English 170: Hitchcock and the Critics



English 126: Hitchcock and the Critics

MWF 2:15-3:15 pm in Dante 220

*Film Viewing: Monday 3:30-5:30 pm in Dante 115 (attendance is mandatory)

Instructor: Lisa Manter

Office: Dante 300 Office phone: 631-4462 E-mail: lmanter@stmarys-ca.edu

Office Hours: WF 3:30-4:30 pm and Monday by appointment

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

"To speak of Alfred Hitchcock is to evoke a remarkable series of histories: the history of cinema generally, in which Hitchcock plays an exemplary role as a technical and stylistic innovator; a history of Hitchcock's films themselves, . . . a history of film criticism, especially given Hitchcock's status as a primary test case for auteur theory, which held that commercial films . . . can and should be discussed in the same terms as were previously reserved for "art" films; a history of contemporary film theory, understood at least in part as involving a return to more sociological concerns after the excesses of auteurism; etc."

-- A Hitchcock Reader

The artistic career of the Master of Suspense ranges from the silent period to the seventies. The films produced during this extensive career have won over popular audiences with their morbid sense of humor and ability to reveal the dark side of everyday life. But his films aren't just box office hits; they hold a special fascination for film critics as well. Hitchcock and his films have helped shape the direction of film criticism: he's been used as a basis for the development of the French auteur theory, he's been touted as the genius of the psychoanalytic narrative, and both Marxist and Feminist critics find class and gender to be central motifs for the director. Each week we will view and discuss a Hitchcock film in light of the criticism that it has generated. Previous knowledge of film techniques and literary theory aren't necessary (though helpful) -- Hitchcock will lead us to an understanding of both.

Required Texts:

Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies.

Deutelbaum, Marshall and Leland Poague, eds. A Hitchcock Reader.

Mast, Gerald, Marshall Cohen, and Leo Braudy, eds. Film Theory and Criticism. 4th ed.

Modleski, Tania. The Women Who Knew Too Much.

Zizek, Slavoj. Everything You Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Where Afraid to Ask Hitchcock)

LEARNING OUTCOMES & GRADE BREAKDOWN:

This course is part of the Core’s Pathways to Knowledge, fulfilling the part of the Artistic Understanding Learning Goal that asks students to analyze, interpret and critique works of art, considering the role of formal methods and techniques, and historical contexts. As part of this goal, students will be asked to analyze and interpret the form and meaning of selected films. You will learn to apply discipline-based critical vocabulary and theory to explore Hitchcock’s works, as well as learn about how these works fit into the history of film and film criticism. We will do this in two ways: 1) by learning film techniques and film theory, and then 2) by applying these techniques and theories as tools for analyzing and interpreting specific films.

I. 50% =Technique and Theory

Purpose: To assess your grasp of technical elements and theoretical concepts.

Short Assignments 10%

Midterm (take home) 20%

Final (in-class) 20%

Short Assignments (10%):

1) Discussion Questions (typed)

2 issues for class debate with a discussion of quotes/scenes for each question

2) Film Notes (handwritten)

During each viewing you will be expected to take notes on narrative and cinematic details. (N.B. These are not expected to be neat or even readable except by you.)

3) Miscellaneous (quizzes, responses, in-class writing)

Midterm (20%): The midterm will focus on film as a medium. What are its specific attributes? How are various techniques used to create cinematic effects? What is the relationship between these technological aspects and the meaning of the film? You will be asked to analyze specific scenes from Hitchcock films.

Final (20%): This will be a two-hour, in-class exam on theoretical concepts and issues raised in the readings, lectures, and discussion. The exam will include both short answer questions on theoretical terminology and essay questions that require you to explore the specific implications of various theoretical approaches as applied to the work of Hitchcock.

II. 50% = Application and Analysis

Purpose: To allow you to apply your knowledge of cinematic techniques and theory to the films.

Participation 20%

Research Essay 30%

Participation (20%): I expect active participation, which involves listening carefully to your fellow students (C), responding sincerely to their comments (C+/B-), and contributing your own insights and questions (B/B+). I encourage you to go beyond expectations by working to draw others into the conversation, directing the discussion towards constructive debate, and drawing together differing threads of discussion into a coherent argument (A-/A).

Research Essay (30%): An 8-page essay. You will be expected to develop and explore an

argument that addresses the issues of the course and incorporates one or more of the films

and one or more of the articles. More information will be given as the due date approaches.

Late Assignments, Midterms, and Essays:

Short assignments are due at the beginning of class. Midterms and essays are due by the time listed in my box outside my door (Dante 300) on the day due.

I do not accept late assignments for any reason except excused absences. If you have a problem meeting a deadline for the take-home midterm or the final essay, you may make arrangements with me to set an alternate due date, as long as you notify me 48 hours they are not turned in.

You must submit a passing midterm, final essay, and final to pass the course.

