IFH Group Presentation

CHANGE: 2^nd IFH reading journal due on

DEC 23^RD, Mon, 5pm

PRESENTATION DATE: December 17

For the Group Presentation, we will divide ourselves into 4 groups, and each group will

1)    present on ONE topic listed below;

2)    have 15 minutes to present, by engaging the literature from the syllabus; external academic references are also possible, but not a must; (if you need me to help you with the literature, please do let me know);

3)    use a specific film/filmmaker/film movement/film magazine etc. to highlight your discussion of the themed film history.

PLEASE BRING YOUR USB to the classroom and arrive earlier; OR, you could upload the presentation files here:

https://nuss.nagoya-u.ac.jp/s/ti7s7wd8Wy8tA5B

Remember: you do NOT have to exhaust every aspect possible about this part of film history (not need to repeat the textbook’s narrative again); please try to use your case study to demonstrate HOW you are to approach such a specific part of film history, within its context (for instance, you can use Oz to illustrate the maturation of classical Hollywood studio as an institution, and as a film style in the 1930s). 

The flow of the presentation is up to the team members; we do encourage you to present with visuals (such as PPTs/KEYNOTE/Prezi etc.)—we will also encourage auditing students to participate if they like, but the registered students would be prioritized.

1.    Soviet Cinema: 1919-1929: Hana+Ngan+Becky

2.    Early Cinemas in East Asia until the 1930s Andy+Yoshino+Vy

3.    The Hollywood Studio System: 1930-1945  Wenxi+Moe+Olivia

4.    Postwar European Cinema: Art Cinema & New Waves  Minh+Naomi

Toolkits for Cinema Studies 101:

I think for non-cinema studies students, it might be helpful to explain these terms, so you can understand my questions better.

Film Genre

In film studies genre is used to analyze and classify films according to their shared audiovisual and narrative conventions, ideological structures, identification processes, and industrial or commercial properties. A film genre is understood to be an intertextual, commodity-centered construct, its existence dependent on its imagined relationship with other films of the same type and with interested audiences, as well as on its ability to be produced, marketed, and promoted on the basis of its aesthetic and pleasure-making unity. A horror film, for example, arranges its discordant nondiegetic music; unsettling play with light and shadow, and night and day; closed and labyrinth-like spaces; and destruction of the (female) human body and/or mind, in ways with which viewers are familiar because they have been repeated in films across time. The horror film is also produced, packaged, and marketed in DVD releases, posters, and trailers through recurring images and sounds that invite viewers to recognize (and be tempted by) the association. These include shots of attics, basements, woods, knives, masks, eyes, catand-mouse chase sequences, and accompanying sounds of screams, moans, and sharp piano chords.

[Redmond, Sean. "Film Genre." The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, edited by Michael Ryan, vol. 3: Cultural Theory, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 1062-1066. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature.]

Realism (I only copy and paste part of the item; if you want to read more, write to me)

Realism has become one of the most contested terms in the history of cinema. Cinematic realism is neither a genre nor a movement, and it has neither rigid formal criteria nor specific subject matter. But does this mean that realism is simply an illusion, and that, as Werner Herzog has declared: "the so called Cinéma Vérité iśrité?" Probably not, as realism has been an extremely useful concept for asking questions about the nature of cinematographic images, the relation of film to reality, the credibility of images, and the role cinema plays in the organization and understanding of the world. Realism, at the very least, has been a productive illusion.

In film history, realism has designated two distinct modes of filmmaking and two approaches to the cinematographic image. In the first instance, cinematic realism refers to the verisimilitude of a film to the believability of its characters and events. This realism is most evident in the classical Hollywood cinema. The second instance of cinematic realism takes as its starting point the camera's mechanical reproduction of reality, and often ends up challenging the rules of Hollywood movie making.

["Realism." Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, vol. 3, Schirmer Reference, 2007, pp. 385-394.]

Auteur Theory

Based on an analogy with literature, auteur theory is a critical model used in film studies and criticism that locates the director as the author of a film, and emphasizes a definition of cinema as a product of the director’s personal, singular vision. Auteur theory was developed by French filmmakers and critics in the 1950s, first formally articulated by François Truffaut in his Cahiers du Cinéma essay, “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français” (1954) and transported to America primarily through the writings of critic Andrew Sarris. Auteur theory requires criticism of an individual film to be placed within the context of its director’s oeuvre in order to determine and understand his or her signature style and personal vision, as well as to evaluate the film’s and auteur’s contribution to “cinema” as a collective. Although auteur theory has been consistently and sometimes harshly criticized since its introduction in the late 1950s, the theory nonetheless remains an influential and prevalent critical model in film studies.

[Ayres, Jackson. "Auteur Theory." The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, edited by Michael Ryan, vol. 3: Cultural Theory, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 915-917.]