COURSE OUTLINE: ENG 5060, 85851/001, 405034/001
Mon & Wed 12.50-3.50, Room 334 State Hall

This class will examine the historical, technological and economic changes that Hollywood has undergone by focusing on what has become the dominant genre of contemporary Hollywood: the big budget special effects “blockbuster”. Beginning with Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus and other Roman epics, the course examines the last 30 years with Jaws,  Star Wars,  The Godfather, Aliens, Terminator 2, Titanic, Die Hard, Jurassic Park, with a particular focus on the science-fiction genre, the technological developments in special effects and the changes in the Hollywood studio system.  It will consist of lectures, a midterm and a research paper.

PROFESSOR: Dr. Kirsten Thompson, kirsten_thompson@wayne.edu, (313)577-3358 (office); (313) 577-2450 (English Dept.)
Office Hours: Wed 12-1 or by appointment, Room 1252, Ground Floor English Department 51 W. Warren

CLASS TEXTS
These texts are available at the Campus Barnes & Noble  bookstore.
Required Texts: New American Cinema (ed) Jon Lewis (Duke UP: Durham) 1998 (NAC shorthand in syllabus)
Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, (eds) Steve Neale and Murray Smith (Routledge, NY) 1995 (CHC shorthand)
Recommended: Select one or more depending on your general or research interests
Cinefex Special Editions on Jurassic Park, Industrial Light and Magic and Titanic. (These are not available at the bookstore till Jan 15)
In addition there are REQUIRED readings on certain weeks that have been placed on reserve at the Undergraduate Library (signified as LIB texts in the syllabus).  You may take these out for one hour only.   I recommend that you photocopy them for later study, as many are lengthy.  There will also be periodic class handouts for supplementary readings.  A class website will be up and running shortly with recommended internet sources for research.  There are a large number of additional articles on reserve (for longer takeout periods of 1 day) which will be useful for further directed reading for your final research paper. Many of these appear in the bibliography.

Many of the films in the class that are owned by Wayne State Library have also been placed on reserve for the duration of the semester.  These may only be screened in the library on VHS, laser disc or DVD.
These include Spartacus, The Godfather, Star Wars and Terminator 2.  Other titles of more recent release dates (Men In Black, Independence Day, Titanic) are available at most commercial video rental stores for reviewing and research purposes. You can also rent films on VHS or DVD from the Detroit Public library for $1 each. You should always watch the films in the correct ASPECT RATIO (i.e. Widescreen) and where possible on Laserdisc or DVD.  These formats usually offer supplementary materials useful for research purposes.
 COURSEWORK
Midterm 35%, class participation 15%, final research paper 50%
Students may focus on specific aspects of  the action, science fiction  or horror genres, and investigate  ideological, technological and economic aspects of the dominance of these genres in the Hollywood marketplace.
Please note that I will not sign class withdrawals after Feb. 28 except in extraordinary circumstances.

Jan 12 ROMAN EPICS
Screenings: clips Ben Hur (Fred Niblo, 1925),  The Robe (Henry Koster, 1953), Cleopatra, Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964), Ben Hur (William Wyler, 1959); Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1951)
Readings: Maria Wyke ‘Projecting Ancient Rome” LIB; Maria Wyke “Spartacus: Testing the Body Politic” LIB

January 17 Martin Luther King Holiday/No classes

Jan 19 ROMAN EPICS
Screening: Spartacus  (Stanley Kubrick, 1960) US
Readings; Thomas Schatz “The New Hollywood” LIB; Murray Smith ‘Theses on the philosophy of Hollywood History” CHC; Richard Maltby ‘Nobody Knows Everything” CHC
Jan 24 Lecture Spartacus
Readings: Justin Wyatt “From Roadshowing to Saturation Release...” NAC

DISASTER MOVIES IN THE SEVENTIES
Jan 26 Screening: Poseidon Adventure (Ronald Neame, 1972) 117 m
Readings: Special section “Dreams of Doom; the World of Disaster Movies” Village Voice LIB
Jan 31 Lecture
Feb. 2 Lecture Godfather
Steve Neal “Widescreen Composition in the Age of Television, chap 8, CHC

