our ilearn forum**)
Week 12 Nov 3	New Hollywood’s non-conformists and the tradition of the road (Easy Rider)	Week Eleven Readings (Final Presentations this week)	Second Film Log Due: Friday 7th November (post to ilearn and submit Turnitin) Post Peer feedback on 2 of the abstracts in ilearn
Week 13 Nov 11	No lecture this week	Week Twelve Readings Discussion of final essay – bring any final questions to tutes	Remember Essay due next week – complete draft of final essay
Week 14 Nov 18	No lecture this week	No tutorial – staff available for consultation	Final Essay due: Monday November 17th (Submit to Turnitin)

 

 Week One (Tues, August 5th): The Day After Tomorrow & the rise of Cli-Fi

Promoted as ‘the movie the White House doesn't want you to see’, Roland Emmerich’s high-concept Hollywood blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow (DAT), uses global warming as the underlying premise to decimate Manhattan, only a few years post-September 11. Cli-Fi, short for climate-fiction, is a sub-genre of science fiction which has emerged in literature but could equally apply to a number of disaster flicks released in the last decade, Emmerich’s being one of them.

In tutorials you might like to consider some of the following questions: How does ‘Hollywood ecology’ (Cubitt 2005: 125), evident in films like The Day After Tomorrow, assist in shaping our imagining of a future dominated by climate change? What kinds of stylistic and narrative conventions does Emmerich employ in this film and are they effective? What other examples of cli-fi can you think of and how do they compare to The Day After Tomorrow? Do you think DAT is an example of social problem-filmmaking or rather, a politically motivated distortion of complex scientific and political questions? Is it wrong to derive pleasure from apocalyptic catastrophe? 

Required Readings:

Rodge Glass, (2013) “Global Warning: the rise of Cli-Fi” in The Guardian, May 31^st, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/31/global-warning-rise-cli-fi

Kakoudaki, Despina (2011) "Representing Politics in Disaster Films", International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, Volume 7 Number 3, pp. 349-356.

Recommended Readings:

Feil, Ken (2005) ‘Conclusion’, Dying for a Laugh: Disaster Movies & the Camp Imagination, p. 146-158.

Branston, Gill. (2007) ‘The Planet at the End of the World: “Event” Cinema and the Representability of Climate Change’, New Review of Film and Television Studies 5.2 (2007): 211-31.

 Reusswig, Fritz. (2005). ‘The International Impact of The Day After Tomorrow’  47.3 

Sean Cubitt, 2005 ‘Always take the Weather:  Green Media in Global Context’ in his EcoMedia  Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi,. 

Jim Beckerman, May 2013, NewJersey.com, Apolcaypse Now, Hollywood Considers the End of the World, http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/209125101_Apocalypse_Now__Hollywood_considers_the_end_of_the_world.html

 

Week Two (Tues, August 12th): Transnational political filmmaking: ‘cinema of a stateless nation’

Lightweight digital technology has created many opportunities for political and activist filmmaking of a very different kind to that glimpsed in The Day After Tomorrow. Bahman Ghobadi’s Turtles Can Fly was the first film to come out of Iraq after the American invasion. Like many Iranian films that use non-professional child actors, this film focuses on a community of Kurdish refugee children eking out a living collecting and selling abandoned land mines. They exist in a precarious space near the Turkey-Iran border. Like his earlier film, Time for Drunken Horses, the director, Iranian Kurd Bahman Ghobadi, populates Turtles with “dislocated and isolated characters whose position and physical location is contingent upon larger, unseen political forces — it is the cinema of a stateless nation [Kurdistan]” (Hamid 2005; 42). 

How does a western viewer engage with a film like Turtles Can Fly? Is it possible to compare this film to DAT, or are they completely different beasts? What are their similarities? What are the transnational aspects of Turtles? Ezra and Rowden argue that, ‘Those films most likely to circulate transnationally are those that are more ‘Western friendly’, adopting familiar genres, narratives of themes in their hybrid productions’ … They function as what Jigme Desai calls, ‘tasty, easily swallowed, apolitical global cultural morsels’ (Desai 45, 90) – in other words, cinematic McNuggets’ (Ezra & Rowden p. 6). Is Turtles can Fly just a McNugget? 

