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THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
Department of Global Communications
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Department of Media, Culture, and Communication
Course Title: Propaganda and Persuasion in International Cinema
Course No.: CM (AUP)/E.58.2170
Professors: John Downing (AUP) and Terence P. Moran (NYU)
Credits: 4 Credits (AUP) 4 Credits (NYU)
Class Schedule: Monday 30 May to Friday 17 June 2011
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course examines selected film classics of propaganda with particular emphasis on American and French culture and history. Background readings, class lectures, and models for analyzing the intersections of communication, film, myth, and propaganda, and visits to the Musée de l’Armée, Napoleon’s Tomb, the Dôme Church, Cinémathèque Française, and the Arc de Triomphe will be used to structure a learning environment in which the class will analyze specific films for their aesthetic, cultural, informative, mythic, and persuasive communication. In our analyses and discussions, we will examine the relationships between communication and propaganda, art and propaganda, information and propaganda, and myth and propaganda, with the goal of gaining some understanding of the roles played by moving image media (film, video, digital) in national and global persuasion. Our goal is to provide students with some critical thinking models and techniques that will allow them to conduct their own analyses of contemporary efforts to use moving image media to convey both political and sociological propaganda.
The course will be structured as a seminar in which all of us will share our own critical thinking analyses with each other. At the end of the course, we should all share a richer knowledge and understanding of the history of film as propaganda and of how to analyze films for their mythic and propagandistic structures and impacts. Three papers will compare three sets of two propaganda films: American and French History as Propaganda, Propaganda and War, and The Colonial and Anti-Colonial Cinema.
REQUIREMENTS:
I. Absence Policy/Participation
Active participation by all students is required for this course, which will meet for
three weeks. It is designed to be an intensive class experience. Students are
expected to complete the assigned readings for each class session and to come
to class with specific responses to and questions about the readings for our class
discussions. You should plan to give at least two hours of study for each class, plus
time for screenings of the films to be studied. If you miss a class, please ask a
classmate for his/her notes. Any absence will affect your work/grade, and
four absences will result in your administrative withdrawal from the course.
For each of the films, you will write a two-page response that answers the
following questions:
- What are the central myth and hero in the film?
2. What are the central propaganda messages caused by the film?
3. What film techniques and technology are used to carry and/or reinforce the
mythic and propaganda messages?
4. What is your own response to the film, its messages, and its form?
Value = 25%
II. Essay Assignments
You write three ten (10) page scholarly papers comparing three sets of
assigned films, using your own critical analyses and proper use/citation
of the readings assigned for the films.
- The Silent Cinema: The Birth of a Nation(USA 1914) and Napoleon (France
1927) Due Monday 6 June Value = 25%
2. Propaganda and War: La Grande Illusion (France 1937) and Paths of Glory
(USA 1957).
Due Tuesday 14 June Value = 25%
3. The Colonial and Anti-Colonial Cinema: Casablanca (USA 1943) and The
Battle of Algiers (Algeria - Italy 1966).
Due Monday 20 June Value = 25%
Each essay should be organized to respond to the following protocols in the order
given by answering the four clustered questions in a separate paragraph for each
cluster. Use the assigned readings, the films, and your own critical thinking.
- Identify and compare the context for each film. What was the historical
environment within which each film was made? How was the film financed? Who were the central people involved? What was the cultural, economic, political, etc. structure of the film’s production? What were the techniques and technologies of filmmaking available to the filmmakers? Was the film an example of what Jacques Ellul calls agitative/political or integrative/sociological propaganda?
- Identify and compare the central myth and hero in each film. How are they similar and how are they different? Be specific and concrete.
- Identify and compare the central propaganda messages carried by the hero and the myth in each film. How are they similar and how are they different? Be specific and concrete.
- What is your own response to each film? What aspects (filmic, mythic, propagandistic) did you respond to most strongly (positively or negatively)? Why do you think you responded as you did? What did you learn from the comparison?
NOTE: All written work (responses and comparisons) must be submitted on the dates due, must conform to an identified style guide, must be typed and double-spaced using standard typeface, must be paginated, and must be fastened with a single staple or paper clip. Proper scholarly style and source referencing are expected to be the norm for graduate coursework.
