Module ENGL3231: SHAKESPEARE ON FILM (SPECIAL TOPIC)

Department: English Studies

ENGL3231: SHAKESPEARE ON FILM (SPECIAL TOPIC)

Prerequisites

• Successful completion of either ENGL2011 Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism or ENGL2021 Shakespeare.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To explore a substantial range of classic, contemporary and experimental Shakespeare films, including foreign language versions and adaptations
• To analyse these in relation to Shakespeare’s plays and to their socio-cultural and critical contexts.
• To make connections and comparisons across a range of different plays and films.
• To introduce and explore central concepts of performance and film criticism.

Content

• This seminar will treat a wide selection of Shakespeare films in relation to Shakespeare’s plays, including some of the now classic films of Laurence Olivier (Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III and Othello), Orson Welles (Macbeth, Othello and The Chimes at Midnight), Peter Brook (King Lear), Franco Zeffirelli (Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet) and Roman Polanski (Macbeth), the Hollywood Julius Caesars of 1953 and 1969, foreign language versions of Shakespeare including the Russian versions of Hamlet and King Lear directed by Grigori Kozintsev and the adaptations of Akira Kurosawa (Throne of Blood, and Ran) and more recent films, including those of Kenneth Branagh (Much Ado, Othello and Hamlet) and Baz Luhrmann (Romeo & Juliet) and experimental work by, among others, Celestino Coronado (Hamlet), Derek Jarman (The Tempest) and Peter Greenaway (Prospero's Books).
• As well as detailed consideration of films and plays, the module will require somereading in film theory and criticism.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will be expected to gain a comprehensive and detailed knowledge of a range of Shakespeare films and plays, and of relevant theory and criticism.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• mature critical and analytic abilities, including the ability to assess the critical ideas of others and to be aware of a variety of critical issues raised by different kinds of film in relation to a specific body of work created for the theatre
• mature and informed critical skills in the close reading and analysis of films and literary texts
• an ability to demonstrate comprehensive and detailed knowledge of a range of film and literary texts and of critical approaches
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and film, and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific films and literary texts
• an ability to suggest cross-connections and show awareness of issues raised by placing adaptions within wider cultural, aesthetic and intellectual contexts
• enhanced sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an enhanced ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an enhanced ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary and film studies
• confident skills of effective communication and critical argument
• enhanced awareness of conventions of scholarly presentation, and bibliographic skills including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of scholarly conventions of presentation
• an informed command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• a mature and informed awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a confident and mature capacity to analyse critically
• an enhancd ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• enhanced competence in the planning and execution of essays
• an enhanced capacity for independent thought and judgement, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in an informed and critical manner
• enhanced information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• strong organisation and time-management skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to argue, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; they also test the ability to present word-processed work, observing scholarly conventions. In individual Special Topics, the essay may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as 'creative criticism'.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessed essay allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second essay.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Before the first assessed essay, students have an individual 15 minute consultation session in which they are entitled to show their seminar leader a sheet of points relevant to the essay and to receive oral comment on these points. Students may also, if they wish, discuss their ideas for the second essay at this meeting.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University