English 239 Film Directors: "Women Filmmakers"
Spring 1997
Dr. Gwendolyn Foster 472-1854 (Andrews 214)
gfoster@unlinfo.unl.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 12-2PM and by appointment.
LECTURES MEET ANDREWS 102
Section 001 call # 3529 (M/W 10:30 - 11:45)
Section 002 call # 8112 (M/W 12:30 - 1:45)
NOTE: Students must be free to view films each week at one of the following times: Tuesday at 3pm or Wednesday at 1pm at the Mary Riepma Ross Theatre,
OR Tuesday at 9pm in Bessey Hall 117.
NOTE: THESE SCREENING TIMES ARE APPROXIMATE: FOR EXACT SCREENING TIMES, CHECK SHELDON SCHEDULE SHEET.
Aim: An overview of the films of women film directors from the early 1900s to the present, with particular attention to the films of Alice Guy-Blaché, Lois Weber, Maya Deren, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Mira Nair, Pratibha Parmar, Dorothy Arzner, Barbara Hammer and other artists. The directors will include a wide range of figures representative of both mainstream Hollywood filmmaking and independent filmmaking. We will discuss the films of both lesbian and heterosexual women filmmakers and we will look at many films by women of color and pay particular attention to the politics of the filmic "gaze."We will be looking at the work of a selection of international women directors from both a critical and historical perspective.
Teaching Methodology: In this class we will respond to feminist film criticism and history in discussions, journals, research papers, oral reports and learn not only the international history of women film directors but also learn how to place them in a critical context. We will view additional film clips in class.
Requirements: Screenings,weekly reading assignments, two papers, journals, regular attendance and participation in discussions, small-group work and oral presentations (see below for more details).
Required Reading List:
Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism - by Diane Carson, et. al. eds.; Paperback;
Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema 1896 to the Present - by Ally Acker
Goals of the Class: Students should strive to develop a vocabulary of the language of film studies. (It is a good idea to jot down ideas from the critical readings that strike you as important. Bring them up in class and in your notes.) Equal emphasis will be placed on verbal and written CRITICAL THINKING. It isn't enough to say you "like" or "dislike" a film. It's best to be able to say why or how a film works.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS/GRADING DISTRIBUTION:
25% Class attendance and participation are mandatory. Screenings are also mandatory. Students who miss (6) five classes will be penalized with a grade drop. [More than 8 misses = failure.] If you miss class on a day that you are scheduled to give an oral report, you fail the report. Bring the texts to class for discussions on Mondays.
25% WEEKLY JOURNAL: Students will keep a typed journal of notes on the readings, films and videos in this class. This will be due every Monday.
I expect at least 3 double spaced pages a week; 1 1/2 pages on the readings; 1 1/2 pages on the films / videos screened for class. These are NOT personal journals: they are a response to the films, videos and readings under discussion. PLEASE PRINT IN BOLD FORMAT FOR EASIER READING.
50% PAPERS:
Midterm paper (8 -10 pages):Topic will be assigned in class.
Due: 2/24/97
Final paper (8 -10 pages): Topic will be assigned in class.
Due: 4/21/97
LATE PAPERS WILL BE SUBJECT TO A GRADE REDUCTION.
Film Screenings and Readings for the Week Of :
January 13 Beginnings (Alice Guy, Cleo Madison, Germaine Dulac)
READINGS:
From REEL WOMEN:
"Reel Women Directors, The Silents," (3-20)
"Reel Women Actresses Turned Director/Producer," (51-70)
In"A Reel Foreign Gaze," (285-292) and (320-322)
In "Reel Women Writers," (155-175) and (207-208)
In "Reel Women Producers," (146-148)
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Janet Staiger, "The Politics of Film Canons," (191-209)
Lis Rhodes and Felicity Sparrow, "Her Image Fades as her Voice Rises," (421-431)
B. Ruby Rich, "In the Name of Feminist Film Criticism," (27-47)
FILMS: A House Divided - (U. S. A. 1913 - 13 min. Silent. B/W)
Directed by Alice Guy-Blaché, the first woman filmmaker in history and the first director to make a film with a plot. A House Divided is a domestic farce which offers a satiric and light comedic vision of marriage. Its plot hinges on a series of mistakes and coincidences that lead a husband and wife to unjustly suspect each other of infidelity. A lawyer intrudes with legal advice on how to handle the problem. Alice Guy-Blaché began her career in France as a director with Gaumont. Later she came to the United States to become the President of Solax Studios. She directed hundreds of short films and feature length filmsof all types, including early sound films made with a wax cylinder process at Gaumont. Although she is one of the most important figures in cinema history of either sex, Alice Guy-Blaché was forgotten in film history until feminist film historians began unearthing her story and her films.
Her Defiance - (U. S. A. 1916 - 23 min.. Silent. B/W)
Directed by Cleo Madison and Joe King at Universal. With Cleo Madison, Willis Marks, Edward Hearn. Cleo Madison began as an actor for Universal Studios. By 1916, she began directing and starring in her own two-reel productions. Her Defiance is noteworthy for its feminist depiction of an early American heroine who is abandoned by her lover. When her family arranges a wedding for her with a much older man, the young woman refuses to comply with the arranged wedding. Instead, she bears an illegitimate child and goes to work as a cleaning lady in order to support herself and her child. Note the use of a matte in the scene in which the woman confronts her ex-lover.
