ENGL 3673 THE FILM OF POLITICS

Professor Stewart Donovan

 sdonovan@stu.ca

Office 307 EC Hall

 

(1) Essay 20%

(2) Journal 40%

Choose two political films from the class list and two of your own choosing and write an essay on their central themes. Your essay should be between six and eight pages, double spaced. It is due on October 18th. Most of Professor Donovan's essays, reviews, articles  on film and culture are accessible on line at  open acces . Students should read his writing on film to get some sense of how he sees film in the academy , in the street and in the home. 

A more informal style of writing, your journal should record notes from class, conversationswith fellow students, family, friends et. al. about cinema and its cultural impact. The journal/notebook should also highlight research you have been doing, reading and viewing.  You will be expected to write reviews and summaries of their themes, plots, performances and style and to make comparisons with other films you have seen over your lifetime of film viewing. You should try to write/ compose at least two entries per week. The length of these entries depends on your writing skills, but try to avoid point form.  Remember that the journal is also a writing and communicating exercise. Do not fear the blankpage, as no one learns how to write well overnight Students can receive feedback on their journal at anytime. The final journal should be passed in on the last day of class.

Lesson I.  http://First Lecture

Power and soft power, entertainment versus art; the war epic, race, gender, religion, sex, hegemony and the beginnings of Political Cinema. Eisenstein, Griffiths,  Surrealism, The Hayes Code and Hollywood. From Scarface to Mae West censoring Hollywood. Orson Welles and Citizen KaneThe Third Man (1949). Graham Greene, Carol Reed and Orson Welles: The politics and possibilities of Film Noir. 

Roberto Rossellini and the invention of Italian neo-realism: Rome, Open City, Paisan and Germany Year 1. In the Wake of Neo Realism, In Paisan we will examine the portrayal of the Black American GI and explore Spike Lee’s cinema as a response to race in America: Miracle at St. Anna, Clockers, Malcolm X. The post war Polish cinema of Andrzej Wajda: A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds. The military, religion, politics and the Hayes Code

Gillo Pontecorvo's, The Battle of Algiers,1966.Object Lessons. Speaking truth to power in the colonial wars.Considered by many to be the greatest political film in the history of cinema. Influenced by Italian neo-realism, Pontecorvo's masterpiece is a template for all political cinema. Recommended Readings: from Frants Fanon The Wretched of the Earth. Chris Hedges on the South.

Little Big Man (1970). Arthur Penn, Sam Peckinpah, Vietnam, My Lai, and the Myth of the American West.  Pauline Kael and Bonnie and Clyde.

Plenty: David Hare, Meryl Streep, and First Wave Feminism.  Antonia’s Line, Fargo, All About My Mother, The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, Talk to Her.Philomena, Three Billboards of Ebbing County.  

Lesson VI 

Black Rain: Shohei Imamura and Ibuse Masuji representing Hiroshima.  

Lesson VII 

The Wanasee Conference. Representing the Holocaust: Korczak, Shindler’s List, Saul.  

Lesson VIII 

Robert Redford's Quiz Show: Recommended Readings: Chris Hedges,Empire of Illusion: Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, Volver, Bamboozled, Hail Caesar.   Class and counter class, the uses and abuses of media. Slavoj Zizek  Alfred Hitchcock and American Cinema, Michael Rogin, Ronald Reagan the Movie.  

Lesson IX 

The Quiet American, Phillip Noyce and Graham Greene exposing empire. Viet Than Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. Apocalypse Now (the limits of satire and irony)  

Once Were Warriors, apart from Hobbits and Orcs. Smoke Signals, Dances With Wolves, Black Robe, The Fast Runner, Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too), Lonestar, Men With Guns, Amigo. Hotel Rawanda, Jadotville, 

 Ken Loach, It’s a Free World, The Promise,

 Lesson XII  Incendies, Denis Villeneuve; Leviathan, 12 (Nikita Mikhalkov) Burnt by the Sun, Tsotsi, Hotel Rwanda. 

Lesson XIII Religion, Politics and Culture:Kieslowski’s Decalogue, The Handmaid’s Tale, the Barbarian Invasion, In Brughes, The Butcher Boy, Godless, The Preacher.  Lars Von Trier