MISCELLANEOUS COURSE SYLLABI, EXERCISES, AND PAPER TOPICS FROM PROF. CARNEY’S CLASSES. THIS MATERIAL REPRESENTS ONLY A TINY SAMPLE OF THE AVAILABLE COURSE HANDOUTS, BUT IS PROVIDED TO GIVE AN IDEA OF HIS INTERESTS AND APPROACHES TO FILM AND THE OTHER ARTS.

Click here for best printing of text

Page 3

COM FT 533 A1

American Independent Film

Mr. Carney

Room B5 8:45㪣:00 AM Tues. and Thurs.

Mr. Carney’s office hours: Thurs. 5-6 and Tues. 4:45-5:45

Required reading: Course Pack (available at the bookstore at the end of the first week)

========================================

In the past three decades, American feature filmmaking has undergone an artistic Renaissance. It has seen the birth and flowering of one of the greatest movements in the history of film: the off-Hollywood filmmaking movement.

This course will consider a small number of alternatives to commercial Hollywood "entertainment" moviemaking. The concept of "art film" and the difference between art and entertainment will be explored.

A number of lesser known works will be screened, all made more or less outside the system. We will consider the work of the following filmmakers: Tom Noonan, Elaine May, Barbara Loden, Su Friedrich, Shirley Clarke, Larry David, Bruce Conner, Jay Rosenblatt, Vince Gallo, Todd Haynes, Caveh Zahedi, and others.

========================================

CLASS SCHEDULE

Tues. Jan. 16 Acting as the source of meaning: Fran Rizzo, Sullivan’s Last Call ; Tom Noonan, What Happened Was

Thurs. Jan. 18 Tom Noonan, What Happened Was

Tues. Jan. 23 Tom Noonan, The Wife; first reading assignment

Thurs. Jan. 25 Tom Noonan, What Happened Was and The Wife

Tues. Jan. 30 Elaine May, Mikey and Nicky

First paper due.

Thurs. Feb. 1 Elaine May, Mikey and Nicky

Tues. Feb. 6 Barbara Loden, Wanda

Thurs. Feb. 8 Barbara Loden, Wanda

Tues. Feb. 13 Su Friedrich, Sink or Swim

Thurs. Feb. 15 Su Friedrich, Sink or Swim

Tues. Feb. 20 No class. Substitute Monday schedule replaces Tuesday schedule

Thurs. Feb. 22 Shirley Clarke, Portrait of Jason

Second paper due.

Tues. Feb. 27 Larry David,Curb Your Enthusiasm

Thurs. Mar. 1 Su Friedrich, Rules of the Road

March 3㪣 SPRING BREAK

Tues. Mar. 13 Bruce Conner shorts; Ten Second Film, Vivian, White Rose, Looking for Mushrooms, Cosmic Ray, Permian Strata, Mongoloid, A Movie, Take the 5:10 to Dreamland, Valse Triste, Marilyn X5, Report, Breakaway

Thurs. Mar. 15 Bruce Conner shorts (cont’d.)

Tues. Mar. 20 Jay Rosenblatt, Short of Breath and Human Remains

Thurs. Mar. 22 Student short films

Tues. Mar. 27 Vince Gallo, Buffalo 66

Thurs. Mar. 29 Vince Gallo, Buffalo 66

Tues. Apr. 3 Todd Haynes, Safe

Thurs. Apr. 5 Todd Haynes, Safe

Third paper due.

Tues. Apr. 10 Caveh Zahedi, A Little Stiff

Thurs. Apr. 12 Caveh Zahedi, A Little Stiff

Tues. Apr. 17 TBA: amazing film #1 without a distributor

Thurs. Apr. 19 TBA: film without a distributor

Tues. Apr. 24 TBA: amazing film #2 without a distributor

Thurs. Apr. 26 Fourth paper due. film without a distributor

Tues. May 1 Conclusions/reflections. The system: beating it or joining it

========================================

The Rules of the Game:

Attendance is required. Attendance will be taken. (If you are unable to make a class for a good reason, you must speak to the T.A. prior to the absence. Please do not leave messages on my office machine or email me about absences.)

