Communication Arts & Sciences 415 Rhetoric of Film and Television Fall 2003 Monday– 105 Wartik Bldg – 2:30-5:30 p.m. (film showing) Wednesday– 217 Thomas Bldg - 2:30 - 3:45 (discussion)    class e-mail address: L-CAS415-FA03@lists.psu.edu class photos

Instructor: Thomas W. Benson 227 Sparks Building University Park, PA 16802 814-865-4201 mailto:t3b@psu.edu office hours Monday and Wednesday 11-12; Wednesday 4-5; and by appointment

final exam

Alfred Hitchcock and the Critics:

The Rhetoric of the Thriller as Art, Entertainment, and Social Text

DATE	FILM		ASSIGNMENT
(1) Wed Sept 3			Introduction to the course
(2) Mon Sept 8 Wed Sept 10	Murder! (1930)	Handel Fane in woman's costume Handel Fane in policeman's costume Handel Fane on trapeze	Readings: William Rothman, "Alfred Hitchcock’s Murder!: Theater, Authorship, and the Presence of the Camera"; Jean Douchet, "Hitch and His Public"; Maurice Yacowar, "Hitchcock’s Imagery and Art," in A Hitchcock Reader; Donald Spoto, The Dark Side of Genius, 1-137. Recommended Viewing: The Lodger (1926); Blackmail (1929); Juno and the Paycock (1930); Battleship Potemkin (1925); The Public Enemy (1931); M (1931); Little Caesar (1930)
(3) Mon Sept 15 Wed Sept 17	The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Blackmail (1929)		Readings:Thomas W. Benson, "Mother and Monster: The Rhetorical Structure of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much" (on electronic reserve); Elisabeth Weis, "Consolidation of a Classical Style: The Man Who Knew Too Much"; Robin Wood, "Retrospective"; Leonard J. Leff, "Hitchcock at Metro"; Lesley W. Brill, "Hitchcock’s The Lodger"; Leland Poague, "Criticism and/as History: Rereading Blackmail," in A Hitchcock Reader; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 141-159. Recommended Viewing: The Rules of the Game (1939); Rio Bravo (1959); Bringing Up Baby (1938); Duck Soup (1933); The Awful Truth (1937): The Blue Angel (1930); Les Carabiniers (1963); The Silence (1963); The Informer (1935); Scarface (1932).
(4) Mon Sept 22 Wed Sept 24	The 39 Steps (1935)		Readings: Charles L. P. Silet, "Through a Woman’s Eyes: Sexuality and Memory in The 39 Steps," in A Hitchcock Reader. Recommended Viewing: It Happened One Night (1934); I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932).
(5) Mon Sept 29 Wed Oct 1	The Lady Vanishes (1938)		Readings: Patrice Petro, "Rematerializing the Vanishing ‘Lady’: Feminism, Hitchcock, and Interpretation," in A Hitchcock Reader; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 163-189. Recommended Viewing: Secret Agent (1936); Sabotage (1936); Shanghai Express (1932); Snow White and the Seven Drawfs (1937); Modern Times (1936); Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).
(6) Mon Oct 6 Wed Oct 8	Shadow of a Doubt (1943)	sequence 1 from Shadow of a Doubt   sequence 2 from Shadow of a Doubt note: these sequences play best with a high speed connection	Readings: James McLaughlin, "All in the Family: Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt," in A Hitchcock Reader; Jonathan Freedman and Richard Millington, "Introduction"; Debra Fried, "Love, American Style: Hitchcock’s Hollywood," in Hitchcock’s America; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 207-279. Recommended Viewing: Jamaica Inn (1939); Rebecca (1940); Foreign Correspondent (1940); Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941); Suspicion (1941); Saboteur (1942); The Maltese Falcon (1941); Citizen Kane (1941); Dumbo (1941); High Sierra (1941); Casablanca (1943); The Ox Bow Incident (1943) Paper 1. Due on Friday 10 October Write a close analysis of a scene or sequence from any Hitchcock film made before 1950. Choose what seems to you a scene that is of some interest for its dramatic contribution to the story and of some interest visually. In your paper, describe and analyze the scene in detail, including attention to dialogue, camerawork, editing, and sound. Consider how the scene shapes a viewer's response both to the scene under consideration and to the film as a whole. You may include captured frames or sketches to support your analysis. 5-8 pages.
