Instr:                 Zoran Samardzija
Office:              CRT 536,     229-5041
e-mail:              zs2@uwm.edu
Office hours:     by appointment.

Course Information:          Tuesday, Thursday, 9:30-11:20am.  Curtin Hall 104

Course Description

At its most immediate level, this course explores the rich interconnections between film and literary Modernism. Often defined from a broad historical perspective, Modernism refers to the European & American literary movement (or movements) situated between the world wars.   Our inquiry into Modernism and film, however, will be non-historical. Using fiction (and non-fiction) mainly from this period as our starting point, usually in the form of short stories and essays, we will focus on (but not limit ourselves to) “texts” that explore the fragmented nature of identity and memory, themes that are central to Modernism. (Other themes such as “alienation” will undoubtedly surface as well.) The benefits of this approach will be several:  It will allow us to view recent film “adaptations” of Modernist literature (Mrs. Dalloway, Time Regained), also to view films from a variety genres and decades that share similar thematic preoccupations with memory and identity, and ultimately to show the cultural and artistic pervasiveness of Modernism.

Readings from (may include the following):
James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, William James, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Jorge-Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and others.

Screenings (may include the following):
Citizen Kane, Time Regained, Eternity and a Day, Orlando, Mrs. Dalloway, The Crowd, Sunrise, A Pure Formality, Zelig, Being There, Three Lives and Only One Death, Eyes Wide Shut, The Dead, Lost Highway, and others.