• EL 339: French Lit as Film
• FR 601: 20th-Century French Literature
• EL 337: French Film

Office Hours: Tues., Thurs. 10:30-11:45, E.W. Annex, bldg. #4,
office #6, ext. 66973; home phone: 237-8082 before 8:30 p.m.,
please; anytime: e-mail: zants@hawaii.edu
    French Division home page on the World-Wide Web:
         http://www2.hawaii.edu/~zants/
for news on Study Abroad programs, French events, Spring French
schedules, degree and certificate requirements, faculty bio-bibs,
and other French web links.  If you do not have a browser and video card:
At the unix prompt %: lynx
    then type: g
    and when it asks for the URL address, enter the http line
above.  Happy webbing.

The Grade will be based on:
     1.   Caucus participation, 5 pts./film
     2.   6 exams, 10 pts. each

     A=90%; B=80%; C=70%; D=60%
**  LATE WORK WILL BE AN AUTOMATIC 60% OR LESS
*** ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED
         3 ABSENCES AUTOMATICALLY LOWER THE GRADE 10%.

Required Reading, Film Viewing, Computer Deadlines:
    Texts:
         Marcel Proust: Swann's Way Start reading 3 to 5 pages a
night immediately, preferably just before going to sleep. Finish
by Oct. 25th.
         by Sept. 14 Stendhal: The Red and the Black
         by Sept. 28 Flaubert: Madame Bovary
         by Oct. 10  Zola:   Nana

    Films will be on reserve at Wong AV center 5 days before the
deadline.  For the 4 books read, please view 2 films (incl. Swann
in Love) before reading the novel, and for the other 2, read the
novel before viewing the film.  This should give you a feel for
how much the novel can be distorted by a previous viewing.  The
deadlines for viewing the film as well as making "Caucus" entries
are the same, though the film-viewing must precede the caucus
commentary.  (It is too cold in Wong, go prepared)

    Caucus: Entries of 1 paragraph may be of 3 kinds: critical
commentary; cultural artifacts; or personal experience.  Use the
last ...3 words of the passage or comment you are commenting on
to start your response.
    Deadline: VTR#   Director:  Title:
    M, Aug. 28 5396   Rivette    The Nun (155 min.)
    M, Sept. 4 2549   Frears     Dangerous Liaisons (in English)
                                 (120 min.
    M, Sept. 18 2019  Autant-Lara The Red and the Black (140
                                  min.)
    W, Sept. 27 6915  Chabrol    Madame Bovary (130 min.)
    W, Oct. 11 2793   Christian Jacque Nana (92 min.)
    M, Oct. 30 1443   Schloendorff   Swann in Love (in English)
                                     (110 min.)
    W, Nov. 15 8077   Bresson    Mouchette  (Showing will start
at 1:22 a.m. and end at 2:52 in class) (90 min.)
    M, Dec. 4 9325   Annaud     The Lover (Eng., no subtitles)
                                (115 min.)

Class Schedule

Aug.     22 Intro. to novel, film, chaos, and 18th cent.
         24 Diderot, The Nun; Film Clips and lecture

         29 Caucus discussion
         31 Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons; Film Clips

Sept. 5  Caucus discussion; review of 18th cent.
          7 Exam I: 18th cent.; Intro. to 19th cent.

         12 Stendhal's The Red and the Black; Film clips
         14 Clips and lecture

         19 Caucus discussion
         21 Flaubert's Madame Bovary; Film clips and lecture

         26 Film Clips and lecture
         28 Caucus discussion.

Oct.  3  Stendhal & Flaubert Exam; Intro. to Zola
          5 Nana / Film Clips

         10 Film Clips and lecture
         12 Caucus discussion and review

         17 Zola Exam; Intro. to Proust
         19 Proust: Swann's Way; Film clips and lecture

         24 Proust / Film Clips
         26 Proust

         31 Caucus discussion and review (take-home ex. distributed)
Nov.      2 Exam to be computer generated, and due Nov. 7th,
            beginning of class.  Prof. Zants in L.A. at SLS
            conference.

          7 Exam due; Bernanos and Bresson; Film clips
          9 Bresson lecture 

         14 Showing in class of Mouchette; film will begin exactly
            at 1:22 and last until 2:52.
         16 Caucus Discussion; summary of each team to be turned in,
            computer generated, on Tues. 

