University of Pennsylvania Cinema Studies: Courses

FILM 101 - Film History
Cross-listed: ENGL 091, ARTH 108
This course is an introduction to the history of cinema from 1895 to the present. In demonstrating how history energizes and complicates the movies, we will examine numerous film cultures and historical periods, including early short films from Europe and the US, Hollywood silent cinema, Italian neo-realism, the French New Wave, New German Cinema, recent Iranian and Taiwanese cinema, and a variety of other film movements from different historical epochs and cultures. Our aim is to establish a broad historical and global foundation for the understanding of film as a complex exchange between art, technology, politics, and economics. Screenings are mandatory.
TR 10:30 - 12:00
DECHERNEY, Peter

FILM 102 - Film Analysis and Methods
Cross-listed: ENGL 092, ARTH 109
What makes movies unique? This course is a semester-long answer to that question, exploring films across a wide range of countries and periods, from silent movies to recent trends. We start by looking closely at how filmmakers have used formal elements - storytelling, camera movement, composition, color, and sound - as we build the tools, skills, and vocabulary of close reading. We then explore such topics as realism, including documentaries, neo-realism, and the Dogma 95 movement; art cinema, especially French New Wave and other innovations of the 1960s; the history of Hollywood studio filmmaking, particularly in the 1930s and 1970s; and the contrasts between Hollywood's film industry and other national cinemas in Europe, Asia, and the Soviet
Union. Screenings are mandatory.
M 6:00 - 9:00
CHARNEY, Leo

FILM 498 - Cinema Studies Seminar (Open only to Cinema Studies Graduating Majors)
As a capstone course for the major, this seminar will allow students to develop a research project in cinema studies. A single faculty member will oversee the seminar, but each student will additionally work in consultation with a faculty advisor from the Cinema Studies Faculty.
W 2:00 - 5:00
CORRIGAN, Timothy

FILM 119 - Middle Eastern Cinema: Law and Society
Cross-listed: NELC 119
In the past two decades, films from the Middle East have gained exceptional international reception. This course is designed to explore the reasons behind this reception through a study of the prevalent social, political, and historical themes and issues in Middle Eastern cinema. Questions such as women's laws, literature and its function, familial issues and gender roles, historical legacies and political tensions, and religion, will be discussed. This course assumes no previous knowledge of film studies or languages of the region. Films from Israel, the Arab World, Turkey, and Iran will be shown in subtitled versions.
MW 2:00 - 3:30
MINUCHEHR, Pardis

FILM 201 - Documentary Film
Cross-listed: ENGL 291
Documentary Film will introduce students to the theory, history and ethics of the film genre corrupted by "reality television". We will explore such recent, thought provoking documentaries as "Bowling for Columbine" and "Spellbound" as well as documentaries that influenced and inspired those films. We will explore numerous issues confronted by documentary filmmakers by viewing representative films and discussing the issues each poses. These issues--including re-enactment, fair treatment of the subjects, politics and ethics--have confronted documentarians since the beginning of cinema. The themes we are studying are particularly timely against a backdrop of recent questioning of just how far members of the media can go and what they can do to get their "stories". Among the filmmakers to be considered are Robert Flaherty, Leni Riefenstahl, Jean Rouch, Alain Resnais, Fred Wiseman, the Maysles brothers, Emile de Antonio and Errol Morris. Weekly screenings are mandatory.
TR 12:00 - 1:30
KATZ, John

FILM 202.401 - Self-Refllexive, Family and Autobiographical Film
Cross-listed: ENGL 292.401
For most of us our families are both completely familiar and utterly baffling. Since the advent of the movie camera, fiction and documentary filmmakers have sought to explore the familiarity and solve the mysteries of their own and other families. These filmmakers include Woody Allen ("Annie Hall"), Ira Wohl ("Best Boy" and "Best Man"), Craig Gilbert and the Raymonds ("An American Family"), Tom Joselin ("Silverlake Life") and Ross McElwee ("Sherman's March" and "Bright Leaves"). We will view and discuss the work of some of these and other filmmakers and explore the themes, form, psychology and ethics of autobiographical and family life films. Readings will include autobiographies and film theory and criticism. Weekly screenings are mandatory.
TR 3:00 - 4:30
KATZ, John

FILM 208 - Women and Film
Cross-listed: ARTH 292
This course offers an introduction to the important and often under-examined role women have played in shaping the development of global cinema. We will survey the span of more than a century in order to emphasize the presence of women in filmmaking practices through the history of cinema. Directors under consideration will include: Alice Guy-Blaché, Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner, Maya Deren, Leni Riefenstahl, Leontin Sagan, Shirley Clarke, Faith Hubley, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Ulrike Ottinger, Julie Dash, Yvonne Welbon. Structured chronologically, the course will investigate how films made by female directors have shaped, or been omitted from, mainstream narratives of film history. We will consider how effective “gender” and “authorship” are as a categories of analysis; discuss whether certain aesthetic practices reflect, repress, or fail to register traces of gender; ask how the representation of gender on screen is complicated by other aspects of a character’s identity, such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, personal / collective history, and nationality; and grapple with the question of how the work of these women complicates our understanding of the medium of film. We will also explore some of the feminist film scholarship that has so successfully highlighted the need to recover, preserve, support, and analyze the work of these pioneering filmmakers from around the globe.
TR 9:00 - 10:30
BECKMAN, Karen

FILM 222 - Postwar Japanese Cinema and Visual Culture
Cross-listed: ARTH 210
Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujirô, and Kurosawa Akira are recognized today as three of the most important and influential directors in Japanese cinema. In their films of the late 1940s and 1950s, these directors focused upon issues surrounding the human condition and the perception of truth, history, beauty, death, and other issues of the postwar period. This course will pay place their films in period context, and will pay particular attention to connections to other visual media, such as painting, photography, and printmaking, as well as to the modern concepts of "art" and "history" in the cinematic context. How three directors of the 1980s and 1990s - Itami Jûzô, Takeshi Kitano, and Miyazaki Hayao - also took up these issues, and referred to the "big three" will be discussed at the end of the course.
TR 1:30 - 3:00
DAVIS, Julie

FILM 250 - Nazi Cinema
Cross-listed: GRMN 257
This course explores the world of Nazi cinema ranging from infamous propaganda pieces such as "The Triumph of the Will" and "The Eternal Jew" to entertainments by important directors such as Pabst and Douglas Sirk. More than sixty years later, Nazi Cinema challenges us to grapple with issues of more subtle ideological insinuation than we might think. The course also includes film responses to developments in Germany by exiled German directors (Pabst, Wilder). Weekly screenings with subtitles.
MW 2:00 - 3:30
MACLEOD, Catriona

FILM 260 - The Contemporary British Cinema
Cross-listed: ENGL 295
This class treats British cinema of the past twenty-five years, with particular emphasis on the changing social, political, and economic environments in which the British film industry has operated during that period. One of our aims in the course will be to identify some of the distinctive aspects of contemporary British cinema and its particular place in an increasingly regional and global media market. Toward that end, we will consider the differences between films that have succeeded for the most part domestically and those that have achieved widespread international (and especially North American) distribution and acclaim. We will screen some examples of the so-called Heritage Cinema (such as the Merchant-Ivory production Howard's End) as well as films that run sharply counter to this tendency (such as Menalik Shabazz's Burning an Illusion, the Kureishi/Frears collaboration Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, and two films by Gurinda Chadha). We will pay particular attention to the docu-realist tradition in the British cinema and its new engagement with transnational and multicultural subjects; in this connection, we will view two films each by Ken Loach and Mike Leigh as well as recent documentary-inflected films by Paul Greengrass and Michael Winterbottom.
TR 12:00 - 1:30
ENGLISH, James

FILM 265.401 - Russian and Eastern European Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 165
The purpose of this course is to present the Russian and East European contribution to the world cinema in terms of film theory, experimentation with the cinematic language, and social and political reflex. We discuss major themes and issues such as: the invention of montage, the means of visual propaganda and the cinematic component to the communist cultural revolutions, party ideology and practices of social-engineering, cinematic response to the emergence of the totalitarian state in Russia and its subsequent installation in Eastern Europe after World War II; repression, resistance and conformity under such a system; legal and illegal desires; the nature of the authoritarian personality, the mind and the body of the homo sovieticos; sexual and political transgression; treason and disgrace; public degradation and individual redemption; the profane and the sublime ends of human suffering and humiliation; the unmasking of the official "truth" as a general lie.
MW 2:00 - 3:30
TODOROV, Vladislav

FILM 345 - Crime Cinema
Cross-listed: FREN 380
In the spirit of last year's horror cinema class (NOT a prerequisite) , this course will focus once again on two national cinemas, France and Italy, but looking this time at a different type of filmic output and genre: crime, and its various avatars (noir, thriller, renegade or vigilante cop film, mob movie, police detective film, etc.). France is the only country outside the US to have built up a large and consistent body of crime films which frequently garner critical recognition while generating popular appeal. Key historical phases and subgenres will be examined: psychological thrillers (Clouzot) and gangster flicks (Becker, Dassin) in the 50s; the stylized, male-dominated microcosm of Melville and the social commentaries of Chabrol's films in the 70s; neo-noir in the 80s (Corneau) and the current polar revival (Nicloux). Trend-conscious and on the look-out for the next big genre in the cycle of popular cinema, the Italian film industry eagerly turned to the crime format in the late 60s and the 70s when the peplum and spaghetti western markets started to show signs of saturation. The polizieschi and gialli of that period are heavily influenced by such American models as Dirty Harry and The French Connection, but may also be seen as a response to the troubled political climate of the ��Lead Years��. Ideological sensibilities run the gamut from right wing to left wing; motifs and themes vary from cool action, car chases, fetishistic violence or sexploitation to power and corruption, the Mafia and terrorism, or conspiracy and paranoia. In addition to the illustrious (and distant) precedent of Visconti (Ossessione , 1943), filmmakers considered might include: Petri, Rosi, Di Leo, Argento, Sollima, Lenzi, or Martino. Issues of ethics, ideology, gender, sexuality, violence, spectatorship will be discussed through a variety of critical lenses (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, aesthetics, politics, gender�). The class will be conducted in English.
TR 3:00 - 4:30
MET, Philippe

FILM 350.401 - Family in Spanish Cinema (Offered in Spanish)
Cross-listed: SPAN 386
The destinies of modern Spain seem unavoidable intermingled with filmic expression: The entry-ticket of the Spanish avant-garde to the international stage was a film, Un Chien Andalou; Franco’s ideological manifesto for his idiosyncratic blend of fascism took the shape of a movie screenplay, Raza; Spain’s transition to democracy was faithfully recorded in films that were a product of those very
circumstances –the Almodovarian movida being the most prominent example. By examining both films and critical essays, this course will explore the role of cinema as simultaneous producer and product of the ambivalent identities of modern Spain.
TR 12:00 - 1:30
NADAL, Sara

FILM 365.601 - Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 430
This course studies the cinematic representation of civil wars, ethnic conflicts, nationalistic doctrines, and genocidal policies. The focus is on these violent developments that took place in Russia and on the Balkans after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and were conditioned by the new geopolitical dynamics that the fall of communism had already created. We study media broadcasts, documentaries, feature films representing the Eastern, as well as the Western perspective. The films include masterpieces such as Time of the Gypsies, Underground, Prisoner of the Mountains, Before the Rain, Behind Enemy Lines, The Savior, No Man ? s Land , and others. Lectures and course work are in English.
M 5:30 - 8:30
TODOROV, Vladislav

FILM 009.301 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: In the Zone
This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates.
The ancient Greeks immortalized their athletes in praise poems and marble sculptures, whereas we tend to use film, play-by-play commentary, and talk radio to celebrate, describe, or critique feats of physical wonder. In this course, we will explore the links between writing and doing, between the mind and the body. We will examine a range of films (possible titles include The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The Natural, and Blue Crush), as well as essays and news articles. We will disregard unreasonable coaches, love interests, and other distracting plot elements to address the problem of “translating” physical form, motion, and experiences into images and words. Students need not be athletes to enroll, but personal experience will form the basis of several writing assignments.
TR 12:00 - 1:30
SADASHIGE, Jacqueline

FILM 009.303 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: Classic Screwball Comedy
This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates.
Forget Mean Girls, these ladies are ahead of their game, ahead of their men, and ahead of their time. From dizzy socialites to cat thieves and wily reporters, the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s brought us a world of women full of verve and spunk, not to mention a predilection for uproarious chaos. Emerging from the ash-heaps of the Great Depression and the censorship of the Production Code, screwball comedy united romantic comedy and the comedy of manners with the slapstick shenanigans of physical comedy. In this course, we will watch some of the most important--and screwy--screwball comedies in order to ask important questions about the genre, including its ability to represent social and political tensions, as well as the hilarious trials and tribulations of relations between (and in between) the sexes. Films may include My Man Godfrey, Bringing up Baby, His Girl Friday, Libeled Lady, and The Palm Beach Story. Writing will include eight short papers (3 paragraphs each), 2 formal revisions, peer review, and in-class writing assignments. Although the class will be writing intensive, there will be no final exam.
TR 1:30 - 3:00
LESSARD, John

FILM 009.304 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: Cinema of Paranoia
This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates.
While cinema may be understood as nothing else but a medium for the representation of systematized delusions and the projection of personal, political, and social conflicts, this course explores films that provide an especially fruitful opportunity to write about the phenomenon of paranoia. Students will be given the opportunity to recognize and write according to the principles of other genres of film criticism, including auteur, political, and mise-en-scène styles. The contemporary rhetoric of the superlative will be explored in the one polished film review for the course. Is there a difference between individual anxiety and mass hysteria? What kinds of strategies do societies develop to cope with fear? How does someone become a person beset by pervasive distrust and suspiciousness? Is there more to fear than fear itself? Films and readings include Birth of a Nation, Metropolis, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Hunter, and The Manchurian Candidate.
TR 5:00 - 6:30
BURRI, Michael

FILM 009.601 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: Alfred Hitchcock
This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates.
As we trace Hitchcock's transformations in style from painterly expressionism to intentional schlock, we will consider what his films teach us as writers about purpose, selection, historical moment, audience, style, and authorship. Seminar participants will keep a viewing journal and write a series of brief papers, including an analysis of a movie still, a film review, and an excerpt of a screenplay (fragment of a scene). They will also collaboratively direct and film a scene fragment and present it to class. Film screenings are tentatively scheduled on Mondays from 7:00-9:00 p.m.. Students may prefer to rent the films themselves or view them in the library prior to class meetings. Films include The Lodger, Blackmail, Rebecca, Spellbound, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Marnie, Psycho, and The Birds.
W 5:30 - 8:30
ROSS, Valerie

FILM 105 - Religion and Film
Cross-listed: RELS 105
This course surveys ways religion is represented in film. This semester we will watch our films in light of Nietzsche's critique of religion and morality, and his notion of the "death of God." We will also look at various consequences to that "death," including the replacement of religious discourse by the therapeutic, and the modern nostalgia for the "primitive" especially in its neo-Gothic forms. Readings: selections from Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Bataille and Foucault in conjunction with about a dozen post-World War II European and American feature films.
M 6:00 - 9:00
DERAKHSHANI, Tirdad

FILM 202.601 - International Novel and Film
Cross-listed: ENGL 292.602
What happens to a novel when it becomes a movie? This course will examine novels from several different countries and their film adaptations. The themes will be familiar--war, love, intrigue, survival--but the settings with be international. Possible novel/films include Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (Italy and Switzerland); Kobo Abe's Woman of the Dunes (Japan); Alberto Moravia's Two Women (Italy); Nikos Kazantzakis's Zorba the Greek (Greece); Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Russia); Edna O'Brien's A Country Girl (Ireland); Maurice Pagnol's Jean de Florette (France); and Michael's Ondaatje's The English Patient (Europe, Africa). Course work will include frequent short analytical essays and a research paper on a novel and film of the student's choice.
T 5:30 - 8:30
ESPEY, David

FILM 215.401 - Love and Cinema in India
Cross-listed: SAST 216
The representation of heterosexual love, common to all national cinemas, seems to be a special feature of Indian films. While it is common to comment on this aspect of films made in India, there has been a neglect to fully chart and appreciate all the different discursive traditions on human affect and emotion that have shaped visual, narrative and performative cultures--which in turn are present in films made in this region of the world. This course looks at the traditions of many discourses on love (and sexuality), the practises of narrating-performing love-tales, and their connections to religious traditions. Colonisation, modernity, nation-formation, and the westernisation of Indian society, along with cultural changes through the arrival of the modern novel, drama or the gramophone record: much of this is concretised through processes of continuation and change. The course offers a broad understanding of love in India through linguistic, textual (secular and religious), representational, performative and artistic markers spread over centuries and ending with the modern period and the medium of cinema. This will be attempted alongside close analyses of films and film songs.
M 3:00 - 6:30
CHATTERJEE, Gayatri

FILM 215.402 - Indian Cinema and Society
Cross-listed: SAST 221
This course explores the history of cinema in India since 1896 and locates some fascinating ways cinema is related to society and history. We will ground our explorations in an understating of visual and narrative formations--in line with earlier cultural and artistic traditions. W will examine various films (entire films and clips) from different decades, regions, and studios; different "waves" and schools will be studied for an understanding of the ongoing exchanges between the medium and the social, political, religious and cultural histories of the country. We will paint a broad picture of the intense relationship between Indian cinema and society through some close studies of films. We will also touch on the business of film finance, production, exhibition, and distribution (at home territories and in foreign markets), with additional inputs related to state decisions and foreign policies that mark cinema, cinephilia and film scholarship in ways that shape how Indian films are made and viewed at home and abroad--culminating in the phenomenon of 'Bollywood' and the present moment of globalisation.
TR 12:00 - 1:30
CHATTERJEE, Gayatri

FILM 225.401 - King Kong, Monsters, and Their Brides
Cross-listed: THAR 275
This course will incorporate a historical overview of gender, sexuality, race, and religion in monster images of literature, theatre, and cinema. Students will look at contemporary adaptations, including The Phantom of the Opera , Metamorphosis , and Godzilla . A centerpiece of this course will be the character of King Kong. Students will participate in presenting a production of Chinese American Ping Chong's play Kind Ness, in which a gorilla named Buzz immigrates from Africa to the U.S. Students may participate in the production as actors, backstage workers, and even filmmakers. The play will be accompanied by the screening of a film by an Indonesian American of Muslim heritage, Fatimah Tobing Rony. In addition to screening Rony's film, our multimedia production of Chong's Kind Ness will also incorporate original short films by interested students. With the latest remake of King Kong being released in December 2005, this course will be a timely look at how monsters express social and cultural anxieties. To successfully complete this course, students will actively prepare for and take part in class discussions, read and/or view selected plays and films, write shorter and longer critical writing assignments, participate in the production of Kind Ness and related film screenings, and compile a final portfolio of their course work.
MW 2:00 - 3:30
LAFFERTY, Mera

FILM 225.601 - Dark Comedy in Theatre and Film
Cross-listed: THAR 273
This course will examine the "troublesome genre" of dark comedy by looking at the ways in which theatre and film use comic structures and traditions to explore concepts and stories seemingly at odds with those traditions. We will become acquainted with the formal and structural characteristics of tragicomedy by tracing its development, from some of its earliest roots in Roman comedy (Plautus) to its manifestation in contemporary films and plays ( Fargo, Topdog/Underdog ). Critical essays and scholarship will enhance our understanding of specific artistic ideas and intellectual positions at work within dark comedies. We will try to determine how they affect audiences by looking closely at performative, cinematic and theatrical technique. Students will have the opportunity to experiment with creating tragicomic effect through performance. Issues to be considered include comparing the way the genre translates across the media of theatre and film, and examining the unique placement of the genre at the heart of contemporary American culture.
R 5:30 - 8:30
FERGUSON, Marcia

FILM 265.402 - Russian History and Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 275
This course draws on the fictional, drama and cinematic representation of the Russian history based on Russian as well as non Russian sources and interpretations. The analysis targets major modes of imagining, such as narrating, showing and reenacting historical events, personae and epochs justified by different, historically mutating ideological postulates and forms of national self-consciousness. Common stereotypes of picturing Russia from "foreign" perspectives draw special attention. The discussion involves the following themes and outstanding figures: the mighty autocrats Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great; the tragic ruler Boris Godunov; the brazen rebel and royal impostor Pugachov; the notorious Rasputin, his uncanny powers, sex-appeal, and court machinations; Lenin and the October Revolution; images of war; the times of construction and the times of collapse of the Soviet Colossus.
MW 3:30 - 5:00
TODOROV, Vladislav

FILM 270 - Mexican Revolution in the American Imagination
Cross-listed: ENGL 270
Exploring numerous cultural, political, and historical contexts, this course will examine the Mexican Revolution from the vantage point of the American imagination. While most commentators date the Revolution between 1910-20, the turmoil south of the border would play a part in how the U.S. viewed Mexico—and itself—well into the middle of the century. Such a recent history of revolution enabled the U.S. to conceive of Mexico as a mythic space onto which it could project and possibly resolve various social and cultural questions. As we read an array of texts that imagine the Revolution, we will consider how notions of revolutionary Mexico were deployed in some of the most pressing debates of the day, including those regarding relationships between race and democracy, art and revolution, and the primitive and the modern. Our readings will also include Mexican representations of the revolution, with the aim that we will analyze the influence of such expressions on U.S. thinking about Mexico. Ultimately, we will examine how Mexico and its Revolution inform new debates about an old question: what does it mean to be an American? Authors we will probably read include Mariano Azuela, Nellie Campobellos, John Reed, Katherine Anne Porter, Elena Poniatowska, and Sandra Cisneros. Likely films include Viva Villa!, Viva Zapata!, The Old Gringo, and Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, and The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa.
TR 1:30 - 3:00
PADILLA, Yolanda

FILM 290 - International Politics and Film
Cross-listed: INTR 290
This course examines the portrayal of key events in international politics in popular movies to assess their role in shaping societal recollections of historical events. In particular, we analyze the accuracy of movies’ representation of events and what it means for international relations that movies now teach the masses politics and history. Each session includes a framing lecture, screening of the movie(s) for the week, and discussion of the veracity of the film, commercial and noncommercial motivations, the political and critical impact of the film, and the effect of the film internationally. A range of movies will be included in order to examine changes in political but popular films over time and to compare the representation of different political phenomenon—war, humanitarian emergencies, economic globalization, nuclear proliferation, immigration, and terrorism—in different countries.
W 6:00 - 9:00
BLOODGOOD-AMES, Elizabeth

FILM 329 - Israeli Film and Literature
Cross-listed: NELC 159
This course examines literary and cinematic portrayals of childhood images and memories. While Israeli works constitute more then half of the course's material, American & European film and fiction play comparative roles. The works are placed against a backdrop of national or historical conflicts, yet the foci of many stories is individual trauma (such as loss or abuse) or longing for an idealized time. We look at how authors and directors struggle with their desire to retrieve fragments of past events and penetrate a child's psyche. We study how they use symbols, metaphors, color, light, close-ups and flashbacks to reconstruct memory.
TR 1:30 - 3:00
GOLD, Nili

FILM 336 - Anthropology and the Cinema
Cross-listed: ANTH 336
While it has traditionally studied the expressive behaviors of many other cultures around the globe, American anthropology has rarely used its tools of cultural analysis to look its own storytelling, especially as seen in mass-market Hollywood movies. This course will apply textual and contextual analysis, cross-cultural comparisons, mythological and symbolic approaches, and cognitive, linguistic and discourse analysis to look at the form, content and effects of popular movies. The last segment of the course will focus on the work of one filmmaker who seems to train an anthropological eye on the culture through his/her films. For Spring 2006 this will be the work of writer/artist/director Tim Burton (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Batman, Sleepy Hollow, The Nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice).
TR 10:30 - 12:00
KRASNIEWICZ, Louise

FILM 340 - Voices from the South (Offered in Italian)
Cross-listed: ITAL 300
The history of Italy is a history of regionalism. Linguistic, cultural, political and socio-economic differences lie at the roots of a modern nation which is richly diverse and difficult to grasp. Since long before the unification of the peninsula Italians have been conscious of one particularly dramatic regional divide--that between Northern and Southern Italy. For generations of politicians and intellectuals, artists and directors, the meridione has been synonymous with everything from authenticity and religious purity to backwardness and crisis. In this course we will examine the origins of the "Southern Question" and its representation in literature and film. We will look at representations of the south by writers (Verga, Pirandello, Sciascia, Brancati) and directors (Rosi, Torre, Crialese) who hale from the region; we will also examine how northern directors (Visconti, Germi) interpret and stage a south of their own devising. The themes treated in this course will include: the construction of national identity; superstitions and popular culture; magic and religion; the origins and consequences of organized crime; the construction of gender and sexuality in a patriarchal society; immigrant assimilation and immigrant resistance; the construction of an Italian-American identity.
TR 1:30 - 3:00
ABBONA, Cristina

FILM 350.404 - Indigenous Peoples in Andean Literature and Film (Offered in Spanish)
Cross-listed: SPAN 396
This course offers a survey of Andean literature and film starting with the Incan civilization in pre-Colombian Peru and ending with the Andean diaspora in the US at the present time. In addition to covering all of the major periods, we will also study a wide variety of works including documentaries, histories, chronicles, poetry, essays, short stories, novels, and film. Since the time frame is vast, and the texts are diverse, it will help us to organize our investigations around a central thematic focus: representations of indigenous peoples. As we examine how these subjects have been portrayed throughout the ages on the page and on the screen, we will gain a better understanding of the individuals, events, and cultural forces that have shaped the region.
MWF 12:00 - 1:00
KNIGHT, Jean

FILM 352 - Devil's Pact in Literature and Film
Cross-listed: GRMN 256
For centuries the pact with the devil has signified humankind's desire to surpass the limits of human knowledge and power. From the reformation chap book to the rock lyrics of Randy Newman's Faust, from Marlowe and Goethe to key Hollywood films, the legend of the devil's pact continues to be useful for exploring our fascination with forbidden powers.
MW 12:00 - 1:00
RICHTER, Simon

FILM 365.602 - Fate and Chance in Literature and Film
Cross-listed: RUSS 432
Be a winner - manage all your situations and don't let a pure chance to govern your life! With a chain of literary characters as a vivid illustration, you will explore a mysterious world of fate and chance and learn about various interpretations of the forces ruling human life. Slavic and Greek mythology, as well as folklore and modern literary works of Russian and Western writers and cinematographers will assist you in your journey to the world of supernatural. Screenings will include Zeffirelli's and Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet.
T 5:30 - 8:30
ZUBAREV, Vera

FILM 061 - Film Video I
Cross-listed: FNAR 061/661
This class offers film and video production as a means of personal expression. Students will be assisted in translating ideas into movies. Super-8 and/or digital video equipment will be provided; students must provide film stock, processing and/or video tapes.
Several sections and times, please check registrar

FILM 062 - Film Video II
Cross-listed: FNAR 062/662
Film/Video II is a hands-on course in super 8mm and/or digital video movie making in which each student plans and creates three short productions. Techniques learned in FNAR 061 will be refined while exploring the role of sound and aesthetics in the flimmaking/video process. Auditors not permitted.
Several sections and times, please check registrar

FILM 064 - Interactive Video
Cross-listed: FNAR 064/664
This course explores the concepts and technologies behind non-linear storytelling through mediums such as DVD's and the worldwide web. Students will learn to make interactive DVD videos as a form of expression and explore the possibilities of streaming video making.
W 1:00 - 4:00
O'REALLY, M.

FILM 067 - Advanced Video Projects
Cross-listed: FNAR 067/667
R 1:00 - 4:00
HIRONAKA, Nadia

FILM 116 - Screenwriting
Cross-listed: ENGL 116
This course will look at the screenplay as both a literary text and a blue print for production. Several classic screenplay texts will be critically analyzed (REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, PSYCHO, etc.) Students will then embark on writing their own scripts. We will intensively focus on: character enhancement, creating "believable" cinematic dialogue, plot development and story structure, conflict, pacing, dramatic foreshadowing, the element of surprise, text and subtext and visual story-telling. Class attendance is mandatory. Students will submit their works-in-progress to the workshop for discussion. NOTE: Students interested in taking the class should submit a brief writing sample to Professor Marc Lapadula, Department of English, 3600 Market St. Suite 501A/6273. Also, include your name, last four digits of your social security number, E-mail, address where you can be reached. Permit is required from the instructor.
M 2:00 - 5:00 (Section 401)
M 5:00 - 8:00 (Section 601)
LAPADULA, Marc

FILM 130 - Advanced Screenwriting
Cross-listed: ENGL 130
Writing for the screen has been called an "architectural" skill. The writer creates a narrative by framing a structure. This course will be a workshop in which writers can try out this very particular and peculiar craft. (Along with sharing gossip with professional screenwriters and discussing good movies!). At several points during the semester, students will meet with visiting screenwriters, who will also make public presentations at the Kelly Writers House. NOTE: This is a special writing workshop with an eminent screenwriter. Students wanting to enroll should consult Mark Rosenthal's faculty bio here: http://writing.upenn.edu/cw/faculty.html. Students will be admitted on the basis of an application: by email, send a writing sample, brief description of your interest in the course, and any relevant background or experience. Applications should be sent to <screenwriting@writing.upenn.edu>.
F 2:00 - 5:00
ROSENTHAL, Mark

FILM 261 - Computer Animation
Cross-listed: FNAR 267/567
Through a series of studio projects, this course will focus on 2D and 3D computer animation. Emphasis is placed on time-based design and storytelling by developing new sensitivities to movement, cinematography, editing, sound, color, and lighting. Compositing software covered in the course will be used to combine 2D graphics, 3D animation, and sound.
TR 1:30 - 4:30
MOSLEY, Joshua

FILM 263 - Mixed Media Animation
Cross-listed: FNAR 289/589
This animation course fuses hands-on studio drawing, modeling and cinematic processes with digital tools. Real world techniques such as stop-motion, clay animation, hand-drawn and multi-plane animation will be practiced in the studio. Other techniques, such as keyframe animation, editing and blue-screen composition compositing will be practiced in the digital labs. Both production teams and individuals will create short mixed-media animations in form, material and time.
MW 9:00 - 12:00
MOSLEY, Joshua

FILM 591 - Contemporary Film Theory
Cross-listed: ARTH 593
What are we to do with film theory when some scholars consider us to be in a “post-theory” moment? What kind of theory do we need for reflecting upon this medium that stands on the verge of its own obsolescence? What does the emergence of so-called “new media” reveal about “old media”? How have the foundational texts and concepts of film theory been challenged, rejected, embraced or retooled in recent years, and what is the role of the film theorist in the early twenty-first century? First, we will look at some of the key texts that have shaped film theory since 1968. Then, we will examine some of the current issues preoccupying film theorists today, including corporeality, post-coloniality, and the nature of the medium. And finally, we will consider the future of film theory as well as theory’s relationship to time.
R 1:30 - 3:30
BECKMAN, Karen

FILM 793 - Film Historiography
Cross-listed: ENGL 797
How has the history of American cinema been written? And why? To what extend has film historiography been driven by larger trends in the theorization of history? By new archival discoveries? By technologies of film viewing? And by the internal logic of the field itself? Why, for example, is early cinema (pre-1907) an invention of the 1980s? Why has there been a recent explosion of interest in the so-called New Hollywood? We will look at the impact of auteur theory, audience studies, and media policy, among other topics. If you don’t know much about film history, this is also a good place to learn that history even as we interrogate the methods of its production.
W 3:00 - 6:00
DECHERNEY, Peter

		Courses			Spring 2006 Offerings

		Fall 2008 Spring 2008 Fall 2007 Spring 2007 Fall 2006 Spring 2006 Fall 2005 Spring 2005 Fall 2004 Spring 2004 Cinema Studies Major Cinema Studies Minor			REQUIREMENTS FILM 101 - Film History Cross-listed: ENGL 091, ARTH 108 This course is an introduction to the history of cinema from 1895 to the present. In demonstrating how history energizes and complicates the movies, we will examine numerous film cultures and historical periods, including early short films from Europe and the US, Hollywood silent cinema, Italian neo-realism, the French New Wave, New German Cinema, recent Iranian and Taiwanese cinema, and a variety of other film movements from different historical epochs and cultures. Our aim is to establish a broad historical and global foundation for the understanding of film as a complex exchange between art, technology, politics, and economics. Screenings are mandatory. TR 10:30 - 12:00 DECHERNEY, Peter FILM 102 - Film Analysis and Methods Cross-listed: ENGL 092, ARTH 109 What makes movies unique? This course is a semester-long answer to that question, exploring films across a wide range of countries and periods, from silent movies to recent trends. We start by looking closely at how filmmakers have used formal elements - storytelling, camera movement, composition, color, and sound - as we build the tools, skills, and vocabulary of close reading. We then explore such topics as realism, including documentaries, neo-realism, and the Dogma 95 movement; art cinema, especially French New Wave and other innovations of the 1960s; the history of Hollywood studio filmmaking, particularly in the 1930s and 1970s; and the contrasts between Hollywood's film industry and other national cinemas in Europe, Asia, and the Soviet Union. Screenings are mandatory. M 6:00 - 9:00 CHARNEY, Leo FILM 498 - Cinema Studies Seminar (Open only to Cinema Studies Graduating Majors) As a capstone course for the major, this seminar will allow students to develop a research project in cinema studies. A single faculty member will oversee the seminar, but each student will additionally work in consultation with a faculty advisor from the Cinema Studies Faculty. W 2:00 - 5:00 CORRIGAN, Timothy PRIMARY FILM COURSES FILM 119 - Middle Eastern Cinema: Law and Society Cross-listed: NELC 119 In the past two decades, films from the Middle East have gained exceptional international reception. This course is designed to explore the reasons behind this reception through a study of the prevalent social, political, and historical themes and issues in Middle Eastern cinema. Questions such as women's laws, literature and its function, familial issues and gender roles, historical legacies and political tensions, and religion, will be discussed. This course assumes no previous knowledge of film studies or languages of the region. Films from Israel, the Arab World, Turkey, and Iran will be shown in subtitled versions. MW 2:00 - 3:30 MINUCHEHR, Pardis FILM 201 - Documentary Film Cross-listed: ENGL 291 Documentary Film will introduce students to the theory, history and ethics of the film genre corrupted by "reality television". We will explore such recent, thought provoking documentaries as "Bowling for Columbine" and "Spellbound" as well as documentaries that influenced and inspired those films. We will explore numerous issues confronted by documentary filmmakers by viewing representative films and discussing the issues each poses. These issues--including re-enactment, fair treatment of the subjects, politics and ethics--have confronted documentarians since the beginning of cinema. The themes we are studying are particularly timely against a backdrop of recent questioning of just how far members of the media can go and what they can do to get their "stories". Among the filmmakers to be considered are Robert Flaherty, Leni Riefenstahl, Jean Rouch, Alain Resnais, Fred Wiseman, the Maysles brothers, Emile de Antonio and Errol Morris. Weekly screenings are mandatory. TR 12:00 - 1:30 KATZ, John FILM 202.401 - Self-Refllexive, Family and Autobiographical Film Cross-listed: ENGL 292.401 For most of us our families are both completely familiar and utterly baffling. Since the advent of the movie camera, fiction and documentary filmmakers have sought to explore the familiarity and solve the mysteries of their own and other families. These filmmakers include Woody Allen ("Annie Hall"), Ira Wohl ("Best Boy" and "Best Man"), Craig Gilbert and the Raymonds ("An American Family"), Tom Joselin ("Silverlake Life") and Ross McElwee ("Sherman's March" and "Bright Leaves"). We will view and discuss the work of some of these and other filmmakers and explore the themes, form, psychology and ethics of autobiographical and family life films. Readings will include autobiographies and film theory and criticism. Weekly screenings are mandatory. TR 3:00 - 4:30 KATZ, John FILM 208 - Women and Film Cross-listed: ARTH 292 This course offers an introduction to the important and often under-examined role women have played in shaping the development of global cinema. We will survey the span of more than a century in order to emphasize the presence of women in filmmaking practices through the history of cinema. Directors under consideration will include: Alice Guy-Blaché, Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner, Maya Deren, Leni Riefenstahl, Leontin Sagan, Shirley Clarke, Faith Hubley, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Ulrike Ottinger, Julie Dash, Yvonne Welbon. Structured chronologically, the course will investigate how films made by female directors have shaped, or been omitted from, mainstream narratives of film history. We will consider how effective “gender” and “authorship” are as a categories of analysis; discuss whether certain aesthetic practices reflect, repress, or fail to register traces of gender; ask how the representation of gender on screen is complicated by other aspects of a character’s identity, such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, personal / collective history, and nationality; and grapple with the question of how the work of these women complicates our understanding of the medium of film. We will also explore some of the feminist film scholarship that has so successfully highlighted the need to recover, preserve, support, and analyze the work of these pioneering filmmakers from around the globe. TR 9:00 - 10:30 BECKMAN, Karen FILM 222 - Postwar Japanese Cinema and Visual Culture Cross-listed: ARTH 210 Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujirô, and Kurosawa Akira are recognized today as three of the most important and influential directors in Japanese cinema. In their films of the late 1940s and 1950s, these directors focused upon issues surrounding the human condition and the perception of truth, history, beauty, death, and other issues of the postwar period. This course will pay place their films in period context, and will pay particular attention to connections to other visual media, such as painting, photography, and printmaking, as well as to the modern concepts of "art" and "history" in the cinematic context. How three directors of the 1980s and 1990s - Itami Jûzô, Takeshi Kitano, and Miyazaki Hayao - also took up these issues, and referred to the "big three" will be discussed at the end of the course. TR 1:30 - 3:00 DAVIS, Julie FILM 250 - Nazi Cinema Cross-listed: GRMN 257 This course explores the world of Nazi cinema ranging from infamous propaganda pieces such as "The Triumph of the Will" and "The Eternal Jew" to entertainments by important directors such as Pabst and Douglas Sirk. More than sixty years later, Nazi Cinema challenges us to grapple with issues of more subtle ideological insinuation than we might think. The course also includes film responses to developments in Germany by exiled German directors (Pabst, Wilder). Weekly screenings with subtitles. MW 2:00 - 3:30 MACLEOD, Catriona FILM 260 - The Contemporary British Cinema Cross-listed: ENGL 295 This class treats British cinema of the past twenty-five years, with particular emphasis on the changing social, political, and economic environments in which the British film industry has operated during that period. One of our aims in the course will be to identify some of the distinctive aspects of contemporary British cinema and its particular place in an increasingly regional and global media market. Toward that end, we will consider the differences between films that have succeeded for the most part domestically and those that have achieved widespread international (and especially North American) distribution and acclaim. We will screen some examples of the so-called Heritage Cinema (such as the Merchant-Ivory production Howard's End) as well as films that run sharply counter to this tendency (such as Menalik Shabazz's Burning an Illusion, the Kureishi/Frears collaboration Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, and two films by Gurinda Chadha). We will pay particular attention to the docu-realist tradition in the British cinema and its new engagement with transnational and multicultural subjects; in this connection, we will view two films each by Ken Loach and Mike Leigh as well as recent documentary-inflected films by Paul Greengrass and Michael Winterbottom. TR 12:00 - 1:30 ENGLISH, James FILM 265.401 - Russian and Eastern European Film Cross-listed: RUSS 165 The purpose of this course is to present the Russian and East European contribution to the world cinema in terms of film theory, experimentation with the cinematic language, and social and political reflex. We discuss major themes and issues such as: the invention of montage, the means of visual propaganda and the cinematic component to the communist cultural revolutions, party ideology and practices of social-engineering, cinematic response to the emergence of the totalitarian state in Russia and its subsequent installation in Eastern Europe after World War II; repression, resistance