Calendar

HOLLYWOOD’S SECOND WIND: THE NEW HOLLYWOOD

Mar-27: Introduction, aka. The Fastest History of Film Ever (Beginnings to 1965-ish)
READING: None; bask in the glory of an assignment-free day.
SCREENING: Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967; 112m) or The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967; 106m).

Mar-29: Cursing! Blood! Boobs! A Newfangled Hollywood Indeed
READING: Chapter 21 (472-83 only) and “Sex and Sensation” (online).

NEW GERMAN CINEMA

Apr 3: The New German Cinema
READING: Chapter 23 (531-35; 571-73 only) and “New German Cinema” (online).
SCREENING: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974; 93m).

Apr-5: Focus on Fassbinder (and Douglas Sirk)
READING: “All that Fassbinder Allows” (Criterion Collection essay) and “Fassbinder and Spectatorship” (online).

HOLLYWOOD AND THE MODERN BLOCKBUSTER

Apr-10: The Monster That Ate (and Won’t Stop Devouring) Hollywood
READING: Chapter 22 (483-end only) and “Jaws” (PBS online).
SCREENING: Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985; 116m).

Apr-12: Triumph, the Glorious Past, and Multiculturalism in The Reagan Era
READING: “Dreams and Nightmares in the Hollywood Blockbuster” (online).

EAST ASIAN CINEMA

Apr-17: Hong Kong Cinemas
READING: Chapter 27 (647-52 only) and “The Return of the Father: Hong Kong New Wave and Its Chinese Context in the 1980s” (online).
SCREENING: The Killer (John Woo, 1989; 110m).

Apr-19: Moving North: From John Woo to Zhang Yimou
READING: “Reinventing Masculinity: The Spectacle of Male Intimacy in the Films of John Woo” (online), Chapter 27 (637-43 only), and “Beyond the Fifth Generation: An Interview with Zhang Yimou” (Bright Lights Film Journal, online).

Apr-24: Mainland Chinese Cinemas
READING: “The Right to Copy and the Digital Copyright: Hero, House of the Flying Colors, and China’s Cultural Symptoms” (online) and “Hero: China’s Response to Globalization” (Jump Cut journal, online).
SCREENING: Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2000; 99m).

Apr-26: Exam 1 (Weeks 1-5).

INDEPENDENT CINEMA IN HOLLYWOOD

May-1: American Cinema and the Entertainment Economy in the ’80s and After
READING: Chapter 28.
SCREENING: Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989; 100m) or Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992; 99m).

May-3: Vitality in America Filmmaking: Cinema On the Fringes
READING: A reading TBA based on the screening (class vote) and either “The New American Independent Cinema” or “Sex, Lies, and Marketing” (online).

UPDATE (April 30): Our TBA reading is “Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: “Reservoir Dogs,” Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence,” and we’ll also be reading “Sex, Lies, and Marketing.”  As always, both are available on D2L.

BRITISH CINEMA

May-8: Traveling Back Across the Pond…
READING: Chapter (418-20 only) and “British Cinema: The Search for Identity” (online).
SCREENING: Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994; 117m) or The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997; 91m).

UPDATE (May 7): Our TBA reading to accompany The Full Monty is “Performing the Crisis: Fathering, Gender, and Representation in Two 1990s Films,” found on D2L.

May-10: British Humor and Romance
READING: “The Limiting Imagination of National Cinema” (online) and a reading TBA based on screening (class vote).

INDIAN CINEMAS

May-15: Mass Output and Art Cinema: Alternatives to Bollywood
READING: Chapter 26 (621-26 only), “South Asian Diaspora in Film” (online), and “The New Bollywood: No Heroes, No Villains” (online).
SCREENING: Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001; 114m).

May-17: Just Bollywood
READING: “Bollywood Cinema: Making Elephants Fly” and “Monsoon Wedding: Raining on Tradition” (online).

LATIN AMERICAN CINEMAS

May-22: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Cuba
READING: Chapter 26 (613-21 only) and “National, Regional, and Global: New Waves of Latin American Cinema.”
SCREENING: City of God (Katia Lund and Fernando Meirelles, 2002; 130m).

May-24: Verbal and Visual Language in City of God
READING: “Talking Bullets: The Language of Violence in City of God” and “Aesthetics and Ethics in City of God: Content Fails, Form Talks” (online).

GLOBAL FILM CULTURE AND TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING

May-29: Moving Toward a Global Film Culture
READING: Chapter 29.
SCREENING: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993; 127m).

May-31: More on HollyWORLD…
READING: “Transmedia Storytelling 101” (Henry Jenkins’ blog), “In China Movie Pact, More 3-D, Less Reality,” and other short columns TBA (online).

Jun-7: Exam 2 (Weeks 6-10)
FINAL TIME: 2:45-5:00pm. Same classroom.