FAVz075 Inter-Textuality. Rhetoric and Heritage in Cinematic Texts

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2019
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Aner Preminger (lecturer), PhDr. Jaromír Blažejovský, Ph.D. (deputy)
Mgr. Ondřej Pavlík, Ph.D. (assistant)
Mgr. BcA. Miroslav Vlček, Ph.D. (assistant)
Guaranteed by
PhDr. Jaromír Blažejovský, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Patrycja Astrid Twardowska
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 18. 2. 10:00–11:40 C34, 14:00–15:40 C34, Tue 19. 2. 16:00–17:40 C34, 18:00–19:40 C34, Wed 20. 2. 13:00–14:40 C34, Thu 21. 2. 14:00–15:40 C34, Mon 25. 2. 10:00–11:40 C34, 12:00–13:40 C34, Tue 26. 2. 12:00–13:40 C34, 16:00–17:40 C34, 18:00–19:40 C34, Wed 27. 2. 13:00–14:40 C34, Thu 28. 2. 14:00–15:40 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
The course introduces inter-textuality as a key method to understand cinematic text. What is inter-textuality? How does a given text activate number of additional texts simultaneously? Intertextual reading of films is examined in the broader context of intertextual reading of cultural texts wherever they are and in the context of the fundamental significance of intertextuality in any language.
How does a cinematic text use earlier cinematic texts? Is this just a possible option, or is it a necessary part of the process of a growing language layers upon layers? What is the difference between homage, reverberation, quotation, allusion, influence, rewrite, misreading, miswriting, and parody? The course will discuss inter-textual theories as those of Michael Riffaterre and Harold Bloom and their application to films, with reference to a variety of works from the cinematic canon.
Learning outcomes
At the end of the course students should be able to read any film in the context of the international cinematic utterance and history as well as in its own cultural, social and political context. The students will be exposed to the complex dialogue mechanism through which films interact among themselves and with other cultural texts. Understanding that there are not closed texts and in order to fully interpret any text it must be treated as an open text. Internalize a new observation of cinema as a whole organism whose organs are the individual films made during the development of the medium. The students will explore the relationship between cinema and literature, poetry, theater, semiotics, and other cultural disciplines using key inter-textual theories.
Syllabus
  • Session 1
  • Monday 18 February 10.00–11.40
  • Introduction; what is the issue; raising questions.
  • Screening film clips:
  • Battleship Potemkin/Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1925
  • The Untouchables/Brian De Palma, USA, 1987
  • We All Loved Each Other So Much/Ettore Scola, Italy, 1974
  • Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult/Peter Segal, USA, 1994
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwM7NgPE5lw
  • Session 2
  • Monday 18 February 14.00–15.40
  • Formal definitions: text, inter-text, linguistic inter-textuality, rhetoric inter-textuality, Cinematic intertextuality.
  • Methodology. The academic discourse.
  • Non-cinematic examples.
  • Film clips from session 1
  • Session 3
  • Tuesday 19 February 16.00–17.40
  • Reading and summary of:
  • Eliot T.S., 1950 (1919), Tradition and the individual talent in: T.S. Eliot - Selected essays, New Edition, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New-York.
  • Session 4
  • Tuesday 19 February 18.00–19.40
  • Reflexive Cinema; Myths; literature; culture.
  • Screening of Sherlock Junior/Buster Keaton, USA, 1924
  • Uncle Josh at The Moving Picture Show/Edwin S. Porter, USA, 1902
  • Clip from: The Purple Rose of Cairo/Woody Allen, USA, 1985
  • Session 5
  • Wednesday 20 February 13.00–14.40
  • Noe-realism as a basic inter-text in modern cinema.
  • Introducing Zavattini’s “A Thesis on Neo-Realism” (1953) in: Springtime In Italy, P.67-78, 1978, Overbey David (Ed. & Trans.), The shoe String Press, Inc., Great Britain.
  • Film clips from:
  • Bicycle Thieves/Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1949
  • We All Loved Each Other So Much/Ettore Scola, Italy, 1974
  • Blow-Up/Michelangelo Antonioni, England, 1966
  • Session 6
  • Thursday 21 February 14.00–15.40
  • Reading and summary of:
  • Zavattini, C.,1953, A Thesis on Neo-Realism, in: Springtime In Italy, P.67-78, 1978, Overbey David (Ed. & Trans.), The shoe String Press, Inc., Great Britain.
  • Film clips from:
  • Bicycle Thieves/Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1949
  • We All Loved Each Other So Much/Ettore Scola, Italy, 1974
  • Blow-Up/Michelangelo Antonioni, England, 1966
  • Session 7
  • Monday 25 February 10.00–11.40
  • Classical Hollywood and Italian Neo-realism as inter-texts in Antonioni’s cinema
  • Blow-Up/Michelangelo Antonioni, England, 1966
  • Session 8
  • Monday 25 February 12.00–13.40
  • Blow-Up turns to be a canonical inter-text
  • Film clips from:
  • Blow-Up/Michelangelo Antonioni, England, 1966
  • Paris, Texas/Wim Wenders, USA, 1984
  • Blow Out/Brian De Palma, USA, 1981
  • The Conversation/Fancis Ford Coppola, USA, 1974
  • Session 9
  • Tuesday 26 February 12.00–13.40
  • Reading and summary of:
  • Bloom, H., 1975, A Map of Misreading, p.3-26, London: Oxford UP. Harold Bloom’s theory of “The Anxiety of Influence”. Misreading. Why the concept of “homage” should be replaced by the concept of “misreading”
  • Clips from:
  • Casablanca/Michael Curtiz, USA, 1942
  • Play it again Sam/Herbert Ross; Woody Allen, USA, 1972
  • À Bout de Souffle/Breathless, Jean-Luc Goddard, France, 1959
  • Session 10
  • Tuesday 26 February 16.00–17.40
  • Classical cinema as an inter-text in the French New wave cinema.
  • Clips from:
  • Vivre sa Vie/To live her life, Jean-Luc Goddard, France 1962 La Passion de Jeanne D’Arc/The Passion of Joan of Arc, Carl Dreyer, France, 1928
