paul nadal \ courses

UC Berkeley, Rhetoric Department
7408 Dwinelle Hall #2670
Berkeley, CA 94720-2670

summer 2008: course prospectus for ucla

experimental cinema in asian america and the asia-pacific

Instructor: Paul Nadal

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course offers a survey of contemporary cinema in Asian America and the Asia-Pacific, with special attention to the politics and poetics of experimentation, video ethnography, and avant-garde filmmaking. Through discussions of films and theoretical texts, we will examine the concept of 'experimental cinema' across multiple spaces from the U.S. and Asia to critically engage with the following questions: What makes a film 'experimental' in both form and content? What is the role of experimentation in creating narratives of experience, memory, and history? How have developments in media technology (such as digital film), as well as the geo-political transformations wrought by globalization, changed the way films are produced in both Asia and the U.S.? This class will explore the premise that experimental filmmaking can be thought of as a specific form of imaginative and creative labor on the part of the Asian/American subject along two lines: as a purposive effort (1) to articulate and transform his or her own social situation (autobiography); and (2) to construct a narrative of collective consciousness and historical memory (documentary). Thus, the general aim of the course is to provide a forum in order to gain an understanding of the theoretical and historical contexts of the various genres of Asian/American experimental cinema and to acquire the analytical tools to 'read' these complex cinematic forms and to 'decode' their political content.

FILMS (in chronological order):
Perfumed Nightmare (1977), Kidlat Tahimik
Chan Is Missing (1982), Wayne Wang
Reassemblage (1983), Trinh T. Minh-ha
Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989), Trinh. T. Minh-ha
Memories From the Department of Amnesia (1991), Janice Tanaka
Bontoc Eulogy (1995), Marlon Fuentes
Halving the Bones (1995), Ruth Ozeki
Sea in the Blood (2000), Richard Fung
Todo Todo Teros (2006), John Torres

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:
The Cinematic Mode of Production, Jonathan Beller Cinema 1: Movement-Image, Gilles Deleuze
Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts, ed. Russell Leong
The Digital Film Event, Trinh T. Minh-ha
Asian America through the Lens: History, Representations, and Identities, Jun Xing