Reading and Theorizing Film

Semester and Year	SP 2009
Course Number	K20.1538
Section	001
Instructor
Days	Fri
Time	2:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Description

This class is designed to teach students how to approach film analysis from a number of different perspectives. We analyze concepts such as genre, various aspects of film form, narrative construction, and different ways to interpret films. We also explore classic film theory, ideological criticism, formal analysis, and non-academic film criticism. Finally, the class places film criticism within a wider debate among intellectuals about how to understand popular culture, a debate characterized by the division between the Frankfurt School and the approaches of "cultural studies." Assignments include short papers on various aspects of film form as well as longer critical papers to address film as an aspect of mass culture. Texts include Sergei Eisenstein’s Film Form, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art, Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” as well as criticism by Parker Tyler, Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, and Andrew Sarris. Directors covered will include John Ford, Wong Kar-Wei, Stan Brakhage, Alfred Hitchcock,  Spike Lee, Maya Deren, Michael Powell, Orson Welles, and Terence Malick.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)