FAVz076 Extreme Cinema: Film Cultural Institutions, Discourses and Futures

Filozofická fakulta
jaro 2019
Rozsah
2/0/0. 5 kr. Ukončení: zk.
Vyučující
Mattias Frey, prof. (přednášející), Mgr. Šárka Jelínek Gmiterková, Ph.D. (zástupce)
Mgr. Ondřej Pavlík, Ph.D. (pomocník)
Mgr. Kateřina Šrámková (pomocník)
Garance
Mgr. Šárka Jelínek Gmiterková, Ph.D.
Ústav filmu a audiovizuální kultury – Filozofická fakulta
Kontaktní osoba: Patrycja Astrid Twardowska
Dodavatelské pracoviště: Ústav filmu a audiovizuální kultury – Filozofická fakulta
Rozvrh
Po 29. 4. 8:00–11:45 C34, 14:00–15:40 C34, Út 30. 4. 14:00–17:40 C34, Čt 2. 5. 12:00–15:40 C34
Předpoklady
There are none.
Omezení zápisu do předmětu
Předmět je nabízen i studentům mimo mateřské obory.
Předmět si smí zapsat nejvýše 69 stud.
Momentální stav registrace a zápisu: zapsáno: 0/69, pouze zareg.: 0/69, pouze zareg. s předností (mateřské obory): 0/69
Mateřské obory/plány
předmět má 10 mateřských oborů, zobrazit
Cíle předmětu
Module description: Why have art films of the last 25 years, from Funny Games (1997) to The House That Jack Built (2018), dwelled so graphically on rape, torture and sex addiction? Why does every film festival have a scandal? Why do art film DVD cases or posters at upscale cinemas resemble smut or gore? Why do otherwise intelligent filmmakers pull childish stunts? And who in their right mind would want to watch these films?
This module probes issues of extreme cinema, i.e., ‘arthouse’ films that, because of sexual, violent or other iconoclastic content, form or style, have created critical or popular controversy. Representative topics include the aesthetics of violence, censorship and regulation, boundaries between erotic art and pornography, filmmakers’ publicity stunts and media performances, transnational-cultural movements and inflections of extremity, and the role of controversy and ‘moral panic’ in marketing, film criticism and entertainment press. The structure and focus of the module aim to broaden discussion of extreme cinema from purely aesthetic issues to wider concerns of film cultural institutions and discourse. The final lecture contemplates the future of extreme film culture and taste in the age of Netflix.
Warning: some scenes are of a sexually graphic or violent nature. Viewers sensitive to these issues should be advised.
Výstupy z učení
Students will be able to understand and discuss various manifestations of extreme cinema - not only as an aesthetic category, but also in terms of wider cultural institutions and discourse.
Osnova
  • Lecture 1. Introduction; Discourse Analysis; Filmmaker Rhetoric I: Didactics
  • This lecture introduces the key concerns of the module and puts forward a ‘cluster concept’ definition of extreme cinema, one which rebalances the object of inquiry away from aesthetic issues alone so as to consider broader concerns of film cultural institutions and discourse. Furthermore, it outlines a key method required to undertake this investigation: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and first tests this method on filmmaker rhetoric.
  • Required readings: • Machin, David, and Andrea Mayr. How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. Los Angeles: Sage, 2012. 30-56.; • Noé, Gaspar. “I’m Happy Some People Walk Out During My Film.” The Guardian, 12 March 1999. http://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/mar/12/features3.; Further recommended readings: • Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds, 2nd rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008 [1982]. 1-39.; • Haneke, Michael. “Violence and the Media.” In A Companion to Michael Haneke, ed. Roy Grundmann, 575-579. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
  • Suggested films to watch: • Funny Games (1997, Michael Haneke, 109 minutes); • Irreversible (2002, Gaspar Noé, 99 minutes);
  • Lecture 2. Filmmaker Rhetoric II (Distinction and the Aesthetics of Pornography); Reception Discourses: Critics, Scholars, Audiences
  • This lecture begins by continuing the discourse-analytic investigation of filmmaker rhetoric, applied to a range of extreme films that chiefly pertain to sex. It also demonstrates how these films – pitched as boundary-breaking in publicity – adhere to regular and systematic codes in their narrative forms and flirtations with pornography. The second half of the lecture attends to extreme cinema audiences. It first outlines empirical research on the consumers of extreme cinema and their motivations before proceeding to analyse how critics typically respond to these films.
  • Required readings: • Horeck, Tanya, and Tina Kendall. “Introduction.” In The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe, ed. Tanya Horeck and Tina Kendall, 1-17. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. • Tookey, Christopher. “It’s Not Just the Internet That’s Full of Violent Porn – So Are Cinemas.” Daily Mail, 1 November 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055937/Christopher-Tookey-Its-just-internet-thats-violent-porn--cinemas.html.
