Focus on Film Criticism

Display Schedule

Subject guarantor:

Ronald BERGAN

Name of lecturer(s):

Ronald BERGAN

Learning outcomes of the course unit:

The course, will take an intertextual contextual approach, mainly structured chronologically. It will take the form of interactive lectures, illustrated and supplemented by film clips derived mainly from YouTube links and readings of significant texts. (See below.) Therefore, it is hoped that students will gain a knowledge of trends in film criticism, will be able to use analytical vocabulary and learn how to express an appreciation of specific films from a psychological, social, ideological or stylistic point of view.

Students will be required to present a film of their choice to the class and write two reviews of 700-1000 words.

Mode of study:

Course

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

none

Course contents:

There are three histories of film - the chronological, the technical and the critical, all three of which are inextricably linked. Not long after the first films were shown to the public in 1895, people began to write responses to them. From the earliest days, film criticism has had an influence on films and vice versa. Although the great Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein once remarked that ‘film was a synthesis of all the arts’, writers were aware of the specificity of cinema. As film was the youngest of all the arts, critics had to find a new language to analyze its specificity. Eisenstein was one of the first ever film theorists whose writing went hand in hand with his filmmaking. In fact, in the Soviet Union, directors such as Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Lev Kuleshov and others, considered their published theories on cinema almost as important as the films themselves. Gradually, as film became accepted as, what the French called ‘the seventh art’, more and more intellectuals and academics from other disciplines began to write about cinema.

Recommended or required reading:

Texts

Vsevolod Pudovkin from Film Technique

Sergei Eisenstein from Film Form

André Bazin from What Is Cinema?

Siegfried Kracauer from Caligari to Hitler

Bela Balasz from Theory of the Film

Rudolph Arnheim from Film as Art

Andrew Sarris from Notes on the Auteur Theory

Peter Wollen from Signs and Meanings in the Cinema

Roland Barhes The Face of Garbo

Molly Haskell from From Reverence to Rape

David Bordwell The Art of Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice

Christian Metz from The Imaginary Signifier

Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Laura Mulvey Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Ronald Bergan What Every Critic Should Know

The Film Critic Is Dead, Long Live the Film Critic.

Assessment methods and criteria:

Attendance:

Students are allowed to have two absences. Barring unforeseen circumstances, students should notify the instructor in advance.

Exceptional circumstances will be considered, but additional work will be required.

Participation:

Students will be expected to contribute to in-class discussions. Each student needs to prepare a brief class topic report once per semester.

Completion policy: To complete the course, a student must comply with the attendance and participation requirements and write 2 to 3 pages on a course-related topic of their choice.

Course web page:

Note:

The course will cover the following topics:

Soviet Dialectual Montage

German Expressionism

Italian Neo-Realism

The Auteur Theory

Semiotics and Structuralism

Feminism

‘Queer’ Theory

Film Genre

The Star System

Black Spectatorship

Ronald Bergan (PhD English. Lit), film historian, critic and lecturer, is a regular contributor to The Guardian. He is a former Vice-President of Fipresci for which he has been president of the jury at numerous film festivals and has chaired and participated in many conferences on cinema all over the world. He has lectured on literature, theatre and film at the Sorbonne, the British Institute in Paris, the University of Lille and is now visiting professor at FAMU in Prague. He has held a Chair at the Florida International University in Miami where he taught Film History and Theory. Among the many books he has written are: Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict; Jean Renoir: Projections of Paradise; The Coen Brothers; Anthony Perkins: A Haunted Life; Francis Coppola: The Making of His Movies; The Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide; The United Artists Story, The Eyewitness Guide To Film (published in 8 languages ), Francois Truffaut Interviews, which he edited and Isms: Understanding Film.

Schedule for winter semester 2016/2017:

	06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
Mon
Tue	místnost 439 Seminární učebna CDM (Lažanský palác) BERGAN R. 14:00–15:35 (přednášková par. 1)
Wed
Thu
Fri

Date	Day	Time	Tutor	Location	Notes	No. of paralel
	Tue	14:00–15:35	Ronald BERGAN	Seminární učebna CDM Lažanský palác		přednášková par. 1

Schedule for summer semester 2016/2017:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

• Cinema and Digital Media - Directing-2016 (qualification subject)
• Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting-2014 (qualification subject)
• Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting-2016 (qualification subject)