MIT 381F: Visions of Nature and Technology: The Films of John Boorman & David Cronenberg

Fall Term 2004 - Monday 6-9 (UC85), Wednesday 12-2 (SH3317)

Dr. Doug Mann – NCB 288 (Wed. 3-5:30), SSC 5320

In this course we’ll look at the cinematic visions presented by John Boorman and David Cronenberg of nature, technology and the human relation to each. We’ll especially focus on how these directors carve out a physical and mental “environment” for their narratives and characters, from Boorman’s disappearing wilderness (Deliverance) to Cronenberg’s Toronto highways (Crash). Thus we’ll pay close attention the semiotics of the environmental icons that these directors use in their films, and how these icons point toward broader social, political, and cultural structures. And we’ll ask the obvious question: has nature disappeared for us? Have we become technological beings?

Text

Visions of Nature and Technology Reader, ed. Doug Mann.

Books on Reserve in Library

Beard, William. The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 2001. Comprehensive analyses of all his major films up to Crash.

Ciment, Michel. John Boorman. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1986. Contains interviews and lots of great stills from his films, some in colour.

Rodley, Chris ed. Cronenberg on Cronenberg. Toronto: Knopf, 1992.  A valuable set of interviews.

Workload

Quizzes: 3 x 5%=15% Ø There will be 4 quizzes during the term, of which I’ll count the best 3. There will be no rewrites for any reason – the extra quiz is meant to cover all reasons for missing a quiz, including illness and travel. Each quiz will cover about two weeks’ worth of material, including films, texts, and lectures, and will be announced a class or two before it takes place (it’s up to you to attend class to hear these announcements). Each quiz will consist of 5-10 short answer and/or multiple choice questions.

Seminar Attendance and Participation: 15% Ø I’ll divide you up into 2 seminar groups (unless it’s a small class), which will alternate meeting over the last 10 weeks of the class, one hour per week, Wed. 1-2. Each seminar will discuss two or three weeks’ worth of material (both films and texts), but will be driven by your film reviews. See below for the dates for each film review. When Group A meets, Group B need not attend, and vice versa. Each seminar is worth 3%: 1% for attendance, 2% for minimal participation, 3% for significant participation. I will add a bonus of 1-3% to the seminar grades of the 5 or 6 students who attend lectures and participate in class discussions most regularly, up to a maximum of 15% (if you miss 3 or more lectures you’re off the list!).

Seminar Film Report: 15% Ø Each student will be asked to review one of the films seen in class in terms of one (or at most two) of the basic themes discussed in the texts and class. 2 typed, double-spaced pages (if it’s longer you will be penalized!), read in seminar. Don’t just review the plot of the movie or repeat the same points I made in lecture; instead, discuss how you think the director brings out the relation of nature and/or technology to the human characters in the film by means of framing, narrative, character development, character interactions, film aesthetics, the moral and political values endorsed, or any other aspect of the film. In short, I’m looking for a theoretical analysis of the film in question. I’ll limit each seminar to 3 such reviews, and since each seminar will cover only 2 films, I will allow only 2 students per seminar to review any given film. You’ll have only 10 minutes to present - I want to leave some time for discussion - and can use any method you like within this time limit. You’ll be graded mostly, but not entirely, on your written report. Don’t use long quotes from the readings – speak as much as possible in your own voice.

Final Thematic Essay: 30% Ø In the essay focus on one of the directors we’ve studied in course and discuss how they use various techniques, including the stories they tell, to explore the human relation to nature and technology. Follow the general guidelines for your seminar review, although you cannot discuss the same film you did there. Focus on 2 or 3 films by the same director. I’ll expect more awareness of critical literature on the director and films you choose to focus on here - you should include at least 4 references in your bibliography, including the course texts, but not counting Internet material (unless published elsewhere) and simple film reviews. 6-8 pages, typed, double-spaced (see my notes below). Due December 6, late penalty: 2% per day

Final Exam: 25% Ø This will cover the entire course, including texts, films, and lectures. 2 hours.

Schedule (Dates refer to Monday classes – readings listed in order of rough importance. I’ll use the first half hour or so of Monday classes before the film for quizzes and finishing the previous week’s lecture)

September 13 Ø The Lost Savages: Hell in the Pacific (Boorman, 1967). P Readings: (1) Michel Ciment, John Boorman, pp. 81, 84-5, 88-93.  (2) Andrew Sarris, “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962,” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, ed. Gerald Mast & Marshall Cohen, New York: Oxford UP, 1974, 500-15.

September 20 Ø The Lost Wilderness: Deliverance (Boorman, 1972). P Readings: (1) Ciment, John Boorman, pp. 117, 121, 124, 126-7, 129-130, 132. (2) Linda Ruth Williams, “Blood Brothers,” Sight & Sound September 1994: 16-19. (3) William Cronon, ”The Trouble With Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon, New York: Norton, 1995, pp. 69-90.

September 27 Ø The Lost Animal Within: Shivers (Cronenberg, 1975). B Readings: (1) William Beard, The Artist as Monster: the Cinema of David Cronenberg, (Toronto: U of T Press, 2001), Chapter 3. (2) William Beard, “The Canadianness of David Cronenberg,” Mosaic 27/2 (1994): 113-133.

October 4 Ø Overly Intellectual Beings: Zardoz (Boorman, 1974). P Readings: (1) Ciment pp. 135-6, 139, 140-1, 143-4, 148, 153-5. (2) Marsha Kinder, Review of Zardoz, Film Quarterly 27.4 (1974): 49-57.

October 18 Ø Horrible Nature: Rabid (Cronenberg, 1976). B Readings: (1) Mary Campbell, “Biological Alchemy and the Films of David Cronenberg,” Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, ed. Barry Keith Grant (Metuchen N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1984), pp. 307-320. (2) Doug Mann, “Monsters Unchain’d: Cronenberg’s Gothic Horror Stories,” David Cronenberg’s Somatic Dialectic, Chapter 1.

October 25 Ø Gruesome Nature: The Brood (Cronenberg, 1979). B Readings: (1) William Beard, “The Visceral Mind,” The Shape of Rage: The Films of David Cronenberg, ed. Piers Handling (Toronto: Academy of Canadian Cinema, 1983), pp. 31-39. (2) Michael J. Collins, “Medicine, Surrealism, Lust, Anger, and Death: Three Early Films by David Cronenberg,” Post Script 15/2 (Winter-Spring 1996): 62-69. (3) Doug Mann, “The Id Unchain’d:  The New Gothicism of the Body as a Site for Psychopathological Rebellion,” David Cronenberg’s Somatic Dialectic, Chapter 2.

November 1 Ø Mythic Nature: Excalibur (Boorman, 1981). P Readings: (1) Ciment pp. 179-83, 185, 188, 192, 196-7, 200-1. (2) Philip Kemp, “Gone to Earth,” Sight & Sound January 2001: 22-24. (3) M. B. Shichtman, “Hollywood’s New Weston: the Grail Myth in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and John Boorman’s Excalibur,” Post Script 4.1 (1984): 35-48. (4) Muriel Whitaker, “Fire, Water, Rock: Elements of Setting in Excalibur,” Cinema Arthuriana: Essays on Arthurian Film, ed. Kevin J. Harty (New York: Garland, 1991), pp. 135-143.

November 8 Ø Two Much TV is Bad for You: Videodrome (Cronenberg, 1983). B Readings: (1) John Harkness, "The Word, the Flesh, and David Cronenberg,” The Shape of Rage, ed. Piers Handling (Toronto: Academy of Canadian Cinema, 1983), pp. 87-97. (2) Bart Testa, “Technology’s Body: Cronenberg, Genre, and the Canadian Ethos,” Post Script 15.1 (Fall 1995), 38-56. (3) Doug Mann, “Technological Transformations: Cronenberg’s Science Fictional Impulse,” David Cronenberg’s Somatic Dialectic, Chapter 3.

November 15 Ø Tinkering with Technology: The Fly (Cronenberg, 1986). B Readings: (1) Jennifer Wicke, “Fin de Siecle and the Technological Sublime,” Centuries' Ends, Narrative Means, ed. Robert Newman (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996), pp. 302-315. (2) Adam Knee, “The Metamorphosis of the Fly,” Wide Angle14/1 (1992): 20-34. (3) Murray Smith, “(A)moral Monstrosity,” The Modern Fantastic: The Films of David Cronenberg, ed. Michael Grant (Westport: Praeger, 2000), pp. 69-83.

November 22 Ø The Amazonian Jungle: The Emerald Forest (Boorman, 1985). P Readings: (1) Ciment pp. 203-6, 208, 212-3, 216-7, 220-1, 224. (2) Alan Stanbrook, “Is God in Showbusiness Too?”, Sight & Sound Autumn 1990: 259-263. (3) Jean Franco, “High-tech Primitivism: The Representation of Tribal Societies in Feature Films,” Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas, ed. John King, Ana M. Lopez, Manuel Alvarado (London: British Film Institute, 1993), pp. 81-94.

