TUESDAY and THURSDAY 4:00PM-6:30PM / Communications Studio C

Professor: Irene Gustafson
[831] 459 1498 / Comm 125
click here to email
Office Hours: Tuesday 3:00-4:00pm and by appointment

T.A.: Alex Johnston
click here to email
Office Hours: Wednesday 3:30-4:30pm and by appointment

[syllabus last updated: 7 March 2010]

This course examines the films Mike Leigh across a time period that spans close to 30 years. The goal of this course is two-fold: to consider the work of this director through a close examination of his films, and to explore “authorship” as a concept with a constantly evolving and historically contingent definition. In doing so we will consider whether, when, and how a director and/or his or her biographical history is considered a substantial influence on a film’s meaning. Crucially, we will consider these films in relation to their historical moments and audiences

Our class time will typically include:
• Two weekly screenings, lectures, and on occasion, small group discussion.
On small group discussion days, you will be asked to bring in written questions and topics for discussion.
• Each class period will begin with a lecture that contextualizes the week’s screenings and readings.
• We’ll take 10 minutes after each screening to reflect and write notes individually about the film. This does not preclude note-taking during screenings. In fact, you are strongly encouraged to take notes during films

1.

TUESDAY January 5
Introductions, Syllabus, course description and objectives
Screening: Happy Go Lucky (2008, UK, Mike Leigh, 118 min.) DVD7816

THURSDAY January 7
Modes of Analysis: Auteurism, Genre, Textual, Historical
Small group discussion: Think of something--an object, a story, etc.--that is “authorless.”
Screening: scenes from Happy Go Lucky

Reading Due:

John Caughie, “The Theory in Practice: Cahiers du Cinema” from Theories of Authorship: A Reader, Ed. Jogn Caughie (1981)
Watson (textbook), “Preface” and “Chapter One: The Reception of Leigh’s Work: Revising Our Expectations”

2.

TUESDAY January 12
Screening: Bleak Moments (1971, UK, Mike Leigh, 107 min.) DVD2612

Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Two: The Extraordinary Element of Too-Muchness at the Heart of the Ordinary”
Peter Wollen, “The Auteur Theory” from Signs and Meanings in the Cinema, 3rd ed. (1972)
Leigh, “Introduction” from Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, Ed. Amy Raphael (2008)

THURSDAY January 14
Screening: Hard Labour (1973, UK, Mike Leigh, 70 min.) DVD2541

Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Three: In Pursuit of the Real” and “Chapter Four: The Feminist Leigh: Two Women ‘on the other side of silence’”
John Hill, “The British Cinema and Thatcherism” from British Cinema in the 1980s: issues and themes (1999)

3.

TUESDAY January 19
Screening: Abigail’s Party (1977, UK, Mike Leigh, 102 min.) DVD7817

Reading Due:

Michel Foucault, “What is an Author” from language, counter-memory, practice, Ed. Donald Bouchard (1977)
Hill, “Film Policy and Industrial Change” and “Film and Television: A New Relationship” from British Cinema in the 1980s: issues and themes (1999)

THURSDAY January 21
Screening: High Hopes (1988, UK, Mike Leigh, 110 min.) DVD7815

Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Five: Leigh and Lawrence on ‘the middle-class thing’ and What it Leaves Out” and “Chapter Six: The Political and Flaubertian Leigh: On Stupidity, Taste, Anger, and Resistance”
Leigh, “High Hopes” from Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, Ed. Amy Raphael (2008)

4.

TUESDAY January 26
Screening: Life is Sweet (1990, UK, Mike Leigh, 103 min.) DVD7819
Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Seven: Comedies Celebrating Marriage, The Family, and the Pursuit of Happiness”
Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” from Image Music Text, Trans. Stephen Heath (1977)

Bertolt Brecht, "Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction" from Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, Ed. and Trans. by John Willett (2001)

THURSDAY January 28
Screening: scenes from Life Is Sweet
Reading Due:

Rick Altman, ”General Introduction: Cinema as Event” from Sound Theory, Sound Practice, Ed. Rick Altman (1992)
Leigh, “Life is Sweet” from Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, Ed. Amy Raphael (2008)

5.