         21 Review of Bernanos/Bresson; Exam on Bernanos/Bresson
         23 Holiday

         28 Duras's The Lover, Film Clips
         30 The Lover / Film Clips

          5 Caucus discussion and review
          7 Comparisons and Contrasts; Film Trivia; Take-home final

Final Exam:  Topic: Summarize the characteristics of the novel as
an artistic genre that distinguish it from film as a genre,
indicating why you would read versus why you would see a work. 
Max.: 5 pages, computer generated.   No papers or late work will
be accepted after 


Optional Bibliography (available in UH library):
    
Chaos:
Briggs, John and Peat, F. David.  Turbulent Mirror.  N.Y.: Harper
    & Row, 1989.
Gleick, James.  Chaos: Making a New Science.  N.Y.: Penguin
    Books, 1987.
Kauffman, Stuart.  At Home in the Universe.  N.Y.: Oxford Univ.
    Press, 1995.

Bernanos, George:
  (Little in English that isn't biography)

Duras, Marguerite:
Cismaru, Alfred.  Marguerite Duras.  N.Y.: Twayne, 1971.
Glassman, Deborah N.  Marguerite Duras: Fascinating Vision and
    Narrative Cure.  Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1991.
Hill, Leslie.  Marguerite Duras: Apocalyptic Desires.  London:
    Routledge, 1993.
Murphy, Carol J.  Alienation and Absence in the Novels of
    Marguerite Duras.  Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1982.

Flaubert, Gustave:
Heath, Stephen.  Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary.  Cambridge:
    Cambridge UP, 1992.
Sherrington, R.J.  Three Novels by Flaubert: A Study of
    Techniques.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.

Laclos:
Byrne, Patrick W.  Les Liaisons dangereuses: a Study of Motive
    and Moral.  Glasgow: Univ. of Glasgow, 1989.
Davies, Simon.  Laclos: Les Liaison dangereuses.  Grant & Cutler,
    1987.
Lynch, Lawrence W.  Eighteenth Century French Novelists and the
    Novel.  York, S.C.: French Literature Publications, 1979.
Roussel, Roy.  The conversation of the sexes: seduction and
    equality in the 17th and 18th centuries.  NY: Oxford UP, 1986.
Thelander, Dorothy R.  Laclos and the epistolary novel.  Geneva:
    Droz, 1963.

Proust, Marcel:
Bell, William Stewart.  Proust's Nocturnal Muse. NY: Columbia,
    1962.
Graham, Victor E.  The Imagery of Proust.  Oxford: Basil
    Blackwell, 1966.
Linn, John Gaywood.  The Theater in the Fiction of Marcel Proust. 
    Ohio State UP, 1966.
Moss, Howard.  The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust.  N.Y.:
    MacMillan, 1962.
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques.  Proust as Musician.  Cambridge UP, 1989.
Shattuck, Roger.  Proust's Binoculars.  N.Y.: Random House, 1963.
Wolitz, Seth L.  The Proustian Community.  N.Y.: NYUP, 1971.

Stendhal:
Brombert, Victor.  Stendhal: Fiction and the Themes of Freedom. 
    N.Y.: Random House, 1968.
-----, ed.  Stendhal: A Collection of Critical Essays.  Englewood
    Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1962.
Haig, Sterling.  Stendhal: The Red and the Black.  Cambridge:
    Cambridge UP, 1989.
Hemmings, F.W.J.  Stendhal, a Study of his Novels.  Oxford,
    Clarendon Press, 1964.
Jefferson, Ann.  Reading Realism in Stendhal.  Cambridge, 1988.
Petrey, Sandy.  Realism and Revolution.  Ithaca: Cornell, 1988.

Zola, Emile:
Bernard, Marc.  Zola.  NY: Grove, 1960.
Canetti, Elias.  Crowds and Power.  NY: Viking Press, 1966.
Chitnis, Bernice.  Reflecting on Nana.  London: Routledge, 1991.
King, Graham.  Garden of Zola.  NY: Barnes & Noble, 1978.
Knapp, Bettina L.  Emile Zola.  NY: Frederick Ungar, 1980.
Schor, Naomi.  Zola's Crowds.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978.
Wilson, Angus.  Emile Zola.  London: Secker & Warburg, 1952.

