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SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY ?
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MEMORANDUM
Senate
............................................
- ?
Senate Caruiittee on
. . .thdergraduats .Stuies
......................
Subject...
New .Cburse. Proposal.:. . .
EPAm34-3 .......
.
Date. ..
1. Febniary. U79
Film
Analysis ?
I
Action taken by. the Senate Committee
on
Undergraduate Studies at its
meeting on January 30, 1979 gives rise to the following motion:,
ria
That Senate approve and
recoimend
approval to the Board of Governors
of the introduction of the new course EPA. 334-3,
Film
Analysis, as
outlined in paper S79-/9.
NOTE. Senate approved of the introduction of a Minor in Film at its
meeting in May of 1977. The proposal received the approval of the Universities
Council of British Columbia in
June
of 1978. In the documentation accom-
panying the proposal for the introduction of the Minor in
Film, it
was
indicated that it was the intention of the Centre for the Arts to bring
forward at a later date a course in
Film
Analysis. It was not put forward
at that time as they did not have the personnel to develop such a course.
NOTE. SCtJS has approved a waiver of the two-semester time length requirement
for EPA. 334-3,
Film
Analysis.
N. R.
leilly
MH
.
is
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
Sc
CA J
79 -Z
MEMORANDUM
Mi..H.M...Exan.
.
From
........
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1abe.1,..5e?taTY....he
Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies
Reg ?
rar
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cretary
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Jcgaç1uate
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culum ConmrLttee
Subject
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78
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Date.
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Pcc em kc . r
15, 1978
FPA...334-3 Film Analysis
The attached New Course Proposal for FPA. 334-3 Film Analysis was approved
on December 12, 1978 by the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee.
Would you please place this item on the agenda for the next meeting of the
Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies.
Janet Blanchet
.
?
JB: j k
Attachments
0
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERCRADUATE STUDIES
?
.
C.
•
'7 ' 3 o
NKW COURSE. PROPOSAL FORM
. Calendar Information ?
Department:
?
Centre for the Arts
Abbreviation Code:
?
FPA.
Course Number:
334
?
Credit Hours:
?
ol
Vector:_
Title of Course:
?
FILM ANALYSIS
Calendar Decription
of Course: This course undertakes a detailed investigation of
selected films in order to acquaint students with film language in both theoretical
and applied aspects. The course is designed primarily for students with some
experience of film making, but is open to others by consent of the Department.
Nature of Course Seminar
Prerequisites (or special
instructions): FPA.236 or' 237, and consent of the Department.
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped
from the calendar if this course is
approved: ?
None
2. Scheduling
How frequently will the course be offered? Once a year
Semester in which the course will first be offered? 1979-3
Which of your present faculty would
be available
to make'the proposed offering
possible?
?
Al
Razutis
ObjectivesoftheCourse
To provide student film makers with a concentrated Study of film technique as
others have used them and to enable other serious students of film to undertake
advanced Study of the ways films are constructed.
See attached rationale and course outline.
4.
Budgetary andSpaceRequirements (for information only)
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty ?
One sessional appointment
Staff
?
none
Library
AudIo Visual
approxImately
$500 rental plus $500 purchase per annum. Initial departmental
purchase of film fragments approximately $2000
Space ?
none
Equipment ?
16 nmi film motion analyzer desirable
5.
AUEoval
Date:
__27/771 ?
/4_&
?
.
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• _________ .
ç7
d) ?
.
t
Department
Chairman
?
Dean.
?
Chairman, SOIlS
SCUS 73-34b:- .
(When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
FPA. 334
.
3
FILM ANALYSIS ?
RATIONALE
The introduction of this course was initially approved by Senate
in May 1977 in conjunction with the film minor. The course is part
of the minor structure: minors must complete either this course
or FPA.382-3 Aesthetics of Performance, in addition to their film
making courses, in the upper division. We did not seek formal approval
of the course at the time the minor was put forward because we did not
have faculty available to develop or teach it at that time. Later,
because the film minor was delayed in receiving approval from the
Universities Council, we further deferred introduction of the course.
It is now necessary to Introduce the course in order to complete the
minor structure.
FPA.334 is the only upper division course we envision specifically
on the study of film. The course is unusual In that it is a film
study course designed especially for the film maker. The historical,
thematic and stylistic concerns which are usual substance of film
studies courses, and which are addressed in our two lowerdivision
film studies courses, are here analysed in detailed relationship to
film techniques. The division here is not absolute: considerations
of technique are part of all serious film study, and technique can
never properly be divorced from what it communicates. Nevertheless,
where our lower division courses characteristically proceed from
• ?
whole films and groups of films to a consideration of technical
innovations and their significance, this course will proceed from the
film fragment, studying in detail how a given effect is achieved.
The advantage of this approach is that student film makers can
examine films in a way that relates immediately to their own practice,
whereas others who are sufficiently prepared can gain a new understanding
of material they may have studied in other contexts.
FPA.334-3 ?
COURSE OUTLINE
SThis course is offered as an in-depth (at times proceeding shot by
shot, moment by moment) exploration of both the theoretical and applied
aspects of filmic language. All films (and fragments thereof) will be
examined in light of the following areas of concern:
The TelnDoral Moment:
?
Abandoning photographic stasis, the film maker
undertakes to create a synthetic experience of time ('film time') which
is played against the viewer's notions of 'collective time'. Examples
will be presented that depict continuous, interrupted, and totally
fragmented cinematic time, and the implications of these for narrative
& non-narrative renderings will be examined. Techniques of accelerating
visual tension by altering the time schedule, parallel-action and its
effect on the viewer's experience of time and montage tempo will also
be explored.
The Spatial Stage; Abandoning the anachronism of objective theatre-
space (seen from a fixed point of view), film develops filmic (space)
perspective by manipulation of image foreground and background and
cutting styles that accentuate the implied depth. Techniques such as
building up spatial screen tension and inclusion of relief mechanisms
(such as insert) or visual digressions will also be explored. In this
area of concern, the dominant topic will be the ability of cinematic
language to express a spatially transcendent point of view, and to
successfully accomplish this by utilizing off-balance compositions that
• ?
must be resolved in time (editing).
Film as Film: The filmic language is displayed on its own terms as an
evolving visual vocabulary with camera, emulsion, optical printing processes,
film equipment, and the viewer's experience as direct subject matter for
film. In this area of concern, we will be evaluating what the contribution
of these filmic experiments has been to the expansion of the cinematic
vocabulary.
Content as expressed in technique: We will be exploring the manipulation
of cultural symbol, historical & cultural image contexts, and viewer
psychology by the application of dynamic (action-to-action) editing
techniques, image juxtaposition, and subliminal manipulation of imagery.
Similarly the pace of slapstick, the dramatic (sound re-inforced) film
"moment", subliminal manipulation (images altered as to perceptual impact),
random sampling and cut-ups, will be analyzed.
In all of the above areas, the use of sound (to compound the visual
experience) will also be explored.
Participants in
this course will be expected to discover the nature of
cinematic language process (in active demonstration sessions), rather
than bear witness to the existence of such processes.
Evaluation: course evaluation will be based on class participation and
exercises, a mid-term and a final examination.
Required reading: A text for the course will be compiled and written
by A. Razutis.
SUGGESTED FILMS ( and fragments thereof):
A Movie (Conner)
Trip Down Memory Lane (Lipsett)
Prelude: Dog Star Man (Brakhage)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren)
Fairyland (Melies)
se uence
Oktober - 'Storming the Winter Palace'," (Eisenstein)
WW II documentary newsreel
Automatic Moving Co. (Cohi)
-- sequences from 'I Accuse' and 'Napoleon' (Gance)
Bullfight (de Daunant)
Allures (Belson)
Off-on (Bartlett)
Bridge (Razutis)
Dream of the Wild Horses (dé Daunant)
Haxan (fragment) (Christensen)
Commercials of the 50
1
s,
60's, 70's
Un Chien Andalou (Dali/Bunuel)
Ghost: Image (Razutis)
Moon at Evernight (Razutis)
Le Voyage (Razutis)
Sequels in Transfigured Time (Razutis)
The Beast (Razutis)
Persona (Bergman)
Blow Up (Antonioni)
Performance (Roeg)
-- and where possible, fragments from the work of Orson Welles
Potemkin (fragment) (Eisenstejn)
Castro Street (Bruce Bailie)
Occurence at Owl Creek
Horror Film Fragments
L
2.
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
MMORA4DUM
To
Chairmen, Senate Commi
ttee
on. Undergradua teFrom.
?
L. E. Thomas, ?
.
?
S
Studies. .Comm ittee
?
Collections Librarian.
Subject.
FPA.
331
?
FILM ANALYSIS .
?
...............
?
Date..
?
November .28, 1978
?
......
I have reviewed this course proposal with the Head of the Humanities
Division in the Library and we feel that our Collections are adequate
In this area.
awe
:7
LET/dab
cc Evan Alderson,
Director, Centre for the Arts
OEC1
J%CE
0A
D
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
MMOAäUM
.To
Subiect
Dr. Norman Reilly
Assistant Vice-President, Academic
From ?
Evan Alderson,
Director
Centre for the Arts
D.t.
?
January 31, 1979.
.
In relation to the questions concerning
VPA 334-3 -
Film Analysis,
which I understand were not
satisfactorily resolved at
SCUS
on January
30, I can provide the following
information:
1.
Pre-requisites
A calendar change recently approved
makes FPA 236 recommended
for
FPA 237, but not a
pre-requisite. Therefore, the listed
pre-requisite for FPA 334 -
FPA 236 or FPA
237,, makes sense.
2.
Bibliograp hy
The exclusion of a list of readings or
related texts seems
to me
justified in the case of this course on two grounds: first, the
primary material for study is the films themselves. A list of
films is provided, selections from which will form the basic "texts"
of the course. Second, there is a great range of secondary material
about the issues the course will address. It is the intention of
the Professor who will first teach the course to prepare from some
of this materials and from his own writing a body of specific readings
which will be assigned. Under these conditions it would seem an
arbitrary exercise to list a set of possibly relevant published
writings.
3. Alternatives
The course is described as an integral part of the Film Minor in the
sense that it has been planned from the beginning as one of two upper
division courses which take a critical orientation toward Film. One
of these, FPA 382 - Aesthetics of Performance, places film in the
context of other disciplines. FPA 334 is designed to treat film itself
more intensively. In our view, film minors should not be compelled
to take either of these approaches, although we hope they will take
both and we are prepared to insist that they take one.
EA/yn
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c.c. J. Dickinson
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