(French title: La Souriante Madame Beudet)
Directed by Germaine Dulac, a very important bisexual of the French avant-garde. Married to a chauvinistic martinet, Beudet conjures images of imaginary young lovers, while murder rages in her heart. Fed up with her husband's threats to shoot himself every time he gets angry with her, Madame Beudet replaces the blanks in his revolver with real bullets. An intriguingly violent and deeply felt film.An important study of women, madness and domesticity. Note the use of superimpositions of erotic and loving fantasy figures. Dulac used POV shots, slow motion, trick photography, and wide-angle distortionsin this early avant garde feminist film. Dulac, who formed her own company with her husband, Albert Dulac, made films in a wide variety of genres. Though best known for her early surrealist classic, The Seashell and the Clergyman (written by Antonin Artaud),and this film, Dulac made some of the first "serials."
January 20 Early Women Directors/Intro to Feminist Film Criticism
READINGS:
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Judith Mayne, "Feminist Film Theory and Criticism," (48-61)
Patrice Petro, "Feminism and Film History," (65-78)
Janet Walker, "Psychoanalysis and Film History," (82-92)
From REEL WOMEN:
"Reel Women Producers," (135-143) and (149-152) and re-read
Lois Weber (12-16)
FILM: The Blot - (US 1921; 110 min., B/W, Silent)
Directed by Lois Weber. Weber wrote and produced THE BLOT in addition to directing the film. From the original press materials for the film:"Beautifully directed, movingly acted, it is the story of a family of a poorly-paid professor, whose wife steals a neighbor's chicken to provide nourishment for her sick daughter."
January 27 Approaches to Experimental Film by Women Directors
READINGS:
From REEL WOMEN:
"Reel Women of the Avant-Garde," (95-103)
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Christine Gledhill, "Image and Voice: Approaches to Feminist
Film Criticism," (109-122)
Lisa Cartwright and Nina Fonoroff, "Narrative is Narrative: So What Is New?," (124-138)
Teresa de Lauretis, "Rethinking Women's Cinema," (140-158)
FILMS: Meshes of the Afternoon - (US: 1943; 15 min., B/W, Sound)
Directed by Maya Deren. The landmark American experimental film that shot Deren to initial prominence. Co-directed with Alexander Hammid. Music by Teiji Ito. This has been Deren's most influential work. Deren, playing the central figure, is caught in an extended dream that in the final scene spills over into reality. She experiences a series of symbolic images and actions: a knife falls and reappears on the stairs, on the bed, in her hand; a key is dropped, cascades down the stairs, is passed around a dining table, emerges from her mouth and becomesthe instrument of death. For more information on Maya Deren see Points of Resistance; Women, Power & Politics in Avant Garde Cinema by Lauren Rabinovitz.
My Name is Oona - (US: 1969; 10 min. B/W, Sound).Directed by Gunvor Nelson.A landmark "loop film" from director Gunvor Nelson, this brief exercise uses images of a young girl, Oona, as "throughout the entire film, (Oona) compulsively and as if in awe, repeats her name, until it becomes a magic incantation of self-realization" (Amos Vogel, TheVillage Voice).
The Divine Miracle - (US 1973; 5.5 min., Color, Sound) Directed by Daina Krumins.Christ: John Taylor; Angels: Scott Martin; Sound: Rhys Chatham; Camera: Alan Grabelsky and Joseph Sedano. "An intriguing composite of what looks like animation and live action is THE DIVINE MIRACLE which treads a delicate line between reverence and spoof as it briefly portrays the agony, death, and Ascension of Christ in the vividly colored and heavily outlined style of Catholic devotional postcards, while tiny angels (consisting only of heads and wings) circle like slow mosquitoes about the central figure. Ms. Krumins tells me that no animation was involved, that the entire action was filmed in a studio, and that Christ, the angels, and the background were combined in the printing. She also says it took her two years to produce it"-Edgar Daniels, Filmmakers Newsletter.
Circles II - (US 1973; 8 minutes; Color, Sound)
Directed by Doris Chase. Featuring the Mary Staton Dance Ensemble of Seattle. Score by George Kleinsinger. Dancers are used as visual elements in a rich semi-abstract film in which postproduction work is almost as important as the hypnotic rolling and dancing of Chase's circle sculptures as originally photographed by her mobile camera.
Quasi at the Quackadero - (US 1975; 11 min., Color, Sound)
Directed by Sally Cruikshank. From the original publicity description for the film: "Sally's first award-winning Art Deco gem introduces us to Anita the affected. Quasi the hateful and Rollo (a pull-toy and child substitute) as they visit the spectacular Quackadero with its Hall of Time Mirrors, Dream Readers, Nine Lives Reincarnation Machine,Thought Pictures, shining Moments and Time Holes. Annoyed by Quasi's irascibility, Anita and Rollo conspire to toss him into a time warp, where he is chased into the great beyond by a dinosaur who craves a slice of Quasi's watermelon. It is impossible to describe the vividness of the colors Cruikshank creates, nor her marvelous, nostalgic recall of late twenties cartoon styles." The film lives up to, and surpasses, this description.