Screenings: Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi, 2004)

Required Readings:

Hamid, R. (2006) “Panning Out for a Wider View: Iranian Cinema Beyond its Borders”, Cineaste, Summer 2006, pp. 48-50.

Hamid, R. (2005) “The Cinema of a Stateless Nation: An Interview with Bahman Ghobadi”, Cineaste, Summer 2005, pp. 42-45.

Ezra, E. & Rowden, T. (2006) Transnational Cinema, The Film Reader, Oxon & New York: Routledge, pp. 1-12.

 

Recommended Readings:

Ortega, V (2011) ‘Digital technology, aesthetic imperfection and political film-making: Illegal bodies in motion’, Transnational Cinemas, Volume 2 Number 1, pp. 3-19

Hjort, M and MacKenzie, S (eds.) (2000) Cinema and Nation, London and New York: Routlege, pp. 1—16

Schlesinger, P. (2000) “Sociological Scope of National Cinema” in Cinema and Nation, London and New York: Routlege, pp. 19—31.

Dissanyake, W. (1998) “Issues in World Cinema” in Hill, J. & Church Gibson, P. (eds) The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 527—534.

 

Week Three (Tues, August 19^th): Under Cover On screen: Women in Iranian cinema

The concepts of ‘national cinema’ and ‘world cinema’ have been important to the promotion of non-Hollywood cinemas. Iranian cinema is one example of a national cinema that’s often defined in opposition to Hollywood, but it’s also classified as ‘third cinema’. This week we put Iranian cinema in context but look closely at the role of women filmmakers and the representation of gender. Our main screening is the (French-funded) animation film, Persepolis (2007), based on the highly successful autobiographical graphic novel of the same name by Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis (written/directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud) won the Jury Prize at Cannes and depicts a young girl growing up in a highly volatile period of Iranian history in the 1970s and 80s and her subsequent exile to France.

How might animation acknowledge the impossibility of representation of violent events in history? How does Persepolis challenge the stereotypes and assumptions of Iran that we are often subjected to in the news, or even in recent films such as Argo (Ben Affleck, 2012)? What kind of stylistic choices do the directors/writers/ animators make in the depiction of religious extremists and other characters in the film? What factors have given rise to the increasing presence of women (both on and off-screen) in post-revolutionary Iranian cinema? Comment on the aesthetics and significance of veiling/unveiling in Iranian cinema?

Required Readings:

Nacify, H. (2012) "Under Cover On Sreen: Women's Representation and Women's Cinema" in his A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 4:  The Globalising Era 1984-2010, p. 93-96, 106-114, 494-500

Warren, K (2010) “Persepolis: Animation, Representation and the Power of the Personal Story,” Screen Education, Winter 2010, Issue 58, pp. 117-23.

Quigley, M (2008) “Drawing on Experience: Animation as History in Persepolis,” Screen Education, Spring 2008, Issue 51.

 

Recommended Readings:

Naficy, H. (1999) “Veiled Vision/Powerful presences: women in post-revolutionary Iranian Cinema” in Issa, R. & Whitaker, S. Life and Art: the New Iranian Cinema, London: BFI, pp. 44—65.

Langford, M. (2007) “Allegory and Aesthetics of Becoming-Woman in Marziyeh Meshkini’s The Day I Became a Woman”, Camera Obscura 64, Volume 22, Number 1, pp. 1-41.

Dabashi, H. (2001) Close Up: Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future, London & New York: Verso, pp. 262—282

Simon, A. (2000) “The Day I Became a Woman” (Review), Cinemaya Number 50, pp. 25—26.

Dudley, Andrew (2006), ‘An atlas of world cinema’ in Stephanie Dennison and Song Hwee Lim (eds.), Remapping World Cinema: identity, culture and politics in film, London & New York: Wallflower Press, pp. 19-29. 

Croft, S (2000) "Concepts of National Cinema" in Hill, J & Gibson, P. (eds.) The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, pp. 385-94

Dabashi, Hamid. (2001) Close Up: Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future, London & New York: Verso, pp. 1—11.

