PREREQUISITES

None. Open only to those with freshman class standing. An active and open mind and a willingness to work hard are desirable, but technically cannot be listed as prerequisites.1

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES

        Lenin2 described film as “the most important art.”  He said that because during his time it was one of the few mediums by which one could reach a mass audience.  He actually said this even before films had sound or color.   Today, this probably isn’t true.  If we use Lenin’s criterion for importance, film was probably superseded in its ability to reach people soon thereafter by mass circulation newspapers and magazines as well as radio.  These were in turn superseded by television.  If the anti-globalization protestors of today had a Lenin among them, they no doubt would point to the internet as the most important medium.3

        What film, mass circulation magazines (think Life or Look), television, and the internet share in common, is that they are all primarily visual media.  Increasingly in our world visual media have become the most important source of information for us in our daily lives, supplanting even print media (like newspapers) and sound media (like radio).4   So the purpose of this course is to make you more critical viewers of such visual media. If these are the sorts of media that dominate the way that you acquire information for the rest of your life, it makes sense to become more aware of how the medium itself influences you. The techniques of analysis that we will learn in here are not associated with any political point of view, though I do have one. And even if you disagree with my political point of view, you will still benefit from the kinds of skills I will try to teach you. My point is to help you from passively accepting the political messages embedded in the visual images with which you will be bombarded for the rest of your life. Instead, the point here is to help you to consciously identify them and even to help you to think about them critically.
So the purpose of this course is to turn you into a skeptical and critical viewer of visual media, and for our purposes film works as a convenient medium with which to work. Of course there are other ways of studying film, and many academics study it from the point of view of aesthetics and/or cultural studies.5

        The films we will view this semester are arranged into five units, all of which I hope you will find interesting. This year’s topics are war, race in America, the Cold War, terrorism, and cacotopia.6   At least a couple of these are well-established genres7  and that in itself is enough to tell you that these have strong roots in our culture.8   Each week we will screen a film on Tuesday night9 and then meet on Wednesday to discuss it for an hour.  In all cases we will be trying to discover the political viewpoint of the film and to evaluate its message.  Active participation in these Wednesday discussions will be an important part of your grade.  The other important part of your grade will be three papers on films we won’t view in class.  Each section will also include a list of other films which you are to view outside of class and whose political message you will be required to identify and analyze.  If this seems a bit abstract to you right now please wait until we analyze a film or two in class.

 

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING

       

Students will be evaluated through class participation, attendance, on-line research assignments, and three short papers which present a political analysis of films listed in the “For Further Viewing” section of each theme.

        Attendance:  We will only meet twenty-eight times during the semester.  Fourteen of these will be film viewings.  Attendance at all showings and discussions are required.  Failure to attend a session will result in the loss of 1/28^th of your attendance grade. 

        Participation:  Students should be prepared to take an active and informed role in discussing the film viewed each week.  This means that you are responsible for attending the viewing on Tuesday and reading or viewing all assigned background material.  Active and intelligent participation will earn you a “B” or an “A” depending on its frequency and how astute your insights are.  Passive, polite behavior will earn you a “C”.  Ignorant, disruptive, or immature behavior can result in a “D” or “F” depending upon the degree.

        On-line Research Assignments:  Several times during the course of the semester you will be asked to use the on-line resources available through Pattee Library to collect background information for one of the movies we view.

        Political analysis papers:  During the course of the semester students will write three papers that analyze the politics of a film listed in each theme’s “For further viewing” section.10  We will not view these films together during the semester. I will try to put as many of these films on reserve as possible. Most of them should be available at local video stores or through on-line services like netflix. In these papers you are expected to explicate the politics of the film. In that you should not only pay attention to the “political message” explicitly or implicitly presented in the film, but also its context in time and place as well as how it confirms to, or breaks, the rules of any recognizable genre to which it belongs. Genres have a set of standard narrative elements they use to depict a certain kind of story. In that sense genres in popular culture partially define the norms through our popular culture understands a certain period, social phenomenon or event. When movies of a particular genre begin to break its conventions, then directors are questioning the way in which we see a category of event or period in history. 11  Imagine the story of the Alamo told from the perspectives of the Mexicans in which the Texans are presented as a foreign presence that breaks the law and seizes territory that does not belong to them. That would definitely break the conventions of that genre. If you unclear at this point, make sure you go back to footnote eleven above and read it carefully. Obviously in doing an analysis of the genre, it is useful to see other films of this type. Finally, you are encouraged to take account of the films we’ve watched in class and others with which you are familiar in order to contextualize the film and discuss the genre.12

       Papers are due by the deadlines clearly marked on the syllabus. This is the last possible day I will accept them. You may only do one paper on any one topic. Each of your papers must be from a different thematic area (e.g. you may not two papers on films from any one section).
        Papers are to be handed in at the website turnitin.com. One of your electronic assignments will be set up an account on this website. All work should be presented in a standard type, double spaced with generous margins, with visible page numbers, and with its authorship clearly marked at the beginning and in running headers. Grammar, spelling, and writing style count. If you are submitting your work electronically, it is better to have a unique filename for your paper that identifies it (jonesplsc83ppr1), rather than something generic (paper1).
        There are no page limitations, but six to ten pages should be sufficient to complete the assignment. It is important to give credit to those whose ideas you use. This is crucial to the academic integrity of written work. Direct use of someone’s words requires quotation marks and attribution by citation. Paraphrasing and/or use of someone else’s ideas requires attribution by citation. I do not expect to see a lot of citation in your papers, because the assignments call for you to analyze the films. I don’t want you to be spending you time looking up the work of film experts and citing them to me. However, in contextualizing the films, you may well rely on books, other films, or websites. The hyperlink in this sentence takes you to the library’s webpage on citation. This page outlines how to cite using several of the more common systems. None is “better” than the other. Just follow the two cardinal rules at the top of the page.
    Remember, that where you use someone else’s ideas it is essential to attribute it honestly. If you fail to do so, you might well be committing plagiarism which is a violation of the honor code at PSU. You will be assigned to look at the turnitin webpage on plagiarism. This will help you to better understand when citation is necessary and how some students inadvertently commit plagiarism by not paying attention to this. You should spend some time going over these pages so that you don’t make this mistake.
Your assignments will be weighted as follows to determine your grade:


                                                Class participation:                      15%
                                                Attendance:                                 5%
                                                On-line research assignments:        5%
                                                Paper 1:                                     20%
                                                Paper 2:                                     25%
                                                Paper 3:                                     30%

I have weighted the three papers differently because I believe there is a learning curve in writing these sorts of papers well.

SUGGESTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE PAPER WRITING
        First, don’t work last minute. If you have a sense that you want to write a paper on a film from a particular topic, you should acquaint yourself with the films for further viewing in that area (e.g. via the web, talking to friends, etc.). You should view a film or two that seems interesting or like a good candidate for a paper. Keep screening films until you find one that you want to write on. If you expect to do well, you should not choose the film on the basis of what is available at Mike’s Video at 11:30 pm the day before the deadline.
        Second, if you find a film that you want to write on, you should write a rough draft of the paper, at least a week or two before the deadline. If in writing the paper, something is unclear or ambiguous, it is useful to have the film queued up for reviewing during the writing, the same way you’d have a novel on the desk, if you were writing a paper about it.
        Third, after you finish the first draft, put it aside for a few days. Good writing requires more than one draft and good writing on film often requires a second viewing to make sure that you have got things right. After a second viewing, rewrite and revise the paper.
        Fourth, revising papers, unless you are a really good writer (and I certainly wasn’t in my first semester in college) requires more than proofreading. You should make sure that you are presenting a logical argument in a coherent way. You should make sure that your argument is logical, that the analysis is explicitly made (all logical steps presented with narrative material effectively bridging the movement from step to step), that you have presented strong evidence for your argument, and that your paper is effectively introduced and ends with a conclusion that summarizes your findings. If this isn’t the case, revise the paper. Don’t be afraid to toss out some material (we all hate to discard text already written down, but it’s OK)13 and rewrite the section.  It is a good idea to save different drafts in different files in case you decide you don’t like the changes you’ve made in a new draft. 

Fifth, spelling and grammar checkers are useful tools, but don’t trust them in the last instance.  Homonyms can be improperly used but spelled correctly and grammar programs don’t always do a good job with complex sentences.  Friends or roommates may add a misspelling to the dictionary, as can practical jokers in the dormitory.  Just because there is nothing automatically underlined, doesn’t mean that syntax and spelling are right.  The last proofreading should be manual, not automatic.  I find it is better to do this with hardcopy, rather than on the computer.

Sixth, save often and back up electronic copy after each major revision.  This is much easier than redoing several hours of work or recovering something from a fried hard drive or a virus infected machine.   If you don’t have electronic backup of hardcopy, don’t hand your last copy in to me.  Give me a copy and keep the original for yourself.  Don’t send me your only electronic copy.  Copy it into the attachment feature of your email program.  Don’t cut and paste it.

 

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

        Penn State defines academic integrity as the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest and responsible manner. All students should act with personal integrity, respect other students’ dignity, rights and property, and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their efforts (Faculty Senate Policy 49-20).

        Dishonesty of any kind will not be tolerated in this course. Dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarizing, fabricating information or citations, facilitating acts of academic dishonesty by others, having unauthorized copies of examinations, submitting work of another person or work previously used without informing the instructor, or tampering with the academic work of other students. Students who are found to be dishonest will receive academic sanctions and may be reported to the University’s Judicial Affairs office for possible further disciplinary sanction.

 

DISABILITY ACCESS

        The Pennsylvania State University encourages qualified people with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities and is committed to the policy that all people shall have equal access to programs, facilities, and admissions without regard to personal characteristics not related to ability, performance, or qualifications as determined by University policy or by state or federal authorities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation in this course or have questions about physical access, please tell the instructor as soon as possible.

