Catalogue 2023-2024 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Film Department
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Chair: Erica Stein;
Professor: Mia Maskb;
Associate Professors: Sophia Harvey, Shane Slattery-Quintanilla, Erica Stein;
Assistant Professor: Denise Iris;
Visiting Assistant Professor: Alex Kupfer;
Adjunct Assistant Professors: Chithra Jeyaram, Katherine Model;
Adjunct Instructor: Joseph Muszynski.
b On leave 2023/24, second semester
Major
Correlate Sequence in Film
The correlate sequence in Film offers the opportunity to investigate Film as an adjunct to another major through a coherent sequence of study. Through the progression of courses at the 100-, 200-, and 300-level, students develop a foundational understanding of cinema studies methodology and–if room allows– basic filmmaking and/or screenwriting techniques. Film: I. Introductory
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FILM 175 - Introduction to Screen Arts Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
An introductory exploration of central features of film and television aesthetics, including formal and stylistic elements, such as color, lighting, editing, sound, narrative structure, etc. Students are exposed to a wide spectrum of types of films and television shows, including: silent, abstract, non-narrative, foreign, and documentaries, and the artistic choices manifested by each. We look at issues pertaining to production, distribution, and exhibition. Subjects are treated topically rather than historically, and emphasis is placed on mastering key vocabulary and concepts. Katherine Model.
Open only to first-year students.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 180 - The Screenplay as Literature Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course is a survey of the history, theory, and analysis of the screenplay as a literary form. How did the screenplay arise? Is the screenplay a piece of literature? What is the future for the screenplay? How do we read and contextualize a screenplay within the greater scope of film and literature? These are some of the questions we explore. We also study screenplays in and of themselves, in order to better understand how they are crafted, how they function, and why they exist. Joseph Muszynski.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS
Film: II. Intermediate
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FILM 209 - World Cinema Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
An international history of film with a greater emphasis on world cinemas from the 1930s to the contemporary period. The course focuses on major directors, industrial organization, and the contributions of various national movements. In addition to the historical survey, this course introduces students to the major issues of classical and contemporary film theory. Erica Stein (a); Katherine Model (b).
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 213 - Conspiracy Films and Series
1 unit(s)
How can film and television visualize a system that defies comprehension? How do such media articulate the flows of power that shape our world? Conspiracy narratives have been a hallmark of popular cinematic crime genres since the early 20th century, yet they proliferate far beyond expected generic boundaries to emerge in films about investigative journalism and animated series about urban park management alike. This course traces the development of conspiracy narratives from their emergence in early genre cinema through key inflection points in films of the 1970s (Parallax View) and 1990s (LA Confidential), as well as contemporary television series (Central Park, Chernobyl). We place these examples in conversation with key theories of conspiracy as a mechanism for making sense of global capital and its infrastructures like Fredric Jameson’s and Brian Larkin’s. Assignments include a short paper, a screening journal, discussion leadership, and an annotated bibliography.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 .
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 215 - Genre: Science Fiction
1 unit(s)
The course presents a survey of global science-fiction cinema from its beginnings in the silent period to the advent of digital technologies. Topics include subgenres (end of the world, time travel, space exploration, cyborgs), the relation of science-fiction films to their socio-political context and their function in popular culture. We contextualize these topics within discourses of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and feminism. Screenings may include: Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany), Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987, USA), Enthiran (S. Shankar, 2010, India), Cyber Wars (Kuo Jian Hong, 2004, Singapore) and Nuoc 2030 (Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo, 2014, Vietnam).
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
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FILM 217 - Video Art Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 217 ) Video continues to document, illuminate, and instruct our lives daily. New channels of accessibility have opened it to a broad range of alternative practices, always in relation to its online or televised utility. In this studio, students make videos to better understand the affects and formal potential of video as an opportunity for critique. Technical experimentation covers the major tools of video production and post-production. Workshops examine set, keying, montage, sound, pacing, composition, and the cut. Regular assignments address a range of structural problems, at once conceptual and plastic (topics include the question of the subject, politics of visibility, satire, abjection, abstraction, psychedelia, performance and humiliation). Work by artists who have harnessed or perverted video’s components is screened bi-weekly. Abigail Gunnels.
Prerequisite(s): ART 102 -ART 103 or a 100-level Film course and permission of the instructor.
