Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

From High Brow to No-Brow: Genre in Central European and Socialist Cinema

Class at Faculty of Arts |
AFV00294

Syllabus

INTRODUCTION WEEK  

Week 1: What IS Genre?

Reading: Rick Altman, “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre”

Screening: Věra Chytilová Daisies (excerpts), Fritz Lang Metropolis (excerpts), Andrej Wajda Kanal (excerpts)  

SECTION 1 - SILENT CINEMA  

Week 2: Between Theatre and Film: Early Silent Comedies

Reading: Jan Mukářovský, “An Attempt at a Structural Analysis of an Actor’s Figure”

Screening: Svatopluk Innemann Milenky starého kriminálníka, Charlie Chaplin  

Week 3: The Silent Melodrama

Reading: “Ideology, Genre, Auteur”

Screening: Jaroslav Siakeľ Jánošík (excerpts), Martin Frič, The Organist of St. Vitus  

Week 4: The Horror Genre

Reading: Sigfried Kracauer, “From Caligari to Hitler” (excerpts)

Screening: Henrik Galeen, The Student of Prague, Robert Weine The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari  

Week 5:Early Hybridities: The Chamber Drama

Reading: Sabine Hake, “Who Gets the Last Laugh”

Screening: F.W. Murnau The Last Laugh/Der letzte Mann, Dimitri Buchowetzki Mad Love  

Week 6: Experimental Silent Film, City Symphonies and Montage

Reading: Dziga Vertov, “We: Variant of a Manifesto”

Screening: Karel Plicka, The Earth Sings/Zem spieva, Walter Ruttmann, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City  

Week 7: Newsreels and Reportage - Non-fiction Filmmaking

Reading: Lubomir Linhardt, “Newsreels Show Us the World”

Screening: Various Newsreels  

MIDTERM DUE ON SUNDAY  

SECTION 2 - POST-SOUND CINEMA  

Week 8: Socialist Westerns

Reading: Petra Watzke, “East Germany’s Imaginary Indians: Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich’s Harka Cycle (1951-63) and Its DEFA Adaptation Die Söhne der Großen Bärin (1966)”

Screening: Josef Mach Sons of the Great Bear, Vladimir Motyl, The White Sun of the Desert  

Week 9: Crimes, Krimis and Criminals

Reading: Barry Keith Grant “Experience and Meaning in Genre Films”

Screening: Fritz Lang, M, Ivo Novák The Treasure of a Byzantine Merchant  

Week 9 : War Thrillers

Reading: Robert Eberwein “The War Film”, (excerpts)

Screening: Jiří Menzel, Closely Watched Trains, Andrzej Wajda Ashes and Diamonds  

Week 10: The Gag Comedy

Reading: Ben Schwartz “The Gag King”

Screening: Martin Frič- Hej Rup!, Oldřich Lipský, Lemonade Joe  

Week 11: Science Fiction, Double Feature

Reading: Peter Swirski, “Stanislaw Lem and the Art of Science”

Screening: Jindřich Polák, Ikarie XB-1, Andrej Tarkovskiy, Solaris  

Week 12: Psychological Thrillers and Noir

Reading: Margaret Tarratt, “Monsters from the Id”

Screening: Juraj Herz, The Cremator  

Week 13: The Teenage Film

Reading: Timothy Shary “Teen Films: The Cinematic Image of Youth”

Screening: Marlon Khutsiev, I Am 20, Štefan Uher, The Sun in a Net  

FINAL DUE DURING EXAM PERIOD

Annotation

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course is designed to explore one of the most fundamental bedrocks for understanding cinema and media theory (that is, genre) and how it relates to the cinematic history of Central Europe and its socialist past. Students will gain an understanding of genre studies as they relate to formulating models of media history and media categorization, as well as exploring how the concept of genre itself is a culturally bound.

While this syllabus gives a fairly accurate portrayal of the material we will cover, additional material may be assigned (and assigned material may be dropped or altered) at any time as the semester progresses, in order to better suit the needs and interests of the class.

Note: This course’s readings, lectures, and screenings will be in English for the benefit of Erasmus and non-Czech students, but all written coursework can be completed in Czech, Slovak, German, or Russian for students with fluency in those languages. All films will be shown with English subtitles/intertitles. Where applicable, translated or alternate readings in Czech or Slovak may be provided for students of the Katedra filmových studií.