(7) Mon Oct 13 Wed Oct 15	Notorious (1946)		Readings: Richard Abel, "Notorious: Perversion par Excellence"; Thomas Hyde, "The Moral Universe of Hitchcock’s Spellbound," in A Hitchcock Reader; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 283-316. Recommended Viewing: Lifeboat (1944); Spellbound (1945); Open City (1945); The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); Hail the Conquering Hero (1944); Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); The Killers (1946).
(8) Mon Oct 20 Wed Oct 22	Rope (1948)		Readings: Amy Lawrence, "American Shame: Rope, James Stewart, and the Postwar Crisis in American Masculinity," in Hitchcock’s America. Recommended Viewing: The Paradine Case (1947); The Naked City (1948); All the King's Men (1949); The Snake Pit (1948); Gentleman's Agreement (1947); Paisan (1946); Crossfire (1947); It's a Wonderful Life (1947); Call Northside 777 (1948); State of the Union (1948); The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
(9) Mon Oct 27 Wed Oct 29	Strangers on a Train (1951)		Readings: Robin Wood, "Strangers on a Train," in A Hitchcock Reader; Robert J. Corber, "Hitchcock’s Washington: Spectatorship, Ideology, and the ‘Homosexual Menace’ in Strangers on a Train," in Hitchcock’s America; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 319-356. Recommended Viewing: Under Capricorn (1949); Stage Fright (1950); The Lavender Hill Mob (1951); The Men (1950); The Bicycle Thief (1949); Home of the Brave (1949); Panic in the Streets (1950); Twelve O'Clock High (1950); The African Queen (1951); A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).
(10) Mon Nov 3 Wed Nov 5	Rear Window (1954)		Readings: Dana Brand, "Rear-View Mirror: Hitchcock, Poe, and the Flaneur in America," in Hitchcock’s America; Robert Stam and Roberta Pearson, "Hitchcock’s Rear Window: Reflexivity and the Critique of Voyeurism," in A Hitchcock Reader; Marshall Deutelbaum, "Finding the Right Man in The Wrong Man," in A Hitchcock Reader; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 359-427. Recommended Viewing: I Confess (1953); Dial "M" for Murder (1954); Seven Samurai (1954); Pather Panchali (1955); Aparajito (1956); The World of Apu (1958); High Noon (1952); The Quiet Man (1952); Singin' in the Rain (1952); From Here to Eternity (1953); On the Waterfront (1954).
(11) Mon Nov 10 Wed Nov 12	The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)		Readings: Elsie B. Michie, "Unveiling Maternal Desires: Hitchcock and American Domesticity," in Hitchcock’s America. Recommended Viewing: Viva Zapata! (1952); The Robe (1953); The Country Girl (1954); Bridge on the River Kwai (1957); Recommended Viewing: To Catch a Thief (1955); The Trouble with Harry (1955); Grapes of Wrath (1940); Young Mr. Lincoln (1939); My Darling Clementine (1946); Twelve Angry Men (1957); Rebel Without a Cause (1955); Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956). Paper 2. Due on Friday 14 November. A 5-8 page paper on any Hitchcock film released before 1960. As an appendix to your paper, include a list of scenes from your chosen film (for an example of how to do this, see a list of scenes from Taxi Driver). In your paper, include an analysis of the narrative structure of the film, attending to such dimensions as story line, point of view, repetition, sequence, suspense, and surprise. But you may go beyond the rhetoric of narrative structure in any direction your analysis takes you so long as it illuminates the rhetoric of the film.
(12) Mon Nov 17 Wed Nov 19	Vertigo (1958)		Readings: Robin Wood, "Male Desire, Male Anxiety: The Essential Hitchcock"; Marian E. Keane, "A Closer Look at Scopophilia: Mulvey, Hitchcock, and Vertigo," in A Hitchcock Reader; Paula Marantz Cohen, "Hitchcock’s Revised American Vision: The Wrong Man and Vertigo"; Jonathan Freedman, "From Spellbound to Vertigo: Alfred Hitchcock and Therapeutic Culture in America," in Hitchcock’s America. Recommended Viewing: Touch of Evil (1958); Paths of Glory (1957); Some Like It Hot (1959).
