CEU Budapest, Gender Studies Department, Fall Term 2004-2005

CEU Budapest, Gender Studies Department, Fall term 2004-2005

Andrea B. Braidt

4 credits

From “Visual Pleasure” to “Passionate Detachment”

Feminist Film Theory and/in the Cinema

Since the 1970s, the construction of gender in the cinema has been one of the main foci of film theory in general and of feminist film theory in particular. The course provides an overview of the main theoretical paradigms of feminist film theory, introduces the practice of film analysis and builds-up a basic knowledge of various film forms: Hollywood genre cinema, feminist documentary, Avant-Garde, queer cinema etc.

The course has three aims:

1) to provide an overview of the main paradigms of feminist film theory and to put them in a historical context with film theory in general;

2) to introduce various film practices – Hollywood genre cinema, feminist documentary, feminist Avant Garde, queer cinema – from the perspective of feminist film theory;

3) to make the students familiar with the technique of film analysis (shot-to-shot analysis), its basic analytical terminology and concepts

Didactics:

Thematically, the course is organised in two parts. The first part (week #1 – week #5) focuses on the basic theoretical paradigms of film theory and feminist film theory. We begin with an introduction into the practice of film analysis, followed by a historical session, talking about the “first” and “second” generation theorists from the early 20th century until the 1960s. Two sessions will deal with the first major feminist paradigm in film theory, the so-called “spectatorship theory”. Laura Mulvey’s influential essay(s) will be studied in detail, as well as the critical responses to it.

The second part of the term (week #6 – week #12) introduces several major topics and/or film practices within feminist film theory. We will see how theoretical questions and issues are dealt with in feminist experimental cinema, in feminist documentary; how Hollywood genres can be approached from a feminist theoretical standpoint; how issues of ethnicity and sexuality enter the debate; how queer theory influences both theory and film practice in the 1990s. The last session (week #12) gives students the opportunity to present their topic of the term paper and discuss their hypotheses-in-progress with the class. This last session will give students also the possibility to brush-up their academic writing competence, specifically in terms of writing about film.

Each session is made up of three parts: a) a lecture which introduces the respective topic and situates the required reading text(s) within the wider context of the topic, b) a screening of film material (usually a short film or part of a long film, but also sometimes a full length film, c) intensive group work and discussion of the readings/screenings.

Students must write a paper (min. 15-20 pages) on a film of their own choice from the perspective of the material taught during the term. By week #6, the film choice and topic must be confirmed with me. In the last session before Christmas, the students present their chosen film and the hypothesis for the paper.

The following list contains the required reading material which can be found in the reader. These texts must be studied thoroughly in preparation for class. Additional reading material – especially for the individual work on the final paper – will be distributed on demand or will be shelved in the library. The films will be screened during class hours. In some cases, additional, outside-class viewings of films will be necessary (esp. for part two of the course).

Part One:

Basic Concepts and Historical Contexts: Film Theory, Film Analysis and Feminism

#1Introduction: Development and concept of the course.

The Practice of Film Analysis I: Film Form

- David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson. “The Significance of Film Form.” In Film Art. An Introduction. 39-58. New York et al.: McGraw Hill, 2001. [1979]

Film: Various Filmclips

#2The Practice of Film Analysis II: Basic Terms and Concepts of Cine-Semiotics

-Monaco, James. “The Language of Film. Signs and Syntax.” In How to Read a Film. The Art, Technology, Language, History, and Theory of Film and Media. 121-191. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. [1977]

Film: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, US 1958)

#3 What is film theory? From Film Realism to the politiques des auteurs

-Kracauer, Siegfried. "From: Theory of Film. Basic Concepts." In Film Theory and Criticism. Introductory Readings, edited by Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, 7-21. New York, London, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974. [1960]

-Bazin, André. "From What is Cinema? The Myth of Total Cinema." In Film Theory and Criticism. Introductory Readings, edited by Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, 22-26. New York, London, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974.

-Wollen, Peter. "From: Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. The Auteur Theory." In Film Theory and Criticism. Introductory Readings, edited by Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, 530- 40. New York, London, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974.

Screening: Clips from films by Lumière, G. Méliès, Sergei Eisenstein, Howard Hawks

#4The Beginnings of Feminist Film Theory. Laura Mulvey’s psychoanalytic concept of the spectator

- Haskell, Molly. "The Big Lie." In From Reverence to Rape. The Treatment of Women in the Movies, 1-41. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1987. [1973]

- Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen 16, no. 3 (1975): 6-18. - Mulvey, Laura. "Looking at the Past from the Present: Rethinking Feminist Film Theory of the 1970s” unpublished, 2004.

