film author argument paper

Week

Date

Topic

Assignments (due on the day they appear)

Screening

1

1/6

What is Auteur Theory?

François Truffaut, “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema,”

Pierre Bourdieu, Introduction

Diary of an African Nun (Dash, 1977)

Illusions (Dash, 1982)

1/8

S. V. Hartman and Farah Jasmine Griffin,

“Are You as Colored as that Negro?: The Politics of Being Seen in Julie Dash's Illusions”

Andrew Sarris, “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”

Daughters of the Dust (Dash, 1991)

2

1/13

Challenges to Auteur Theory

Patricia Mellencamp,

“Making History: Julie Dash”

Pauline Kael, “Circles and Squares”

Incognito (Dash, 1999)

1/15

Graham Petrie,

“Alternatives to Auteurs”

Valerie Smith, “Reconstituting the Image”

Love Song (Dash, 2000)

3

1/20

Julie Dash’s Style

Angela Martin

“Refocusing Authorship in Women’s Filmmaking,”

MLK holiday

1/22

Michael T. Martin, "I Do Exist"

From "Black Insurgent" to Negotiating the Hollywood Divide—A Conversation with Julie Dash

The Rosa Parks Story (Dash, 2002)

4

1/27

L.A. Rebellion

Allyson Nadia Field, “Rebellious Unlearning”

Zeinabu irene Davis, “Keeping the Black in Media Production: One L.A. Rebellion Filmmaker's Notes”

Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema at UCLA (Davis, 2016)

1/29

Toni Cade Bambara,

“Programming with School Daze”

Michele Wallace, “Spike Lee and Black Women”

School Daze (Lee, 1988)

5

2/3

Spike Lee’s Style

MIDTERM due

Anna Everett, “Spike, Don’t Mess Malcolm Up”: Courting Controversy and Control in Malcolm X,

Malcolm X (Lee, 1992)

2/5

bell hooks, “Consumed by images - analysis of the movie Malcolm X - Culture Wars”

Christine Acham, “We Shall Overcome: Preserving History and Memory in 4 Little Girls,”

4 Little Girls (Lee, 1997)

6

2/10

Genre and Filmmakers

Excerpts from Bambi Haggin’s Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-Soul America

The Original Kings of Comedy (Lee, 2000)

2/12

Wahneema Lubiano, “But Compared to what?: Reading Realism, Representation, and Essentialism in School Daze, do the Right Thing, and the Spike Lee Discourse,”

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Lee, 2006), parts 1 - 3

7

2/17

Documentary and Historical Films

Michael Eric Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster

President’s Day Holiday

2/19

Delphine Letort, “The Making of Spike Lee’s Nonfiction Joints”

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Lee, 2006), parts 4

Mo'ne Davis: I Throw Like a Girl (Lee, 2014)

Miracle at St. Anna (Lee, 2008)

8

2/24

Hollywood as a System

Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin, “The Structure and History of Hollywood Filmmaking,” Chapter 2

This Is the Life (DuVernay,2008)

My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women and Hip Hop (DuVernay, 2010)

2/26

Theresa Renée White, Sara Tekle and Melanie Shaw, “A glance at herstory”

I Will Follow (DuVernay, 2010

9

3/2

Minority Directors

Paper due

Maryann Erigha “Black, Asian, and Latino Directors in Hollywood,”

Middle of Nowhere (DuVernay, 2012)

3/4

Karen Bowdre, “Spike and Tyler’s Beef”

Novotny Lawrence, “From Compton to center court : Venus and Serena and the black female experience in professional tennis”

Venus vs. (DuVernay, 2013)

August 28th (DuVernay, 2016)

10

3/9

3/11

Ava DuVernay’s Style

Ava DuVernay and Bradford Young, “Black Lives, Silver Screen”

Michael T. Martin, “Conversations with Ava DuVernay”

Selma (DuVernay, 2014)

13th (DuVernay, 2016)