(13) Mon Nov 24	North by Northwest (1959)		Readings: Richard H. Millington, "Hitchcock and American Character: The Comedy of Self-Construction in North by Northwest," in Hitchcock’s America; Stanley Cavell, North by Northwest, in A Hitchcock Reader. Recommended reading: Alain Silver, "Fragments of the Mirror: Hitchcock's Noir Landscape," Film Noir: A Reader 2, ed. Alain Silver and James Ursini (New York: Limelight, 1999), 106-127. Recommended Viewing: On the Waterfront (1954); Anatomy of a Murder (1959); Ben Hur (1959); Breathless (1959); The 400 Blows (1959); Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959); Pickpocket (1959). Please plan to stay until 5:30 on Monday; because we will not meet on Wednesday, we will discuss the film as a group on Monday after the film (and after a short break).
Wed Nov 26		Thanksgiving Break -- no class
(14) Mon Dec 1 Wed Dec 3	Psycho (1960)		Readings: Raymond Bellour, "Psychosis, Neurosis, Perversion"; Barbara Klinger, "Psycho: The Institutionalization of Female Sexuality"; Leland Poague, "Links in a Chain: Psycho and Film Classicism," in A Hitchcock Reader; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 443-479. Recommended Viewing: The Entertainer (1960); L'Avventura (1960); La Dolce Vita (1960); La Notte (1960); Shoot the Piano Player (1960); Jules and Jim (1961).
(15) Mon Dec 8 Wed Dec 10	The Birds (1963)		Readings: Camille Paglia, The Birds (1998); Ian Cameron and Richard Jeffery, "The Universal Hitchcock," and Margaret M. Horwitz, "The Birds: A Mother's Love," in A Hitchcock Reader; Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 483-555. Recommended Viewing: Marnie (1964); Torn Curtain (1966); Topaz (1969); Frenzy (1972); Family Plot (1976); The Hustler (1961); Lawrence of Arabia (1962); 8 1/2 (1963); The Conformist (1970); M*A*S*H (1970); The Godfather (1972); Le Boucher (1970); Le Chien andalou (1928); Philadelphia Story (1940); Bonjour Tristesse (1958); The Time Machine (1960); Barbarella (1968); Suddenly Last Summer (1959); On the Beach (1959) Paper 3. Due on Wednesday December 10 during our class meeting. Write a paper in which you (1) Consider some aspect of the rhetoric of Hitchcock's filmmaking in 3 of his films. You might, for example, concentrate on a formal issue (such as camerawork; point of view, suspense, mise en scene, editing, sound) or on a thematic element (such as gender, guilt, voyeurism, or some other theme that has come up in our readings or discussions); or (2) compare a Hitchcock film with its remake (such as Psycho; The 39 Steps; Sabotage (1936) [remade as The Secret Agent (1996)]; Dial M for Murder [remade as A Perfect Murder, 1998]); or (3) write about a "Hitchcock " film made by another director, in which you analyze the Hitchockian appropriations, through close analysis of your chosen film and explicit comparison with Hitchcock's work. See Robert Kapsis, Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation for some discussion of Hitchcock appropriations; (4) compare a Hitchcock film with the literary source from which it was adapted; possibilities for this include Hitchcock's Sabotage, based on Joseph Conrad's Secret Agent; 39 Steps, based on John Buchan's 39 Steps; Rear Window, based on Cornel Woolrich's Rear Window; Strangers on a Train, adapted from Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train. The point in all these assignments is to use detailed comparative analysis at both the micro-level of particular scenes (as in paper 1) and in the analysis of the larger structure of the film (as in paper 2) to see how Hitchcock's rhetorical choices are designed to create his effects. Remember that in the case of any of these assignments, you should try to engage in detailed description and close analysis of the film as a structure inviting an audience response. 5-8 pages. Please leave the paper before 5 pm in Professor Benson's mailbox in room 232 Sparks Building.
Monday Dec 15	FINAL EXAM	CAS 415 001 M 02:30 - 4:20 PM 105 WARTIK http://www.psu.edu/dept/registrar/finex/fall/up/index.html	final exam

