I.  Week One

Class 1: (Jan 18) Introduction to course: Course overview, class mechanics

Reading for next class:

·  Nichols: chapters 1 & 2 and 6;

·  Barbash & Taylor: Documentary Styles (reader);

·  Eitzen, Dirk. When Is a Documentary? (reader);

·  Godmilow and Shapiro, "How Real is the Reality in Documentary Film? (reader)

Class 2 (Jan 20): From Real to Reel: What is Documentary Film?: The What, Why, Who and How of Documentary Film

Reading for next class:

·  Barnow, 3-30

·  Nichols, 82-87

II. Week Two

Class 3 (Jan 25): La Vie Sur Le Vif (Life on the Hoof): The Beginnings of Motion Pictures and the Prehistory of Documentary Film

Screening:

·  Muybridge sequence photograhy,

·  Lumiere Brothers (First Films)

·  Edison shorts

Reading for next class:

·  Barnow, 33-50;

·  Rothman: The Filmmaker as Hunter (reader);

·  Ruby, "Re-examinition of the Early Career of Robert J. Flaherty" (reader)

·  Nichols, 82-87

Class 4: (Jan 27): A Lens on World: Documentary and the Romance of Exploration and Travel

Screening:

·  Clips from Dawn of the Eye (about early newsreels)

·  Clips from The Shadow catcher : Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian

·  Clips from: 90 Degrees South (Herbert Ponting, 1916-1933)

·  Clips: Congorilla (Martin and Asa Johnson, 1932)

·  Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty, 1922)

III.  Week Three:

Class 5 (Feb 1): A Lens on World: Films of Exploration and Travel (continued)

·  Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty) (continued)

Section: Required viewing: In Search of Nanook (55 min.)

Class 6 (Feb 3):

Part I: Researching Documentary Film/Discussion of Assignment I

Part II: Class 7 (Feb 8): Kino Pravda (Cinema Truth): Early Soviet Documentary

Screening:

·  Clips: Constructivism (Shock of the New)

Reading for next class:

·  Feldman, "Peace Between Man and Machine" (reader)

·  Barnow, 51-71

·  "Kino Eyes and Agit Trains" (reader)

·  Nichols, 95-98

Week Four:

Class 7 (Feb 8): Kino Pravda (Cinema Truth): Early Soviet Documentary (guest lecturer: Ann Nesbit)

Screening:

·  Clips: Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)

·  Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vetov, 1929)

·  Clips: Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (Esther Shubb, 1927)

Reading for next class:

·  Barnow, 71-81;

·  Nichols, pp. 88-90

·  Gaughan, Martin: "Ruttmann's Berlin: Filming in a "Hollow Space." (reader)

Class 8 (Feb 10): The Poetics of Modernity: City Films and other Documentary Experiments of the 1920's

Screening:

·  Clips from Shock of the New (Dada and Surrealism)

·  Clips from: Rhytmus 21 (Hans Richer, 1921); Ghosts Before Breakfast (Hans Richer, 1928); Emak Bakia (Man Ray, 1926); Ballet Mechanique (Ferdnand Leger, 1924)

·  Manhatta (Ralph Steiner, Charles Sheeler, 1921)

·  Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (Walter Ruttmann, 1927)

·  Rain (Joris Ivens, Mannus Franken,1929)

Reading for next class:

·  Grierson on Documentary (first principle of documentary) (reader)

·  Barnow, 85-100

·  Nichols, pp: 13-19; 139-148

·  Corner, John. Coalface and Housing Problems (reader)

Week 5:

Class 9-10 (Feb 15-17): John Grierson and the British Documentary Movement

Screening:

·  Clips from The Drifters (John Grierson, 1929)

·  Night Mail (Harry Watt, Basil Wright, 1939)

·  Coalface (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1935)

·  Housing Problems (Edgar Anstey, 1935)

Section: Required viewing: Grierson (59 min)

Reading for next class:

·  Barnow, 112-126

·  New Frontiers in American Documentary Film (reader) (also posted at: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/Huffman/Frontier/frontier.html)

Week Six:

Class 11-12: (Feb 21-24) Documentary and the Great Depression

Screening:

·  Plow That Broke the Plains (Pare Lorentz, 26 min)

·  The River (Pare Lorentz, 1938)

·  Clips: Native Land (Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand, 1942)

Read for next class:

Austin, Jacqueline

"A battle of wills : how Leni Riefenstahl and Frank Capra fought a war with film and remade history." In: Artistic strategy and the rhetoric of power : political uses of art from antiquity to the present / edited by David Castriota. Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, c1986.

--Main Stack NX650.P6.A781 1986

--Moffitt NX650.P6.A78 1986

Bazin, André; Cardullo, Bert, transl.

"On Why We Fight: History, Documentation, and the Newsreel (1946)." Film & History 2001 31(1): 60-62.

"Why We Fight (1942-45), Frank Capra's seven-part propaganda series about World War II, represents a new genre - the edited ideological documentary - in which the brilliant piecing together of newsreel film aims not so much at showing as at making a point." [America: History and Life]

Week Seven:

Class 13 (March 1): Documentary Goes to War

Screening;

·  Spanish Earth (Joris Ivens, 1937)

·  Why We Fight (Prelude to War) (Frank Capra, 1943)

·  Listen to Britain (Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister, 1942)

Read for next class:

·  Sontag, Susan, "Fascinating Fascism" (reader)

·  Nazi cinema

Class 14 (March 4): Documentary Goes to War

Watch: Wonderful, Horrible Life (section)

Class 11: (March 3) Post-War Documentary

Post War Doc

Neo-realism

Night and Fog

TV Doc

Week Eight:

Class 12-13: (March 8, March 10) Cinema Verite / Direct Cinema

Screen:

Chronicle of a Summer

Primary

Salesman

Titicutt Follies

Required viewing: Cinema Verite

Reading: Drew, Robert (Narration Can be a Killer) (Imagining Reality)

Eternal Verites

Documentary: I think we are in trouble

…Winston, Documentary Film: I think we are in trouble

Week Nine: Making Sense of the 70's: Documentary and Social Justice. Voices from the Margins

Classes 14-15 (March 15, 17)

Newsreel (Columbia on Strike)

Fall of the I-Hotel

Harlan County U.S.A.

Week Ten: March 21-25th Spring Break)

Documenting the Documentarian: Reflexivity

Week 11:

Thin Blue Line

No Lies