OUT OF JOINT. A SMALL COMPENDIUM OF DISJOINTED COMEDIES. FILM COURSE
‘Part of a door or window where the hinge pin passes through, and where it moves and rotates.’ This is the definition of quicio according to the revered Royal Spanish Academy. If after reading this you are asking yourself what on earth a hinge pin is, well that makes two of us: you, the reader, and me, this impersonal narrator (with the aspirations of a film voiceover) who is covertly trying to attract your attention.
Well, you see, the hinge pin is ‘a piece of wood that anchors doors and windows to the hinge post, so that they swing open and close.’ Crystal clear, right? Well no, it isn’t (and if you’re asking what a post is, you know what you have to do), but let's at least retain this dynamic principle: things that swing open and close and open again, mechanisms, gears, machines or bodies that repeat the same movements over and over again...
It’s said that insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results, but wouldn’t that precisely be the perfect definition of comedy? A comical figure is one that resonates and reverberates, who falls and trips over the same stone time and time again, until finally becoming out of joint, dragging along with them, in a bizarrely entropic whirlwind, everything in their wake. These comical figures are the ones we’ll be pursuing in this course—the eternally unhinged, those out of place, but who don’t stop moving while searching for their spot in the world. Because ultimately, if any dawn can bring forth a man in the vegetable patch, we can also, of course, become out of joint at any time. It’s no small thing.
Programme
3 October. The General (Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton, 1926)
10 October. A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood and the Marx Brothers, 1935)
17 October. Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra, 1944)
24 October. Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958)
7 November. Atraco a las 3 (José María Forqué, 1962)
14 November. The Party (Blake Edwards, 1968)
21 November. Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974)
28 November. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Monty Python, 1975)
12 December. Zelig (Woody Allen, 1983)
19 December. Amanece, que no es poco (José Luis Cuerda, 1989)
José Manuel López (Vigo, 1974) holds a PhD in Communication and is an associate professor at the University of Vigo. He founded the film magazine Tren de sombras (2004-2008) and from 2007 to 2017 was a member of the editorial board of Caimán Cuadernos de Cine (known previously as Cahiers du Cinéma. España).
In 2008 he edited the book Naomi Kawase. El cine en el umbral for the Las Palmas Film Festival and has authored numerous articles, conference speeches and book chapters. Since 2012 he has taught film courses at the Vigo Museum of Contemporary Art (MARCO) and the Galician Centre for Contemporary Art (CGAC). He has also given lectures in venues such as Master LAV, the ESCAC, the CGAI, the Seminci, the Málaga Festival or the Centro de las Artes in Seville. He has curated exhibitions and film cycles for the Fundación Luis Seoane, Curtocircuito: Festival Internacional de Cine de Santiago de Compostela, Solar Galeria de Arte Cinemática and the film festival Curtas de Vila do Conde (Portugal). In 2020 he won the prize for the best essay written on international audiovisual at the 4th edition of the Premios María Luz Morales, awarded by the Academia Galega do Audiovisual.
Teachers, students and all those interested in film
The registration period will be open from 2 de agosto to 27 September 2023. If you’re interested, send an e-mail to cgac.educacion@xunta.gal. You should indicate your full name, ID number, studies, area of work or interest, an e-mail address and a contact telephone number. Once the application has been accepted, registrants will be informed on how to make the payment.
The CGAC shall issue a certificate of achievement to all those who attend at least 70% of the sessions.