Religion 326 "Religion
and Film"
Tue/Thu 1:00 – 2:20
111 Bowne Hall
Gail Hamner 512 Hall of Languages
(x-5716) Office Hour: Mondays 9:30-10:30 and Tuesdays 9-11 am mghamner@mailbox.syr.edu
TA: Alyssa Beall, Office hour: Tuesdays 2:45-3:30 and
by appointment ajbeall@.syr.edu
Reading having been redrawn in contemporary
theory,
Perhaps it is now time to restructure
our concept of learning itself.
Fredric Jameson
This course accepts religion as
a pervasive and active cultural event. Side-stepping the dilemmas inherent
in defining the term, the course approaches religion through the interaction
(dissonances, synergy) of filmic texts, linguistic texts and conversation.
As one religionist has said, religion is less an ‘object’ of analysis than
an ‘occasion’ for analysis. Over the weeks of this course we can use our
own and others’ understandings of religion as occasions for analyzing the
conditions of being human, namely, how the religious crystallizes and reflects
the political, economic, social, and sexual parameters of human cultures.
The Course text (Understanding
Movies by Louis Giannetti) is on sale at both the Student Union and
Marshall Square bookstores. The Course-pack is on sale at the Copy Center
at Marshall Square.
| Week II, The Stranger Part One |
| Tuesday, September 5 |
Read Giannetti, Chapter 1 (Photography),
Ritchie, "Dersu Uzala," and Kopper, "Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala
and the Imperial Vision" (course pack) |
| Thursday September 7 |
Watch Dersu
Uzala (Kurosawa, 1974: 140m) and answer questions for group work. |
| Week III, Morality Framed by (as) Religion |
| Tuesday, September 12 |
Read Giannetti, Ch 2 (Mise en Scene),
Fallows, "George Bailey in the Vital Center: Postwar Liberal Politics and
'It's a Wonderful Life'", and Mortimer, "The Grim Enchantment of
It's
a Wonderful Life" |
| Thursday, September 14 |
Watch It's
a Wonderful Life(Capra 1946: 130m) and answer questions
for group work |
| Week IV, Holocaust: Religion and (in the face
of) Power |
| Tuesaday, September 19 |
Read Giannetti Ch 3 (Movement),
Hansen, Schinder's List is not Shoah: The Second Commandment,
Popular Modernism, and Public Memory," and Horowitz, "But is it Good for
the Jews? Spielberg's Schindler and the Aesthetics of Atrocity" |
| Thursday, September 21 |
Watch Schindler’s
List (Spielberg, 1993: 197m) and answer questions for group work |
| Week V, African-American Experience and Religion |
| Tuesday, September 26 |
Read Giannetti Ch 4 (Editing)
and the Cineaste articles, "Malcolm X Symposium: By any Reviews
Necessary" |
| Thursday, September 28 |
Watch Malcolm
X (Lee, 1992: 194m) and answer questions for group work |
| Week VI, The Stranger Part Two |
| Tuesday, October 3 |
Read Giannetti Ch 5 (Sound)
and Jowett, "Hollywood Discovers Apartheid." |
| Thursday, October 5 |
Watch Cry,
The Beloved Country (Roodt, 1995: 106m) and answer questions for
group work |
| Tuesday October 10 |
Work on your midterm paper (due
today
unless you observe Yom Kippur, in which case see me by the first of
October) |
| Thursday October 12 |
Watch The
Seventh Seal (1957: 92m) and read Ferlita, "Film and the Quest
for Meaning." We'll work on group questions together |
| Week VIII, Religion and Violence |
| Tuesday October 17 |
Read Giannetti Ch 6 (Acting), Heath,
"God, Faith and Film: Breaking the Waves,", Makarushka, "Transgressing
Goodness in Breaking the Waves," Bjorkman, "Naked Miracles,
and Nelson, "The New Expressionism" (this can be found by searching for
author Victoria Nelson in the MLA
Bibliography Database (Scroll through the M's to it) |
| Thursday October 19 |
Watch Breaking
the Waves (Lars von Triers, 1996: 158m) and do questions for group
work |
| October 24 |
Read Giannetti, Ch 7 (Drama),
Casillo, "Scorsese in the Land of Snows," Mullen, "Orientalist
Commercializations," and Smith, "The Art of Vision" |
| October 26 |
WatchKundun
(Scorsese, 1997) and answer questions for group work. |
| Ocotber 31 |
Read Giannetti, Ch 8 (Story), Felita,
"Luis Bunuel" and Wood, " ‘God Never Dies: Buñuel and Catholicism" |
| November 2 |
Watch The Milky Way (1969
105m) and answer questions for group work. |
| November 7 |
Read Giannetti, Ch 9 (Writing),
Cesare, "Pasolini’s Theorem," Testa, "To Film a Gospel…and Advent of the
Theoretical Stranger," and Friedrich, "Teorema: the bourgeoisie from the
inside." |
| November 9 |
Watch Teorema(1968:
98m ) and answer questions for group work. |
| Week XII, Religion and Madness |
| November 14 |
Read Giannetti, Ch 10 (Ideology)
and |
| November 16 |
Watch Sling
Blade (Thornton, 1996: 135m) and answer questions for group work. |
| November 21 |
No class American Academy
of Religion Meeting in Boston |
| November 23 |
No class Thanksgiving
Break |
|
Week XV, Hollywood’s Angels
|
| December 5 |
WatchDogma(Smith
1999: 130m) (may it be on video by then!) |
| December 7 |
Wrap-up discussion |
