Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

Winter Quarter Project Proposal

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“Representations of the body in film throughout the ages.”

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Project Proposal By:

Garrett

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Fashioning the Body

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Julia Zay’s Seminar

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*Summary: This project will attempt to take a look at how bodies are currently represented in film and how they have been represented in the past. This project will take the form of a paper that has been thoroughly researched by the attendance of numerous screenings of films with strong emphasis on the body, and by completing weekly readings on the subjects of film criticism and representations of the body in cinema. This project is going to shed light on different displays of the body in film over the ages, and attempt to correlate those findings with the social norms of the times in which they are/were represented.

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*Central Themes: The central themes and concerns of this project are going to be centered on the numerous different representations of the human body in cinema since its inception. I am going to be examining the implications of these body representations as it relates to historical and modern ideals regarding the roles that these bodies are to play in society.

My research is going to focus on how certain categories of bodies have changed over time. For example, among others my project will research what types of bodies are portrayed as objects of sexual desire and how that portrayal has transformed throughout the decades. I will also examine how the “bad-person’s” body is represented in film, and how that representation has/hasn’t changed over the years.

I will attempt to address these central themes and concerns by screening many different films with heavy emphasis on the body, while researching books and articles in the subject of film criticism and theory related to the body. All of the above methods of research are going to assist myself in creating a detailed analysis, in the form of a research paper, of how bodies are represented in film over time, and what is implied by those representations.

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*Texts, Scholars, Artists, Institutions: To supplement my research on this subject, I am going to be reading numerous works regarding discourse on how bodies are portrayed in certain film eras and genres. There are a great number of literary works on this subject, and in another section of this project proposal I will give a detailed list of the literature that I will be utilizing. I am also going to be studying some of the films that the aforementioned writers have been analyzing, while studying new films that prove relevant to my research project. Many of the films that I will be analyzing have been created in Holly Wood, but I am not going to limit my studies solely to the films that come out of that institution.

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*Imagined Audience: The audience that I will be attempting to reach with my research project is the movie-going public. Many people throughout the world enjoy watching movies, and with this project I hope to make some people aware of how bodies are portrayed in this visual art form, what the meaning of these portrayals might be, and how viewing these might affect a persons’ view of the world.

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*Annotated Bibliography: - Auerbach, Jonathan. (2007). Body Shots: Early Cinemas Incarnations. University of California Press. 214 pages.

This book focuses on cinema when it was just starting out. This book asserts that the body was at the center of some of the first films ever created. The author states that, “it was the human form in motion that most profoundly shaped early cinema.”

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-Badley, Linda. (1995). Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic: Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture. Green Wood Press. 208 pages.

This literary analysis of popular culture compares horror film to recent views of the body and self. This book views the horror genre a modern discourse of the body.

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-Jeffords, Susan. (1994). Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era. Rutgers University Press. 240 pages.

This book gives the reader an analysis of masculine movies such as Rambo and Robocop. The author states that action films with predominately white male heroes “ portrayed many of the same narratives…that made the Reagan revolution possible.

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-Bellour, Raymond. (2002). The Analysis of Film. Indiana University Press. 303 pages.

This book is about the methods of close film analysis, narrative structure of film, and the role of the woman in western cinema. This novel will help provide a framework for my analysis of the movies I will be researching.

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-Movies

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-City of God. (2002). Katia Lund. Miramax Films.

This movie documents the lives of the bodies of people who are found in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. This movie gives insight to bodies on the outskirts of society and should be an interesting topic of study.

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-Trans-America. (2006). Duncan Tucker. Weinstein Company

This movie is about the life of a trans-gender male that is about to go through major cosmetic surgery. This will be an interesting study on how peoples’ bodies are represented that are out of the ordinary.

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-Some Like it Hot. (1959). Billy Wilder. MGM Studios.

This movie will help me analyze a classical example of sexual desire portrayed in film. Marilyn Monroe will help to identify how body image has changed over the years.

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-Good Luck Chuck. (2007). Chelan Simmons. Lions gate.

This movie will give me a good idea as to how bodies are interpreted as objects of sexual desire in modern day cinema. Jessica Alba is a very popular actress who is a good exemplifier of sex in cinema.

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-Silence of the Lambs. (1991). Jonathan Demme. MGM.

This movie will provide a framework for how “bad-guys” are represented in film. Anthony Hopkins plays the ultimate bad-guy sophisticate, and it will be very interesting to take note of how he is portrayed.

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*Skills: In order to successfully complete this project, I am going to have to have a good background in movies, which I do, considering that watching film is what takes up most of the hours of my day. I am also going to have to show proficiency in film analysis, which is something I hope to gain by reading The Analysis Of Film, by Raymond Bellour in the first week of my research project.

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*Resources: The only resources that I will need for my research project are access to a DVD player, which I already own, and access to a video store to rent the movies that I will be analyzing. I have a membership at Blockbuster and Hollywood Video so this will be no problem at all.

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*Budget: The only expenses that I should incur during this project are those that are associated with the cost of renting movies, and the price of the literature that is needed for the framework of my analysis. Altogether, I am estimating a cost of no more than $200.00