THE POETICS OF NARRATIVE IN FILM AND LITERATURE
FRESHMAN SEMINAR -- CSCL 1909W 001

THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, TWIN CITIES
FALL 2006

 

 

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Instructor HISHAM M. BIZRI

COURSE DESCRIPTION
There is a long history of adapting novels into film and the reasons vary from the desire to bring literature to the masses and elevate cinema's cultural position, the fulfillment of the Hollywood studio pipeline (screenwriters, script girls, and technicians), and the desire of film auteurs to shed new insights into society through the use of the film medium. These social, industrial, and intellectual needs have shaped much of the debate concerning film adaptations. More importantly however is the philosophical polemic such an endeavor continues to posit. What is poetics? Do we get different meaning from novels than we get from films? Do we perceive each medium differently, which then affects our understanding? Do means of expression therefore express different things or do film and literature express an ideal form (Plato) that transcends their materiality? How does film form embody the thought and feeling of the "concretized form" of the novel?

We will take a comparative approach by looking at the poetics of films and literature from different countries: US, France, Japan, Egypt, France, and Mexico. For example, what is the process in which a Mexican filmmaker, Artur Rupstein, and a Cairene filmmaker, Salah Abu-Seif, translate/transform the same novel by Nagib Mahfouz in film? What are the specific elements in their respective cultures (one Christian, the other Islamic) that influence their decisions to add or subtract from Mahfouz, translate light into shadow or first person into voice over? In this seminar we will study these questions among others by looking at films and their corresponding literatures in the US, Europe, Japan, and the Third World. For example, we will look at Murnau's Faust , Welles' Falstaff , Bresson's The Gentle Woman, and Abu-Seif's The Beginning and the End as well as the version directed

by Mexican filmmaker Arturo Rupstein, and read Goethe, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Mahfouz, and selected essays, scripts, and interviews.

The course also examines how film and literature differ across cultures in forging the consciousness of a people. Mahfouz's novels and films attempt to forge a national culture in Egypt that is quite different from its role in the Mexican context. How do notions of Arabness, for instance, develop in contrast to notions of Mexican identity, just before and after the Free Officers revolt in Egypt and the different dictatorships in Mexico? Finally, we will look closely at how the notion of poetics has been defined in the West and its function is creating a view of culture that arises out of differences and conflict: the c ultured vs. the non-cultured, the civilized vs. the barbaric, the progressive vs. the backwards, and the rational vs. the irrational, that could imply that other places outside the West have been lacking in culture which has lead to colonialism, for instance. How does the East on the other hand understand and create culture outside the sphere of colonialism?

COURSE OBJECTIVES
The different readings and viewing are meant to give the student a rigorous understanding of how narrative is built in film and literature and the ensuing poetics. Our goals here would be to:

    1.    Deepen the student's understanding of narrative across media and nation states
    2.    Expand the student's notion of what narrative is and provide them the tools to understand and enjoy "difficult" narratives
   3.    Introduce narrative traditions in different cultures allowing the student an opportunity to explore significant cultural, social, and philosophical issues through the poetics of film and literature
    4.    How do filmmakers and audiences view and interpret film and literature across nations and periods, e.g., Mexico and Egypt, 16 th century England and the Soviet Union, modern France and 19 th century Russia, Imperial Japan and Medieval Japan
    5.   How have colonial politics impacted upon understandings of culture in the West and the East?

COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING

    1.    Mandatory class attendance and participation (20%)
    2.    Readings: between 50-75 pages per week
    3.    Bi-weekly paper-in-progress, 1-2 pages (20%)
    4.    In class mid-term exam, 3 essays (25%)
    5.    Take home final paper, 10-12 pages (35%)

READINGS (available at the U bookstore and reserved at Wilson Library; and a course packet available at Alpha Print at 1407 Fourth Street SE in Dinkytown, tel: 612-379-8535)

  • Goethe, FAUST, (Anchor, 1962)
  • Shakespeare, HAMLET, The Arden Edition
  • Shakespeare, OTHELLO, The Arden Edition
  • Najib Mahfouz, THE BEGINNING AND THE END, (Anchor, 1989)
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, THE BEST SHORT STORIES BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (Modern Library; Modern Lib edition, 2001)
  • Erich Auerbach, MIMESIS: THE REPRESENTATION OF REALITY IN WESTERN LITERATURE (Princeton University Press, 2003)

SCREENINGS (on DVD only)

  • F.W.Murnau, FAUST (116 minutes, 1926)
  • Orson Welles, OTHELLO (93 minutes, 1952)
  • Salah Abu-Seif, THE BEGINNING AND THE END (BIDAYA WA NIHAYA, 130 minutes, 1960)
  • Grigori Kozintsev, HAMLET (GAMLET, 140 minutes, 1963)
  • Robert Bresson, PICKPOCKET (LA FEMME DUECE, 75 minutes, 1959)
  • Robert Bresson, A GENTLE WOMAN (LA FEMME DUECE, 88 minutes, 1969)
  • Carl Theodore Dreyer, ORDET (THE WORD, 126 minutes, 1965)
  • Orson Welles, FILMING OTHELLO (84 minutes, 1978)
  • Arturo Ripstein, THE BEGINNING AND THE END (PRINCIPIO Y FIN, 188 minutes, 1993)
  • Jan Svankmajer, FAUST (1994)

ASSIGNMENTS (assignments must be completed on time; late assignments are not permitted; topics will be given in class)

    1.    Bi-weekly paper -in-progress developed throughout the semester, 1-2 pages (20%)
    2.    In class mid-term exam, 3 essays (25%)
    3.    Take home final paper that could be the paper -in-progress paper or a new paper, 10-12 pages (35%)