and conformity under such a system; legal and illegal desires; the nature of the authoritarian personality, the mind and the body of the homo sovieticos; sexual and political transgression; treason and disgrace; public degradation and individual redemption; the profane and the sublime ends of human suffering and humiliation; the unmasking of the official "truth" as a general lie. MW 2:00 - 3:30 TODOROV, Vladislav FILM 345 - Crime Cinema Cross-listed: FREN 380 In the spirit of last year's horror cinema class (NOT a prerequisite) , this course will focus once again on two national cinemas, France and Italy, but looking this time at a different type of filmic output and genre: crime, and its various avatars (noir, thriller, renegade or vigilante cop film, mob movie, police detective film, etc.). France is the only country outside the US to have built up a large and consistent body of crime films which frequently garner critical recognition while generating popular appeal. Key historical phases and subgenres will be examined: psychological thrillers (Clouzot) and gangster flicks (Becker, Dassin) in the 50s; the stylized, male-dominated microcosm of Melville and the social commentaries of Chabrol's films in the 70s; neo-noir in the 80s (Corneau) and the current polar revival (Nicloux). Trend-conscious and on the look-out for the next big genre in the cycle of popular cinema, the Italian film industry eagerly turned to the crime format in the late 60s and the 70s when the peplum and spaghetti western markets started to show signs of saturation. The polizieschi and gialli of that period are heavily influenced by such American models as Dirty Harry and The French Connection, but may also be seen as a response to the troubled political climate of the ��Lead Years��. Ideological sensibilities run the gamut from right wing to left wing; motifs and themes vary from cool action, car chases, fetishistic violence or sexploitation to power and corruption, the Mafia and terrorism, or conspiracy and paranoia. In addition to the illustrious (and distant) precedent of Visconti (Ossessione , 1943), filmmakers considered might include: Petri, Rosi, Di Leo, Argento, Sollima, Lenzi, or Martino. Issues of ethics, ideology, gender, sexuality, violence, spectatorship will be discussed through a variety of critical lenses (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, aesthetics, politics, gender�). The class will be conducted in English. TR 3:00 - 4:30 MET, Philippe FILM 350.401 - Family in Spanish Cinema (Offered in Spanish) Cross-listed: SPAN 386 The destinies of modern Spain seem unavoidable intermingled with filmic expression: The entry-ticket of the Spanish avant-garde to the international stage was a film, Un Chien Andalou; Franco’s ideological manifesto for his idiosyncratic blend of fascism took the shape of a movie screenplay, Raza; Spain’s transition to democracy was faithfully recorded in films that were a product of those very circumstances –the Almodovarian movida being the most prominent example. By examining both films and critical essays, this course will explore the role of cinema as simultaneous producer and product of the ambivalent identities of modern Spain. TR 12:00 - 1:30 NADAL, Sara FILM 365.601 - Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Film Cross-listed: RUSS 430 This course studies the cinematic representation of civil wars, ethnic conflicts, nationalistic doctrines, and genocidal policies. The focus is on these violent developments that took place in Russia and on the Balkans after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and were conditioned by the new geopolitical dynamics that the fall of communism had already created. We study media broadcasts, documentaries, feature films representing the Eastern, as well as the Western perspective. The films include masterpieces such as Time of the Gypsies, Underground, Prisoner of the Mountains, Before the Rain, Behind Enemy Lines, The Savior, No Man ? s Land , and others. Lectures and course work are in English. M 5:30 - 8:30 TODOROV, Vladislav INTERDISCIPLINARY FILM COURSES FILM 009.301 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: In the Zone This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates. The ancient Greeks immortalized their athletes in praise poems and marble sculptures, whereas we tend to use film, play-by-play commentary, and talk radio to celebrate, describe, or critique feats of physical wonder. In this course, we will explore the links between writing and doing, between the mind and the body. We will examine a range of films (possible titles include The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The Natural, and Blue Crush), as well as essays and news articles. We will disregard unreasonable coaches, love interests, and other distracting plot elements to address the problem of “translating” physical form, motion, and experiences into images and words. Students need not be athletes to enroll, but personal experience will form the basis of several writing assignments. TR 12:00 - 1:30 SADASHIGE, Jacqueline FILM 009.303 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: Classic Screwball Comedy This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates. Forget Mean Girls, these ladies are ahead of their game, ahead of their men, and ahead of their time. From dizzy socialites to cat thieves and wily reporters, the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s brought us a world of women full of verve and spunk, not to mention a predilection for uproarious chaos. Emerging from the ash-heaps of the Great Depression and the censorship of the Production Code, screwball comedy united romantic comedy and the comedy of manners with the slapstick shenanigans of physical comedy. In this course, we will watch some of the most important--and screwy--screwball comedies in order to ask important questions about the genre, including its ability to represent social and political tensions, as well as the hilarious trials and tribulations of relations between (and in between) the sexes. Films may include My Man Godfrey, Bringing up Baby, His Girl Friday, Libeled Lady, and The Palm Beach Story. Writing will include eight short papers (3 paragraphs each), 2 formal revisions, peer review, and in-class writing assignments. Although the class will be writing intensive, there will be no final exam. TR 1:30 - 3:00 LESSARD, John FILM 009.304 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: Cinema of Paranoia This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates. While cinema may be understood as nothing else but a medium for the representation of systematized delusions and the projection of personal, political, and social conflicts, this course explores films that provide an especially fruitful opportunity to write about the phenomenon of paranoia. Students will be given the opportunity to recognize and write according to the principles of other genres of film criticism, including auteur, political, and mise-en-scène styles. The contemporary rhetoric of the superlative will be explored in the one polished film review for the course. Is there a difference between individual anxiety and mass hysteria? What kinds of strategies do societies develop to cope with fear? How does someone become a person beset by pervasive distrust and suspiciousness? Is there more to fear than fear itself? Films and readings include Birth of a Nation, Metropolis, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Hunter, and The Manchurian Candidate. TR 5:00 - 6:30 BURRI, Michael FILM 009.601 - CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR IN CINEMA STUDIES: Alfred Hitchcock This course fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates. As we trace Hitchcock's transformations in style from painterly expressionism to intentional schlock, we will consider what his films teach us as writers about purpose, selection, historical moment, audience, style, and authorship. Seminar participants will keep a viewing journal and write a series of brief papers, including an analysis of a movie still, a film review, and an excerpt of a screenplay (fragment of a scene). They will also collaboratively direct and film a scene fragment and present it to class. Film screenings are tentatively scheduled on Mondays from 7:00-9:00 p.m.. Students may prefer to rent the films themselves or view them in the library prior to class meetings. Films include The Lodger, Blackmail, Rebecca, Spellbound, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Marnie, Psycho, and The Birds. W 5:30 - 8:30 ROSS, Valerie FILM 105 - Religion and Film Cross-listed: RELS 105 This course surveys ways religion is represented in film. This semester we will watch our films in light of Nietzsche's critique of religion and morality, and his notion of the "death of God." We will also look at various consequences to that "death," including the replacement of religious discourse by the therapeutic, and the modern nostalgia for the "primitive" especially in its neo-Gothic forms. Readings: selections from Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Bataille and Foucault in conjunction with about a dozen post-World War II European and American feature films. M 6:00 - 9:00 DERAKHSHANI, Tirdad FILM 202.601 - International Novel and Film Cross-listed: ENGL 292.602 What happens to a novel when it becomes a movie? This course will examine novels from several different countries and their film adaptations. The themes will be familiar--war, love, intrigue, survival--but the settings with be international. Possible novel/films include Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (Italy and Switzerland); Kobo Abe's Woman of the Dunes (Japan); Alberto Moravia's Two Women (Italy); Nikos Kazantzakis's Zorba the Greek (Greece); Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Russia); Edna O'Brien's A Country Girl (Ireland); Maurice Pagnol's Jean de Florette (France); and Michael's Ondaatje's The