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)
Student Learning Outcomes
- By the end of the course, students should be able to identify and explain broad trends of regional development in Latin American cinema and media, considering economic, aesthetic, and political factors.
- By the end of the course, students should be able to explain how and why particular national cinemas and individual films deviate from these broad trends.
- By the end of the course, students should be able to develop and support hypotheses about how filmmakers viewed their work in relation to national, regional, and/or global contexts.
- By the end of the course, students should be able to write a clear, persuasive research paper that shows their ability to write a detailed visual analysis of a film text that takes into account social and historical context.
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: Jorg
Institutional Competencies
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
