History of Documentary Film

General data

Course ID:	3700-KON64-AL
Erasmus code / ISCED:	08.0 Kod klasyfikacyjny przedmiotu składa się z trzech do pięciu cyfr, przy czym trzy pierwsze oznaczają klasyfikację dziedziny wg. Listy kodów dziedzin obowiązującej w programie Socrates/Erasmus, czwarta (dotąd na ogół 0) – ewentualne uszczegółowienie informacji o dyscyplinie, piąta – stopień zaawansowania przedmiotu ustalony na podstawie roku studiów, dla którego przedmiot jest przeznaczony. / (0220) Humanities (except languages), not further defined The ISCED (International Standard Classification of Education) code has been designed by UNESCO.
Course title:	History of Documentary Film
Name in Polish:	Historia filmu dokumentalnego
Organizational unit:	Faculty of "Artes Liberales"
Course groups:
ECTS credit allocation (and other scores):	(not available) Basic information on ECTS credits allocation principles: the annual hourly workload of the student’s work required to achieve the expected learning outcomes for a given stage is 1500-1800h, corresponding to 60 ECTS; the student’s weekly hourly workload is 45 h; 1 ECTS point corresponds to 25-30 hours of student work needed to achieve the assumed learning outcomes; weekly student workload necessary to achieve the assumed learning outcomes allows to obtain 1.5 ECTS; work required to pass the course, which has been assigned 3 ECTS, constitutes 10% of the semester student load. view allocation of credits
Language:	Polish
Type of course:	elective courses
Prerequisites (description):	It is not necessary to have finished any other course to participate in this one. The only prerequisite is students’ knowledge of English language, since many clips presented in class won’t have Polish translation provided. The teacher assumes that for most students this class will be the first one they take in film, and so the lecture will contain elements of introduction to basic topics in film history and aesthetic, so as to enable participation even to students with no film studies background whatsoever.
Short description:	The course concerns a specific field in film history, namely the history of documentary and non-fiction filmmaking, treates as a genre and a sociological phenomenon.
Full description:	The course aims at a possibly comprehensive presentations of a specific field, namely the world history of documentary film since its beginnings in late 19th century till now. Cinema, as a cultural and social phenomenon, begins with documentary forms (such as the shorts by Lumiere brothers), and then evolves towards development of the form, until it reaches the present richness of documentary forms in cinema, television and online. The course will inculde the following themes: - The beginnings of Cinema and of documentary registration of reality - First newsreels - British School of Documentary (e.g. John Grierson and „Drifters”, 1929) - Film avant-gardde and documentary (Joris Ivens) - Soviet school of montage and documentary film (Dziga Vertov) - The beginnings of epic and antropological documentart (Robert Flaherty) - British WW2 documentary film (Humphrey Jennings) - Polish School of Documentary (Karabasz/Kieślowski/Hoffman/Skórzewski) - Free Cinema and New British Documentary (Anderson/Richardson/Reisz) - Cinema Verite in France (Jean Rouch) - Direct Cinema in the United States (Drew/Wiseman/Pennebaker) - Psychological documentary (“Grey Gardens”, the Maysles Brothers) - Investigative Documentary (Errol Morris) - Reality show / TV documentaries - Experimental documentary / MTV (Godfrey Reggio) - Persuasive documentary after /11 (Michael Moore) The form of the class is a lecture with elements of participatory discussion. The lecture will be richly illustrated by film examples, which will serve as discussion points. The students will be expected to devote a couple of hours of extra time to watch several documentaries given to them as home work.
Bibliography:	BARSAM R.M., Non-Fiction Film: A Critical History, Bloomington–Indianapolis 1992. GRANT B. K, HILLIER J., 100 Documentary Films, London 2009. HELMAN A., Film faktów i film fikcji: dialektyka postaw i poetyk twórczych, Katowice 1977. KOŁODYŃSKI A., Tropami filmowej prawdy, Warszawa 1981. OSTHERR K., Medical Visions: Producing the Patient Through Film, Television and Imaging Technologies, Oxford 2013. PRZYLIPIAK M., Kino bezpośrednie 1960–1963, Gdańsk 2007. – Kino bezpośrednie 1963–1970: Czas autorów, Gdańsk 2014. – Kino bezpośrednie 1963–1970: Między obserwacją a ideologią, Gdańsk 2013.
Learning outcomes:	(in Polish) K_W11 zna podstawowe metody interpretacji dzieł multimedialnych oraz ich analizy ikonograficznej i stylistycznej K_W14 zna podstawowe metody analizy kulturoznawczej, historycznej, społecznej i filozoficznej w perspektywie historycznej K_W16 rozumie związki pomiędzy działaniami kulturowymi i przemianami w życiu społecznym K_U01 potrafi selekcjonować oraz interpretować informacje pochodzące z różnych źródeł tekstowych, ikonograficznych, elektronicznych K_U03 potrafi dokonywać analizy dzieła sztuk wizualnych, multimedialnych, performatywnych w kontekście estetycznym i społecznym K_U05 posiada podstawowe umiejętności wykorzystywania interdyscyplinarnych metod i narzędzi badawczych w analizie zjawisk kultury współczesnej K_K07 rozumie zasady tolerancji i różnic kulturowych K_K09 czynnie uczestniczy w życiu kulturalnym i społecznym, wyzyskując wszelkie formy medialne, artystyczne i naukowe
Assessment methods and assessment criteria:	The basic criteria is the assesment of student’s ability to learn key information about history of documentary film (film titles, artists’ names, names and characteristics of trends, etc.) This knowledge should be displayed in the final paper, which will contain an analysis of a chosen documentary film and will provide the basis of the final grade.

This course is not currently offered.

Course descriptions are protected by copyright.
Copyright by University of Warsaw.