Spring 2026
Instructor: Nandini Chandra, nc8@hawaii.edu
Sakamaki B 301, 3:15-5:45 pm
ENG 775: The Creative Uses of Waste: The Essay-Film and Other Recyclings (LSE/CSAP)
The essay film is the whimsical child of a few Parisian Left bank creative giants of the 1960s, foremost among whom are Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda, and Joris Ivens. They crafted the playful filmic language of the essay in France and abroad by adopting an experimental montage technique, choosing to construct a reality rather than reproduce one. The central role played by waste in the crafting of this reality can be gauged by the literal and metaphoric use of recycling as its principle stylistic tool. The recycling of still photographs, found footage, or discarded objects immerses the viewer in an alternative and yet uncannily plausible reality. Paradoxically, these intimate fragments and minutiae of individual self-expressions contribute toward a collective experience. Our course will focus not only on these pioneering directors’ self-reflexive and heretical relationship to “waste”— industrial, cultural, and human—but also delve into how waste constitutes an alternative relationship to capitalist temporality. Many of these films use the trope of travel to show wastelands created by the history of capitalist wars and colonialism. We will examine the diverse ways in which the essay-film alters our understanding of “waste” and turns it into something mysteriously productive. The Benjaminian figure of the flâneur—inherent in the wayward essay-film voice—as it crosses over from the nineteenth century colonial metropolis to the ravaged and ruinous landscape of the colonized world will be of special relevance for us, given our location.
- The course will historicize the critical-lyrical practice of the essay-film, looking at the films themselves as well as key scholarship on essay-films.
- It will help students theorize the nature of waste in capitalist societies, and how the essay-film helps us rethink the symbolism of, and human relationship to, waste.
- It will reflect upon the French avant-garde’s obsessive relationship with American film and media both as cultural garbage as well as creative inspiration.
- It will link the whimsical and speculative trajectory of the essay-film with the literary, long-form personal essay. Students will be required to write their own essay (video or text) at the end of the semester, taking a cue both from the films and readings in the syllabus.
Assignments
Two short photo-montage essays (15 points each):
- A visit to the Fred Ohrt Water Museum (Kalihi Pumping Station): According to Victor Hugo, the sewer is the conscience of the city. Based on this visit, your first assignment will be a meditation on the city’s sewer system and the 83,000 cesspools that do not connect to it. You will reflect on the concept of dirt, filth, trash, and rubbish that emerges through a look at the real and psychic architecture of the city.
- Fashion is really about repetition and recycling, gleaning from left-overs and rags, and simultaneously leaving behind a trail of massive waste. Select any one of the many Hawaii-inspired designer labels and write a critical commentary on the colonial legacy of high fashion, inadvertently parasitical on working class or indigenous silhouettes.
One oral Presentation: (20 points); One Extended Peer-Evaluation (20 points); One Long-Form Essay (30 points)
Readings/Viewings
Anthony Banua-Simon (2022). Cane Fire, 90 mins.
Kent Jones (2015), Hitchcock/Truffaut, 80 mins.
Hito Steyerl short films: November (2004), Lovely Andrea (2007), https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/video/we-ranked-hito-steyerls-online-videos-from-best-to-bestwatch-them-all-here-55588
Dziga Vertov (1929). Man with a Movie Camera. 80 mins.
Jean Vigo (1930). À Propos de Nice. 45 mins.
Alain Resnais (1956). Night and Fog. 32 mins.
Nagisa Ōshima: Diary of Yunbogi (1965). 30 mins; Kyoto, My Mother’s Place (1991).
50 mins.Joris Ivens et al. (1967). Far From Vietnam. 180 mins.
Joris Ivens and Chris Marker (1969), à Valparaiso, 29 mins.
Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin (1972). Letter to Jane. 52 mins.
Chris Marker (1983). Sans Soleil. 104 mins
Agnes Varda (2000). Gleaners and I. 82 mins.
Harun Farocki (2000 and 2003). I Thought I was Seeing Convicts. 25 mins and War at a Distance. 54 mins
Hans Richter (1940). “The Film Essay”
Walter Benjamin (1999). The Arcades Project. Excerpts
Andre Bazin (1958). “Andre Bazin on Chris Marker”
Georg Lukacs (1910, 1960). “On the Nature and Form of the Essay” and “Preface to the Collected Essays of Aldous Huxley”
Theodor Adorno (1991). “The Essay as Form,” Notes to Literature, volume one.
Hito Steyerl (2009). “In Defense of the Poor Image”. E-flux, Journal 10. November.