Heures de Bureau: (East-West Annex, bâtiment #4, bureau #6 -- ext. #66973). Tél&eacurephonez ou prévenez d'avance, s.v.p.: mardi, 11-13:15. A la maison: 237-8082; email: zants@hawaii.edu; http://www2.hawaii.edu/~zants/zants.html

Textes obligatoires:

Proust: Du coté de chez Swann

-----.: Du coté de Guermantes

Mauriac: Thérèse Desqueyroux

Gide: Les Caves du Vatican

Queneau: Zazie

Butor: La Modification

Films à voir:

Un Amour de Swann

Zazie

Hiroshima mon amour

L'Année dernière à Marienbad

La Note sera déterminée par:

1. 40 pts.: Participation aux esquisses et à Caucus

2. 40 pts.: 2 Examens mi-semestriels

3. 20 pts.: Examen final

     le 11 janv.    Le XXe siècle , chaos et Proust
     
     le 16          Proust
     le 18
     
     le 23          Démonstration de Caucus
     le 25
     
     le 30
     le 31 minuit: date limite pour Caucus, Proust, vol. 1
     le 1er févr.   Discussion de Caucus
     
     le 6           Proust, Guermantes, I
     le 8              "
     
     le 12          date limite pour Caucus, Proust, vol. 2
     le 13          Discussion de Caucus; Esquisse Proust
     le 15          Examen #I: Proust
     
     le 20          Mauriac: Thérèse Desqueyroux
     le 22          
     
     le 27
     le 28          date limite pour Caucus, Mauriac
     le 29          discussion de Caucus; Esquisse Mauriac
     
     le 5 mars     Gide: Les Caves du Vatican
     le 7
     
     le 12          
     le 13          date limite pour Caucus, Gide
     le 14          Caucus; Esquisse Gide
     
     le 19          Queneau: Zazie dans le m‚tro
     le 21
          
     Spring Break
     
     le 2 avr.
     le 3           date limite pour Caucus, Queneau
     le 4           Caucus; esquisse Queneau
     
     le 9           Examen II: Concept du personnage au XXe s.
     le 11          Présentation du nouveau roman
     
     le 16          Hiroshima mon amour
     le 18          L'Année dernière à Marienbad
     
     le 23          Butor: La Modification
     le 25          
     
     le 30          
     le 2 mai
     

Office Hours: Tues. 11 a.m.-1:15 p.m., E.W. Annex, bldg. #4, office #6, ext. 66973; home phone: 237-8082 before 8:30 p.m., please; email: zants@hawaii.edu; http://www2.hawaii.edu/~zants/zants.html

Required Text: Zants, Emily. Creative Encounters with French Films. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993.

The Grade will be based on:

1. 20 pts.: In-class activities (pop quizzes and panels)

2. 30 pts.: 6 projects, due before 1:45 p.m.

3. 30 pts.: Midterms & Final (10 points each)

4. 20 pts.: Major project (class eval.)

A=90%; B=80%; C=70%; D=60%

** LATE WORK WILL BE AN AUTOMATIC 60% OR LESS

*** ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED

3 ABSENCES AUTOMATICALLY LOWER THE GRADE 10%.

Project Evaluations:

On time: 2 pts.

Fits description: 1 pt.

Computer generated: 1 pt.

Creativity: 1 pt.

(If you're not sure it's obvious, explain what you were trying to "create," even though the result wasn't as "successful" as you had hoped.)

Assignment Notes: Read the chapter on the film director being viewed (handouts will be given you for any director or film not included in the text) and view the film to be discussed that week before the Tuesday session.

Videos are on reserve in Wong AV Center in Sinclair Library from the Thursday before the assignment through Monday. Most Blockbusters and esp. Tower Video will have the following films in the foreign film section -- for those of you who don't want to freeze in Wong: Grand Illusion; Children of Paradise; Au Revoir Les Enfants. The Movie Museum has all but the earliest videos (before Renoir). If it isn't listed under the English title, ask them to look under the French title. Everyone has Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau), but do your best to see the superb laser version in Wong; it is black and white; the VHS tapes are grey and cream -- it makes a world of difference!

When a project is due, it may explore any technique familiar to you by that date; you need not use the specific technique(s) being studied on that date.

Class Schedule:
     Jan.
     11  Centennial video game; Introduction; syllabus.
     
     16  Lumière; Méliès; Linder
     18  Teams shoot using the same techniques 
     
     23  Clips from other significant silent films and early sound;
         Bunuel's Chien Andalou (1928) and The Age of Gold (1930).
     25  Panel #1: Surrealist Event: Bring magazine to cut up.
     
     30  Project #1 due.  Renoir's Grand Illusion;
         future panel assignments.
     2/1 Panel #2:  Social Class Stereotyping Techniques; 
          Group assignments for semester.
     
     Feb.
     6   Carné's Children of Paradise. (195 min.!!! - 2 VHS tapes)
     8   Panel #3: The interplay of art and reality; Group meetings.
     
     13  Project #2 due. Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (laser version, please)
     15 Panel #4:  The Fantastic:  The panel will imagine 3 brief
"fantastic" scenes for the others to enact before the camera.  Bring an
ordinary object you have used in a "fantastic" way: Show and tell. group
meetings.  One question due Monday for Mr. Libby as part of exam!  Review.
     
     20  Film Clip Exam #1.
     22   Guest Speaker -  Mr. Kenneth Libby; filming tricks and techniques
     
     27  Project #3 due.  Ophuls: Lola Montes
     29  Panel #5: Social performances as illusion; 
         provoking reactions; group meeting.
     
     Mar.
     5   Truffaut: The 400 Blows
     7   Panel #6:  Social Exclusions and Enclosures; group meetings.
     
     12  Project #4 due.  Godard: Breathless (1959) 
     14  Panel #7: Social signs revealed; group meetings.
     
     19  Bunuel: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
     21  Panel #8: Social etiquette as class defining; group meetings
     
     Spring Vacation
     Apr.
     2   Project #5 due.  Tavernier: Clean Slate
     4   Panel #9: Mocking hierarchical relationships; group meetings.

     9   Malle: Goodbye, Children (1987)
     11  Panel #10: Social role playing and the child's critique; 
         Review; group meetings
     
     16  Film Clip Exam II
     18  Guest Speaker
     
     23  Project #6 due.   Pialat: Van Gogh
     25  Panel #11: Art as reference.
     
     Apr.
     30  Group meetings.
     5/2 Presentation of Group Projects/Evaluation  Note: you must be present for
     all presentations to receive a grade.  Centennial game again.
     

Panels

Panels try to find ways to get the class to participate, using techniques of the film shown that week. The other students grade the panel, based on the following criteria: how well did the exercises get them to use the technique(s) of the film of the week.

Individual Project Assignments:

Two-to-four page, typewritten, double-spaced. Films viewed in class may NOT be used for project requirements. All films referred to must be French Films. State the Project Description and underline the technique being analyzed. Please write the number of your project, (I,4; or II,6) at the top of your paper. Any one topic may only be used once during the semester. If you have your own idea for a project, you must obtain the professor's approval before substituting it for any of the following:

Group I.

1. Using a still camera, take a roll of photographs on one subject or person that you find interesting, impressive, or significant. Choose at least 4 that demonstrate this and arrange them in a sequence that you hope to make meaningful to the observer. Then discuss them as to distance, angle, point of view, size, arrangement of objects, or other techniques used to communicate this feeling. Do not use "chronology" as your organizing principle!

2. Using a still camera and/or collecting existing photographs or pictures, create a pictorial essay of a social institution that you are familiar with--your version of school reality, church, home, club, party, dance, etc. Decide on a definite point of view: serious, artistic, satiric, sarcastic, humorous, tragic, sentimental, spoofing, realistic, ironic. Arrange the pictures in some kind of order, and as in the above assignments, comment on their effectiveness, beauty, significance, and the method you have used to communicate this. Do not use chronology as the organizing principle!

3. View any French film not scheduled for class. On a different topic of your choice, imitate the dialogue, narration, technique or form. In a brief summary statement, compare what you have written to what was in the film you saw and in what way the technique of communication was similar.

4. Write a filmscript based on a scene from an original French short story incorporating techniques used by the French films viewed as appropriate. Include a page summarizing what these techniques are, and from what films. (See PQ2637 for some short stories, if you don't already know of one.)

