ENGL 269-01: Special Topics in Film: Hitchcock in England and America
Tues/Thurs 9:35-10:50, Buttrick 015
Mandatory Screenings: Sunday 4:00-6:30p OR Monday 7:00-9:30p, Buttrick 103
Paul Young
Office:        419 Benson    322-2347
Email:        paul.d.young@vanderbilt.edu
Office Hours:    Wed 1:00-2:30p, Thurs 11:00a-12:30p and by appointment
        (Don’t be shy about contacting me for appointments at other times. We
can work something out.)

Required Texts:

• Donald Spoto, The Dark Side of Genius

• François Truffaut, Hitchcock (rev. ed.)

NOTE ON SPOTO AND TRUFFAUT: These books provide an overview of the director’s life and career. I have listed the relevant Spoto chapters for each week; the Truffaut interview book has a more amorphous structure, so instead of asking you to read specific pages each week, I require that you read at least the section on that week’s film for each week, and finish the book by the end of the semester (it reads very quickly and rewards repeated readings).

• HR: Deutelbaum and Poague, A Hitchcock Reader

• Tania Modleski, The Women Who Knew Too Much

• HA: Jonathan Freedman, et al., Hitchcock’s America

Recommended:

• Robin Wood, Hitchcock’s Films Revisited (excellent chapter-by-chapter analyses of all the major films)

• Any other Hitchcock films you’re curious about. Some Hitchcock films not shown in class (Murder!, Frenzy, Sabotage, etc.) are available at the Main Library’s Microform and Media Center (now located on the fourth floor, with Government Documents), or can be purchased or rented at Tower and other rental and used/new shops near campus (CD Warehouse, Great Escape, etc.) or at the Nashville Public Library downtown (the best “rental store” in Nashville!).

General Notes About the Course:
1. Readings should be prepared for the day on which they are listed on the calendar below. Please bring the reading(s) to class each day. Read with a pencil: mark your text with notes to yourself. Please come to class ready to discuss, share ideas, and ask questions; class is organized around discussion with only occasional lectures.
2. Readings are occasionally changed or swapped as late as one week in advance. Should you ever miss class, it is your responsibility to find out from me or a classmate whether any changes were made to the syllabus that day.

Course Description:
Well known as “The Master of Suspense” thanks to his television programs and persistently popular films like North By Northwest and Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock’s early career as England’s most acclaimed and innovative filmmaker is more obscure to American spectators. This course examines important Hitchcock films produced on both shores, with three main critical approaches to guide us:
1. Hitchcock as technician and innovator in film form, style, and narration;
2. Hitchcock as a director-artist—an auteur—whose thematic and aesthetic concerns unify his films; and
3. Hitchcock’s films as a set of cultural documents—lenses through which we might understand both British and American history and culture in a new light.
Critical and theoretical texts on Hitchcock (including historical, ideological, and feminist interpretations of his work) will be read and discussed along with the films.

Students will be evaluated according to their ability to apply concepts and interpretive strategies from these readings to Hitchcock’s work, to form productive writing and research questions about his films, and to approach films and readings with curiosity, energy, and creativity. Your professor is equally impressed by creative application of course readings and concepts and ideas that surprise and drive new thinking—especially when the written form of these ideas communicates logically, clearly, and with ample support from films! Emphasis will be placed on formal writing (there will be no final exam), film journals, and regularly engaged participation in discussion.

General Notes:
Participation grades have a strong determining force on final grades. Come prepared to discuss the films and readings.

I am always available to discuss paper topics, ideas, and drafts—in fact, I encourage this highly, and am happy to help. Make an appointment with me if you can’t make my scheduled office hours. But I frown upon “eleventh-hour” requests for aid, e.g. coming for help an hour before the paper is due or sending an email draft to me that morning—these tend to go unanswered.

I do not officially take attendance in this course. But you should expect to do poorly if you miss four or more class periods. I go over concepts in depth and show relevant film clips nearly every day, I build each discussion on the previous ones, and I will occasionally give reading/screening quizzes (announced) that cannot be made up. If you miss a screening and don’t see the film by Tuesday’s class, the class period will be nearly useless to you.

I adhere to the Honor Code, and I expect you to do the same. “Plagiarism” means turning in written work as your own that is not your own. I will hand out a sheet on plagiarism in all its forms by Week 2. However, ignorance of the definitions of plagiarism is not considered an excuse.
Plagiarism is easier than ever thanks to the Internet, but so is checking for plagiarism. Professors notice when your writing style or conceptual competency changes suddenly. Don’t do it. Instead, turn in your own work and learn where your strengths lie and what you need to improve upon.

 Course Requirements and Assignments

Participation:     Sometimes I lecture, but discussion will form the core of the course. Always come prepared: read the readings, see the films, bring your notes and questions. You may agree with some readings, disagree with others, and have a tough time with still others. All three of these responses can lead to productive comments and discussion questions. Try answering each other’s questions, as well. Note: I always appreciate your doing your best to “get” a tough argument before you lodge a disagreement, but often a generous and well-considered disagreement can lead to fuller comprehension in discussion. 10% of final grade.