Feb. 7 CAPITALISM, HOLLYWOOD AND THE MAFIA
Screening: The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) 175m
Readings: Peter Biskind “Making Crime Pay” Premiere, August, 1997 LIB; David Cook “Auteur Cinema and the Film Generation in 1970’s Hollywood” NAC ; Timothy Corrigan “Auteurs and the New Hollywood”  NAC

Feb. 9 Screening: excerpts Godfather II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) & Godfather III (Coppola, 1990)

Feb. 14 SPIELBERG AND MARKETING
Screening: Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1977) 124 m
Readings: Douglas Gomery “Hollywood’s Corporate Business Practice and Periodising Contemporary Film History”, chap 3, CHC; Peter Biskind “Blockbuster; the last Crusade” LIB; “Peter Biskind “Sympathy for the Devil” LIB;
 Feb. 16 Lecture/ Clips The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
Reading: Jon Lewis “Money Matters: Hollywood in the Corporate World” NAC; Warren Buckland “A Close Encounter with Raiders...” chap 11, CHC

Feb. 21 LUCAS AND MARKETING
Screening: Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) 121 m
Clips 2001 Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Readings: Peter Biskind “Raging Days, Boogie Nights” Vanity Fair, April 1998 LIB
Feb. 23 Lecture, Clips Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
Readings: Michael Allen “From Bwana Devil to Batman Forever: Technology in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema: chap 7, CHC

Feb. 28  SCIENCE FICTION MEETS HORROR
Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) 137 m
Readings: Thomas Doherty “Gender, Genre and the Aliens Trilogy” LIB
March 1 Lecture
Reading: Scott Bukatman “Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space” NAC
MIDTERM (30-45 mins.)

March 6 FUTURE TENSE
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1984) 131m US
Readings; Janice Hocker Rushing & Thomas Frentz "Terminator 2:Judgment Day; Effacing the Shadow" LIB
Mar. 8 Lecture
Clip: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Robert Zemeckis, 1988)US
Reading: K. J. Donnelly “The Classical Film Score Forever?, Batman...” chap 9, CHC
Spring Recess March 13- March 18

March 20 THE ACTION FILM AND MASCULINITY
Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) US  131m
Readings: Stephen Farber “Writing in Action”  LIB
Mar. 22 Lecture
Readings: Fred Pfeil “From Pillar to Postmodern; Race, Class and Gender in the Male Rampage Film” NAC

March. 27 DISNEY & THE RENAISSANCE OF ANIMATION
The Little Mermaid (John Musker & Ron Clements/Disney; 1989) 82 m. US
Reading: TBA
March 29 Lecture
Reading: Peter Kramer “Would you Take your Family to See this Movie?” chap. 19, CHC

April 3 NEW COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGERY (CGI)
Jurassic Park  (Steven Spielberg, 1993) US 126m
Readings: “William McDonald “Dazzled or Dazed? The Wide Impact of Special Effects” LIB ; Grover “The Storyteller” LIB
Tino Balio “A Major Presence...the Globalization of Hollywood in the Nineties” chap 4, CHC

 April 5 Lecture Jurassic Park
Readings:;  James Schamus “To the Rear of the Back End...” chap 6, CHC ; William McDonald “Dazzled Or Dazed? The Wide Impact of Special Effects”  LIB

THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENT
April 10 Screening: Pulp Fiction (Tarentino, 1994) 154 m
Readings:  Chuck Kleinhans “Independent Features: Hopes and Dreams” NAC; Justin Wyatt  “ The Formation of the Major Independent” chap. 5, CHC

April 12 Lecture Independence Day & Titanic, clips The Making of Titanic(1998)
Readings: Handouts TBA & James Gleick “Addicted To Speed” LIB

April 17 Screening: Men In Black (Joel Schumacher,1996)US
Readings: Gianluca Sergei “A Cry in the Dark: the Role of Postclassical Film Sound”  chap 10, CHC; Maximillian Potter “Paint It Black” LIB