November 29 Ø The Urban Jungle: Crash (Cronenberg, 1996). B Readings: (1) Botting, Wilson, Grant & Creed, “The Crash Debate,” Screen 39/2 (1998): 175-192. (2) Mikita Brottman and Christopher Sharrett, “The End of the Road: David Cronenberg's Crash and the Fading of the West,” Literature/Film Quarterly 30/2 (2002): 126-132. (3) Joel Black, “Literature, Film, and Virtuality: Technology's Cutting Edge,” Extreme Beauty: Aesthetics, Politics, Death, eds. James E. Swearingen and Joanne Cutting-Gray (New York: Cotinuum, 2002), pp. 78-88.

December 6 Ø The Postmodern Cronenberg: eXistenZ (Cronenberg, 1998). B Readings: (1) David Lavery, “From Cinescape to Cyberspace: Zionists and Agents, Realists and Gamers in The Matrix and eXistenZ,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 28.4 (2001): 150-7. (2) Heidi Nelson Hochenedel, “Understanding Simulacra and Simulation in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ,” unpublished essay. (3) Doug Mann, “Postmodern Simulations: The Body Vanishes (And Then Returns), David Cronenberg’s Somatic Dialectic, Chapter 4.

Seminar Schedule

The seminars will alternate between groups A and B (the first date listed in each pair is for Group A, the second for Group B). Maximum of 3 reviewers per session, 2 reviews per movie. First come, first served; I’ll assign all students topics on September 22 if you haven’t already chosen one. The first set of reviews will be graded more easily than the rest.

October 6 and 13: Reviews of Hell in the Pacific and Deliverance.

October 20 and 27: Reviews of Shivers and Zardoz.

November 3 and 10: Reviews of Rabid and The Brood.

November 17 and 24: Reviews of Excalibur and Videodrome.

December 1 and 8: Reviews of The Fly and The Emerald Forest (and Crash if someone really wants to do it).

Notes on Research

As far as research goes, there is a vast reservoir of interesting material on the Internet (e.g. the great film data base at http://www.imdb.com, but much of it is useless trash. Unlike books and articles in scholarly journals and the more professional magazines (e.g. Cinema Canada), there’s little quality control on WWW writing. So I expect your essays to rely principally on books, journals, and film magazines.

Class Attendance and Behaviour

All announcements having to do with quiz and exam content and any changes in the course materials will be given during class. You’ll be tested in part on the lecture materials and class discussions (along with the readings AND films). It’s up to you to make sure you keep up to date on such things by attending class - there won’t be any notes posted on the web or extensive end-of-class review to help out systematic truants. Please don’t ask me for copies of class notes for missed classes - find a friend to partner up with to cover these classes. The same goes for borrowing my copies of the films shown in the course – if you miss a showing, try the arts film library in UC1, Blockbuster at Richmond and Oxford Streets, or FLIXX in Richmond Row. If not having access to web-posted notes or attending class regularly is a problem for you, please drop this course. Also, please keep the background chatter down during lectures and presentations out of respect for both me and for those of your classmates who wish to listen to the lecture or participate in class discussions.

E-Mails

I would like to conduct as much of class business as possible in person to avoid misunderstandings and the ever-worsening problem of e-mail congestion. Please don’t email me complex questions about the content of the course or how to structure and write an essay – it’s far more effective and pleasant if you come to speak to me in person about this sort of thing (you can e-mail me to make an appointment of course!). Also, I reserve the right to not reply to e-mail questions or complaints concerning grades or requests for extensions on assignments - once again, present these in person! The same standards of civility apply to electronic communication as apply to personal conversations or letters. If I receive a rude or impolite e-mail I will ignore it blacklist your e-mail address. In short, don’t rely on e-mail for any communication you think is important - e-mails are often a poor replacement for direct verbal communication and can lead to serious miscommunication and bad feelings.

Plagiarism

Here’s the official word: “Plagiarism: Students must write their essays and assignments in their own words. Whenever students take an idea, or a passage from another author, they must acknowledge their debt both by using quotation marks where appropriate and by proper referencing such as footnotes or citations. Plagiarism is a major academic offence (see Scholastic Offence Policy in the Western Academic Calendar). The University of Western Ontario uses software for plagiarism checking. Students may be required to submit their written work in electronic form for plagiarism checking.” Here’s the unofficial word: don’t do it!

This outline is available on line at: http://publish.uwo.ca/~dmann/readings.htm. Also see http://publish.uwo.ca/~dmann for essay writing hints.