TheArt of the Filmed Interview/Testimony

This intensive course looks at the history and varied practices of the interview over time, focusing on varied and creative approaches taken by nonfiction and experimental filmmakers. The interview, or the construction of testimony on/for film, is ubiquitous, but its philosophical and ideological underpinnings are often unexamined. We will explore a wide range of approaches to incorporating witnesses and interviews and look at work by filmmakers as well as installation artists. These include Claude Lanzmann, Rithy Panh, Shirley Clarke, Chick Strand, Harun Farocki, Anja Salomonowitz, Avi Mograbi, Joshua Oppenheimer, Omer Fast and others. Students will produce either a research paper, a video essay, or a series of three very distinct interviews for the course.