  • La Nuit Américaine/Day for Night, François Truffaut, France, 1973
  • Session 11
  • Tuesday 26 February 18.00–19.40
  • Introducing Michael Riffaterre, Compulsory Reader Response: The Intertextual Drive in: Intertextuality: Theories and practices (ed. Worton and Still). Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1990, Ch 3, pp56-78.
  • Implying the combination of Riffaterre and Bloom’s theories to create a new inter-textual methodology
  • Film clips from:
  • La Nuit Américaine/Day for Night, François Truffaut, France, 1973
  • Les Quatre Cents Coups/400 Blows, François Truffaut, France, 1959
  • La Peau Douce/The Soft Skin, François Truffaut, France, 1964
  • L'Amour en Fuite/Love on the Run, François Truffaut, France, 1979
  • Session 12
  • Wednesday 27 February 13.00–14.40
  • Implying the combination of Riffaterre and Bloom’s theories to create a new inter-textual methodology
  • Film clips from:
  • La Nuit Américaine/Day for Night, François Truffaut,France, 1973
  • Les Quatre Cents Coups/400 Blows, François Truffaut, France, 1959
  • La Peau Douce/The Soft Skin, François Truffaut, France, 1964
  • L'Amour en Fuite/Love on the Run, François Truffaut, France, 1979
  • La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life, Federico Fellini, Italy, 1960
  • Vertigo/Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1958
  • Intervista/Federico Fellini, Italy, 1987
  • Session 13
  • Thursday 28 February 14.00–15.40
  • Summary and conclusion.
  • Screening of Front Window/Aner Preminger
Literature
  • PREMINGER, Aner, 2007, François Truffaut Rewrites Alfred Hitchcock: A Pygmalion Trilogy, Literature/Film quarterly (LFQ), July, Vol. 35:3, p. 170-180. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
  • BEN-PORAT, Ziva. 1976, The Poetics of Literary Allusion, PTL, 1, 105-128.
  • GODARD, Jean-Luc & ISHAGHPOUR, Youssef, 2005, Cinema The Archeology of Film and the Memory of a Century, Trans. John Howe, Berg, Oxford, New York.
  • WORTON, Michael & STILL, Judith, 1990, Intertextuality: Theories and Practices, Manchester: Manchester UP.
  • MacKENZIE, Scott (Editor), 2014, Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures A Critical Anthology, University of California Press.
  • ELIOT, Thomas Stearns, 1950 (1919), Tradition and the individual talent in: Selected essays, New Edition by T.S. Eliot.
  • RIFFATERE, Michael, 1990, Compulsory reader response: the intertextuality drive, In: Intertextuality, Ch. 3, p. 56-78.
  • KRISTEVA, Julia, 1967, Bakhtine: Le Mot, le Dialogue et le Roman, Critique No. 239 (Avril), pp. 438-465.
  • PREMINGER, Aner, 2015, François Truffaut: Cinema as an act of love – An intertextual approach, ContentoNow Publication, Tel-Aviv, Sapir Academic College Publication, Sederot, Israel.
  • KLINE, T. Jefferson. 1992, Screening The Text: Intertextuality in New Wave French Cinema, Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins UP.
  • FISCHER, Lucy. 1989, Shot/Counter Shot, Film Tradition and Women's Cinema.
  • KRISTEVA, Julia, 1967, 1968, Problèmes de la Structuration du Texte, in: Théorie d’ensemble.
  • PREMINGER, Aner, 2004, The Human Comedy of Antoine Doinel: From Honoré de Balzac to François Truffaut, The European Legacy: Journal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas: (ISSEI), Vol. 9, No. 2, pp.173-193, 2004.
  • ZAVATTINI, Cesare,1953, A Thesis on Neo-Realism, in: Springtime In Italy, P.67-78, 1978, Overbey David (Ed. & Trans.), The shoe String Press, Inc., Great Britain.
  • STAM, Robert. François Truffaut and friends : modernism, sexuality, and film adaptation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006, xvi, 239. ISBN 0813537258. info
  • STAM, Robert. Film theory : an introduction. 1st pub. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2000, x, 381. ISBN 9780631206538. info
  • BLOOM, Harold. The anxiety of influence : a theory of poetry. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, xlvii, 157. ISBN 9780195112214. info
  • KRISTEVA, Julia. The Kristeva reader. Edited by Toril Moi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, 327 s. ISBN 0231063253. info
  • BLOOM, Harold. A map of misreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975, 206 s. ISBN 0195028090. info
Teaching methods
Define and categorize the different types of resonance between texts. Identify homage, reverberation, quotation, allusion, influence, rewrite, misreading, miswriting, and parody. Interpret and evaluate any film - based on intertextual approach. Thorough discussion of intertextuality theories and approaches by: T.S. Eliot; Julia Kristeva; Ziva Ben-Porat;, Harold Bloom; Michael Riffaterre; and Aner Preminger. Three (3) articles will be read before class. Students must read these relevant selected articles and summarize them in one (1) page. Other articles will be read together in class. The articles are discussed and learnt in class using examples from the international cinematic cannon. In most sessions clips of different films that demonstrate the inter-textual approaches and the different types of texts echo each other as well as the different inter-textual functions and their implications for the interpretation of the text.
Assessment methods
Course requirements - Grade and attendance policy Attendance to all classes and screenings is obligatory. Written assignment or exam: A final paper on a pre-approved topic, or a final written exam will be given in accordance of the department requirement and with the department cooperation and assistance. It is recommended that the exact form of this final project/exam will be discussed together in person as I arrive. One page reaction paper to each article that is read by the students before class. Grade policy: Attendance and class participation – 10-15% Final paper or project – 60% Reaction papers – 25-30%
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
Filmography:

