Digital Cinema

Digital Cinema

300-Level; 21C, AHp

The course looks at the advent of digital cinema from the perspective of the history of motion picture technology as well as its impact upon various film “genres,” ranging from mainstream narrative films to documentaries, art cinema, and animated features.This course also addresses key issues in the philosophy of digital media, and builds upon existing scholarly research in film, literature, and media studies to analyze in what ways digital media is "new" and what ways it is not. It will also explore the implications of digital imaging for thinking about representation in the contemporary media landscapeas it wrestles with new ways of understanding the moving image. The course will focus on films made from the 1990s to the present in an attempt to trace the role played by digital technology in shaping the contemporary cinematic landscape.

Over the course of the semester, students will develop the ability to identify the various ‘effects’ of the cinema and digital media through the use of critical theory. Students will also be well versed in current debates surrounding new screen technologies. Furthermore, students will: 1) Be able to synthesize and use a wide variety of film and media theories; 2) Judge which kinds of theory are relevant in the development of the research they wish to pursue; and 3) Understand cinema and media theory alongside contemporary imaging and sound practices in an historical context.

SAS CORE LEARNING GOALS AND ASSESSMENT PLAN: This course is designed to address goal C for 21C.Goal C: The course investigates the ways in which digital technology has transformed the public sphere from a face-to-face interaction among citizens to a virtual network that acknowledges the individual’s alienation from the social order and explores ways in which digital films, such as Her (Jonze, 2013), address that alienation.

It will also address goal AHp, “Analyze arts and/or literatures in themselves and in relation to specific histories, values, languages, cultures, and technologies.”

Assessment will be conducted using the using the generic rubric for c and p, and will be based on one of the three essays students will be writing for the course. Please see sample essay assignment attached.

REQUIREMENTS: The course will meet during two 80-minutres class periods each week and will have one evening screening (outside of class) from 6:10 to 9:00 once each week. Given the lab-like nature of the extra two periods of class time, the course should be valued at four credits. Attendance at both lectures and screenings is mandatory. Students may have no more than five unexcused absences. If you expect to miss one or two classes, please use the University absence reporting website to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An email is automatically sent to the instructor.Reading must be done before class. Required reading: xeroxed materials posted on Sakai (). Students are expected to have completed the readings on the day for which they were assigned.

Method of assessment of achievement of the core goals include: Written Assignments: Students will be asked to write three 4-5 page papers. Late papers will be penalized. Plagiarism will not be tolerated (English Dept. subscribes to Turnitin.com). Exams: There will be a final exam during the examination period. Final grades will be based on the papers (25% each) and the final exam (25%).

SYLLABUS:

Week One: What was Cinema? The Culture of 35mm Film: Cinema Paradiso(Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988).

Readings: D.N.Rodowick, “What was Cinema?” The Virtual Life of Film. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 2007. Part II 25-87.

Godfrey Cheshire, “The Death of Film/The Decay of Cinema,” New York Press, Dec.30, 1999.

Anne Friedberg, “The End of Cinema: Multimedia and Technological Change,”Reinventing Film Studies, eds. Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams (London:Arnold, 2000), pp. 438-452.

Week Two: Digital Effects, Digital Sound, and the Ontology of the Digital Image: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993, 127min.)

André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” in What Is Cinema?, trans. Hugh Gray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.

Stephen Prince, “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory,”Film Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 3 (1996), pp. 27-37.

Warren Buckland, “Realism in the Photographic and Digital Image,” Studying Contemporary American Cinema: A Guide to Movie Analysis, eds. Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland (London: Arnold Publishers, 2002), pp. 195-219.

Aylish Wood, “Timespaces in Spectacular Cinema: Crossing the Great Divide ofSpectacle and Narrative,”Screen, Vol. 43, No. 4(Winter 2002), pp.370-386.

Week Three: Digital Sound: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, USA, 1991, 136 mins.)

Readings: Mark Kerins, “Narration in the Cinema of Digital Sound,” The Velvet Light Trap, Number 58, Fall 2006.

Wendy Chun, “The Enduring Ephemeral, or the Future Is a Memory,” Critical Inquiry 35:1 (2008): 148–171.

Week Four: Dogme 95 and the Vow of Chastity: Festen/the Celebration (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark, 1998, 105 mins.)

Readings: “The Vow of Chastity,” Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg (Copenhagen, Monday 13 March 1995).

Hunter Vaughan, “Tremble of Truth: Dogme 95, Ideology, and the Geneology of Cinematic Realism,” The Film Journal

Week Five: Painting with Numbers: The Digital Intermediate: Pleasantville (Gary Ross, USA, 1998, 124 mins.).

Readings: John Belton, “Painting by the Numbers: The Digital Intermediate,” Film Quarterly (61, No. 3, Spring 2008).

Thomas Elsaesser, “Afterword – Digital Cinema and the Apparatus: Archaeologies, Epistemologies, Ontologies,” in Bruce Bennett, Marc Furstenau and Adrian MacKenzie (eds), Cinema and Technology: cultures, theories, practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 226-240.

Week Six: New Media and Digital Visual Culture: Russian Ark(Alexander Sukorov, 2002, 99 min.)

Readings: Lev Manovich, “Principles of New Media,” “What New Media is Not, ”The Language ofNew Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001) pp. 27-61.

Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, “Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation,” Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 20-50.

Week Seven: Computer Generated Imagery and Animation (1): Polar Express (Robert Zemeckis, 2004, 100 mins.)

Readings: Jessica Aldred, “From Synthespian to Avatar: Re-framing the Digital Human inFinalFantasyand The Polar Express,”Mediascape, Winter 2011,

Week Eight: Computer Generated Imagery and Animation: Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008, 98 mins.)

Readings: J. P. Telotte, “Digital Effects Animation and the New Hybrid Cinema,”AnimatingSpace: From Mickeyto Wall-E(Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky,2010), pp. 222-251.

Week Nine: The Digital Documentary (1): The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda, France 2000, 82 min.)

Readings: John Belton, “The World in the Palm of Your Hand: Agnes Varda, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and the Digital Documentary” in Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media, ed. Carol Vernallis, Amy Herzog, and John Richardson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Week Ten: The Digital Documentary (2): Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008, 90 min.)

Readings: OhadLandesman, “In and Out of This World: Digital Video and the Aesthetics ofRealism in the New Hybrid Documentary,”Studies in Documentary Film, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2008), pp. 33-45.

Week Eleven: Mind Games Films: Inception(Christopher Nolan, 2010, 148 min.)

Readings: Thomas Elsaesser, “Mind-Game Films,”Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema, ed. Warren Buckland (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp.13-41.

Week Twelve: Digital Imaging and Art Cinema (1): Melancholia (Lars von Trier, Denmark, 2011, 136 mins.)

Readings: Steven Schaviro, “Melancholia-or-the-Romantic-Anti-Sublime,” Sequence (1.1.2012).

Week Thirteen: Digital Imaging and Art Cinema: Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, USA, 2011, 138 mins.)

Readings: David Sterritt, “Days of Heaven and Waco: Terrence Malick'sThe Tree of Life,”Film Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Fall 2011), pp. 52-57.

Week Fourteen: Digital 3D: field trip to a current film in 3D (since we cannot show 3D in the classroom).

Readings: John Belton, “Digital 3D Cinema: Digital Cinema’s Missing Novelty Phase,” Film History (24, No.2, 2012).

Thomas Elsaesser, “The Return of 3D: On Some of the Logics and Geneologies of the Image in the Twenty-First Century,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Winter 2013), pp. 217-246.