Fiction, Film and Power (ENGL1025)
Department of English - University of Sydney
Semester 2 / 2008

Texts

The Talented Mr!$!Patricia Highsmith!$!Ripley!$!!$!
V For Vendetta!$!Adrian McTiegue dir.!$! !$!!$!2005
The Big Sleep!$!Raymond Chandler!$!!$!!$!
y separately published work icon Bliss Peter Carey , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1981 8407782 1981 single work novel (taught in 11 units)

Peter Carey's hero is a happy innocent; he remembers his childhood as a Vision Splendid, indulges his wife and children, and is universally regarded as a Good Bloke. Then he dies - only for nine minutes, it's a heart attack - and wakes up in Hell. His wife is unfaithful, his partner's a rat, his son pushes drugs, his daughter sells herself, his advertising company promotes products that cause cancer.

Against these torments Carey provides a saviour: hippy Honey Barbara, pantheist, healer, whore. Honey is to Harry as Isis is to Osiris. Together they conquer Hell and retire to the forest where their children inherit the legend of paradise regained...

(Picador, 1981, Synopsis)
Network!$!Lumet dir.!$! !$!!$!1976

Degrees

Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery

Bachelor of Political, Economic and Social Sciences
Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) and Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts (Languages)
Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications)
Bachelor of International and Global Studies

Bachelor of Political, Economic and Social Sciences and Bachelor of Laws

Description

A fundamental feature of the modern world is the predominance of media and communication technologies over older, and increasingly anachronistic, "book" cultures. This course looks at the consequences of such a shift for our sense of identity and place by focusing on translations from text to film. A principal theme will be the relations between narrative form and visual experience, with an eye always on the social contexts in which images become a form and source of power. The course will also serve as an introduction to the critical vocabulary used to understand late modern society.

Assessment

Two 1000 word essays, one oral presentation and one 2 hour exam

Supplementary Texts

Network, screenplay by P. Chayevsky

V for Vendetta, graphic novel by Alan Moore

Stephen King, The Shining

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (dir. Pollack)

Strangers on a Train (dir. Hitchcock)

Purple Noon (dir. Clement)

Bliss (dir. Ray Lawrence)

The Shining (dir. Kubrick)

Other Details

Levels: Undergraduate
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