Smith, G. (1996) “Method in Movie Madness: Salaam Cinema” in Film Comment, Volume 32, Number 4, p. 44.

Bassiri, Mariam. (1997) “Women in the Iranian Cinema” in Art on a Podium, September 1997.

Lahiji, S. (2002) “Chaste Dolls and Unchaste Dolls: Women in Iranian Cinema since 1979” in Tapper, R. (ed.) The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity, London & New York: I.B. Tauris. pp. 215—226.

 

 

Week Four (Tues, August 26th): Politics of Childhood & Trafficking women

A number of films we have viewed in this course so far have featured child actors (eg. Turtles Can Fly, Ten, The Day I Became a Woman and The Day After Tomorrow). Our screening this week, Lilya 4-Ever, is about a Russian teenager abandoned by her mother and left to her own devices in decaying, post-Soviet Russia. Lilya’s only friend is an angelic little boy called Volodya. In addition to the representation of childhood/children, we also turn our attention to the trafficking of women.

While not overtly didactic, Lilya 4-Ever was taken up by the Swedish government to educate its own population (and internationally) on the horrors of trafficking women from Eastern Europe and Russia. The director, Lukas Moodysen says that: “I wanted my film to be a train running over the audience” (Noh 2004: p. 20). Do you think he’s been effective in this and what kinds of stylistic and narrative conventions does he use to do this? How does the portrayal of children (and childhood) compare to others you’ve seen in the course so far? If you've seen the English-language French action film Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008), how does Lilya compare? What is the 'Swedish Solution' and do you think this should be advocated for in Australia? 

Screening: Lilya 4-Ever (Lukas Moodysen, 2003)

Required Readings:

Wilson, E. (2005) “Children, Emotion and Viewing in Contemporary European Film”, Screen, 2005 46(3), pp. 329-340.

Noh, David, (2004) “Hardcore Spiritualism” Film Journal International, May 2003, 19-20.

Kristensen, L. (2007) “Divergent Accounts of Equivalent Narratives: Russian-Swedish Interdevochka meets Swedish-Russian Lilya 4_Ever”, Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Volume 4, Number 2, July 2007.

 

Recommended Readings:

Jones, K. M. (2003) “Lilya 4-ever: Lukas Moodysson, Sweden, 2002,” Film Comment, volume 39, number 2, March/April 2003, 73-74.

Graffy, J. (2003) “Trading Places”, Sight and Sound, volume 13, number 4, pp. 20-22.

"Abolishing Prostitution: The Swedish Solution (An Interview with Gunilla Ekberg by the Rain and Thunder Collective)"  (2008) Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Discussion and Activism, Issue 41, Winter Solstice 2008.  http://www.catwinternational.org/Content/Images/Article/169/attachment.pdf

 

Week Five (Tues, September 2nd): Politics of Animal Exploitation: Non-fiction

Our screening today, Gabriela Copperthwaite’s Blackfish (2013) joins a recent wave of documentaries which are 'calls to action' against animal exploitation such as the Oscar-winning guerilla film, The Cove (2010) and the Scarlett Johansonn-produced, The Whale (2011). Blackfish is the story of a SeaWorld orca named Tillikum, who, traumatised by decades in captivity, has taken multiple human lives. Director of The Whale, Michael Parfit, argues that the connection between these films is “a widespread recognition that humans and animals are not so far apart, both in geographical fact as we encroach farther and farther into their domains, and in our fundamental biology and emotional lives… Both science and these creative efforts show that we can no longer treat animals as second class citizens” (Campbell).

In one of your articles for this week from National Geographic, scientist Lori Marino argues that animals should be legally recognised as persons. What evidence does she give for this and do you agree with her? What kinds of narrative and stylistic devices do films like Blackfish and The Cove use to win over the viewer & are they effective or are they exploitative (of the viewer)? What is the ‘Blackfish effect’ and would a doco like Blackfish stop you attending SeaWorld? More than just animal porn, why are TV-scientist collaborations like Crittercam important, according to Donna Haraway in your final reading for this week? What similarities and differences does this film have with other documentaries on animal exploitation that you've seen?

