21st Century European Art Cinema: History, Myths, and Migrations

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

1. Introduction to the selected phenomena representative of the latest achievements of European art film (authors of European cinema and the mythological tradition of antiquity, historical cinema of Central and Eastern Europe, European diasporic and migrant cinema);
2. Development of students' skills in analysing and interpreting feature films in their respective artistic, cultural, historical, social and political contexts;
3. Reflection on the significance of film images for the construction of European identity and cultural memory, and on the depiction in cinema of social problems and important cultural phenomena.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Syllabus

Course learning content:

Studies of films referring to the mythological tradition of antiquity and to European cultural heritage made by selected European filmmakers (Yorgos Lanthimos, Paolo Sorrentino, Andrei Zwiagintsew, Lars von Trier, Cristian Mungiu)

Srudies of contemporary historical cinema from the Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans in the context of the 20th-century history of the region

Studies of selected examples of contemporary European migrant and diasporic cinema in the context of contemporary migratory movements

Introduction of the the most important concepts (such as: shot, scene, mise-en-scène, dramaturgy, plot, etc.) and methods of film analysis and their relationship with literary studies

Student presentations on a selected issue based on the suitable literature deepening reflection on the analysed films

Reading list

A. Obligatory reading (in chronological order): 

1. Simor Eszter, David Sorfa, Irony, sexism and magic in Paolo Sorrentino’s films, „Studies in European Cinema” 2017, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 200–215.
2. Sarah Cooper, Narcissus and The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015), “Studies in European Cinema” 2016, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 163–176.
3. Jennifer Friedlander, Melancholia and the Real of the Illusion, [in:] Real Deceptions: The Contemporary Reinvention of Realism, 2017.
4. Elżbieta Ostrowska, "I will wash it out": Holocaust Reconciliation in Agnieszka Holland's 2011 Film "In Darkness", "Holocaust and Genocide Studies" 2015, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 57-75.
5. Claudiu Turcuş, Paradigms of Rememoration in Postcommunist Romanian Cinema, [in:] Cultural Studies Approaches in the Study of Eastern European Cinema. Spaces, Bodies, Memories, ed. by A. Virginás, Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2016, s. 216–244.
6. Nancy Condee, Aleksei Balabanov: The Metropole’s Death Drive, [in:] The Imperial Trace: Recent Russian Cinema, New York: Oxford University Press 2009.
7. Yosefa Loshitzky, Screening Strangers. Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2010, pp. 61–76.
8. Polona Petek, Enabling collisions: Re-thinking multiculturalism through Fatih Akin’s ‘Gegen die Wand’/’Head On’, “Studies in European Cinema” 2007, Vol. 4, No. 3., Pp. 177-186.
9. Raphaëlle Moine, Stereotypes of class, ethnicity and gender in contemporary French popular comedy: from Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (2008) and Intouchables (2011) to Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au Bon Dieu ? (2014), “Studies in French Cinema” 2018, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 35–51.

B.  Optional reading (in chronological order): 

1. Elena del Río, La Grande Bellezza: Adventures in transindividuality, https://necsus-ejms.org/la-grande-bellezza-adventures-in-transindividuality/
2. Angelos Koutsourakis, Cinema of the Body: The Politics of Performativity in Lars von Trier’s Dogville and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, “Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image” 2012, no. 3, pp. 84–108.
3. Nancy Condee, Knowledge (Imperfective): Andrei Zviagintsev and Contemporary Cinema, [in:] A Companion to Russian Cinema, ed. by Birgit Beumers, West Sussex 2016.
4. Birgit Beumers, Tarkovsky’s Return, or Zviagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie, [in:] The Russian Cinema Reader: Volume II, ed. by Rimgaila Salys, Academic Studies Press 2013.
5. Francisco A. Zurian, La piel que habito: A Story of Imposed Gender and the Struggle for Identity, [in:] A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar, Ed. by Marvin D’Lugo and Kathleen M. Vernon, Wiley-Blackwell 2013.
6. Thomas Elsaesser, Black Suns and a Bright Planet. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia as Thought Experiment, [in:] European Cinema and Continental Philosophy Film as Thought Experiment, Bloomsbury Academic 2019, pp. 225-252.
7. Melanie J. Wright, Religion and Film. An Introduction, I.B. Tauris, London–New York 2007, pp. 1–33.
8. Ioana Uricaru, No Melo: Minimalism and Melodrama in the New Romanian Cinema, w: The New Romanian Cinema, ed. by Ch. Stojanova, D. Duma, Edinburgh University Press 2019, s. 50–62.
9. Anthony Anemone, "Cargo 200", [in:] The Contemporary Russian Cinema Reader: 2005–2016, ed. by Rimgaila Salys, Academic Studies Press 2019.
10. Sylwia Kołos, To Play, To Imitate, To Embody. On Acting in a Biographical Film, „Images” 2016, vol. XIX, no. 28, 75-93.
11. Hamid Naficy, An Accented Cinema. Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2001, pp. 22-36.
12. Thomas Austin, Benefaction, processing, exclusion: documentary representations of refugees and migrants in Fortress Europe, „Studies in European Cinema” 2019, Vol. 16, No. 3, Pp. 250–265.
13. Jenny Wills, I's Wide Shut: Examining the Depiction of Female Refugees' Eyes and Hands in Stephen Erears's Dirty Pretty Things, „Informing Integration” 2007, vol. 24, no. 2.
14. Thomas Elsaesser, ‘Experimenting with Death in Life’. Fatih Akin and the Ethical Turn, [in:] European Cinema and Continental Philosophy Film as Thought Experiment, Bloomsbury Academic 2019, pp. 207-224.
15. Daniela Berghahn, No place like home? Or impossible homecomings in the films of Fatih Akin, „New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film” 2006, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 141-157.
16. Raphaëlle Moine, Stereotypes of class, ethnicity and gender in contemporary French popular comedy: from Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (2008) and Intouchables (2011) to Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au Bon Dieu ? (2014), “Studies in French Cinema” 2018, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 35–51.