Course detail

The Art of Interpreting Film 2

FaVU-TAIF2Acad. year: 2023/2024

Students will learn to look critically at a selection of films from the 60s and 90s (with some excursions to the present) through the prism of politics/ideology and environmental issues.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

4

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Offered to foreign students

Of all faculties

Entry knowledge

None.

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. Not having read those texts will count as an absence.
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. 


75% videoconferences must be attended and students must participate actively in a discussion (and/or chat or some other written form) relevant to the film and texgt assigned for the respective week.

Aims

1. Cinefile 2. critical. Although the selection of the films might be subjective and not necessarily always canonical, one of the aims is to show students some noteworthy film production of the 70s and 80s (European and American film only). 2. Students will see the interpretation possibilities of the selected films through approaches which were often contemporary with the films themselves.
Students will look at examples of interpretation methods of film based on a particular thematic framework (politics/ideology, gender, environmental issues) not necessarily explicitely based on the narrative itself.

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Fay, Jennifer. Inhospitable World: Cinema in the Time of the Anthropocene. (EN)
Sobchack, Vivian. Screening Space: American Science Fiction Film. (EN)
Frederick Jameson: Archaelogies of the Future. (EN)

Recommended reading

Kuhn, Anette. Alien Zone. (EN)

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme DES_M Master's, 1. year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme FAAD Master's, 1. year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme VUM_M Master's, 1. year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme FAAD Master's, 2. year of study, summer semester, elective

  • Programme VUM Master's

    branch VU-D , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-D , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-D , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 2. year of study, summer semester, elective

Type of course unit

 

Lecture

13 hours, optionally

Teacher / Lecturer

Syllabus

The feminist path of the course: 

  1. Bernardo Bertolluci: Last Tango in Paris. 
  2. Delphine Seyring: Be Pretty and Shut Up; SCUM manifesto
  3. Ridley Scott: Thelma and Louise
  4. Maya Deren
  5. Barbara Hammer
  6. Jane Campion
  7. Agnieszka Holland
  8. Cheryl Dunye: The Watermelon Woman
  9. Andrea Arnold
  10. Lucrecia Martel: The Headless Woman
  11. Desiree Akhavan: The Miseducation of Cameron Post
  12. Todd Haynes: Carol

The environmental path of the course:

1. Visions of the Ends of the Worlds: Pavel Juráček and Jan Schmidt: The End of August in Hotel Ozone.

2. Nature vs. culture, human vs more-than-human: Ridley Scott: The Alien
3. Vision of the ends of the world: Chris Marker, Rampa.  Terry Gillian - Dvanáct Opic
4.  Nature vs. technology, the posthuman: Ridley Scott: Blade Runner.
5.  Vision of the ends of the world:: Lars von Trier: Melancholia.
6.  Vision of the ends of the world and reassuring nostalgia: Stranger Things
7. Posthumanism and sci-fi: Tarkovskij - Solaris.
8. Posthumanism and sci-fi: Stanley Kubrick: Space Odyssey.
9. Vision of the ends of the worl: Interstellar
10.  Environmental crisis: Gioffrey di Reggio: Koniaquatsi; Edward Burtynski - Anthropocene.
11.  Ghostwood in Twin Peaks
12.  Vision of the ends of the world, the technopshere in Japanes Middle Ages and The Ghibli Studios: Princess Mononoke 


 

Seminar

26 hours, compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer