Kurzus nemzetközi vendég- és részidős hallgatóknak

Kar

Bölcsészettudományi Kar

Szervezet

BTK Művészetelméleti és Médiakutatási Intézet

Kód

BMI-FLMD-322E.25

Cím

Filmelméleti szeminárium: Család és ideológia - családi melodrámák az amerikai filmművészetben

Tervezett félév

Őszi

Meghirdetve

2024/25/1

ECTS

4

Nyelv

en

Leírás

Oktatás célja

Participants will become familiar with the basic vocabulary of melodrama studies and cinema, study the domestic American cinematic melodramas, practice film analysis skills and academic writing skills.

Tantárgy tartalma

This seminar works with the assumption that in a large majority of American domestic melodramas the middle-class family represents a miniature model of society. Through an investigation of the development of the genre, we will interrogate issues of sexuality, gender and ethnic- and class identities in American society across the 20th-century. The first part of the class focuses mainly on theoretical questions, which will be followed by a historically motivated study of the various transformations of domestic melodrama, from its beginnings towards the contemporary remakes. In last section of the course, we will examine conceptual issues related to genre theory, and attempt to locate the position of melodramas amongst other traditional genres within American cinema. Week 1: Introduction, course overview Week 2: Definitions and types of melodrama Week 3: Silent film melodrama as morality tale Week 4: Silent film melodrama: the social turn Week 5: Classical american domestic melodrama 1. Week 6: Classical american domestic melodrama 2. Week 7: The baroque phase: Douglas Sirk 1. Week 8: The baroque phase: Douglas Sirk 2. Week 9: Melodrama and the remake Week 10: Contemporary versions Week 11: Melodrama as ethnic identity politics Week 12: Melodrama as sexual identity politics Required films: Broken Blossoms (DW Griffith, 1919) The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928) Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937) Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) Rebel without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) All that Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955) Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956) Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002) Punch-Drunk Love (PT Anderson, 2002) Jungle Fever (Spike Lee, 1991) Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)

Számonkérés és értékelés

Participants are required to regularly attend the course (more than 3 absences result in an incomplete), to watch the films and read the assigned texts weekly. Course grade is calculated after final essay exam, with regard to students’ in-class activity.

Irodalomjegyzék

Required readings: Marcia Landy (ed): Imitations of Life: A reader on film & television melodrama. Wayne State University Press, Detroit: 1991 Christine Gledhill (ed): Home is where the heart is. Studies in melodrama and the woman’s film. BFI Publishing, London: 1987 Recommended readings: Altman, Rick: Film/Genre. BFI Publishing, 1999. Altman, Rick: Újrafelhasználható csomagolás. Mûfaji termékek és az újrafeldolgozási folyamat. In: Metropolis 1999/3. pp. 12–33. Brown, Nick (ed): Refiguring American Film Genres. University of California Press, 1998. Byers, Jackie: All that Heaven Allows: Re-reading Gender in 1950s melodrama. Routledge, London: 1991. Kuhn, Anette: Women’s Pictures: Feminism and Cinema. Routledge: 1982 Lang, Robert: American film melodrama: Griffith, Vidor, Minnelli. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. Schatz, Thomas: Hollywood Genres. McGraw and Hill, 1981. Singer, Brian: Melodrama and Modernity. Columbia University Press, 2001.

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