33830 - History of Cinema Theories

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

By the end of this class students will:

- know the basic notions of the theory of cinema, with special attention to the concepts developed in the classical period (1915-1945), with a few significant openings on the following period;

- acquire a theoretical competence allowing them to fully understand the language of film;

- master the specific language of cinema studies;

- know how to connect the theoretical debate on cinema with the history of the arts in the 20^th century.

Course contents

Part 1. Classical Film Theories

Theories of montage

• Lev Kuleshov: making meaning with montage
• Sergej Ejzenštejn: montage as dialectics
• Dziga Vertov and the "theory of intervals"
• Esfir Shub and "factographic" editing

Theories of Photogénie

• The beauty of cinema according to Louis Delluc
• Jean Epstein and the photogénie of the imponderable
• Photogénie and "estrangement" (Victor Sklovsky)

Theories of Reproducibility

• Walter Benjamin: film and the end of the aura of the artwork
• André Bazin: from the aura of the image to the aura of the event

Part 2: The European Crime Genre between Print and Screen Fiction

The crime genre and its multiple subgenres

• Detective fiction, noir, crime: A short history of a multifarious genre
• Introduction to the theories of detective fiction
• Il noir: origins and developments of a film concept

From noir to crime fiction

• Evolution of noir from cinema, to literature and TV seriality in a transmedia regime
• Noir and neonoir between globalization, glocalization and  regionalization: the case of Europe
• Beyond noir: crime fiction

The contemporary European crime genre between literature and television

• French neopolar
• Mediterranean noir
• Nordic noir

Readings/Bibliography

Readings and screenings are listed below in four different groups. 

1) Lecture notes provided by the teacher:

Che cos'è la teoria del cinema?

Ricciotto Canudo: il cinema come settima arte

La fotogenia secondo Louis Delluc

La fotogenia secondo Jean Epstein

L'avanguardia russa al tornante della Rivoluzione d'Ottobre

Lev Kulešov, maestro del cinema sovietico

Sergej Ejzenštejn: dal montaggio delle attrazioni al montaggio intellettuale

Dziga Vertov, il kinokismo e la fabbrica dei fatti

 

2) Books and book chapters:

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (1936)

André Bazin, What Is Cinema? Vol. 1.

 

3) Essays on crime fiction and film noir:

The reading list will be communicated before the beginning of the course. All the readings will be made available on the portal of DETECt Horizon 2020 project. 

4) L’esame richiede inoltre la conoscenza di almeno dieci titoli tra quelli sotto elencati. Sarà richiesta la visione di almeno un film alla settimana, da registrare su calendario online. 

• The Cheat (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915)
• Le silence (Louis Delluc, 1920)
• Nanuk l'eschimese (Robert Flaherty, 1922)
• Le avventure di Mr West nel paese dei bolscevichi (Lev Kulešov, 1924)
• Sciopero (Sergeji Ejzenštejn, 1925)
• La sesta parte del mondo (Dziga Vertov, 1926)
• La corazzata Potemkin (Sergej M. Ejzenštejn, 1926)
• Miss Mend (Boris Barnet, Fyodor Otsep, 1926)
• Six et demi, onze (Jean Epstein, 1927)
• Ottobre (Sergej M. Ejzenštejn, 1928)
• L'uomo con la macchina da presa (Dziga Vertov, 1928)
• Le crime de Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir, 1935)
• La regola del gioco (Jean Renoir, 1939)
  
• Quarto potere (Orson Welles, 1941)
• Nodo alla gola (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
  
• Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
• L'infernale Quinlan (Orson Welles, 1958)

Teaching methods

Assessment methods

The final examination will take place in the form of an interview in Italian. Students will be asked to answer a few questions about the program, so as to verify whether they have achieved the following learning outcomes:

Ability to historically contextualize the main periods in the development of film theory, especially with regard to the classical period, as well as to understand the continuity and discontinuities lines along the elaborations of the different authors in the syllabus

Ability to use the theoretical tools acquired to analyze the films in the syllabus

Mastery of the specific vocabulary of cinema studies

Ability to link the theoretical debate on cinema to the history of the 20th century

Students demonstrating a full knowledge and critical understanding of the subject matter will be assessed with the highest marks. Students demonstrating a purely notional exposition of the subject matter will be assessed with good/medium marks. Students with a limited knowledge of the subject, an uncertain or inappropriate vocabulary will be assessed as barely sufficient. Students with major learning gaps in both critical- theoretical-critical and historiographic terms will be assessed as insufficient.

Teaching tools

Video projector, Internet connection. An E-learning course is available at  https://iol.unibo.it/course/view.php?id=16684

Links to further information

http://detect-project.eu

Office hours

See the website of Monica Dall'Asta