To avoid disrupting screenings, promptness at all classes is absolutely mandatory.

There will be no mid-term or final exam.

You will have two major out-of-class duties/responsibilities:

1) You are responsible for writing four papers. Topics will be distributed during the course of the semester.

2) You are responsible for a number of outside reading, writing, and viewing exercises which will be assigned out during class for completion by the next class. (Many will be based on the course packet that is available in the bookstore. Others will require viewing of tapes of major independent masterworks in the viewing area in the basement microfilm area of Mugar Library. Some will be collected, others not; but all should be retained and turned in at the end of the semester.

With regard to these duties: If you miss a class, be certain you have contacted the teaching assistant or another student to familiarize yourself with what has been handed out or assigned for the following class. This will be a large component in your final grade and must be done in time for the appropriate class. No extensions may be given.

The final evaluation will be based on your attendance, promptness, quality of class participation, responses to exercises and viewing assignments, and papers. Any wit, wisdom, and passion you bring to the course will be rewarded.

COM FT 533 A1

American Independent Film

Mr. Carney

First paper assignment:

View Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep and DeSica's Bicycle Thieves (ten copies available at Mugar library) and talk about what Burnett may have learned from the Italian neo-realists, and DeSica in particular.

Length: 4 pages (typed and double-spaced)

Due: Tuesday, February 1 at the start of class. (No extensions)

Independent Film

Mr. Carney

Paper Topic #2:

Write a 3-5 page paper on either of the following topics:

1. The supernaturalism of Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger. Is Harry the devil—or not? What is Burnett’s position? How does he "sell" it cinematically? Where does the art come in?

2. The relation of the style and meaning of Mark Rappaport’s The Scenic Route or Local Color..

Due in the Film Office, Friday February 28th.

COM FT 533 A1

American Independent Film

Mr. Carney

Third Paper:

Pick a five to ten-minute scene from Tom Noonan’s The Wife, and do a breakdown of the "beats" analyzing how the acting creates meaning.

Length: 3-4 pages (undergraduates and production graduate students); 4-6 pages (studies graduate students).

Due: Tuesday, March 14 at the start of class. (No extensions may be granted)

American Independent Film

Mr. Carney

Spring 2001

Paper Topic:

After viewing Todd Haynes’s Safe twice in class, write a well-organized discussion of the narrative organization and structure of the film. Avoid summarizing the plot or focusing on events as much as possible. Avoid wool-gathering psychological generalizations as much as possible. Discuss the film as a carefully crafted work of art by focusing on the way Haynes organizes the experience of the film.

In your paper, you are required specifically to discuss:

• the function of the film’s set design (Carol’s house and other interior spaces)
• the function of the film’s sound design
• the function of the characters’ costumes
• the way we get to know Carol as a character (the order in which specific scenes occur and what they make us see and feel at any given moment)
• the difference in the film’s depictions of the narrative roles of men and women
• the use of indoor and outdoor settings
• the difference between Carol’s original home and her home at Wrenwood

In the course of your argument, you are required to discuss how several specific scenes present some of the film’s central artistic concerns and issues:

• the baby shower scene
• the introductory meeting on Carol’s first day at Wrenwood
• the final scene of the film
• any other scenes which you find meaningful and important

Length: 3-5 pages, double-spaced (undergraduates); 5-7 pages (grad. students).

Due: Tuesday, April 8, at the start of class. No extensions may be granted.

American Independent Film

Mr. Carney

Final Paper:

Choose one of the following:

A. Pick a ten-minute sequence from Independence Day, and discuss the "logic" behind the various choices: the types and personalities of the characters, the narrative events, the particular lines of dialogue, the camera angles, lighting, editing, musical orchestration, etc.. Demonstrate the extent to which the film consists of clichéd meanings, attitudes, and beliefs. Discuss its button-pushing. Meditate on the nature of Hollywood entertainment.

B. Write a thoughtful consideration of why most of the films we have seen this semester were not more favorably received and are not better known. Cite specific examples of these films’ characters, scenes, narrative events, lines of dialogue, camera angles, lighting, editing, musical orchestration, etc. to bolster your point.

Length: 3-5 double-spaced pages.

Due in class Tuesday, April 30.