  • Further recommended readings: • Krzywinska, Tanya. Sex in the Cinema. London: Wallflower, 2006. 27-48. • Quandt, James. “Flesh and Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema.” Artforum 42.6 (2004): 126-132.
  • Suggested films to watch: • 9 Songs (2004, Michael Winterbottom, 71 minutes) • Baise-moi (2000, Virginie Despentes with Coralie Trinh Thi, 77 minutes)
  • Lecture 3. Film Festivals; Censorship and Regulation
  • The first half of this lecture examines the crucial role of extreme cinema at festivals – and festivals’ crucial role in promoting the circulation of the mode. The relationship between the two is symbiotic and perhaps even a ‘vicious circle’, as an examination of programming discourses reveals. The second half of the lecture attends to how state censors and regulators have reacted to extreme cinema, focussing on the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) as a case study.
  • Required readings: • Press release, Romance, BBFC. • “‘Vomitive. Pathetic’: Lars von Trier Film Prompts Mass Walkouts at Cannes.” Guardian, 15 May 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/15/vomitive-pathetic-lars-von-trier-film-prompts-mass-walkouts-at-cannes. • Wong, Cindy. Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011. 29-64.
  • Further recommended readings: • “Case Study: 9 Songs.” BBFC, n.d., accessed 15 September 2015. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/9-songs. • Duval, Robin. “‘The Last Days of the Board.’” In Behind the Scenes at the BBFC: Film Classification from the Silver Screen to the Digital Age, ed. Edward Lamberti, 146-161. London: British Film Institute/Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. • “Interview: Lars von Trier,” The Observer, 12 July 2009. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jul/12/lars-von-trier-interview. • “‘A Serbian Film’ Shocks Midnight Audiences at SXSW.” Wall Street Journal, 15 March 2010. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/03/15/a-serbian-film-shocks-midnight-audiences-at-sxsw/. (PDF).
  • Suggested films to watch: • Antichrist (2009, Lars von Trier, 108 minutes) • A Serbian Film (2010, Srdjan Spasojević, 110 minutes)
  • Lecture 4. Distribution and Marketing; Distribution II: Exotics and the Cultural Factor
  • This lecture examines the distribution and marketing of extreme cinema as constitutive of the mode. It begins with case studies of niche distributors who specialise in extreme cinema, investigating their business models, acquisitions lists and publicity designs. The second half of the lecture shows how distributors often seek to equate foreignness with extremity by providing case studies of Western distributors’ presentations of Asian extreme films.
  • Required readings: • Drake, Philip. “Distribution and Marketing in Contemporary Hollywood.” In The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry, ed. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, 63-82. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. • Wyatt, Justin. High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. 109-154.
  • Further recommended reading: • Said, Edward S. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. 1-28.
  • Suggested films to watch: • Clip (2012, Maja Miloš, 102 minutes) • Oldboy (2003, Park Chan-Wook, 120 minutes)
  • Lecture 5. The Cultural Factor II: Industry Analysis; History and Future of Extreme Cinema
  • The first half of this lecture continues, but transposes, the concerns of the previous, by examining how filmmakers from certain cultures might try to invite an ‘Orientalist’ gaze in order to gain access to international markets and audiences. An industry analysis demonstrates how a number of institutional concerns can better explain the presence of extreme cinema than aesthetic analysis or cultural essentialism alone. The second half of the lecture introduces a number of historical examples to suggest that – although recent structural, institutional and cultural developments may explain the sharp rise in extreme cinema – the seeds of the mode go back to the early days of film.
  • Required readings: • Dawson, Thomas. “Ordinary indecent paedophile: Markus Schleinzer’s Michael.” Sight and Sound, 21 November 2013. http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/ordinary-indecent-paedophile-markus-schleinzer-s. • Lim, Dennis. “Greetings from the Land of Feel-Bad Cinema.” New York Times, 26 November 2006. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/movies/greetings-from-the-land-of-feelbad-cinema.html. • Schweighofer, Martin. “Introduction.” In Austrian Films 2013: Review, ed. Charlotte Rühm and Karin Schiefer, 4-5. Vienna: Austrian Film Commission, 2013.
