ENGL 329 American Visions: (Cinema Heroes)

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1 Guide syllabus ENGL 329 American Visions: (Cinema Heroes) Learning outcomes Students in ENGL 329 will study a series of classic and mainstream American films and elements of their social, political and historical backgrounds learn basic technical terms used in film analysis read texts such as Joseph Campbell s The Hero with a Thousand Faces to gain familiarity with essential elements in the long universal tradition of the hero figure as cultural icon examine written texts (historical, fictional and nonfictional) to see how images of the hero have been extracted from literary experience and transposed into cinematic images perform successfully on quizzes and papers designed to demonstrate proficiency in all of the materials covered during the semester Texts Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces Maria Tatar, ed., The Classic Fairy Tales (Norton Critical Edition) Henry James, Washington Square Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm [for film titles please consult the readings schedule] Graded work first paper 30% six quizzes 30% class presentation project 15% project-based paper 15% class participation* 10% * Class participation will be evaluated based on regularity and value of student s contributions to class discussions and demonstrated familiarity with assigned film and print texts.

2 Assignments and course policies ENGL 3XX, Cinema Heroes, involves the study of hero-images in a series of American films. Viewing these films is obviously an essential element of the course. Written work should be submitted by assigned deadlines to avoid grading penalties. There will be no make-ups for missing the unannounced, in-class quizzes. Plagiarism (using the words or ideas of another person without assigning proper credit to the original source) will be treated as a serious offense. It may likely result in a failing grade for the course, as well as possible administrative action by the college. Please talk with me if you have questions about the use and proper citation of source material. SUNY Geneseo makes reasonable accommodations for persons with documented physical, emotional or learning disabilities. Students who have consulted with the Director in the Office of Disability Services (Tabitha Buggie-Hunt, 105D Erwin) and determined their necessary accommodations should inform me early in the semester so I can be prepared to be of assistance. Because this class employs a regular discussion format, inappropriate use of technology (such as surfing the web on a laptop or texting on a cell phone) during classroom time can be seriously distracting. Any student engaging in such practices, therefore, risks the loss of substantial or all class-participation credit First paper assignment (choose one option) Consult Stith and Thompson s Motif-Index of Folk Literature for some particular elements featured in the world s folklore of heroism and adventure. See if you can trace the motifs of some tale-sequence that appear in one or more American narrative films to suggest a folk basis for these cinematic works. Demonstrate how some American film hero illustrates the appropriateness or the inappropriateness of employing Vladimir Propp s 31 functions of Russian folktales as a tool for critical analysis. Use a cultural studies approach to analyze an American film in its historical period, focusing on how this time period helped to foster the creation of an imagined hero-type. Choose a feature-length film that embodies multiple parts of the monomyth as described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Analyze this film, showing how 3 or 4 of its sequences relate to specific portions of the hero s journey as Campbell outlines it.

3 Choose one Gettysburg issue raised by the novel The Killer Angels and the film Gettysburg. Do some historical research to determine how accurately the Shaara/Maxwell version has conveyed historical consensus about the issue. Cite the text to demonstrate what Shaara s interpretation has been. To the extent you are led to believe that the novelist and film director may have been moved by some intellectual predisposition, bias or artistic purpose in reconstructing events as he has done, point out such developments as you see them. Read the breakdown of various types of British film hero as described in the following website. Then write a paper about a distinctive type of hero found in multiple American films that fails to correspond with one of the categories described. (Alternatively, you may write a paper challenging the website s claim that a particular variety of hero is distinctively British by demonstrating multiple American film versions of that hero-type.) For this assignment, please use videotapes or DVDs from the Alan Lutkus Film Library, or obtain prior permission from me for other titles. The 7-10 page paper is due in week 7. Group presentation project/second paper assignment For the group project, you will sign up with several other students to offer an in-class presentation to be scheduled in weeks The topic for this project is open. Your group may base its presentation on one of the options suggested for the first paper. But you may choose to approach your analysis of the American film hero in some other way. For example, you might demonstrate how On the Waterfront offers a cinematic rebuttal to High Noon in terms of politically allegorizing the McCarthy Era. Or you might consider how a film s remake offers an interesting contrast of attitudes toward heroism as viewed by a different filmmaker. Or you might wish to analyze a film s treatment of its hero-subject in light of the literary work it is derived from; or how a certain type of hero is parodied or re-evaluated in a film s treatment of the hero-type. Any thoughtfully conceived critical approach to the general subject will be appropriate. The presentation may make judicious use of visual material, but please keep constraints of class time in mind. (I recommend using no more than 5-10 minutes of visual matter in any single presentation.) The best presentations will be smoothly organized and will allow appropriate time for class discussion. The week following the scheduled in-class presentation, each member should submit a brief paper (2-3 pages). This paper should summarize the aspect(s) of the presentation that was individually prepared by the writer as her/his contribution to the group project.

4 Schedule of readings, discussions and film viewings Week 1 Course introduction. Terms for film criticism. Classic American filmmaking and the hero figure. film: The General (dir. Keaton/Bruckman, 1926) Week 2 Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces: vii-viii, 1-46, film: Casablanca (dir. Curtiz, 1942) Week 3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces: , film: To Kill a Mockingbird (dir. Mulligan, 1962) Week 4 The Hero with a Thousand Faces: , film: Big Fish (dir. Burton, 2003) Week 5 Week 6 The Classic Fairy Tales: Tatar, ix-xviii; Bettelheim, The Struggle for Meaning, ; Warner, The Old Wives Tale, ; Tatar, Sex and Violence: The Hard Core of Fairy Tales, film: The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Demme, 1991) Fairy Tales: Snow White and Cinderella, ; Gilbert and Gubar, Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother, ; Rowe, To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales, Henry James, Washington Square. film: Washington Square (dir. Holland, 1997) Week 7 Fairy Tales: Hans Christian Anderson, The Little Mermaid, ; Zipes, Breaking the Disney Spell, ; Haase, Yours, Mine, or Ours? Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and the Ownership of Fairy Tales, first paper due film: The Little Mermaid (Disney, 1989) Week 8 Fairy Tales: Aarne and Thompson, A Classification and Bibliography, ; Propp, Folklore and Literature, film: Do The Right Thing (dir. Lee, 1989) Week 9 Historical Heroes. Shaara, The Killer Angels, vii-xix, film: Gettysburg (dir. Maxwell, 1993), part 1. Week 10 The Killer Angels, film: Gettysburg, part 2 Week 11 The Tragic Hero. Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm: Foreword and film: Eight Men Out (dir. Sayles, 1988)

5 Week 12 The Perfect Storm: film: The Perfect Storm (dir. Petersen 2000) Week 13 Week 14 The anti-hero film: In Bruges (dir.mcdonagh, 2008) Post-modern heroes, comic heroes. film: Ferris Bueller s Day Off (dir. Hughes, 1986) Week 15 (see finals week schedule): film: Glory (dir. Zwick 1989)

COURSE SYLLABUS. The University of Texas at Austin Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies Spring Semester 2013

COURSE SYLLABUS. The University of Texas at Austin Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies Spring Semester 2013 The University of Texas at Austin Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/slavic/ Spring Semester 2013 COURSE SYLLABUS Instructor: Office: Phone: E-mail: Class time: Office