FILM STUDIES ELECTIVES, FALL 2008

American Studies 200. Mass Media in American Culture. This topics course examines the connections between mass media and American culture, considering both the ways that media shape cultural meanings in the United States and the way that already existing cultural meanings find a place within the media. Our focus is both historical and contemporary, as we examine the origins of U.S. mass media, the construction of ideology within fictional television, and finally the role of advertising in both television and print media. Counts for Division II. Prof. Shaw.

English 212  Writing about Gender and Film. The purpose of this course is double: to explore the ways gender has been and continues to be constructed and reconstructed within film over the last couple of decades; to write about these developments fluently and coherently. We will use a variety of theoretical lenses to view (mainly American) film, so a crucial part of this course is the introduction (or reintroduction) of the major theories and methods currently practiced in cultural studies and related interdisciplines, such as ethnic, cultural, women's and queer studies. Films we may examine include the Terminator series, Pulp Fiction, The Birdcage, Pretty Woman, and American Beauty. Prof. Stockton. MR 1:30.  Writing intensive.

English 218/Film Studies 301. Creative Writing:  Screenwriting. This course will familiarize students with the fundamentals of good screenwriting:  structure, theme, conflict, character, and dialogue. Students take part in weekly writing exercises as preparation for their final class project -- creating a detailed outline of an original screenplay, and completing the first act.  Topics include plot and subplot, character development, and commercial considerations such as format and genre.  Students are required to read essential books on scriptwriting and to analyze several successful films and the screenplays on which they are based.  Prof. Warfield. W 1:30-4:30.

 

German 250 The New German Cinema. “The old cinema is dead.  We believe in the new one.”  This declaration made in 1962 by a group of young filmmakers during a film festival in West Germany served as the starting point for a new period in German filmmaking, one that came to be known as The New German Cinema.  But what, exactly, was so new?  How did these filmmakers break from the traditions of earlier German, and non-German, film?  What elements of earlier cinema nevertheless remained in their work?  What influence do the films made by these directors still have today?  In this course, we will investigate these questions and more.  Films will include those directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Margarethe von Trott, Völker Schlöndorff and others. Prof. Haque. W 1:30-4:30.  Counts for Division I-C.

Political Science 243 Mass Media/American Politics. Examines the causes, content, and consequences of political news, primarily focusing on television. We explore the ways in which audience characteristics, organizational routines, and professional socialization influence the style and substance of the news. The content of news is analyzed for: the three branches of government, war, foreign governments, crises, and presidential campaigns. The impact of the media on political behavior is also discussed. Content analysis is used by students to systematically analyze television network news. Prof. Larson. M 1:30-4:30.

Political Science 390 Presidential Elections and Mass Media.  This seminar focuses on the choices made by candidates and voters in modern presidential elections and the role that the mass media plays in these choices. Although the 2008 presidential election is discussed as an example in progress, the course focuses primarily on political science and communication literature that uses data from past presidential elections (post-1952).  Students gain understanding of how news coverage and advertising looks, why it looks, why it looks that way, and what impact it has on campaigns. Prof. Larson. W 1:30-4:30.

Religion 241 Religion in the Films of India. An introduction to religion, mainly Hinduism, but also Islam, Sikhism, Christianity and Buddhism as portrayed in the films of India, both the national Hindi cinema and also regional language cinemas. Both films focused on religion and those dealing with it in context will be examined.  Prof. T. S. Smith. MR 1:30-4:30. Counts for Comparative Civilizations and for Division I-A. 

FILM STUDIES ELECTIVES, SPRING 2009

Film Studies 102. Fundamentals of Digital Film Production. This course provides instruction in the basic aesthetic and technical aspects of digital film production, including writing, producing, directing, shooting, lighting, recording and mixing sound, and editing. Students will learn to harness digital tools while focusing on their roles as storytellers. Each participant will write and direct a video, rotating through various crew positions as they carry out exercises designed to deepen their knowledge of the different elements ofmoviemaking. Ultimately, they will collaborate in teams on short movies, which will be screened at the final class. Prof. Warfield. 

Film Studies 301.  Hollywood Renaissance. What is the nature of the "New Wave" in Hollywood cinema of the late 60s and early 70s?  Was a new vision of American society being proposed, or are these films superficially radical, yet internally conservative?  In what ways did the cinema of this period translate its audience's ambivalent relationship to social and political change?  We try to answer these questions as we study how competing voices on the Left and the Right in Hollywood cinema mediated social and political change underway in the context of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement.  Prof. Mellerski.  Counts as an American Studies elective.

