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The Anxiety of Influence: Godard & Bertolucci
Spring 1999

 

Instructor: Gloria Monti
Office hours: T & Th. 3:30-5:00
116 WHC, 53 Wall St.
Phone: 432-0152
E-mail: [email protected]

 

Meetings
M 3:30-5:20 (FSC B-17)

 

Screenings
Th 7:00-9:00 (CO31, LC101 & WHC)

 

Prerequisites
Film Studies 150: Introduction to Film Studies

 

Requirements
Attendance at class meetings
Attendance at screenings
Midterm paper (6-8 pages)
Final paper (14-16 pages)
Viewing of all films by Jean-Luc Godard and Bernardo Bertolucci available at FSC

Attendance at class meetings and screenings is mandatory and will count as part of your grade. Papers are due on the assigned dates noted below, so plan your writing in advance. No extensions will be given without a Dean's excuse and late papers will be lowered 1/3 of a grade for every day late.

 

Required Readings

Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995.

Sklarew, Bruce, Bonnie Kaufman, Ellen Handler Spitz, eds. Bertolucci's The Last Emperor: Multiple Takes. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1998.

Maryel Locke and Charles Warren, eds. Jean-Luc Godard's Hail Mary: Women and the Sacred in Film. Eds. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993.

(Available at Yale Co-op)

Xerox packet

(Available at Minit Print, 27 Whitney Ave.)

 

Recommended Readings

Narboni, Jean, and Tom Milne, eds. Godard on Godard. New York: Da Capo, 1986.

 

Grading
Midterm paper: 30%
Final paper: 50%
Class participation 20

 

Week One

Introduction: Fathers & Sons

Screenings (M 1/11, LC 101)
La Commare Secca/The Grim Reaper
(1962), Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy (100'), VHS
Vivre Sa Vie
(1962), Jean-Luc Godard, France (85'), 16mm

Week Two: Les Années Karina

Screening (1/14, LC 101)
Une Femme Est Une Femme/A Woman Is a Woman (1961), Jean-Luc Godard, France (85'), VHS

Required Readings (1/18) [35]
Fieschi, Jean-André. "The Difficulty of Being Jean-Luc Godard." 1962. Rpt. in Jean- Luc Godard: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Toby Mussman. New York: Dutton, 1968. 64-76.
Godard, Jean-Luc. "Une Femme Est une Femme: Scenario by Godard from an Idea by Geneviève Cluny." Godard on Godard. Eds. Jean Narboni, and Tom Milne. New York: Viking, 1972. 155-160.
"Free Love in Free Form." Rev. of Une Femme Est une Femme. Time 6 Nov. 1964: 105.
Sarris, Andrew. Rev. of Une Femme Est une Femme. 12 Nov. 1962. Rpt. in Jean- Luc Godard: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Toby Mussman. New York: Dutton, 1968. 60-63.
"Glorious Nut." Rev. of Une Femme Est une Femme. Newsweek 30 Nov. 1964: 100.
Elley, Derek. Rev. of Une Femme Est une Femme. Films and Filming (Oct 1989): 53.
Manceaux, Michèle. "A Movie Is a Movie: Interview with Jean-Luc Godard on Une Femme Est une Femme." 1961. Rpt. in Focus on Godard. Ed. Royal S. Brown. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1972. 28-36.

Week Three: La Donna è Donna

Screening (1/21)
Prima della Rivoluzione/Before the Revolution
(1964), Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy, (115'), VHS

Required Readings (1/25) [41]
Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 13-18.
Ungari, Enzo. "A Journey through Pasolini's Rome as if It Was Paris Vu Par Godard." Bertolucci by Bertolucci. London: Plexus, 1987. 28-33, 46-47.
Williams, Linda. "Stendhal and Bertolucci: The Sweetness of Life Before the Revolution." Literature/Film Quarterly 4.3 (1976): 215-221.
Tonetti, Claretta Micheletti. "Before the Revolution." Bernardo Bertolucci: The Cinema of Ambiguity. New York: Twayne, 1995. 25-44.

