Module Identifier TF31320  
Module Title SHAKESPEARE ON FILM AND TELEVISION  
Academic Year 2002/2003  
Co-ordinator Dr Mikel Koven  
Semester Semester 2  
Pre-Requisite TF10210 , TF31920  
Course delivery Lecture   20 Hours Lecture/Seminars  
  Other   Weekly viewing as timetabled  
Assessment Semester Assessment   Essay 1 - 2500 words   40%  
  Semester Assessment   Essay 2 - 2500 words   60%  

Learning outcomes

Typically, on completion of this module, students will be able to:

- critically assess the variety and often conflicting analytical paradigms which characterise the study of literary adaptations in general, and Shakespeare in film specifically;
- critically assess who a Shakespearian film is addressing, an discuss how that address is constructed;
- critically assess differing approaches to genre in the Shakespearian film;
- crucially assess the different perspectives between literary/theatre studies notion of the author, within film studies.

Content

This module assumes that the students already

- have an understanding of the major critical discourses of film studies (i.e. the auteur theory, classical Hollywood cinema, genre study);
- know the basic terminology that film studies utilise (mise-en-scene, montage, frame, diegetic/non-diegetic sources, etc.);
- are familiar with certain key textbooks; specifically Pam Cook's The Cinema Book and Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art an introduction.

Aims

The aims of this module are as follows:
- To consolidate the variety of discourses and controversies surrounding the issue of film adaptations of work from other media (in this case, literary/dramatic works);
- To critically assess the address to different kinds of audience for Shakespeare's plays and the movies based on them (racial, cultural, class and gender-based, sexual orientation);
- To apply the specialised film studies paradigms of genre to these films in the hopes of problematising the literary taxonomies of Shakespeare's plays;
- To critically assess the notion of who is the `author of these films: Shakespeare or the director.


Reading Lists

Books
PLEASE REFER TO MODULE HANDBOOK FOR A FULL READING LIST.