Visual Arts 2

From the big screen to the small one: the evolution of the American Horror film (C. Chambost)

This class will survey some of the main stages in the evolution of the American horror film. Starting from its literary influences, it will then focus on its growth and on its relationship with the then budding television (in the 1950s). The role of the TV news and the Hays code will be analysed (in the 1960s). And, as the heydays of the horror films are reached in the 1970s (with the involvement of the New Hollywood in the field of horror), it will eventually be observed how the conventions of the genre have successfully spread into some of the best TV series at the turn of the century.

The class will be a mix of theory and practice with the analysis of some scenes (echoing what will have been shown in the first part of the class). The study of these excerpts will give the students the ability to express their skills at commenting on cinematographic works of art.

The students will be asked to write a short file on a film or a TV series.

Introduction to the analysis of comics (J.-P. Gabilliet)

This course provides an introduction to the formal analysis of comics as a medium based on “sequential” images, to be distinguished from photography’s still images and film’s moving images.

The classes will be based on the analysis of various samples of (mostly) American comics by means of the interpretive grids presented by Scott McCloud in his 1993 book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, an introductive study of the comics medium presented as a book-length comic

Session 1 :

• Étudiants régime général : contrôle continu : (exercices écrits et oraux effectués dans le cadre du TD)
• Étudiants régime spécial : CT : oral 15 minutes (30 minutes de préparation)

Session 2 (« rattrapage ») :

Étudiants régime général et régime spécial: examen terminal : oral 15 minutes (30 minutes de préparation)

Organisation des enseignements

2h TD hebdomadaires pendant 12 semaines.

From the big screen to the small one: the evolution of the American Horror film (C. Chambost)

• BEYLOT Pierre, Le récit audiovisuel, Paris, Armand Colin, 2005.
• CLOVER Carol, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1992.
• ESQUENAZI Jean-Pierre, Mythologies des séries télévisées, Paris, Cavalier Bleu, 2009.
• HUMPHRIES Reynold, The American Horror Film, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
• JOST François, De quoi les séries américaines sont-elles le symptome ?, Paris, CNRS Editions, 2011.
• JOWETT Lorna & ABBOTT Stacey, TV Horror: Investigating the Darker Side of the Small Screen, London, I.B. Tauris, 2012.
• PUNTER David, The Literature of Terror, Volume 2: The Modern Gothic, London, Longman, 1996.
• THORET Jean-Baptiste, Le Cinéma américain des années 70, Paris, Les Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006.
• TODOROV Tzvetan, Introduction à la littérature fantastique, Paris, Le Seuil, 1970.
• WOOD Robin, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan, ‪New York, Columbia University Press, 1986.

Introduction to the analysis of comics (J.-P. Gabilliet)

Compulsory reading:

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Harper, 1993). ISBN 978-0060976255. Or any subsequent reprint