Film Studies
Minor offered

Cinema was born on December 28, 1895, when the Lumière Brothers attracted 33 paying customers to the Grand Café in Paris for a projection of 10 short films. Since that evening, cinema has grown into an immense global industry, a major participant in 20th-century consumer culture, the foremost signifying practice of our time, and even, some have said, into a new art form — the Seventh Art.

Film studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to introduce students to the techniques of film analysis as well as the history and theory of the cinema. Courses are offered both within the program in film studies and in other departments. These courses provide the opportunity to view and study some of the most important and most discussed cultural texts of the 20th century. Students learn about film styles, structure, genres, periods, national cinemas and how techniques of shooting and editing contribute to a film’s meaning.

Minor Requirements

Students pursuing a minor in film studies are required to take six courses. Three of these courses are offered in the film studies program: Film Studies 211 (Introduction to Film Studies); 251 (History of the Cinema); 311 (Seminar on Film Theory). The other three courses for the minor are electives offered either in film studies or in other departments.

Film Studies 211 and 251 have no prerequisites. (Students need not have taken 211 to enroll in 251.)

To enroll in Film Studies 311, a student must: (1) have completed Film Studies 211 and 251 or (2) have completed either 211 or 251 and be enrolled in the other (uncompleted) course while taking 311.

The three electives may be taken at any time during a student's career before, during or after the three required courses.

Courses
Semester Specific Course Descriptions

197. Quest for Self in a Postmodern World.
This course looks at the social forces that determine and structure how we form our identities. We link these concerns about selfhood with the role of media to the acceleration and subsequent fragmentation of information, the emergence of virtual reality, the spread of global capitalism, the rise of the megalopolis and the experiences of privatization, narcissism and cynicism. We also look at how traditional sociological categories such as race, gender and class are being affected by these emerging special formations.

211. Introduction to Film.
The first course in a sequence that examines the structures, techniques, history and theory of film. Questions of history and theory are treated only in passing; the prime focus is on learning to identify, analyze and articulate what we see when we watch a film. The course studies the terminology used to describe film techniques and applies this terminology to the films viewed. The goal is to pass from close analysis of film technique and film construction to interpretation. Students learn not only how a film is constructed, but also how the techniques employed contribute to its values and meaning.

247, 248. Special Topics.

251. History of the Cinema.
The development of film technology and film technique from the 19th century to 1960, and the place of the new medium in the evolving cultural-social contexts of the 20th century. Subjects include early experiments in photography; the beginnings of narrative cinema; special effects; new camera dynamics; the development of cinema stars; theories of editing and montage; the introduction of sound; film aesthetics; deep focus photography and realism; color photography. Films by Lumière, Méliès, Griffith, Wiene, Murnau, Eisenstein, Chaplin, Lang, Renoir, Rossellini, Welles, Godard, Truffaut and others. Movements and genres studied include German Expressionism, poetic realism, forms of comedy, film noir, Italian neorealism and French New Wave. Significant reading and writing.

263. Austrialian Cinema.
Using Australian films as the primary texts, this course explores how Australian national identity is constructed. We look at what constitutes a national cinema (independent, government-sponsored and Aussiewood), then focus on three variables which heavily determine both the shape of Australian cinema and national identity: the power of nature, the relationship of aboriginal peoples to non-indigenous peoples and the role of class and gender construction. Topics include white masculinity, as it is constructed in relation to both nature and war; feminine(ist) themes; ethnicity and immigration; revising history and national identity to include Aboriginal peoples; and the emergence of a global postmodern cinema.

271.  Introduction to World Cinema.
This course complements Film Studies 251 by exploring the history of film outside Western Europe and the United States. The semester is typically divided into four units, each focusing on a different national or regional cinema. We study a new film each week, taking three main approaches: the history of a particular national film industry, how a director fits into both local and global histories of cinema, and the social terrain upon which filmmakers work. One unifying topic will help us look comparatively at some very different kinds of films.

281.  Music Video.
Music television created new ways of visualizing music, new ways of seeing sound, which have in turn influenced the ways filmmakers use sounds and images in feature and documentary films. In this course, we look at the rise of music video in the 1980s, its predecessors and its influences. While we focus primarily on the history and criticism of music video, the course also includes a substantial production component which includes creating and editing sound and video files. Also offered as Music 281.

311. Film Theory.
This seminar offers a survey of film theory: its history, its important concepts and figures and its key theoretical movements. We begin with “classical” film theory, including auteur theory, realism, genre theory and political criticism. Much of the course, however, is given to contemporary film theory: semiotics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism/masculinity studies, African-American film studies, postmodernism, postcolonial and global studies. To ground all this theory, we will view, discuss and write about an eclectic collection of films.

335. Semiotics of Advertising.
The course blends sociological analysis, semiotics, discourse analysis and theories of representation both to explore the social consequences of advertising and to deconstruct ads and commercials as commodity signs and narratives. The course approaches advertising as a system of signs composed of signifiers, signifieds, referents and relational structures tying these elements together. Students apply a semiotic analysis to both commodity and corporate advertising to explore how representations of race, gender, class and age are constructed in this discourse. Focusing on the effects of advertising on social institutions, gender relations, self-conception, the organization of everyday life and the environment, the course constructs a critical history of advertising from the 1920s to the present.

479. Independent Study.

Departmental Offerings

English
244. Techniques of Screenwriting.
306. Advanced Screenwriting.

French
404. French Film.

German
218. The New German Film.

Spanish
439. Literature, Film and Popular Culture in Contemporary Spain.

Performance and Communication Arts
244. Techniques of Screenwriting.
306. Advanced Screenwriting.

Sociology
172. Reading Film Sociologically.
202. Visual Sociology: Analysis Through Images.

*Also offered through European Studies.
** Also offered as Literature in Translation 218 and through European Studies.

Special topics and courses in these and other departments will be accepted for the minor when they treat film in a substantial way.

Faculty

Professors

Peter Joseph Bailey (English), A.B., New School for Social Research; M.A., Johns Hopkins; Ph.D., Southern California
Professor of English and Coordinator for Jeffrey Campbell Graduate Fellows Program

Gudrun Brokoph, B.A., Missouri; M.A., Ph.D., California (Davis)
Harriet Lewis Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (German)

William Alfred Hunt, B.A., Wesleyan; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard
Professor of History

Stephen Dennis Papson, B.A., Seton Hall; M.A., New School for Social Research; Ph.D., Kentucky
Professor of Sociology; Sabbatical Spring 2005

Sidney Logan Sondergard, B.A., M.A., Wichita; Ph.D., Southern California
Professor of English

Associate Professors

Roy Chandler Caldwell, B.S., Rensselaer; M.A., Ph.D., North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (French) and Chair of Department; FYP Leave Spring 2005

Ilia J. Casanova-Marengo, B.A., Puerto Rico; M.A., Rutgers
Assistant Professor in Modern Languages and Literatures (Spanish); Sabbatical Spring 2005

Yoko Chiba, B.A., Tsuda, Tokyo; M.A., Dublin; M.A., Ph.D., Toronto
Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (Japanese)

Richard H. Jenseth, B.A., Western; M.A., SUNY Albany; Ph.D., Iowa
Associate Professor of English, Director of University Writing Program

Marina A. Llorente, M.A., Ph.D., Kansas
Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (Spanish)

Assistant Professors

David R. Henderson, B.A., Pomona; M.A., Southern California; Ph.D., Austin
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music

Robert Torres (Sociology), B.A., B.S., Penn State ; M.S., Ph.D., Cornell University
Assistant Professor of Sociology