FAVz072 The Nature of Transition: Changes in American Cinema, 1908-1918

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2018
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Charlie Keil (lecturer), Mgr. Radomír D. Kokeš, Ph.D. (deputy)
Mgr. Martin Kos, Ph.D. (assistant)
Mgr. Ondřej Pavlík, Ph.D. (assistant)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Radomír D. Kokeš, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. Radomír D. Kokeš, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Fri 2. 11. 15:00–17:40 C34, Mon 5. 11. 10:00–11:40 C34, Tue 6. 11. 12:00–17:40 C34, Wed 7. 11. 9:00–11:40 C34
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 69 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/69, only registered: 0/69, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/69
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 10 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
This course investigates the various changes that American cinema underwent as it left behind a period often characterized as the “cinema of attractions,” but had not yet become the classical Hollywood cinema that we associate with the studio era. Concentrating on the transformation that film narrative and style underwent during this ten-year period, the course will also examine how the film industry changed, as exemplified by the move to the West Coast.
Learning outcomes
1) Students will learn about a specific period in American film history, the transitional era (1908-1918), and come to understand the distinct formal qualities, industrial changes, and cultural context of transitional cinema.
2) Students will learn how to detect and analyse period-specific filmic style, seeing a range of films from the transitional era and understanding how they operate.
3) Students will learn the principles of historiography, and understand how historians make decisions about periodization, classification, and causation.
4) Students will learn how a variety of historical agents (e.g. directors, industry executives, stars, even fans) acted in conjunction with historical forces to produce a transformational period in American filmmaking. Ideally, learning how transition in the American silent cinema occurred will help students learn how to better understand other types of cultural and social change.
Syllabus
  • Friday, November 2, 2018
    Lecture I: Introduction: The Nature of Transition: What, When, and Why
  • 15.00-16.00 Preparatory test (from all of lecture readings) plus screening
  • 16.20-18.00 Lecture I
  • Reading: Roberta Pearson, “Transitional Cinema,” in The Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 23-42.
  • Monday, November 5, 2018
    Lecture II: Changes to the Industry: Production, Distribution, Exhibition
  • 10.00-11:40 Lecture II
  • Reading: Charles Musser, “The Nickelodeon Era Begins: Establishing the Framework for Hollywood’s Mode of Representation,” Framework, 22/23 (Autumn 1983), pp. 4-11.
  • Tuesday, November 6, 2018
    Lecture III: Transitional Style, Focus on Narration: Thanhouser as Case Study
  • 12.00-13.00 Screening
  • 13.00-14.40 Lecture III
  • Reading: Kristin Thompson, “From Primitive to Classical,” in David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (New York: Routledge, 1985), pp. 157-173.
  • Lecture IV: Transitional Style, Focus on Editing: Griffith at Biograph as Case Study
  • 15.00-16.00 Screening
  • 16.00-17.40 Lecture IV
  • Reading: Tom Gunning, “Weaving a Narrative: Style and Economic Background in Griffith’s Biograph Films,” Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 6, 1 (Winter 1981), pp. 11-25.
  • Wednesday, November 7, 2018
    Lecture V: The Move to the West Coast and the Beginnings of Hollywood
  • 9.00-10.00 Screening; 10.10-11.50 Lecture
  • Reading: Jennifer Bean, “The Imagination of Early Hollywood: Movie-Land and the Magic Cities, 1914-1916,” in Early Cinema and the “National”, ed. Richard Abel, Giorgio Bertellini, and Rob King (Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing, Ltd., pp. 332-341.
Teaching methods
Lectures, screenings, readings
Assessment methods
1. Presence: Full time students: 100% presence at the lectures and screenings is required. Distance students: three absences are tolerated.
2. Two of written tests: (A) Preliminary test before the very first lecture from all of lecture readings. (B) Final exam from lectures and from following final exam readings:

Final exam readings:
Ben Brewster, “Periodization of Early Cinema,” in American Cinema’s Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices, ed. Charlie Keil and Shelley Stamp (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), pp. 66-75.

Charlie Keil, “Narration in the Transitional Cinema: The Historiographical Claims of the Unauthored Text,” Cinémas, 21, 2/3 (Spring 2011), pp. 107-130.

Charlie Keil, “D.W. Griffith and the Development of American Narrative Cinema,” in The Wiley-Blackwell History of American Film, ed. Cynthia Lucia, Arthur Simon, and Roy Grundmann (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2012), pp. 130-54.

Charlie Keil and Ben Singer, “Introduction: Movies and the 1910s,” in American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations, ed. Charlie Keil and Ben Singer (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009), pp. 1-25.

Shelley Stamp, “ ‘It’s a Long Way to Filmland’: Starlets, Screen Hopefuls and Extras in Early Hollywood,” in American Cinema’s Transitional Era, pp. 332-352.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
The course is taught only once.
General note: Obligatory 100% attendance (with the exception of distance students who are allowed to miss 2 out of 6 sessions).
Teacher's information
Charlie Keil is Principal of Innis College, professor of Cinema Studies Institute and Department of History at University of Toronto. Charlie Keil’s research has consistently focused on what he has termed the “transitional” period of early American cinema, understood to coincide with the single-reel era of production and stretching into the early feature period. As a counterpart to his research on American cinema, he has been engaged in a SSHRC-funded initiative with colleagues at Ryerson University, entitled Early Cinema Filmography of Ontario (www.ecfo.ca). He has also published in the areas of documentary, stardom, and modernism/modernity. His most recent books are two co-edited anthologies, one exploring the connections between humour and animation, entitled Funny Pictures, and the other the published proceedings of the 2010 Domitor conference, Beyond the Screen. His current projects are an investigation of the origins of Hollywood, both as a filmmaking centre and a symbolic site, and the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to D.W. Griffith. Select Publications: Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style and Filmmaking, 1907-1913. Madison, Wi.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001; A Companion to D.W. Griffith. Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Film Directors. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2018; Behind the Silver Screen: Editing and Special/Visual Effects. Co-edited with Kristen Whissel. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2016; Beyond the Screen: Institutions, Networks and Publics of Early Cinema. Co-edited with Marta Braun, Rob King, Paul Moore, and Louis Pelletier. Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing, 2012.
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