Attendance: Any absence will affect your grade. More than 3 absences (either excused or unexcused) will lower your final grade 1/3 a grade for each absence after the third (e.g. from B to B-). If you cannot make class and you notify me beforehand (leave a message on e-mail or on my office phone), your absence will be excused and you will be able to turn in your short assignment the next class period without penalty.

YOU CANNOT PASS THE COURSE IF YOU MISS MORE THAN 8 DISCUSSION SECTIONS

English 126 Hitchcock and the Critics Spring 2011

SYLLABUS:

Readings are to be completed for the day they appear on the syllabus. You will be expected to have not only read them but to have digested them so you can discuss them intelligently in class. In addition to reading or viewing the appropriate materials, be sure to come to class prepared with observations, questions, and interpretive insights.

UM=Understanding Movies HR=A Hitchcock Reader

TM=Women Who Knew Too Much FT=Film Theory and Criticism

Z=Everything You Wanted to Know

Week 1

Monday Class Goals and Expectations

Feb. 7 Lecture Hitchcock and the Critics

VIEWING: North by Northwest (1959) – Dante 115 at 3:30

Wednesday Lecture The Controlling Hand -- Auteur Theory

Feb 9. Reading: “Introduction” (HR), pp. xi-xvii

Ch. 11: Overview, Formalist Film Theories, Auteur Theory (UM)

Andrew Sarris, “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962” (FT)

Friday Discussion Auteur Theory & North by Northwest

Feb. 11 Reading: Stanley Cavell, “North by Northwest” (HR)

DUE: Discussion questions and film notes

Week 2

Monday Lecture Spatial Design aka Composition

Feb. 14 Reading: Chapter 2: Mise en Scène (UM)

VIEWING: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Wednesday Discussion Hitchcock’s American Gothic?

Feb. 16 Reading: James McLaughlin, “All in the Family: Alfred Hitchcock’s

Shadow of a Doubt” (HR)

Robin Wood, “Ideology, Genre, Auteur” (FT)

DUE: Discussion questions and film notes

Friday Discussion Hitchcock’s Objects

Feb. 18 Reading: Mladen Dolar, “Hitchcock’s Objects” (Z)

Week 3

Monday Lecture Camera Placement & Angle OR Where’s the Camera?

Feb. 21 Reading: Chapter 1, pp. 10-16; Ch. 2, pp. 72-77 (proxemics) (UM)

VIEWING: Notorious (1946)

Wednesday Discussion Perverting the Fairy Tale: Notorious, Structuralism & Semiotics

Feb. 23 Reading: Gilbert Harman, “Semiotics and the Cinema” (FT)

Richard Abel, “Notorious: Perversion par Excellence” (HR)

DUE: Discussion questions and film notes

Friday Lecture The Woman’s Film: Hitchock’s Adaptation of a Feminine Genre

Feb. 25 Reading: Molly Haskell, “Female Stars of the 1940s” (FT)

Tania Modleski, “The Woman Who Was Known Too Much” (TM)

Week 4

Monday Lecture Light and Shadows

Feb. 28 Reading: Chapter 1, pp. 17-25

VIEWING: Rebecca (1940)

Wednesday Lecture Psychoanalytic Criticism

March 2 Reading: Robin Wood, “Male Desire, Male Anxiety: The Essential

Hitchcock” (HR)

Friday Discussion Hitchcock and the Female Viewer

March 4 Reading: Tania Modleski, “Woman and the Labryinth” (TM)

DUE: Discussion questions and film notes

***Field trip to see The Birds at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre***

Week 5

Monday Lecture Lacanian Psychoanalytic Criticism

March 7

VIEWING: The Birds (1963) (for those who were not able to make the field trip)

Wednesday Discussion Suturing the Wounds of Film

March 9 Reading: William Rothman, “Against ‘The System of the Suture’” (FT)

HANDOUT: Final Essay Assignment

Friday Discussion Difficult Mothers in Hitchcock

March 11 Reading: Margaret M. Horwitz, “The Birds: A Mother’s Love” (HR)

DUE: Discussion questions and film notes (Psycho)

Week 6

Monday Lecture The Dizzying Camera: Camera Movement

March 14 Reading: Chapter 3: Movement (UM)

VIEWING: Vertigo (1958)

REVISED SYLLABUS

Wednesday Lecture Women Looking at Women: Feminist Film Theory

March 16 Reading: Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (FT)

DUE: Scene analysis of camera placement and movement in Vertigo

Friday Discussion Scoping out Scopophilia

March 18 Reading: Marian E. Keane, “A Closer Look at Scopophilia: Mulvey,

Hitchcock, and Vertigo” (HR)

Patrice Petro, “Rematerializing the Vanishing “Lady” (HR)

DUE: Discussion questions and film notes

Week 7

Monday Lecture Sound & Subjectivity: Under the influence of “expressionism”

March 21 Reading: Robin Wood, “Retrospective” (HR)