February 3 Introduction to Lesbian Film Directors
READINGS:
From REEL WOMEN:
Dorothy Arzner (21-29)
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Beverly Huston, "Missing in Action: Notes on Dorothy Arzner," (271- 279)
Andrea Weiss, "A Queer Feeling When I Look at You," (330-341)
Chris Straayer, "The Hypothetical Lesbian Heroine in Narrative
Feature Film," (343-356)
FILM: Christopher Strong - (US 1933; 77 min., B/W Sound)
Directed by Dorothy Arzner, who was not only one of the few women directors working during this period, but was also the only openly Lesbian director working in Hollywood during this period. With Katharine Hepburn, Colin Clive, Billie Burke, Helen Chandler. Music by Max Steiner. Will a world famous aviator (Hepburn) sacrifice her career for the love of a married man? Hepburn makes her decision in the smashing finale of this feminist soap opera. One of Arzner's most affecting early talkies, this film boasts a superb performance by Hepburn. For more information on Dorothy Arzner see "Directed By Dorothy Arzner" by Judith Mayne.
February 10 Women in 50s Hollywood: Ida Lupino in the Context of the1950s
READINGS:
From REEL WOMEN:
"The Sound Era," (74-89)
"The Sound Era," (298-317)
"The Sound Era," (29-46)
"The Sound Era," (181-203)
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Judith Smith, "The Marrying Kind: Working Class Courtship and Marriage in 1950s Hollywood," (226-239)
Jackie Byars, "Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Female-Oriented Melodramas of the 1950s," (93-105)
FILM: Hard Fast and Beautiful - (U.S. 1951 76 min., B/W) Directed by Ida Lupino. With Claire Trevor, Sally Forrest, Carleton G. Young. Trevor is willing to ruin her daughter's life by driving her to tennis stardom, thereby furnishing mom with the financial security she longs for. One of Lupino's most compelling family noir films, in which the maternal relationship is hopelessly corrupted by commerce. Lupino is the subject of Annette Kuhn's book, Queen of the B's: Ida Lupino Behind the Camera.
February 17 Personal Filmmaking
NO READINGS THIS WEEK. FIRST PAPER DUE FEBRUARY 24th.
FILM: Ties that Bind - (US, 1984, 55 min., B/W, Sound) Directed by Su Friedrich, one of the most well known lesbian filmmakers in the experimental film movement."An experimental documentary about my mother's life in Nazi Germany, and her eventual marriage to an American soldier.In the voiceover, she recounts her experiences, while the images portray her current life in Chicago, the assembly of a model German house, contemporary peace marches, archival footage of Germany, sensationalist newspaper headlines, her first years in America; and much more, woven together to create a dialogue between the past and present, mother and daughter". . . S.F. "The ties that bind are not only the supposed benevolences of motherhood, but also the repressive dictates of theFatherland . . . in effect the film is like a court transcript of a mother brought to trial (albeit kindly) by her own daughter . . . it connects its effective literalism with a group of complex issues: the shifting attributes of memory, the repression of familial contempt, and the economy of fascism"---Barbara Kruger, Artforum.
February 24 Film Directors of the African and Black Diaspora
FIRST PAPER DUE TODAY, FEBRUARY 24TH.
READINGS:
From REEL WOMEN:
"Reel Women of Color," (110-132)
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Valerie Smith, "Telling Family Secrets: Narrative and Ideology in Suzanne, Suzanne," (380-389)
Gloria Gibson, "Aspects of Black Feminist Cultural Ideology in Films by Black Women Artists, " (365-377)
FILM: Suzanne, Suzanne - (US, 1991, Color, 55 minutes, Sound)
Directed by Camille Billops. This documentary presents a moving yet unsentimental view of motherhood and adoption. It explores the feelings surrounding the reunion of a young mother with her natural mother 20 years after being given up for adoption. The reunion is between filmmaker Camille Billops and her own daughter. Facing the re-encounter with mixed emotions, Billops interrogates her family and friends, as well as her own motivations behind the decision.
I'm British, But. . . - (England, 1989, 30 minutes, Color)
Directed by Gurinder Chadha, Asian-British director of Bhaji on theBeach (1994) and several other narrative and documentary films. This unique look at Asians in Britain offers first-hand views of second generation Asians, adding archival footage and invigorating Bhangra and Bangla music -- traditional Punjabi songs updated with hip-hop and house music influences, all indicative of contemporary Indian British diasporic culture and style. From Manchester rooftops to embattled Belfast and the Welsh hills, Asians discuss the importance of expanding the definition of "Britishness" to include many varieties of cultural identities.
March 3 : Introduction to Women Documentarists and the Politics of Looking at Third World Women Filmmakers
READINGS:
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Janice Welsch, "Bakhtin, Language and Women's Documentary Filmmaking, " (162-175)
Poonam Arora, "The Production of Third World Subjects for First World Consumption," (293-304)
CLASS HANDOUT:
Gwendolyn Foster, Chapter on Mira Nair
FILM: India Cabaret - (India/England, 1988, 60 minutes, Color)
Directed by Mira Nair, best known for the independent feature film, Mississippi Masala. This Documentary on Asian dancers is a remarkable sociological study of women, sexuality, and subjectivity. Nair follows the lives of women who work in a"cabaret"where they perform dances for male customers. India Cabaret explores the notion of "respectability" and female sexuality from the point of view of the women themselves, who speak about their lives in a corrupt and degrading environment. The women demonstrate how they live "ordinary" lives by day and transform themselves to "queens of the night." They relate their hopes and fears as much as their sense of pride, resilience, and strength. Nair exposes the double standards of patriarchy as it exists in India. Notice the handling of subjectivity; note how Nair interweaves the dancers stories with sequences in the city and in the country. Note how the Nair handles the male figures who, on the one hand, frequent these establishments, yet, on the other hand, view them as disreputable.