No extensions will be granted.

AM 501 A1: Special Topics in American Studies

(Telreg # 640672)

Henry James and John Singer Sargent:

Case Studies of the American Identity and Imagination

Mr. Carney

12:30מ:00 Tues. and Thurs.

American Studies Seminar Room

Required Texts:

Henry James, Henry James Complete Stories 1884-1891 (Library of America)

Henry James, Henry James Complete Stories 1892-1898 (Library of America)

Henry James, Henry James Complete Stories 1898-1910 (Library of America)

Recommended Text:

Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent: Complete Paintings, vol. 1 (Yale University Press)

On Reserve at Mugar:

Henry James, Complete Notebooks of Henry James

Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent: Complete Paintings, vol. 1 (Yale University Press)

Patricia Hills, John Singer Sargent (Abrams)

Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond, John Singer Sargent (Princeton Press)

========================================

In Chapter 19 of The Portrait of a Lady, Isabel Archer and Madame Merle offer contrasted definitions of identity:

Merle: "When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell, I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman: We are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do your call one's self? Where does it begin? Where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us-and then it flows back again.... One's self...is one's expression of one's self: and one's house, one's clothes, the book one reads, the company one keeps-these things are all expressive."

Isabel: "I don't agree with you.... I think just the other way. I don't know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any measure of me; on the contrary, it's a limit, a barrier, and a perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly, the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don't express me; and heaven forbid they should!"

This course will explore these and other conceptions of the American identity and imagination through an intensive stylistic study of John Singer Sargent's portraits and Henry James' short fiction. During the course of the semester, we shall look at approximately 100 of Sargent's paintings, read approximately 70 of James' short stories and novellas, and draw heavily from James' description of his own creative process in his Notebooks.

========================================

CLASS SCHEDULE

Tues. Jan. 16 Introduction

Thurs. Jan. 18 James, Complete Stories, 1884-1891: "Georgina’s Reasons," "The Path of Duty," "Mrs. Temperly"

Tues. Jan. 23 James, Complete Stories, 1884-1891: "The Aspern Papers," "Louisa Pallant," "The Liar"

Thurs. Jan. 25 James, Complete Stories, 1884-1891: "The Modern Warning," "The Lesson of the Master"

Tues. Jan. 30 James, Complete Stories, 1884-1891: "A London Life,"

"The Patagonia," "The Solution," "The Pupil," "The Marriages"

Thurs. Feb. 1 James, Complete Stories, 1884-1891: "Brooksmith," "The Chaperon," "Sir Edmund Orme"

Tues. Feb. 6 James, Complete Stories, 1892-1898: "Nona Vincent," "The Real Thing," "The Private Life," "Lord Beaupré,"

Thurs. Feb. 8 James, Complete Stories, 1892-1898: "The Visits," "Sir Dominick Ferrand," "Greville Fane"

Tues. Feb. 13 James, Complete Stories, 1892-1898: "Collaboration," "Owen Wingrave," "The Wheel of Time"

Thurs. Feb. 15 Sargent unit

Tues. Feb. 20 No class. Substitute Monday schedule replaces Tuesday schedule

Thurs. Feb. 22 James, Complete Stories, 1892-1898: "The Middle Years," "The Death of the Lion," "The Coxon Fund"

Tues. Feb. 27 James, Complete Stories, 1892-1898: "The Altar of the Dead," "The Next Time" "Glasses,"

Thurs. Mar. 1 Sargent unit

March 3-11 SPRING BREAK

Tues. Mar. 13 James, Complete Stories, 1892-1898: "The Figure in the Carpet," "The Way it Came," "The Turn of the Screw," "In the Cage"

Thurs. Mar. 15 James, Complete Stories, 1892-1898: "Covering End," "In the Cage"

Tues. Mar. 20 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "John Delavoy," "The Given Case," "Europe," "The Great Condition," "The Real Right Thing,"

Thurs. Mar. 22 Sargent unit

Tues. Mar. 27 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "Paste," "The Great Good Place," "Maud-Evelyn," "Miss Gunton of Poughkeepsie," "The Tree of Knowledge"

