Film & Phil losophy COLI 480A/574F ; ENG 450I/572B Graduate student seminar Fall 2014 W 4:40 7:40 LT 1506 Jeroen Gerrits Office hours: Tue 10 am noon LT 1509A P: 607 777 6528 jgerrits@binghamton.edu Course description In this seminar we will examine how film as a medium invokes philosophical inquiries into questions of embodimen nt, perception, and time. We shall read texts on cinema by philosophers such as Stanley Cavell, Jean Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière, and Gilles Deleuze, among others. Their reflections on the seventh art will be discussed in the context of a wide variety of films, ranging from blockbuster sciencee fiction to early Soviet montage films and from digitally mastered music videos to Iranian art house cinema. Screenings include, among others: Jeunet s Amélie (2001), Capra s It Happened One Night (1934), Ridley Scott s Alien (1979), Beckett s Film (1963), Epstein s The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), Assayas Boarding Gate (2007), Ozu s Late Spring (1946), Claire Dénis Thee Intruder (2004), Kiarostami s Life and Nothing More (1992), and Hitchcock s Rear Window (1954). 1
Course Requirements and Goals This is a 4 credit seminar, which means that, in addition to the scheduled meeting times, you are expected to do at least 9.5 hours of course related work each week during the semester. This includes time spent completing assigned readings and films as well as preparing and completing written assignments (weekly postings, midterm, and final paper) Film and Reading Assignments Your basic responsibility in this seminar is to keep up with the weekly assignments so as to be prepared to contribute thoughtfully and critically to online and in class discussions. Most of the texts are available on blackboard (marked Bb in the schedule). The content entry in the left navigation bar contains links to all the information you need for each week, including online texts and occasional links to clips or films. You are required/recommended to obtain the following books, available at the university bookstore: Purchases Cavell: The World Viewed (required) Mulhall: On Film (required) Deleuze: Cinema 2: The Time Image (required) Shaviro: Post Cinematic Affect (required) Debord: Society of the Spectacle (recommended) Deleuze: Cinema 1: The Movement Image (recommended) Screenings No official screenings will be held for the class. It is your responsibility to watch the assigned films on your own. Plan the viewing in advance. Video copies of the films on the syllabus are placed on reserve at the Newcomb Reading Room for repeated close viewings and analysis. Small viewing rooms are available at Newcomb as well. Grading Your grade will be based on A class participation (1/4) B midterm (1/4) and C final paper (1/2). 2
Ad A: The part of the grade determined by class participation depends not only on attendance (see class attendance policy below) but also, and moreover, on constructive contributions to in class discussion. In order to facilitate these discussions, you are required to post at least one critical question and to respond to a fellow student s question on the discussion forum on Blackboard every week (except weeks 1, 4, 13, 15). The question needs to be posted before Wednesday noon. These posted discussion questions should be open ended and inviting counter arguments. They need to be well informed and contextualized in 2 or 3 paragraphs. Individual contributions are graded p/f, but the overall quality of your questions and responses features into your class participation grade. Failed contributions may also impact your attendance record (see class attendance policy below). Ad B: Undergraduate students will do a take home exam. The questions will be handed out during the class of week 8 (10/22). The exam, for which you will need to write three mini essays (2 pages each; ca. 350 words p.p.) on your selection of topics provided by the instructor, is due on Friday 10/31 before midnight. A bibliography is not required. You will need to submit all three essays in a single document through Turnitin (on blackboard). Note that Turnitin does not allow documents to be uploaded at or after the deadline. There is no rewrite option for the midterm, but you are welcome to elaborate on one of your mini essays for your final paper. Graduate students are expected to write a 5 6 page review essay (approx. 350 words per page) on one (or more) of the titles from the book list appended to this syllabus. The list is not meant to be exclusive: suggestions for reviewing alternative (relatively recent) titles are welcome. The book review is due on Friday 10/31, before midnight Ad C: Final exam: Undergrads will write an 8 10 page research paper (ca. 350 words p.p.) and an additional bibliography in MLA or Chicago style. Graduate students will write a 15 page research paper (ca. 350 words p.p.) and an additional bibliography in MLA or Chicago style. 3
A research paper requires that you include at least 1 academic text that was not assigned for the course. Each student will formulate his/her own thesis for the final paper and discuss an outline with the instructor during individual meetings in the last week of classes (week 15). The final paper is due on Dec 17 (Turnitin, before midnight). *NOTE: All midterms and final papers are to be submitted through Turnitin via Blackboard. This program detects plagiarism instantly. If you plagiarize your infraction will be met with the fullest punishment available given the circumstance. Adhere to the Academic Honesty Code and cite your sources. If you aren t sure what plagiarism means, please take the tutorial #1 on the library website. Class Attendance Policy You are expected to attend and participate in all classes. More than two unexcused absences (excuse = doctor s note or prior approval from instructor) will cause the class participation grade to be docked by one letter grade point for each missed class. With five or more missed classes you will not be able to receive credit for the course (several students received an F for this reason in the recent past). Every second late attendance and/or failed discussion posting will be marked as an absence. Academic Policy All students are required be aware of and to act in conformity with the Student Academic Honesty Code. Be advised that each year academic honesty violations (e.g., plagiarism, cheating on quizzes or exams) result in Harpur students being suspended from the University for multiple semesters. 4