March 10 Pratibha Parmar: Black Asian Lesbian Feminist Activist
READINGS:
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Jane Gaines, "White Privilege and Looking Relationships," (176-187)
bell hooks, "A Call for Militant Resistance," (358-364)
CLASS HANDOUT: Gwendolyn Foster, Chapter on Pratibha Parmar
FILM: A Place of Rage - (England, 1991, 52 minutes, Color)
Directed by Pratibha Parmar. Parmar is a Lesbian activist filmmaker from England of the Asian/African diaspora. She is best known for her many celebrated documentary films, including Warrior Marks, (a film on which she collaborated with Alice Walker on the subject of female genital mutilation). A Place of Rage is a documentary on the importance of African-American women in the development of the Civil Rights movement. The film features interviews with JuneJordan, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, and Alice Walker. These speakers reassess the importance of such women as Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and other African American women who made significant achievements that lead to the revolution of American society. Parmar links the history of racism with the poetry of June Jordan. Jordan, in turn, links issues of racism, homophobia, and cultural imperialism. Jewell Gomez writes, "This lyrical film begins the much needed exploration of the women who sustained and inspired the Civil Rights movement by shining an intimate light on some of our best known artist/activists. A visual embrace of who Black womenreally are."
March 17 Eastern European Women Filmmakers
READINGS:
From REEL WOMEN: Pages 323-327
CLASS HANDOUT: on Márta Mészáros
FILM: Women - (Hungary, 1977, 94 minutes, Color)
(Alternative english title: The Two of Them)
Directed by Márta Mészáros, an important figure in Eastern European "New Wave" filmmaking. Catherine Portuges' book, Screen Memories: The Hungarian Cinema of Márta Mészáros, begins the recovery of this oft-neglected woman filmmaker who made films during the period of post-Stalinist era. Accordingly, Mészáros' films explore themes such as alienation, exploitation, mother-daughter relationships, class conflict and sexuality. Hers is a cinema between documentary and narrative style, with a distinctively bleak Eastern European flavor. Women is a complex study of women-women relationships as seen through the volatile chemistry of a passionate young woman and a middle-aged wife. With Marina Vlady. Other films by Mészáros include Nine Months and Diary for My Children. For more information see Women Directors by Barbara Quart.
March 31 Egyptian Women: Further Discussions on the Politics of Looking Cross-Culturally
READINGS: CLASS HANDOUT:
Gwendolyn Foster, "When the Subaltern Speaks, Will We Listen?"
FILM: Hidden Faces - (England, 52 minutes, Color, 1990)
Directed by Claire Hunt and Kim Longinotto. Originally intended as a film about renowned feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi, Hidden Faces develops into a fascinating portrayal of Egyptian women's lives in Muslim society. In this collaborative documentary, Safaa Fathay, a young Egyptian woman living in Paris returns home to interview the famed writer and activist, but becomes disillusioned with her. Illuminated by passages from El Saadawi's work, the film follows Fathay's journey to her family home and discovers similar complex frictions between modernity and tradition, between her sense of feminism and traditions across cultural lines. Her mother's decision to return to the veil after twenty years and her cousins clitoridectomies reveal a disturbing renewal of fundamentalism. This absorbing documentary broaches the contradictions of feminisms in a Muslim environment. As Simone Farkondeh wrote, Hidden Faces is "extremely helpful for other women of color, while it may also bring Western feminists a step closer to understanding the struggles of women in Egypt."
April 7 Latin American Women Directors
READINGS:
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Julia Lesage, "Latin American and Caribbean Women in Film and Video," (492-501)
Ana Lopez, "Tears and Desire: Women and Melodrama in the 'Old' Mexican Cinema," (254-267)
Juliane Burton-Carrajal, "Portrait(s) of Teresa: Gender Politics and the Reluctant Revival of Melodrama in Cuban Film," (305-317)
FILM: A Man When He is A Man - (Chile, 66 minutes, Color, 1982)
(El Hombre, Cuando Es El Hombre) Directed by Valeria Sarmiento.
Set in Costa Rica and touched with dark humor, this stylistically imaginative feminist documentary illuminates the social climate and cultural traditions which foster machismo and allow the domination of women to flourish in Latin America. As one critic wrote, this film"sent audiences howling at Sarmiento's wicked deconstruction of the all-too familiar macho mystique . . . their candid responses strip the bachelors bare." Another wrote, " An amazing work that successfully reveals the genuinely funny elements of male posturing and its potentially serious consequences." Note how Sarmiento uses the element of traditional song to expose the cultural underpinnings of sexual codes of conduct and courtship.
April 14 Postmodern Documentary: Theory in Practice
READINGS:
From MULTIPLE VOICES:
Amy Lawrence, "Women's Voices in the Third World Cinema," (406-418)
CLASS HANDOUT: Gwendolyn Foster, Chapter on Trinh T. Minh-ha
NOTE: FINAL PAPER DUE 4/21/97. NO LATES ACCEPTED.
