Analyze Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty(2013) and Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s The Assassin(2015) through Pasolini’s “The Cinema of Poetry: Movies and Methods” and Wollen’s “Godard and Counter-Cinema”.

Analyze Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty(2013) and Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s The Assassin(2015) through Pasolini’s “The Cinema of Poetry: Movies and Methods” and Wollen’s “Godard and Counter-Cinema”.

The paper should analyze the films via an in-depth engagement with the readings. “In-depth” engagement means a precise, detailed, and nuanced account of the ideas presented in the readings under discussion. (Though not required, your paper might also reference films on the syllabus (Antoioni’s Red Desert 1964); additionally, you may reference readings not on the syllabus.)

The paper should put forward, elaborate, and defend a specific thesis about the film(s) in question. The paper should not simply argue that the film or films are or are not “anti-Hollywood”—this is far too broad. The aim is to use concepts from the readings as a way to illuminate a recent film or films, and to reflect on the relations between contemporary cinema and theorizations of earlier radical film movements.

A strong essay will focus on specific moments, techniques, and/or themes of the film(s) under analysis, rather than discuss the film(s) in broad terms. (An analysis of a single scene, for instance, is acceptable.) A good general rule is to privilege depth over breadth.