Thurs. Mar. 29 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "The Abasement of the Northmores," "The Third Person," "The Special Type"

Tues. Apr. 3 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "The Tone of Time," "Broken Wings," "The Two Faces," "Mrs. Medwin," "The Beldonald Holbein"

Thurs. Apr. 5 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "The Story in It," "Flickerbridge"

Tues. Apr. 10 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "The Birthplace," "The Beast in the Jungle"

Thurs. Apr. 12 Sargent unit

Tues. Apr. 17 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "The Papers," "Fordham Castle," "Julia Bride," "The Jolly Corner"

Thurs. Apr. 19 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "The Velvet Glove"

Tues. Apr. 24 James, Complete Stories, 1898-1910: "Mora Montravers," "Crapey Cornelia," "The Bench of Desolation," "A Round of Visits"

Thurs. Apr. 26 Sargent unit

Tues. May 1 Re-read and re-consider: "The Private Life," "The Figure in the Carpet," "The Great Good Place," "The Altar of the Dead," "The Beast in the Jungle," "The Story in It"

Conclusions/reflections

========================================

The Rules of the Game:

Attendance is required and will be taken. (If you are unable to make a particular class for a good reason, you must speak to the T.A. prior to the absence. Please do not leave messages on my office machine or email me about absences.)

Promptness is mandatory.

There will be no mid-term or final exam.

You will have three major out-of-class duties/responsibilities:

1) You are responsible for writing three papers. Topics and due dates will be announced during the course of the semester.

2) You are responsible for keeping a permanent, ongoing reading journal. The journal should chronicle your reactions to every James story you read this semester. The journal should be kept entirely separate from your class notes, but may reflect them and build on points brought out in class discussions. The point is to keep a diary of your developing reactions to James’ work. Bring this journal with you to every class since class activities may occasionally be based on it. The journal may also be turned in at several points in the course of the semester, and it will be collected at the end of the semester.

For future reference, it will be helpful if you employ the following format for each journal entry:

• The title of each story at the top of a new page on which its journal entry begins.
• Your notes as you read the story or think about it after you have read it.
• A repeat of the title of the story at the end of the entry, followed by:
• A brief plot summary.
• And list of the names of the major characters and one-sentence description of who they are or what they do.

3) Occasional specific writing assignments may be made during class for completion by the next class. Your responses to these assignments should be kept in your permanent journal and brought to the next class with you.

With regard to these duties: If you miss a class, be certain you have contacted the teaching assistant or another student to familiarize yourself with what has been handed out or assigned for the following class. This will be a large component in your final grade and must be done in time for the appropriate class. No extensions may be given.

The final evaluation will be based on your attendance, promptness, quality of class participation, journal entries, and papers. Any wit, wisdom, and passion you bring to the course will be rewarded.

AM 501 A1: Special Topics in American Studies

Henry James and John Singer Sargent

Mr. Carney

Spring 2001

Paper Topic #1:

Apply James’ understanding of the relation of the "artist" to his "subject" in "The Real Thing" to one of his other stories. What is the relation of the "artist" to the "subject"? Be specific. Illustrate your general points by quoting passages and focusing on specific aspects of his style and narrative strategy.

Note: if the above topic seems unusually difficult (or cryptic), you may dispense with the "comparison" part of it, ignoring "The Real Thing," and simply answering the second part of the question: What is the relation of the James to his subjects? Being specific in your response, and illustrating your general points by quoting passages and focusing on specific aspects of his style and narrative strategy.

Length: Undergraduates: 3-5 pages, double-spaced. Graduate students: 5-7 pages, double-spaced.

Due: Tuesday, Feb. 27, at the start of class. No extensions may be granted. (Be certain that you have also prepared all of the reading due in that class.)

AM 501 A1: Special Topics in American Studies

Henry James and John Singer Sargent

Mr. Carney

Spring 2001

Paper Topic #2:

Study the style and narrative organization of "The Figure in the Carpet." Present a reading of the story based on them. If possible, use the story to make more general points about the work of Henry James.

Length: Undergraduates: 3-5 pages, double-spaced. Graduate students: 5-7 pages, double-spaced.

