Unit name | Modernism and the Movies |
---|---|
Unit code | ENGL30128 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Dr. Cleo Hanaway-Oakley |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of English |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
An ‘orgy of abstraction’ – this is how D. H. Lawrence disapprovingly described film-watching. Virginia Woolf was a little more forgiving; she, at least, recognised cinema’s potential: ‘some residue of visual emotion which is of no use either to painter or to poet may still await the cinema’. Other modernist authors became involved in the film business. Dorothy Richardson and H. D. were film critics. James Joyce ran a cinema, yet his own novels were deemed unfilmable. There are, however, three film-versions of Ulysses: according to Joseph Strick, director of the 1967 Ulysses, Joyce’s novel is ‘written like a movie’ – ‘it’s a screenplay’.
This unit will explore the relationship between modernist literature and cinema from a variety of angles. It will consider: involvement (the ways in which modern writers partook in the business and criticism of film); impact (the ways in which early film influenced, or had parallels with, modernist literature); and adaptation (the ways in which film-makers have appropriated, or been consciously influenced by, modernist literature).
This unit aims to familiarise students with a selection of modernist literary texts and their film adaptations; introduce students to a variety of early-20th century films and film criticism; and enable students to critically analyse both films and literary texts using appropriate terminology.
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
1 x two-hour seminar per week
One 2000-word comparative analysis of a film and the literary text on which it is based (40%) [ILOs 1-3]
One 3000-word essay (60%) [ILOs 1-5]
Selected extracts from James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922).
Ulysses (1967), dr. Joseph Strick.
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928).
Lady Chatterley (1993), dr. Ken Russell.
Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928).
Orlando (1992), dr. Sally Potter.