(Group A) Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness
Delivery: Distance Learning (Online)
Tsai Ming-liang, a Taiwan-based film director, is one of the most innovative filmmakers in world cinemas today. His films are marked by a lack of dramatic plot and dialogue, an initial absence of extra-diegetic music followed by the adoption of the musical form in his latter films, and a very bleak outlook on life in a postmodern, urban condition. This module will examine all of Tsai's feature films to date, and explore the idea of slowness in relation to theoretical discourses on time and realism in cinema, as well as to recent social phenomena such as the slow food movement. It will also provide opportunities to apply these concepts to other films in contemporary world cinema.
Deadlines
Applications to the Film MA Programme from new students: Thursday 31st July 2008
Module registration for all new students: Friday 5th September 2008
Module registration for existing students (Group A): Monday 1st September 2008
Module registration for existing students (Group B): Friday 5th September 2008
Module overview
Filmography
Tutor details
How to apply
Course preparation
Syllabus Plan
Week 1
Introduction
Week 2
Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai Ming-liang, 1992)
Week 3
Vive L'amour (Tsai Ming-liang, 1994)
Week 4
The River (Tsai Ming-liang, 1997)
Week 5
The Hole (Tsai Ming-liang, 1998)
Week 6
What Time Is It There?( Tsai Ming-liang, 2001)
Week 7
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2003)
Week 8
The Wayword Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, 2005)
Week 9
Slowness in contemporary world cinemas
Uzak (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky, 2000),
Whisky (Juan Pablo Rebella & Pablo Stoll, 2004)
Humanité (Bruno Dumont, 1999)
The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, 2003)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)
Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002).
Week 10
Essay Consulation Week
Learning / Teaching Methods
This course is delivered via the internet using an online educational environment called WebCT. Students will be given a username and password to log in to the course. A 'unit' of course material will be released every week for students to work through and class discussions on the material will take place in the online forum. An electronic reading pack will also be made available to students at the start of the course.
Students are required to participate with tutors and each other in the discussion forum, and readings and viewings may be set which form the basis of these online discussions. Students are also required to post responses to individual questions set by the module tutors in the discussion forum as part of their assessment. Class discussions are asynchronous - i.e. students do not need to be online at a 'set' time - they can leave and collect messages at a time suitable for them. Essay consultation takes place with the relevant tutor by telephone, internet phone (e.g. Skype), e-mail or via the discussion forum for this module.
A chat room facility is also available. This is entirely optional, but students can arrange a mutually convenient time to communicate with each other 'instantly', by means of this facility, if they would like more immediate contact with others studying this subject.
Assessment
To gain credits for this module, students will be marked on the following assessments:
- One essay of 5000 words (90% of module mark).
- Participation in the discussion forum (10% of module mark).
Intended Outcomes
By the end of the module a student is expected to be able to:
Module-specific skills:
- Exhibit an understanding of theoretical, critical and historical debates about the relationship between time, slowness and realism, and how they relate to selected filmic texts and contexts, political, social and cultural.
- Carry out detailed textual analysis and engage critically with texts and their contexts.
Discipline-specific skills:
- Show the capacity to analyse films from a critical perspective and in ways that take aesthetic, institutional and cultural factors and methodological issues into account.
- Access and use in a critical manner visual, printed and electronic learning resources identified as useful by the module tutor and find other useful materials independently.
- Mount a detailed argument in the appropriate register of English, using a range of textual and contextual evidence in its support.
- Apply and evaluate a range of critical approaches to the topic covered.
Personal and key skills:
- Undertake research activities with a measure of autonomy.
- Present information and arguments on a particular topic in a seminar situation.
- Contribute to group discussion.
- Research, plan and write an essay to a specified length and deadline.
- Demonstrate independent and critical thinking.
Reading List
There are no compulsory texts for this module as all key reading is provided.