Schedule Week 1 (9/3) Introduction Week 2 (9/10): Classical Film Theory Arnheim: Film and Reality ; The Complete Film (Film as Art pp. 8 34 and 154 160 [Bb]) Bazin: The Ontology of the Photographic Image ; The Myth of Total Cinema ; The Evolution of the Language of Cinema (What Is Cinema? Vol. 1, pp. 9 40 [Bb]) Andrew: The Camera Searching the World (What Cinema Is! pp. 1 28 [Bb]) Jean Pierre Jeunet: Amélie (2001) Week 3 (9/17): Doubting Vision Epstein: The Senses 1 (B) [Bb] Turvey: Doubting Vision ch 1 (pp. 21 37 only) and ch 2 (pp. 49 69 only) [Bb] Rancière: Film Fables Prologue (pp. 1 14 only) [Bb] Jean Epstein: The Three Sided Mirror (1927) Jean Epstein: The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) Dziga Vertov: Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Week 4 (9/24): No class (Rosh Hashanah) Week 5 (10/1): Cavell 1 Cavell: The World Viewed ch. 1 6, ch. 10 12, ch 14 (pp. 3 41; 61 80; 101 108) Cavell: It Happened One Night (Pursuits of Happiness ch 2, pp. 73 109, [Bb]) Turvey Doubting Vision pp. 87 89 [Bb] Frank Capra: It Happened One Night (1934) 5
Week 6 (10/8): Cavell 2 Cavell: The World Viewed ch. 15 18 (pp. 108 146) and More of The World Viewed (pp. 162 230) Sesonske, Alexander. Rev. of The World Viewed by Stanley Cavell (in: The Georgia Review 18. 4 (Winter 1974), [Bb]) Jean Renoir: The Rules of the Game (1939) Week 7 (10/15): Alien(s) Mulhall, Stephen. On Film Introduction and sections 1+2, pp. 3 78. Ridley Scott: Alien (1979) James Cameron: Aliens (1986) Week 8 (10/22): Jean Luc Nancy Nancy: The Intruder (in: Corpus, pp. 161 170 [Bb]) Nancy: The Evidence of Film (pp. 8 78, even [English] pages only [Bb]) Beugnet: The Practice of Strangeness [Bb] Claire Dénis: The Intruder (2004) Abbas Kiarostami: Life and Nothing More (1992) Week 9 (10/29): Debord & Rancière Debord: Society of the Spectacle ch 1 3 (= 1 72, [Bb]) Rancière: The Emancipated Spectator ch 1 (pp 1 23) and ch 4 (pp 83 88 only) [Bb] Debord: Society of the Spectacle (1973) MIDTERMS DUE ON FRIDAY 10/31 BEFORE MIDNIGHT 6
Week 10: 11/5: The Movement Image Deleuze: C1 ch 1, 4, 5.3, 12.2, 12.3 [Bb] Beckett: Film (1965) Hitchcock: Rear Window (1954) Week 11 (11/12): The Time Image (1) C2 ch. 1, 2.3, 3, 4 Ozu: Late Spring (1949) Fellini: 8 ½ (1963) Week 12 (11/19): The Time Image (2) C2 ch. 5, 6.3, 7, 8.1, 8.2, 10 Resnais: Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Week 13 (11/26): No Class (Thanksgiving) Week 14 (12/3) Post/Cinema Shaviro: Post Cinematic Affect ch 1 3 (pp. 1 62) Sobchack: The Scene of the Screen (Carnal Thoughts ch 6 [Bb]) Hooker: Corporate Cannibal (2008) Assayas: Boarding Gate (2007) Week 15 (12/10) Final paper conferences FINAL PAPERS DUE 12/17 BEFORE MIDNIGHT 7
Books for Review (Graduate midterm) Andrew, Dudley. What Cinema Is! (2010) Badiou, Alain. Cinema (2010) Bogue, Ronald. Deleuze on Cinema (2003) Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Motion Pictures (2008) Cox, Damien and Michael P. Levine. Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies (2011) Falzon, Christopher. Philosophy Goes to the Movies: An Introduction to Philosophy (2 nd ed, 2007) Frampton, Daniel. Filmosophy (2006) Gaut, Berys, A Philosophy of Cinematic Art (2010) Grau, Christopher. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Philosophers on Film) ( 2009) Grau, Christopher (ed.), Philosophers Explore The Matrix (2005) and/or William Irwin (ed), The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002) and/or William Irwin (ed.), More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded (2005). Kania, Andrew. Memento (Philosophers on Film, 2009) Litch, Mary M. Philosophy Through Film (2nd ed. 2010) Livingson, Paisley, Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy (2009) Marrati, Paola. Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy (2008) Mulhall, Stephen. On Film (2008) Mullarkey, John. Philosophy and the Moving Image: Refractions of Reality (2010) Rancière, Jacques. Film Fables (2006) 8
Read, Rupert and Jerry Goodenough. Film as Philosophy: Essays on Cinema after Wittgenstein and Cavell (2005) Rodowick, D.N. The Virtual Life of Film (2007) Rothman, William and Marian Keane. Reading Cavell s The World Viewed: A Philosophical Perspective on Film (2000) Shaviro, Steven. Post Cinematic Affect (2010) Shaw, Daniel. Film and Philosophy: Taking Movies Seriously (2008) Singer, Irvin. Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film (2010) and/or Three Philosophical Filmmakers: Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir (2005) Sinnerbrink, Robert. New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images (2011) Sobchack, Vivian. Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (2004) Tuck, Greg and Havi Carel. New Takes in Film Philosophy (2011) Tucker, Thomas Deane and Thomas Kendall, Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy (2011) and/or Steven Rybin, Terrence Malick and the Thought of Film (2011) Turvey, Malcolm. Doubting Vision: Film and the Revelationist Tradition (2008) Vaughan, Hunter. Where Film Meets Philosophy: Godard, Resnais, and Experiments in Cinematic Thinking (2013) Wartenberg, Thomas E. Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy (2007) 9