Thomas Morsch requests:


> I am currently preparing a seminar on >Love and intimacy in the movies<
> due to take place next summer. While I am aware of a vast range of
> literature on sexuality in the cinema, it seems difficult to find
> anything on _Love_. Not a popular topic for scholarship, I suppose,
> although it is very popular in the movies.
>
> Anyways, the seminar will be based on the historical analysis of the
> semantics of love by german sociologist Niklas Luhmann, but I am still
> looking for suggestions along the following lines:
>
> - literature (books, essays) from film studies that deal with the topic
> of love not in a purely generic perspective (e.g. "love" as part of
> melodrama, like in Mary Ann Doanes book on women's movies); I am aware of
> a couple of essays by Robin Wood on Before Sunrise, by Masud Zavarzadeh
> on the ideology of love and intimacy, by Thomas Wartenberg's book on
> Unlikely Couples, but I did not find much more yet. I am also looking for
> essays who pay attention to the importance of love in the work of
> particular directors/films like Antonioni, Truffaut's Antoine
> Doinel-films, etc.

Check out Stanley Cavell's PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS and Virginia Wright
Wexman's CREATING THE COUPLE, among others.



>
> - eminent literary, philosophical, etc. works on the topic of love (like
> Martha Nussbaum's _Love's Knowledge_, Roland Barthes' book an love in
> Werther, Julia Kristeva's book on the histories of love, etc.) - there
> might still be some interesting literature around that I missed.

For some (very old) historical context, it might be interesting to look
at both Plato's "Symposium" and Andreas Cappelanus' THE ART OF COURTLY
LOVE.


> - last but not least I am looking for suggestions of important films as
> far as the topic is concerned: films that deal with love in a particular
> way, films that develop a certain - even philosophical - idea of love,
> films that present 'non-hegemonic' relationships (e.g. homosexual
> relationships, relationships between adults and children,
> pseudo-relationships from afar between fan/star, etc.) as an alternative
> to hegemonic ideas of love, or films that, on the contrary, seem to be
> emblematic for society's predominant ideas about love and intimacy (at
> least in a certain historical period).
> I am also looking for interesting documentary (like Pasolini's Comizi
> D'Amore) and maybe even avantgarde/experimental films that deal with the
> topic of love.

Several films about Oscar Wilde, though the recent WILDE with Stephen
Fry seems to be trying to make the strongest case for "the love that
dare not speak its name."  MAURICE, from E.M. Forster's novel.  TORCH
SONG TRILOGY.  LOLITA, MURMUR OF THE HEART. HAROLD AND MAUDE. MIDNIGHT
COWBOY. SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY. DAKAN, supposed to be the first feature
film from sub-Saharan Africa about homosexual love.  KISS OF THE SPIDER
WOMAN.  PIXOTE.  FAREWELL, MY CONCUBINE. Of at least historical
importance (though some are none too good) are PERSONAL BEST, MAKING
LOVE, John Sayles' LIANNA. LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN.

More "typical" films might include SUNRISE, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR
LIVES, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS.

As an alternative, try UN COEUR EN HIVER.

Don Larsson



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Donald F. Larsson
English Department, AH 230
Minnesota State University
Mankato, MN  56001

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