Chapter 5: Sound, all; Chapter 1, pp. 2-10 (UM)

VIEWING: Blackmail (1929)

Wednesday Discussion Blackmail & Historical Criticism

March 23 Reading: Leland Poague, “Criticism and/as History: Rereading Blackmail” (HR)

DUE: Discussion questions and film notes

Friday Discussion The Importance of the Voice in Blackmail

March 25 Reading: Tania Modleski, “Rape vs. Mans/laughter: Blackmail” (TM)

Sergei Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Alexandrov, “Statement on Sound” (FT)

DUE: Discussion questions

Week 8

Monday Lecture The Auteur and the Studio System: The Self-Reflexive Cinema March 28 TAKE-HOME MIDTERM DUE by 3 pm in my office (Dante 300)

VIEWING: Rear Window (1954)

Wednesday Lecture Focusing In On Lenses: Caught looking!

March 30 Reading: Thomas Schatz, “The Whole Equation of Pictures” (FT)

Friday Discussion Reflecting Back

April 1 Reading: Robert Stam and Roberta Pearson, “Hitchcock’s Rear Window: Reflexivity and the Critique of Voyeurism” (HR)

Miran Bozovic, “The Man Behind His Own Retina” (Z) - optional

DUE: Discussion questions (include Schatz) and film notes

Week 9

Monday Lecture Editing & Narrative: “The best way to do it is with scissors.”

April 4 BRING Understanding Movies TO CLASS

Revised Syllabus: April 8

Friday Discussion Bound to Be Confused: Bellour’s Chains

April 8 Reading: “Part Five: Hitchcock and Film Theory: A Psycho Dossier”(HR)

Raymond Bellour, “Psychosis, Neurosis, Perversion” I-V only(HR)

DUE: Film notes & Discussion questions

Week 10

Monday Discussion On the Rebound: Bellour’s Chains II

April 11 Reading: Raymond Bellour, “Psychosis, Neurosis, Perversion” VI-VIII (HR)

(Group work)

VIEWING: Psycho (1960) – yes, again!

Wednesday Discussion Breaking the Chain

April 13 Reading: Leland Poague, “Links in a Chain: Psycho and Film Classicism” (Handout)

Barbara Klinger, “Psycho: The Institutionalization of Female

Sexuality” (Handout)

DUE: Discussion questions (Poague & Klinger)

Friday Lecture & Discussion: The Role of Suture in Film Theory (“Take Two”)

April 15 Reading: Kaja Silverman, “On Suture” from The Subject of Semiotics (Handout)

(Meet with Groups)

DUE: BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR FINAL ESSAY

EASTER RECESS!!!

Week 11

Wednesday Lecture & Group Discussion The Excesses of the Horror Film

April 27 Reading: Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess” (FT) Discuss first drafts with peer groups

DUE: FIRST DRAFTS (see “Final Essay” handout)

VIEWING: Frenzy (1972)

Friday Discussion Has Hitchcock gone too far?

April 29 Tania Modleski, “Rituals of Defilement: Frenzy (TM)

DUE: Film notes and discussion questions (Williams & Modleski)

Week 12

Monday Lecture & Discussion Marxism & Murder

May 2 Reading: Frederic Jameson, “Spatial Systems in North by Northwest” (Z)

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical

Reproduction” (FT) - Epilogue only

VIEWING: The 39 Steps (1935) OR class choice

Tuesday, May 4 DUE: FINAL DRAFTS (see “Final Essay” handout) under my door.

Wednesday Discussion Film Genres: Horror, Romance, Thriller?

May 4 Reading: Leo Braudy, “Genre: The Conventions of Connections” from The World in a Frame (FT) (only up to Busby Berkeley section, p. 542)

Reread: Robin Wood, “Ideology, Genre, Auteur”

DUE: Discussion questions (Monday and Wednesday’s readings)

Friday Workshopping

May 6 DUE: Workshop comments (see “Final Essay” handout)

Sign-up for optional conferences

Week 13

Monday Workshopping

May 9 DUE: Workshop comments (see “Final Essay” handout)

VIEWING: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Wednesday Discussion Hitchcock’s Role in American Culture

May 11 Reading: Manthia Diawara, “Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification

and Resistance” (FT)

Robert Stam and Louise Spence, “Colonialism, Racism, and

Representation” (FT)

Due: “Writing Back to Hitchcock” (letter or other creative form)

Thursday DUE: REVISED FINAL ESSAY (See “Final Essay” handout for

May 12 complete description of what is due)

Friday Lecture and discussion: Playing Games with Hitchcock

May 13 Reading: Ina Rae Hark, “Keeping Your Amateur Standing” (handout)

Optional: Thomas Leitch, “Games Hitchcock Plays” (handout)

Review for Final (Bring in questions – at least 2 typed)

In-class: writing up essay questions (Final is May 16, 2-4 pm.)

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