TUESDAY February 2
• Paper #1 Due
Screening: Naked (1993, UK, Mike Leigh, 131 min.) DVD 4310
Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Eight: ” Are You With Me? Leigh’s Traumatising Seducer”
Highmore, “Introduction: Questioning the Everyday” from The Everyday Life Reader, Ed. Ben Highmore (2001)

THURSDAY February 4
Reading Due:

Richard Portman, “Mike Leigh’s Modernist Realism” from Rites of Realism, Ed. Ivone Margulies (2003)
Leigh, “Naked” from Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, Ed. Amy Raphael (2008)

6.

TUESDAY February 9
Screening: Secrets and Lies (1996, UK, Mike Leigh, 142 min.) DVD 2748
Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Nine: ”In Search of the Missing Mother/Daughter”
Perec, “Approaches to What?” from The Everyday Life Reader, Ed. Ben Highmore (2001)

THURSDAY February 11
Screening: scenes from Secrets and Lies
Reading Due:

Leigh, “Secrets and Lies” from Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, Ed. Amy Raphael (2008)
Raymond Williams, “Culture is Ordinary” from The Everyday Life Reader, Ed. Ben Highmore (2001)

8.

TUESDAY February 23
Screening: Topsy Turvy (1999, UK, Mike Leigh, 161 min.) DVD155
Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Eleven: ”Work as Play: The Utopian Element”
Goffman, ”Front and Back Regions of Everyday Life” from The Everyday Life Reader, Ed. Ben Highmore (2001)

THURSDAY February 25

• Paper #2 Due
Screening: scenes from Topsy Turvy
Reading Due:

Edward Trostle Jones, "Homage To and Deconstruction Of the Heritage Film: Topsy-Turvy" from All or Nothing: The Cinema of Mike Leigh (2004)

9.

TUESDAY March 2
Screening: All or Nothing (2002, UK, Mike Leigh, 128 min.) DVD2526
Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Chapter Twelve: ”In the Messianic Light”
TBA

THURSDAY March 4
Screening: scenes from All or Nothing
Reading Due:

Watson (textbook), “Conclusion: ”A Sense of the Real”

10.

TUESDAY March 9

Reflections, Summations, Final Projects

Screening: scenes from All or Nothing

THURSDAY March 11

Screening: Vera Drake (2004, UK, Mike Leigh, 125 min.) DVD2688
Reading Due:

Tony Whitehead, “Vera Drake” from Mike Leigh by Tony Whitehead (2007)

• Paper #3 Due-- MONDAY MARCH 15th, between 10-12pm Irene's office Comm 125

A note on academic integrity, plagiarism, and intellectual work:
At the university we are continually engaged with other people’s ideas: we read them in books, hear them in lecture, discuss them with our friends, engage with them on a personal level, and incorporate them into our own writing. As a result, it is very easy to blur the lines between our own intellectual work and the work of others. But, it is important that we give credit where it is due. Plagiarism is using others’ ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information.
To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use
• another person’s idea, opinion, or theory;
• any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings—any pieces of information—that are not common knowledge;
• quotations of another person’s actual written words and/or spoken words; or
• paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words.
The UCSC “Official University Policy on Academic Integrity for Undergraduate Students” can be found at:
http://www.ucsc.edu/academics/academic_integrity/undergraduate_students/

A note on Laptops and Mobile Technologies in the classroom:
Laptops can be a useful tool in the service of teaching and learning, however, I ask that you use them productively and respectfully.
A few common sense rules:
1. Always set up your laptop computer before the beginning of class. Setting up the computer and booting it up can take a few minutes depending on what applications are set to open at startup. Turn off all other mobile devices before lecture begins
2. Disable sound
3. During lecture and classroom discussion, you should not be connected to network resources. To do so invites many distractions - web surfing, email, chats, etc. Chatting or emailing during class is no more acceptable than talking on a cell phone during class time. Additionally, your networked screens are distracting to those sitting near and behind you
If you are found to be doing anything other than note-taking (or sanctioned network activity) you will be asked to leave the class immediately and will be marked as absent for that day.
I reserve the right to further legislate laptop use in their classes. For example, you may be asked to close your computer during screenings or be asked to sit in the first two rows of the class if you are actively using your laptop.