IB Film: Cinephilia -- A Rhizomatic Counter-History for Millennial Film

ib film CINEPHILIA:

A RHIZOMATIC COUNTER-HISTORY FOR MILLENNIAL FILM COURSE DESCRIPTION A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The tree is filiation, but the rhizome is alliance. The tree imposes the verb "to be," but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, “and … and … and.” This conjunction carries enough force to shake and uproot the verb "to be.” The rhizome operates by variation, expansion, conquest, capture, offshoots. — A Thousand Plateaus

COURSE DETAILS ROOM 609

I have increasingly found myself being visited by uncanny moments of convergence, bizarre associations, eerie rhymes, whispered recollections. What we see has already been seen.

— Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences What is this thing that keeps cropping up in all these different forms and keeps being called cinephilia? — “Through the Glass Darkly: Cinephilia Reconsidered” I was one of the insatiables. The ones find you’d always find sitting closest to the screen. Why do we sit so close? Maybe it was because we wanted to receive the images first. When they were still new, still fresh. — The Dreamers IB Film is part of a multi-year, internationally focused and intellectually challenging adventure.

While each iteration of this course will prepare students to excel within both the IB Diploma Program and a college-readiness curriculum — each section will likewise differ from others in their particular textual choices and assessment design.

Our section: Cinephilia: A Rhizomatic Counter-History For Millennial Film interrupts our survey of the first 130 years of cinema with a catastrophic development: the death of film itself.

At the millennium’s edge we share in the dissolution and erasure of analog film and with it

the supposedly but never truly stable historical narrative of its birth, development and fulmination as the 20th century’s greatest creative force.

3A/4A + 2B/4B

TWITTER: @CONTOG

#STANTONFILM

How do we reconstruct our relationship to the moving image — as spectators, artists, scholars and lovers of the moving image?

Our guiding model will be that of the rhizome.

An alternative to the filial, linear and hierarchical forces of traditional thought and representation — the rhizome celebrates all that is surplus, excessive, multiplicitious, and heterogenous.

At its most basic it is the powerful force of uncanny connectivity.

SCHOOLOGY CODE

EMAIL: CONTOG@GMAIL.COM

COURSE STRUCTURE Our course is designed with four (4) core components

DOING FILM STUDIES How do we study film at the moment of its disappearance as a stable object of inquiry? Isn’t “film” itself just a metaphor now — a ghost that haunts our critical and creative impulses? Maybe. Let’s choose different metaphors then — and re-phrase the question: how can we study film?

I propose a fractured / fractralized approach that looks to moments of trans-cultural and trans-temporal convergence and divergence. I’ve gathered these moments into a series of less than perfect nominal boxes: Millennium’s Edge, Re/Histories, Personal Genealogies, Revelatory Visions and Experiments in Time and Space.

PERSONAL PRODUCTION TOPICS Consumption vs. production? Does that division even work anymore? Individually and collaboratively we will use all available tools to explode the separation between the

screens we watch and the practices of screening ourselves to the wider world.

METHODS OF FILM THEORY How do we make films mean? What kinds of knowledge “count” as useful in this process — and who decides?

How do moving images reveal and conceal their deep index of the past century and a half? Systematically we will join the conversation with film theorists and scholars dissecting the most powerful medium yet created.

IB ASSESSMENTS + COLLEGE / UNIVERSITY ACCEPTANCE All students are expected to assess at the IB Higher Level.

This will involve difficult and at times confounding work — written, oral and visual. (See handout for details). I believe that you can do this successfully — do you?

Additionally, we need to get all of you into a university program of your choice. Your life is going to be radically different in about 12 months. Let’s make it a meaningful difference.

COURSE MATERIALS READINGS All course readings are available online via the shared Schoology space. All participants — including myself — are expected to complete assigned readings prior to the respective course meeting.

TECHNOLOGY Please do your best to obtain the following: - Portable USB flash drive (@ least 2gb) - Internet access - Twitter and Medium account - A binder to organize printed materials - Some machine that captures moving images

ASSESSMENT TASKS READING You will become an audacious scholar of often difficult texts in this course But we will do it together within a stress-free and accepting environment. Sometimes I will ask you to complete a set of notes. These notes should be collected and organized in a notebook. Reading quizzes for leader points will occur both online and in-class.

