Key Concepts in Film

05/04/17 Key Concepts in Film Studies | University of St Andrews
Key Concepts in Film Studies View Online

(2016-17)
180 items
Core Text (2 items)

There are several copies of this in the Library. However, as this is such a large module, we
highly recommend that you consider purchasing your own copy, especially if you are
considering pursuing film studies at Honours level. Copies are available from Blackwells
bookshop in the Students Union and from most online booksellers.
Film: a critical introduction (3rd edition) - Maria Pramaggiore, Tom Wallis, 2011
Book | Suggested for student purchase
Film: a critical introduction (2nd edition) - Maria Pramaggiore, Tom Wallis, 2008
Book
Supplementary Texts (6 items)

A short guide to writing about film - Timothy Corrigan, 2010
Book | Suggested for student purchase
The film experience: an introduction - Timothy Corrigan, Patricia Barry, 2012

Book | Recommended
The Oxford guide to film studies - John Hill, Pamela Church Gibson, Richard Dyer, E. Ann
Kaplan, Paul Willemen, 1998
Book | Recommended
Film analysis: a Norton reader - Jeffrey Geiger, R. L. Rutsky, 2005

Book | Recommended
Film art: an introduction - David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, 2008

Book | Recommended
Film moments: criticism, history, theory - Tom Brown, James Walters, 2010
Book | Recommended | Excellent student essay length writing (each one is 2500 words)
from a range of film academics.
Week 1: Introduction to Film Studies (15 items)
Film (1 items)
Stories we tell - Sarah Polley, 2009
Audio-visual document | Essential
1/15
Key Reading (2 items)

Film: a critical introduction - Maria Pramaggiore, Tom Wallis, 2011
Book | Essential | Read chapter 2: 'An approach to film analysis' (digitised).
Moments of Choice - V. F. Perkins

Webpage | Essential
Recommended Reading (6 items)

Films, Directors and Critics - Ian Cameron
Article | Recommended
Ontological narrativity and the performativity of the - Andrea Doucet, 2015

Article
Filmmakers' Choices - John Gibbs

Book | Recommended
The Film Text and Film Form - Robert P. Kolker

Chapter | Recommended | Digitised.
How Do Documentaries Differ From Other Types of Film? - Bill Nichols, 2010
Chapter | Recommended
Film as film: understanding and judging movies - V. F. Perkins, 1993

Book | Recommended
Additional Viewing (6 items)

In a lonely place - Nicholas Ray, Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, 2002
Audio-visual document | Recommended
La haine - Mathieu Kassovitz, 2004

8 women - Franois Ozon, 2003

Volver - Pedro Almodvar, 2006

Fish tank - Andrea Arnold, 2010

The Arbor - Clio Barnard, 2011

2/15
Week 2: Mise-en-scene (15 items)
Film (1 items)
Late Spring - Yasujiro Ozu, 1949

Book | Essential | Read chapter 5:
'Mise-en-sce

ne'.
The Elements of
Mise-en-sce

ne - John Gibbs
Chapter | Essential | Digitised.

The Shot: Cinematography - David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson
The life of mise-en-scne: visual style and British film criticism, 1946-78 - John Gibbs, 2013
Book | Recommended
How Cinematography Creates Meaning in Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1997) - Cathy
Greenhalgh
Mise en scene and film style: from classical Hollywood to new media art - Adrian Martin,
2014
Book | Recommended
Reading Hollywood: spaces and meanings in American film - Deborah Thomas, 2001
Book | Recommended
Personal views: explorations in film - Robin Wood, 2006

Book | Recommended

La rgle du jeu - Jean Renoir, 2003
Meet Me in St Louis - Vincente Minnelli, 1944
3/15
Do the right thing - Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, 2005
The Thin Blue Line - Errol Morris, 1988