Film/Course Journal:    At our penultimate class meeting, you will turn in a typed, double-spaced journal of at least 20pp—shoot for min. 5000 words, but I hope you will write much more than that. (I will ask for the first few weeks’ worth early on; see the Course Calendar.)
Your journal will record your observations about each film and ideas you have about Hitchcock (specific films and his work in general) over the course of the entire semester. This means that you must begin immediately and keep at it consistently. Get in the habit of writing an entry at least every 2-3 days, in response to a film viewing, a reading, and/or a class session. Transcribe your scribbled notes on problems, sudden realizations, film-to-film links, or questions. Don’t tell me what you “liked” or “hated” unless you’re prepared to say why and how. You are invited and encouraged to include drawings, news clippings, etc. as well. Above all, I expect engagement with the films, the readings, and the course. As UC-SB Hitchcock instructor Allan Langdale told his students regarding a similar assignment, “Have fun with it and be creative. But make it serious fun….No BS.” Make this a blueprint of “your brain on Hitchcock.” First chunk due in class on February 2; entire journal due April 20. 20% of final grade.

First paper:    4-5 pages, double-spaced, using one of Hitchcock’s British films to characterize what you understand as a singular theme or tendency of Hitchcock’s work as a whole. Due Thursday, February 16. 20%.

Take-home midterm    I will hand out the questions in class prior to Spring Break. Due Friday, March 17. 20%.

Term paper    8-10 page paper using one of the methodologies explored in this course to interpret to one of Hitchcock’s films, either from weekly screenings or from the thirty-odd feature films Hitchcock made that we did not watch! NOTE: This is not a W course, but I do take both organization and clarity of communication into full account when I grade. The best idea anyone’s ever had about Psycho won’t stand up if you don’t argue it logically and support it adequately. Due Monday, May 1. 30%.
 COURSE CALENDAR

Th    12 Jan        Introduction:
Alfred Hitchcock: Human being, Film Director, or Auteur?

Sun 1/15-Mon 1/16:    Screening: Rear Window (US 1954, 112m)
Tu    17 Jan        Spoto Intro-chap. 2
[H] Curtis, “The Making of Rear Window”

Th    19 Jan        Truffaut, on Rear Window
[H] Thompson and Bordwell, “The Director as Author”

Sun 1/22-/Mon 1/23:    Screening: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, Germany 1919, first 30m only) and
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Hitchcock, GB 1926, 75m)

Tu    24 Jan        Spoto chaps. 3-4
Brill [HR]

Th    26 Jan     Truffaut
[H] Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”

Sun 1/29-Mon 1/30:    Screening: Shadow of a Doubt (US 1943, 108m)

Tu    31 Jan        McLaughlin [HR]
Spoto chap. 9
           
Th    2 Feb        [H] Wood, “Ideology, Genre, Auteur” (also in H’s Films Revisited)
Truffaut
Film Journals up to this week due. (Keep writing new entries!)

Sun 2/5-Mon 2/6:    Screening: Blackmail (GB 1929, 85m)

Tu    7 Feb        [H] Wollen, “The Auteur Theory”
Truffaut

Th    9 Feb        Modleski 17-30
Spoto chap. 5

Sun 2/12-Mon 2/13:    Screening: Notorious (US 1946, 100m)
Tu    14 Feb        Modleski 57-71
Spoto chap. 10

Th    16 Feb        Wood, “Retrospective” [HR]
Truffaut
First paper due.

Sun 2/19-Mon 2/20:    Screening: The Man Who Knew Too Much (GB 1934, 85m)

Tu    21 Feb        Weis [HR]
Truffaut

Th    23 Feb        [H] Ina Rae Hark, “Keeping Your Amateur Standing”
Hand out Take-home Midterm.

Sun 2/26-Mon 2/27:    Screening: The Man Who Knew Too Much (US 1956, 120m)

Tu    28 Feb        [H] Hark, “Revalidating Patriarchy”
Truffaut

Th    2 Mar        Michie [HA]

MARCH 4-11: SPRING BREAK—NO CLASSES OR SCREENINGS

Sun 3/12-Mon 3/13:    Screening: The 39 Steps (GB 1935, 81m)

Tu    14 Mar        Silet [HR]
Spoto chaps. 6-7

Th    16 Mar        Truffaut
           
Friday, March 17:   
Take-home Midterm due @ 4:00pm in my mailbox in Benson
(English Office, Third Floor—NOT AT MY OFFICE).

Sun 3/19-Mon 3/20:    Screening: North By Northwest (US 1959, 136m)

Tu    21 Mar        Cavell [HR]
Spoto chap. 12

Th    23 Mar        Millington [HA]
Truffaut

Sun 3/26-Mon 3/27:    Screening: Rebecca (US 1940, 130m)

Tu    28 Mar        [H] Hollinger, “The Female Oedipal Drama”
Spoto chap. 8

Th    30 Mar        Truffaut
Modleski 43-55

Sun 4/2-Mon 4/3:    Screening: Strangers on a Train (US 1951, 100m)

Tu    4 Apr        Wood [HR]
Spoto chap. 11

Th    6 Apr        Truffaut
[H]: Wood, “The Murderous Gays” (also in H’s Films Revisted)

Sun 4/9-Mon 4/10:    Screening: Vertigo (US 1958, 130m)

Tu    11 Apr        Freedman [HA]
Truffaut

Th    13 Apr        Modleski 87-100

Sun 4/16-Mon 4/17:    Screening: Psycho (US 1960, 110m)

Tu    18 Apr        [H] Williams, “Discipline and Fun”
Spoto  chap 13

Th    20 Apr            Truffaut
Film/Course Journal Due (including first section)

Sun 4/23-Mon 4/24:    Screening: The Birds (US 1963, 120m)

Tu    25 Apr        Spoto chap. 14
Modleski 101-114

Term paper due Monday, May 1, 4:00pm at my mailbox (Benson Hall 3rd Floor).
DO NOT STUFF IT UNDER MY DOOR OR LEAVE IT OUTSIDE MY OFFICE, OR YOU WILL FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO BAD LITTLE STUDENTS.
(signed, a. h.)