Week Four: Transition

Screening (1/28)
Masculin Féminin/Masculine Feminine
(1966), Jean-Luc Godard, France (110'), VHS

Required Readings (2/1) [122]
Kreidl, John. "How to Read an Early Godard Film." Jean-Luc Godard. Boston: Twayne, 1980. 127-170.
Burton, Scott. "The Film We Secretly Wanted to Live: A Study of Masculin-Féminin." Jean-Luc Godard: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Toby Mussman. New York: Dutton, 1968. 261-273.
Haycock, Joel. "The Sign of the Sociologist: Show and Antishow in Godard's Masculin Féminin." Cinema Journal 29.4 (1990): 51-74.
Youngblood, Gene. "Jean-Luc Godard: No Difference Between Life and Cinema." 1968. Rpt. in Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews. Ed. David Sterrit. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1998. 9-49.

Week Five: Sado-Masochism

Screenings (2/4)
Partner
(1968), Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy (112'), VHS

Required Readings (2/8) [44]
Bertolucci, Bernardo. "Versus Godard." Cahiers du Cinéma in English May 1967: 16-17.
Lapin, David. "After the Revolution? A Conversation with Bernardo Bertolucci." Literature/Film Quarterly 12.1 (1984): 22-25.
Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 54-68.
Kolker, Robert Philip. Bernardo Bertolucci. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. 25-35.
Ungari, Enzo. "All Power to the Imagination -- A Slogan for the Powerless?" Bertolucci by Bertolucci. London: Plexus, 1987. 50-61.

Week Six: Dziga Vertov Groupe

Screening (2/11)
Tout Va Bien
(1972), Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, France (95'), 16mm
1 P.M./One Parallel Movie
(1968-1971), Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, D.A. Pennebaker, France, USA (90'), 16mm

Required Readings (2/15) [142]
Lesage, Julia. "Godard and Gorin's Left Politics, 1967-1972." Jump Cut 28 (n.d.): 51- 58.
Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 23-53.
Thompson, Kristin. "Sawing Through the Bough: Tout Va Bien as a Brechtian Film." (1979). Rpt. in Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988. 110-131.
Goodwin, Michael, and Greil Marcus. "The Dziga Vertov Group in America: An Interview with Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin." Double Feature: Movies and Politics. New York: Dutton, 1972. 7-69.

Week Seven: After Godard

Screening (2/18)
L'Ultimo Tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris
(1972), Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/France (129'), LAS

Required Readings (2/22) [62]
Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 68-81.
Mellen, Joan. "Sexual Politics and Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris." Women and Their Sexuality in the New Film. New York: Horizon, 1973. 128-146.
Kline, T. Jefferson. "A Turbid, Unreal Past, In Certain Measure True: Last Tango in Paris." Bertolucci's Dream Loom: A Psychoanalytic Study of Cinema. Amherst: U of Massachussetts P, 1987. 106-126.
Ungari, Enzo. "Last American in Paris." Bertolucci by Bertolucci. London: Plexus, 1987. 86-91, 110-111.

Week Eight: The Epic

Screenings (2/25)
Novecento/1900
(1977), Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy (245'), VHS

Required Readings (3/1) [73]
Olivier. G. "Bertolucci's 1900: A Postmodern Metanarrative." Journal of Literary Studies Mar. 1986: 45-57.
Burgoyne, Robert. "Bertolucci's 1900: A Narrative and Historical Analysis. Detroit: Wayne State U, 1990. 106-157.
Ungari, Enzo. "The Long Sowing Season for a Red Harvest." Bertolucci by Bertolucci. London: Plexus, 1987. 126-133.

 

Midterm paper due on F 3/5 in my box at WHC

 

Week Nine: Return to Narrative

Screenings (Su 3/21)
Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)/Slow Motion
(1979), Jean-Luc Godard, France/Switzerland (87'), VHS

Required Readings (3/22) [80]
Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 135-173.
Lyon, Elisabeth. "La Passion, C'Est Pas Ca." Penley, Constance. "Pornography, Eroticism." Bergstrom, Janet. "Violence and Enunciation." Bellour, Raymond. "I Am an Image." Camera Obscura 8-9-10 (1982): 7-30, 116-123.
Thompson, Kristin. "Godard's Unknown Country: Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)." Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988. 263-288.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Bringing Godard Back Home." 1980. Rpt. in Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews. Ed. David Sterrit. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1998. 100-106.