  • Further recommended readings: • Lewis, Jon. Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry. New York: New York University Press, 2000. 192-229. • Martin-Jones, David, and Maria Soledad Montanez. “Uruguay Disappears: Small Cinemas, Control Z Films, and the Aesthetics and Politics of Auto-Erasure.” Cinema Journal 53.1 (2013): 26-51. • Romney, Jonathan. “Michael.” The Independent, 4 March 2012. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/michael-markus-schleinzer-94-mins-18-7528183.html
  • Suggested films to watch: • Michael (2011, Markus Schleinzer, 96 minutes) • In the Realm of the Senses (1976, Ōshima Nagisa, 109 minutes)
  • Lecture 6. Extreme Cinema as Product of ‘Too-Much’ Culture? Taste and Choice Futures in the Age of Netflix
  • The final lecture picks up on a major theme from Lecture 5: that extreme cinema’s existence (and proliferation) can be partly explained by an overall need for product differentiation in a cultural era of excess, the so-called ‘attention economy’. Outlining the theoretical and empirical basis for this phenomenon, this lecture shifts focus to this bigger picture first by exploring today’s models of film choice reduction and then by previewing cutting-edge empirical research on how real users negotiate film selection.
  • Required reading: • Webster, James G. The Marketplace of Attention: How Audiences Take Shape in a Digital Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014. 1-21.
  • Suggested readings: • Alexander, Neta. “Catered to Your Future Self: Netflix’s ‘Predictive Personalization’ and the Mathematization of Taste.” In The Netflix Effect: Technology and Entertainment in the 21st Century, ed. Kevin McDonald and Daniel Smith-Rowsey, 81-97. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. • Frank, Robert H., and Philip J. Cook. “Media and Culture in the Winner-Take-All Society.” In The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us, 189-209. London: Virgin, 2010 [1995].
Literatura
  • The Netflix Effect: Technology and Entertainment in the 21st Century, ed. Kevin McDonald and Daniel Smith-Rowsey. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.
  • The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us. London: Virgin, 2010 [1995]
  • The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry, ed. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.
  • The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe, ed. Tanya Horeck and Tina Kendall. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
  • • Wong, Cindy. Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011
  • • Machin, David, and Andrea Mayr. How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. Los Angeles: Sage
  • WYATT, Justin. High concept : movies and marketing in Hollywood. 5th pbk. print. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006, x, 237. ISBN 0292790910. info
Výukové metody
The course consists of six lectures and one compulsory screening session. Students are obliged to read the items on the reading list marked as required - these will be provided in the student materials - and familiarise themselves with the suggested titles as a way of preparation for the course. The 100% attendance at the lectures is compulsory and will be checked throughout every lecture.
Monday 29. 4.
8.30-9.00: preliminary test
9.00-10.40: Lecture 1
10.45-11.56: screening 9 Songs (2004, Michael Winterbottom, 71 minutes)
14.00-15.40: Lecture 2
Tuesday 30. 4.
14.00-15.40: Lecture 3
16.00-17.40: Lecture 4
Thursday 2. 5.
12.00-13.40: Lecture 5
14.00-15.40: Lecture 6
Metody hodnocení
Apart from the compulsory attendance students will have to pass two test. First test is preliminary and it will take place just before the start of the first lecture. With two questions, the test will check the knowledge of the required items from the reading list for the first three lesson. The other test is final, consisting of three questions testing both students' acquaintance with the reading list as well as their knowledge and skills gained throughout the course itself. Ten points maximum can be gathered from both of the test; four points are the necessary minimum in order to pass the course successfully.
Vyučovací jazyk
Angličtina
Informace učitele
Professor Mattias Frey is Professor of Film, Media and Culture at the University of Kent. His approach to film and media culture attends coequally to institutions as to human agency and cooperation, concentrating on what were once considered periphery phenomena: criticism, distribution, regulation and other cultural intermediaries.
His research endeavours include specific expertise in genres and production trends (period/historical film and series; arthouse extreme cinema), institutions (film and other arts criticism; video on demand platforms), periods (postwar and contemporary) and geographical areas (German and Austrian film), not to mention classical and contemporary film theory. These publications, informed by media industries, sociology of art, political economy and cultural studies perspectives, demonstrate the productivity of triangulating methods first developed in seemingly distant areas of the humanities and social sciences.
Professor Frey received his academic training in Heidelberg, Mannheim and Berlin as well as at Harvard University, where he earned his bachelor and doctoral degrees and taught in the Department for Visual and Environmental Studies. In 2008 he joined the University of Kent. In addition to his research and teaching, he has served as the Director of Internationalisation for the Faculty of Humanities, Director of Learning and Teaching for the School of Arts, Director of Internationalisation for the School of Arts, Director of Recruitment and Marketing for the School of Arts, Head of the Film department, Acting Associate Dean for Research and Innovation for the Faculty of Humanities, Managing Director of the Centre for Film and Media Research and in a variety of other roles.
His numerous articles appear in edited anthologies, reference works and journals such as Cinema Journal, Screen, New German Critique, Artforum, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Jump Cut and Framework. In the 2000s, he reviewed movies for the Boston Phoenix and for many years he reported on film festivals for Senses of Cinema.
Students of the course FAVz076 should note, that with any questions regarding the course they should contact Ondřej Pavlík at ondrej.pavlik@mail.muni.cz
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