Bowdoin Narrative Film Syllabus - Bowdoin College

FILM STUDIES 101: Film Narrative
T/TH 11:30am – 12:55pm
Sarah Childress
Email: schildre@bowdoin.edu
Office: 116 Sills Hall Office Hours: T/TH 1pm – 2:30pm
Required Texts
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, 8 th ed.
Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film (any Used edition will work)
Tom Schroeppel, The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video
Other required readings will be available via the course website as electronic resources
General Notes About the Course:
1. This course requires you to view films outside of class time each week. Film screenings are
mandatory. You will be required to see one film each week, but you will have two viewing options:
Tuesdays at 6pm and Wednesdays at 8:30pm in Sills Smith Auditorium. If you would like to review the
film, the DVD will be on reserve at the Media Center when possible.
2. Readings should be prepared for the day on which they appear on the calendar. Please bring the
reading(s) to class. As you read, mark your text with notes to yourself: indicate points that seem
important, note examples from your viewing experiences, and jot down questions. Please come to class
ready to discuss and ask questions. I will lecture in this course, but this will be a discussion-oriented
class. Your questions and ideas matter, so please bring them with you to class.
3. Take notes on every film you watch for this course. When watching the films, I’d recommend you
pay attention to the topic we’re focusing on for that week to guide your note taking and analysis. As
the film is running, jot down specific details or ideas that occur to you. After the film is over, I’d
suggest you take 5 minutes to note any theme(s) the film brings up or to write down questions about
the film. Trust me, specific details from the films and your initial ideas about them will begin to
evaporate as soon as you walk out of the screening room. These notes will be helpful when you sit
down to develop your written analyses and interpretations. In addition to giving you a head start on
your papers, the notes will also help you study for quizzes, the midterm, and the final.
Course overview
Visual narratives have increasingly defined cultural values, opinions, and beliefs but we often don’t think
about examining films in the same way we do other narrative arts or mass communication forms. This
course will introduce you to the language of film and to the critical tools used to investigate how that
language creates narratives with particular resonances. We will focus on the techniques formulated to
exploit the possibilities inherent within the film medium in order to learn how to interpret films.
Specifically, we will examine the visual, aural, and narrative conventions motion pictures employ to
participate in or comment upon significant social and cultural experiences. I also hope to encourage you to
be more critically aware of how films contribute to defining social norms and how certain filmmakers
attempt to intervene in that process through their films. We will consider each film to be a system, with
internal parts that interact with one another to generate the film’s themes and commentaries. We
will use the principles of film form and the four sets of cinematic techniques – mise-en-scène,
cinematography, editing, and sound – as tools to analyze individual narrative films. You will also practice
using these skills to construct unique, contentious, and supported arguments about these films, both in
class discussions and in your writing.

Notes on Grading
Quizzes
Quizzes will be unannounced and cannot be made up so please be sure to prepare for each class by
completing and thinking about the readings assigned for that day and by attending that week’s screening.
Papers
Response Papers
After each film screening, I would like you to write a 250-word essay – no more, no less – that responds
to the film. Each essay should include a thesis that is proven through analysis that focuses on our topic/
tool for that week. These papers are due in class each Thursday. The intent of these papers is: 1) to jump
start your thought process so you will be ready to participate in our class discussions about the film and 2)
to provide a foundation for your long-form papers. These papers will receive a grade based on the
insightfulness of the thesis and how well you support that thesis through analysis. These papers are meant
to be thought-starters not end products so please make them short and sweet by focusing on ONE thematic
element and analyzing how ONE formal element works in ONE scene to develop that theme.
Long-form Papers
This course requires three analytical essays. In Paper 1, you will complete a detailed segmentation of a
sequence from one of our assigned films. In Paper 2, you will investigate how mise-en-scène contributes
to the development of a theme. And in Paper 3, I will ask you to analyze one of our films using at least
three of the formal properties we have studied. You will only be writing on films screened for this class.
I do not accept late work except in the case of holidays or documented medical or family emergencies.
For each 24 hours a paper is late, 1/3 letter grade will be deducted.
Midterm and Final Exams
The midterm will cover the films and concepts we have studied up to that point. The midterm will take
place over two class periods. The first part (on Tues) will include T/F, multiple choice, and short essay
questions. The second part (on Thurs) will ask you to write brief essays in which you analyze 3 clips.
The final will assess your accumulated knowledge regarding: 1) the tools, skill, and vocabulary required
for film analysis, 2) your understanding of the assigned readings, and 3) your visual analytical prowess. It
will also consist of multiple choice and T/F questions, short essay responses, and clip analysis.
Participation
Participation is crucial to learning and will thus be graded. Your response papers will count for most of
this grade, but I will also take into account your in-class participation and attendance. You will have two
“free passes” for unexcused absences, but after that, each unexcused absence will result in a ½-letter grade
deduction from your course average (i.e., if your average is 94, your third unexcused absence will knock it
down to a 90, the fourth to an 85, etc.). College-approved holidays count as excused absences, but leaving
early for holiday breaks or for games/team travel will not constitute excused absences.