 

Week 5 (September 25, 26)

 

Film --Gone with the Wind (1939)

 

Preparation for Class:

James M. McPherson, “Southern Comfort,” The New York Review of Books 48:6 (April 12, 2001), [Reserve].

Eliot Jaspin, Buried in the Bitter Waters, pp. 1-152.

 

Online assignment 3:  Go to turnitin.com and establish a mailbox for yourself for the course.  Familiarize yourself for handing in your papers.  Go to the plagiarism page and familiarize yourself with the concept.  This website will check your papers for originality.  The class ID is 1936143 and the password is “watagoosiam.”

 

  

Week 6 (October 2, 3)

 

Film – Rosewood (1997)

 

Preparation for Class:

Eliot Jaspin, Buried in the Bitter Waters, pp. 153-266.

Signs of those times

Go to Google, select images, search for lynching

How’d Ving's character learn to fight (use the thumbnail feature and surf the pictures that seem interesting to you).

Sign, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of our times

An isolated incident? 1, 2

 

 

Week 7 (October 9, 10)

 

Film – Crash (2004)

 

Preparation for Class:

Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America.

 

For Further Viewing (theme two):

The Birth of a Nation  (1915)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Mississippi Burning (1988)

Malcolm X (1992)

American History X (1998)

Gangs of New York (2002)

The Great White Hope (1970)

Do the Right Thing (1989)

 

 

**Paper One is due by the end of week seven, Friday, October 12.**

 

 

Theme 3:  National Security

 

Week 8 (October 16, 17)

 

Film – Dr. Strangelove (1964)

 

Preparation for Class:

Donald M. Snow. 1979. “Current Nuclear Deterrence Thinking: An Overview and Review,” International Studies Quarterly 23:445-486. [JSTOR]

Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein. 1995.  “Deterrence and the Cold War,”  Political Science Quarterly 110:157-181.  [JSTOR]

 

Online assignment 4. I. Use the web to write a paragraph about the Venona transcripts.  Tell me what they are, when they were publicly released, and their significance.  Cite your sources.  II. Also write me a paragraph about “Mutually Assured Destruction.”   Cite your source or sources.  III. Extra credit:  Who was the real father of the Doomsday Machine idea?  Tell me a bit about him.  Cite your sources.

 

 

Week 9 (October 23, 24)

 

Film – The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

 

Preparation for Class:

Robert Griffith, 1971. “The Political Context of McCarthyism,” The Review of Politics, 33:24-35. [JSTOR]

Athan G. Theoharis. 1981.  “FBI Surveillance during the Cold War Years: A Constitutional Crisis,” The Public Historian, 3:4-14. [JSTOR]

Richard Hofstadter. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. Knopf, 1965. [Reserve]

Read a bit more about the Venona Transcripts, read the preface, and poke around if you have time.

 

 

Week 10 (October 30, 31)

 

Film – Missing (1982)

 

Preparation for Class:

What the CIA says it was doing then, a declassified internal report.

Thomas C. Wright, Latin America in the Era of the Cuban Revolution (Revised Edition), pp. 129-148. [Reserve]

 

For Further Viewing (theme three):

 

Big Jim McLain (1952)

The Quiet American (1958)

The Quiet American (2002)

On the Beach (1959)

Fail Safe (1964)

Guilty by Suspicion (1991)

Red Dawn (1984)

Man of Iron (1981)

 

 

Theme 4:  Terrorism

 

Week 11 (November 6, 7)

Film – The Battle of Algiers

 

Preparation for Class:

Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, pp. 1-100.

 

Week 12 (November 13, 14)

 

Film – State of Siege

 

Preparation for Class:

Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, pp. 100-198.

Take a look at major Human Rights Organizations reports on the United States – HRW, AI, EFF.

 

Thanksgiving Break. 

 

 

Week 13 (November 27, 28)

 

Film -- Syriana (2005)

 

Preparation for Class:

Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, pp. 199-292.

Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, Chapter 1.

The Veep's Energy Taskforce

 

For Further Viewing (Theme 4):

 

Le Femme Nikita (1990)

In the Name of the Father (1992)

Falling Down (1993)

The Boxer (1997)

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

The Lost Honor of Katerina Blum (1975)

The Siege (1998)

Hanna K. (1983)

Four Days in September (1997)

 

 

**Paper Two is due by the end of week thirteen, Friday, November 30.**

 

 

Theme 5:  Cacotopia

 

Week 14 (December 4, 5)

 

Film – 1984 (1984)

 

Preparation for Class:

George Orwell, 1984.

 

 

Week 15 (December 11, 12)

 

Film – Children of Men (2006)

 

Preparation for Class:

P.D. James. The Children of Men, Vintage (Reprint edition), 2006.

 

For Further Viewing (Theme 5):

The Handmaid’s Tale (1990)

Don’t tackle this one without reading the much better novel of the same title by Margaret Atwood.  It is extra work but definitely worth it.

Blade Runner (1982)

Brazil (1985)

The Matrix (1999)

Metropolis (1927)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

 

Finals week:  **Last paper due Monday, December 17 by 5:00 pm.**

 

 

Major Kong gets the Last Word