Screening: Blackfish (Gabriela Copperthwaite 2014) with excerpts from The Cove (Louie Psihoyos, 2009) and The Whale (Suzanne Chrisholm & Michael Parfit, 2011)

Required:

Morrell, V. (2014) “Lori Marino: Leader of a revolution in how we perceive animals” in National Geographic, May 2014, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/05/140528-lori-marino-dolphins-animals-personhood-blackfish-taiji-science-world/?utm_source=NatGeocom&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=inside_20140619&utm_campaign=Content

Campbell, C. (2013) “They’re not all black and white – Blackfish director Gabriela Copperthwaite on the history of misleading portrayals of killer whales”, in Roger Ebert’s Bulder & Dash site: http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/theyre-not-all-black-and-white--blackfish-director-gabriela-cowperthwaite-on-the-history-of-misleading-portrayals-of-killer-whales

Haraway, D. (2008) “Crittercam: compounding eyes in Naturecultures” from her When Species Meet, Minneapolis & London: Minneapolis University Press, pp. 249-263.

Recommended:

Zimmerman, T. (2013) “First Person: How far will the Blackfish Effect Go?” from National Geographic, January 13^th, 2014, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140113-blackfish-seaworld-killer-whale-orcas/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign =20131016_rw_membership_r1p_intl_se_w

 

 Week Six (Tues, September 9^th): Diasporic Desire

This week we profile the career of transnational film auteur Mira Nair. You may have seen her latest film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), that had a season at Dendy. In this lecture (and tutes) we look at two of her earlier films, Salaam Bombay! and Monsoon Wedding which present two sides of India that are in stark opposition. Salaam Bombay! depicts a brief moment in the life a little boy, ‘Chaipau’ who lives on the streets and in the brothels of Bombay. In contrast Monsoon Wedding takes place in New Delhi when a group of middle class NRIs (non-resident Indians) from a large Punjabi family return for a wedding. MW became one of the highest grossing foreign films in the US and won the Golden Lion at Venice but lost the Oscar nomination to Lagaan (Desai 2004, 213).

To what extent do you think Nair’s cinematic representation of Indian subalterns in Salaam Bombay! is ‘touristic’ and ‘voyeuristic’ (Naficy 2001, p. 69)?  In comparison to Salaam Bombay, how are societal divisions (class, gender, generational) manifested in Monsoon Wedding? What role does colour, lighting and sound play in representing these divisions? What does Hamid Naficy mean by the term ‘accented cinema’? Do you agree with Patricia Uberoi’s claim that this film was successful because it did not display the vulgarity associated with commercial Bollywood made for working class Indians (Desai 2004; p. 218)

Screening: Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2002) with excerpts from Salaam Bombay (Mira Nair, 1988), Mississippi Masala (Mira Nair, 1992) and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mira Nair 2012)

Required Readings:

Naficy, H. (2001) An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, pp. 68—70. 

Desai, J. (2004) “Conclusion: Migrant Brides, Feminist Films and Transnational Desires”, Beyond Bollywood: the Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 211-229.

 

Recommended Readings:

Capp, R. (2001) “Delhi deluge of colour and movement in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding” in Senses of Cinema, number 18, 2001. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/monsoon_wedding.html

Apparduarai, A (1990) “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” in Featherstone, M. (ed) Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalisation and Modernity, London: Sage.

Macnab, G. (2002) “Henna and Cellphones” in Sight and Sound, Number 12, January 2002, pp. 18—20.

Karena, C. (2002) “Monsoon Wedding: Raining on Tradition” in Film as Text, pp. 117—119.

Geller, C. (2002) “Monsoon Wedding” (Review) in Cineaste, Fall 2002, pp. 43—44.

Dwyer, R. (2000) All You Want is Money, All You Need is Love: Sex and Romance in Modern India, London and New York: Cassell.

Chapman, J. (2003) “The Challenge of Third Cinema” & “Bollywood and Beyond” in his Cinemas of the World, London: Reaktion Books, pp. 305—321, 322—353.

 

Week Seven (Tues, September 16^th): Bollywood, Nationhood & Cricket

India is such a diverse nation that it's often remarked that the only thing holding the nation-state together is Bollywood and cricket. The central premise of this week’s screening, Lagaan (‘tax’ in Hindi), set at the end of the 19^th century, concerns a cricket game of epic proportions between some Indian villagers and British colonials.

