The Past on Film
THURS, 1:10-3:30; Tues:1:10-2:30M.S. Roth 685 3500
Goldsmith Family Cinema
The Past on Film examines how films represent the past and how they can help us understand crucial questions in the philosophy of history. We begin with a brief consideration of documentary cinema. How do documentary films achieve what Roland Barthes called “the reality effect?” How is the insinuation of reality onto the screen connected to the work of a strong author or artist? How can such an author subvert his or her own realism? We then move on to classic narrative films to examine how tensions between story telling and documentation. After discussions of films that seem to aim explicitly at historical reconstruction (like Night and Fog and Maelstrom) most of the semester will be spent with films whose narratives and mechanisms of representation help us to engage questions about the depiction of the past.
The films shown in this class are “good to think with.” That is, we will find that by thinking with and about these movies we will be able to better understand some fundamental issues in philosophy, especially the philosophy of history. Some of these questions are: how can you accurately represent the past? How is memory related to identity? How is trauma related to identity and representation? How can a person change and remain the same person? What is multiple identity?
The films will be shown on Thursday afternoons. We will discuss the films and the readings on Tuesday during class. Attendance at the screenings and lectures is mandatory. If you find it helpful to see the films more than once, almost all of them are readily available on DVD or video. Grades in the course will be based on three exams (with take-home and in-class components), weekly posts in which you respond to the readings, and a summary report of your “weekly post group.” Students are required to email responses each week to discussion groups on Moodle by Sunday at noon. Each week, one student from the group will write a 2-3 page paper summarizing the posts, and engaging with them or raising questions about them. You will sign up for this task on the first Tuesday session of the semester. Readings will either be on Moodle or Electronic Reserve. The posts and summary paper will count for 15% of the final grade. The first take home is worth 20% of the final grade, the second take home is worth 25%, and the final exam is worth 40%. Due dates are listed below. Late exams will have their grades reduced. Full references to the readings below can be found on Moodle under “Reader.” Dr. Joe Fitzpatrick is grading most of the work, but I am available to look over any exams or papers.
In addition to the exams, you have the choice of developing a research paper for the course. This is optional. If you choose to do a research paper, you should plan for it to be about 12-15 pages long, and you must discuss the topic with me in advance and have it approved. Proposals for the papers should be submitted before Spring Break. Research papers will be due at the end of the semester. For those who write the paper, the grades will be composed of the following components: Exam 1: 20%; Exam 2, 20%; Final Exam: 25%; Paper: 25%, and Moodle posts/class Participation: 10%. Office Hours are from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. on Mondays in the President’s Office. Some Tuesdays are available as well.
Week I: January 20, 25 — Impossible Reconstruction
Alain Resnais, Night and Fog (1955)
Claude Lanzmann, extracts from Shoah
Plato, Allegory of the Cave, from Republic (4th cen, BCE)
Kant, “Preface to the Second Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason” (1787)
Michael Roth, “Shoah as Shivah” (1995)
Emma Wilson, “Material Remains: Night and Fog”October (2005)
A.O. Scott, “Never Forget. You’re Reminded” NY Times, Nov. 23, 2008.
Week II: January 27; February 1 — From Home Movies to History
Peter Forgacs, Maelstrom (1997)
Rea Tajiri, History and Memory (1991)
Hegel, Preface to the Philosophy of Right (1821)
Sigfried Kracauer, “Film in Our Time” from Theory of Film (1960)
Roth, “Ordinary Film” (2005)
Karen Ishizuka and Patricia Zimmerman,"The Home Movie and the National Film Registry: The Story of Topaz (2008)
Bill Nichols, “The Memory of Loss” (2003)
Nichols, “Why are Ethical Issues Central to Documentary Filmmaking?” (2001) [optional]
Week III: February 3; 8 — What is Postmodern Documentary?
Andrew Jarecki, Capturing The Friedmans (2003)
Hayden White, “Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth in Historical Representation” (1999)
Linda Williams, “Mirrors without Memories” (1998)
Marnie Hughes_Warrington, chapters 5 and 6 of History Goes to the Movies (2007), 101-143.
Paul Arthur, “True Confessions, Sort of: Capturing the Friedmans and the Dilemma of Theatrical Documentary” (2003)
A.O. Scott, “How Real Does it Feel,” (2010);
First Exam: essay portion due Thursday, February 10
Week IV: Februray 10, 15 - Can We Know the Past? What kind of knowledge would it be?
Akira Kurosowa, Rashomon (1950)
Allan Megill, “Does Narrative Have a Cognitive Value of its Own?” from Historical Knowledge, Historical Error, 63-77
Donald Richie, "Rashomon" from The Films of Akira Kurosawa (1996), 70-80
Robert van Es, “Persistent Ambiguity and Moral Responsibility in Rashomon,” (2002).
William Guynn, “Introduction: Facing the Skepticism of Historians” Writing History in Film (2006), 1-22.
Week V: February 17; 22 — Memory, Trauma and Representation
Alain Resnais, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1960)
F. Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of History for Life (1873)
Roth, “You Must Remember This” (1995)
Emma Wilson, “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” in Alain Resnais (2006)
Andrew Slade, “Hiroshima Mon Amour, Trauma, and the Sublime” (2004)
Week VI: Feb 24; March 1 — How (not) to Remember
Francois Truffaut, The Green Room (1978)
Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917)
Roth, “Freud’s Use and Abuse of the Past” (1995)
Eelco Runia. “Burying the Dead, Creating the Past,” History and Theory (2007)
Michael Klein, “Truffaut's Sanctuary: "The Green Room", Film Quarterly (1980)
Henry James, Alter of the Dead [optional]
Week VII: March 3; 22 — Economic Miracles and the Erasure of the Past
Werner Fassbinder, The Marriage of Maria Braun
Marx, Communist Manifesto
Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”
Theodor Adorno, “Transparencies on Film” (1966)
Gary Indiana, “Germany Inside Him: Rainer Fassbinder and the Spell of Dystopia,” (2008)
Anton Kaes, “The Presence of the Past” in From Hitler to Heimat (1992)
Second Exam: essay portion due Thursday, March 24
Week VIII: March 24; 29 — Forgetting Who You Are
Melvin LeRoy, Random Harvest (1942)
Oliver Sacks, “The Last Hippie,” from An Anthropologist on Mars, 42-76 (1995)
E. Ann Kaplan, “Introduction and Chapter One” from Trauma Culture (2005)
Ian Hacking, “Making Up People,” (1985) from Historical Ontology (2002)
Sallie Baxendale, “Memories Aren’t Made of This: Amnesia at the movies” (2004)
Oliver Sacks, “The Abyss,” The New Yorker (Sept 24, 2007):
Also in Musicophilia [Optional]
Week IX: March 31; April 5 — Becoming Who You Are
King Vidor, Stella Dallas (1937)
Linda Williams, Something Else besides a Mother": "StellaDallas" and the Maternal Melodrama"(1984)
E. Ann Kaplan, Response to Williams (1985)
Cavell, “Stella’s Taste: Reading Stella Dallas” from Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman (1996)
Ian Hacking, “Self Improvement” (1984)
Week X: April 7; 12 — Recognition and Avoidance: Can I Change and Still Be Me?
Preston Sturges, The Lady Eve (1941)
Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” (1784)
Stanley Cavell, "Cons and Pros: The Lady Eve" (1981)
Christine Geraghty, “Re-examining stardom: questions of texts, bodies and
performance” from Reinventing Film Studies (2000)
Molly Haskell, “From Reverence to Rape” (1973) Film Theory and Criticism
Week XI: April 14; 19 — No Future, Just Past
Jacques Tourneur, Out of the Past (1947)
Nietzsche, selections from Beyond Good and Evil (1885)
Nietzsche, essay one from Genealogy of Morals (1887)
Hayden White, on Nietzsche from Metahistory, 331-374 (1975)
Jans B. Wager, Dames in the Driver’s Seat. 1-35 (2005)
Mark T. Conard, “Nietzsche and the Meaning and Definition of Noir” (2006)
WEEK XII: April 21; 26 — What is Dependence? How is it Declared? Or, Who is that Woman?
Hitchcock, Vertigo (1958)
Slavoj Zizek, “How the Non-duped Err” (1992)
Tania Modleski, “Femininity by Design” (1988)
Robin Wood, “Vertigo” (1965)
William Rothman, “Vertigo: The Unknown Woman in Hitchcock”
WEEK XIII: April 28; May 3 – What Are We Permitted to Forget?
Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (1993)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Experience” (1841)
Thomas Wartenberg, “Arguing Against Utilitarianism: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” from Thinking on Screen (2007)
Chirstopher Grau, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the Morality of Memory” from Thinking Through Cinema: Film as Philosophy, 119-133. (2006)
FINAL EXAM: Thursday, May 12