MOD3-ES-2BA-11
The recent turn to phenomenology has shifted the focus of film studies to the role of the body and sensory perception in both spectatorship and the film medium. It has also shed new light on the growing potential of cinema to elicit heighted kinaesthetic reaction to the filmed subject. Likewise, in this module we will study 20th and 21st century independent and avant-garde films in terms of their materiality, tactile vision or what Marks (2002) refers to as “the skin of the film,” and discuss the ways in which they empower the haptic over the optical and foreground the material significance of the object. Although the corporeal turn in film studies has been mostly associated with horror and sexually explicit films, it can be also applied to the study of “non-body” genres, including documentary, lyrical, personal, landscape or travel films. Hence, we will survey the ways in which independent and experimental filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg, the Coen brothers, David Lynch, Maya Deren, Lynne Sachs, James Benning, Stan Brakhage, MM Serra, Godfrey Reggio, Pat O’Neill, and others, appeal to a range of cultural practices, social behaviors and prejudices surrounding issues, such as the body, sensations, feelings and emotions, gender and sexuality, femininity and masculinity, family life, animals, space and place, film industry, etc. The course will also give its participants the opportunity to leverage film criticism to determine how the examined works draw on embodiment and the senses and why they have exerted the lasting influence on the history and development of film studies, film theory and filmmaking in general.
- Teacher: Kornelia Boczkowska