FILM: Reassemblage - (France/Senegal, 40 minutes, Color, 1982)
Directed by British/Vietnamese director Trinh T. Minh-ha. Women are the focus but not the object of Trinh T. Minh-ha's influential first film, a complex visual study of the women of rural Senegal. Through a complicity of interaction between film and spectator, Reassemblage reflects on documentary filmmaking and the ethnographic representation of cultures. "With uncanny eloquence Reassemblage distills sound and images of Senegalese villagers and their surroundings to reconsider the premises and methods of ethnographic filmmaking. By disjunctive editing and a probing narration, this 'documentary' strikingly counterpoints the authoritative stance typical of the National Geographic approach." -- Laura Thielan. Also a formidable critical voice, Trinh T. Minh-ha is the author of the criticalstudy Framer Framed, which is a study of her own work as a filmmaker.
April 21 Jewish American Personal Women's Filmmaking
NO READINGS: FINAL PAPER DUE TODAY 4/21/97.
NO LATES ACCEPTED.
FILM: Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter - (USA, 44 minutes, Color,1994) Directed by Jewish American lesbian filmmaker Deborah Hoffmann. With profound insight and a healthy dose of levity, Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter chronicles the various stages of a mother's Alzheimer's Disease, and the evolution of a daughter's response to the illness. The desire to cure the incurable -- to set righher mother's confusion and forgetfulness, to temper her mother's obsessiveness -- gives way to an acceptance which is finally liberatingfor both daughter and mother. Neither depressing nor medical, Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter is much more than a story about Alzheimer's and family care-giving; it is ultimately a life-affirmingexploration of mother/daughter relations, aging and change, the meaning of memory, and love. This experimental autobiographical film is a personal document of the most moving resonance, much like Ties That Bind.
April 28 A Brazilian Women Filmmaker: Suzana Amaral
NO READINGS
FILM: Hour of the Star - (Brazil, 96 minutes, Color, in Portugese with English subtitles.) Suzana Amaral directed her first feature film at the age of 52 after raising nine children.Winner of Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear for Best Actress, Marcelia Cartaxo plays Macabea, a naive 19 year old immigrant to the city who has dreams of becoming a star. She meets an equally deprivileged man who laughs at her dreams, yet he himself has equally absurd fantasies of becoming a congressman. Based on a novel, Hora de estrela by Clarice Lispector, this film overturns conventional norms of female comportment, appearance, and behavior and also raises complex questions about class issues. Instead of depicting a conventionally privileged and beautiful middle-class heroine, the film portrays the search for identity in the lost, poor,ignorant, orphaned Macabea. who is represented by a red flower as an homage to the artwork of Georgia O'Keefe. Amaral explores the heroine's world through a subjective lens. Note how we, as viewers are invited to participate in Macebia's sense of self and subjectivity. We see her take pleasure in the scent of men's bodies on a subway. We see her world through her eyes, in all its drabness, from the little white barrette in her dirty hair to the neorealist mise en scene of her surroundings. Also note the use of mirror imagery in this film which provides an entryway into the metaphors of identity and self.
Principal Bibliography
Attwood, Lynn. Red Women of the Silver Screen: Soviet Women and Cinema From the Beginning to the End of the Communist Era. London: Pandora, 1993.
Blaché, Alice Guy. The Memoirs of Alice Guy-Blaché, trans. Roberta and Simone Blaché; Anthony Slide, ed., Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1986.
Bobo, Jacqueline. Black Women as Cultural Readers. New York: Columbia UP, 1995.
Cole, Janis and Holly Dale. Calling the Shots: Profiles of Women Filmmakers. Ontario: Quarry P, 1993.
Cook, Pam and Philip Dodd, eds. Women and Film: A Sight and Sound Reader. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993.
de Lauretis, Teresa. Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984.
_____. The Practice of Love:Lesbian Sexuality and Perverse Desire. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994.
Erens, Patricia. ed. Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.
Fischer, Lucy. Shot/Countershot: Film Tradition and Women's Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy. To Desire Differently: Feminism and French Cinema. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1990 and New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Foster, Gwendolyn. Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary. Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 1995.
Frieden, Sandra, Richard W. McCormick, Vibeke R. Petersen and Laurie Melissa Vogelsang, eds. Gender and German Cinema: Feminist Interventions,Volumes I and II. Oxford: Berg, 1993.
Heck-Rabi, Louise. Women Filmmakers: A Critical Reception. Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1984.
hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End P, 1992.
_____. Reel to Real. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Johnston, Claire. "Women's Cinema as Counter-Cinema," Notes on Women's Cinema; Screen Pamphlet 2, 1974, 24-31.
Kaplan, E. Ann, ed. Psychoanalysis and Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Katz, Ephraim. The Film Encyclopedia. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Knight, Julia. Women and the New German Cinema. London: Verso, 1992.
Kowalski, Rosemary Richich. Women and Film: A Bibliography. Metuchen: Scarecrow P, 1976.
Kuhn, Annette with Susannah Radstone, eds. The Women's Companion to International Film. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994,
Kuhn, Annette. Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema. London: Routledge, 1982.
Mayne, Judith. The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Women's Cinema. Bloomington, Indiana UP, 1990.
. Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women. New York: Methuen, 1982.
Maio, Kathy. Feminist in the Dark. Freedom, Ca: Crossing Press, 1988.
Minh-ha, Trinh T. The Framer Framed. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Pribram, E. Deidre, ed. Female Spectators: Looking At Film and Television. London: Verso, 1988.
Quart, Barbara. Women Directors: The Emergence of A New Cinema. New York: Praeger, 1988.
Rabinovitz, Lauren. Points of Resistance: Women of Power and Politics in the New York Avant-Garde Cinema. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1991.