Two 2-hour periods.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 218 - The Western: Global and Intergalactic Frontiers
1 unit(s)
The western is one of the formative American film genres with origins in early silent, “raid-and-rescue” pictures like The Great Train Robbery (1903) The Lonedale Operator (1911) and The Hazards of Helen (1914). This course offers historical and cultural contextualization of the Western film genre. It highlights the relationship between the genre and the dominant myths embedded in American history that have concealed, obscured, and glorified the colonialism of settler culture. The changing nature of masculinity, the representation of violence, the dehumanization of BIPOC, and the marginalization of women are addressed. The course also considers generic evolution and revision. Over the years, filmmakers have reimagined and reconfigured the Western, adapting it to, and adopting, the political sentiments of the day. European iterations (i.e., “spaghetti” and “sauerkraut” Westerns shot in Italy, Spain, and Germany), feminist westerns, Black westerns, parodic westerns, pro-Native/anti-Settler westerns, queer westerns, and even science fiction westerns emerged. With each revision the template of the genre rotated on its axis. The course examines the evolution of Western movies in North America, Europe, and the global south. It also addresses intergalactic iterations in which outer space is “the final frontier.” Screenings may include: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943); High Noon (1952); Cat Ballou (1965); Django (1966); Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969); Buck and the Preacher (1971); Rosewood (1997); Pitch Black (2000); Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Django Unchained (2012). Readings, screenings, and papers required. Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 221 - American Avant-Garde Film
1 unit(s)
This course offers a survey of American avant-garde film in all its modes, ranging from experimental work like Jennifer Proctor’s Jen Proctor: A Movie, to surrealist-influenced documentary like Joshua Yates’s The Bags, to innovative narrative cinema like Agnes Varda’s Lions Love (…and Lies). While the course covers major avant-garde movements like mytho-poeticism and structuralism, it is organized thematically rather than chronologically. The course is divided into three units, each of which interrogates one of the terms in the title. The first unit explores films that expand our perception of what it means to be American and challenge received ideas about individual and collective identity. The second unit examines how the avant-garde constitutes itself both in opposition to commercial film and as its own industrial form. The third unit investigates film itself – how and why medium specificity and technology are important to these moving images. Assignments include an historical presentation, a short analytic essay, a take-home exam, and a final position paper on the future of the American avant-garde film. Erica Stein.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
Corequisite(s): FILM 222 .
Two 75-minute periods accompanied by film screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 222 - Curating Microcinemas
0.5 unit(s)
The course meets for a total of six weeks, two weeks in the first third of the semester, and the final four weeks of the semester. In this intensive component, students learn about microcinemas, a key exhibition site in contemporary American avant-garde film, and then develop and program their own at an off-campus site. Students have the responsibility of selecting, pitching, and securing the titles to be screened, developing the space, performing audience outreach, composing program notes, and introducing the films at the screening. The intensive component is configured as one hour of additional in-class workshop and consultations plus three hours of independent research, outreach, and pitching during the initial two weeks of the intensive. During the last four weeks, the intensive is configured as half-hour small-group check-ins with the professor every week, as well as independent, out-of-class work to financially and logistically assemble the microcinema, finalize programming, publicize the screening, and produce the program. Erica Stein.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 .
Corequisite(s): FILM 221 .
Required for students enrolled in FILM 221 American Avant-Garde Film .
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 223 - Cinemas and Urbanisms
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 223 ) The cinema is one of the technologies, like mass transit and electricity, that made rapid urbanization in the early 20th century possible. Cities were one of early cinema’s favorite subjects, and their population density provided the audiences media industries needed to flourish. A quarter of the way through the 21st century, as the global population is increasingly urbanized and our lives, wherever we live them, are increasingly mediated, the relationship of cinematic media and cities becomes ever more inextricable. The course surveys the development of that relationship over the past 125 years. We explore how cinema developed a standardized grammar for imagining the city and taxonomizing some of its key features, the role cinematic technologies played in shaping (and contesting) urban redevelopment, the architectures that determine how cities house moving images, and the uses to which the entertainment industry and citizens alike put the cinema as ti shapes our daily lives in the city. Throughout our explorations, we encounter deadly tourists in Glasgow, enchanted lovers and slaughterhouses in Paris, ghosts in Dakar, small-time mobsters in New York, detectives in over their heads in Tokyo, and travelers in Sao Paolo. Assignments include two papers, a group presentation, and a creative project on the cinematic image of the Hudson Valley region. Erica Stein.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 , FILM 209 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 224 - Film Festivals & Exhibition Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
This intensive explores the contemporary mediascape of film festivals and exhibition practices. This includes major festivals, small festivals, drive-ins, and simulcasts. Our focus is on site-specific learning: we investigate how the locations and logistics of various types of film exhibitions creates meaning and cultural capital for promoters and audiences alike. Throughout, we investigate issues of access as they relate to geography, (dis)ability, technology, and socio-economic status. We accomplish this via field trips throughout the semester to the local area’s largest and most important festival, the New York Film Festival, its oldest continuous LGBT festival, New Fest, as well as to a Poughkeepsie drive-in and to a Westchester film center that streams live theatrical events. We also explore the creation and curation of digital environments for these festivals, and host class visits from festival programmers and other workers. Students are expected to attend all field trips and class visits, and to complete four short reflection papers throughout the semester. Erica Stein.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 .