Film Studies 301/Italian Studies 320/Judaic Studies 216. Traces of Auschwitz: Representations of the Holocaust in Italian Cinema  The shocking images of the Holocaust cyclically re-emerge from remote memories buried in the "grey zone" of the twentieth century.  This is particularly true of Italian cinema, on which the Holocaust is still projecting a disquieting shadow.  What are the reasons of this persistence? Are the Holocaust movies in some way related not only to the historical past but also to the present of Italy? And how do they differ from historical accounts? How does such history change depending on time, place, and medium? This course intends to offer some tentative answers to these questions--and raise new ones—primarily through the analysis of the representations of the Holocaust in Italian cinema. In English.  Prof. Marini-Maio.

East Asian Studies 203. Japanese Literature and Film.  This course introduces students to major figures in the cinematic and literary history of Japan while exploring the issue of film adaptation.  Each week we will read a book, play or short story and watch a film made from that source.  Rather than discuss questions of a film’s fidelity, we will examine how different techniques are used in the source and the adaptation to explore similar or even diverging themes. In English.   Prof. Bates.

English 101. Brit Grit:  Drama and Film in Post-World War 2 Britain. This course focuses on reinventions of realism in the post-WWII period, through the dramatic and cinematic works of such playwrights as Shelagh Delaney, John Osborne, Ayub Khan-Din and Roy Williams and such filmmakers as Ken Loach, Tony Richardson, Stephen Frears, and Michael Winterbottom. We read these works alongside selected essays about earlier dramatic realism (Ibsen, Synge, Shaw and others) and in the context of the cultural studies movement.  Prof. Sams.

English 101. Shakespeare at the Movies.  This course will study four Shakespeare plays and a multitude of film and television adaptations generated by them.  We'll consider the way in which performance can shape and redefine Shakespeare's original text, and we'll engage practically in this process, too.  The majority of the coursework will be based on imagining and producing filmic responses to Shakespeare's drama. Prof. Gleed.

Italian 400.  Coming of Age in Italian Cinema. In Italian cinema, particularly from neorealism to contemporary productions, the young subject has had a privileged position as the protagonist and the focalizer of historical, cultural, and societal change. More recent productions have attained similar aesthetic and ethic goals exploiting the "liminal" condition and the "liquid" consistency of the adolescent and the young as devices to depict the postmodern complexity of history and society. Such a representation of the youthful subject infuses the neorealist "language of reality" with high-potency connotative force. In this seminar, students will attempt an interpretation of this phenomenon from a broad cultural perspective, drawing upon heterogeneous theoretical paradigms. We will analyze films by such directors as Antonioni, Bellocchio, Bertolucci, De Sica, Fellini, Pier Pasolini,  Visconti. The weekly screenings will be complemented by the readings in fiction and theory. Taught in Italian. Prof. Marini-Maio. 

Music 213.  Music in Film.  An introduction to the role and subject of music in film. This course focuses on films made between ca. 1933 and the present, chosen for the variety and significance of their musical scores.  Through critical reading, listening, and viewing, students will be taught to analyze the various functions of music in film, and to appreciate music as an essential and distinctive component of film narrative.  No prior background in music is required for this course. Prof. Wilson

Political Science 243 Mass Media/American Politics. Examines the causes, content, and consequences of political news, primarily focusing on television. We explore the ways in which audience characteristics, organizational routines, and professional socialization influence the style and substance of the news. The content of news is analyzed for: the three branches of government, war, foreign governments, crises, and presidential campaigns. The impact of the media on political behavior is also discussed. Content analysis is used by students to systematically analyze television network news. Prof. Larson.  Counts as a media elective.

Political Science 290.  Social Movements and Mass Media.This class will examine how social movements try to use the media to advance political change and the challenges they face doing so. We will study a variety of groups, but focus more of our time on the anti-war movement of the 1960s, the senior rights movement, the civil rights movement, and the women's movement. Students will write short papers on various aspects of other movements of their choice.  Prof. Larson.  Counts as a media elective. 

Russian 243.  Russian and East European Film. The course examines the contribution by Russian and East European directors to the development of film as an art form.  It also investigates the role which those films have played in forming the cultural identity of Russia and various East European nations in recent times. Films by the following directors will be studied: Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Dovzhenko, Forman, Bacso, Tarkovskij, Mikhalkov, Wajda, Makavejev, Szabo and others.  In English. Prof. Lemelin.