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CFV 370: EXPERIMENTAL FILM AND VIDEO HISTORY
Winter 2008
Grand Valley State University
Jennifer Proctor

Required Texts:
Rees, A.L., A History of Experimental Film and Video, British Film Institute: 1999
Sitney, P. Adams, Visionary Film, Oxford University Press: 2002
Rush, Michael, New Media in Late 20th-Century Art, Thames & Hudson: 2005
Additional readings available on Blackboard

Course Description: In this upper level film interpretation course, we will examine an international history of experimental film and video with an eye for film theory and historical analysis.  We will develop skills for appreciating, investigating, and more deeply understanding the meanings produced by film and video art by placing the works of this mode in a theoretical and historical context.

Objectives:  The goals of this course are to provide you with a solid background for understanding and describing a canonical history of avant-garde film and video in both the U.S. and abroad.  You will develop knowledge of the basic events, films, artists, and instigators central to the development of experimental film and video.  You will examine several different methods and approaches for analyzing avant-garde work.  You will hone your skills in dissecting a film text, applying readings to the analysis of film and video, performing scholarly research, and writing about cinema.  And, most importantly, you will develop skills for viewing and appreciating films and videos that challenge the norms and conventions of mainstream film production.

Course Requirements:  Two short reading/film response papers, two critical analysis papers, a group-based oral presentation, and midterm and final examinations.  Attendance, punctuality, and participation are also required.  If you must miss a class, it is your responsibility to find out what you missed from classmates – please inquire of your classmates before coming to me.  Missed screenings will be difficult to make up, and in some cases make-up screenings may not be possible.

Assignments & Evaluation:

Reading/Film Response Paper #1

10%

Reading/Film Response Paper #2

10%

Oral Presentation

                                                  10%

Midterm Examination

15%

Term Paper

25%

Final Examination

15%

Participation and in-class exercises

                                      15%

TOTAL:  100 points

 

COURSE SCHEDULE: (Films and schedule subject to change)

WEEK 1 INTRODUCTIONS
1/08 Introduction to Course – syllabus and class overview
Screening: Lumiere shorts, Colour Cry (Len Lye, 1952)

1/10 Discussion: defining the avant-garde, origins of experimental film
Reading: Rees, pp. 1- 29 (Introduction through “Abstract Film”)
Assign oral presentations

WEEK 2 EARLY EUROPEAN AVANT-GARDE
1/15-1/17 Screening:
Rhythmus 21 (Hans Richter, 1923, 4 min.)
Ballet Mécanique (excerpt - Fernand Léger, 1924, 19 min.)
Emak-Bakia (Man Ray, 1926, 18 min.)
Anémic Cinéma (Marcel Duchamp, 1926, 7 min.)
Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929, 16 min.)
Readings:
Rees, pp. 41-50 (“Dada and Surrealist Film” through “Voice and vision…”)
Rush, Michael, “Introduction” (pp. 7-23), New Media in Art
Elsaesser, Thomas “Dada/Cinema?” from Dada and Surrealist Film, ed. Rudolf Kuenzli (pp. 13-27) (Blackboard)
Assign Short paper #1

WEEK 3 EARLY AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE
1/22-1/24 Screening:
Manhatta (Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, 1921, 11 min.)
Fall of the House of Usher (J.S. Watson, Jr. and Melville Webber, 1928, 13 min.)
The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich, 1928, 11 min.)
Rose Hobart (Joseph Cornell, 1936, 19 min.)
Readings:
Horak, Jan-Christopher, “The First American Avant-Garde, 1919-1945” from Experimental Cinema: The Film Reader, ed. Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (pp. 19-51) (Blackboard)

WEEK 4 1940S AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE: MAYA DEREN
1/29-1/31 Screening:
Maya Deren: Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, 14 min.)
At Land (1944, 15 min.)
A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945, 4 min.)
Ritual in Transfigured Time (1945-6, 15 min.)
Readings:
Sitney, “Meshes of the Afternoon” and “Ritual and Nature”
Short paper #1 due