April 19 TECHNOLOGICAL DISASTER
Screening: Titanic (James Cameron, 1998);
Readings:  Paula Parisi “Jim Cameron. Obsessed” LIB

April 24 Final Class MILLENIAL  DREAD THE ALIENS ARE COMING!
Screening: Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1997)

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 Bibliography
This list assumes all readings listed in the syllabus, as well as the following:

A good introduction to the study of film, for students who have no prior film knowledge is Louis Giannetti's Understanding Movies (Prentice Hall, NY 1993)

Ansen, David “Star Wars: the Phantom Movie” Newsweek Special Issue on the Hyping of Star Wars, May 17,  1999: 56-59
----------------  “Odd Squad” (Cover Issue on Men In Black) Newsweek July 7, 1997  58-62
Balio, Tino The American Film Industry (U Wisconsin P, 1983)
Biskind, Peter Easy Riders, Raging Bulls; How the Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll Generation Saved  Hollywood (Simon & Schuster, NY) 1998
---------------  “Making Crime Pay”  Premiere, August 1997,  80-109
---------------  “The Last Crusade” in Mark Crispin Miller, Seeing Through Movies (Pantheon, NY)    1990, 112-149
--------------  “Francis Ford Coppola” Premiere, Sept. 1996: 53-61
------------- “Sympathy for the Devil” (on The Exorcist) Premiere May 1998: 85-93, 102
Bogdanovich, Peter “Stanley Kubrick: An Oral History”  NY Times Magazine Special Issue, July 4, 1999: 18-48
Britton, Andrew “Blissing Out; the Politics of Reaganite Entertainment” Movie 31/32 (1984)
Brodie, Douglas The Films of the Eighties (Citadel Press, NY) 1990
Brosnan, John Movie Magic; The story of Special Effects (NAL, NY) 1976
Bukatman, Scott Terminal Identity; The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction (Duke UP, Durham)  1993
Cagin, Seth & Dray, Phillip Hollywood Films of the seventies; Sex Drugs ,Violence, Rock and Roll and Politics  (Harper & Row: NY) 1984
Carroll, Noel “The Future of an Illusion; Hollywood in the seventies (and beyond)”  October 20 (Spring  1982):  51-81
Chase, Chris “Mob Movies, An Offer We Can’t Refuse”  NY Times, Oct. 7, 1990 15-17
---------------, “For Movie Molls, It’s Still Dirty Work” NY Times, Oct. 7, 1990 1
Collins, J et al (eds.) Film Theory Goes to The Movies (Routledge: NY) 1993
Cotta Vaz, Mark & Duigan, Patricia Rose Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital (Ballantine: NY) 1996
Donald, William M, Dazzled or Dazed?  The Wide Impact of Special Effects” New York Times, May 3,  1998, 1, 42-43
Doherty, Tom “Gender, Genre and the Aliens Trilogy” in Barry Keith Grant , (ed) The Dread of  Difference;  Gender and the Modern Horror Film” (U Texas P: Austin) 1996,  181-199
Dyer, Richard Stars  (BFI; London) 1979
Farber, Stephen “Writing In Action” Movieline August 1988, 74-87
Fleming, Michael “Fantastic Voyage” (on Titanic)  Movieline, Nov. 1998 66-66-71, 102-103
Gledhill, Christine Stardom; Industry of Desire (Routledge: NY ) 1991
Gleick, James “Addicted to Speed” NY Times Special Issue “What Technology is Doing to Us” Sept. 1997,  Sec 6: 54-61
Goscilo, Margaret “Deconstrcuting the Terminator”  Film Criticism 12, No. 2 (1988):37-52
Grover, Ronald “The Storyteller: How Steven Spielberg Sustains His Creative Empire”  Business Week, July  13, 1998: 96-102
Hayes, R. M  Trick Cinematography: The Oscar Special Effects Movies  (McFarland: Jefferson) 1997
