School of Communication University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus History of cinema COMA 4038 (3 Credits) Friday 7:30 am-10:50am Room 3122 Prof. Alfredo E. Rivas alfredokino@gmail.com alfredo.rivas@upr.edu Course Description: This course proposes the cinematographic medium as an object of study, in a reflection which uses the historical line as its main axis. The proposal includes moving through the development of cinema observing outstanding points in the constitution of genres, the emergence of significant authors, and the appearance of events that shaped the industrial and artistic apparatus of the medium. The course also seeks to put the cinema in a particular perspective where its development is contextualized as a way of artistic expression and as a business articulation. In a complementary way we try to link this trajectory with the corresponding theoretical models that nourish the spectatorial appreciation and enrich the intellectual contribution of the audience in the process of significance. Textbooks : Cook, David (1996), A History of Narrative Film (3rd ed.), New York, WW Norton & Co. Bordwell, David, & Thompson, Kristin (2010), Film History: An Introduction (3 rd edition), New York, McGraw Hill. Objectives : Familiarize the student with the history of cinema, emphasizing the major historical cinematographic movements linked specifically to a historical-cultural context. Invite questions and criticisms about historical development, trying to adopt diverse epistemological perspectives on symbolic production, so that the student develops strategies of theoretical application, analysis and investigation. Confront the student to the main writings and positions that make up this history, as well as the constitution of outstanding figures and / or authors since where they can in turn read about political problems and ideologies around the particular narratives that stand out in the stories cinematographic.
Evaluation and requirements : Partial exams (60%): There will be two partial exams during the semester. Research essay (30%): An investigative essay will be assigned on various topics. Attendance (10%): Class attendance is required. If the student is missing for more three times in the semester without excuse or just cause, the final grade will be subtract ten percent (10%). Methodology : Conferences, discussion groups, film screenings, radio programs, television and other cultural products. Differentiated evaluation will be offered in response to particular needs that can present the student body. Your performance in daily class (attendance, punctuality, participation that pays intelligent discussion, and knowledge that demonstrates about the issues that affect Puerto Rico and the world) will also be taken into account when determining your final grade. Rights and obligations The student must know and comply with the University Regulations and with the institutional policies of the University of Puerto Rico in relation to sexual harassment, use and abuse of drugs and alcohol, legal ethical use of information technologies, classroom discipline, honesty academic, among others. Any student who violates the provisions of the University regulations or those that violate institutional policies will be referred to the Office of Coordination of Student Affairs for the application of the corresponding disciplinary measures according to the university regulation. Students who have special needs or who suffer from medical conditions or some type of physical, mental or emotional impairment that requires a reasonable accommodation, must notify the Office of Affairs of Persons with Prevent from the Campus, as soon as possible, in order to provide the reasonable accommodation necessary, in accordance with federal laws and applicable state Students receiving Vocational Rehabilitation services must communicate with the teacher at the beginning of the semester to plan the accommodation reasonable and necessary assistance equipment in accordance with the recommendations of the Office of Affairs for Persons with Disabilities (OAPI) of the Deanery of Students. March 16 From photography to cinema
Development of technology and photographic aesthetics. The paradox of cinema as a mirror of what real and border of the imagination. Thomas A. Edison shorts Shorts of the Lumiere brothers Screening: The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925) March 23 Méliès and the development of an industry Georges Méliès and the development of a fiction cinema. From novelty to narrative. Development of a language The cinema machinery. The trip to the moon (Méliès, 1902) The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903) The Lonely Villa (Griffith, 1909) Screening: Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Reisner, 1928), Fantomas in the Shadow of the Guillotine (Feullide, 1913) March 30 This Friday there will be no class. The class must be restored before April 20. April 6 DW Griffith & co. Griffith as architect of modern cinematographic language. Emergence of new authors of the silent cinema: Chaplin, Fairbanks and Von Stroheim. Essential texts; Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915) Intolerance (Griffith, 1916) The Thief of Baghdad (Walsh, 1924) The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925) Greed (Stroheim, 1924) Screening: The Black Pirate (Parker, 1926) April 13 German Expressionism Cinematic aesthetics as a representation project. From Caligari to Kammerspielfilm. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920) Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922) Metropolis (Lang, 1927) The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924) Screening: Pandora's Box (Pabst, 1929)
April 20 Soviet cinema The montage as a political tool. Sergei Eisenstein and the approach dialectics. The Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) October (Eisenstein, 1927) Midterm exam April 27 The transition to sound cinema Technological developments of cinema with synchronized sound. From the silent comedy of Chaplin and Keaton to the spoken comedy of the Marx brothers. Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Reisner, 1928) Steamboat Willie (Iwerks & Disney, 1928) City Lights (Chaplin, 1931) The Great Dictator (Chaplin, 1940) Screening: Duck Soup (McCarey, 1933) May 4 Classic Hollywood Movies The formulation of film genres. Expansion of the study system. Codes of censorship. The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, 1935) The Public Enemy (Wellman, 1931) Murder, My Sweet (Dmytryk, 1944) Stagecoach (Ford, 1939) Projection: Dracula (Browning, 1931) Hollywood classic cinema II: the era of the great authors. Important figures appear in the panorama. The director as business argument. Who is Orson Welles? Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942) Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939) Screening: The Searchers (Ford, 1956) May 11 Italian Neorealism Back to reality. Cinema as a political argument.