 According to Grant Farred, how does this film articulate a ‘double temporality’? And what role does the feringhee (the white woman) play in this film? Using Lagaan and your readings to guide you, what are some of the stylistic preoccupations of Bollywood cinema? Could Bollywood cinema be described as a ‘national cinema’? Is the spectator-subject differently positioned in popular Hindi cinema in comparison to much filmmaking from ‘the west’? If so, how? To what extent do you think its possible for viewers in Sydney to appreciate Bollywood films? Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008) and if so, how does Lagaan compare?

 

Screening: Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowarika, 2001)

Required Readings:

Farred, G. (2004) “The Double Temporality of Lagaan: Cultural Struggle and Postcolonialism”, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Volume 28, Number 2, May 2004, pp. 93-114.

Vick, T. (2007) “India: All that and then Some”, Asian Cinema: A Field Guide, New York: Harper Collins, pp. 87-93.

Athique, A. (2008) “The Crossover audience: Mediated Multiculturalism and the Indian Film”, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Volume 22, Number 3, June 2008, pp. 299-311.

Recommended Readings:

Apparduarai, A. (1997) “Playing with Modernity: the Decolonization of Indian Cricket” in his Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Naficy, H. (1996) “Theorising ‘Third World’ Spectatorship” in Wide Angle, Volume 18, Number 4, October 1996, pp. 3—26.

Madhava Prasad, M. (1998) Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction, Oxford University Press: Delhi.

Munni Kabir, N. (2001) Bollywood: The Indian Cinema Story, London & Oxford: Pan Macmillan.

Dwyer, R. & Patel, D. (2002) Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film, London: Reaktion Books.

Mishra, V (2002) Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London & New York: Routledge.

Brosius, C. & Butcher, M. (1999) Image Journeys: Audio-visual Media and cultural Change in India, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks and London: Sage.

Mishra, V (2002) “Inventing Bombay Cinema” in his Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London & New York: Routlege, pp. 1—33

 

** MID SEMESTER BREAK **

 

Week Eight (Tuesday October 7th): Spike Lee & ethnicity

2014 marks the 25th anniversary of Spike Lee's legendary Do the Right Thing, the film Barack and Michelle Obama saw on their first date. The late Roger Ebert, renown movie critic, cited it as one of America's greatest movies (Mock 2014).  This week begins our exploration of ‘Auteurs & Non-conformists’ and we look at the work of one of the US’s most prolific and controversial directors, Spike Lee. Lee’s films are often viewed as controversial not only in their representation of ethnicity, but also in the way that gender and ethnicity intersect. In fact the studio, Universal Pictures, that produced one of his more recent films, Inside Man (2006), played down the fact that Lee directed it given his reputation for being divisive. Do the Right Thing is no exception. It's an ensemble film depicting the rising racial tensions in a Brooklyn neighbourhood over the course of one day in the middle of a heatwave. On it's release the film was criticised for it's potential to incite race riots. 

Why do Lee’s films provoke such controversy and do they  still strike a chord in contemporary American race politics or are they no longer relevant? What role does music play in his films? Do the Right Thing connects environmental issues with race and politics in a particularly prescient way. Do you agree with Mock's argument in this regard?  And given that Lee is now part of the filmmaking establishment, should he be using kickstarter to raise funds for his filmmaking enterprises? 

Screening: Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989), with excerpts from his She’s Gotta Have it (1986) and Jungle Fever (1991).

Required Readings:

Denzin, N. (1992) “Do the Right Thing: Race in the USA “ in Images of Postmodern Society: Social Theory and Contemporary Cinema, Sage Publications, pp. 125-136

Diawara, M. (2000) "Black America Cinema: The New Realism" in Film and Theory: An Anthology, Stam, R & Miller, T pp. 236-256

Mock, B (2014) "The Not-so-hidden climate messages in Spike Lee's Do the Right thing",  http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-not-so-hidden-climate-messages-in-spike-lees-do-the-right-thing/

 

Recommended Readings:

Johnson, V.E. (1992) "Do The Right Thing", Film Quarterly Vol. 43, No.2, Winter 1989/90, 35-40

hooks, bell (1996) Reel to real: race, sex, and class at the movies, New York, NY: Routledge.

