The first course to comparatively look at the controversial and genre breaking films of…

Werner Herzog,    Rob Zombie,    &   Dario Argento…

Through his outspoken rejection of the “accountant’s truth”, Werner Herzog offers his own “ecstatic truth” as a driving theme that motivates cinema and connects to some deeper, poetic, essential ‘truth’, that may only be achieved through “fabrication and imagination and stylization”.  Rob Zombie, with his visceral and highly unconventional expression of post-modern horror, blends a unique sense of visual aesthetic with disturbing socio-psychological realism to re-imagine classic works (Halloween) and create new ones.  For several decades, Dario Argento has pioneered the creative and auteur driven use of sound and image in his cinematic adaptations of the Italian “giallo” tradition.  Together, these directors offer a fresh approach to considering the role (and possibility) of the auteur in feature filmmaking.

In honor of the Rice Centennial Celebration, the course is being sponsored by the Kino-Eye Center and will be taught by Cesare Wright (Rice Alum 2003).

This course will explore the tradition of auteur filmmaking, with an emphasis on how this particular artistic mode situates itself within the evolving system of Hollywood institutional film. The auteur, in contrast to other filmmakers, exhitibits unparalleled control over the production and post-production processes and is uniquely identifiable through the notable conventions of aethetics, style, theme, content, atmosphere, etc.

FILM 485/HART 481 ( 4 Credit Hours ) will require completion of additional coursework for the additional credit than the FILM 285/HART 283 (3 Credit Hours). Cross-list: HART 283, Equivalency: FILM 485.
College: School of Humanities
Department: Film