Philosophy PL3370
Special Topics: Consciousness and the Film Experience(aka "Philosophy of Film")
Dr. Robert Boyd Skipper
St. Mary's Skipper's Home Page Curriculum Vitae (not available) Phi Sigma Tau (not available) SAE (Society for Applied Ethics) Philosophy Department St. Mary's University Blume Library online catalog Current Courses PL 2336 Ethics for Engineers PL 2310 Logic Skipperweb Skipperweb Home Page Lonergan-L The Decade Project Texas Regional Ethics Bowl Cool Places Internet Chess Club Internet Movie Database CONTENTS
- About the course
- Your responsibilities
- Calendar
- EXTERNAL RESOURCES
- CeltX software (external link: http://www.celtx.com/download.html)
- The Daily Script (external link: http://dailyscript.com/movie.html)
- Textbooks:
Aesthetics of Film, by Jacques Aumont et al. (AF)
Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures, ed. by Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi (PF)
Plus a subcription to Netflix, at the minimum level (one DVD per month plus unlimited instant watching: $8.99 per month)
Office: 508 Chaminade Tower
Teaching Hours:
Spring, 2011
PL 2336 A: 8:20AM-9:35AM (TTh)
PL 2310 A: 9:45AM-11:00AM (TTh)
PL 2336 LA: 12:50PM-1:50PM (T)
PL 2336 LB: 12:40PM-1:40PM(M)Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 10:00AM - 11:00AM
Tuesday and Thursday 11:00AM-Noon
or by appointment (or just drop by when I'm not teaching).Preferred E-mail: rskipper@stmarytx.edu
Alternate e-mail (in case the first one fails): robert@skipperweb.org
Office Phone: (210) 431-6857 (or extension 6857)
Home Phone: (512) 847-7659 (Friday through Sunday)
Cell Phone: (512) 923-0749 (Monday through Thursday)
AIM: DoktorSkipI live 70 miles away in Wimberley, Texas. I drive in Sunday night and drive home on Thursday afternoon. My place in San Antonio does not have a land line or an Internet connection. Your best bet on contacting me, if I'm not in my office, is by e-mail.
Last updated
Monday, 23-Aug-2010 14:57:47 MDTAbout the Course
The purpose of this class is to explore how a film conveys meaning by producing a certain sort of experience in the audience. While people convey meaning through painting, music, dance, and architecture (to name but a few vehicles), the most pervasive system for conveyance of meaning is language. Language is a conventional system that employs arbitrary symbols which permit speakers to publicly share experiences, thoughts, intentions, conclusions, feelings, and countless other "inner" contents. The presumption behind this course is that film is very much like a language in its use of conventional and arbitrary symbols to publicly express meanings. The study of symbol systems is called "semiotics," and so this course will be, essentially, a semiotics of film.
To accomplish this goal, I will combine short lectures and demonstrations with readings from an anthology of film theory. I hope to use the lectures and demos to teach you (1) how to see a film, and (2) how to describe precisely what you see using the technical vocabulary of film. The first goal may strike you as odd. You may confuse seeing with watching. You may think that seeing a film involves little more than opening your eyes and letting the film wash over you. Most likely, you have "watched" films that way all your life. But that sort of passive experience can leave you with nothing to say afterwards except "I loved it!" or "I hated it!" or "So-and-so was hot!" If you only sit back and wait for the film to happen, it will manipulate you into seeing and experiencing only what the director wants you to see and experience. But don't worry. At the end of this semester, you should actually have the ability to truly and actively see a film. The articles in the book all presume that the reader can actively see movies, and they seek to push the reader beyond the bare experience and description into a more theoretical understanding of film and its relation to other arts, to society, and to the human being.
