UC Berkeley - Film Studies Dept.

Course Viewing

Week One

Screening:

Real to Reel compilation tape: You can review the clips we'll be discussing in class online (you'll need Real Player installed on your machine.

Clips 1-14

Clips 15-19

Week Two

Class 3 (Jan 25): Cinema sur le Vif (Real Life Cinema): The Beginnings of Motion Pictures and the Prehistory of Documentary Film

Screening:

Muybridge sequence photograhy,

Lumiere Brothers (First Films)

Edison shorts

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

Screening:

Clips: Melies, Porter

Clips: Dawn of the Eye (about early newsreels) (10 min.)

Clips: Savage Acts (1904 St. Louis World's Fair) (5 min.)

Clips: The Shadow Catcher : Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian (12 min.)

Clips from: 90 Degrees South (Herbert Ponting, 1916-1933) (5 min.)

Clips: Congorilla (Martin and Asa Johnson, 1932) (8 min.)

Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty, 1922) (69 min.)

View in discussion section (Jan 26):

Nanook Revisited (55 min.)

Week Three

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

Screening

Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty) (continued)

Class 6 (Feb 3): Researching Documentary Film

Screening:

Clips: Constructivism/Soviet Avant Garde (Shock of the New)(6 min.)

Clips: Kino Pravda (Dziga Vertov, 1922-1925)

Week Four

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

Screening:

Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom) (Dziga Vertov, 1929) (68 min.)

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

Screening:

Clips: Shock of the New (Dada and Surrealism)(4 min.)

Clips from: Rhythmus 21 (Hans Richer, 1921); Ghosts Before Breakfast (Vormitagsspuk) (Hans Richer, 1928); Emak Bakia (Man Ray, 1926); Ballet Mechanique (Ferdnand Leger, 1924) (6 min.)

Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grossstadt) (Walter Ruttmann, 1927) (72 min.)

View in discussion section (Feb 9):

Manhatta (Ralph Steiner, Charles Sheeler, 1921) (10 min.)

Rain (Regen) (Joris Ivens, Mannus Franken,1929) (12 min.)

Required individual viewing before the end of next week:

Grierson (Media Resources Center Video/C 9412)

Week Five

Class 9 (Feb 15): The World on the Doorstep: John Grierson and the British Documentary Movement

Screening:

Clips: The Drifters (John Grierson, 1929)

Coalface (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1935) (12 min.)

Night Mail (Harry Watt, Basil Wright, 1939) (24 min.)

Housing Problems (Edgar Anstey, 1935) (15 min.)

Class 10 (Feb 17): American Documentary and the Great Depression

Screening:

Great Depression overview (11 min.)

Plow That Broke the Plains (Pare Lorentz, 1936) (26 min.)

Clips: Dawn of the Eye (1930's newsreels) (9 min.)

Clips: Native Land (Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand, 1942) (14 min.)

Week Six:

Class 11 (Feb 22): Hard Times: American Documentary and the Great Depression

Screening:

The River (Pare Lorentz, 1938) (30 min.)

Spanish Civil War newsreel/doc (5 min.)

Spanish Earth (Joris Ivens, 1937) (52 min.)

Class 12 (Feb. 24): Documentary Goes to War

Screening:

Listen to Britain (Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister, 1942) (19 min.)

Clips: Target for Tonight (Harry Watt, 1941) (15 min.)

Clips: Why We Fight (Prelude to War) (Frank Capra, 1943) (40 min.)

Clip: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939)

Required individual viewing before the end of next week:

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstal (Media Resources Center DVD 176)

Week Seven:

Class 13 (March 1): Documentary Goes to War(Guest Lecturer: Professor Anton Kaes)

Screening:

Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) (Leni Rienfenstahl, 1934) (120 min.)

Class 14: (March 3) Post-War Documentary

Screening:

Clip from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karl Reisz, 1960) (6 min.)

Clip from The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di Biciclette) (Vittorio De Sica, 1949) (10 min.)

Clips from Atomic Café (10 min.)

Clips from Harvest of Shame (David Lowe, CBS TV, 1960) (15 min.)

Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard) (Alain Resnais, 1955) (32 min.)

Required individual viewing before the end of next week:

Cinema Verité: Defining the Moment (Media Center VIDEO/C 7004)

Week Eight:

Class 15 (March 8): The Observers: Cinema Verité / Direct Cinema

Screening:

Chronicle of a Summer(Chronique d'un ete) (Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1960) (90 min.)

Screen in Section:

Direct Cinema (interview with Al and David Maysles) (52 min.) (Media Center VIDEO/C 5966)

Class 16 (March 10):Cinema Verité / Direct Cinema (continued)

Screening:

Clips from Primary (Drew Associates, 1960) (10 min.)

Salesman (Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, 1968) (90 min.)

Optional but highly recommended viewing:

Don't Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) (90 min.)

Week Nine:

Class 17 (March 15): Up Against the Wall and On the Battlements: 60's and 70s Documentary Activism

Screening:

Hearts and Minds(Peter Davis, 1974)(112 min.)

View in discussion section (Mar 16):

Clips: A 15 minute, 22 second tour of the 60's

Clips: Columbia Revolt (Newsreel, 1968) (15 min.)

Class 18 (March 17): Up Against the Wall and On the Battlements: The 60's and 70s Filmmaker as Activist/Participant

Screening:

Harlan County, USA (Barbara Kopple, 1976) (103 min.)

Week Ten:

Spring Break!!!

Week Eleven:

Class 19 (March 29): Voices from the Margins: "We Speak to You About Us"

Screening:

Clips: Word Is Out (Peter Adair, 1977)

A.k.a. Don Bonus (Spencer Nakasako, Sokly Ny, 1995) (55 min)

View in discussion section (March 30):

Clips: Eyes on the Prize (No Easy Walk, 1962-66)(Blackside Productions, 1986)

Class 21 (April 5): Reality Fictions: Frederick Wiseman

Screening:

Titicut Follies(Frederick Wiseman, 1967) (84 min.)

Week Thirteen:

Class 23: (April 12): Feminist Documentary Comes of Age: Reclaiming History

 Screening:

Clips: Women in the defense industry newsreel footage (3 min.)

The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter(Connie Field, 1980) (65 min.)

Class 24: (April 14): Feminist Documentary Comes of Age: Identity and Power

Screening:

Clips: Interviews with Julie Reichert and Michelle Citron (Women of Vision) (12 min.)

Clips: Growing Up Female (Julie Reichert, James Klein, 1971) (15 min.)

Daughter Rite(Michelle Citron, 1979) (53 min.)

Week Fourteen:

Class 25 (April 19): The Camera I: First-person Narratives, Family Narratives, and the Performance of Self

Screening:

Sherman's March (Ross McElwee, 1986) (155 min.)

Class 26 (April 21): The Camera I: First-person Narratives, Family Narratives, and the Performance of Self

Screening:

Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs, 1989) (55 min.)

Films of Sadie Benning

Week Fifteen:

Class 27 (April 26): The Camera I: First-person Narratives, Family Narratives, and the Performance of Self

Screening:

Intimate Stranger (Alan Berliner, 1991) (60 min.)

Class 28 (April 28): ): The Image Mirrored: The Reflexive Documentary

Screening:

Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988) (101 min.)

Week Sixteen:

Class 29 (May 3): The Image Mirrored: The Reflexive Documentary

Screening:

Roger and Me (Michael Moore, 1989) (90 min.)

Class 30 (May 5): Mixed Messages: The Mixed Mode Documentary

Screening:

Halving the Bones (Ruth Ozeki, 1995) (72 min.)

Week Seventeen:

Class 30 (May 7): Mock-Docs, Docudramas, & Other Appropriations

Screening:

Clips: David Holzman's Diary (Jim McBride, 1967)

Clips: Homicide: Life on the Streets: The Documentary (Barbara Kopple)

Mao, The Real Man (Szilveszter Siklosi, 1994) (54 min.)