The course discusses the history of representations of African Americans and the issue of race in U.S. films. On the one hand, it demonstrates the centrality of race in the milestones of American cinema; on the other, it examines independent productions and self-representations of African Americans. We will analyze tropes such as blackface, passing, or the black brute as well as genres such as blaxploitation, interracial buddy movie, and horror. The course introduces elements of cinema history and film form. The analyzed films will be accompanied by critical texts that introduce both the history of race relations in the U.S. and the history of cinema.
1. 2022-10-06 Introduction.
Ethnic Notions, dir. Marlon Riggs.
2. 2022-10-13 Some theory
Greg Lyons, “How to Watch a Film?”
bell hooks, “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators"
3. 2022-10-20 Silent cinema
The Birth of a Nation (David W. Griffith, 2015)
4. 2022-10-26 The first talkies
The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927)
5. 2022-11-03 No class
I’m at a conference: make-up class TBA
6. 2022-11-10 The Civil Rights Era
Guess Who is Coming to Dinner (Stanley Kramer, 1967)
7. 2022-11-17 Black Power
Watermelon Man (Melvin Van Peebles, 1970), Panther (Mario Van Peebles, 1995)
8. 2022-11-24 Pre-blaxploitation cinema
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Melvin Van Peebles, 1971)
9. 2022-12-01 Blaxploitation cinema
Foxy Brown (Jack Hill, 1974)
10. 2022-12-08 Spike Lee
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
11. 2022-12-15 Postblackness
Suture (Scott McGehee and David Siegel, 1993)
12. 2022-12-22 Neoslave narrative
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)
13. 2023-01-12 Contemporary cinema
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
14. 2023-01-19 Contemporary cinema
Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)?
15. 2023-01-26 Final test
Course requirements
1. Attendance. You are allowed to miss three classes throughout the semester.
2. Active participation and a response paper.
a. I will make the assigned films available for you to watch. All texts will be on our Moodle platform.
b. Come to class with things to say, questions to ask. your grade depends mainly on your participation in class discussion of texts.
c. Response paper to at least one of the movies to be handed in before the class during which it is discussed in via Moodle.
3. Final test.
Your final grade
participation and response paper ≈ 50%
in-class test ≈ 50%
You need a minimum of 60% of all the
above components.
Supplementary filmography
12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
13th (Ava DuVernay, 2016)
Beloved (Jonathan Demme, 1998)
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018)
Bones (Ernest R. Dickerson, 2001)
Brother from Another Planet (John Sayles, 1984)
Candyman (Nia DaCosta, 2021)
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991)
Eve's Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997)
Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn, 1973)
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2016)
Illusions (Julie Dash, 1982)
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King, 2021)
Lovecraft Country (Misha Green, 2020)
Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992)
Passing (Rebecca Hall, 2021)
Poetic Justice (John Singleton, 1993)
Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2014)
Shaft (Gordon Parks, 1971)
Straight Outta Compton (F. Gary Gray, 2015)
Summer of Soul (Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, 2021)
Tales From the Hood (Spike Lee, 1995)
The Defiant Ones, (Stanley Kramer, 1958)
Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)
Watchmen (Zack Snyder et al., 2009)
Vampires vs. the Bronx (Oz Rodriguez, 2020)
Bibliography
Baldwin, James. The Devil Finds Work. New York: Dell, 1970.
Berlant, Lauren. “National Brands, National Body: Imitation of Life.” The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture. Duke University Press, 2008, pp. 107-144.
Bogle, Tom. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. Continuum, 1989.
Brody, Richard. “The Enduring Urgency of Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ at Thirty”. The New Yorker, June 28, 2019.
Collins, Patricia Hill. “Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images.” Black Feminist Thought. Routledge, 1990, pp. 67-78.
Gates Jr., Henry Louis. “’An Unfathomable Place’: A Conversation with Quentin Tarantino on Django Unchained (2012), Transition, vol. 112, 2013, pp. 47-66.
Gubar, Susan. “Spirit -Murder at the Movies. Blackface Lynchings.” Racechanges: White Skin, Black Face in American Culture. Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 53-94.
Guerrero, Ed. “The Rise and Fall of Blacksploitattion.” Framing Blackness. Temple University Press, 1993, pp. 69-111.
hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Routledge, 2015.
Rogin, Michael. "Democracy and Burnt Cork: The End of Blackface, the Beginning of Civil Rights.” Refiguring American Film Genres, edited by Nick Browne, University of California Press, 1998, pp. 171-207.
Stam, Robert and Louise Spence. “Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction.” The Film Studies Reader, edited by M. Jancovich et al. Arnold, 2000.
Williams, Linda. Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson. Princeton University Press, 2001.
- Teacher: Anna Pochmara-Ryżko