FILM 3101 Language of Film 2:
SYLLABUS

Text Books:

Monaco, James 2009 How to Read a Film (4th Edition) Oxford University Press. Oxford

Corrigan, Timothy A Short Guide to Writing About Film Longman (Pearson) NY

 Grades:
Grades are based on 2 term papers and a final exam. These are weighted 40%, 30% and 30% with the highest grade weighted as 40%.

 Term Papers
There are no "re-writes" of papers. You can come to see me before or during the time when you are writing the paper, but not after it has been submitted.

The paper is to be submitted as a hard copy – no electronically transmitted papers are accepted. Papers are due on the assigned date. The paper should have on it your name, the course number and the term in which you are taking the course. Late papers (any paper which arrives after the due date) will be given a grade with no comments and there will be no discussion about the paper. Papers which arrive later than the next class meeting will lose one letter grade for each week they are late.

Although the papers required for the course are not technically “research papers”, some students feel compelled to quote from published sources. All such quotes must be referenced and must appear in a bibliography. While there are different stylistic ways of doing this, all ultimately give the same information. The simplest form I know follows.

If you state the author’s name in the text, then you need not repeat it in the parenthetical reference:

Doane states that “The silent film is certainly understood, at least retrospectively and even (it is arguable) in its time, as incomplete, as lacking speech” (1999 p. 363).

If the author’s name does not appear in the text, then it needs to appear in the parenthetical reference.

“The silent film is certainly understood, at least retrospectively and even (it is arguable) in its time, as incomplete, as lacking speech.” (Doane, 1999 p. 363).

In either case there MUST be a bibliography in which the work cited appears. Again, there are stylistic differences possible. The simplest I know would be:

Doane, Mary Ann 1999 “The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space” in Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen (2005) Film Theory and Criticism (pp. 363-375) 6th Edition Oxford University Press, NY

Note:

Titles of books, films, works of art etc. are either italicized or underlined. Shorter works (articles and the like) are put in quotation marks. This is a very simple rule and if you do not follow it, it means you have not read the syllabus. If you put a film title in quotation marks it means you have not read this syllabus which I have put a good deal of effort into writing. I will, therefore, put an "F" on the paper and return it with no comments.

If for some reason you decide to use an outside source you MUST cite the work in the body of the paper and then have a bibliography at the end of the paper which gives the complete reference. Notice that in the bibliographic reference given above the article is in quotation marks and the title of the book in which the article appears is italicized.

Plagiarism

Any material which comes from an outside MUST be cited. Failure to do so is plagiarism and will result in a failing grade for the paper and possible the course. See the college Bulletin for rules about plagiarism.

WAC (HUAC?) Information

\ The course has three objectives in terms of developing your writing skills:

1. the ability to edit one’s work so that grammar and syntax are correct
2. the ability to develop ideas by using supportive evidence appropriate to the discipline
3. the ability to draft and revise written material

This means that you need to learn how to write a grammatically correct paper in proper academic form. Part of that process involves writing a draft, correcting it and rewriting the material.

The first part of any writing project is not listed. It deals with reading the question and then answering it. In the real world, you may want to write an article about something which is of interest to you. That is fine. There is no specific question for you to answer. In most courses however, the requirements are that you respond to the questions asked no matter how broad they may seem. So the first rule is ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT IS ASKED!

The most brilliant idea becomes lost if the writer can not organize a paper so that the readers can understand the points made. Clarity of expression means writing in a grammatically, stylistically and organized form. Grammar, in this case, means spelling, word choice (semantics), and proper grammatical structure (e.g. agreement between subject and object, and correct use of cases with prepositions).

“The number of films he made are very big” is an unacceptable sentence.

“The number of films he made is very large” is acceptable.

“He made a large number of films” is still better.

Stylistics involves the correct levels of formality used in scholarly or academic writing. Papers should not sound like notes left for your friends or in the style used in writing quick e-mails. Slang is unacceptable.