One 1-hour period.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 230 - European Women’s Cinema
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 230 ) This course examines contemporary European culture and history through film; various critical theories (feminist, queer, post-colonial), are studied and applied to films, through selected readings and other relevant resources. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the purpose of this course is to provide critical models for interpreting social and cultural constructions of meaning. We consider the ways in which images of women and the concept of “woman” are invested with culturally and historically specific meanings that intersect with other categories of difference/identity such as: class, sexual orientation, excess, war, and the state. Essential to the discussion of difference will be the analysis of the cultural and linguistic differences introduced by the otherness of film itself, and of the specific films we study. Cinematic interpretive skills are developed through visual and linguistic exercises, group projects, and film-making. Film directors may include: Lina Wertmüller, Liliana Cavani, Margarethe von Trotta, Monika Treut, Ulrike Öttinger, Claire Denis, Coline Serreau, Céline Sciamma, Gurinder Chadha, Ngozi Onwurah.
Prerequisite(s): WFQS 130 preferable but not obligatory.
Open to Sophomores and above.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
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FILM 231 - Minorities in the Media
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 231 ) This course examines the dynamics of race, class, gender and sexuality as they are represented in American society. Throughout the semester, we analyze media (i.e., films, television programs, YouTube videos, advertisements), and mediated discourse, to assess the way categories of “minority” and “majority” identity have been constructed in mainstream society and popular culture. In addition to examining images of those persons collective known as “minorities,” (BIPOC, LGBTQIA), we consider the representation of those defined as “majority” Americans. This course utilizes Black British Cultural Studies, African American Studies, Critical Race Theory and Sociology. The course also engages scholarship from the field of whiteness studies. Issues and topics may include the concept of “model minorities” (i.e., Henry Louis Gates, Jennifer Lopez, Rahm Emmanuel, Ellen DeGeneres, the Williams Sisters, Barack Obama); global branding; the BLM movement; police brutality (i.e., Rodney King, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, George Floyd); the Proposition 209 conflict; the WNBA; gay marriage; Islamophobia; and the representation of the Middle East. Readings, weekly screenings, and papers required. Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 232 - African American Cinema
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 232 ) This course provides a survey of the history and theory of African American representation in cinema. It begins with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux and examines early Black cast westerns (Harlem Rides the Range, The Bronze Buckaroo, Harlem on the Prairie) and musicals (St. Louis Blues, Black and Tan, Hi De Ho, Sweethearts of Rhythm). Political debate circulating around cross over stars (Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Eartha Kitt, and Harry Belafonte) are central to the course. Special consideration is given to Blaxploitation cinema of the seventies (Shaft, Coffy, Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones) in an attempt to understand its impact on filmmakers and the historical contexts for contemporary filmmaking. The course covers “Los Angeles Rebellion” filmmakers such as Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, and Haile Gerima. Realist cinema of the 80’s and 90’s (Do the Right Thing, Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society, and Set it off),is examined before the transition to Black romantic comedies, family films, and genre pictures (Coming to America, Love and Basketball, The Best Man, Akeelah and the Bee, 12 Years a Slave, The Great Debaters). Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
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FILM 233 - Sidney Poitier on Film
1 unit(s)
A national hero and international icon, Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and ambassador Sidney Poitier was a trailblazer. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor becoming the first black male and Bahamian artist to earn recognition from an industry known for racial stereotypes. In 1967, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Poitier was the most successful film star in America, having starred in three of the top grossing films that year (To Sir with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner). He had triumphed on Broadway in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. But his career trajectory was riddled with controversy, debate, and some heartbreak over career choices to work within the Hollywood system. This course offers close readings of the films of Sidney Poitier in light of analysis by scholars James Baldwin, Harold Cruse, Paul Robeson, and Lorraine Hansberry. Film screenings will include No Way Out (1950), Blackboard Jungle (1955), The Defiant Ones (1958), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Paris Blues (1961), Lilies of the Field (1963), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and Buck and the Preacher (1972), among others. Readings, screenings, and papers required. Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 .