Due: Thursday, March 29, at the start of class. No extensions may be granted. (Please be certain that you have also prepared all of the reading due in that class.)

========================================

Note: On Thursday, March 22, we will take a "field trip" to the Museum of Fine Arts on Huntington Ave (accessible from Boston University via the Green Line E train or by walking through the Fenway if the weather is cooperative). We will meet at 6 PM in the Lobby of the "new building," next to the coat check area and proceed to the American galleries in the West Wing. Boston University students are admitted free with an ID. If you are unable to make this special event, please let me know, and make arrangements to spend 60㫲 minutes viewing and taking notes about the Sargent paintings on display on a separate occasion prior to this date.

AM 501 A1: Special Topics in American Studies

Mr. Carney

Spring 2001

Exercise (in lieu of paper #3):

James’ late style is one of the greatest inventions in the history of art. Explore its function and effect as it manifests itself in the final six stories of the third volume ("The Jolly Corner," "The Velvet Glove," "Mora Montravers," "Crapy Cornelia," "A Round of Visits," "The Bench of Desolation").

The point is not to write an essay but to offer a series of pensées or marginal "notes" reflecting on a few of the strangest or most difficult passages in the text. You should not organize your thoughts into a coherent, sequential argument—what normally passes for a "paper." Instead, write down a series of meditations keyed to specific pages and paragraphs, commenting on what is going on, what is the effect of the style, mulling over what James is doing with this very strange form of expression.

Length: Undergraduates: 5 pages, double-spaced. Graduate students: 5-7 pages, double-spaced.

Due: Thursday, May 4, between 1 and 3 P.M. in my office (Room 223 in the College of Communication). No extensions may be granted.

COM FT 554 C1

Two Forms of Comedy: Mike Leigh and Mark Rappaport

Mr. Carney

Room B5 2:00נ:00 Tues., 2:00ס:00 Thurs.

Teaching Assistant: Michael Price

Mr. Carney’s office hours: Thurs. 5-6 and Tues. 4:45-5:45

Required reading: The Films of Mike Leigh: Embracing the World (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Available in the bookstore.

========================================

We shall survey the work of two contemporary comic masters: American independent filmmaker, Mark Rappaport, the creator of Casual Relations, Local Color, Mozart in Love, Scenic Route, Chain Letters, Imposters, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, and other works; and Mike Leigh, the creator of Bleak Moments, Hard Labour, Nuts in May, Home Sweet Home, High Hopes, Life is Sweet, and other works.

The goal will be to ask fundamental questions about the comic sensibility and the nature of comic expression: What makes a scene funny? What is the dramatic function of comedy? How does comedy change the way a viewer understands a situation or what the viewer gets out of it? How can what is funny also be serious? What are these two extremely different but brilliant filmmakers doing with their strange senses of humor?

========================================

CLASS SCHEDULE

Tues. Jan. 16 Mark Rappaport, Casual Relations

Thurs. Jan. 18 Mark Rappaport, Casual Relations; Mozart in Love

Tues. Jan. 23 Mark Rappaport, Local Color

Thurs. Jan. 25 Mark Rappaport, Local Color

First paper due.

Tues. Jan. 30 Mark Rappaport, Scenic Route

Thurs. Feb. 1 Mark Rappaport, Scenic Route

Tues. Feb. 6 Mark Rappaport, Imposters

Thurs. Feb. 8 Mark Rappaport, Imposters

Tues. Feb. 13 Mark Rappaport, Chain Letters

Thurs. Feb. 15 Mark Rappaport, Chain Letters

Tues. Feb. 20 No class. Substitute Monday schedule replaces Tuesday schedule

Thurs. Feb. 22 Mark Rappaport, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies

Tues. Feb. 27 Mike Leigh, Bleak Moments

Thurs. Mar. 1 Mike Leigh, Bleak Moments

Journals should be submitted

March 3㪣 SPRING BREAK

Tues. Mar. 13 Mike Leigh, Kiss of Death

Thurs. Mar. 15 Mike Leigh, Kiss of Death

Tues. Mar. 20 Mike Leigh, Abigail’s Party

Thurs. Mar. 22 Mike Leigh, Abigail’s Party

Third paper due.

