FILM1000 Introduction to Film Studies
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Instructor Pao-chen Tang paochen.tang@sydney.edu.au
Tutors Max Bledstein max.bledstein@sydney.edu.au
Nicole Fidalgo nicole.fidalgo@sydney.edu.au
Will Jeffery will.jeffery@sydney.edu.au
Kaitlin Lake kaitlin.lake@sydney.edu.au
Blythe Worthy blythe.worthy@sydney.edu.au
Amelia Saunders amelia.saunders@sydney.edu.au
Shima Shahbazi shima.shahbazi@sydney.edu.au
Chenlei Xiao cxia9483@uni.sydney.edu.au
Screening Friday: 11:00 AM-2 PM, Law Annex Lecture theatre 101
Lecture Friday: 2-4 PM, Law Annex Lecture theatre 101
Tutorial See Timetable for your allocated time and classroom. Session
swapping is not allowed.
Office Hours By appointment. Please contact your tutor by email.
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I. Course Description
This course introduces students to the basic terminology of film form and concepts of film analysis.
Film screenings cover sundry national cinemas, genres, modes, and directorial oeuvres from a wide
variety of historical periods. Emphasis is placed on cinematic stylistics, but we will also consider film
as an industrial system (of production, distribution, and exhibition) as well as a popular medium that
both reinforces and challenges social norms and aesthetic codes.
II. Learning Objectives
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
• define basic and key concepts in film analysis and interpretation;
• summarize a diverse range of cinematic forms within a field of changing technologies and
media structures;
• articulate the historical, cultural, and material contexts that underpin key concepts in film
studies scholarship;
• analyze film shots and sequences by using the proper language of film analysis;
• identify and formulate strong arguments in academic discussion and writing;
• conduct a feasible scholarly research of your own design; and
• argue the stakes, methods, and outcomes of your project.
III. Readings
• The primary textbook for this course is David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art:
An Introduction, 11th ed., available in paperback and electronically through the university
library. You can also read the corresponding chapters in other editions too (after 8th, in
particular).
• All other required readings are available on Canvas unless otherwise indicated.
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IV. Course Policies
• Attendance Policy: It is essential that students come to class prepared and ready to
participate in discussion. Attendance at all film screenings is required too. All the films that
we show in the screenings will be available only for re-watching on site at the Schaeffer Fine
Arts Library. Remote learning students will be able to view the films through streaming
services, provided by the tutors.
• Participation: Your participation grade is not based on mere attendance, but rather on
engaged, thoughtful, and respectful contributions to class discussion. You may use a laptop
in class to take notes, but only to take notes. Cellphone use during class time and screening
is not permitted.
V. Assignments
• Weekly Journals: From Week 2 onwards (except for Weeks 8 & 13), students are required
to write a paragraph-long critical response to the course materials, including both the weekly
film and assigned readings. This requirement should be seen as a reflection between sessions,
where you share what intrigues, enlightens, puzzles, challenges you from the course
assignments. The deadline for each week’s journal is one day before your tutorial session.
• Quizzes: From Week 3 onwards, there will be a weekly quiz on course materials in the
tutorial.
• Two Essays: There will be two essays required for the course. Prompts will be provided 2-3
weeks before the deadline.
o Essay 1: sequence analysis paper; 1200 words.
o Essay 2: research paper; 2000 words.
*Academic Honesty and Plagiarism
It is contrary to academic integrity and the spirit of intellectual pursuit to present others’ statements
and ideas as your own. To do so is academic plagiarism, punishable under the university’s
disciplinary system. Because such an act of injustice undercuts the distinctive moral and intellectual
character of the university, it will be taken very seriously, with severe consequences. Proper
acknowledgment of others’ ideas, whether by direct quotation or paraphrase, is always expected. If
any textual source is consulted and used, directly and indirectly alike, it must be identified by author,
title, and page number, or by website and date accessed, according to the proper citation format
outlined in The Chicago Manual of Style, available in paperback and electronically through the
university library. A work of plagiarism will be marked zero, and the student will be reported to the
university’s disciplinary committee.
If you are unfamiliar with the university’s policy on academic honesty, please consult:
https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/academic-dishonesty.html
VI. Evaluation
As a rule, no deadline extensions or makeup work will be granted. Work not submitted on or before
the due date is subject to a penalty of 5% per calendar day late. If work is submitted more than 10
days after the due date, the mark will be zero.
• Course Participation (including quiz results) 20%
• Weekly Journal 20%
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• Midterm Sequence Analysis Essay 20%
• Final Essay 40%
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VII. SCANA Workshops
SCANA is a Learning Hub initiative that aims to provide discipline-specific support for academic
language in select units. It consists of a self-marking online task that helps the Learning Hub staff
identify students with high needs in this area. This semester, a SCANA instructor will offer two
optional online workshops that specifically address the midterm and final assignments of this class.
The workshops will tackle the most pressing academic language needs in the course assignments
(e.g., appropriate paraphrasing, structuring essays, critical reading and writing).
The two workshops will take place from 5pm to 6:30pm on April 4 (Tue) and May 23 (Tue).
VIII. Weekly Schedule
Note that readings may be changed or replaced by other materials. If this happens, the instructor
will inform you in advance.
Week 1. Course Introduction
Feb 24, Screening: Rear Window (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954, 112 min)
Feb 24, Lecture
• Bordwell and Thompson, “The Significance of Film Form,” 50-71.
• Recommended: Tom Gunning, “Making Sense of Film.”
• Recommended: Dudley Andrew, “The Core and Flow of Film Studies.”
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Week 2. Narrative/Narration
Feb 27–March 2, Tutorials
• Workshop on the conventions of film writing and Chicago Style citation format (note-only
system + notes and bibliography system).
• R. Barton Palmer, “The Metafictional Hitchcock: The Experience of Viewing and the
Viewing of Experience in Rear Window and Psycho.”
• Recommended: Pamela Robertson Wojcik, The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film
and Popular Culture, 1945 to 1975, 47–87.
• Recommended: Tania Modleski, The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory,
3rd ed., 69–80.
March 3, Screening
• In the Mood for Love (Dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2000, 98 min)
March 3, Lecture
• Bordwell and Thompson, “Narrative Form,” 72-110.
• Recommended: Michel Chion, “The Third Reality: In the Mood for Love.”
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Week 3. Editing I
March 6–9, Tutorials
• Workshop on doing research and locating reliable scholarly sources.
• David Bordwell, “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice.”
March 10, Screening
• Billy Elliot (Dir. Stephen Daldry, 2000, 110 min)
March 10, Lecture
• Bordwell and Thompson, “The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing,” 216-262.
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Week 4. Editing II
March 13–16, Tutorials
• André Bazin, “The Virtues and Limitations of Montage.”
March 17, Screening
• Man with a Movie Camera (Dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929, 68 min)
March 17, Lecture
• Sergei Eisenstein, “The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram.”
• Sergei Eisenstein, “Montage of Film Attractions.”
• Recommended: Yuri Tsivian, “Montage Theory II (Soviet Avant-Garde).”
• Recommended: Yasujiro Ozu, “Film Grammar.”
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Week 5. Mise-en-scène
March 20–23, Tutorials
• Annette Michelson, “From Magician to Epistemologist: Vertov’s The Man with a Movie
Camera.”
March 24, Screening
• Floating Life (Dir. Clara Law, 1996, 92 min)
March 24, Lecture
• Bordwell and Thompson, “The Shot: Mise-en-scène,” 112-158.
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Week 6 & 7. Cinematography
March 27–30, Tutorials
• In-class sequence analysis exercise.
• Adrian Martin, “A Term That Means Everything, and Nothing Very Specific.”
March 31, Screening
• The Shining (Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980, 146 min)
March 31, Lecture
• Bordwell and Thompson, “The Shot: Cinematography,” 159-215.
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• Recommended: The Shining at 40 dossier:
https://www.sensesofcinema.com/category/the-shining-at-40/
April 3–6, Tutorials
• Daniel Morgan, “Where Are We?: Camera Movements and the Problem of Point of View.”
April 4, Online SCANA support workshop, 5-6:30pm
• https://learning-hub.sydney.edu.au/FILM1000-scana-workshop/v/s-1222714
April 14: midterm paper due
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Week 8. Film Music/Sound
April 17–20, Tutorials
• Terminology quiz.
• Midterm reflection.
April 21, Screening
• Walkabout (Dir. Nicolas Roeg, 1971, 100 min)
April 21, Lecture (guest lecture by Will Jeffery)
• Bordwell and Thompson, “Sound in the Cinema,” 263-302.
• Recommended: Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, 3-25.
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Week 9. Documentary
April 24–27, Tutorials
• Anahid Kassabian, Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music,
15–36.
April 28, Screening
• Who Killed Vincent Chin? (Dir. Christine Choy & Renee Tajima-Peña, 1987, 87 min)
April 28, Lecture
• Bill Nichols, Introductory to Documentary, 3rd ed, 1-28 & 104-115 (the first two sections of
chapter 6).
• Recommended: Bill Nichols, Introductory to Documentary, 3rd ed, 116-158.
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Week 10. Genre
May 1–4, Tutorials
• Bill Nichols, “Historical Consciousness and the Viewer: Who Killed Vincent Chin?”
• Recommended: Bill Nichols, Introductory to Documentary, 3rd ed, 194-208.
May 5, Screening
• All That Heaven Allows (Dir. Douglas Sirk, 1955, 89 min)
May 5, Lecture
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• Rick Altman, “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.”
• Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.”
• Recommended: Thomas Elsaesser, “Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family
Melodrama.”
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Week 11. Animation
May 8–11, Tutorials
• Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky, “The Price of Heaven: Remaking Politics in All that Heaven Allows,
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and Far from Heaven.”
May 12, Screening
• Castle in the Sky (Dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1986, 124 min)
May 12, Lecture
• Hannah Frank, “Traces of the World: Cel Animation and Photography.”
• Recommended: Sergei Eisenstein, Eisenstein On Disney.
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Week 12. Film Materiality
May 15–18, Tutorials
• Thomas LaMarre, Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation, 45-63.
May 19, Screening
• Persona (Dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1966, 85 min)
May 19, Lecture
• Liz Watkins, “The Materiality of Film.”
• Hito Steyerl, “In Defense of the Poor Image.”
• Recommended: Jan-Christopher Horak “The Gap Between 1 and 0: Digital Video and the
Omissions of Film History.”
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Week 13. Film after Film
May 22–25, Tutorials
• Workshop on final essay; peer discussion of final paper ideas.
• Recommended: James Chandler, Doing Criticism: Across Literary and Screen Arts, 36-82.
May 23, Online SCANA support workshop, 5-6:30pm
• https://learning-hub.sydney.edu.au/FILM1000-scana-workshop/v/s-1222715
May 26, Screening
• Waltz with Bashir (Dir. Ari Folman, 2008, 90 min)
May 26, Lecture
• Tom Gunning, “Moving Away from the Index: Cinema and the Impression of Reality.”
• Recommended: Stephen Prince, Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The Seduction of Reality, 11-55.
June 10: final paper due