My philosophy of education is that education is learning, not teaching. That is, education is not something a teacher does, but something the student does. The teacher exemplifies the process, lays out a path, provides materials, and guides students along the way. But the education itself is ultimately nothing but a character-shaping experience belonging entirely to the student. For example, consider learning about Europe. Two approaches might be reading a travel book about Europe and spending six weeks living in Europe. If you read the travel book, you may be able to quote many facts and figures, and you will be knowledgeable, for sure, but you won't be a different person. You'll just have more trivia at your fingertips. But visiting Europe may not be any better. If you drift through Europe, without curiosity and without interest, you can say you've been there, but afterward you will be the same boring person you were before going. But if you spend those six weeks or so in Europe eagerly opening yourself to every new cultural and intellectual experience that comes your way, researching what you've seen, and asking incessant questions that you follow through on, you will return a different and far more educated person. But no one can give you that sort of trip. You must take it.
Think of this class as a trip into the world of cinema. You could memorize facts and recite them back for a grade. You could watch a bunch of popular movies and eat popcorn. But if you do nothing more than that, this class will hugely disappoint you. If you want to become educated, you must combine attentive experience, continual questioning, a relentless search for understanding, exploration of new experiences and theories, engagement with difficult films, and truth-seeking dialogue with other students. If you can do this, the course could reward your greatly.
Not everyone accepts the idea that film works like a language. We will look at criticisms of film semiotics, too. I don't expect you to emerge from this class with any particular dogma. I do, however, expect you to be unable to watch a film the same way you did before taking the course.
Goals for the semester
Your grade will be based on the following
- One final exam (10%)
- One mid-semester exam (10%)
- Weekly blogs (40%) That's right: Forty percent!
- Two short (one-page) exercises in screenwriting (5% each)
- One term project (10%)
- Active, constructive, and informed participation in class seminars (20%)
These numbers are approximate. I mean them only as guidelines both for me and for you. If I see clearly by the end of the semester that you have no clue about film theory, you won't pass, even if you did somehow manage to score technically passing grades. If I see clearly that you have a much better grasp of the subject than your grades would indicate, your course grade will reflect that fact. Cheating almost guarantees cluelessnes. Anyone who cheats, in any manner, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, automatically fails the course!!! This may seem drastic to you, but cheating in a course like this one presents strong prima facie evidence that you missed something crucial and would benefit from taking the course again. If you don't understand what I just said, rent and watch the movie, The Emperor's Club. (External link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283530/)
To me, the most important component will be the dialogue that emerges in this class. It has two phases, first the blog and then the seminar discussion. It is through these that I can see how much you are learning. Grades on objective tests in my classes tend to be very poor (ask any other student who's had me before!) So the objective grades will probably be quite low. But what I am trying to discover is whether you are learning anything. Weekly (or biweekly) entries in your blog will tell me much more accurately what kind of effort you are putting forth to learn. For this reason, you may be able to convince me, through your entries, that you deserve a much better grade than all your other scores would indicate. Blog entries and in-class discussion should be thoughtful and in the spirit of a cooperative learning experience.
Organization of class. Class will be structured along two separate lines. At times, I will lecture, and at other times, we will have a seminar-style discussion. Lectures will cover illustrations and supplementary issues, as needed or demanded. But I will try to confine lectures to responses to questions you ask—apart from film technique, I will not lecture you on something I think you ought to know if you haven't asked me about it. Seminars will cover the material in the assigned readings and in the assigned films. Participation in a seminar discussion is simply impossible if you have not read or recently watched the assigned material. So the blog entries are mandatory and due at the beginning of each class. Anyone who has not read the assigned chapters or watched the assigned film is invited to spend the class period in the library completing the assignment.
Reading blogs. I will set you up with your own blog on Blackboard. For each assigned reading or assigned movie, you will need to post a reflective blog entry before the seminar in which the material is discussed. You will also need to post two replies to the blogs of others within one week of the seminar in which it is discussed. (Of course, you may also post replies before the seminar.) I will not accept late submissions, since the purpose of the journal is for you to reflect on the reading before we discuss it in class. The blog entry is not a book report or summary. It is your own reflection on the material. This can include questions, challenges, observations (either supportive or contrary), emotional reactions, or whatever else will reveal your active engagement with the material. I will look for the following six characteristics of your blog entries about readings:
- Basic comprehension (Do you understand the material or its thesis?);
- Deep comprehension (Do you understand the reasons the author presents or the techniques used?);
- Insight (Have you made connections between the author's claims and your own life or with something else, like movies, news, or literature? In the case of movies you watch in class, have you made connections with the texts or with ideas discussed in class?);
- Curiosity (Do you raise and make a serious attempt at answering puzzles or questions about the material?);
- Critical thinking (Have you raised interesting challenges to the assertions made by the author?);
- Truth-seeking (Have you shown an effort to respond as the author might to the challenges you raised, and then tried to reach a balanced judgment that takes all relevant issues into account?).
