Monday 5 March 2012

Everything you need to know about the second half of the Department


Since I'm now course representative for postgraduate History of Art and Film I thought I better take my duties absolutely seriously and try and, you know, represent the course. 

Unfortunately, I know very little about the history of art, though in the course of my research I discovered that there is a little known genre of art called Paysage avec ruins which is French for Landscape with Ruins, which is part of a wider fascination with Gothic and classical ruins, but I digress. Therefore, I can only really cover the history of film, which brings me to the subject of this rather rambling blog post: Mark Cousin's The Story of Film: An Odyssey.  

This series does what it says on the tin, it tells the story of film. It is unreservedly excellent. In fact, I think many film students could save themselves a vast sum of money by not going to university and just watching this instead. Cousin's begins at the beginning, which is already a major advance on the structure of many first year undergrad courses, with the Lumiere Brothers and the invention of film. Each episode deals with a decade in cinema history. He is both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about each change and advance in film making, but not in that hyper-active, slightly panting way that seems to be in vogue. Think Simon Schama or Michael Palin but talking about films. He covers world cinema as well as Hollywood, he discusses the change in gender roles and power in the industry and he gives numerous concrete examples of styles and concepts, and he does this in every episode. For me, the examples are the most important point, he doesn't make vague references to Italian neo–realism or Hollywood musicals, he shows several examples from films and analyses exactly what is happening on screen and why it is key to the development of the film art form. Though some aspects are covered somewhat too rapidly and some points are Cousin's opinion rather than factual information overall the series is a fascinating watch.

Now, I am aware that this is primarily useful to those researching or studying film. However, I have watched countless wildlife documentaries without any desire to get a degree in zoology or biology. Similarly, I watched a whole series on BBC4 about the Impressionists last year (Oh wait, I do know something about art history after all!) but haven't written a paper on Van Gogh's Field of Crows. The point, there is one, honestly, is that this is brilliant documentary that will genuinely teach you about a hugely important aspect of art and popular culture. That, and I could think of anything else to write about.

The book is out now; the DVD is released on April 23rd.  

Also, if anyone has any issues they want me to raise in staff/student meetings, feel free to email me.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for this, Omega_Grad. I think you raise a really interesting point in identifying the use of film as illustrative examples in the history of film, as it can be difficult to engage with a visual medium merely through textbooks.

    There seems to be a developing trend recently to creating video essays as part of academic research. Is this a trend you would like to see taken further?

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