Grade Breakdown:
Quizzes 5%
Paper 1 (Segmentation) 10%
Midterm 15%
Paper 2 (Mise-en-scène) 15%
Paper 3 (Formal analysis) 20%
Final exam (cumulative) 20%
Response Papers/Participation 15%
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______________~~ Course Calendar ~~______________
Sept. 2: Course Introduction, Getting to Know You, Fun with Film Analysis
Week 1: Film as Object of Academic Study
Screening: The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass, U.S., 2007, 115 min)
What makes analytical writing different from film reviewing?
Sept 7: Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film Chapters 1, 2, and 4; Film Art 431-434
Hand out review vs. analysis assignment (counts as response paper)
Sept 9 (Rosh Hashanah): Film Art 53-73, 384-410, Corrigan Chapter 3
Review vs. analysis assignment due* (*holiday extensions available, please contact me for extension)
Week 2: Architectures of Narrative
Screening: Hiroshima, mon amour (Alain Resnais, France/Japan, 1959, 90 min)
Sept 14: Film Art 74-88, 304-309, and “Story Causality and Motivation” from The Classical Hollywood
Cinema (electronic resource)
Sept 16: “Hiroshima, mon amour: The Twitching Hands” from How Movies Work (electronic resource);
response paper due
Week 3: Perspectives of Narration
Screening: The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, U.S., 1995, 106 min)
Sept 21: Film Art 88-96; “Writing the New Noir Film” (electronic resource)
Paper 1 due: Segmentation of Hiroshima, mon amour
Sept 23: “Rounding up The Usual Suspects: The Comforts of Character and Neo-Noir” (electronic
resource); response paper due
Week 4: Mise-en-scène: The world before the camera
Screening: The Searchers (John Ford, U.S., 1956, 119 min)
Sept 28: Film Art 112-153, Bare Bones Ch. 7 [Recommended: Film Art 153-161]; Paper 1 assignment
Sept 30: Corrigan Ch. 5 and “Main Critical Issues in The Searchers” (electronic resource)
[Recommended: “The Searchers: An American Dilemma” (electronic resource)]; response paper due
Week 5: Cinematography: The Power of Framing to Create Meaning
Screening: La Mujer Sin Cabeza (The Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel, Argentina, 2008, 87 min)
Oct 5: Film Art 162-194, Bare Bones Chapter 1
Oct 7: Bare Bones Chapters 2, 3, 5; online interview with Lucrecia Martel
(http://www.reverseshot.com/article/interview_lucrecia_martel); response paper due
Paper 2 due in class: Mise-en-scene in The Searchers
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Week 6: Cinematography: Deep space, mobile framing, and the long take
Screening: Punch-drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, U.S., 2002, 95 min)
Oct 12: Fall Vacation
Oct 14: Film Art 195-217; response paper due
Week 7: MIDTERM
Screening: Midterm clip reel (three film clips that you will be asked to analyze for Part 2)
Oct 19: Midterm Part 1 (T/F, multiple choice, short answer)
Oct. 21: Midterm Part 2 (Clip analysis)
Week 8: Editing: Stitching together time, space, and meaning
Screening: Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, U.S., 1951, 101 min)
Oct 26: Film Art 218 – 231
Oct 28: Robin Wood, “Strangers on a Train” (electronic resource); response paper due
Week 9: The Continuity System of Editing
Screening: The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, US, 1941, 100 min)
Nov 2: Film Art 231-251, 440-447, Bare Bones Ch. 4; “Visual Motifs of Film Noir” (electronic resource)
Nov 4: William Luhr, “Tracking The Maltese Falcon” (electronic resource) [Recommended: Paul
Schrader “Notes on Film Noir” (electronic response)]; response paper due
Week 10: Alternatives to Continuity
Screening: October (S.M. Eisenstein, Soviet Union, 1928, 103 min)
Nov 9: Film Art 251-263, 453-456; “October” from How Movies Work (electronic resource); and John
Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World, Chapter 1:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/ch1.htm
Paper 3 assignment
Nov 11: Murray Sperber, “Eisenstein’s October” in Jump Cut online:
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC14folder/October.html
Response paper due
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Week 11: Sound: The noisy silent partner in filmic meaning
Screening: The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, US, 1974, 113 min)
Nov 16: Film Art 264-292, 456-459, Dennis Turner, “The Subject of The Conversation” (electronic
resource), [Recommended: Film Art 293-303]
Nov 18: Class Cancelled; 2-page response paper due by 1pm today on The Conversation via
Digital Dropbox
Week 12: Thanksgiving Holiday
Screening: No screening this week
Nov 23: Corrigan Chapter 6, discussion/workshop on Paper 3
Nov 25: Thanksgiving Holiday
Week 13: Genre and other contexts of cinematic meaning
Screening: Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera (Lemonade Joe, or Horse Opera, Oldrich Lipský,
Czechoslovakia, 1964, 99 min)
Nov 30: Film Art 318-332 and Rick Altman “What is generally understood by the notion of film genre?”
(electronic resource)
Dec 2: Peter Bischoff “Limonádový Joe; or, the Western in Czechoslovakia” (electronic resource)
Paper 3 due: Formal analysis
Week 14: Self-reflexivity: Films about Film(-making)
Screening: 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, Italy/France, 1963. 138 min)
Dec 7: Marilyn Fabe “The European Art Film: Federico Fellini’s 8 ½” (electronic resource)
Dec 9: Last day of class; Review day. Bring at least one question to class (for 3 extra points on lowest
quiz grade)
Final Exam: Time/date TBD by Registrar
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