Film and TV between Reality and Fiction

Subject is not scheduled Not scheduled

Code Completion Credits Range Language Instruction Semester
373FTV ZK 2 3T Czech summer

Subject guarantor

Name of lecturer(s)

Learning outcomes of the course unit

Lecture on the diversity of hybrid television and film formats mixing documentary and fictional elements.

Mode of study

Lectures supplemented with examples and screening of entire films.

Prerequisites and co-requisites

Knowledge of the English language - Examples and films in English will be occasionally shown in lecture, sometimes with English subtitles.

Course contents

Hybrid pieces combining fictional and documentary elements may be completely unclassifiable, but may also fallinto one of the genres which gradually crystralize in this "borderline' type of creation - our interest in lecture will be to focus on on the stylized, staged documentary, as well as the so called docu-drama, docu-fiction, mockumentary and reality show. We are interested in the categories of realistic, improvised, self-reflection and diary recordings, because, often, they disturbingly break-down clear borders between reality and fiction. Briefly there will be a combination of theory considerations with a historical overview and an aesthetic and topical analysis of selected pieces. We will try to respond to, among others, the questions: When does an audiovisual work seem real, that is, documentary? What actually is fiction and what is documentary, and where are their mutual borders? How various genres and types of those hybrid works exist? What original strategies do the creators of documentary-fiction (fictional-documentary) pieces find? How those works seem to the viewers, what aesthetic effects exist with them? The reach of the discussed works will reach into the classic films of Robert Flaherty, Jean Rouch, or Peter Watkins through the art works (relatively) of contemporary artists Pedro Costa, Nobhir Suwa, Werner Herzog, Phillip Garrel, Jafar Panahi, Abbas Kiarostami, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Joa Cesar Monteir to the television works of the represented works, such as The Office or Da Ali G Show.

Technical note: Lectures are scheduled as three-hour in order to screen other recordings as well and fit into the time slot - if there is no film screening it will only be a two-hour lecture.

Recommended or required reading

•Richard Allen. Projecting Illusion: Film Spectatorship and the Impression of Reality. Cambridge University press, 1995.

•Thomas Austin – Wilma de Jong (eds.). Rethinking Documentary, New Perspectvies, New Practices. McGraw Hill, 2008.

•Alain Boillot. La Fiction au cinéma. L´Harmattan, 2001.

•Tobbias Ebbrecht-Hartmann – Derek Paget (eds.). Docudrama on European Television: A Selective Survey. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

•Guy Gautier. Dokumentární film, jiná kinematografie. NAMU, 2004.

•Craig Hight. Television Mockumentary: Reflexivity, Satire and a Call to Play. Manchester University press, 2011.

•Francois Jost. Realita/Fikce – říše klamu. NAMU, 2006.

•Alexandra Juhasz – Alisa Lebow (eds.). A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film. Wiley and sons, 2015.

•Alexandra Juhasz – Jesse Lerner (eds.). F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth´s Undoing. University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

•Jiří Koten. Jak se fikce dělá slovy: Pragmatické aspekty vyprávění. Host, 2013.

•Cynthia J. Miller (ed.). Too Bold for the Box Office: Mockumentary from Big Screen to Small. The Scarecrow Press, 2012.

•Lúcia Nagib – Cecilia Mello (eds.). Realism and the audiovisual media. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

•Roger Odin. De la fiction. De Boeck, 2000.

•Thomas G. Pavel. Fikční světy. Host, 2012.

•Gary Don Rhodes – John Parris Springer. Docufictions: Essays on the Intersections of Documentary and Fictinal Filmmaking. McFarland, 2005.

•Michael Renov. Theorizing Documentary. Psychology Press, 1993.

•Richard Rushton. The Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality. Manchester University Press, 2011.

•Louise Spence – Vinicius Navarro. Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning. Rutgers University press, 2011.

•Robert Stam. Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quichote to Godard. Columbia University Press, 1992.

•Thomas Waugh. „Acting to Play Oneself: Performance in Documentary“. In: Týž. The Right to Play Oneself: Looking Back at Documentary Film. University of Minessota Press, 2011.

Assessment methods and criteria

Students are tasked to write a paper, 4 standard pages minimum, (1 standard page = 1800 characters including spaces). This may cover an analysis of one piece, one artist or a general thought on some from a genre or topic presented in lecture. The paper is to be sent no later than 31.8.2017 to the email address: helena bendova@gmail.com

The resulting grade will be made up of 75% for the paper and 25% for lecture attendance.

Note

none

Further information

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans