(You are advised to read through the recommended text, Republic of Images, week by week, as the course progresses. Chapters are indicated below. The first two chapters may be omitted.)

Week I [ Week starting Monday 27/02 ]

1. The Birth of Cinema:   1895-1910      [Text: ch. (1, 2) 3]

• Course introduction and overview                                                                                             
• Lecture (28/02):  The cinema of attractions. Spectacle vs Narrative. Illustrated by examples of early silent film (Lumière and Meliès).

No group screening, No Class

Week II [06 /03]

2. Emergence of a universal Art: Early Avant-gardes            [Text ch. 4 5 6]

Screening:      Bunuel/Dali: Chien Andalou

            Dulac: La souriante Madame Beudet

            René Clair : Entre'acte

            Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood, French Silent Film

Lecture:  Dada; Surrealist and impressionist avant garde cinema. 

Class:  Comparing cinematic impressionism & surrealism.

Week III   [13/03]

3. The Coming of Sound  1928-1934    [Text ch. 7 8]

Screening: René Clairr's A nous la liberté Give us Freedom

Lecture:  The Sound Revolution. Sound vs image, dvpmt of narrative ciné

Class: Sound & image, Style and meaning

Week IV:  [20/03]

4. French Cinema and the Popular Front        [Text ch. 9]

Screening:  Jean Renoir: La grande illusion  Grand Illusion

Lecture:  French cinema and the popular front. The auteur and history.

Discussion class: La grande illusion, populist film or personal vision?

Week  V [27/03]

5."Poetic realism"  or "Tragic populism"? 1935-1939      [Text ch. 9]

Screening: Renoir La bête humaine Human Beast 

Lecture: le fantastique social / tragic populism. The star as intertextual locus.

Discussion class: La bête humaine as poetic realist film.

Week VI [03/04]

6. French cinema of the Occupation (1939-1944)

Screening: Carné / Prévert: Les Enfants du paradis. (Children of Paradise)  

Lecture: French cinema of the Occupation. Processes of history and film production. mise en abyme

Discussion class: Theatricality and mise en abyme in Les Enfants du paradis.

Nb. 1^st Assignment due Thursday 13^th April

Week VII (10/04) 

7. The cinema of the IVth Republic               [Text ch. 11, 12]

Screening: Robert Bresson, Un condamné á mort s'est échappé / A Man Escaped

Lecture: Quality cinema and its margins. History and Realism

Discussion class: Style and meaning in A Man Escaped

MID-SEMESTER BREAK (14/04 ¨C 29/04)

Week VIII [02/05]

8.  French film noir          [Text ch. 12]

Screening: Louis Malle, Ascenseur pour l'echaffaud / Lift to the Scaffold

Lecture: Film noir as cultural cross-fertilisation. French femme fatale.

Discussion class: Ascenseur  as French film noir

9. The New Wave  1959-65            [Text ch. 13 14]

Week IX [09/05]

Screening: Truffaut:  Tirez sur le pianiste / Shoot the pianist 

Lecture: New Wave, Cahiers du cinema Truffaut and La politique des Auteurs

Discussion class: Tone and Style

Week X  [16/05 ]

Screening: Alain Resnais, Hiroshima mon amour  

Lecture: Resnais / Derrida, Reconstructing the Subject

Discussion class: Reflexivity, History and Memory

Week XI  (23/05)

Screening: JLGodard: Une femme est une femme / A Woman is a woman

Lecture:  Godard & Cinema,  un amour fou

Discussion class: Reflexivity and Gender

  nb.  Second Assignment due end week XI: Friday 26^th May

Week XII [30/05 ]   

Revision, Exam Preparation