FILM 320: Action Cinemas & the Politics of Spectacle
Description: The hegemonic success of Hollywood at global box offices throughout cinema’s history rests partly on the amazing ability of American studios and filmmakers to tap into the hypnotic pleasures of visual spectacle. Various other national cinemas around the globe have attempted to keep up with this dazzling visuality—one thinks specifically of Hong Kong and Bollywood filmic traditions, for instance. While the critique of spectacle as part of the ideological arsenal that capitalist modes of consumption deploy is a necessary one, this course also aspires to move beyond the notion of the cinematic spectator as a passive consumer of spectacle and the mainstream filmmaker as a necessarily co-opted agent. A key question to ask is whether visual spectacle and speed, as the aesthetic foundation of the action flick, can actually serve to address a film’s historically specific cultural politics in a productive way? To engage this issue in a more concrete fashion, the course will focus on four varied tracks of historical and cultural analysis: “Masculinity” in Hollywood films of the 1980s to the present; African American cinema from “blaxploitation” to contemporary black action cinema; Hong Kong action films; and a post-9/11 take on war and violence. We will study the films of Michael Bay, James Cameron, Chang Cheh, Stephen Chow, Clint Eastwood, Alejandro Iñárritu, Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Joel Schumacher, Ridley Scott, Seijun Suzuki, Quentin Tarantino, Johnnie To, John Woo, and Zhang Yimou.
Contact:
For more information about this course, contact Kenneth Chan