Filming change: French society through documentary

Filming change: French society through
documentary
AS 211. 228.13 (1 credit)
Instructor: Cecilia Benaglia
MW 1.30pm - 4pm
Contacts : [email protected]
Office Hours : Monday, 4.00pm-5.30pm.
Course description
The class will be taught in English.
All the movies will be in French with English subtitles.
Since the 1960s France has gone through radical changes impacting all aspects of social life,
such as race/class dynamics, union/workplace politics, and gender relations. Filmmakers,
specifically those working in a documentary mode, have confronted contemporary events in their
complexity and offered some of the most compelling accounts of them. This course will
introduce students to the recent history of French documentary film, focusing on its capacity to
reflect and to fuel social and historical change. Films by Rouch, Varda, Resnais, Marker,
Depardon.
Evaluation and Assignments
Students will be evaluated based on class participation and one final assignment. Students are
expected to come to class ready to discuss the assigned readings and films for that day.
For the final assignment students may choose one of the following formats: research paper,
analysis of a clip, short film, PowerPoint presentation, website. The final project will be
presented to the class. Students should explore in depth one of the topics or persons discussed in
the course or relevant to it.
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Course Schedule
WEEK 1
Monday, January 4th
Film screening: Chronique d’un été, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1961.
Wednesday, January 6th
To watch for today: Les statues meurent aussi, Chris Marker and Alain
Resnais, 1956.
To read for today: B. Nichols, « Documentary Modes of
Representation », in Representing Reality: issues and concepts in
documentary, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1991.
WEEK 2
Monday, January 11th
Wednesday, January 13th
To watch for today: Le joli Mai, Chris Marker, 1962.
To read for today: S. Cooper, “ Chris Marker, love death and
documentary”, in Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French documentary,
Leeds, Legenda, 2006, pp. 48-61.
To watch for today: Délits flagrants, Raymond Depardon, 1997.
To read for today: S. Cooper, “Raymond Depardon: finding the right
distance”, in Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French documentary, Leeds,
Legenda, 2006, pp. 62-76.
Saturday 16th : Brief proposal of a research project emailed to [email protected]
WEEK 3
Monday, January 18th
Wednesday, January 20th
To watch for today: Les glaneuses et la glaneuse, by Agnès Varda, 2000
and : Les glaneurs et la glaneuse…deux ans après, by Agnès Varda, 2002.
To read for today: Bénézet D., “Varda’s Ethics of Filming”, in The
cinema of Agnès Varda: resistance and eclecticism, NY-London,
Wallflower Press, 2014.
- Corrigan, Timothy. “Of the History of the Essay Film: Vertov to Varda.”
The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker. New York and Oxford:
Oxford UP, 2011, 50-75.
In class activity: Students present final projects.
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Bibliography/Filmography
Documentaries – available through JHU library or online.
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Les statues meurent aussi, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, 1956
Chronique d’un été, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1961
Le joli Mai, Chris Marker, 1962
Délits flagrants, Raymond Depardon, 1997
Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, Agnès Varda, 2000
Les glanuers et la glaneuse…deux ans après, Agnès Varda, 2002
Mandatory Readings - Provided by the instructor.
- Bénézet D., “Varda’s Ethics of Filming”, in The cinema of Agnès Varda: resistance and
aclecticism, NY-London, Wallflower Press, 2014.
- Cooper S., “ Chris Marker, love death and documentary”, in Selfless Cinema? Ethics and
French documentary, Leeds, Legenda, 2006, pp. 48-61.
- Cooper S., “Raymond Depardon: finding the right distance”, in Selfless Cinema? Ethics and
French documentary, Leeds, Legenda, 2006, pp. 62-76.
- Corrigan, T. “Of the History of the Essay Film: Vertov to Varda.” The Essay Film: From
Montaigne, After Marker. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011, 50-75.
- Nichols B., « Documentary Modes of Representation », in Representing Reality: issues and
concepts in documentary, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1991.
- Nichols B., “History, myth, and narrative in documentary », in Documentary film: critical
concepts in media and cultural studies, ed. I. Altken, NY, Routledge, 2012.
Suggested Readings
- A New History of Documentary Film, ed. J.C. Ellis and B.A. McLane, NY-London, Continuum,
2005.
- Bazin A., What is cinema?, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005 (on-line access
through JHU).
- Bernard S.C., Documentary Storytelling. Creative non-fiction on screen, Oxford, Elsevier,
2011.
- Ross K., Mai 68 and its Afterlives, The University of Chicago Press, 2002
- Sellier G., Masculine Singular, French New Wave Cinema, trans. K. Ross, Duke University
Press, Durham and London, 2008.
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