FAVBPalt7 Innovation in a spiral: Groundhog Day, Christmas Day and Narrative Schema Across Media Platforms

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2019
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Radomír D. Kokeš, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Radomír D. Kokeš, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Patrycja Astrid Twardowska
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Wed 9:00–12:40 C34
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 10 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
This lecture series deals with a specific pattern of audiovisual storytelling, where a character is stuck in an iterative segment of space, time and causality, is aware of that and tries to find a way to deal with it. It introduces the term "spiral narrative" for this narrative pattern known from films such as the 1993 Groundhog Day. It identifies it as an innovative schema which helps American film and television creators to defamiliarize various amounts of already established models of narrative development. It is going to define the spiral narrative schema on the one side and the so-called loop narrative schema on the other side, explaining aesthetic norms in feature films, television films, television series, and VOD films that exploit the spiral narrative schema - from analytical as well as historical perspective. It is also going to inquire into the possible ways in which spiral narratives can affect the viewers as well as the aesthetic sources of the spiral narrative schema as such.
Learning outcomes
A student will be able:
- to understand the specific innovative tradition of popular storytelling, one of the most stable version of innovative schemas in the last thirty years;
- to use tools of narratological or broadly speaking poetic analytical research of popular culture aesthetics.
Syllabus
  • The lecture series is going to figure out i. a. following topics:
  • - defining of a spiral narrative on the background of a phenomenon like so-called puzzle films on the one side or so-called loop narrative on the other side;
  • - explaining historical traditions behind the spiral narrative schema;
  • - establishing of the spiral narrative schema as an innovative tool in American audiovisual popular culture;
  • - functions and historical changing of the spiral narrative schema exploitations in cinema, television or VOD platforms.
Literature
  • KOKEŠ, Radomír D. Spirála coby inovativní schéma filmového vyprávění. Bohemica Litteraria. 2018, č. 2, s. 7-43.
  • KOKEŠ, Radomír D. Světy na pokračování. Rozbor možností seriálového vyprávění (Worlds To Be Continued. Analysing Possibilities of Serial Narrativity). Praha: Filip Tomáš – Akropolis, 2016, 240 pp. ISBN 978-80-7470-146-7. Autorovy stránky o knize. info
  • BORDWELL, David. Reinventing Hollywood. How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling. Chicago – London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
  • BORDWELL, David. The way Hollywood tells it : story and style in modern movies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, x, 298. ISBN 0520246225. info
  • Puzzle films : complex storytelling in contemporary cinema. Edited by Warren Buckland. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, ix, 241. ISBN 9781405168625. info
  • BUCKLAND, Warren (ed.). Hollywood Puzzle Films. London: Routledge - American Film Institute, 2014.
  • PARSHALL, Peter F. Altman and after : multiple narratives in film. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2012, vi, 257. ISBN 9780810885073. info
  • THANOULI, Eleftheria. Post-classical cinema : an international poetics of film narration. 1st pub. London: Wallflower, 2009, viii, 239. ISBN 9781906660109. info
Teaching methods
Lectures, screenings, analyses.
Assessment methods
There will be two options of exam: a written test, or an analytical essay (8 pages).
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
Study Materials
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