Course Description
A historical survey of cinema and related audio(visual) media, including radio, television, and digital media, in Latin America. The course traces the role played by cinema and media in nation-building in Latin American countries as well as the relationship between film aesthetics, politics, and globalization.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be required to read additional essays
from a supplemental reading list. Each graduate student will be
responsible for presenting two mini-lectures, each on a selected
reading, to the class. They will also complete a research paper
of 15-20 pages. Note: There is currently no graduate degree in
Film Studies, hence the graduate students come from a wide range
of departments and programs, often with little training in film.
Athena Title
Lat Am Film/Med
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in FILM 4640, LACS 4640 or FILM 6640, LACS 6640
Non-Traditional Format
Students enrolled in the I-suffix version of the course will complete a list of primary and secondary readings in Spanish, which total at least 25 percent of the number of total readings assigned, in lieu of the English-language material assigned for those class meetings. These students will also write their term papers (7-9 pages) in Spanish and meet once a month with the instructor and their fellow I-suffix classmates for a required fifty-minute discussion section in Spanish, to be scheduled outside of class/lab hours by agreement with the instructor.
Semester Course Offered
Offered every even-numbered year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students should be able to: - identify and explain broad trends of regional development in Latin American cinema, considering economic, aesthetic, and political factors - explain how and why particular national cinemas and individual films deviate from these broad trends - develop and support hypotheses about how filmmakers viewed their work in relation to national, regional, and/or global contexts - write a clear, persuasive research paper that shows his/her ability to write a detailed visual analysis of a film text that takes into account social and historical context Students enrolled in the I-suffix version of the course will complete a list of primary and secondary readings in Spanish, which total at least 25 percent of the number of total readings assigned, in lieu of the English-language material assigned for those class meetings. These students will also write their term papers (7-9 pages) in Spanish and meet once a month with the instructor and their fellow I-suffix classmates for a required fifty-minute discussion section in Spanish, to be scheduled outside of class/lab hours by agreement with the instructor.
Topical Outline
I. From Silent Cinema to National Industries A. Silent Cinema B. Early Sound Film and Radio - Argentina C. The "Golden Age" of Mexican Cinema D. Brazilian Cinema: Carnival and Parody II. New Latin American Cinema: Aesthetics and Politics A. Critical Realism - Bolivia B. Radical Experimental Film - Argentina C. Film and Revolution - Cuba D. Chicano and Latino Cinema IV. After New Latin American Cinema: Rethinking National Cinema A. Filmmakers in Exile B. Post-dictatorship Documentary (Chile) C. Post-conflict Fiction (Peru) IV. Globalization and New Media Networks A. Co-productions and Global Auteurs B. Global Spanish-Language Television C. New Media and Politics This course is a historical survey of Latin American cinema and interconnected media, including radio, television, and digital media. Working chronologically, we will study early attempts at film production in the silent era, the rise of national film industries in Argentina, Mexico and Brazil after the transition to sound, and their decline in the 1950s. We will then examine experimental, politically-oriented filmmaking in the New Latin American Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s and filmmakers’ responses to dictatorship and civil war from the 1980s to the present. Finally, we will address the contemporary resurgence of film production in Latin America in the context of globalization. Throughout the course, we will trace recurring questions and problems, focusing on the role of cinema and media in nation- building in Latin America, as well as the relationships between modes of film production (industrial vs. independent), film aesthetics, and the politics of cinema. We will take into account the dominance of Hollywood films on Latin American screens and consider how Latin American cinema has imitated, adapted, rejected, and parodied classical Hollywood conventions. The course will focus on the development of cinema in Latin America’s most prolific film-producing countries: Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. However, we will also address the unique dynamics