Still Life - Jia Zhangke, 2006

Meek's Cutoff - Kelly Reichardt, 2010

Week 3: Sound (19 items)
Film (1 items)
WALL-E - Andrew Stanton, 2008

Book | Essential | Read chapter 8: 'Sound'.
Notes on Film Sound - Robert Bresson

Tackling Sound: Suggestions for Sound Analysis - Gianluca Sergi

Chapter | Essential

Sound theory, sound practice - Rick Altman, 1992
Book | Recommended
Audio-vision: sound on screen - Michel Chion, Claudia Gorbman (trans.), 1994

Book | Recommended
Star-Spangled Ghibli: Star Voices in the American Versions of Hayao Miyazaki's Films - R.
Denison, 2008-07-01
Unheard melodies: narrative film music - Claudia Gorbman, 1987

Book | Recommended
Sound Affects: Post-production Sound, Soundscapes and Sound Design in Hollywood's
4/15
Studio Era - Helen Hanson

Settling the score: music and the classical Hollywood film - Kathryn Marie Kalinak, c1992
Book | Recommended
Film sound: theory and practice - Elisabeth Weis, John Belton, 1985
Book | Recommended
Special Issue: Music in Film Trailers

Journal | Recommended
Screenwriting for Sound - Randy Thom, 2011-09


M - Fritz Lang, 2012
A Man Escaped - Robert Bresson, 1956

Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock, 1960

Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki, 2001

Berberian Sound Studio - Peter Strickland, 2012

Creed - Ryan Coogler, 2015

Week 4: Editing (16 items)
Film (1 items)
The Lodger - Alfred Hitchcock, 1927

Montage - Jacques Aumont, Alain Bergala, Michel Marie, Marc Vernet
Chapter | Essential
5/15
Book | Essential | Read chapter 7: 'Editing'.
Film art: an introduction - David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, 2008

Book | Essential | Read chapter 8: 'The relation of shot to shot: editing'.

The Lodger and the Origins of Hitchcock's Aesthetic - R. Allen
English Hitchcock - Charles Barr, 1999

Book | Recommended
Film editing: the art of the expressive - Valerie Orpen, 2003

Book | Recommended

Strike - Sergei Eisenstein, 1925
Riso amaro - Giuseppe de Sanctis, 1945

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock, 1954

Muriel: ou le temps d'un retour - Alain Resnais, 1963

Tenebre - Dario Argento, 1982

Hidden - Michael Haneke, 2005

Red Road - Andrea Arnold, 2006

The Secret in Their Eyes - Juan Jos Campanella, 2009

Recommended Viewing (1 items)

The cutting edge: the magic of movie editing - Wendy Apple, 2005
Book | Recommended | This documentary illustrates many of the elements of editing.
6/15
Week 5: Narrative (16 items)
Film (1 items)
Double Indemnity - Billy Wilder, 1944

Book | Essential | Read chapter 4: 'Narrative Form'.
Double Indemnity: Hard-Boiled Film Noir - Gaylyn Studlar

Chapter | Essential

Censorship, Film Noir, and Double Indemnity (1944) - S.C. Biesen
Three Dimensions of Narrative - David Bordwell

Chapter | Recommended | (Part II, Chapter 3 in Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema)
Focalisation in film narrative - Celestino Deleyto, 1991

Woman's Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir - Sylvia Harvey

Subversive Pleasures in Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" - Hilaria Loyo, 1993

Multiple Indemnity: Film Noir, James M. Cain, and Adaptations of a Tabloid Case - V.
Penelope Pelizzon and Nancy M. West, 2005

An Unseen Enemy - D. W. Griffith, 1912
Chungking Express - Wong Kar-Wai, 1994

Run Lola Run - Tom Tykwer, 1998

Memento - Christopher Nolan, 2000

7/15
Elephant - Gus Van Sant, 2004

Yuva - Ajay Devgan, 2004

Oldboy - Ch'an-uk Pak, 2005

Week 6: Film Studies Skills (18 items)
Library Resource Videos (2 items)

These short videos demonstrate searching two online Library resources - JSTOR and FIAF.
It's recommended that you view the JSTOR video first, as this includes information on
developing a search strategy.
Video - Using JSTOR - Film Studies

Audio-visual document
Video - Using FIAF - International Federation of Film Archives

Audio-visual document
Recommended reading (5 items)

Moving Lips: Cinema as Ventriloquism - Rick Altman, 1980
Katherine Hepburn: star as feminist - Andrew Britton, 1995

Book | Recommended
Is There an Indian Way of Filmmaking? - Philip Lutgendorf, 2006

Unthinking Eurocentrism: multiculturalism and the media - Ella Shohat, Robert Stam, 2014
Book | Recommended | this wide ranging book explores the political, colonial, and
racial politics of mainstream film whilst also calling attention to (and valourising) the
alternatives (experiments, music videos, peripheral cinemas, indigenous media and more).
Against interpretation and other essays - Susan Sontag, Susan Sontag, 2009
Book | Recommended | Especially sections I and IV. 'Against Interpretation' has been
digitised. Read in relation to Au hasard Balthasar (plus, other recommended films: Them!
(1954) or This Island Earth, Flaming Creatures, Muriel).

Build your own reading list
Build your own reading list: find two book chapters or journal articles that have relevance
to next week's topic.
8/15
Film Studies Skills Reading (5 items)

Film moments: criticism, history, theory - Tom Brown, James Walters, 2010
Book | Recommended

Book | Recommended | Read chapter 2: 'An approach to film analysis' (digitised for
week 1).
A short guide to writing about film - Timothy Corrigan, 2010

Book | Recommended
Writing and Speaking about Film - Bill Nichols


Book | Recommended | Read chapter 3: 'Writing about Film'.
Recommended Viewing (5 items)

Raise the Red Lantern - Zhang Yimou, 1991
Daisies - Vera Chytilova, 1966

The Conversation - Francis Ford Coppola, 1974

Daughters of the Dust - Julie Dash, 1991

Audio-visual document | Recommended | for anyone who wants to better understand the
cinematic roots of Beyonc's LEMONADE.
Au hasard Balthazar - Robert Bresson, Anne Wiazemsky, Franois Lafarge, n.d

Audio-visual document | Recommended | especially in relation to Susan Sontag's Against
Interpretation
Week 7: Acting Style and Stars (19 items)
Film (1 items)
JCVD - Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008

Book | Essential | Read chapter 12: 'Film Stardom as a Cultural Phenomenon'.
9/15
Acting His Age? The Resurrection of the 80s Action Heroes and their Aging Stars - Philippa
Gates, 2010
Article | Essential
Film Acting - Paul McDonald

Chapter | Essential

Imitations of lives: ageing men, vocal mimicry and performing celebrity in - Michael Allen,
Janet McCabe, 2012-07
Performance, with strings attached : Team America's (2004) snub to the actor - Alex
Clayton
Stars - Richard Dyer, Paul McDonald, 1998

Book | Recommended
The Big Switch: Hollywood Masculinity in the Nineties - Susan Jeffords

Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Ingrid Bergman, Instrument of Evil - Anne Helen Petersen
Spectacular bodies: gender, genre and the action cinema - Yvonne Tasker, 1993
Book | Recommended
Read This: In proud defense of Nicolas Cage, fearless actor - Alex McCown, 2016
Webpage | Optional | This popular appreciation of Nic Cage is not the equivalent of
academic scholarship, but has its merits.

Imitation of life - Douglas Sirk, 2007
The Cloud-capped Star - Ritwik Ghatak, 1960

A woman under the influence - John Cassavetes, 2005

The death of Mr Lazarescu - Cristi Puiu, 2006

Wendy and Lucy - Kelly Reichardt, 2008

10/15
The Trip - Michael Winterbottom, 2010

Strangers in Good Company - Cynthia Scott, 1990

Carol - Todd Haynes, 2014

Week 8: Genre and Genre Revision (15 items)
Film (1 items)
Moulin Rouge - Baz Luhrmann, 2001

Book | Essential | Read chapter 13: 'Genre'.
The Self-Reflexive Musical and the Myth of Entertainment - Jane Feuer

Chapter | Essential

Question of genre - S. Neale, 1990
Ideology, Genre, Auteur - Robin Wood

Chapter | Recommended | Available in the Library and as an e-book.
Approaching Film Genre - Barry Keith Grant

Music, the Musical, and Postmodernism in Baz Luhrmanns <em>Moulin Rouge</em> -

Ann van der Merwe, 2010
Cycles and Clusters: The Shape of Film Genre History - Leger Grinding
Hollywood musicals: the film reader - Steven Cohan, 2002

Book | Recommended
11/15
42nd Street - Lloyd Bacon, 1933

Singin' in the Rain - Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, 1951

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - Jacques Demy, 1964

Little Voice - Mark Herman, 1992

Dancer in the Dark - Lars von Trier, 2000

Across the Universe - Julie Taymor, 2007

Week 9: Industry (14 items)
Film (1 items)
Om shanti om - Farah Khan, 2007

Book | Essential | Read chapter 15: 'Cinema as industry: Economics and Technology'.
Bollywood Spectaculars - Priya Jaikumar, 2003

Article | Essential

Bollywood Rising: A Beginners Guide to Hindi Cinema - David Chute, 2002
Cultural globalization and the dominance of the American film industry: cultural policies,
national film industries, and transnational film - Diana Crane, 2014
Bollywood: a guidebook to popular Hindi cinema - Tejaswini Ganti, 2004

Book | Recommended | Read chapter 2.
The "Bollywoodization" of the Indian Cinema: Cultural Nationalism in a Global Arena -

Ashish Rajadhyaksha
12/15
The plays the thing, wherein Ill catch the conscience of the king: Intertextuality in Om
Shanti Om - Sudha Shastri, 2011
Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity - R. Thomas, 1985-05-01


Dilwale dulhania le jayenge - Aditya Chopra, 1995
Dil se ... - Mani Rathnam, 1998

Supermen of Malegaon - Faiza Ahmad Khan, -, 20--

Bombay talkies - Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, Rani
Mukerji, Randeep Hooda, Saqib Saleem, 2014
Love, Sex Aur Dhoka (LSD) - Dibakar Banerjee, -, 20--

Week 10: Audiences and Fandom (14 items)
Film (1 items)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Jim Sharman, 1975

Portrait of a cult film audience: The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Bruce A. Austin
Chapter | Essential
Modes of Reception - Janet Staiger

Chapter | Essential

Cult film stardom: Offbeat attractions and processes of cultification - Kate Egan, Sarah
Thomas, 2012
Book | Recommended
Fan cultures - Matt Hills, 2002
13/15
Book | Recommended
'Get a Life!': Fans, Poachers, Nomads' - Henry Jenkins

Chapter | Recommended | Available in the Library and as an e-book.
Reimagined Film Posters as Participatory Digital Paratexts | - Jennifer O'Meara

'People Who Think Outside the Box': British Audiences And Asian Extreme Films - Emma
Pett
'Trashing' the academy: taste, excess, and an emerging politics of cinematic style - J.
Sconce, 1995-12-01

The Room - Tommy Wiseau, 2003
Freaks - Tod Browning, 1932

Polyester - John Waters, 1981

Ichi the Killer - Takashi Miike, 2001

Lady Vengeance - Park Chan-wook, 2005

Week 11: New directions in Film Studies (10 items)
Film (1 items)
Choose a recent film release to watch
This week you must choose a recent film release to watch at the cinema, or alternative
viewing platform (iTunes etc). You must arrange to watch your film before your tutorial.

Introduction: Past the Boundaries of "New" and "Old" Media: Film and Television After DVD
- Tom Brown, James Bennett
Chapter | Essential
Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, 1.3, 2014 | [in]Transition
14/15
Journal | Essential
Evaluative Contexts - Glyn Davis


How long is a piece of string? On the Practice, Scope and Value of Videographic Film
Studies and Criticism - Catherine Grant
Notes on Film Distribution: Networks, Screens and Practices - Stefania Haritou

Passing Time - Laura Mulvey

Chapter | Recommended | electronic book. pp. 17-32.
Media Convergence's Third Wave: Content Streaming - Simone Murray, 2003-03-01

The Rise of the Movie Geek: DVD Culture, Cinematic Knowledge, and the Home Viewer -
Chuck Tyron
Chapter | Recommended | Electronic book. pp. 16-37.

You are expected to be (re)watching films in preparation for the forthcoming exam.
Discussion on the future of film between David Bordwell, Simon Field, Andra Picard and
Alan Franey
Webpage | Recommended
The Black Film Critic Syllabus

Webpage
15/15

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05/04/17 Key Concepts in Film Studies | University of St Andrews

Key Concepts in Film Studies View Online

Core Text (2 items)

Supplementary Texts (6 items)

The film experience: an introduction - Timothy Corrigan, Patricia Barry, 2012

Film analysis: a Norton reader - Jeffrey Geiger, R. L. Rutsky, 2005

Film art: an introduction - David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, 2008

Week 1: Introduction to Film Studies (15 items)

Key Reading (2 items)

Moments of Choice - V. F. Perkins

Recommended Reading (6 items)

Ontological narrativity and the performativity of the - Andrea Doucet, 2015

Filmmakers' Choices - John Gibbs

The Film Text and Film Form - Robert P. Kolker

Film as film: understanding and judging movies - V. F. Perkins, 1993

Additional Viewing (6 items)

La haine - Mathieu Kassovitz, 2004

8 women - Franois Ozon, 2003

Volver - Pedro Almodvar, 2006

Fish tank - Andrea Arnold, 2010

The Arbor - Clio Barnard, 2011

Week 2: Mise-en-scene (15 items)

Key Reading (2 items)

Recommended Reading (6 items)

Personal views: explorations in film - Robin Wood, 2006

Additional Viewing (6 items)

Meet Me in St Louis - Vincente Minnelli, 1944

Audio-visual document | Recommended

The Thin Blue Line - Errol Morris, 1988

Still Life - Jia Zhangke, 2006

Meek's Cutoff - Kelly Reichardt, 2010

Week 3: Sound (19 items)

Key Reading (3 items)

Notes on Film Sound - Robert Bresson

Tackling Sound: Suggestions for Sound Analysis - Gianluca Sergi

Recommended Reading (9 items)

Audio-vision: sound on screen - Michel Chion, Claudia Gorbman (trans.), 1994

Unheard melodies: narrative film music - Claudia Gorbman, 1987

Sound Affects: Post-production Sound, Soundscapes and Sound Design in Hollywood's

Studio Era - Helen Hanson

Special Issue: Music in Film Trailers

Screenwriting for Sound - Randy Thom, 2011-09

Additional Viewing (6 items)

A Man Escaped - Robert Bresson, 1956

Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock, 1960

Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki, 2001

Berberian Sound Studio - Peter Strickland, 2012

Creed - Ryan Coogler, 2015

Week 4: Editing (16 items)

Key Reading (3 items)

Film: a critical introduction - Maria Pramaggiore, Tom Wallis, 2011

Book | Essential | Read chapter 7: 'Editing'.

Film art: an introduction - David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, 2008

Recommended Reading (3 items)

English Hitchcock - Charles Barr, 1999

Film editing: the art of the expressive - Valerie Orpen, 2003

Additional Viewing (8 items)

Riso amaro - Giuseppe de Sanctis, 1945

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock, 1954

Muriel: ou le temps d'un retour - Alain Resnais, 1963

Tenebre - Dario Argento, 1982

Hidden - Michael Haneke, 2005

Red Road - Andrea Arnold, 2006