We’ve spent the better part of the class looking at the disruptive and
transformative elements of early cinema (rather than its systemization
and homogenization) so in order to prevent us from regressing into
passive spectatorship I suggest we join forces with the Future Cinemas
class and have a party.
The celebration will most likely be sometime in early May near Dupont station.
Stay tuned for more details. Sharon
Please note this change in the week’s recommended readings.
The readings for week twelve are:
Mary Carbine’s “The Finest Outside the Loop: Motion Picture Exhibition in Chicago’s Black Metropolis”
The suggested readings are:
David Gerstner’s “African American Realism: Oscar Micheaux, Autobiography, and the Ambiguity of Black Male Desire”
Charlene Regester’s “From the Buzzard’s Roost: Black Movie-going in Durham and Other North Carolina Cities during the Early Period of American Cinema”
Jacqueline Stewart’s “Negroes Laughing at Themselves? Black Spectatorship and the Performance of Urban Modernity”
This is from the University of Indiana website:
Beginning in the 1910s, a separate film industry began to take root, in part, to remedy the negative depiction of blacks in motion pictures. One of the motivating forces behind this movement was the racist depictions of blacks in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915). Early responses to this, such as The Birth of a Race (1918) [click here to view a clip from the film] and the Lincoln Motion Picture Company’s The Trooper of Troop K (1916), did not achieve box office success but ushered in a new subset of films in America, commonly referred to as “race movies.”
Post your reading questions for week twelve’s reading:
Mary Carbine’s “The Finest Outside the Loop: Motion Picture Exhibition in Chicago’s Black Metropolis”
Please, post them in the comment section for this entry.
The Bioscopewallah
Prashant Kadam, York University (video, 12 mins.)
The Bioscopewallah is a brief encounter with an
entertainer, Rau Waghmare.
A dalit folk artist, hit by an unfortunate drought Rau
narrates in colloquial Marathi the story of his struggle
for survival in the face of a natural calamity and
migration.
Rau’s cheerful singing and gestures, his unconditional
pride in the bioscope, stand in contrast to the lurking
shadows of poverty and failing health.
Prashant Kadam
Please post any responses, reactions, questions and comments on his amazing film in the comments section or at his website here.
For week eleven’s topic on the “Public Sphere”, I (Lee Knuttila) presented on several readings and “A Birth of a Nation”. Here are my notes: Public Sphere
Long Essay—2500-3500 words, 10-14 pages—Due April 12, 2007 40%
1. The title of this course is Early Cinema to 1915. If you were to construct a chronology of early cinema when would it begin? What national cinemas would you include? How would you divide time periods within that chronology? What significant transformations would you include? Explain.
2.If you were asked to program an early cinema series at the Cinematheque Ontario what theme would you choose to organize the series around? Which films would you screen? What pertinent information would you include in the pamphlet for the screenings?
You are welcome to choose a theme we have discussed in class (i.e. representations of gendered spaces, the development of narrative form, the representation of technology, issues of perception and the body) or to pursue a theme of your choice. You will be evaluated on how persuasive your arguments are and how you justify your choices.
Papers should be double-spaced in 12 point font and follow a recognizable bibliographic method (Chicago Manual of Style, MLA,etc).
Post your reading questions for week ten’s readings:
Miriam Hansen’s “Early Cinema - Whose Public Sphere?”
Miriam Hansen’s “Cinema Spectatorship and Public Life”
Linda Williams’ “Race, Melodrama, and The Birth of a Nation”
Please, post them in the comment section for this entry.
The majority of early films on DVD are bundled in larger collections. Here is a working list of the DVDs and the contents of each disc.
A reminder for essays: These links might be a good starting point for information and research.
This week’s readings cover Louis Feuillade’s “Les Vampires” (1916) and a contemporary intertextual play on the film in Olivier Assayas’s “Irma Vep” (1996). Another interesting utilization and examination of the woman heroine in early film serials was done by Janie Geiser who created a multimedia work called “The Spider’s Wheels”. An article on the piece and the use of early film, specifically “The Perils of Pauline”, can be downloaded here: Towards A Feminist Coney Island of the Avant Garde.