| Module Identifier |
TF30720 |
| Module Title |
FILM ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION |
| Academic Year |
2002/2003 |
| Co-ordinator |
Professor Martin J Barker |
| Semester |
Semester 2 |
| Other staff |
Kevin J Donnelly |
| Pre-Requisite |
TF10210 , TF31920 |
| Course delivery |
Lecture | 20 Hours |
| |
Seminars / Tutorials | 5 Hours Seminar. |
| |
Practical | Viewing sessions |
| Assessment |
Semester Assessment | Essay - due date 21 March 2003 | 30% |
| |
Semester Assessment | Project - due date Wednesday 7 May 2003 | 70% |
Learning outcomes
Learning Outcomes:
Typically, upon completion of the module, students will be able to:
- Address a range of film texts more deeply, and particularly by reference to the ways in which the `meanings of films are a function of processes and contributions from outside the individual film;
- Demonstrate an understanding of different approaches to film analysis, and take up a critically thought-out position in relation
to them;
- Explore the significance of satellite materials for our understanding of films;
- Demonstrate the ability to think critically about the concepts of `taste`, and to connect these to thinking about your own film
preferences;
- Evaluate `figures of the audience`, both for their role in debates around films, and their claim on actual audiences.
Content
The module takes a number of (in the main recent) films, and uses them to examine a series of processes not normally given much attention within film studies: the role of publicity, marketing, merchandising, reviews, interviews, debates and gossip around films in shaping audiences` expectations and ways of responding; the ways films fit within taste-cultures, and the implications of these for understanding, for examples, controversies over some films; the way analyses of films (both academic and non-academic) import `figures` of the audience to support their claims about films` `meanings`, `messages`, or `effects`; and how, in the light of these, we may ourselves make claims about the purpose, quality, function and effectivity of films.
Aims
To introduce students to number of competing approaches to film, paying particular attention to: the role of ancillary materials and commentaries (reviews, controversies, merchandising and narrative extensions); issues of taste and the problems of judgements of quality; the porousness of films to other systems of meaning (for instance, star meanings); and debates about the purposes of film analysis, in particular with reference to the way film analyses make claims about the nature of audiences.
Reading Lists
Books
** Essential Reading
Barker, Martin & Austin, Thomas. (2000)
From Antz to Titanic; Reinventing Film Analysis. London, Pluto Press
Bordwell, David. (1989)
Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema,. Boston: Harvard UP
Thompson, Kirstin. (1988)
Breaking the Glass Armour. Princeton University Press
Hollows, Joanne & Jancovich, Mark, eds.. (1995)
Approaches to Popular Film. Manchester University Press
Kuhn, Annette (ed). (1990)
Alien Zone: Culture Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. London: Verso
Staiger, Janet. (1990)
Interpreting Films. Princeton UP
Maltby, Richard. (1983)
Harmless Entertainment. London: Scarecrow Press
Kerr, Paul. (1986)
The Hollywood Film Industry: A Reader. London: RKP
Wasko, Janet. (1995)
Hollywood in the Information Age. Austin: University of Texas Press
Barker, Martin & Sabin, Roger. (1996)
The Lasting of the Mohicans: History of an American Myth. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press
Horton, Andrew & McDougal, Stuart Y,. (1998)
Play it Again, Sam: Retakes on Remakes. Berkeley: University of California Press
Dyer, Richard. (1979)
Stars. London: BFI
Dyer, Richard. (1987)
Heavenly Bodies: Film stars and Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan
Sconce, Jeffrey. (1995)
'"Trashing" the academy: taste, excess, and an emerging politics of cinematic style' Screen. Winter
Neale, Steve, & Smith, Murray, eds.. (1998)
Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge
Wells, Paul. (1998)
Understanding Animation. London: Routledge