SMITH COLLEGE
FILM & VIDEO COURSES
SPRING 2007

All courses 4 credits unless otherwise noted.

FLS245 BRITISH FILM AND TELEVISION [2, 5]

Hunter, Jefferson

W F 11:00 AM -12:10 PM, additional screening time TBA Cap ?

A survey of the British cinema from the Thirties to the present day, with some attention to literary parallels and literary adaptations, and with a look at recent television drama. Works by Alfred Hitchcock, the documentarists Humphrey Jennings and Michael Apted, “the Archers” (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger), Mike Leigh, Tony Richardson, the Boulting brothers, Carol Reed, Mike Hodges; Ealing comedy and Monty Python’s Flying Circus; film by and about multicultural Britain; the “heritage cinema” of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory; versions of Shakespeare; Alan Bennett’s spy thriller A Question of Attribution and Dennis Potter’s gangster miniseries The Singing Detective. Collateral readings in George Orwell, John Buchan, and Graham Greene.

Prerequisite: a college course in English literature or in film, or permission of the instructor.

{L/A} 4 credits

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: 2, 5

FLS280 INTRODUCTION TO VIDEO PRODUCTION [8]

Knapp, Lucretia

M 1:10-4:00 PM and screening W 7:00-9:00 PM Cap 13

This video production course introduces the history and contemporary practice of video art and provides the technical and conceptual skills to complete creative individual video projects. Over the course of the semester, students will gain experience in pre-production, production and post-production techniques. Projects are designed to develop basic technical proficiency in the video medium as well as practical skills for the completion of the creative project. Prerequisite: 200 (which may be taken concurrently). Enrollment limited to 13.

Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies Majors.

{A} 4 credits

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: 8

FLS282 ADVANCED VIDEO SEMINAR [8]

Perlin, Jenny

W 1:10 PM-3:40 PM, screening T 7:00-9:00 PM Cap 13

Topics in Non-fiction: Advanced Production Workshop

This advanced media production course is designed to provide a framework for creating independent projects that utilize, challenge, and expand documentary forms. We will view and analyze works by Greta Snider, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Harun Farocki, Matthias Müller, Su Friedrich, Johann Van der Keuken, Yvonne Rainer, Chris Marker, Isaac Julien, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Harrell Fletcher, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Stan Douglas, Walid Raad, Tacita Dean, William Kentridge, and many others. Readings will include Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Bill Nichols, Walter Benjamin, Su Friedrich, Harun Farocki, Kaja Silverman, Yvonne Rainer and more. Students will develop a wide range of approaches to their media productions through in-class workshops, assignments, and independent projects. Students will be expected to give presentations, write short papers, and produce one or more projects over the course of the semester. Students are be expected to have proficiency with video production and digital video editing prior to taking this course.

Enrollment by instructor permission only (application available in the Film Studies office, Smith College, or electronically, upon request from jperlin@mtholyoke.edu).

Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies Majors.

{A} 4 credits

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: 8

FLS350 QUESTIONS OF CINEMA: FILM AND VISUAL CULTURE [7]

Keller, Alexandra

Lecture M 1:10-5:00 PM Cap 12

This class will investigate cinema and its relationship to the rest of 20th century art, especially visual culture. Working with the premise that film has been arguably the most influential, powerful and central creative medium of the age, the course will examine how film has been influenced by, and how it has influenced, interacted with, critiqued, defined, and been defined by other media. Historically, we shall examine how film has moved from a marginal to a mainstream art form, while still often maintaining a very active avant-garde practice. The class will also look at how cinema has consistently and transhistorically grappled with certain fundamental issues and themes, (e.g., medium specificity, monumentality), comparing the nature of cinematic investigation with that of other media (e.g. painting, photography, sculpture). Enrollment limited to 12.

Prerequisite: FLS 200 and by permission of the instructor.

Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies Majors.

{A} 4 credits

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: 6, 7

FLS351 FILM THEORY [3]

Keller, Alexandra

T 1:00-4:50 PM Cap 12

This seminar will explore main currents in film theory, including formalist, realist, auteurist, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, poststructuralist, genre studies, queer studies and cultural studies approaches to questions regarding the nature, function, and possibilities of cinema. Film theory readings will be understood through the socio-cultural context in which they are developed. Particular attention will also be given to the history of film theory: how theories exist in conversation with each other, as well as how other intellectual and cultural theories influence the development, nature and mission of theories of the moving image. We will emphasize the written texts (Bazin, Eisenstein, Kracauer, Vertov, Metz, Mulvey, DeLauretis, Doty, Hall, Cahiers du Cinema, etc.), but will also look at instantiations of film theory that are themselves acts of cinema (Man with a Movie Camera, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, The Meeting of Two Queens). The course is designed as an advanced introduction and assumes no prior exposure to film theory. Fulfills film theory requirement for the minor.

