Read DOING FILM HISTORY, by David Bordwell:
http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/doing.php (Links to an external site.)
This essay is an important tool for navigating papers and discussions for this course.
Choose FIVE of the following questions to answer in Canvas.
Using Bordwell’s arbitrary designation of any film older than 20 years being “old”, what “old films” have you seen that offered “intense artistic experiences or penetrating visions of human life in other times and places”, documented “everyday existence or extraordinary historical events that continue to reverberate in our times” or were just “resolutely strange”? What impact did they have on you?
Beyond just the study of films, what else can film history illuminate for us?
What does it mean that there is no “film history”, only “film histories”?
Why is the asking of questions so important to any historical study?
What was a central technical hurdle of early film archives and does this problem still exist today?
When watching an old film today, are you seeing an accurate representation of it?
As we move through this course, we will be, in large part, utilizing the Great Man theory. What are the pros and cons of this method?
In the case study of Ernst Lubitsch, they reference lighting design as part of his greatness as a director. Is this an area of cinematic construction that is generally applied to a director?
How much power and artistic control does a director typically have?
