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Archival Encounters: Material Film Histories

Module description

This module explores the relationship between film and the archive. It will guide you through a range of case studies exploring the international histories and contemporary practices of film archiving from the perspective of the researcher, the donor, the archivist and the public user. We consider how and why film and film culture has been preserved through diverse archival practices. The focus will be upon hidden histories and the uncollected/undercollected in film history. The module will enable you to gain a deep understanding of key currents in archival film theory and to apply these to the use of physical and digital archive collections from across the country.

Your study will be grounded in Exeter’s own internationally significant film archive the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. Here you will work hands-on with a range of archival ephemera, interact with film archive curators and develop your skills in archival cataloguing and research. Module assessment will enable you to undertake detailed critical analysis of archival practice and artefacts and build your skills in working with public-facing archival cataloguing and digital curation.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to do the following:

• introduce you to the history of film archiving across the 20^th and 21^st centuries with a basis in British archival institutions, and the opportunity to compare these to practices and collections based in other nations and national cinemas;
• ground your analysis in a complex understanding of key currents and debates in archival theory and theories of film heritage specifically;
• develop your understanding of and practical skills in cataloguing approaches and techniques for film archive materials;
• develop your critical and analytical skills in writing about film history through an archival lens;
• develop your professional networking skills in enabling you to interact with a range of curators and archive and heritage professionals;
• deepen your knowledge of British film history and its material preservation;
• enhance your transferable skills in applying your academic learning to public facing outputs in the creation of blog and social media content about archival material and ephemera;
• support students who choose to undertake a final MA dissertation project in film museum culture/ archive curation

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an advanced critical appreciation of some of the dominant concepts, methods and debates informing the study of film archives and film archiving.
• 2. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of different traditions of film archiving in different national and international contexts.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Demonstrate advanced and autonomous skills in the research and evaluation of relevant critical and historical materials for the study of film and film archiving.
• 4. Demonstrate a sophisticated ability to interrelate texts and discourses specific to their own discipline with issues in the wider context of cultural and intellectual history.
• 5. Demonstrate a sophisticated ability to understand and analyse relevant theoretical ideas, and apply these ideas to films, archives and archival practices.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Through the writing of essays and other pieces of written work, demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographic skills, a capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, and a capacity to write clear and correct prose.
• 7. Through research, seminar discussion, and the writing of essays and other pieces of written work, demonstrate an advanced capacity to question assumptions, distinguish between fact and opinion, and reflect critically on their own learning.

Syllabus plan

It is envisaged that the topics covered will be as follows:

• What is a Film Archive?
• Ephemera and Archival Cataloguing
• Early Cinema in the Archives
• Non-fiction Film Archives
• Archiving Cinemagoing / Archiving Audiences
• Archiving Cinema Technology
• Regional Film Histories
• The ‘Living’ Archive
• Making New Archives
• Omeka presentations

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Indicative reading:

• Burton, Antoinette, ed. Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History. London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Cvetkovich, Ann. 2002. “In the Archives of Lesbian Feelings: Documentary and Popular Culture.” Camera Obscura 17, no.1: 107-47.
• Derrida, Jacques. 1996. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. London: University of Chicago Press.
• Dever, Maryanne. 2010. “Greta Garbo's Foot ,or, Sex, Socks and Letters.” Australian Feminist Studies 25, no. 64: 163-73.
• MacNeil, Heather and Terry Eastwood. Currents of Archival Thinking, 2nd ed. Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited.
• Farge, Arlette. 2015. The Allure of the Archives. Translated by Thomas Scott-Railton. London: Yale University Press.
• Gansky, Paul. 2013. “Spellbound, Archives, Exhibitions, and Film’s Material History.” Film History 25, no. 3: 126-48.
• Gledhill, Christine and Julia Knight. 2015. Doing Women’s Film History: Reframing Cinemas, Past and Future. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
• Hastie, Amelie. 2006. “The Miscellany of Film History.” Film History 18, no. 2: 222–30.
• Kadar, Marlene and Helen M. Buss. Working in Women’s Archives: Researching Women’s Private Literature and Archival Documents. Ontario, Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
• Petersen, Anne Helen. 2013. “What to Do With a Coffin Full of Sugar: Gloria Swanson, Kenneth Anger, and Self-Authorship in the Star Collection.” The Moving Image 13, no. 2: 81-98.
• Stead, Lisa. Reframing Vivien Leigh: Stardom, Gender and the Archive. Oxford University Press, 2021.
• Vaknin, Judy, Karyn Stuckey and Victoria Lane, eds. All This Stuff: Archiving the Artist. Faringdon: Libri Publishing.
• Wickham, Phil. “Scrapbooks, Soap Dishes and Screen Dreams: ephemera, everyday life and cinema history.” New Review of Film and Television Studies. 8.3 (2010): 315-30.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

ELE site will contain core readings and further reading suggestions.

Key words search

Film, Cinema, archives, museums, production history, audiences, digital archives, ephemera