Monash University Handbook 2010 Undergraduate - Unit

Synopsis

From its beginnings, the cinema has endlessly repeated the same stories. This unit explores the concept of film genre and cinematic remaking: quotation, allusion, adaptation, in relation to a selection of contemporary and historical films. This unit describes film genre as a complex situation, that is enabled and limited by the related roles and practices of industry, critics and audiences.This understanding of genre is developed through three broad approaches to genre as: industrial category-deals with issues of production, including commerce and authorship; textual category, considers plots and structures; critical category, investigates issues of reception, audiences and institutions.

Objectives

By the completion of this unit students will be expected to:

1. Recognise that meaning is not simply an intra-textual property of a particular text but an effect of historically specific inter- and extra-textual material technologies or institutions.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of intertextuality in film studies and its relation to such categories as quotation, allusion, translation, adaptation and genre.
3. Translate the in-principle concept of intertextuality into an understanding of the particular institutional structures that maintain the category of the film remake and the related categories of the serial, series and sequel.
4. Display an ability to critically engage with written and filmic texts in a clear and confident manner in both written and oral presentation.

Assessment

Visual test (1.5 hours): 40%
Essay (3000 words): 60%

Chief examiner(s)

Deane Williams

Contact hours

4 hours (1 x 1 hour lecture, 1 x 1 hour tutorial and 1 x 2 hour screening) per week

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Film and television studies

Prerequisites

Students should have completed a first year sequence in Visual Culture or a related discipline approved by the unit coordinator