“The film sucked” is unacceptable.

“The film is poor” is acceptable.

“The film is badly crafted” might be still better.

Organization is too complex an area for short examples, since it has to do with arrangement of sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into larger units. The basic idea is that the logic of the argument should be clear and ideas should follow one another in a reasonable way.

I will use the weakest of the three areas in your paper to discuss with you. I will start with the grammatical level since if that is weak, the rest may become unintelligible. A student asked me whether a line from a song was correct or not. The line was “So baby, if he loves you more than me, maybe it’s the best thing for you, but it’s the worst that could happen to me.”. The student wanted to know if the phrase should have been “if he loves you more than I”. The problem, of course, is that both are correct, the question is what does the author of the text mean? My guess is the author has it wrong, since it is male singing about his girl friend. If the line says “…if he loves you more than me…” it means “if he loves you more than he loves me” then the song has a very different potential interpretation than if he sang “if he loves you more than I (love you)”.

You can (hopefully) see from this that if the grammar goes awry, then the meanings are confused and style and organization become increasingly difficult to follow.

If the grammatical structure is strong, then I will work on the organization, and if that is strong, then on the style.

GRADING

F: Total catastrophy; major grammatical errors (run on sentences, sentence fragments etc., retelling of plot virtually no analysis)

D. No major grammatical errors, minimal or no analysis, simple retelling of story no mention or just a cursory mention of film techniques (camera placement, editing)

C. Some analysis of text and subtext (better than “The subtext is “life can be beautiful”) as well as discussion of some film techniques

B. A reasonably good analysis of text and subtext. Discussion of film techniques and their relationship to advancing the text (and sub-text).

A. Well written. Good use of semantics and grammatical structure. Excellent analysis of plot construction and ways in which film techniques are used to accentuate high points, build suspense, tension etc,.

Plagiarism

Although the assignments are to be done without any reference to outside sources, any material which comes from an outside MUST be cited. Failure to do so is plagiarism and will result in a failing grade for the paper and possible the course. See the college Bulletin for rules about plagiarism.

Late Assignments

If the paper is turned in late MUST be accompanied by a major functioning internal organ. (with DNA proof it is yours) This specifically excludes tonsils and appendix and in many cases the brain which is not necessarily a functioning organ or you wouldn't be worrying about late papers. You may in place of an internal organ submit the skin (which is more or less external) - as long as I get all of it.

Final Exam
The final exam is essay in format.

There is a web site for the course – http://Johnbeatty.name and from there, follow the links, or go directly to:

http://userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/anthro/jbeatty/COURSES/film10/fall_2012/main10.htmll

Attendance and Lateness

Departmental policy allows you two absences a term. Since classes meet only once a week, each absence means you have missed more than three hours of class time. Students who miss more than two classes for whatever reason will fail the course. Students are considered absent if they come more than 15 minutes late.

Cell Phones

If you have one, turn the damned thing off! If the phone goes off during class it is an automatic “F” in the course, plus expulsion from the college and a slow painful death. Your cell phone will also be destroyed. No joke.

Tentative Film List

1 Aug 28 King Kong
2 Sept. 4 And Then There Were None
3 Sept 11 I Walked with a Zombie/Leopard Man
- Sept 18 NC
- Sept 25 NC
4. Oct 2 Bad Seed
5. Oct 9 Last Wave
6. Oct 16 Rear Window
7. Oct 2 Lady in the Lake
8. Oct 30. CLASS CANCELED - MAKE UP CLASS SUNDAY NOV 18 FROM 11-3 (2nd floor WEB) or WED. NOV 28 from 5pm-9pm (Tanger Auditorium)
9. Nov. 6. Double Indemnity
10. Nov 13 Third Mant
11. Nov 20. Quatermass and the Pit
12. Nov 27 Inherit the Wind
13. Dec. 4 Fargo
14. Dec. 11.Without a Clue