Stage and Screen

Autumn Term: October 2011 - December 2011
Spring Term: January 2012 - March 2012
Summer Term: April 2012 - June 2012

 

Introduction to Popular Film
In this course we will explore popular film as entertainment, as a carrier of culture and as a business. Mixing screenings with seminars, we will first approach films through their most self-conscious public face - the awards ceremonies. Then we will discuss the ways in which directors use Hollywood to express their art, and Hollywood uses directors to bolster its bank balance. We’ll explore the contemporary culture of ‘blockbuster’ films, discuss the popularity of horror films and ‘chick-flicks’, examine the fate of the fading Hollywood musical, and the changing face of Hollywood itself! Stepping outside La-La-Land’s dream factory, we’ll visit the festival circuit and the cross-over independent films that have been making it big on the international stage. Finally we’ll discuss the ratings systems in both Britain and America, tackling the vexed question of sex vs violence: which would you rather watch with your kids?
Mariana J Lopez BA MA
Term: Autumn
Day: Wednesday
Start Date: 12 October 2011
Time: 6.30-9.30pm
No. of weeks: 10
Full fee: £67.00

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Spring Term: January 2012 - March 2012

 

Faith, Mirth and Mayhem: Introducing the Mystery Plays
To celebrate the return of the Mystery Cycle to York in summer 2012, this day course will explore the various and sometimes conflicting relationships that the plays once had with the city itself. Medieval pageant wagons once wound their way through the streets, from Micklegate to Pavement, presenting the Bible and celebrating a communal faith and collective pride: but some of the individual dramas gave ample opportunity for disagreement and dissent. The unpredictable conditions of performance, where busy streets offered a different stage set and audience at each stopping place, added fresh dimensions to the meaning of the plays. And the lively texts themselves brought carnival mirth and even satire to the mix. Our day course begins with a general overview of the Mystery Play Cycles, introducing ideas which we will explore in more detail in three or four specific plays. All the texts will be provided, and wherever possible our discoveries will be enhanced by demonstrations and illustrations from recorded performances of the different plays.
Gillian Day PhD
Term: Spring
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 28 January 2012
Time: 9.30am-4.30pm
No. of weeks: 1
Full fee: £35.00

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All-Singing! All-Dancing! Big Screen Musicals
The musical genre is as old as sound cinema, having emerged from Tin Pan Alley as a ready solution to the problem of what to do with talking pictures. For decades it was a staple of Hollywood studio production, a popular genre which showcased star talents and continually attracted large audiences. In its heyday, it was also the source of some of Hollywood’s most creative film-making. Latterly, the musical has faded from its former ubiquity, but still offers creative peaks which often blend the spectacle of early film musicals with increasingly serious themes, and a tendency towards self-conscious playfulness. In this course, we’ll speed through a potted history of the musical, pausing to examine four exemplars, each chosen from a different era in the genre’s history. Join us for a month of all-singing, all-dancing, big screen musical entertainment! We will seek to use 35mm where possible, but where this isn’t we will utilise digital hi-definition alternatives - run in partnership with City Screen. Films to be shown are Top Hat, Singin' in the Rain, Oliver! and Romance and Cigarettes.
Martin Zeller-Jacques MA MLitt
Term: Spring
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 04 February 2012
Time: 9.15am-12noon
No. of weeks: 4
Full fee: £40

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Maestro of Menace: the Film Music of Bernard Herrmann
2011 is the centenary of the birth of Bernard Herrmann, the most admired and imitated of all film composers and one of the most remarkable musicians of the 20th Century. From his debut with Citizen Kane (1941) to his magnificent last hurrah with Taxi Driver (1976) - he died on the evening after completing the last recording session - Herrmann maintained a level of musical imagination and invention that was the envy of his peers. Working with directors of the calibre of Orson Welles and Francois Truffaut, he forged a legendary partnership over nine films with Alfred Hitchcock and which resulted in some of the greatest of all film scores, including Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960). The day school will include a screening of Vertigo and provide an overview of Herrmann’s film music career and how it related to his other musical activities. It will particularly consider the collaboration with Hitchcock and the secret of its success, as well as the story (and mystery) behind their calamitous falling-out over Herrmann’s score for Torn Curtain (1966). Neil Sinyard BA MA
Term: Spring
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 10 March 2012
Time: 9.30am-4.30pm
No. of weeks: 1
Full fee: £35.00

Unfortunately this course has been cancelled

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Citizen Kane: Legend and Legacy
Every ten years, the British Film Institute publication, Sight and Sound, invites film critics and directors to vote on their favourite film. In every decade since 1962, the winner has been Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Why? Will 2012 yield the same result? This day course will feature a screening of the film and look in detail at some of its outstanding aspects: the background story of its making; the contributions made by key personnel, such as cameraman Gregg Toland and composer Bernard Herrmann; its thematic and stylistic adventurousness; and its continuing appeal for film-makers and audiences. It will also consider life after Kane and the subsequent bumpy film career of Welles, the director whom, as Penelope Houston said, ‘Hollywood has on its conscience’; the film’s wide-ranging influence on a later generation of film-makers; and the enduring fascination of the Welles legend, perpetuated by recent biographies, recent films such as Me And Orson Welles, and the promised appearance in 2011 of his last project that has never before been seen, The Other Side Of The Wind.
Neil Sinyard BA MA
Term: Spring
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 17 March 2012
Time: 9.30am-4.30pm
No. of weeks: 1
Full fee: £35.00

Unfortunately this course has been cancelled

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Summer Term: April 2012 - June 2012

 

The Idiot Box: Thinking About Television
Television is a constant presence in our homes, and increasingly on our computers, phones and portable music players. Yet it remains a culturally denigrated medium, not as artistically legitimate as film, nor as novel as the internet. Despite this, television has been the supreme mass medium of the past fifty years and it shows no sign of waning in popularity or influence. This course aims to take television seriously: as a medium for communication; as a reflection of society; and as a significant body of fictional and non-fictional texts. We will discuss the emergence of television as a medium and the changing face of public service broadcasting in Britain and abroad, representations of gender, sexuality and class in various television programmes and genres, the rise and rise of ‘reality’ television, and the development of texts which announce themselves as ‘quality’ television. We will also explore the impact of digital technology and multi-media convergence upon the shape of television, and question the future of the medium in an increasingly globalised world.
Martin Zeller-Jacques MA MLitt
Term: Summer
Day: Tuesday
Start Date: 24 April 2012
Time: 7-9pm
No. of weeks: 10
Full fee: £67.00

Unfortunately this course has been cancelled

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Family Portraits in Japanese Cinema
With one of the oldest cinema histories in the world, Japan is still one of the largest film industries on the planet. Known for its early films based on the kabuki plays, Japan’s cinema has constantly evolved with its key genres loosely based around the, samurai, yakuza horror and anime film. This course seeks to highlight another genus that is embedded in Japanese cinema; the representation of the family. From the beginning of Japanese cinema, the family has been a recurrent theme for both abandoning and addressing issues of social conflict. It has ignited the production of a variety of films that at once celebrate and deplore individual acts within the family household often based around the stock theme of disappointment and abandonment. Over time, the cinematic representation of the family has altered in line with change and development in Japanese society.
Emma Sutton BA MA
Term: Summer
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 28 April 2012
Time: 9.15am-12noon
No. of weeks: 4
Full fee: £40

Unfortunately this course has been cancelled

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Great British Films (1967-1974)
This course will investigative one of the most extraordinarily creative yet curiously overlooked periods of British cinema. At the end of the 1960s, the British film industry was in crisis, following the end of the ‘Swingin’ Britain’ era and the withdrawal of American finance. Paradoxically, this produced an explosion of audacious film-making, often courting controversy. Performance (Roeg, Camell; 1967), If... (Anderson, 1968) and Kes (Loach, 1969) were just three of the films from this era which took critics and audiences by storm. The tradition of ‘quality’ adaptation of literary classics was meanwhile being continued with a much-loved version of The Go-Between (Losey, 1971), which won the Golden Palm at Cannes. A director of international esteem challenged the borders of screen violence and good taste in a film that divided his admirers as well as his critical foes (Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, 1971); whilst Richard Lester’s Juggernaut (1974) combined suspense with an allegory about the state of the nation that resonates to this day.
Neil Sinyard BA MA
Term: Summer
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 26 May 2012
Time: 9.30-11.30am
No. of weeks: 6
Full fee: £40.50

Unfortunately this course has been cancelled

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Sound and Music in Film
Sound and music have a powerful effect on film, and are essential tools for storytelling. This course introduces the key aspects related to sound in film, providing students with a better understanding of how these elements are used in filmmaking. The focus will be placed on exploring sound in film history and through different genres, pointing out the changes that have taken place in the use of atmospheres, voice, sound effects and music. The classes will make use of audio-visual material and class discussion and analysis will be encouraged. No prior knowledge required.
Mariana J Lopez BA MA
Term: Summer
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 23 June 2012
Time: 9.30am-4.30pm
No. of weeks: 2
Full fee: £70.00

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Film, Imagination and Illusion
This course will analyse some of the issues at the intersection of film and philosophy with the aid of Saving Private Ryan (1998). Art is often distinguished from non-art by its ability to stimulate the imagination on a multitude of levels, but film seems to ‘leave nothing to the imagination’. Does this mean film isn’t art? If it is art, how should we understand it: as a combination of literature and painting, as photographically-recorded theatre, or simply as moving pictures? If the digital revolution has severed the link between film and photography, then the art form has existed for two thousand years. Can this be right? The weight of opinion from film studies suggests that film is to a lesser or greater extent an illusion. Surely cinematic motion is illusory? Find out more about the philosophy of film, the paradox of cinematic imagination, and illusion of realism.
Rafe McGregor BA MA
Term: Summer
Day: Saturday
Start Date: 30 June 2012
Time: 9.30am-4.30pm
No. of weeks: 1
Full fee: £35.00

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Last Updated: April 16, 2012 | Iain Barr (ijb3@york.ac.uk)

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