Fall 2009

E 344L • Writer and Director: Literary Cinema

Course Description

Please refer to the course schedule for course days, time, room location, prerequisites and possible cross-listings: http://registrar.utexas.edu/schedules/

This course will survey the works of a selected range of prominent European writer-directors, from the 1960's to the present (all non-English language films will be subtitled). We will be examining the intersections between literature and film, including literary and aesthetic movements, for example, the New Wave (Godard), Social realism (The Dardennes Brothers, Leigh), and Queer cinema (Davies). We will also be examining the adaptation of and experimentation with genres like the women's film (Duras, Denis), science fiction (Marker, Godard), and the musical (Davies). We will additionally examine two writer-directors’ adaptations of others’ literary works (Antonioni’s adaptation of Cortázar’s "Blow Up"; Haneke’s adaptation of Jellinik’s The Piano Teacher). The historical and contextual range of the films covers the post-war nuclear age, the decline of imperialism, Thatcherism, the emergence of working class artists, and the realities of postcolonial and contemporary immigrant Europe (Akin, the Dardennes, Denis, Haneke). Students will have the freedom to work on other European writer-directors, who may not be included on the syllabus (possibilities include Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Derek Jarman, Agnès Varda, Mathieu Kassovitz, etc.). Introduction to cinematic vocabulary and techniques (montage, mise en-scène, dissolves, tracking shots, etc.) will be included in the instruction.

Texts

Possible range of writer-directors: Fatih Akin (Turkey-Germany), Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes (Belgium), Terence Davies (England), Claire Denis (France), Marguerite Duras (France), Jean-Luc Godard (France), Michael Haneke (Austria/Germany), Chris Marker (France), Mike Leigh (England)

Literature and Criticism: Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception."; Michelangelo Antonioni. The Architecture of Vision; Writings and Interviews on Cinema.; Walter Benjamin. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”; Julio Cortázar. Blow-Up and Other Stories.; Marguerite Duras. India Song.; Elfrieda Jelinek. The Piano Teacher.; Chris Marker. La Jetée: Ciné-Roman.; Rosaline Galt. The New European Cinema: Redrawing the Map (selections).

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