Since
I'm now course representative for postgraduate History of Art and Film I
thought I better take my duties absolutely seriously and try and, you know,
represent the course.
Unfortunately,
I know very little about the history of art, though in the course of my
research I discovered that there is a little known genre of art called Paysage
avec ruins which is French for Landscape with Ruins, which is part of a
wider fascination with Gothic and classical ruins, but I digress. Therefore, I
can only really cover the history of film, which brings me to the subject of
this rather rambling blog post: Mark Cousin's
The Story of Film: An Odyssey.
This
series does what it says on the tin, it tells the story of film. It is
unreservedly excellent. In fact, I think many film students could save
themselves a vast sum of money by not going to university and just watching
this instead. Cousin's begins at the beginning, which is already a major
advance on the structure of many first year undergrad courses, with the Lumiere
Brothers and the invention of film. Each episode deals with a decade in cinema
history. He is both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about each change and
advance in film making, but not in that hyper-active, slightly panting way that
seems to be in vogue. Think Simon Schama or
Michael Palin but talking about films. He covers world cinema as well as
Hollywood, he discusses the change in gender roles and power in the industry
and he gives numerous concrete examples of styles and concepts, and he does
this in every episode. For me, the examples are the most important point, he
doesn't make vague references to Italian neo–realism or Hollywood musicals, he
shows several examples from films and analyses exactly what is happening on
screen and why it is key to the development of the film art form. Though some aspects are covered somewhat too rapidly and some points are Cousin's opinion rather than factual information overall the series is a fascinating watch.
Now,
I am aware that this is primarily useful to those researching or studying film.
However, I have watched countless wildlife documentaries without any desire to
get a degree in zoology or biology. Similarly, I watched a whole series on BBC4
about the Impressionists last year (Oh wait, I do know something about art history
after all!) but haven't written a paper on Van Gogh's Field
of Crows. The point, there is one, honestly, is that this is brilliant
documentary that will genuinely teach you about a hugely important aspect of
art and popular culture. That, and I could think of anything else to write
about.
The
book is out now; the DVD is released on April 23rd.
Also,
if anyone has any issues they want me to raise in staff/student meetings, feel
free to email me.