SCHEDULE OF CLASS MEETINGS AND FILMS
WEEK ONE
Mon. 30 May Introduction and Orientation
Tues. 31 May Film, Myth, and Propaganda
Wed. 1 June The Silent Film (USA): The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Thurs. 2 June HOLIDAY NO CLASS
Fri. 3 June The Silent Film (France): Napoléon (1927)
Sat. 4 June Comparison of The Birth of a Nation and Napoléon as Film, Myth,
And Propaganda. Introduction to The Call to Arms Cinema.
EXTRA: Visit to Hôtel des Invalides – Musée de l’Armée and Napoleon’s
Tomb.
WEEK TWO
Mon. 6 June Propaganda and War: Discussion
Tues. 7 June World War I: La Grande Illusion (France 1937)
Weds. 8 June Analysis and Discussion of La Grande Illusion
Thurs. 9 June World War I: Paths of Glory (USA 1957)
Fri. 10 June Comparison of La Grande Illusion and Paths of Glory as Film,
Myth, and Propaganda.
EXTRA: Visit to the Cinémathèque Française
WEEK THREE
Mon. 13 June HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Tues. 14 June Introduction to Colonial and Anti-Colonial Cinema
as Film, Myth, and Propaganda.
Wed. 15 June Colonial Cinema : Casablanca (USA 1943)
Thurs. 16 June Anti-Colonial Cinema: The Battle of Algiers (Algeria – Italy 1966)
Fri. 17 June Comparison of Colonial, Anti-Colonial, and Neo-Colonial Cinema
as Film, Myth, and Propaganda. Summing Up: All questions
answered; all answers questioned.
EXTRA: Visit to the Arc de Triomphe
SCHEDULE OF REQUIRED READINGS (on Blackboard in pdf format)
WEEK ONE
Mon. 30 May Syllabus
Tues. 31 May Film (Monaco 3-45, 121-191); Myth (Campbell 1-37, 329-337);
Propaganda (Ellul v-xviii, 6-87)
Wed. 1 June The Birth of a Nation (Schickel 212-250) and (Silva i-viii, 1-15)
Thurs. 2 June HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Fri. 3 June Napoleon (Brownlow 9-11, 31-45, 150-160, 257-286)
Sat. 4 June
WEEK TWO
Mon. 6 June Introduction to War Films (AMC filmsite, War Films);
(Secunda/Moran 1-10)
Tues. 7 June La Grande Illusion (Cowie)
Wed. 8 June
Thurs. 9 June Paths of Glory (Dirks)
Fri. 10 June
WEEK THREE
Mon. 13 June HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
Tues. 14 June
Wed. 15 June Casablanca (Secunda/ Moran 47-74); (Koppes and Black 287-
290)
Thurs. 16 June The Battle of Algiers (Horne 183-207) and (Solinas, ix-xviii, 161-
202)
Fri. 17 June Discussion and review of course themes and debates.
REQUIRED TEXTS (Available on Blackboard in pdf format)
WEEK ONE:
Film, Myth, and Propaganda
James Monaco, How to Read a Film: The Art, Technology, Language, History, and Theory of Film and Media, revised edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton University Press, 1949).
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965).
The Birth of a Nation
Richard Schickel, D.W. Griffith (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).
Fred Silva, ed. Focus on “Birth of a Nation” (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1971).
Napoleon
Kevin Brownlow, Napoleon (London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1983).
WEEK TWO:
Tim Dirks, AMCfilmsite, War Films (
Eugene Secunda and Terence P. Moran, Selling War to America: From the Spanish American War to the Global War on Terror (Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 2007), Introduction.
La Grande Illusion
Jean Renoir, My Life and My Films, 3rd edition (Da Capo Paperback, 2000).
Jean Renoir et al. The Complete Films (Taschen, 2007).
Paths of Glory
Anthony Clayton, Paths to Glory: The French Army 1914-1918 (Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2007).
Humphrey Cobb et al. Paths of Glory (Penguin Classic, 2010)
Rodney Hill and Gene D. Phillips, The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick (Library of Great Filmmakers (Checkmark Books, 2002).
Lawrence H. Suid, Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film (Louisville: University of Kentucky Press, 2002).
WEEK THREE:
Casablanca
Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Goes to War (New York: The Free Press, 1987).
Secunda and Moran, Chapter 3: The Good War – World War II.
The Battle of Algiers
Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York: The Viking Press, 1978).
Piernico Solinas, ed., Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers” (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978).