Unit information: Modernism and the Movies in 2019/20

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

Description including Unit Aims

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.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. analyse films, film criticism, and literature using appropriate terminology and methodologies.
2. compare and contrast the stylistic and medium-specific dimensions of film and literature.
3. articulate an understanding of some modernist films and literature.
4. evaluate the shared cultural context from which modernist texts and cinema arose.
5. identify and assess relevant evidence and criticism in order to present a cogent written argument appropriate to level H.

Teaching Information

1 x two-hour seminar per week

Assessment Information

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]

Reading and References

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.