FILM 331 - Compilation Films: The Uses of Cinema and the Archive

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This seminar examines the history, theory, and aesthetics of the compilation film, or non-fiction motion pictures that utilize footage produced for another purpose to generate a new text. Drawing on theories of non-fiction cinema and experimental film, we explore the complex questions that compilation films pose about the circulation and re-appropriation of moving images by artists, governments, corporations, and documentary filmmakers. The course addresses a range of critical frameworks and historical issues though a series of overlapping case studies related to the archive, propaganda, cinephilia, and cultural memory in order to consider how compilation films shaped and are shaped by conceptions of the past shared by members of particular subcultures. The final part of the semester is devoted to the intersection of new media and the compilation film in remix culture, database cinema, and digital archives. Screenings include works by Bruce Conner, Santiago Álvarez, Connie Field, Joseph Cornell, Craig Baldwin, Esfir Shub, Emile de Antonio, and many others. Alexander Kupfer.

Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.

One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.

Course Format: CLS