{"id":395,"date":"2010-02-10T11:17:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T18:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/?p=395"},"modified":"2011-05-16T14:20:51","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T21:20:51","slug":"yales-film-studies-canon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/yales-film-studies-canon\/","title":{"rendered":"Yale’s Film Studies “canon”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yale’s Film Studies program is old-school in certain ways, and one of those ways is that we have an exam at the end of our Ph.D. program to test our knowledge of various essential films and film scholarship. We students have nicknamed it the “canon exam,” although it seems as though the professors avoid calling it that.<\/p>\n

I was remembering how, the summer before I started grad school, I wondered what films I should watch to make myself conversant with other film students. I think I just ended up checking out every Criterion Collection movie I could find.<\/p>\n

I thought you might be interested to see what we’re drilled on, and I don’t think the canon exam is a private affair (quite the opposite, actually, since it exists in part to assure prospective employers that we’ll be up to speed on the canon). So I’m posting the film list below. I’ll post the reading list later. [Update: here’s<\/a> the reading list.]<\/p>\n

As to the politics of a “canon,” or the wisdom of these particular choices … well, I’ll save that for another post. Suffice it to say that I don’t think this is a bad list, though it’s missing a lot of my favorite movies. (And the movies it does contain are so somber<\/em>!)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Silent Shorts<\/strong>
\nAll films on Before the Nickelodeon (Musser, 1982)
\nEarly Edison films in The Movies Begin
\nLumi\u00e8re films in The Movies Begin
\nThe Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903)
\nA Trip to the Moon (Melies, 1902)
\nRescued by Rover Hepworth, 1905)
\nThe Runaway Horse (Path\u00e9, 1907)
\nThe Lonely Villa (Griffith, 1909)
\nFant\u00f4mas (\u201cJuve contre Fantomas\u201d Feuillade, 1913)
\nThe Tramp (Chaplin, 1915)<\/p>\n

Silent Features<\/strong>
\nUSA<\/strong>
\nThe Cheat (DeMille, 1915)
\nBirth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915)
\nIntolerance (Griffith, 1916)
\nWithin Our Gates (Micheaux, 1920)
\nGreed (Von Stroheim, 1924)
\nSherlock Junior (Keaton, 1924)
\nSunrise (Murnau, 1927)
\nThe Lodger (Hitchcock, 1927)<\/p>\n

Silent Features, non USA<\/strong>
\nCabiria (Pastrone, 1914)
\nMute Witnesses (Bauer, Russia, 1914)
\nSir Arne\u2019s Treasure (Stiller, 1919)
\nThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Weine, 1920)
\nNosferatu (Murnau, 1921)
\nMetropolis (Lang, 1925)
\nPotemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
\nNapoleon (Gance, 1927)
\nStorm over Asia (Pudovkin 1928)
\nEarth (Dovzhenko, 1928)
\nFall of the House of Usher (Epstein, 1928)
\nPassion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
\nPandora\u2019s Box (Pabst, 1929)<\/p>\n

Sound\u00a0 Features<\/strong><\/p>\n

U.S.A.<\/strong>
\nThe Jazz Singer (1927)
\nHallelujah (Vidor, 1929)
\nThe Public Enemy (1931)
\nBlonde Venus (von Sternberg, 1932)
\n42nd<\/span><\/sup> Street (Bacon, 1933)
\nIt Happened One Night (Capra, 1934)
\nModern Times (Chaplin, 1936)
\nStagecoach (Ford, 1939)
\nYoung Mr. Lincoln (Ford, 1939)
\nHis Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940)
\nCitizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
\nMeet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli, 1944)
\nDouble Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)
\nThe Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946)
\nLetter from an Unknown Woman (Ophuls, 1948)
\nSinging in the Rain (Donnen, 1952)
\nRear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)
\nRebel Without a Cause (Ray 1955)
\nThe Searchers (Ford, 1956)
\nTouch of Evil (Welles, 1958)
\nImitation of Life (Sirk, 1959)
\nPsycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
\nNothing but a Man (Roemer, 1965)
\n2001:A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1969)
\nBonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1969)
\nSweet, Sweetback\u2019s Baaaad Ass Song (Van Pebbles, 1971)
\nThe Conversation (Coppola, 1974)
\nNashville (Altman, 1975)
\nTaxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
\nKiller of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977)
\nBlade Runner (Scott, 1982)
\nDo The Right Thing (Lee, 1988)<\/p>\n

French<\/strong>
\nA Nous la libert\u00e9 Clair, 1931)
\nL\u2019Atalante Vigo, 1934)
\nLe Jour se l\u00e8ve (Carn\u00e9, 1939)
\nRules of the Game (Renoir, 1939)
\nDiary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1950)
\nPickpocket (Besson, 1960)
\nHiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais, 1960)
\nJules et Jim (Truffaut, 1961)
\nVivre sa vie (Godard, 1962)
\nLa Jet\u00e9e (Marker, 1963)
\nPlaytime (Tati, 1966)
\nC\u00e9line and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974)<\/p>\n