Woody Allen: Play it again Sam/Herbert Ross, USA, 1972; The Purple Rose of Cairo, USA, 1985

Michelangelo Antonioni: Blow-Up, England, 1966

Francis Ford Coppola: The Conversation, USA, 1974

Michael Curtiz: Casablanca, USA, 1942

Brian De Palma: Blow Out, USA, 1981; Scarface, USA, 1983; The Untouchables, USA, 1987

Vittorio De Sica: Ladri di Biciclette/Bicycle Thieves, Italy, 1949

Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly: Singin’ in the Rain, USA, 1952

Carl Th. Dreyer: La Passion de Jeanne D’Arc/The Passion of Joan of Arc, France, 1928

Sergei Eisenstein: Bronenosets Potyomkin/Battleship Potemkin, USSR, 1925

Federico Fellini: Le Notti di Cabiria/Nights of Cabiria, Italy, 1956; La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life, Italy, 1960; Intervista, Italy, 1987

Jean-Luc Goddard: À Bout de Souffle/Breathless, France, 1959; Vivre sa Vie/To live her life, France 1962

Howard Hawks: Scarface, USA, 1932

Alfred Hitchcock: Rear Window, USA, 1954; Vertigo, USA, 1958

Buster Keaton: Sherlock Junior, USA, 1924

Richard Linklater: Before Sunrise, USA, 1995; Before Sunset, USA, 2004; Before Midnight, USA, 2013; Boyhood, USA, 2014

Edwin S. Porter: Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show, USA, 1902

Aner Preminger: Front Window, Israel, 1990

Ettore Scola: We All Loved Each Other So Much, Italy, 1974

Peter Segal: Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, USA, 1994

Steven Spielberg: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, USA, 1977

Josef von Sternberg: Der Blaue Engel/The Blue Angel, USA/Germany, 1930

Erich von Stroheim: Queen Kelly, USA, 1928

Quentin Tarantino: Kill Bill, USA, 2004

François Truffaut: Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows, France, 1959; La Peau Douce/The Soft Skin, France, 1964; La Mariée Était en Noir/The Bride wore Black, France 1967; La Nuit Américaine/Day for Night, France, 1973; L'Amour en Fuite/Love on the Run, France, 1979

Wim Wenders: Paris, Texas, USA, 1984

Billy Wilder: Sunset Boulevard, USA, 1950; The Seven Year Itch, USA, 1955

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