FAVBKa020 History of Film Theories till 1945

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2021
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.
Course objectives
The course will analyse various discourses on cinema, as well as contemporary reflections of cinema. We will focuse, e.g., on the relation between the cinematography and modernity. The development of period discourses related to cinema and influential theoretical concepts (Ejzenštejn, Kulešov, Epstein, Kracauer, Benjamin, etc.) will be monitored in a primarily national and linguistic frameworks (United States, Russia, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia), but will take into account the transnational dimension of film avant-garde and the film club movement. The students will be familiarized with the main trends in the discussion on the media and will understand the contemporary theoretical concepts in a broader institutional and socio-cultural context.
Learning outcomes
After finishing this course, students will be able to formulate the main changes in the theoretical, critical and methodological reflection of cinema, as well as understand them in the relevant historical context. The knowledge provided by the lectures will give the students the capacity to understand how the history of discourses on cinema can be analysed. Besides, they will acquire the competence for understanding the contemporary research tendencies in a wider perspective and recognize continuities, as well as paradigmatic changes.
Syllabus
  • - modernity and early cinema,
  • - USA: the discourse on cinema spectatorship, sociological research of cinema reception,
  • - Germany: Kinodebatte; reformist movement in cinematography, left-wing and right-wing film press,
  • - France: disourses on cinema as science, art, educational tool, etc.
  • - Russia: Proletkult, LEF, montage aesthetics,
  • - Czech lands: early cinema discourse and moral panic; leftist avant-garde and film.
Literature
  • Singer, Ben: Melodrama and Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001
  • Abel, Richard: French Film Theory and Criticism. Princeton University Press, 1993
  • Tsivian, Yuri: Early Cinema in Russia and Its Cultural Reception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998
  • Anděl, Jaroslav - Szczepanik, Petr: Stále kinema. Antologie českého myšlení o filmu, 1904-1950. Praha: NFA, 2008
  • Hake, Sabine: The Cinema’s Third Machine. Writing on Film in Germany, 1907-1933 (1993)
Teaching methods
Lecture. Contact lectures will be devoted to the introduction to the topic and selected topics that are not supported by the obligatory and recommended literature. An online textbook is available for the students.
Assessment methods
Exam: continuous tests and a final test. Brief tests written during the lectures will check the knowledge of assigned readings and movies, as well as of the lectures topics in detail (60%), while the final test will confirm the knowledge of the presented topics in wider perspective (40%).
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
The course is taught once in two years.
The course is taught: in blocks.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2019, Autumn 2021, Autumn 2023.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2021, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2021/FAVBKa020