Queen's University
Department of Film Studies
Authorship and Possible Worlds in the Cinema:
Eisenstein, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, and Spielberg
FILM 430*
Instructor: Dr. Lily Alexander
A great filmmaker is the one who creates his own world.
Andrei Tarkovsky
The course offers a comparative study of four outstanding directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Steven Spielberg. They belong to different times and societies, and they have diverse and distinct artistic styles and views on the cinema, with different philosophies and social values. However, they have much in common. All four have made a crucial impact on world cinema and have had to face difficult questions in their time. Their answers to key questions of twentieth century history can be derived from both, their films and their statements on the role of cinema in culture and society.
Each director created his own possible world, or even multiple worlds, in different films. Each had to make difficult choices between art for art's sake and the realities of film production. Each had experienced pressure from ideology and society. Each has made different and often controversial choices within the eternal issues hunting every filmmaker: art, money, politics, conformism, mass culture vs. high art, creativity, spirituality, the artist's social responsibility and his unique place in the world.
We will look into the stories that the filmmakers have chosen to tell us in their films, into the characters who became representative heroes of their multiple worlds, into the unique styles they have elaborated, and into the ideologies of their films. Each of the four directors will be represented by three films and three seminars on various aspects of his filmmaking.
Grading and Assignments: class participation 20%, film review 10%, oral presentation 25%, presentation as a discussant/opponent 10%, final essay 35% (due April 26, 1999).
The oral presentation focuses on one filmmaker, while the final essay should use a comparative approach. Materials from the oral presentation may be used in part in the final essay (up to 50%). In addition to the presentation, each student will perform as a discussant/opponent to another presenter whose topic is different from his/her own. Thus, every student will have a chance to focus on two directors.
Individual research topics will be chosen by each student in consultation with the instructor. The final essay is expected to be a comparative study, which may include any of the following:
a) a comparative study of two of the four filmmakers with a focus on any aspect of their work, style, or ideology;
b) a comparative study of two film texts;
c) a multi-faceted critical analysis of one film shown in the course, using comparative/theoretical contexts, and the four filmmakers' diverse views on cinema.
Weeks 1-3: Sergei Eisenstein.
Films: * Battleship Potemkin
* Alexander Nevsky
* Ivan the Terrible (part 1 and 2)
Weeks 4-5: Michelangelo Antonioni.
Films: * The Adventure
* Eclipse
* The Passenger
Weeks 6-8: Andrei Tarkovsky.
Films: * Ivan's Childhood
* Andrei Roublev
* Mirror
Weeks 9-12: Steven Spielberg.
Films: * Color Purple
* Close Encounters of the Third Kind
* Saving Private Ryan
Required Literature:
David Bordwell. The Cinema of Eisenstein. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
William Arrowsmith. Antonioni: The Poet of Images. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie. The Visual Fugue: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Douglas Brode. The Films of Steven Spielberg. NY: Carol Publishers, 1995.
John Caughie. Theories of Authorship. London: Routledge, 1988.
Recommended Literature:
James Goodwin. Eisenstein, Cinema, and History. University of Illinoise Press, 1993.
Le Fanu. Andrei Tarkovsky: The Winding Quest. British Film Institute, 1987.
Frank Sanello. Spielberg: The Man, the Movies, and the Mythology. Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishers, 1996.
Peter Brunette. The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998.
Additional Literature on Film and Culture:
Armes, Roy, Action and Image: Dramatic Structure in Cinema. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Aumont, J. Image. British Film Institute, 1997.
Bakhtin. Mikhail, Rabelais and His World. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1984.
Bordwell, David and Kristine Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 5th ed. New York: Mac-Grow Hill, 1998.
Braudy, Leo, and Marshall Cohen, Film Theory and Criticism. 5th or 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 1 and Cinema 2. 2 vol. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
Dudley, Andrew. Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Eisenstein, Sergei, Non-Indifferent Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Stam, Robert, et al. Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and Beyond: New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Tarkovsky, Andrei, Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987.
Turner, Victor, The Anthropology of Performance. NY: PAJ Publications, 1988.