Film: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, US 1958) [ctd.]

#5Spectatorship Theory Reconsidered. Criticism and Development

- Lauretis, Teresa de. "Desire in Narrative." In Alice doesn't. Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema, 103-57. London: Macmillan Press, 1984.

- Stacey, Jackie. "Feminine Fascinations. Forms of identification in star-audience relations." In Stardom. Industry of Desire, edited by Christine Gledhill, 141-63. London: Routledge, 1991.

Part Two:Feminist Film Theory and the Cinema. Watching Films through the Grid of Theory

#6Towards a Feminist Counter Cinema: Avant-Garde and Experimental Film

- Kuhn, Annette. "Textual Politics." In Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Patricia Erens, 250-68. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990.

- Lauretis, Teresa de. "Rethinking Women's Cinema. Aesthetics and Feminist Theory." In Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Patricia Erens, 288-308. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990. [1985]

Film: Daughter Rite (Michelle Citron, US 1978); short films by Barbara Hammer

#7“Real” Women by Reel Women: Feminist Documentary

- Kuhn, Annette. "Real Women." In Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema, 127-50. London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1982.

- Lesage, Julia. "The Political Aesthetics of the Feminist Documentary Film." In Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Patricia Erens, 222-37. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990. [1978] (to be distributed)

- Minh-ha, Trinh T. "The Totalizing Quest of Meaning." In When the Moon Waxes Red. Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics, 29-41. New York, London: Routledge, 1991.

Film: Amy! (Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, GB 1980)

#8Body Genres I: Horror Film/ Science Fiction

- Williams, Linda. "When the Woman Looks." In The Dread of Difference. Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, 15-34. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.

- Freeland, Cynthia. "Feminist Frameworks for Horror Films." In Post-Theory. Reconstructing Film Studies, edited by David Bordwell and Noell Carroll, 195-218. Madison: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Film: Alien Resurrection (J.-P. Jeunet, US 1998)

#9Body Genres II: Melodrama

- Kaplan, E. Ann. "The Case of the Missing Mother: Maternal Issues in Vidor's Stella Dallas." In Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Patricia Erens, 126-36. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. [1983]

- Williams, Linda. ""Something Else Besides a Mother." Stella Dallas and the Maternal Melodrama." In Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Patricia Erens, 137-62. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. [1984]

- Hayward, Susan. "Melodrama and Women's Films." In Key Concepts in Cinema Studies, 199-215. London, New York: Routledge, 1996.

Film: Stella Dallas (King Vidor, US 1937)

#10The dynamics of race, gender (and sexuality) in film

- Bobo, Jacqueline. "Black Women as Interpretive Community." In Black Women as Cultural Readers, 33-60. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

- Gaines, Jane. "White Privilege and Looking Relations. Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory." In Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Patricia Erens, 197-214. Bloomington, 1990. [1988]

- Wiegman, Robyn. "Black Bodies/ American Commodities: Gener, Race, and the Bourgeois Ideal in Contemporary Film." In Unspeakable Images: Ethnicity and the America Cinema, edited by Lester D. Friedmann, 308-28. Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1991.

Film: Mahogany (Berry Gordy, US 1975)

#11The New Queer Cinema. Deconstruction, Subversion, Appropriation

- Rich, Ruby B., Derek Jarman, Pratibha Parmar, Isaak Julien, Constantine Giannaris, Tom Kalin, Amy Taubin, Cherry Smyth. “New Queer Cinema. Supplement”, 30-38. Sight and Sound 5, 1992.

- Rich, Ruby B. "Goings and Comings." Sight and Sound, no. 7 (1994): 14-16.

- Glass, Honey. "Sight and Sound A-Z of Cinema: Queer." Sight and Sound, no. 10 (1997): 36-39.

- Hanson, Ellis. "Introduction." In Out Takes. Essays on Queer Theory and Film, edited by Ellis Hanson, 1-19. Durham, London: Duke University Press, 1999.

- Butler, Judith. "Gender Is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion." In Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of "Sex", 121-42. New York, London: Routledge, 1993.

Film: Go Fish (Rose Troche, US 1994), Paris Is Burning (Jenny Livingston, US 1991)

#12Summary of the course.Presentation of student’s projects/paper concepts