Dyer, R. (1997) White, London: New York: Routledge.

 

Week Nine (Tuesday October 14^th): Transnational Turkish Cinema: Impossible Homecomings?

This is our second week in our module on auteurs and non-conformists. We explore the work of German-Turkish auteur, Fatih Akin. His landmark film Head On starts in Hamburg and ends in Istanbul. With the Turkish diaspora in Germany numbering over 3 million, a growing body of films are being made about Turkish experiences of living in German cities. Their impact have driven some critics to claim: “that the new German film is Turkish and that ‘Turkish’ cultural production has the potential of salvaging ‘German’ culture” (Fachinger 2007, p. 243). 

Our screening for this week, Head-On, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the European film of the year in 2004. It has elements of melodrama and kara sevda (or deadly passion) glimpsed in many Turkish films and it also exudes a raw kinetic energy. The story centres on two second-generation Turks living in Hamburg, Cahit and Sibel, and their marriage of convenience. How is their experience of ‘exile’ or ‘diaspora’ in a ‘foreign’ country contrasted to the characters we saw earlier in Turtles Can Fly and Lilya-4-Ever? What might a European cinema that includes Turkish productions look like? What role does music play in this film?

 

Screening: Head-On (Fatih Akin, 2004) with excerpts from Im July (Fatih Akin, 2001), Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin, 2007), Kebab Connection (Anno Saul, 2004)

Required Readings:

Berghahn, D. (2006) “No place like home? Or impossible homecomings in the films of Fatih Akin”, New Cinema: Journal of Contemporary Film, Volume 4, #3, pp. 141-157.

Isenberg, N. (2011) “Fatih Akin's Cinema of Intersections”, Film Quarterly, Vol. 64, # 4, (Summer 2011), pp. 53-61.

 

Recommended Readings:

Petek, P. (2007) “Enabling Collisions: Re-thinking multiculturalism through Fatih Akin’s Gegen die Wand/Head On”, Studies in European Cinema, volume 4, Number 3, pp. 177-186. 

Ewing, K.P. (2006) “Between Cinema and Social Work: Diasporic Turkish Women and the DisPleasures of Hybridity”, Cultural Anthropology, Volume 21, Number 2, May 2006, pp. 265-294.

Fachinger, P. (2007) “A New Kind of Creative Energy: Yadé Kara's Selam Berlin and Fatih Akin's Kurz und Schmerzlos and Gegen die Wand”, German Life and Letters, volume 60, Number 2, pp. 243-260.

Naficy, H. (2001) An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, pp. 188—199.

Gokturk, D. (2002) Anyone at Home? Itinerant Identities in European Cinema of the 1990s” in Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, Volume 43, Number 2, 2002, pp. 201—212.

Gokturk, D. (2002) "Beyond Paternalism: Turkish German Traffic in Cinema", in Bergfelder, T.; Carter, E. & Gokturk, D. (eds) The German Cinema Book, London: BFI, pp. 248-256.

Gokturk, D. (2002) "Turkish delight - German fright: Migrant identities in transnational cinemas", in Derman, D. and Ross, K. (eds) Mapping the Margins: Identity Politics and the Media, London: Hampton Press.

Ceylan, N. (1999) “Ordinary Stories of Ordinary People” in Cinemaya, Number 43, pp. 22—23.

 

 

Week Ten (Tuesday October 21st): Post-TV viewing & The Wire (episode one & episode on media)

With its complex narratives and impenetrable lingo, David Simon’s series of The Wire (HBO 2002-2008) has been described as “a challenging and serious piece of contemporary art” much more suited to post-TV viewing (Sharma 2011) which subverts the usual consumption of TV. The director, David Simon, who worked as a journalist before producing TV, doesn’t believe in pandering to audience expectation. “F&^%ck the average audience”, he once said in an interview.  