For your blogs about the films, I also need to see some level of intellectual engagement with them. So I will look for these characteristics.
- Basic Comprehension (What was the film about? What happened in the film?)
- Deep Comprehension (How did the director accomplish some of the goals he set for himself in this film)
- Insight (Can you relate this film to any other films or to the history of film?)
- Curiosity (Did you research any questions you had about this film?)
- Critical Thinking (Can you think of other ways the director might have accomplished some of the things he attempted?)
- Value-Seeking (Do you understand why this film is important?)
Participation. Class participation does not mean saying "here!" when I call roll. It means active and constructive engagement with me and with others in class. It is extremely important, and therefore will not be optional. Not everyone will get to speak every week, but everyone must be prepared to participate every seminar.
Exams. The mid-term and final will be objective, multiple-choice tests that consist of content questions over the readings.
Screen-writing exercises. In these exercises, you will be given one-minute scene, and asked to describe as clearly as possible exactly how you wish a scene to be filmed. You will asked to explain what you are trying to accomplish, and what the context of the scene is.
Term paper. Details in handout. You will be given the choice of an analytical paper or a creative paper.
Your Responsibilities
- READ THE ASSIGNMENTS!!! More than half of the content of this course is in the readings. There will be class discussion about each reading, in which everyone will participate. Tests will always cover at least some points from the reading that we did not touch on in class.
- READ THE ASSIGNMENTS AGAIN!!! I can't fully understand any of these readings from a single reading, so I don't expect you to be able to do so either. Read each one at least twice. The first time, take critical notes (mark up the book with analytic and challenging comments). The second time, look for answers to your first challenges, look for inconsistencies that you didn't notice at first, and write down questions or observations to bring up in class. If you cannot devote six hours per week to studying for this class, you should withdraw. If you can devote six hours per week, you should.
- ATTEND CLASS. The remaining content of this course is in-class lecture and discussion. We will cover a lot of ground in each session. If you miss a single class, you will be almost certain of missing some questions on the exams.
- DO NOT USE TECHNOLOGIES IN CLASS UNLESS DIRECTLY RELEVANT TO CLASS ACTIVITIES AT THAT MOMENT. This class requires your full attention and participation. Surfing the Internet, answering emails, messaging friends, tweeting, and other such activities not only remove you from the classroom but distract everyone around you and deliver a direct personal insult to me. I do take great offense to any such acts of rudeness, though I may not mention it aloud.
- TAKE GOOD NOTES. Very few students know how to take good notes before their Junior year. But anyone who does take good notes could simply read them over before a major test and make a 100. Good notes do not simply list the topics or examples mentioned in class. Good notes always consist of complete sentences or paragraphs that summarize what is said or done. You should write down, in full, every major point made during any class. You should also take notes on your reading. Note taking and blogging are not incompatible activities.
- TURN IN ALL WORK ON TIME. I will not always remind you of due dates coming up or past. You must keep track of these things yourself.
- BE HONEST (DON'T CHEAT). It may seem insane to have to say this to responsible adults like you, but I'm saying it. So listen up! Cheating in any form is totally unacceptable. If you cheat, you will fail my course, and I will turn your name in to the Dean. Dishonesty comes in many forms, but one form is called "plagiarism," which means borrowing words or ideas from someone else, and pretending they are yours. Every word that goes into a paper or that goes into a blog entry must be your own. Do not--I repeat DO NOT--take the words of anyone else and copy them into your paper or blog. Borrowing someone else's thinking is not research, it's cheating—even if you list the real author in a bibliography.