Thea Hollywood Studio This course looks at the history of film industries not just as the sum of

their products (i.e., films designed for mass consumption), but as complex
System: Warner Bros. cultural, economic and aesthetic systems that produce complex cultural
products. Although literature, for example, also consists of products (of
Fall 2009 various publishers, authors who write for a living, etc.), it is not an
English 380 industrial art form on the scale that motion pictures are. Movies have
Tuesday & Thursday dominated, and continue to dominate, the world in a way in which no other
10-11:50 PM cultural object does. This course is about the relationship between a group
41 Library of films and the industry that produced it. It will consider how that
industry historically responded to the challenges it faced, whether social,
Dr. Michael Aronson industrial, legal, or technological. In an attempt to productively narrow
475 PLC our field of study we will focus on the development and growth of the
Email: aronson@uoregon.edu Warner Brothers studio, particularly from the late 1920s to the late
Twitter: MichaelAronson 1960s, with the goal of understanding the relationship between the films
Phone: 346-3927 produced by this studio during that period and American culture. Viewing
Office Hours: Wed 9-12 & by appt. and discussion will form an important component of the course.
Independent primary research will be required for successful completion
of the course.
Jon Lewis, American Film, A History New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008
Required Texts:
Instead of Blackboard this course utilizes a Ning.com site for information and
Ning.com assignments, please check the site on a regular basis. http://wbhistory.ning.com/

Attendance Policy:
Class attendance is required. More than two unexcused absences from class will lower
your final grade by one full grade. Four unexcused absences will result in immediate
failure for the course. Due to the potential widespread nature of the flu this season the
health clinic will not be writing medical excuse notes. However, if you are sick your
absence will be considered excused, you should not come to class and you should stay
home until you are well. If you are unable to come to class due to illness, please contact
me asap to make arrangements to make up any work.

Academic Integrity:
You will be held responsible for understanding and abiding by the University’s policies on
academic integrity and plagiarism. If you are drawing upon or quoting other’s work
(whether that work is in print, spoken, or on the web) you must formally acknowledge
that you are doing so. This policy applies to all course-related work. Documented
plagiarism, at a minimum, will result in course failure.

Course Work: Your written work for this course will include:
- weekly .ning-based context contributions
- a reception report of a WB film released between 1920-1979
- a term paper, approx. 10 pages in length, along with a bibliography

Grading: Participation 10%

Reception report 20%
Weekly .ning context posts 30%
Term Paper Proposal 5%
Term Paper 30%
Screenings: Approximately once a week we will screen a film together. Within Film
Studies, as an academic discipline, it is standard practice for students
and instructors to watch and discuss films together in class because the
circumstance and conditions of reception are critical to our ability to
critically understand and analyze them.

You are expected to attend and take notes during these screenings.
Watching films in a classroom requires significantly different ways of
seeing (and note-taking), as you will need to pay close attention to how
the events unfold on screen and why each film takes its own specific
form. While I have chosen films which I think will be pleasurable, some
of them are old, unusual, or just plain weird compared to what you're
accustomed to in your everyday life. Please watch the films with care
and thoughtfulness, as students and scholars rather than as uncritical
consumers.
Schedule:
Week One The Beginning . . .
Reading: Schatz, Intro (pdf)
Lewis xxii-41
Screening: Various and sundry films of the 1890s - 1920s

Week Two Technological Innovation

Reading: Lewis 43-101
Screening: The Jazz Singer (1927)

Industrial Transformation
Week Three Reading: Lewis 102-145
Schatz, 9 (pdf)
Screening: Public Enemy (1931)

The Code . . .
Week Four – Proposals Due Reading: “’Baby Face’ or How Joe Breen Made Barbara Stanwyck Atone for Causing the
Wall Street Crash” Richard Maltby (Pdf).
Screening: Baby Face (1933)

Week Five Hollywood In Transition

Reading: Lewis 147-179
“A Triumph of Bitchery: Warner Bros., Bette Davis and Jezebel” (pdf)
Screening: Now Voyager (1942)

Week Six– Reception Report Due The Star . . .

Reading: Lewis 180-191
Butler “The star system and Hollywood” (pdf)
Screening: Casablanca (1944)

Week Seven Post War Adjustments

Reading: Lewis 193-228
“The Many Faces of Mildred Pierce” Greg Garrett (pdf)
Screening: Mildred Pierce (1945)

Week Eight The Genre . . .

Reading: “Film Noir” Paul Schrader (pdf)
Screening: The Big Sleep (1946)

The Town . . .
Week Nine Reading: Selections from What Makes Sammy Run Budd Schulberg (pdf)
Screening: The Bad & The Beautiful (1952)

Week Ten The End. . .

Reading: Lewis 233-281
Screening: Bonnie and Clyde (1967)