Film theory 1

Subject is not scheduled Not scheduled

Subject guarantor:

Name of lecturer(s):

Learning outcomes of the course unit:

The course aim is to introduce students to the changes in editing from the beginnings of cinema to the advent of sound.

Mode of study:

Discussions, analyses of media recording samples, Analyses of texts.

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

Awareness of the significance of editing theory knowledge for one's own creating.

Course contents:

The course applies structural and semiotic theories to analyses of a specific film work or part of a work. It introduces students to the connotations and methods of using the concepts of language, speech, code, sign, meaning, the signifier, the signified, text, metatext, narrative, message. It deals with the categories of signs and the typology of signs (icons, symbols, etc.).

Topics:

1.The beginnings of film composition (the Lumière brothers, Méliès, the Brighton School, Porter, Hepworth, Zecca, etc.)

2.D. W. Griffith – founding father, structural methods of narration (linear montage, parallel and cross editing, retrospective montage, film punctuation, relation between the visual composition and subtitles); European steps in the Griffith direction

3.Lev Kuleshov (periodization of work, basis, analysis of work – until 1930)

4.V. Pudovkin (periodization of work, basis, analysis of work – until 1930)

5.S. M. Eisenstein (periodization of work, basis, analysis of work – until 1930)

6.A. Dovzhenko (periodization of work, basis, analysis of work – until 1930)

7.Dziga Vertov (search for kinogram as an elementary unit of film; periodization of work, basis, analysis of work – until 1930)

8.FEKS group and other selected personalities of the Russian school – G. Kozintsev, L. Trauberg, F. Ermler, B. Barnet, M. Kaufman, etc. (basis of work, analysis of work – until 1930)

9.The contribution of Russian Montagers to the content and form of film (schools, directions, important personalities and works – synthesis) and Russian formalism (Shklovsky, Jakobson, Tynianov, etc.)

10.Manifesto of sound film and its practical realizations in Soviet film (The Symphony of Donbas, The Deserter, etc.)

11.Structural methods of avant-garde in film in the 20s and 30s (directions, classification, differences between French and German avant-garde, a photogeny)

12.Structural analysis of documentaries until the arrival of sound (Cricks and Martin, Pathé, Flaherty, Vertov, Cavalcanti, Grierson, Ivens, Ruttmann, Vigo, etc. – periodization, main directions and their classification based on their structure)

13.Specifics of structural analysis of Czechoslovak avant-garde in film (and photography) in the 30s on the background of European development

Recommended or required reading:

Guy Gauthier, 21 lecons sur l´ image et le sens.

L'analyse des films

de Jacques Aumont (Auteur), Michel Marie

Broché: 233 pages

Editeur : Armand Colin; Édition : 2e (24 novembre 2004)

Collection : Armand Colin cinéma

Langue : Français

ISBN-10: 2200341075

ISBN-13: 978-2200341077

L'image

de Jacques Aumont

Broché: 304 pages

Editeur : Armand Colin; Édition : 3e édition (20 avril 2011)

Collection : Cinéma / Arts Visuels

Langue : Français

ISBN-10: 2200355947

ISBN-13: 978-2200355944

Martine Joly, Introduction à l'analyse de l'image, Paris, Nathan, 1998

William John Thomas Mitchell, The Language of Images, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980 (ISBN 9780226532158)

The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences

by Michel Foucault

Paperback: 416 pages

Publisher: Vintage; Reissue edition (March 29, 1994)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0679753354

ISBN-13: 978-0679753353

Cinema All the Time

edited by: Jaroslav Anděl, Petr Szczepanik

published by: NFA

in year: 2008

ISBN 978-80-7004-137-6

number of pages: 316

binding: paperback

Assessment methods and criteria:

Activity in lectures

Completion of on-going tests

Completion of the final exam.

Course web page:

Note:

none

Further information:

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans: