Foreign impressions of the USA are largely formed from the movies, but does Hollywood have the last word on America? The USA has always played host to a thriving independent film industry, and many Hollywood directors began on the independent scene. But what do we mean when we speak of independent motion pictures? Is it a question of simple economics, a 'director's cinema', or do indie flicks represent a subversive challenge to the cultural hegemony of the dream factory? If the former, how are under-represented social groups best to gain access to the means of film production? If the latter, then where have these other narratives of America come from and where are they leading us?
This course takes as its starting point a diversity of modes of film production in the USA, and will go on to address such key questions as: to what extent does the mode of production of a movie determine its form and meaning? How do the narrative form and style of a film affect its relationship with ideology and History? Finally, all the films on the syllabus have something to say about America: how have different individuals and groups struggled to represent their own perspectives on life in and History of the USA of the late 20th Century? By what means or strategies, and to what ends, have these films responded in different ways to the specific difficulties posed by the struggle for (and against) representation and the construction of identity at the movies? The primary focus will be on film analysis, informed by critical accounts of the production, circulation and consumption of the texts themselves: locating these texts as interventions in contemporary social and cultural debates on race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, authority and History, we will also aim to evaluate them in terms of their approach to the questions they raise, and ultimately their political usefulness for American Others.
Aims, objectives and outcomes
1. To familiarise students with the diverse and changing modes of film production in the USA; and to engage critically with competing accounts of the relations between films modes of production, and the ways in which they circulate and function in society.
2. To facilitate a critical and reflective approach to both the variety of alternative visions of the USA promoted by a range of film texts, and the representational strategies put into practice on behalf of voices and social groups usually marginalised by the cultural hegemony of Hollywood. This will involve an engagement not only with the content of the films but also their formal dimensions such as narrative and style; taking representation as both product and process; and analysing the specific appeals launched by a range of films in their social and political discursive context.
3. To enable you to formulate your own ideas on the social, cultural and political dimensions of films and film making in the USA over the past 40 or so years, through a process of reflection on the priorities and assumptions underpinning diverse films and movements.
4. From the perspective of key skills, there will be an emphasis on seminar participation, preparation and delivery of co-presentations, and working in small groups to clarify problems and posit answers to historical questions (see under Learning and teaching below).
By the end of the course, therefore, students will
1. have gained a grounding in the histories of the production and circulation of films in the USA both within and beyond the studio system; be equipped to problematise the relationship between these modes of production, and to comment critically on the meanings ascribed by society to specific films or bodies of films emerging from each.
2. have gained a grounding in the language of film and the analysis of film form; be equipped to identify a range of characteristic figures and iconographic motifs, as well as to analyse critically and discuss in detail their deployment in recent US cinema as films draw on, or challenge, prevailing social and artistic trends.
3. be equipped to formulate appropriate historical questions to ask of both individual films and broader movements, and to offer a well argued critique in either case.
4. have improved skills of communication and teamwork.
Module Supervisor's Research into Subject Area
Dr Haynes began teaching and researching Independent Cinema, fifteen years ago, purely out of naive enthusiasm for the field. His research focuses on the distinctive modes of representation available to independent filmmakers, and the social and political uses made of them; on shifts in modes of independent production and distribution, and the extent to which the formation of "Indiewood" (a studio-based mode of "independent" cinema) has entailed both gains and losses for the field; and on the radicalism, or otherwise, of the distinctive "challenges" to Hollywood hegemony emerging from it. Dr Haynes has published on two films by Quentin Tarantino, and on the campaigning social justice documentaries of Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films.
This course takes as its starting point a diversity of modes of film production in the USA, and will go on to address such key questions as: to what extent does the mode of production of a movie determine its form and meaning? How do the narrative form and style of a film affect its relationship with ideology and History? Finally, all the films on the syllabus have something to say about America: how have different individuals and groups struggled to represent their own perspectives on life in and History of the USA of the late 20th Century? By what means or strategies, and to what ends, have these films responded in different ways to the specific difficulties posed by the struggle for (and against) representation and the construction of identity at the movies? The primary focus will be on film analysis, informed by critical accounts of the production, circulation and consumption of the texts themselves: locating these texts as interventions in contemporary social and cultural debates on race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, authority and History, we will also aim to evaluate them in terms of their approach to the questions they raise, and ultimately their political usefulness for American Others.
Aims, objectives and outcomes
1. To familiarise students with the diverse and changing modes of film production in the USA; and to engage critically with competing accounts of the relations between films modes of production, and the ways in which they circulate and function in society.
2. To facilitate a critical and reflective approach to both the variety of alternative visions of the USA promoted by a range of film texts, and the representational strategies put into practice on behalf of voices and social groups usually marginalised by the cultural hegemony of Hollywood. This will involve an engagement not only with the content of the films but also their formal dimensions such as narrative and style; taking representation as both product and process; and analysing the specific appeals launched by a range of films in their social and political discursive context.
3. To enable you to formulate your own ideas on the social, cultural and political dimensions of films and film making in the USA over the past 40 or so years, through a process of reflection on the priorities and assumptions underpinning diverse films and movements.
4. From the perspective of key skills, there will be an emphasis on seminar participation, preparation and delivery of co-presentations, and working in small groups to clarify problems and posit answers to historical questions (see under Learning and teaching below).
By the end of the course, therefore, students will
1. have gained a grounding in the histories of the production and circulation of films in the USA both within and beyond the studio system; be equipped to problematise the relationship between these modes of production, and to comment critically on the meanings ascribed by society to specific films or bodies of films emerging from each.
2. have gained a grounding in the language of film and the analysis of film form; be equipped to identify a range of characteristic figures and iconographic motifs, as well as to analyse critically and discuss in detail their deployment in recent US cinema as films draw on, or challenge, prevailing social and artistic trends.
3. be equipped to formulate appropriate historical questions to ask of both individual films and broader movements, and to offer a well argued critique in either case.
4. have improved skills of communication and teamwork.
Module Supervisor's Research into Subject Area
Dr Haynes began teaching and researching Independent Cinema, fifteen years ago, purely out of naive enthusiasm for the field. His research focuses on the distinctive modes of representation available to independent filmmakers, and the social and political uses made of them; on shifts in modes of independent production and distribution, and the extent to which the formation of "Indiewood" (a studio-based mode of "independent" cinema) has entailed both gains and losses for the field; and on the radicalism, or otherwise, of the distinctive "challenges" to Hollywood hegemony emerging from it. Dr Haynes has published on two films by Quentin Tarantino, and on the campaigning social justice documentaries of Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films.