WRITING You will become a public writer in this course -- sharing your ideas and words with others through a student twitter and medium. Each term we will share a set of common prompts and provocations.

Additionally, you will complete both your EE and IB Film written assessments for the course.

SPEAKING You will become a confident public intellectual in this course through the development and delivery of oral presentations based on readings and topics. These presentations will often be recorded and submitted online.

MAKING You will become a filmmaker in this course by exploring production roles through a series of portfolio submissions. One complete 6-7 minute film will be required for all students.

SCREENING You will become a cinephile in this course.

Watching film is sort of what we do. To successfully complete this work you will need a curious mind and some amount of concentration.

SOME PIECES OF ADVICE THIS IS A PARTICIPATION HEAVY COURSE To succeed you must assume an active, alert and engaged role in course discussions and activities.

Readings, presentations, writing assignments and productions should be completed as close to the assigned date as possible.

A NOTE OF READING + WRITING + SCREENING + MAKING Be a conscious and active reader / writer / watcher / creator.

In this course we learn to analyze a wide array of texts as complex commercial, artistic and social artifacts. The majority of class meetings will consist of screenings, discussions, group project work, shared readings, group and individual writing sessions and online activities.

Most filmmaking will occur out of the classroom — that is where most of the great stories about your life take place after all.

As a college level course your success largely depends on your ability to authentically engage in our journey.

This will be the most adaptable academic experience of your life so far.

Want to create a film festival? Do it. Want to collaborate with some avantgarde artist halfway around the world? Do it. Want to deconstruct the patriarchal vestiges of contemporary media culture? Do it. I am but a facilitator in the series of adventures that you devise and undertake.

A NOTE ON GRADING A pedagogical discussion on student learning, thinking and grades.

GRADES LEVEL DOWN A “grading orientation” and a “learning orientation” have been shown to be inversely related. Every major educational study that has investigated the impact on intrinsic motivation of receiving grades (or instruction that emphasize the importance of getting good grades) has found a negative drag on sustained student interest in the subject being studied.

COLLABORATIVE GRADING SYSTEM Aiming higher than the lowest level.

An assigned grade is not the goal of this course. It is a required sideeffect of our shared exploration of film, media and critical theory.

You should complete readings, writings, presentations, online activities, blog posts and productions not because of an external weak incentive (i.e., a score) but because you are deeply committed to linking our studies to your own ideas -- and their public circulation.

This is college-level education at it finest. Embrace these expectations and you will have a great time!

This is not to say that there are no grades in this course. There are. But here they will be largely assigned and debated via as a community of peers. At scheduled times during each term your fellow students (and yourself) will assess the completion and success of course activities and assessments. If you do not agree with a peer score you will be encouraged to argue your case.

Stressed? Don’t worry! Do your best. Complete your readings. Write with verve, intellectual courage, honesty and originality! Authentically engage with the course and you will be OK. ;)

GETTING STARTED + FIRST STEPS 1) Create a twitter/medium account that you will want to share with others.

2) Sign on to our Schoology.

3) Complete the opening course introduction and have your parents/guardian sign the syllabus release.

GRADES ARE TOO EASY Impress upon students that what they’re doing will count toward their grade and their response will likely be to avoid taking any unnecessary intellectual risks. They’ll choose a shorter book, or a project on a familiar topic, in order to minimize the chance of doing poorly -not because they’re “unmotivated” but because they’re rational agents. They’re responding to adults who, by telling them the goal is to get a good mark, have sent the message that such success matters more than learning.

GRADES DILUTE Grades compel students to seek the quickest route. They may skim books for what they will “need to know.” They’re less likely to wonder, say, “How can we be sure that’s true?” than to ask “Is this going to be on the test?”

Recent research has found that a gradeoriented environment is associated with increased levels of cheating, grades promote a fear of failure even in highachieving students, and the elimination of grades (in favor of a pass/fail system) produces substantial benefits with no apparent disadvantages.