5. Using your favorite comic strip, satirize a portion of one of the French films seen in class. (This is commonly done by whiting out the speeches and rewriting them for the film satirized, but you may create your own comic strip as well.) Summarize the technique that constitutes satire.

6. Create 3 surreal advertisements by cutting out images and words and juxtaposing them; discuss the effect and nature of the technique.

Group II. Choose no more than two of the following to satisfy the project assignments:

1. Viewing three films by one director, analyze the elements they have in common that denote the director's style. (One of the 3 may be one seen in class.)

2. Read the published story or cin‚-script first, then view the film and compare and contrast. What are the additions, deletions, changes, improvements in representation of the main characters, plot structure, symbols, handling of time sequences, emotional and intellectual impact.

3. Research and prepare a written lecture on a French movie style, movement, genre, actor, or technique (This must go beyond what is found in the introduction to the text!).

4. Compare and contrast the treatment of the theme of beauty and the beast in the film of Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and in King Kong.

5. Research and analyze a type of French hero or heroine seen in French films. Explain why he or she is particularly "French" as a type, rather than American. (This should not be a summary of an idea found in the introduction to the text!).

6. Illustrate, by clipping ads and pictures from magazines, the following photographic techniques: angle shot from below the subject; shot with effective use of contrast; angle shot from above the subject; large aperture, shallow depth of field (blurring of material in front of or behind a sharply defined subject); effective use of diffused light; high shutter speed (time exposure; use of tripod). Comment on the effect communicated by each kind of technique.

7. Compare two film versions of the same French literary work: Liaisons dangereuses, Nana, or Madame Bovary.

8. As a Hollywood agent or producer, write a letter to a French director explaining why the script for his film (a French film you have viewed) is no good, making specific suggestions for changes that would transform it into a Hollywood film; this may be satirical.

9. Discuss role-playing of a specific character in a French film not seen in class. State what technique the director used to communicate the role. We all play roles. Analyze the characteristics of a similar role you yourself play the most often (virtuous daughter, macho seducer, intellectual student, etc.). This is Not a synopsis of a film.

Group/Semester projects: Maximum time of the video - 12 min. These are but suggestions; you may come up with your own idea. The group should be prepared to comment on the techniques used and their film sources after presentation.

1. Select some subject about which you will make a documentary. Research it, develop the script for a film treatment. Film it.

2. Illustrate a work of French prose or poetry with video cuts. Analyze the effects achieved by the use of the cuts.

3. Write 3 commercials using techniques studied in the films seen in class. Use video.

4. Make a film that parodies film clich‚s such as a slow motion shot of two lovers running toward each other in a meadow, chase scenes, etc. Invent or use appropriate and entertaining literary titles before each series.

5. Make a film of film techniques. For example, use a series of montage shots to create a visual symbol; film a scene using flashbacks or flashforwards, etc. with titles identifying each technique.

6. Make a short film that satirizes a French film.

---

     Student Evaluation Sheet:
     
     Name of student evaluated: ______________________________________  
     Title of Group endeavor: ________________________________________  
     
     Evaluating criteria to be used:
     +5 = Superior:
         1.   Evidence of intellectual curiosity and creativity.
          2.  Mastery of subject matter and skills of the course.
          3.  Ability to apply concepts to other disciplines and outside the course.
         4.   Intelligent contributions to discussions both in questioning and
     answering.  Oral participation is mandatory.
          5.  Ability and willingness to work independently and in groups.
     +4 = Above Average in application of the above.
     +3 = Average in application of the above.
     +2 = Passing
         1.   Minimum knowledge of subject matter.
          2.  Little or no participation in class activities.
         3.   Excessive absenteeism or excessive tardiness
         4.   Incomplete or poorly done assignments
     +1 =     Failure to meet even the minimum requirements as described for D.
     
     ___________ Rating of the student's participation in the group project as per
     criteria described above.
     ___________ Did the student try to monopolize the group or upstage others
     alot? = -2
     ___________ Did the student contribute to the group as well as  listen
     attentively to the suggestions of other members of the group and try to
     incorporate them   into his/her and other's ideas? = +2
     
     ___________ Total grade (7 = max.; -1 = minimum)