Films

I normally insist on having in person screenings for all films, and I think that the social, collective experience of cinema is particularly important in the case of silent cinema. Unfortunately, it is more important to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 when we can, so screenings will be online and asynchronous, meaning you may view the films at your convenience as long as you watch the films before we meet to discuss them (I will explain how to watch them in our first meeting). That said, you should try to duplicate as much as possible the conditions of a real screening: watching in the dark on a larger screen (please not your phone, please!) without interruptions. This is very difficult for us in our contemporary media environment, as we are used to pausing, answering texts, checking email, etc. constantly, but the media world of the early 20th century could never be put on pause. Silent cinema — especially if you are not used to it — makes very different demands on our brains; you will have to frequently ask yourself questions like, "who was that young woman? Maybe the hero has a daughter? Or maybe...."  Don't make your exploration of this world more difficult than it needs to be with interruptions.

In general, silent film operates on a somewhat different logic than sound film, but in particular, the cultural dimensions are very, very different from what we expect (particularly for films, like almost all of ours, from before 1920). Enjoy exploring this other world, but be aware that it is indeed a different world with very different standards that do not always easily translate to our own world (unmarried men and women cannot be alone together, not even for a few seconds; defending you honor and good name at all costs, including murde and suicide, was expected); sometimes their norms make us very uneasy (behavior that was for them comic, like a man stalking an attractive woman, is creepy for us today) or even angry (for example, blackface and brownface were a common and expected way for Europeans to portray people from other parts of the world). We don't excuse it, but we do learn how it was part of the cultural landscape.

Readings

There are readings assigned for each day, and they will be discussed in class. Please do the assigned reading for that class day (that is, do the reading before class, not after!)

Discussion

I will have a PowerPoint or mini-lecture from time to time, but most of the course for most of the semester will be structured discussion of the films and readings. I approach these discussions with an agenda, in the sense that there are certain points I want to get at, and certain issues I want to make sure you understand, but I am also hoping that every class discussion will lead into some new territories. So, don't interrupt a discussion that seems to be going well, but do feel free to raise new issues and new directions as soon as there is a pause. "Could we talk about sound? I thought this film did something really interesting..." or "I wanted to talk about race, because, even by the standards of the early 20th century, I was surprised to see..." If you want to maximize your participation grade (and who doesn't), it would be good to have 3-5 questions to ask an/or observations to make for each class. I will call on students at random, go in a circle, and take volunteers, so expect to contribute each class.

The Project

See the dedicated page on your Project this semester.

The Paper

For your paper, approximately 5-6 pages, you will write about Italian silent cinema with an argument of your own choosing. When I arrived at Illinois about 12 years ago, I could (and typically did) say to a 400-level class, "and at the end, write, you know, a final paper," and students would just do that. By four or five years ago, students began to express extreme (I mean really extreme) levels of nervousness about having to pick a paper topic and write a paper. This is not ok. I expect freshmen to need help picking a paper topic, and sophomores to have trouble developing their own argument—but not juniors and seniors. Part of your education in this class is learning about different things that we might say about film and articulating arguments about those things. I will do it every day in class, and you should spend class time practicing it, too. Here are some of the things you might write about: gender, politics, national identity, Italian culture and history, imperialism, the 1910s as a transitional historical era, the persistent influence of silent film today, costuming, "realism" in film, genre and generic formulas, narrative experimentation, alternative film styles, sexual violence and its representation, the role of women, transnational film, representations of race in the early 20th century, homoeroticism and the homosocial, early auteurism in a transnational film market, masculinity and the male body, and so on. You need to say something about one of these topics or another one, something that is not apparent to any viewer (don't tell me these films are "strange," for example, or that they have death in them), and argue your point in a persuasive way, with evidence.

Honors

Students taking this course for honors credit will do some extra writing (at least 4-5 pp.) and reading on a topic relevant to the materials in the class; they do, however, have some leeway to address the class material in new ways (in other words, it does not need to be “just another paper,” but may involve original research by the student, or less traditional topics, or less traditional forms). 

Grades

Grades

20% attendance and participation

40% project

40% final paper

Graduate students: presentation

In 15-20 minutes, with or without PowerPoint or its equivalent, present an advanced theoretical argument (Chion and Alter on silent film sound, biopolitical regimes in early Italian cinema, etc.). You may wish to write out your presentation in advance (a typical conference presentation is approximately 8 pages, double spaced, which will usually give you about 15 minutes; 10 pages will give you about 20 minutes), and read that in a communicative and pedagogically effective way. While your audience is chiefly undergraduates, it will normally be graduate students and faculty, so write in a way that is comprehensible but intellectually sophisticated. (And really, why wouldn't you just do that all the time?) Your task is threefold: (1) explain the reading(s) and the arguments made in some detail; (2) explain how they are significant for our understanding of contemporary auteurs; (3) position yourself with respect to the readings—what are the advantages and shortcomings of an understanding of these films based on, say, ecocriticism? Or Edelman and queer theory?

A word on PowerPoint, since it is a pet peeve of mine. PowerPoint exists in order to provide a visual counterpoint to your spoken presentation. Meditate on that mantra until you understand it. PowerPoint is not there to repeat your presentation, or worse still, to put up large blocks of text that people are supposed to read while you talk about something else. You might as well ask your audience to practice basketball while you talk. Some quick quidelines (these apply equally to Keynote, Prezi, etc.):

• Use only one template for the entire presentation.

• Use a maximum of two fonts (one for headers, one for text).

• A maximum of 3 font sizes may be used.

• Use simple, legible fonts—something assertive for headers, and a plain serif for text.

• Most of your slides should consist of images, and just images.

• Never put a block of text on the screen unless it is a passage to be analyzed.

• If that passage is too long, break it into multiple slides.

• Otherwise, if text doesn't fit, don't make it smaller—make it shorter.

• Every animation and visual "trick" you use will distract your audience from what you are saying.

• Approximately one slide per paragraph (more is okay—don't leave a single slide on screen for too long).

Graduate students: seminar paper

Seminar papers should be about 20 pages in length, and should demonstrate good writing, and a serious engagement with the primary material and the scholarship on it. When you write a seminar paper, you are practicing to write an article—they rarely get to the stage where they are actually ready to be submitted to a journal, but you are striving to move them in that direction. That means you should have an important issue in the scholarship that you think you have an interesting or worthwhile take on, and you should have read a selection of the scholarship on the specific text or texts you will be writing on. Make it sound like you know a part of the field; read a number (let's say 10) of articles and a couple of books; spend a little time on Google; get an impression of the kind of work that people are doing.

For all graduate students, an invaluable resource for research in this area is Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader; despite the price tag, it would be worth investing in a copy for this class. Used copies can be found for between $20 and $40.