Sharma argues that The Wire is different to other recent TV series which have received cult following (The Sopranos, Six Feet Under) because of ‘the intellectual demands of the series, especially its sociologically driven analysis of contemporary urban society. In this respect, the show has been of interest not just to television studies scholars, but to academics from very diverse fields of study.’ How is The Wire ‘more real than reality’ and ‘an open textual machine’? What is the film’s explicit political agenda? How is race an absent presence in the film? And how does this film compare to Lee's Do the Right Thing? 

 

Required Reading:

Ash Sharma, 2011. “Editorial: ‘All the pieces matter’ – introductory notes on The Wire” in “The Wire Files” issue of Dark Matter: In the ruins of Imperial Culture, http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/category/journal/issues/4-the-wire/

Oliver Burkeman, 2009, “Arrogant? Moi?” Interview with David Simon in The Guardian, 28 March 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/28/david-simon-the-wire-interview

Please have a look at the other essays in this issue of Dark Matter: http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/category/journal/issues/4-the-wire/

 

Week Eleven (Tuesday October 28^th): NITV - beyond good/should/bad?

“Having four Aboriginal women on the big screen is political.” – Tony Briggs, Co-writer and Associate producer, The Sapphires, Melbourne International Film Festival, July 2012

This week we look at National Indigenous Television (NITV) and the role that it’s played in nurturing young talent and in providing alternative viewing options for our public to the commercial broadcasters. NITV emerged out of twenty years of a successful, but highly dispersed, grass-roots media system with regional control. In addition to looking at a number of short clips, our main screening this week will be the top grossing Australian film of 2012, The Sapphires, which took $14.5 million at the box office. Based on a stage play of the same name, the film received a 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes.

In tutes and lectures, we will look at questions such as, how can Indigenous media play a greater role in the Australian public sphere? Can locally controlled media offer national narratives? Where does industry development begin and end? Do you think portraying indigenous characters on screen is still ‘box office poison’, as Fred Schepisi once claimed after he released his landmark film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978). We’ll also examine some of the issues that Therese Davis raises in her short paper on the way in which students regard indigenous films. And why is having four Aboriginal women on the big screen political, as Tony Briggs, the co-writer and associate producer of The Sapphires, claims? 

 

Screening: The Sapphires (Wayne Blair, 2011) with excerpts from First Australians (Rachel Perkins, SBS TV, 2008), Redfern Now (ABC TV 2012), Mabo (Rachel Perkins, 2008), Radiance (Rachel Perkins, 1998) and Green Bush (Warwick Thornton, 2005)

 

Required Readings:

Davis, T., 2010, “Beyond good/should/bad: teaching Australian Indigenous film and television”, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies [P], vol 24, issue 5, October 2010, Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 799-804.

Capp, R. 2012. “Seriously Funny: History and Humour in The Sapphires and other Indigenous comedies”, In Senses of Cinema, Issue 63, July 2012, http://sensesofcinema.com/2012/63/seriously-funny-history-and-humour-in-the-sapphires-and-other-indigenous-comedies/

Rennie, E. and Featherstone, D. 2008, “The potential diversity of things we call TV': Indigenous community television, self-determination and NITV”. Media International Australia (129). pp. 52-66.

 

Recommended Readings:

Inge Kral, 2010, “Plugged in: Remote Australian Indigenous Youth and Digital Culture”, Australian National University, CAEPR Working Paper No. 69/2010

Langton, M. (1993) "Well, I heard it on the radio and I saw it on the television ...": an essay for the Australian Film Commission on the politics and aesthetics of filmmaking by and about Aboriginal people and things, North Sydney, NSW: Australian Film Commission.

 

 

Week Twelve (November 4th): New Hollywood’s non-conformists and the tradition of the road

"A man went looking for America. And couldn't find it anywhere", (Easy Rider PR material).

Easy Rider has been described variously as, "lyrical and brilliant, the reflection of its generation ... like a Bob Dylan song on celluloid" (Washington Post), and by Rex Reed as, "taking off where Kerouac and Lawrence Lipton and all the Holy Barbarians left off ... like a nature study filmed on an opium trip". Our film this week examines New Hollywood’s tradition of the road and we look at Dennis Hopper’s classic counter-culture film, Easy Rider.