Hayward, Philip & Wollen, Tana Future Visions; New Technologies of the Screen (British Film  Institute:  London) 1993
Hoberman, J  “Apocalypse Now and Then, A Short History of the Cinema of Catastrophe” Village Voice  May 19, 1998, 70-75
Hollows, Joanne & Jancovich, Mark  Approaches To Popular Film Manchester UP: NY) 1995
Holmland, Christine “New Cold War Sequels and Remakes” Jump Cut  35 (April 1990) 85-96
Honan, William H “Can the Cold War Be a Hot Topic for a Movie?” NY Times Feb. 25, 1990: 15, 18
Horn, John “The Outer Limits” (on ILM) Premiere Feb. 1999: 82-88
Horn, John & Spines, Christine  :Actors Rule” Premiere, August 1999: 59-67
Jameson, Frederic   “Postmodernism and consumer society” in Hal Foster (ed),  The Anti-Aesthetic (Bay Press:  Seattle) 1983
Kamp, David “When Liz  Met Dick”  Vanity Fair,  April 1998,  366- 394
----------------, “The Force Be With You” Vanity Fair, Feb. 1999: 118-131
Kaplan, David, A.  “The Selling of Star Wars” Newsweek, May 17, 1999, 61-64
Kelly, Kevin & Parisi, Paula “So What’s Next for George Lucas?; The Wired Interview” Wired , February  1997: 160-166, 210-212, 216-217
Kilday, Gregg “Blueprint for a Blockbuster”  Premiere, July 1998: 76-80
Kolker, RP A Cinema of Loneliness; Penn, Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Altman (Oxford University Press:  NY) 1980
Kuhn, Annette Alien Zone; Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema (Verso: London)  1990
Landler, Mark “From Gurus To Sitting Ducks: Media Executives Lose their Edge”  NY Times Jan. 11, 1998, Sec  3, 1, 9.
Lebo, Harlan The Godfather Legacy (Simon & Schuster: NY) 1997
Lehman, Peter & Daso, Don “Special Effects in Star Wars” Wide Angle 1: 1 (1978) 72-77
Lewis, Jon  Those Whom God Wishes To Destroy... Francis Coppola and the New Hollywood (Duke UP:  Durham) 1995
--------, The New American Cinema (Duke UP: Durham) 1998
Lim, Dennis “The Object of My Infection: Tracking Fear, Loathing and Raging Metaphors in Virus  Movies”, Village Voice, May 19, 1998: 78-79
Marshall, P. David  Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture (Minnesota UP: Minneapolis)  1997
Maas, Peter “Why We Love the Mafia in the Movies” NY Times, Sep1 9, 1990: 23,45
Masters, Kim “Aging Bulls”  (on Hollywood’s Blockbuster Feuds) Vanity Fair April 1998: 160-
McCarthy, Robert B. Secrets of Hollywood Special Effects (Focal: NY) 1992
Millar, Dan  Special Effects (Chartwell; NJ) 1990
Miller, Mark Crispin  Seeing Through Movies (Pantheon: NY) 1990
Miller, Stephen Paul  The Seventies Now; Culture as Surveillance (Duke UP: Durham) 1999
Monaco, James American Film Now (Oxford UP: NY) 1990
Muson, Chris The Marketing of Motion Pictures (AFI: LA) 1969
Naremore, James Acting in the Cinema (California UP: Berkeley) 1988
Newman, Bruce “Computers Now, Apocalypse Coming Right Up” NY Times  June 30, 1996: 11-13
New York Times Magazine, Special Issue on The Two Hollywoods, Nov. 16, 1997, 75-164
Pollock, Dale Skywalking, The Life and Films of George Lucas (French: NY) 1983, 1990
Prince, Stephen Visions of Empire; Political Imagery in Contemporary American  Film (Praeger: NY)  1992
Pye, Michael  and Lynda Myles The Movie Brats; How the Film Generation took over Hollywood (Holt:  NY) 1979
Rogers, Pauline B. The Arts of Visual Effects: Interviews on the Tools of the Trade (Focal: NY) 1999
Ryan, James “”Look Ma, No Pixels: Plastic Triumps on the Set”  NY Times, May 4, 1997: 5, 25