Week Ten: Hell Mary

Screening (3/25)
Je Vous Salue Marie/Hail Mary
(1985), Jean-Luc Godard, France/Switzerland (107'), 35mm

Required Readings (3/30)
Maryel Locke and Charles Warren, eds. Jean-Luc Godard's Hail Mary: Women and the Sacred in Film. Eds. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993.

Week Eleven: Nine Oscars

Screening (W 3/31)
L'Ultimo Imperatore/The Last Emperor
(1987), Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy (164'), 35mm

Required Readings (4/5)
Sklarew, Bruce, Bonnie Kaufman, Ellen Handler Spitz, eds. Bertolucci's The Last Emperor: Multiple Takes. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1998.

Recommended Readings [35]
Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 100-134.

Week Twelve: (Il) Faut Rever Mozart

Screening (4/8)
Forever Mozart
(1996), Jean-Luc Godard, France/Switzerland (81'), 35mm

Required Readings (4/12) [28]
Federman, Raymond. "Jean-Luc Godard and Americanism." Film Heritage 3.3 (1968): 1- 10, 48.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Eight Obstacles to the Appreciation of Godard in the United States." Jean-Luc Godard Son+Image: 1974-1991. Eds. Raymond Bellour, and Mary Lea Bandy. New York: MOMA, 1992. 197-203.
Walsh, David. "Those Who 'Play at Life and Death': Jean-Luc Godard's For Ever Mozart." Rev. of Forever Mozart. Online. World Socialist Website. 2 Dec. 1996. Internet.

Taubin, Amy. "War Torn." Rev. of Forever Mozart. Village Voice 8 Jul. 1997: 74.

Corliss, Richard. "For Ever Godard." Rev. of Forever Mozart. Online. Time 4 Aug. 1997. Internet.

Baumgarten, Marjorie. Rev. of Forever Mozart. Online. Weekly Wire Austin Chronicle. 13 Oct. 1997. Internet.
Guthmann, Edward. "Godard Takes 'For Ever' to Go Nowhere: French Filmmaker Muses in Circles." Rev. of Forever Mozart. Online. San Francisco Chronicle 20 Mar. 1998: D5. Internet.
Smith, Gavin. "Jean-Luc Godard." Interview. Film Comment Mar.-Apr. 1996: 31-41.

Week Thirteen: Back to Italy

Screening (4/15)
Io Ballo da Sola/Stealing Beauty (1996), Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy (119')

Required Readings (4/19) [46]
Loshitzky, Yosefa. The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 174-199.
Maslin, Janet. Rev. of Stealing Beauty. Online. New York Times 16 June 1996. Internet.

Mathews, Jack. "Bertolucci's 'Beauty' Searches for Identity, 60s Idealism." Rev. of Stealing Beauty. Online. Los Angeles Times 21 June 1996. Internet.

Corliss, Richard. "One Life to Live -- But Can She Act?" Online. Time 17 June 1996. Internet.

Howe, Desson. "Bertolucci's Shallow Beauty." Rev. of Stealing Beauty. Online. Washington Post 28 June 1996. Internet.

Wagstaff, Chris. Rev. of Stealing Beauty. Sight and Sound Sep. 1996: 192-193.

Ebert, Roger. Rev. of Stealing Beauty. Online. Chicago Sun Times. Internet.

"Bernardo Bertolucci's Guilty Pleasures." Online. Film Comment Jul/Aug 1996. Internet.

Bertolucci, Bernardo. Interview. Online. Cecchi Gori Group 1996. Internet

Elley, Derek. Rev. of Besieged. Online. Variety 15 Sep. 1998. Internet.

 

Final paper due on 5/3 in my box at WHC

 


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