English Patient (Europe, Africa). Course work will include frequent short analytical essays and a research paper on a novel and film of the student's choice. T 5:30 - 8:30 ESPEY, David FILM 215.401 - Love and Cinema in India Cross-listed: SAST 216 The representation of heterosexual love, common to all national cinemas, seems to be a special feature of Indian films. While it is common to comment on this aspect of films made in India, there has been a neglect to fully chart and appreciate all the different discursive traditions on human affect and emotion that have shaped visual, narrative and performative cultures--which in turn are present in films made in this region of the world. This course looks at the traditions of many discourses on love (and sexuality), the practises of narrating-performing love-tales, and their connections to religious traditions. Colonisation, modernity, nation-formation, and the westernisation of Indian society, along with cultural changes through the arrival of the modern novel, drama or the gramophone record: much of this is concretised through processes of continuation and change. The course offers a broad understanding of love in India through linguistic, textual (secular and religious), representational, performative and artistic markers spread over centuries and ending with the modern period and the medium of cinema. This will be attempted alongside close analyses of films and film songs. M 3:00 - 6:30 CHATTERJEE, Gayatri FILM 215.402 - Indian Cinema and Society Cross-listed: SAST 221 This course explores the history of cinema in India since 1896 and locates some fascinating ways cinema is related to society and history. We will ground our explorations in an understating of visual and narrative formations--in line with earlier cultural and artistic traditions. W will examine various films (entire films and clips) from different decades, regions, and studios; different "waves" and schools will be studied for an understanding of the ongoing exchanges between the medium and the social, political, religious and cultural histories of the country. We will paint a broad picture of the intense relationship between Indian cinema and society through some close studies of films. We will also touch on the business of film finance, production, exhibition, and distribution (at home territories and in foreign markets), with additional inputs related to state decisions and foreign policies that mark cinema, cinephilia and film scholarship in ways that shape how Indian films are made and viewed at home and abroad--culminating in the phenomenon of 'Bollywood' and the present moment of globalisation. TR 12:00 - 1:30 CHATTERJEE, Gayatri FILM 225.401 - King Kong, Monsters, and Their Brides Cross-listed: THAR 275 This course will incorporate a historical overview of gender, sexuality, race, and religion in monster images of literature, theatre, and cinema. Students will look at contemporary adaptations, including The Phantom of the Opera , Metamorphosis , and Godzilla . A centerpiece of this course will be the character of King Kong. Students will participate in presenting a production of Chinese American Ping Chong's play Kind Ness, in which a gorilla named Buzz immigrates from Africa to the U.S. Students may participate in the production as actors, backstage workers, and even filmmakers. The play will be accompanied by the screening of a film by an Indonesian American of Muslim heritage, Fatimah Tobing Rony. In addition to screening Rony's film, our multimedia production of Chong's Kind Ness will also incorporate original short films by interested students. With the latest remake of King Kong being released in December 2005, this course will be a timely look at how monsters express social and cultural anxieties. To successfully complete this course, students will actively prepare for and take part in class discussions, read and/or view selected plays and films, write shorter and longer critical writing assignments, participate in the production of Kind Ness and related film screenings, and compile a final portfolio of their course work. MW 2:00 - 3:30 LAFFERTY, Mera FILM 225.601 - Dark Comedy in Theatre and Film Cross-listed: THAR 273 This course will examine the "troublesome genre" of dark comedy by looking at the ways in which theatre and film use comic structures and traditions to explore concepts and stories seemingly at odds with those traditions. We will become acquainted with the formal and structural characteristics of tragicomedy by tracing its development, from some of its earliest roots in Roman comedy (Plautus) to its manifestation in contemporary films and plays ( Fargo, Topdog/Underdog ). Critical essays and scholarship will enhance our understanding of specific artistic ideas and intellectual positions at work within dark comedies. We will try to determine how they affect audiences by looking closely at performative, cinematic and theatrical technique. Students will have the opportunity to experiment with creating tragicomic effect through performance. Issues to be considered include comparing the way the genre translates across the media of theatre and film, and examining the unique placement of the genre at the heart of contemporary American culture. R 5:30 - 8:30 FERGUSON, Marcia FILM 265.402 - Russian History and Film Cross-listed: RUSS 275 This course draws on the fictional, drama and cinematic representation of the Russian history based on Russian as well as non Russian sources and interpretations. The analysis targets major modes of imagining, such as narrating, showing and reenacting historical events, personae and epochs justified by different, historically mutating ideological postulates and forms of national self-consciousness. Common stereotypes of picturing Russia from "foreign" perspectives draw special attention. The discussion involves the following themes and outstanding figures: the mighty autocrats Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great; the tragic ruler Boris Godunov; the brazen rebel and royal impostor Pugachov; the notorious Rasputin, his uncanny powers, sex-appeal, and court machinations; Lenin and the October Revolution; images of war; the times of construction and the times of collapse of the Soviet Colossus. MW 3:30 - 5:00 TODOROV, Vladislav FILM 270 - Mexican Revolution in the American Imagination Cross-listed: ENGL 270 Exploring numerous cultural, political, and historical contexts, this course will examine the Mexican Revolution from the vantage point of the American imagination. While most commentators date the Revolution between 1910-20, the turmoil south of the border would play a part in how the U.S. viewed Mexico—and itself—well into the middle of the century. Such a recent history of revolution enabled the U.S. to conceive of Mexico as a mythic space onto which it could project and possibly resolve various social and cultural questions. As we read an array of texts that imagine the Revolution, we will consider how notions of revolutionary Mexico were deployed in some of the most pressing debates of the day, including those regarding relationships between race and democracy, art and revolution, and the primitive and the modern. Our readings will also include Mexican representations of the revolution, with the aim that we will analyze the influence of such expressions on U.S. thinking about Mexico. Ultimately, we will examine how Mexico and its Revolution inform new debates about an old question: what does it mean to be an American? Authors we will probably read include Mariano Azuela, Nellie Campobellos, John Reed, Katherine Anne Porter, Elena Poniatowska, and Sandra Cisneros. Likely films include Viva Villa!, Viva Zapata!, The Old Gringo, and Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, and The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa. TR 1:30 - 3:00 PADILLA, Yolanda FILM 290 - International Politics and Film Cross-listed: INTR 290 This course examines the portrayal of key events in international politics in popular movies to assess their role in shaping societal recollections of historical events. In particular, we analyze the accuracy of movies’ representation of events and what it means for international relations that movies now teach the masses politics and history. Each session includes a framing lecture, screening of the movie(s) for the week, and discussion of the veracity of the film, commercial and noncommercial motivations, the political and critical impact of the film, and the effect of the film internationally. A range of movies will be included in order to examine changes in political but popular films over time and to compare the representation of different political phenomenon—war, humanitarian emergencies, economic globalization, nuclear proliferation, immigration, and terrorism—in different countries. W 6:00 - 9:00 BLOODGOOD-AMES, Elizabeth FILM 329 - Israeli Film and Literature Cross-listed: NELC 159 This course examines literary and cinematic portrayals of childhood images and memories. While Israeli works constitute more then half of the course's material, American & European film and fiction play comparative roles. The works are placed against a backdrop of national or historical conflicts, yet the foci of many stories is individual trauma (such as loss or abuse) or longing for an idealized time. We look at how authors and directors struggle with their desire to retrieve fragments of past events and penetrate a child's psyche. We study how they use symbols, metaphors, color, light, close-ups and flashbacks to reconstruct memory. TR 1:30 - 3:00 GOLD, Nili FILM 336 - Anthropology and the Cinema Cross-listed: ANTH 336 While it has traditionally studied the expressive behaviors of many other cultures around the globe, American anthropology has rarely used its tools of cultural analysis to look its own storytelling, especially as seen in mass-market Hollywood movies. This course will apply textual and contextual analysis, cross-cultural