Slide, Anthony. Early Women Directors. New York: Da Capo, 1984.
Todd, Janet, ed. Women and Film. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988.
Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film. New York: Penguin, 1993.
Wright, Andree. Brilliant Careers. Sydney: Pan Books, 1986.
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Spring, 1998
English 239: Film Directors: "Postmodern Filmmakers"
Dr. Gwendolyn Foster
Andrews 224
Office Hours: Monday 1-3
472-1854
gfoster@unlinfo.unl.edu
Section 001 meets M/W from 10 am. to 11:15 pm. /Andrews Hall 102
Section 002 meets M/W from 11:30 am. to 12:45 pm. /Andrews Hall 102
In addition, students are required to attend at least one weekly film screening at one of the following times:
Tues. at 3 pm. in the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theatre in the Sheldon Art Gallery. Tues. at 9 pm. in Bessey Hall Auditorium (Room 117).
Weds. at 1pm. in the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theatre in the Sheldon Art Gallery.
Required Texts:
Wheeler Winston Dixon, It Looks at You (SUNY Press, 1995).
Jean Baudrilliard, Simulacra and Simulation (U of Michigan Press, 1994).
Guy DeBord, The Society of Spectacle (Zone Books/ MIT Press, 1994).
Aim and Scope:
In this class we will view and discuss postmodern films and texts. We will be writing weekly journals and there will be two paper assignments. We will also view clips, discuss them and discuss postmodernism in an interdisciplinary context.
Goals of the Class: Students should strive to develop a vocabulary of the language of film studies and postmodernism. Equal emphasis will be placed on verbal and written CRITICAL THINKING. It isn't enough to say you "like" or "dislike" a film. It's best to be able to say why or how a film works.
Course Requirements: Attendance and participation are mandatory. Speaking up in class is a requirement of this class. You are responsible for co-facilitating discussions, both small group and large, therefore you must be prepared for class. (To prepare for class, make sure you have read the assigned material and have some notes to key your discussion off and make sure you have something to say about the films we see at the Ross Theatre. Take notes on the films. Keep up on your journals and stop by my office occasionally so that we can develop a rapport.) Your typed three page journals will be picked up every Monday. In addition, you will be assigned two term papers of 6 - 8 pages. It is your responsibility to make sure you have these papers and journals in on time. Readings to be assigned in class.
GRADING DISTRIBUTION:
50% Class attendance and participation are mandatory. Screenings are also mandatory. Students who miss (5) five classes will be penalized with a grade drop. [More than 8 misses = failure.] If you miss class on a day that you are scheduled to give an oral report, you will fail the report.
50% Journals and Papers
WEEKLY JOURNAL: Students will keep a typed journal of notes on the readings, films and videos in this class. This will be due every Monday. I expect at least 3 double spaced pages a week; 1 and 1/2 pages on the readings; 1 and 1/2 pages on the films / videos screened for class. These are NOT personal journals: they are a response to the films, videos and readings under discussion. PLEASE PRINT IN BOLD FORMAT FOR EASIER READING. You will not have a journal due on the week a paper is due.
PAPERS:
Midterm paper (8 -10 pages):Topic will be assigned in class.
Due: 2/2/98
Final paper (8 -10 pages): Topic will be assigned in class.
Due: 4/27/98
LATE PAPERS WILL BE SUBJECT TO A GRADE REDUCTION.
Class Schedule:
Week of January 12
Film: Hiroshima Mon Amour
France, 1959. B/W. 88 mins
Alain Resnais' classic first feature explores the jarring connections between sense and memory, and past and present, that are the philosophical core of all his films.Resnais is fond of using flashbacks and elegantly composed superimpositions. The film dissolves between events of the past and present. The plot concerns a French actress and a Japanese architect whose love affair in post-war Hiroshima brings the trauma of the past into confrontation with the traumas of the present. Their relationship is doomed, in part because she is unable to escape the memory of her traumatic love affair with a German soldier during the Nazi occupation of her country and because of their inability to come to terms with the shared history of the bombing of Hiroshima. Hiroshima Mon Amour explores consciousness from a postmodern perspective: lines between identities, memories and subjectivities are blurred. Written by poet, novelist, filmmaker Marguerite Duras. With Emmanuel Riva, Bernard Fresson and Eiji Okado.
Week of January 19
Film: Orlando
Great Britain, 1993. 92 mins. Color.
Directed by Sally Potter.
Based on Virginia Woolf's wildly eccentric novel, this rave - reviewed tour-de-force juggles questions of anatomy, gender, property, and history into a dazzling feminist epic. Beginning in Elizabethan England, and ending up in the video age, Orlando neither dies nor ages, but does change sex while venturing across centuries and continents on a most unusual voyage of self-discovery. With Sally Potter's unflagging sense of wit and high style, and the great, protean lead performance of Tilda Swinton, Orlando is a remarkably swift, accessible film, full of surprising and unforgettable encounters.
Week of January 26
Film: Sweetie
Australia, 1989. 100 mins. Color. In English.
Directed by Jane Campion.
This stunningly original first feature by the director of The Piano is a quirky and compassionate portrait of a dysfunctional family, centering on the relationship between two sisters: Kay, the "normal" one, an edgy bundle of phobias and repressions; and her unbalanced sister "Sweetie," an overgrown daddy's-girl whose ungovernable lifeforce represents everything Kay fears. With her sharp eye for oddness and obsession, and her dark offbeat humor, Campion sustains a constant level of unpredictability and provocation. Sweetie also displays one of the most distinctive visual styles of recent years, with a precisely offcenter sense of composition that is consistently fresh and striking.