Rushing, Janice Hocker & Frentz, Thomas Projecting the Shadow; The Cyborg in American Film  (U Chicago P:  Chicago) 1995
------------------ “Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Effacing the Shadow” in Projecting the Shadow, op.cit
Russo, Tom  “Star Struck” (on Star Wars)  Premiere,  Februrary 1997: 81-87
Ryan, Michael &  Kellner, Douglas Camera Politica; the Politics and Ideology  of Contemporary  Hollywood  Film (Indiana UP: Bloomington) 1988
Schatz, Thomas  Hollywood Genres; Formulas, Filmmaking and the studio system  (Random House: NY) 1981
-------------------- Old Hollywood/New Hollywood (UMI Press: Michigan) 1983
-------------------  “The New Hollywood”  in Film Theory Goes to the Movies (ed) Jim Collins, Hilary Radner  and Ava Preacher Collins (AFI: LA) 1993, 8-36
Sharrett, Christopher  Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media (Wayne State U P: Detroit) 1999
Sheehan, Harry “The Fall and Rise of Spartacus” Film Comment, March/April 1991, 57- 63
Short, Martin “Being Kubrick” Vanity Fair, April 1996: 178-185
Silberman, Steve  “G Force: George Lucas Fires Up the Next Generation of Star Warriors” Wired Special Issue  May 1999: 128-138
Smith, Thomas, G.  Industrial Light and Magic: The Art of Special Effects (Ballantine: NY ) 1986
Sobchack, Vivian Screening Space; The American Science Fiction Film (Ungar: NY)  1988
Strick, Philip   Science Fiction Movies (Octopus: London) 1976
Stern, Lesley   The Scorsese Connection  (British Film Institute: London) 1995
Tasker, Yvonne Spectacular Bodies; Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema  (Routledge: NY) 1993
Taylor, Phillip Steven Spielberg; The Man, the Movies, their Meanings (Continuum: NY) 1992
Telotte, J.P. Replications; A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film
  (University Of Illinois; Urbana & Chicago) 1995
Thompson, Anne “The Territory Ahead” (on James Cameron) Premiere,  February 1999: 76-80, 100
Timpone, Anthony  Men, Makeup and Monsters: Hollywood’s Masters of Illusions and FX
 (St Martin’s Press: NY) 1996
Traube, Elizabeth Dreaming Identities; Class, Gender and Generation in 1980's  Hollywood Movies   (Westview: NJ) 1992
Von Gunde, Kenneth  Postmodern Auteurs; Coppola, Lucas, De Palma, Spielberg  and Scorsese   (McFarland:  Jefferson) 1991
Wasko, Janet Hollywood in the Information Age (U Texas P: Austin) 1994
Weinraub, Bernard and Fabrikant, Geraldine  “The Revenge of the Bean Counters: Studios Yell “Cut!” As Costs  Spiral for Filmmaking”  NY Times  June 13, 1999, Sec 3, 1; 15
-----------------------, “How One Man Changed Hollywood” (on Michael Ovitz) NY Times, May 8, 1996: C1, 15
----------------------. “The Oscar Chase: Power and Dollars” NY Times, Mar.6, 1998: E1, 18
---------------------, “Hollywood’s Newest Boys of Summer”,  NY Times, May 12, 1996:  27, 34
Wood, Denis “The Empire’s New Clothes” Film Quarterly, 34:3 (Spring 1981):10-16
Wood, Robin Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (Columbia UP: NY) 1988
Wright, Will  “The Empire Bites the Dust”  Social Text 6 (Fall 1982) 120-125
Wyatt, Justin High Concept; Movies and Marketing in Hollywood (U of Texas P: Austin) 1994
Wyke, Maria  Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History (Routledge: NY)1997
Zimmerman, Patricia “Soldiers of Fortune: Lucas, Spielberg, Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark” Wide  Angle 6:2 (1984): 34-39

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