WEEK 5 1950S AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE LYRICAL FILM
2/5-2/7 Screening:
Beat Cinema: Pull My Daisy (excerpt - Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, 1959)
Stan Brakhage: Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959, 11 min.)
Window Water Baby Moving (1959, 13 min.)
Anticipation of the Night (excerpt - 1958, 42 min.)
Readings:
Rees, pp. 56-62 (“Origins of the Post-War Avant-Garde”)
Sitney, “The Lyrical Film” (pp. 156-171)
Assign Short paper #

WEEK 6 1960S: FLUX AND FLUCTUATIONS
2/12-2/14 Screening:
Handmade: Mothlight (Brakhage, 1963, 3 min.)
Mass Culture: Kustom Kar Kommandos (Kenneth Anger, 1965, 4 min.)
Fluxus: No. 4 (Bottoms) (Yoko Ono, 1966, 6 min.)
Nonfiction: Unsere Afrikareise (Peter Kubelka, 1961-66, 13 min.)
Splitscreen: Chelsea Girls (excerpt – Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey, 1966)
Feminist: Fuses (Carolee Schneeman, 1964-68, 22 min.)
Rhythmic: My Name is Oona (Gunvor Nelson, 1969, 10 min.)
Readings:
Mekas, Jonas, “A Call for a New Generation of Filmmakers” from Film Culture Reader, ed. P. Adams Sitney (Blackboard)
Rees, pp. 62-72 (“Underground” through “Two Avant-Gardes…”)
Arthur, Paul “Routines of Emancipation: Jonas Mekas and Alternative Cinema in the Ideology and Politics of the Sixties” from A Line of Sight (pp. 1-23) (Blackboard)
Rush, pp. 24 – 27 (on Fluxus)

WEEK 7 STRUCTURAL FILM I
2/19-2/21 Screening:
Serene Velocity (Ernie Gehr, 1970, 23 min.)
Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967, 43 min.)
Reading:
Rees, pp. 72-75
Sitney, “Structural Film” (pp. 347-370)
MacDonald, Scott, “Michael Snow: Wavelength” and “Ernie Gehr: Serene Velocity” in Avant-Garde Film (pp. 28-44) (Blackboard)
Assign Term Paper; Short paper #2 due

WEEK 8 MIDTERM
2/26 Exam Review

2/28 MIDTERM EXAM

WEEK 9 SPRING BREAK
3/2 – 3/6 NO CLASSES

WEEK 10 STRUCTURAL FILM II
3/11-3/13 Screening:
Lecture (excerpt - Hollis Frampton, 1968, 8 min.)
Zorn’s Lemma (Hollis Frampton, 1970, 60 min.)
Reading:
Sitney, “The Seventies,” pp. 371-383
MacDonald, “Hollis Frampton: Zorn’s Lemma” in Avant-Garde Film (Blackboard)

WEEK 11 MODE: ASSEMBLAGE AND FOUND FOOTAGE
3/18-3/20 Screening:
A Movie (Bruce Conner, 1958, 12 min.)
Works and Days (Hollis Frampton, 1969, 12 min.)
Home Stories (Matthias Müller, 1990, 6 min.)
Tribulation 99 (excerpt - Craig Baldwin, 1991)
Decasia (excerpt - Bill Morrison, 1992)
Removed (Naomi Uman, 1998, 6 min.)
Alone: Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold, 1998, 15 min.)
Reading:
Peterson, James “The Logic of the Absurd: The Assemblage Strain” from Dreams of Chaos, Visions of Order (pp. 145-170) (Blackboard)

WEEK 12 MODE: INSTALLATION AND EXPANDED CINEMA
3/25-3/27 Screening:

Line Describing a Cone (Anthony McCall, 1973, 45 min.)
Reading: MacDonald, Scott, “Anthony McCall” in A Critical Cinema (pp. 157-174)
Rush, Chapter 3, “Video Installation Art”

WEEK 13 RISE OF VIDEO AND VIDEO ART
4/1-4/3 Screening: Titles TBA
Reading: Rush, Chapter 2, “Video Art”

WEEK 14 NEW MEDIA: DIGITAL AND THE WEB
4/8-4/10 Screening: Titles TBA
Readings: No reading this week!
Term paper due

WEEK 15 REVERBERATIONS ON THE MAINSTREAM
4/15 Screening: Titles TBA
Reading: Arthur, “The Western Edge: Oil of LA and the Machined Image” (pp. 92-110) (Blackboard)
4/17 Wrap up course – Exam Review