Week of February 2
Film : Danzón
Mexico, 1992. 103 mins. Color.
Directed by Maria Novaro
A balmy tropical breeze of a movie by Mexico's leading woman director, Danzón tells the story of Julia, a single mother in her 30s who works as a switchboard operator, but finds fulfillment in the dance hall where she performs that elegant mixture of passion and precision known as danzón. When her dance partner mysteriously disappears she follows his trail to the port city of Veracruz. With its vibrant colors, torchy love songs, and engaging, unstereotyped characters, the film negotiates a delicate balance between modern notions of female empowerment and the no less valid appeals of tradition, nostalgia, sexiness and old-fashioned romance.
Week of February 9
Film: The Lion Has Seven Heads
1970. In Portuguese, French, Italian, Spanish and German with English subtitles.
Directed by Glauber Rocha.Stylized allegory attacking colonialism, made by the acclaimed Brazilian Cinema Novo director, Glauber Rocha. Starring Giulio Brogi, Hugo Carvana de Holanda, Segolo Dia Manungu, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Rada Rassimov (as Marlene.) Written by Gianni Amico and Glauber Rocha.
Week of February 16
Film: Marianne and Juliane Germany, 1981. 106 mins. Color.Directed by Margarethe von Trotta.
A masterly, moving mixture of personal and political history. The turmoil of the 1970s is re-examined through the story of two sisters: one the editor of a left-wing feminist journal and the other a member of the notorious Baader-Meinhof terrorist group. Juliane's resistance to, compassion for, and eventual obsession with her doomed sister forms the center of the film.
Week of February 23
Film: L'Argent France, 1983. 90 mins. Color.Directed by Robert Bresson.
One of Bresson's most acclaimed films, L'Argent shows the 76 year-old director at the height of his powers. The subject of L'Argent is materialism, specifically the consequences of the passing of a counterfeit 500 franc note which initiates a chain reaction of corruption and moral error leading to a truly terrifying climax. L'Argent is one of Bresson's most perfect works; its subject and form are inseparable; every action leaves a trace, nothing is superfluous. The precision and beauty of Bresson's compositions have never been more powerful, and the film's double drive toward evil and purification is overwhelming.
Week of March 2
Film: Two Daughters (orig.Teen Kanya)
India, 1961. 112 min. B&W.
Directed by Satyajat Ray.
Ray's gift for nuanced comedy is superbly demonstrated in these exquisite adaptations of two short stories by Indian literary giant Rabindranath Tagore. In "The Postmaster," a citified young man stranded in a remote village finds solace, then comeuppance, in his condescending friendship with a servant girl. Mixing slapstick with satire, "The Conclusion" tells of a self-centered college student seized by a perverse desire to marry a madcap tomboy.
Week of March 9
Films: God's Angry Man and The Bridegroom, the Comedienne and the Pimp
God's Angry Man Germany, 1980. 46 mins. Color. 16mm only. In English.
Directed by Werner Herzog.
West German iconoclast Werner Herzog meets California TV evangelist Dr. Eugene Scott in this curious, thought-provoking portrait of media-religion gone haywire. Combining footage from Scott's surreal daily broadcasts -- in which he venomously berates his stingy TV parishioners -- with disturbingly revealing interviews, Herzog once again presents us with a man obsessed, battling the world on every front.
The Bridegroom, the Comedienne and the Pimp.
Directed by Jean-Marie Straub.
Germany, 1968. 23 mins. B&W. In German with English subtitles.
Experimental film featuring Hanna Schygulia and R. W. Fassbinder.
Week of March 16
Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach.
Germany, 1967. 93 mins. B&W.
Directed by Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet.
A brilliant portrait of J. S. Bach and a monument of structural cinema. Magnificent performances, by Gustav Leonhardt, and serene visuals are juxtaposed with the composer's letters which reveal a life of poverty and frustration.
Week of March 30
Film: Safe
USA, 1995. 119 mins. Color.
Directed by Todd Haynes.
Safe is an unsettling and uncategorizable experience that, like Todd Haynes' previous films (Poison, Superstar, The Karen Carpenter Story), uses themes of disease, ostracism, and transformation to define the spiritual malaise of the late 20th Century. Carol White (hauntingly portrayed by Julianne Moore) is a housewife leading a relentlessly normal life in an affluent California suburb . . . until a mysterious, debilitating illness sets her apart. Mining the space between sci-fi and sitcom, the first half of Safe is perhaps the most chillingly precise dissection of suburban banality ever put on film. Estranged from her once-secure world, Carol finds a new home at "Wrenwood," a quasi-religious retreat for fellow sufferers of Environmental Illness (an AIDS-like ailment caused by hypersensitivity to pollution). Like the consumptive heroine of a 19th-century novel, Carol becomes increasingly frail and ethereal, as she seeks an ever narrowing "safe zone" that might signify salvation . . . or sterile isolation. The regimentation and Stuart Smalley-like affirmations of Wrenwood suggest that Carol has merely exchanged one form of numbing conformity for another. However, Haynes avoids easy satire, and his cool, nonjudgmental gaze is precisely what makes Safe so disturbing. Neither the suburbanites nor salvation-seekers are caricatured or condescended to, and the possibility of transcendence is never dismissed. An extraordinary balancing act, eluding secure categories for an eerie interzone of unresolved suspension, this deeply disconcerting film is anything but safe.