comparisons, mythological and symbolic approaches, and cognitive, linguistic and discourse analysis to look at the form, content and effects of popular movies. The last segment of the course will focus on the work of one filmmaker who seems to train an anthropological eye on the culture through his/her films. For Spring 2006 this will be the work of writer/artist/director Tim Burton (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Batman, Sleepy Hollow, The Nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice). TR 10:30 - 12:00 KRASNIEWICZ, Louise FILM 340 - Voices from the South (Offered in Italian) Cross-listed: ITAL 300 The history of Italy is a history of regionalism. Linguistic, cultural, political and socio-economic differences lie at the roots of a modern nation which is richly diverse and difficult to grasp. Since long before the unification of the peninsula Italians have been conscious of one particularly dramatic regional divide--that between Northern and Southern Italy. For generations of politicians and intellectuals, artists and directors, the meridione has been synonymous with everything from authenticity and religious purity to backwardness and crisis. In this course we will examine the origins of the "Southern Question" and its representation in literature and film. We will look at representations of the south by writers (Verga, Pirandello, Sciascia, Brancati) and directors (Rosi, Torre, Crialese) who hale from the region; we will also examine how northern directors (Visconti, Germi) interpret and stage a south of their own devising. The themes treated in this course will include: the construction of national identity; superstitions and popular culture; magic and religion; the origins and consequences of organized crime; the construction of gender and sexuality in a patriarchal society; immigrant assimilation and immigrant resistance; the construction of an Italian-American identity. TR 1:30 - 3:00 ABBONA, Cristina FILM 350.404 - Indigenous Peoples in Andean Literature and Film (Offered in Spanish) Cross-listed: SPAN 396 This course offers a survey of Andean literature and film starting with the Incan civilization in pre-Colombian Peru and ending with the Andean diaspora in the US at the present time. In addition to covering all of the major periods, we will also study a wide variety of works including documentaries, histories, chronicles, poetry, essays, short stories, novels, and film. Since the time frame is vast, and the texts are diverse, it will help us to organize our investigations around a central thematic focus: representations of indigenous peoples. As we examine how these subjects have been portrayed throughout the ages on the page and on the screen, we will gain a better understanding of the individuals, events, and cultural forces that have shaped the region. MWF 12:00 - 1:00 KNIGHT, Jean FILM 352 - Devil's Pact in Literature and Film Cross-listed: GRMN 256 For centuries the pact with the devil has signified humankind's desire to surpass the limits of human knowledge and power. From the reformation chap book to the rock lyrics of Randy Newman's Faust, from Marlowe and Goethe to key Hollywood films, the legend of the devil's pact continues to be useful for exploring our fascination with forbidden powers. MW 12:00 - 1:00 RICHTER, Simon FILM 365.602 - Fate and Chance in Literature and Film Cross-listed: RUSS 432 Be a winner - manage all your situations and don't let a pure chance to govern your life! With a chain of literary characters as a vivid illustration, you will explore a mysterious world of fate and chance and learn about various interpretations of the forces ruling human life. Slavic and Greek mythology, as well as folklore and modern literary works of Russian and Western writers and cinematographers will assist you in your journey to the world of supernatural. Screenings will include Zeffirelli's and Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet. T 5:30 - 8:30 ZUBAREV, Vera PRODUCTION FILM COURSES FILM 061 - Film Video I Cross-listed: FNAR 061/661 This class offers film and video production as a means of personal expression. Students will be assisted in translating ideas into movies. Super-8 and/or digital video equipment will be provided; students must provide film stock, processing and/or video tapes. Several sections and times, please check registrar FILM 062 - Film Video II Cross-listed: FNAR 062/662 Film/Video II is a hands-on course in super 8mm and/or digital video movie making in which each student plans and creates three short productions. Techniques learned in FNAR 061 will be refined while exploring the role of sound and aesthetics in the flimmaking/video process. Auditors not permitted. Several sections and times, please check registrar FILM 064 - Interactive Video Cross-listed: FNAR 064/664 This course explores the concepts and technologies behind non-linear storytelling through mediums such as DVD's and the worldwide web. Students will learn to make interactive DVD videos as a form of expression and explore the possibilities of streaming video making. W 1:00 - 4:00 O'REALLY, M. FILM 067 - Advanced Video Projects Cross-listed: FNAR 067/667 R 1:00 - 4:00 HIRONAKA, Nadia FILM 116 - Screenwriting Cross-listed: ENGL 116 This course will look at the screenplay as both a literary text and a blue print for production. Several classic screenplay texts will be critically analyzed (REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, PSYCHO, etc.) Students will then embark on writing their own scripts. We will intensively focus on: character enhancement, creating "believable" cinematic dialogue, plot development and story structure, conflict, pacing, dramatic foreshadowing, the element of surprise, text and subtext and visual story-telling. Class attendance is mandatory. Students will submit their works-in-progress to the workshop for discussion. NOTE: Students interested in taking the class should submit a brief writing sample to Professor Marc Lapadula, Department of English, 3600 Market St. Suite 501A/6273. Also, include your name, last four digits of your social security number, E-mail, address where you can be reached. Permit is required from the instructor. M 2:00 - 5:00 (Section 401) M 5:00 - 8:00 (Section 601) LAPADULA, Marc FILM 130 - Advanced Screenwriting Cross-listed: ENGL 130 Writing for the screen has been called an "architectural" skill. The writer creates a narrative by framing a structure. This course will be a workshop in which writers can try out this very particular and peculiar craft. (Along with sharing gossip with professional screenwriters and discussing good movies!). At several points during the semester, students will meet with visiting screenwriters, who will also make public presentations at the Kelly Writers House. NOTE: This is a special writing workshop with an eminent screenwriter. Students wanting to enroll should consult Mark Rosenthal's faculty bio here: http://writing.upenn.edu/cw/faculty.html. Students will be admitted on the basis of an application: by email, send a writing sample, brief description of your interest in the course, and any relevant background or experience. Applications should be sent to <screenwriting@writing.upenn.edu>. F 2:00 - 5:00 ROSENTHAL, Mark FILM 261 - Computer Animation Cross-listed: FNAR 267/567 Through a series of studio projects, this course will focus on 2D and 3D computer animation. Emphasis is placed on time-based design and storytelling by developing new sensitivities to movement, cinematography, editing, sound, color, and lighting. Compositing software covered in the course will be used to combine 2D graphics, 3D animation, and sound. TR 1:30 - 4:30 MOSLEY, Joshua FILM 263 - Mixed Media Animation Cross-listed: FNAR 289/589 This animation course fuses hands-on studio drawing, modeling and cinematic processes with digital tools. Real world techniques such as stop-motion, clay animation, hand-drawn and multi-plane animation will be practiced in the studio. Other techniques, such as keyframe animation, editing and blue-screen composition compositing will be practiced in the digital labs. Both production teams and individuals will create short mixed-media animations in form, material and time. MW 9:00 - 12:00 MOSLEY, Joshua GRADUATE FILM COURSES FILM 591 - Contemporary Film Theory Cross-listed: ARTH 593 What are we to do with film theory when some scholars consider us to be in a “post-theory” moment? What kind of theory do we need for reflecting upon this medium that stands on the verge of its own obsolescence? What does the emergence of so-called “new media” reveal about “old media”? How have the foundational texts and concepts of film theory been challenged, rejected, embraced or retooled in recent years, and what is the role of the film theorist in the early twenty-first century? First, we will look at some of the key texts that have shaped film theory since 1968. Then, we will examine some of the current issues preoccupying film theorists today, including corporeality, post-coloniality, and the nature of the medium. And finally, we will consider the future of film theory as well as theory’s relationship to time. R 1:30 - 3:30 BECKMAN, Karen FILM 793 - Film Historiography Cross-listed: ENGL 797 How has the history of American cinema been written? And why? To what extend has film historiography been driven by larger trends in the theorization of history? By new archival discoveries? By technologies of film viewing? And by the internal logic of the field itself? Why, for example, is early cinema (pre-1907) an invention of the 1980s? Why has there been a recent explosion of interest in the so-called New Hollywood? We will look at the impact of auteur theory, audience studies, and media policy, among other topics. If you don’t know much about film history, this is also a good place to learn that history even as we interrogate the methods of its production. W 3:00 - 6:00 DECHERNEY, Peter

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