Many of the films we’ve looked at in MAS304 so far are road movies of sorts (Ten, Day After Tomorrow, Head On, Lilya-4-Ever, The Sapphires). How does this film compare to them, or others you've seen in the course? From what context (social, historical, political) did Easy Rider emerge? Does the film still have resonances for your generation or are the issues that the film deals with now no longer relevant? What do you think made New Hollywood's directors non-conformists? What is meant by the quote at the top of this section? What elements of the 'road movie' genre does Easy Rider contain? And for those of you that are taking MAS302, what might be a feminist critiique of Easy Rider?

 

Screening: Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)

 

Required Readings:

Barbara Klinger, “Landscaping the Nation: The Road to Dystopia in Easy Rider,” in Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, ed., The Road Movie Book (London: Routledge, 1997): 179-203

Recommended Readings:

Dennis Hopper, “Midsection ‘68/’88,” Film Comment 24, 4 (1988): 31.

L. M. Kit Carson, “Easy Rider: A Very American Thing,” Evergreen Review 13, 72 (November 1969): 24, 26-27, 70-72.

Lee Hill, Easy Rider (London: BFI, 1996): 8-15, 66-73.

Chris Hugo, “Easy Rider and Hollywood in the ‘70s,” Movie 32 (1986): 67-71.

Paul Warshow, “Easy Rider,” Sight and Sound (Winter 1969/1970): 36-38.

David Cook, Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam 1970-1979 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000): 67-72, 133, 156-157.

Thomas Elsaesser, “The Pathos of Failure: American Films in the 70s: Notes on the Unmotivated Hero” Monogram 6 (1975): 13-19.

The main changes to the course are as follows: *We have organised the course into 2 modules (rather than 3) to better reflect the course content and also include the break that comes after week 7 as a natural segue into the next module. *The following screenings have been added: Blackfish (Guliana Copperthwaite, 2013), Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mira Nair, 2012). *I am also experimenting with a Visual Essay (as an option) instead of the Group Presentation. Also, the Visual Essay is an option for the final assignment instead of a traditional essay. *Six new readings have been changed in accordance to feedback with tutors and students.

MAS 304, Screens, Images, Ideas, engages with some of the influential ideas, issues and theory in contemporary cinema and TV. This year our course theme is ‘political filmmaking’ and all our films, as well as many of our readings, will interrogate this notion, whether it manifests in the style, content, central characters, form of the film or the risks the filmmakers themselves have taken in making the films.

Each week of study integrates screenings of selected films with discussions of specific readings. The course complements and develops concepts introduced in MAS 205. In this course you will be offered a series of methods for developing your analytical approach to screen texts, with a focus on some key theoretical debates in cinema over the last 30 years. These four things (film, lecture, readings, discussion) constitute our curriculum.

MAS 304 aims to:

• contribute to your viewing background by introducing you to films that (in many cases) may fall outside of your normal viewing;
• consider the relationship between screen theories and screen practices;
• equip you with conceptual skills for a more informed and confident engagement with a visually saturated world.
• generate discussion about fiction, non-fiction, long-form TV and documentary film forms and the cross currents between them;
• bring you into contact with forms of essayistic writing you might not have encountered in your everyday reading on film and cultural matters
• place you in an intellectual space that prompts you to consider some  significant critical and cultural discourses that have been attached to these films in the course of their cultural lives.

 From the various approaches introduced in this course you are encouraged to build up your own way of understanding films. This course has been organised as two modules around some key topics in contemporary cinema:

Ø  Module One (Weeks One – Seven): From high-concept Hollywood to Iranian minimalism: Global Worlds/Divided Communities

Ø  Module Two (Weeks Eight – Thirteen): Auteurs & Non-conformists

These topics are, of course, not mutually exclusive. MAS 304 aims to generate debate and discussion both within and across these modules. The material presented in this course is not meant to be exhaustive but is structured to give you a taste of some of the incredibly diverse, creative and challenging work that is out there. We kick off the course with Hollywood and end with new Hollywood and explore many things in between; transnational cinema, third cinema, long-form TV, animation, guerilla filmmaking, short films, accented and diasporic filmmaking.