of filmmaking elsewhere in the region, viewing films from Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, and Peru, as well as works of U.S. Latino/a cinema and video art. Course Requirements: Quizzes (on lecture and reading) 10% Attendance and Participation: 10% Midterm Exam (Essay/Short Answer) 25% Final Exam (Essay/Short Answer) 25% Term Paper (7-9 pages): 30% WEEK 1: National, Regional, and Global Frameworks Screening: Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke, Mexico, 2007) TU: Welcome TH: Luisela Alvaray, “Are we Global Yet? New Challenges to Defining Latin American Cinema” WEEK 2: Modernism, Modernity and the Silent Cinema Screening: Limite (Limit, Mário Peixoto, Brazil, 1930) TU: Ana M. López. “Early Cinema and Modernity in Latin America” (excerpt) TH: Bruce Williams, “The Lie that Told the Truth: (Self)Publicity Strategies and the Myth of Mário Peixoto's Limite” WEEK 3: Radio and Sound Film: From Hollywood to National Industries Screening: Melodía de arrabal (Suburban Melody, Louis Gasnier, U.S./France, 1933) TU: Lisa Jarvinen, “Hollywood's Spanish Versions, 1930-1931” (excerpt) TH: Matthew B. Karush, “The Transnational Marketplace” in Culture of Class: Radio and Cinema in the Making of a Divided Argentina (excerpt) WEEK 4: Melodrama and National History: Mexico's "Golden Age" Screening: Flor silvestre (Wild Flower, Emilio Fernández, Mexico, 1943) TU: Carlos Monsiváis, “Vino todo el pueblo y no cupo en la pantalla” TH: Laura Podalsky, “Disjointed Frames: Melodrama, Nationalism, and Representation in 1940s Mexico” WEEK 5: Humor and Parody in Brazilian Cinema Screening: Carnaval Atlântida (Atlântida Carnival, José Carlos Burle and Carlos Manga, Brazil, 1952) TU: Lisa Shaw, “The Brazilian Chanchada and Hollywood Paradigms” TH: João Luiz Vieira, “From High Noon to Jaws: Carnival and Parody in Brazilian Cinema” WEEK 6: Critical Realism in New Latin American Cinema Screening: Yawar Malku (Blood of the Condor, Jorge Sanjinés, Bolivia, 1969) TU: Jorge Sanjinés, “Problemas de la forma y el contenido en el cine revolucionario” TH: John Hess, “Neorealism and Latin American Cinema: Bicycle Thieves and Blood of the Condor” WEEK 7: Experimental Aesthetics, Radical Politics Screening: La hora de los hornos, part I (The Hour of the Furnaces, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, 1967) TU: Zuzana M. Pick, “The New Latin American Cinema: A Continental Project” TH: Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Hacia un tercer cine” (excerpts) WEEK 8: Revolutionizing Cinema in Cuba Screening: Lucía (Humberto Solás, Cuba, 1969) TU: Michael Chanan, Cuban Cinema (excerpts) TH: Julio García Espinosa, “Por un cine imperfecto” WEEK 9: Chicano and Latino Cinema in the U.S. Screening: Zoot Suit (Luis Valdez, U.S., 1981); excerpts from Border Brujo (Guillermo Gómez-Peña, U.S., 1990) TU: Chon Noriega, “Between a Weapon and a Formula: Chicano Cinema and its Contexts” (excerpt) TH: Rosa Linda Fregoso, “Intertextuality and Cultural Identity in Zoot Suit (1981) and La Bamba (1987)” (excerpt) WEEK 10: National Cinema in Exile Screening: Tangos, el exilio de Gardel (Tangos, the Exile of Gardel, Fernando Solanas, France/Argentina, 1983) TU: Hamid Naficy, “Situating Accented Cinema” TH: Kathleen Newman, “National Cinema after Globalization: Sur and the Exiled Nation” (excerpt) WEEK 11: Trauma and Memory in Post-Dictatorship Documentary Screening: Nostalgia por la luz (Nostalgia for the Light, Patricio Guzmán, Chile, 2010) TU/TH Antonio Traverso, “Dictatorship Memories: Working Through Trauma in Chilean Post-Dictatorship Documentary” WEEK 12: Trauma and Memory in Post-Conflict Fiction Screening: La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow, Claudia Llosa, Perú/Spain, 2009) TU/TH: Sarah Barrow, “New Configuration for Peruvian Cinema: Globalisation, Transnational Networks and the Rising Star of Claudia Llosa” WEEK 13: Globalizing Latin American Cinema Screening: Babel (Alejandro Iñárritu, U.S./Mexico/France, 2006) TU: Néstor García Canclini, “Habrá cine latinoamericano en el año 2000?” TH: Dolores Tierney, “Alejandro Iñárritu, Director Without Borders” WEEK 14: Spanish-Language Television in Global Perspective Screening: Episodes of “La fea más bella,” (Mexico, Televisa, 2006) and “Ugly Betty,” (ABC, U.S., 2006) TU: Jesús Martín Barbero, “Matrices culturales de la telenovela” TH: Isabel Molina Guzmán, “‘Ugly’ America Dreams the American Dream” in Latina Bodies in the Media (excerpt) WEEK 15: The Politics of New Media in Latin America Screening: Medianeras (Sidewalls, Gustavo Tarreto, Argentina, 2011) TU: Barney Warf, “Diverse Spatialities of the Latin American and Caribbean Internet” TH: Andrés Monroy-Hernández et. al, “The New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Urban Warfare”; Sergio Octavio Contreras, “La semántica de ‘El blog del narco’