13703 - Film History Principles (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

This course goes through the fundamentals of film history from cinema's origins to the New Hollywood. Students will learn and apply the primary stylistic, historical, social, and economic criteria to the understanding of the history of cinema. The scope of this course is to illustrate a canon of the cinematographic art, which can be challenged or extended in the other following courses.

Course contents

The course is divided into two parts

A GENERAL PART

B ANALYSIS

A. General part

Students will watch a selection of the masterpieces of film history that are listed in the filmography ahead. Students will be asked to identify these films during the exam. Through these films and those mentioned in the books listed in the bibliography, they will learn to detect the stylistic, psychological, historical, social, and economic motives essential to their make up.

B. Analysis

The program constructs an itinerary allowing students to acknowledge the main theories regarding Classical Hollywood cinema, its genres and personalities (filmmakers, actors, actresses), drawing examples from a few films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

INTEGRATIONS

Possible encounters with artists, seminars, will be announced during the course hours and will be included in the program. Students attending these events will sing-in and out on a register.

Readings/Bibliography

PART A (compulsory for students with a 10/12 credit program and 5/6 credit program)

-P. Bertetto (a cura di), Introduzione alla storia del cinema, Utet, Torino, 2012.

-Francesco Casetti, L'occhio del Novecento, Bompiani, Milano, 2005 (solo capitoli 1, 2, 4, 6)

- Giacomo Manzoli, 30 passi nella storia del cinema, Cinemalibero, Bologna (this book is suggested to help students while they are watching the films. It is highly advisable to read it, especially for those students who cannot attend classes. The book content, though, will not be included in the questions of the final exam.)

PART B (Compulsory only for the 10/12 credit program)

Veronica Pravadelli, La grande Hollywood. Stili di vita e di regia nel cinema classico americano, Marsilio, Venezia 2007

Compulsory Filmography

Anthology of the origins of cinema (available in the "videoteca del Dipartimento delle Arti")

Antologia cinema delle origini (available in the "videoteca del Dipartimento delle Arti")

Nascita di una nazione (D.W. Griffith, 1915)

Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922) Ottobre (S.M. Ejzenštejn, 1927)

Metropolis (F. Lang, 1926)

Napoléon (A. Gance, 1927)

The Cameraman (E. Sedgwick-B. Keaton, 1928)

L'uomo con la macchina da presa (D. Vertov, 1929)

La passione di Giovanna d'Arco (C. T. Dreyer, 1928)

L'Atalante (J. Vigo, 1934)

La folla (K. Vidor, 1928)

Antologia avanguardie storiche (available in the "videoteca del Dipartimento delle Arti")

M- il mostro di Düsseldorf (F. Lang, 1931) Scarface (H. Hawks, 1932) Tempi moderni (C. Chaplin, 1936)

Susanna (H. Hawks, 1938)

La regola del gioco (J. Renoir, 1939)

Ombre rosse (J. Ford, 1939)

Quarto potere (O. Welles, 1941)

Notorius (A. Hitchcock, 1946)

Paisà (R. Rossellini, 1946)

Ladri di biciclette (V. De Sica, 1948)

Diario di un curato di campagna (R. Bresson, 1950)

Rashomon (A. Kurosawa, 1950)

Senso (L. Visconti, 1954)

La finestra sul cortile (A. Hitchcock, 1954)

Il settimo sigillo (I. Bergman, 1956)

I 400 colpi (F. Truffaut, 1959)

La dolce vita (F. Fellini, 1960)

Fino all'ultimo respiro (J.-L. Godard, 1960)

Viridiana (L. Buñuel, 1961)

L'uomo che uccise Liberty Valance (J. Ford, 1962)

Blow up (M. Antonioni, 1966)

Il mucchio selvaggio (Peckinpah, 1969)

Taxi Driver (M. Scorsese, 1975)

Apocalypse Now (F. F. Coppola, 1979)

Filmography PART B (compulsory only for 10/12 credit programs)

Only Angels Have Wings (H.Hawks, 1939)

Double Indemnity (B.Wilder, 1944)

Humoresque (J. Negulesco, 1946)

Written on the Wind (D.Sirk, 1956)

Singin' in the Rain (S. Donen, J. Kelly, 1952)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (H.Hawks, 1953)

All these films are available at the Dipartimento delle Arti via BArberia 4, but can be easily found in other libraries and archives. The two anthologies are curated by the course professor, and therefore only available in the Department

Teaching methods

Class lessons including film comments and film clips

Classes start

january, 30, 2017

monday 15-17

wednesday, giovedì 15-17,

thursday, 15-17

 

aula Berti,

via Ludovico Berti 2/7

Assessment methods

Written exam (1 hour and 30 minutes) on the basic notions of film history: the characteristics of the main phases and schools in cinema history, including filmmakers ad films as illustrated in class and contained in the books listed in the bibliography.

10/12 credits

-2/3 multiple-choice questions aiming at recognizing film titles, periods , directors and main techniques (films in the compulsory filmography)

-a few multiple-choice questions on the book (Introduzione alla storia del cinema)

- two multiple-choice questions on cultural aspects of cinema history (L'occhio del novecento)

-2 questions on the part B. These are questions to be answered writing a short text, using the book La grande Hollywood as a critical resource, and the filmography B as a corpus of films.

5/6 credits

-2/3 multiple-choice questions aiming at recognizing film titles, periods , directors and main techniques (films in the compulsory filmography)

-a few multiple-choice questions on the book (Introduzione alla storia del cinema)

- two multiple-choice questions on cultural aspects of cinema history (L'occhio del novecento)

Please, bring personal earphones and a photo ID

Teaching tools

Students should watch the films listed in the filmography integrally

The videoteca (Via BArberia 4) allows students to watch films inside the Department's rooms, or to borrow films.

Please, book your space at the videoteca in advance, as films might not be easily available close to the dates of the exams

Office hours

See the website of Claudio Bisoni