 

Required Textbooks

(note: local bookstores have been provided with this booklist; you may also want to shop at online bookstores to compare prices).

Deutelbaum, Marshall, and Leland Poague, eds. A Hitchcock Reader. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1986.

Freedman, Jonathan, and Richard Millington, eds. Hitchcock’s America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Kapsis, Robert. Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. [this text is not assigned for a particular date, but you should read it before the end of the semester].

Paglia, Camille. The Birds. London: British Film Institute, 1998.

Spoto, Donald. The Dark Side of Genius. New York: Da Capo Press, 1999.

A number of articles relating to Hitchcock's films and to film criticism more generally have been placed on electronic reserve. For a list, and for access, see the section of the syllabus on Electronic Reserves.

 

Internet Resources

For a guide to Internet sources on Hitchcock, try the Alfred Hitchcock Scholars MacGuffin page.

The Museum of Modern Art web site on Alfred Hitchcock

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts - exhibit on Hitchcock and Art: Fatal Coincidences

Recommended Viewing

 
Each week, I have recommended several films that you might wish to view in connection with that week's required reading and viewing. Viewing a selection of these films will allow you to see more of Hitchcock's work, and to see films that are mentioned in the week's readings, or that were made at about the same time as the Hitchcock film featured in the week's viewing and discussion. Most of these films are available for viewing in the music and media library, which is part of the Arts and Humanities library in Pattee Library, 2nd floor, West Wing.

Electronic Reserves

Some of the assigned course readings are available at the Electronic Reserves site in Pattee Library. You can access these files from any Internet connection, using your Penn State ID and password. To get there, sign in to the enhanced catalogue -- CAT -- and then click on the icon for course reserves. Once you have signed on to the electronic reserve site, search for the listings for the instructor (Benson), then for our course. Please have the assigned readings prepared and bring a printout to class to help support group discussion.

The readings on electronic reserve would be an excellent place to start as you consider possible sources to cite for your papers.

Regular Reserves

Because many students will be needing access to the library's collection of books about Alfred Hitchcock, we have placed a number of these books on reserve in Pattee Library, some about Hitchcock and some about film more generally. For a list of books on reserve, see the course reserve page on the library catalogue. You may want to consult these books while you are preparing your papers.

Grades

 
Grades will be based on

• assigned papers 20% each (60%)
• final examination 20%
• participation in class discussion and listserv 20%

Papers

 
You are assigned three critical papers of five to eight pages. Each paper should engage in close reading of one or more films (see the more detailed assignments in the weekly schedule). In preparing each paper, you should do some library research--in each, you should cite at least three printed sources supporting your research. These might be academic articles about Hitchcock, rhetoric, or film criticism, or they might be contemporary newspaper reviews of the film you are writing about. Citations should be in the format described by the MLA Handbook. For citation help see also the online reference shelf section at the Penn State University Libraries.

Note: although you may of course refer to any of Hitchcock's films in any of your papers, please do not make the same Hitchcock film the main subject of more than one of your papers.

Your paper should have a title page, the text of the paper, and a list of works cited. The second paper also requires an appendix--a list of scenes from the film about which you are writing. You may also include a list of scenes with your other papers to support your analysis, and you may include frames copied from a videotape to your computer, or hand drawn sketches or diagrams. Please turn your paper in on the date it is due, to my mailbox in 232 Sparks Building; on the same day, please send an electronic copy of the paper to me as an e-mail attachment.

Please turn in papers by 5:00 p.m. on the due date in my mailbox in 232 Sparks Building.

Attendance

 
Attendance is expected. Readings are due on the date indicated in the syllabus, and students are expected to be ready to discuss them. Please bring to class the assigned readings for the day. Failure to attend will affect final grades. This class is based on a model of cooperation, participation, and active learning. Your work is to learn more about film and film criticism, and also to teach others about these subjects through your participation in discussion of course readings and film viewings.

The College of the Liberal Arts policy: "It is the policy of the University that class attendance by students be encouraged and that all instructors organize and conduct their courses with this policy in mind. A student should attend every class for which the student is scheduled and should be held responsible for all work covered in the courses taken. In each case, the instructor should decide when the class absence constitutes a danger to the student’s scholastic attainment and should make this fact known to the student at once. A student whose irregular attendance causes him or her, in the judgment of the instructor, to become deficient scholastically, may run the risk of receiving a failing grade or receiving a lower grade than the student might have secured had the student been in regular attendance."

Listserv

In order to extend class discussion beyond the Wednesday meeting and to provide an opportunity for each student to participate fully in the discussion, each student is assigned to contribute to an on-line class discussion at least twice each week. These contributions will be counted as part of the class participation grade. At a minimum, each student should send (1) a well considered contribution to the class by Tuesday evening, commenting on the readings that will be discussed in class on Wednesday; and (2) by Friday evening a consideration of the film we have watched that week -- which of course could also mention the readings or our class discussion. Additional comments are welcome, and you are invited to respond to the notes of other students in a spirit of cooperative inquiry. Send your notes to
L-CAS415-FA03@lists.psu.edu

Access

 "The Pennsylvania State University is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to programs, facilities, admissions, and employment without regard to personal characteristics not related to ability, performance, or qualifications as determined by University policy or by state or federal authorities. The Pennsylvania State University does not discriminate against any person because of age, ancestry, color, disability or handicap, national origin, race, religious creed, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status." Penn State University Affirmative Action Office.

back to Tom Benson home page