2010-11 academic year

History of Audiovisual Genres (20390)

Degree/study: Degree in Audiovisual Communication
Year: 2nd
Term: 1st
Number of ECTS credits: 4 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 100 hours
Teaching language or languages: catalan
Teaching Staff: Fran Benavente

1. Presentation of the subject

This subject is part of the general itinerary of history, theory and analysis of the audiovisual work. It's aimed to offer an historical prospect of the classical film genders and its mutations starting off in the current situation. It's meant to do an archaeological work of the generic elements that form film and television fictions in the context of a generalized hybridization and of a constant interaction between audiovisual languages.

2. Competences to be attained

Skills in collecting and interpreting relevant data (both within and outside the field of study) so as to be able to form conclusions that includes reflecting on different topics related to the history of the audiovisual genres.

Learning skills that allow continuing studies in a self-directed or autonomous way

Capacity and skills in the use of techniques when building a speech on the history of audiovisual genres.

Skills in the processes of building and analysis of audiovisual stories from a generic point of view.

Capacity to read and analyse audiovisual works of different genres.

Capacity to detect and comprehend the different styles applied to the different audiovisual genres.

3. Contents

Unit 1

Introduction. Debate on genres. Genre: the fiction metamorphoses space. Double aspect of genres: synchronic and diachronic. Generalized hybridization, interaction of the linguistic codes. The difficulties of filiations. The film-television dialogue. Genres inheritance. The Sopranos as a paradigm. The revivification of genres. Genre: body and ghost. The figure of the revenant and the genre that returns. The Kill Bill example, of Quentin Tarantino.

Unit 2

Film noir. From The Sopranos to Public Enemy. Mutations and historicism. Features, social context, literary sources. Original trends. The gangsters, the police films. Realism and sociology. World war two and its psychological consequences. The detective figure. Mixes and transgressions. Configuration limits, points without return. Violence, ghosts and political in the 60. The classical nostalgia and the filiations problems in the 70. The contemporary noir: parody, psycho-killer. The mannerist and the postmodern gesture.

Unit 3

The musical. Musical basis. A dead genre and its resurrection: the case of One from the heart (F.F.Coppola). Realism and fragmentation issues. The sound vocation of films. The classical models: Busby Berkeley, the Astaire-Rogers couple. The splendour of the MGM. The Minelli system. Musicals decline, studies decline. The reflective musical: breaking the mirror and splitting the scene.

Unit 4

Western. Archaeology of an epic story. From the primitive cowboy to the progress cycle. A space to colonize. Tragic inflections. Hero's transformations. From the super-western to the crepuscular western. The desert, the loss of sense, the rarefaction: A. Mann, Budd Boetticher, Monte Hellman. The game, the theatre, the time, overelaborate language and formal hyperinflation: Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone. The western after the western: a story of the wounds and the ashes (Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch).

Unit 5

The melodrama. The sentimental vocation of films. Time, death and desire. Origins. Popular genre and stage setting apotheosis. Archetypal consolidation, generic mechanisms. Passion and distance. Frank Borzage. The family melodrama, gender archetypes. Hybridizations. Mannerisms: Douglas Sirk. Melodramatic impulses in author films: Fassbinder, Almodóvar, Wong Kar-Wai. Rewritings: political melodrama.

Unit 6

The comedy. The comic traditions in the television territory. The slapstick, the sophisticated comedy: body and word. Classical formulations. Gag reinvention, order conflicts: Jerry Lewis, Jacques Tati, Blake Edwards. The parody or the postmodern comedy. National differences.

Unit 7

The fantastic. Definition problems. Origin territories: Escandinàvia, Germany. The terror of the Universal. Monsters. The external enemy: science-fiction. Neoclassical variations, parodial distortions. Metaphysical. The postmodern age: metamorphosis, meat and metal, the body experiences, the other, the abyss, the gap, the no-shape, what returns: James Cameron, David Lynch, Cronenberg. Television, territory of the fantastic: The Kingdom, X Files.

4. Assessment

a) Teamwork 30%

b) Presentation 15%

c) Final exam 50%

d) General attitude and class participation. 5%.

5. Bibliography and teaching resources

5.1. Basic bibliography

ARISTÓTELES. Poética.

ATLMAN, Rick. Los géneros cinematográficos. Barcelona: Paidós Comunicación, 2000.

BORDWELL, D; STAIGER, J; THOMPSON, K. El cine clásico de Hollywood. Barcelona: Paidós Comunicación, 1997.

DELEUZE, Gilles. La imagen-movimiento. Estudios sobre cine 1. Barcelona: Paidós Comunicación, 1994.

JIMÉNEZ LOSANTOS, E.; SÄNCHEZ-BIOSCA, V. El relato electrónico. Valencia: Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana, 1989.

NEALE, Stephen. Genre. Londres: BFI, 1980.

NEALE, Steve (Ed.) Genre and contemporary Hollywood. Londres: BFI, 2002.

SCHATZ, Thomas. Hollywood Genres. Formulas, filmmaking and the studio system.

SERCEAU, Michel (dir.). "Panorama des genres au cinéma". CINEMACTION n. 68, Corlet-Télerama, 1993.

VERNET, Marc. "Genre". En: VV.AA. Lectures du film. Paris: Albatros, 1980.

5.2. Complementary bibliography

BISKIND, Peter. Moteros tranquilos, toros salvajes. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2009.

CASSETTI, Francesco. Teorías del cine. Madrid: Cátedra, 2000.

CREEBER, Glen (ed). The television genre book. Londres: British Films Institute, 2001.

FEUER, Jane. El musical de Hollywood. Madrid: Verdoux, 1992.

HEREDERO, Carlos F; SANTAMARINA, Antonio. El cine negro. Buenos Aires: Paidós Ibérica, 1996.

LEUTRAT, Jean-Louis. Vida de fantasmas. Lo fantástico en el cine. Valencia: Ediciones de La Mirada, 1999.

LEUTRAT, Jean-Louis; LIANDRAT-GUIGUES, Suzanne. Western(s). París: Klinsieck, 2007.

TESSÉ, Jean-Philippe. Le Burlesque. París: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2008.

THORET, Jean-Baptiste. Le cinéma américain des années 70. París: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006

5.3. Teaching resources

- Film fragments

- Photographs / Illustrations

- Moodle

6. Metodology

During the course we will combine the following learning methods:

- Master classes

- Group assignments

- Presentations and class debates

- Audiovisual works viewing

7. Planning of activities

Week

Class activity/ type of activity

Out-of-class activity/ type of activity

Week 1

Unit 1

Film viewing.

Group formation

Week 2

Unit 2

Film viewing