Week of April 6
Film: Sea of Roses (Alternative title: Pink Clouds)
1977. 90 mins. Color. Directed by Ana Carolina.
Wild black comedy on the horrors of family life. A woman flees her unhappy marriage only to be undone by her diabolically "bad seed" daughter in this outrageous road movie.
Week of April 13
Film: Chocolat
France, 1988. 105 mins. Color.
Directed by Claire Denis.
A number of colonial memoirs have appeared on both big and small screens in recent years, but Claire Denis's Chocolat stands in a class by itself. Based partly on Denis's childhood experiences in French colonial Africa, the story centers on a young French girl; her father, a liberal-minded colonial official; her beautiful, restless mother; and their handsome house servant Protee. The film's most remarkable passages deal with the unacknowledged sexual tension between Protee and his mistress, and with the special companionship between Protee and the young girl. A grounded airplane brings a group of outsiders who upset the household's precarious equilibrium, leading to a disturbing conclusion all the more powerful for its complete avoidance of melodrama. An astonishingly complex and subtle first feature, Chocolat (the title plays punningly on French slang for both "black" and "cheated") steers clear of both the syrupy nostalgia of Out of Africa and the spice exoticism of White Mischief. Denis's film does not pretend to get inside Africa, nor does it romanticize the "mystery" of the "dark continent." Instead it incisively probes the barrier between white and black, Europe and Africa, defining an impenetrable gap expressed through unspoken tensions, unsettling glances, and unresolved vignettes. By rigorously avoiding the obvious, Denis has created one of the most profound and valid films ever made by a Westerner about the Third World.
Week of April 20
The Man Who Left His Will On Film
Japan, 1970. 93 mins. B&W.
Directed by Nagisa Oshima.
A haunting, politically intriguing film set in '60s Tokyo. A young leftist finds the camera of a radical who has leapt to his death while fleeing the police. The "will and testament" he discovers on film seems meaningless, but begins to obsess him as he retraces the filmmaker's political and erotic past.
Week of April 27
Film: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. (Complete, uncut)
(New Yorker Films)
Belgium, 1975. 198 mins. Color. In French with English subtitles.
Directed by Chantal Akerman.
This legendary experimental film details three days in the life of a housewife and part-time prostitute: a sensual study of a daily routine which, when disrupted, yields startling results. Delphine Seyrig plays the lead role. This is a hyperreal postmodern film in pure form. It is formalist, postmodern and feminist in sensibility. Akerman uses lengthy takes, natural sound, and a flat anti-narrative approach to the material in which, seemingly, very little happens. Emphasis is on the mundane existence of everyday life and the small gestures and routines that add up to existence.
Akerman's description of the film: "Jeanne Dielman shows three days in the life of a woman. A life all in silence and which is to lead her, dumbly, into crime. It begins on a Tuesday, towards the end of the afternoon in a kitchen just as Jeanne is putting salt into the potatoes, and ends two days later before the evening begins: Jeanne has just killed a man unpremeditatedly, she's sitting in the dark, in her usual place, with the flashing of the illuminated sign which periodically turns on to light her up.
Jeanne, we are going to meet her for the first time this Tuesday at 5:30, but her story starts a log time before. Hardly anything personal about her story: Marriage at 20, then the birth of a son, and, some years after, the death of her husband.
Now aged forty, she lives alone with her son, an adolescent of sixteen, in an oldish, cramped flat.Jeanne tips a little salt into the potatoes which are mostly covered with water, showing no hesitation at all about the amount. She covers the saucepan and lights the gas. There is a ring at the door, it's a man, he will follow Jeanne into her room. It is a Tuesday, but it could just as well have been a Monday, a Wednesday or any other day of the week. Nothing would really have been any different, even with the man who changed each day but repeated himself from week to week or month to month.When her husband died, Jeanne changed practically nothing in her life, she kept her house in good order as before, looked after her son, who for her fully justified her existence.
In the beginning she tried hard to find work, but she eventually managed to earn a living by regularly entertaining men ( in an everyday rythm, at the same time, towards the end of the afternoon when they were leaving their office). It was only on Saturday and Sunday that she did not recieve visitors, but devoted herself even more fully to her house and her son. And so, she was able to quietly lead the same life as before. She had never experienced much pleasure when she made love with her husband, but she did it like everything else in the routine of her life. It was in the same way that she made love with her clients. It was for her a formality which she performed without emotion, exactly like a daily job.This Tuesday at 5:30, jeanne knows what the hours and days that follow will be made of. She has a perfectly ordered and organized life in which there is no need for improvisation. The next day, she will wake up undisturbed at 7:00. She knows the itinerary of the day, a day with empty moments, full of household chores, repeated in day in the same order, without ceremony but with the quiet force of habit. This force, this energy used each day, is the substance of her life and she requires little else.
We are going to see her make breakfast for her son, wake him, let him go to school with a little money, make the beds, do the shopping for the evening meal, go into town to get what cannot be bought nearby and come back again for Wednesday's customer and the return of Sylvain.After the visit of Wednesday's client, the order of things is suddenly disturbed. The well-ordered routine is broken. Slight details, something forgotten which will involve another misplaced action. It didn't take much to introduce a crack, a disturbance, in this equilibrium which, at first, seemed so immutable and natural."
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