Tues. Mar. 27 Mike Leigh, Grown-Ups

Thurs. Mar. 29 Mike Leigh, Grown-Ups

Tues. Apr. 3 Mike Leigh, Home Sweet Home

Thurs. Apr. 5 Mike Leigh, Home Sweet Home

Tues. Apr. 10 Mike Leigh, Meantime

Thurs. Apr. 12 Mike Leigh, Meantime

Tues. Apr. 17 Mike Leigh, High Hopes

Thurs. Apr. 19 Mike Leigh, High Hopes

Tues. Apr. 24 Mike Leigh, Life is Sweet

Thurs. Apr. 26 Mike Leigh, Life is Sweet

Tues. May 1 Conclusions/reflections

Fourth paper due.

========================================

The Rules of the Game:

Attendance is required. Attendance will be taken. (If you are unable to make a class for a good reason, you must speak to the T.A. prior to the absence. Please do not leave messages on my office machine or email me about absences.)

To avoid disrupting screenings, promptness at all classes is absolutely mandatory.

There will be no mid-term or final exam.

You will have two major out-of-class duties/responsibilities:

1) You are responsible for writing three papers. Topics will be distributed during the course of the semester.

2) You are responsible for keeping a permanent, ongoing journal exploring the nature of the comic experience in the works you are viewing. The journal should be kept entirely separate from your class notes or screening notes, but may reflect them and build on points brought out in class events and discussions. The point is to keep a diary of your developing ideas about comedy. Bring this journal with you to every class since class activities may occasionally be based on it. It will also be turned in at several points in the course of the semester, as well as at the end of the semester.

3) A number of specific writing assignments will be made during class for completion by the next class. (Some may require viewing of tapes of major independent masterworks in the viewing area in the basement microfilm area of Mugar Library.) Your responses to these assignments should be kept in your permanent journal and brought to the next class.

With regard to these duties: If you miss a class, be certain you have contacted the teaching assistant or another student to familiarize yourself with what has been handed out or assigned for the following class. This will be a large component in your final grade and must be done in time for the appropriate class. No extensions may be given.

The final evaluation will be based on your attendance, promptness, quality of class participation, journal responses, and papers. Any wit, wisdom, and passion you bring to the course will be rewarded.

Comic Form: Rappaport and Leigh

Mr. Carney

Spring 2001

Paper Topic #1:

Discuss the nature of the comedy in Mark Rappaport’s Local Color or Scenic Route. Ground your argument in points about specific scenes and moments, without merely repeating class discussion. Also mare a larger, more general statement about the function of comedy in the work you have chosen.

Videotape copies of the films are available from the reference desk at Mugar Library.

Length: 3-5 pages, double-spaced.

Due Thursday, Feb 1, at the start of class. No extensions may be granted.

Comic Form: Rappaport and Leigh

Mr. Carney

Spring 2001

Paper Topic #2:

Discuss the nature of the comedy in Mike Leigh’s Meantime. Ground your argument in points about specific scenes and moments. Use your observations to make a larger, more general statement about the function of comedy in Leigh’s work. (Leigh’s Kiss of Death would make an ideal reference point.)

Videotape copies are available from the reference desk at Mugar Library.

Length: 3-5 pages, double-spaced (undergrads). 5-7 pages (grad students).

Due Thursday, April 12, at the start of class. No extensions may be granted.

========================================

SPECIAL TOPIC: Yasujiro Ozu: Photographing the Soul

COM BF 553C1

T 2נ R 2ס (Room B 05)

Prof. Carney

Teaching Assistant: Lucas Sabean

The American documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman once said that the only difficulty in making a film was that all you were really interested in was people’s insides, and all you could photograph was their outsides. We shall examine a small number of masterworks by the Mozart of cinema, one of the supreme geniuses in the history of the art—Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and explore Wiseman’s question, among others. How can you capture the spirit if you can’t go any deeper than the epidermis? How do you photograph the soul?

========================================

Film Studies graduate students only are responsible for readings in: David Bordwell’s (totally awful), Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), available in paperback in the bookstore, and extra assigned meetings to discuss the readings on Thursdays at 5 PM and as announced.

