CULT322-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017

Documentary: From the Margins to the Mainstream

30 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 20 February 2017
End Date: Sunday, 25 June 2017
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 3 March 2017
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 19 May 2017

Description

This course examines the artistic and political principles that govern the representation of reality in contemporary documentary film.

In the last ten years, there has been an incredible resurgence of interest in documentary film.  Due to the critical and commercial success of a number of recent films, documentary has moved from a modest place in film history to a privileged position within contemporary cinema.  This course will examine the artistic and political principles of documentary in the light of the current renaissance in the genre.  The first term is devoted to a study of a number of canonical films from the history of documentary.  In the second term, we analyse the points of comparison and difference between some high-profile examples of the contemporary documentary form and their historical precedents.

Learning Outcomes

  • Students will gain an understanding of a range of critical and conceptual issues.  The theoretical focus of the course will be the vexed relationship between representation and reality that defines documentary film.  Topics will include:
  • the credibility, veracity and authenticity of the documentary image
  • documentary film as historical record, factual evidence, objective witness
  • the rhetorical strategies and ideological positions adopted by documentary filmmakers
  • authorship and performance
  • the use of fiction filmmaking techniques in documentary: narrative structure, dramatic form, cinematic style
  • production, exhibition and distribution practices
  • the impact of digital technology and new media upon documentary

Prerequisites

30 points in CINE at 200-level, or
equivalent preparation with the approval of the Programme Coordinator.

Restrictions

Equivalent Courses

Course Coordinator

Alan Wright

Lecturer

Daniel Bernardi

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Essay One 20% 1000 words
Essay Two 20% 1500 words
Essay Three 40% 3000 word essay OR report
Group Presentation w/1000 Word Report 20%

Textbooks / Resources

New Documentary, 2nd Ed. Stella Bruzzi.
Imagining Reality, 2nd Ed.  Eds. MacDonald & Cousins
Introduction to Documentary, Bill Nichols
The Subject of Documentary, Michael Renov
Documentary, Dave Saunders

Films will include:
Actualities & the Avant-garde            
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, Soviet Union, 1929)
Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, U.S./France, 1922)
Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, Germany, 1935)
Why we Fight (Frank Capra, U.S., 1945)              
Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, France, 1955)
Tire dié (Fernando Birri, Argentina, 1960)
La Jetée (Chris Marker, U.S., 1962)
Hearts and Minds, Peter Davis, 1974)
Letter to Jane (Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, France, 1972)  
This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, U.S., 1984)
The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, U.S., 1988)
Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, U.S, 1990)
Iraq in Fragments  (James Longley, U.S., 2006)
Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, Iran & France, 2007)
Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, Israel, 2008)
Amy (Asif Kapadia, U.K., 2015)

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,464.00

International fee $5,950.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Humanities .

All CULT322 Occurrences

  • CULT322-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017
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