Film Style and Form 1

Display Schedule

Subject guarantor

Petra DOMINKOVÁ

Name of lecturer(s)

Petra DOMINKOVÁ

Department

The subject provides FAMU International

Contents

The course will focus on the film style and form (FALL 2022: mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing; SPRING 2023: sound, narration) partly based on the readings of the book Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. We will discuss the means of film style and form and how they present themselves in a dozen of films from various epochs and countries. Disclosure of possible meanings and interpretation of them is the aim of the course.

During the sessions will be screened short extracts illustrating particular topics. Also, the students will watch the films in their entirety on their own. The discussions in which we can exchange the ideas and experiences are the important part of each lesson. Students should ask anything that is not clear enough, bring their own ideas and participate actively in the whole course.

NB “Film Form and Style” will be open also in Spring 2023, however, the focus of Spring term will be on sound and narration, therefore, the students may take the class both terms.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will:

-adopt stylistic aspects of mise-en-scene in the history of world cinema

-describe the means of film style and form and how they present themselves

-interpret possible meanings of films or short extracts seen during the lectures

Prerequisites and other requirements

-

Literature

REQUIRED READINGS (all readings will be available at Moodle) t

“Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss ('Baby Driver' film editors): 'Every aspect integrated to the music'” (video) Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF8U4vo-axc

David Bordwell – Kristin Thompson, Film Art. An Introduction. (International Edition.) McGraw-Hill, 2010.

Noel Burch, Theory of Film Practice. Princeton University Press 1981, pp. 17 – 31.

Shahla Haeri, “Sacred Canopy: Love and Sex under the Veil,” Iranian Studies 42, no. 1, 2009, pp. 113-126.

Julian Hanich, “Complex Staging. The Hidden Dimensions of Roy Andersson’s Aesthetics,” Movie – A Journal of Film Criticism 5, 2014, pp. 37 – 50.

Charles H. Harpole, “Ideological and Technological Determinism in Deep Space Cinema Images: Issues in Ideology, Technological History and Aesthetics,” Film Quarterly 33, no. 3 (Spring 1980), pp. 11-22.

Brian Henderson, “Toward a non-bourgeois camera style,” In Movies and Methods ed. by Bill Nichols. University of California Press 1976 (vol. 1), pp. 422–438.

Aleksandar Kušič, “The Neon Demon: Fashion, Beauty, and the Space of Absolute Danger,” January 2017. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319527683_The_Neon_Demon_Fashion_Beauty_and_the_Space_of_Absolute_Danger

James Naremore, Acting in Cinema. University of California Press 1992, pp. 131–156.

Janey Place – Lowell Peterson, “Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir,” In Movies and Methods ed. by Bill Nichols. University of California Press 1976 (vol. 1), pp. 325–338.

Joan Ockman, “Architecture in a mode of distraction: Eight takes on Jacques Tati’s Playtime,” In Architecture and film, ed. by Mark Lamster, Princeton Architectural Press, 2000, pp. 171-196.

George Turner, “The Astonishing Images of I am Cuba,” American Cinematographer July 1995, pp. 77–82.

Evaluation methods and criteria

The final grade will be calculated as follows: Class Attendance and Participation (25%); presentation (25%); midterm essay (25%); final test (25%)

Note

-

Further information

This course is an elective for all students of this school

Schedule for winter semester 2024/2025:

• Week view
• List

Schedule for summer semester 2024/2025:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans

• Montage_2020 (Elective subjects)
• Photography EN - Bachelor - 2022 (Elective subjects)
• Photography EN - Master - 2022 (Elective subjects)
• Cinema and Digital Media - Directing (Required elective subjects)