Italian<\/strong>
\nPais\u00e0 (Rossellini, 1946)
\nBicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1947)
\nVoyage In Italy (Rossellini, 1953)
\nSenso (Visconti, 1954)
\nLa dolce vita (Fellini, 1959)
\nL\u2019avventura Antonioni, 1959)
\nGospel According to Matthew Pasolini, (1964)
\nBattle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1967)
\nOnce Upon a Time in the West Leone, 1968)<\/p>\n

German<\/strong>
\nM (Lang, 1930)
\nKuhle Wampe (Dudow, 1932)
\nThe Kaiser’s Lackey (Staudte, 1951)
\nAbshied von Gestern [Yesterday\u2019s Girl] (Kluge, 1966)
\nAguirre: the Wrath of God (Herzog, 1973)
\nAli, Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder, 1974)
\nKings of the Road (Wenders, 1976)
\nGermany Pale Mother (Sanders-Brahm, 1979)
\nMarriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder, 1979)<\/p>\n

Spanish<\/strong>
\nLa Caza [The Hunt] (Saura, 1966)
\nBelle de jour (Bunuel, 1967)
\nSpirit of the Beehive (Erice, 1974)
\nLaw of Desire (Almodovar, 1987)<\/p>\n

USSR<\/strong>
\nIvan the Terrible part 1 (Eisenstein, 1947)
\nAndrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, 1970)<\/p>\n

British<\/strong>
\nSaturday Night and Sunday Morning (Reisz, 1960)
\nLawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1966)
\nDistant Voices, Still Lives (Davies, 1988)<\/p>\n

Latin American<\/strong>
\nMar\u00eda Candelaria (Fern\u00e1ndez, M\u00e9xico, 1943)
\nLos Olvidados (Bu\u00f1uel, M\u00e9xico, 1950)
\nAntonio Das Mortes (Rocha, Brazil,1967)
\nMemories of Underdevelopment (Guti\u00e9rrez Alea, Cuba, 1968)
\nBye Bye Brasil (Diegues, Brazil, 1979)<\/p>\n

Japanese<\/strong>
\nI was Born but… (Ozu,1932)
\nSisters of the Gion (Mizoguchi, 1936)
\nTokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
\nUgetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi. 1953)
\nSeven Samurai (Kurosawa,1954)
\nCruel Story of Youth (Oshima, 1960)
\nBranded to Kill (Suzuki, 1967)
\nDouble Suicide (Shinoda,1969)
\nIn the Realm of the Senses (Oshima, 1975)
\nPrincess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997)<\/p>\n

Chinese<\/strong>
\nGoddess (Wu Young Gang, 1934)
\nYellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1983)
\nRouge (Kwan, 1986)
\nCity of Sadness (Hou, 1989)<\/p>\n

Indian<\/strong>
\nPather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
\nMother India (Mehboob, 1957)
\nSholay (Sippy, 1975)<\/p>\n

African<\/strong>
\nBlack Girl (Sembene, 1966)
\nYeelen (Ciss\u00e9, 1978)<\/p>\n

Various Sound Features<\/strong>
\nPersona (Bergman, Sweden 1966)
\nDaisies (Chytlova, Czechoslovakia, 1966)
\nThe Red and the White (Jansco, Hungary, 1967)
\nTraveling Players (Angelopoulos,\u00a0 Greece 1974)
\nJeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce (Ackerman, Belgium 1976)
\nMan of Marble (Wajda, Poland, 1977)
\nTime of the Gypsies (Kusturica, Yugoslavia 1988)
\nAnd Life Goes On (Kiarostami, Iran, 1991)<\/p>\n

Documentary<\/strong>
\nManhatta (Strand, 1921)
\nNanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922)
\nBerlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
\nMan with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
\nLand without Bread (Bunuel, 1932)
\nTriumph of the Will (1935)
\nThe River (Lorentz, 1937)
\nNightmail (Grierson, 1936)
\nLes Maitres Fou (Rouch, 1956)
\nNight and Fog (Resnais, 1956)
\nPrimary (Leacock, 1960)
\nChronicle of a Summer (Rouch & Morin, 1961)
\nCulloden (Watkins, 1964)
\nHigh School (Wiseman, 1968)
\nSans Soleil (Marker, 1981)<\/p>\n

Experimental<\/strong>
\nEntr\u2019acte (Clair\/Picabia, 1924 )
\nBallet mecanique (Dudley Murphy, Ferdinand L\u00e9ger, 1924)
\nThe Smiling Madame Beudet (Dulac, 1924)
\nPage of Madness (Kinugasa, 1926)
\nUn Chien Andalou (Bunuel\/Dali, 1928)
\nColour Box (Len Lye, 1935)
\nMeshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1944)
\nA Movie (Bruce Conner, 1958)
\nDog Star Man (Prelude), Mothlight (Stan Brakhage, 1961)
\nWavelength (Michael Snow, 1967)
\nNostalgia (Hollis Frampton, 1971)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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