========================================

CLASS SCHEDULE

Tues. Jan. 12 Introduction

Thurs. Jan. 14 Tokyo Story (16mm)

Tues. Jan. 18 Tokyo Story (VHS)

Thurs. Jan. 21 The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (16mm)

Tues. Jan. 26 The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (VHS)

Thurs. Jan. 28 Equinox Flower (16mm)

Tues. Feb. 2 Equinox Flower (laserdisc)

Thurs. Feb. 4 Late Spring (16mm)

Tues. Feb. 9 Late Spring (VHS)

Thurs. Feb. 11 Ohayo—Good Morning (16mm)

Tues. Feb. 16 No class. Substitute Monday schedule for Tuesday.

Thurs. Feb. 18 Ohayo—Good Morning (VHS)

Tues. Feb. 23 An overview: Ozu’s style–examples and issues

Thurs. Feb. 25 The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (16mm)

Tues. Mar. 2 The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (16mm)

Thurs. Mar. 4 Floating Weeds (second version) (16mm)

March 8㪦 SPRING BREAK

Tues. Mar. 16 Floating Weeds (second version) (VHS)

Thurs. Mar. 18 Late Autumn (16mm)

Tues. Mar. 23 Late Autumn (16mm)

Thurs. Mar. 25 Autumn Afternoon (16mm)

Tues. Mar. 30 Autumn Afternoon (VHS)

Thurs. Apr. 1 Tokyo Twilight (16mm)

Tues. Apr. 6 Tokyo Twilight (VHS)

Thurs. Apr. 8 The Only Son (16mm)

Tues. Apr. 13 The Only Son (16mm)

Thurs. Apr. 15 Record of a Tenement Gentleman (16mm)

Tues. Apr. 20 Record of a Tenement Gentleman (16mm)

Thurs. Apr. 22 There was a Father (16mm) and Passsing Fancy (16mm) both suddenly unavailable; replaced by Early Summer (16mm)

Tues. Apr. 27 There was a Father (16mm) see above note

Thurs. Apr. 29 I was Born, but ... (16mm)

Tues. May 4 I was Born, but ... (16mm)

Thurs. May 6 Conclusions: Ozu’s style

========================================

1. Attendance is required.

2. Promptness is absolutely mandatory.

3. There will be no mid-term or final exam.

4. You will be responsible for becoming an "expert" on six films. Tapes may be checked out at the circulation desk of Mugar Library for two hour periods and taken to the viewing room (where there are ten videotape stations available for simultaneous use). Ten copies of each of the following titles are available for viewing:

Tokyo Story

Equinox Flower

Late Spring

Good Morning

Floating Weeds

Early Summer

The final evaluation will be based on your exercises about the films you study in detail, your completion of out of class exercises (which are to be accumulated in a "journal" to be collected at random points throughout the semester), and your attendance, promptness, and quality of class participation. Any wit, wisdom, and passion you bring to the course will be appreciated (and rewarded).

First Mugar assignment (due in class Tuesday, February 2, no extensions):

Pick an extended section from Tokyo Story (approximately 30 minutes) and discuss the "formal values" that Ozu employs (framing, pacing, blocking of characters’ relative positions, editing patterns, etc.) to shape the experience. Describe what you see, as well as the meaning and feeling. Five to ten pages, double spaced.

The Films of Ozu

Mr. Carney

Mugar Exercise #2

Review Late Spring. Look at the scene with the boy with the baseball glove. Do two things:

1) Make a list of all of the scenes in the film that are related to this one.

2) Write 2-3 double-spaced pages about the nature of the relationship and why these scenes are present in the film. Talk about their tone, feeling, mood.

Due in class Thursday, February 18 (no extensions can be granted)

THE FILMS OF OZU

MR. CARNEY

Paper Topic:

Make a "floor plan" of Floating Weeds. It should consist of two different things. First, a drawing of "issues," "themes," "concerns," "formal structures" in the film with lines joining various parts. Second, a description of each one of approximately one paragraph per item in length. The paragraphs need not be welded together into a unified paper. They may simply explain the drawings on your floor plan.

Due Tuesday March 9 in class. No extensions.

Videos are available in Beebe Library.