This module is designed to introduce students to major developments in film outside the Hollywood tradition, by examining a number of cinemas from around the world. We will consider stylistic and thematic concerns shared by certain schools of filmmakers in a given nation/region; we will also be looking at the ways in which films represent national/regional histories and the factors that shape their reception as national, transnational or 'world' cinemas. In the autumn term, we will introduce the framework of genre as a way of approaching world cinema, focusing on popular genres – world cinema as local and/or global entertainment. In the spring term, our attention will shift towards transnational trends and themes in world cinema, whilst acknowledging the genre categories that shape the production, distribution and reception of all films, including those marketed as 'art'.
Module Supervisor's Research into Subject Area
World Cinema is a major area of Shohini Chaudhuri's research. She has published on various aspects of world cinema in her books Contemporary World Cinema: Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia (2005) and Cinema of the Dark Side: Atrocity and the Ethics of Film Spectatorship (2014) and in numerous book chapters and articles
Films:
Abu-Assad, Hany. (2005) Paradise Now.
Ade, Maren. (2016) Toni Erdmann.
Al-Mansour, Haifaa. (2012) Wadjda.
Boyle, Danny and Loveleen Tandan. (2008) Slumdog Millionaire.
De Heer, Rolf and Peter Djigirr. (2006) Ten Canoes.
De Sica, Vittorio. (1948). Bicycle Thieves.
Gansel, Dennis. (2008) The Wave / Die Welle.
Iñarritu, Alejandro González. (2006) Babel.
Khan, Farah. (2007) Om Shanti Om.
Kiarostami, Abbas. (2002) Ten.
Labaki, Nadine. (2007) Caramel.
Lee, Ang. (2000) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Satrapi, Marjane. (2007) Persepolis.
Sissako, Abderrahmane. (2014) Timbuktu.
von Trier, Lars. (2011) Melancholia.
Wong, Kar-wai. (1994) Chungking Express.
Primary reading:
Andrew, Geoff. (2007) Ten. London: Wallflower Press.
Attwood, Blake. (2016) Video Democracies. New York: Columbia University Press.
Azcona, María del Mar. (2010) The multi-protagonist film. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Banaji, Shakuntala. (2013) ‘Seduced "Outsiders” versus Skeptical "Insiders”? Slumdog Millionaire through Its Re/Viewers’ in Crossover Cinema: Cross-Cultural Film from Production to Reception, ed. Sukharni Khorana. Routledge.
Barclay, Barry. (2003) ‘Celebrating Fourth Cinema’. Illusions 35 (Winter 2003), pp. 7-11
Chakravarty, Sumita. (2014) ‘Configurations: The Body as World in Bollywood Stardom’, in Figurations in Indian Film, ed. Meheli Sen and Anustap Basu. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ciecko, Anne. (2016) ‘Bicycle Borrowers after Neorealism: Global Nou-Velo Cinema’, in Culture on Two Wheels: The Bicycle in Literature and Film, ed. Jeremy Withers and Daniel P. Shea. University of Nebraska Press
Dennison, Stephanie and Song Hwee Lim. (2006) ‘Introduction’, in Remapping World Cinema. London: Wallflower Press
Desser, David. (2016) ‘Chungking Express, Tarantino and the Making of a Reputation’ in A Companion to Wong Kar-wai, ed. Martha Nochimson, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Dickinson, Kay. (2010) ‘The Palestinian Road (Block) Movie: Everyday Geographies of Second Intifada Filmmaking’, in Cinema at the Periphery, ed. Dina Jordanova; David Martin-Jones and Belen Vidal. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Elsaesser, Thomas. (2015) ‘Black Suns and a Bright Planet: Lars von Trier’s Melancholia as Thought Experiment’. Theory and Event vol. 18, no. 2 (2015)
Halle, Randall. (c2010) ‘Offering Tales They Want to Hear: Transnational European Film Funding as Neo-Orientalism’, Global Art Cinema, ed. Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Honess Roe, Annabelle. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
King, Geoff. (2002) Comedy. London: Wallflower Press.
Ghorbankarimi,, Maryam. (2017) ‘The Key Frames: Milestones in the Institutional History of Animation in Iran’, in Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca, ed. Stefanie van de Peer. London: I.B. Tauris.
Langford, Michelle. (2012) ‘From Rubble to Terror: German Cinema’s Coming to Terms with the Past’, The Directory of World Cinema: Germany, ed. Michelle Langford. Chicago, IL: Intellect.
Lionis, Chrisoula. (2016) ‘Occupied Laughter,’ in Laughter in Occupied Palestine: Comedy and Identity in Art and Film. London: I B Tauris.
Schepelern, Peter. (2003) ‘Lars von Trier and the Origin of Dogme 95’, in Purity and Provocation: Dogme 95, ed. Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie. London: British Film Institute.
Sengupta, Mitu. (2013) ‘A Million Dollar Exit from the Slum-World: Slumdog Millionaire's Troubling Formula for Social Justice’, in The Slumdog Phenomenon, ed. Ajay Gehlawat. Anthem Press.
Stafford, Roy. (2014) The global film book. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Steenberg, Lindsay. (2006) ‘A Dream of China: Translation and Hybridisation in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.’ EnterText 6.1: 159-81
Tchouaffe, Olivier-Jean. (2017) The poetics of radical hope in Abderrahmane Sissako's film experience. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Teo, Stephen. (c2009) Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
White, Patricia. (2015) ‘Nadine Labaki’s Celebrity’ in Women’s Cinema, World Cinema. Duke UP.
Wood, Houston. (2013) Dimensions of Difference in Indigenous Film. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.
The above list is indicative of the essential reading for the course. The library makes provision for all reading list items, with digital provision where possible, and these resources are shared between students.
Further reading can be obtained from this module's reading list.
- Module Supervisor: Shohini Chaudhuri
- Module Supervisor: Sarah Smyth