Priority given to seniors, then juniors. Enrollment limited to 12.

Prerequisite: 200 or the equivalent.

Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies Majors.

{A} 4 credits

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: 3

FLS400 SPECIAL STUDIES

1-4 credits

Offered both semesters each year. See Smith College Film Studies advisers for information.

FRN 244 FRENCH CINEMA

Topic: Cities Of Light: Urban Spaces in Francophone Film

Dawn Fulton

TTh 01:10-02:30, screening M07:30-09:30

Topics course.: From Paris to Fort-de-France, Montreal to Dakar, we will study how various filmmakers from the francophone world present urban spaces as sites of conflict, solidarity, alienation and self-discovery. How do these portraits confirm or challenge the distinction between urban and non-urban? How does the image of the city shift for "insiders" and "outsiders"? Other topics to be discussed include immigration, colonialism, and globalization. Works by Sembene Ousmane, Denys Arcand, Mweze Ngangura, and Euzhan Palcy.

Offered in French.

Prerequisite: FRN 230, or permission of the instructor. Weekly required screenings.

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: __

GER 227 TOPICS IN GERMAN STUDIES

Topic: Fantasies of the New World: German Visions of America in Landscape, Painting, and Film

Barton Byg

MW 01:10-02:30, screening M07:30-09:30

Topics course.: To what extent is what we see when we look at American landscapes -- from public parks and private gardens to the wilderness -- a product of the German visual imagination? This course will examine a series of encounters with nature and their transformation into the landscape of literature, painting, photography and film. We will begin with Humboldt's journey to the Americas at the beginning of the 19th century. The origins of U.S. planning and landscape architecture will be the next theme, and the influences from Germany (at times by way of, at times in competition with, British sources). Also prominent for the 19th century's view of landscape are the Hudson River School and images of North Americans and the American West. The course will conclude with the twentieth century's view of landscape in modern art, photography and contemporary film. Works by, for example, filmmakers Werner Herzog, Rainer Simon, Jean-Marie Straub & Danile Huillet, Wim Wenders; authors Karl May and Liselotte Welskoph-Henrich, Friedrich Hlderlin, Heinrich Heine, Goethe, Schiller and the German Romantics; paintings by Bierstadt, Cole, Church, Catlin, Remington, and 20th century successors.

Conducted in English.

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: __

ITL 342-02 SIGHT LOCATION IN ITALIAN CINEMA

Anna Botta

TTh 01:10-02:30

Examining Italian cinema from neorealism to today, this course will investigate how major directors have responded to the changing cultural, political and economic context in Italy over the last fifty years. In particular, we will focus on the determining role that five different vantage points (realism, the journey, the unconscious, the other, metacinema) have played in constructing Italian screen images, noting how characters, stories, and viewers are framed from these locations. Directors include Amelio, Antonioni, Fellini, Ferrario, Bertolucci, Ozpetek, Pasolini, Pontecorvo, Moretti, Soldini, Visconti.

Conducted in English. Films with English subtitles. An extra class week (see discussion session) will be conducted in Italian for students in Italian.

Also ITL 342-01

Anna Botta

Th 07:30-08:20

For students currently enrolled in ITL 342 wishing to view and discuss the films in Italian and read film criticism written in Italian. Readings in Italian of such directors as Gianni Amelio, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini and film critics such as Aristarco, Brunetta, Rondolino, Zagarrio. Optional one-credit course. Graded S/U only.

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: __

THE 361 SCREENWRITING

Andrea Hairston

T 01:00-02:50 Cap 12

The means and methods of the writer for television and the cinema. Analysis of the structure and dialogue of a few selected films.

Prerequisite: 261 or 262 or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 12. Writing sample required.

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: __

THE 362 SCREENWRITING

Andrea Hairston

T 01:00-02:50

Intermediate and advanced script projects.

Prerequisite: 361. L and P.

Fulfills 5 College Film Studies Major Requirement: __