Ossessione (Visconti, 1943) The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio De Sica, 1948) Projection: Rome, citta aperta (Rosellini, 1945) The other Italy Break with the past, dissatisfaction with the present. La Strada (Fellini, 1954) The Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957) 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963) The Canterbury Tales (Pasolini, 1972) The Eclipse (Antonioni, 1962) May 18 The New French Wave The reality from a window. Reinvention of cinema as an author policy. Breathless (Godard, 1960) Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais, 1959) Weekend (Godard, 1967) A Band of Outsiders (Godard, 1964) Jules et Jim (Truffaut, 1962) Projection: The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959) Other new waves and other authors Das Neue Kino: new looks from Germany. The cinema of Eastern Europe. The American Friend (Wenders, 1977) Ali, Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder, 1974) Knife on the Water (Polanski, 1962) Screening: Aguirre, the Wrath of God ( Herzog, 1972) May 25 Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Buñuel The obscure object of the cinema. Two authors: overlaps and divergences. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1957) The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963) Viridiana (Buñuel, 1961) Projection: The Exterminating Angel (Buñuel, 1962) June 1 New Latin American Cinema The cinema as a tool of decolonization. Memories of Underdevelopment (Gutiérrez-Alea, 1968) The Hour of the Ovens (Getino & Solanas, 1968) Terra em Transe (Rocha, 1967) The Man of Maisinicú (Pérez, 1973) Screening: Wild Horses (Piñeyro, 1995)
June 8 New Hollywood cinema The reinvention of Hollywood Mash (Altman, 1972) The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969) The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) Screening: Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) Towards the postmodern moment The cinema looks at itself. The moment of the drill. The digital effect All the Jazz (Fosse, 1979) The cook, the thief, his wife, and her lover (Greenaway, 1989) Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994) History of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005) Lady Vengeance (Park, 2005) The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou (Anderson, 2004) Screening: Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) Final exam June 15 Bibliography Allen, RC (Ed.). (1992). Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism, 2nd Edition (2nd edition). Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Barnouw, E. (1993). Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film (2nd Revised edition). New York: Oxford University Press. Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2012). Film Art: An Introduction (10 edition). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. Braudy, L., & Cohen, M. (Eds.). (2016). Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings (8 edition). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Cook, DA (2016). A History of Narrative Film (5 edition). New York: WW Norton & Company Cousins, M. (2006). The Story of Film: A Worldwide History (1 edition). New York: Da Capo Press. Foster, H. (Ed.). (2002). The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (CA res.
inc. 7.25% tax edition). New York: The New Press. Mast, G., & Kawin, BF (2010). A Short History of the Movies (11 edition). Boston: Pearson. Stam, R. (2000). Film Theory: An Introduction (1 edition). Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell. Stam, R., Burgoyne, R., & Lewis, SF (1999). New Concepts of Cinema Theory (Tra edition). Barcelona; Buenos Aires: Editions Paidós Ibérica. Thompson, K. (2010). Film History: An Introduction. Kristin Thompson, David Bordwell (3rd International edition edition). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.