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 234 - The Coen Brothers as Postmodern Auteurs Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This class considers the career and work of Joel and Ethan Coen from Blood Simple (1984) to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) through the lenses of industry, culture, and aesthetics. We learn how the Coens came to typify the association of auteurism with festival-based promotional strategies and revisionist genre films in post-classical Hollywood. At the same time, we also discuss the two ways in which they question and destabilize the very notion of auteurism. First, as we explore the role adaptation, quotation, and genre mixing play in their acquisition and development of film properties, we ask how these prototypically postmodern qualities call the notion of the director as author into question. Second, as we investigate the formal aspects of their films, we ask how their work critiques the notion of any kind of authorial or authority figure being present or useful in modern life. Assignments include short reaction papers, a genre or adaptation presentation, and a final research paper. Erica Stein.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 238 - Music and Sound in Film Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MUSI 238 ) Why do films have music? How do music and sound influence (and sometimes even control) what we see and experience in film? This course delves into the terminology and methodologies for analyzing and interpreting the interaction between filmic image and sound. Tahirih Motazedian.
Prerequisite(s): One course in Music (not performance) or Film.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 240 - Sculpting Images in Time Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course introduces students to the basic concepts and skills involved in digital film production such as camerawork and video editing. We begin with the image, exploring in great detail its formal qualities: composition, light, color, movement, mise-en-scène, juxtapositions and temporal dimensions. Sound is introduced as a way to complicate the image – first as sound design and finally as dialogue. Denise Iris.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Corequisite(s): FILM 209 can be taken concurrently.
One 3-hour period; additional lab time required.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 241 - Sound and Sight Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
The course introduces students to basic concepts and skills involved in film production but inverts the usual priority granted to the visual over the aural in film: here we focus on sound as the generative kernel behind a cinematic work. The course explores how sound can function as the driving force of story, character, and world-building, and the moving image is introduced as a way to extend the expressive possibilities of sound. Shane Slattery-Quintanilla.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Corequisite(s): FILM 209 can be taken concurrently.
One 3-hour period; additional lab time required.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 242 - Fragile Presence: The Ultra Short Film as Personal Cinematic Practice Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 242 ) Can we use filmmaking to cultivate attentiveness and a playful sense of presence in everyday life? How does having a cinematic practice — a laboratory of ongoing audiovisual exploration — help us to develop confidence in our own creative process while also acting as a form of journaling? In this intensive, we search for the poetry, whimsy and depth of meaning in the daily unfolding of our outer and inner lives. We privilege the joy of discovery over an evaluative mindset through site-specific shooting prompts around campus and improvisational editing experiences. Outside meeting times, students shoot and edit on their own, creating five 1 min. films in six weeks. Prior filmmaking experience is helpful, but passionate self-starters are equally welcome. Denise Iris.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor. Priority given to students with some shooting and editing experience.
First six-week course.
One 2-hour period and individual conferences with the instructor.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 243 - The Liberation Arts Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
What does it really mean to be free? Does one need to learn it? If so, how? In this intensive we reimagine the liberal arts as the arts of liberation: over the course of the semester, various students, staff, faculty, and guests will introduce us to the creative practices that best serve them in their pursuit of freedom, however they choose (or refuse) to define it. In addition to participating in the workshops, students play a role in documenting, through sound, image, and text, the various perspectives and practices we encounter. This documentation culminates in a final collaborative process of weaving these audiovisual materials into a work of art that reflects upon our shared experiences and discoveries. This intensive foregrounds experiential, interdisciplinary, and non-hierarchical collaborative practices. Shane Slattery-Quintanilla.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor. All students are eligible to apply using this link: https://forms.gle/wXZkVch71vcGxx7t6.
Second six-week course.
One 90-minute period.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 244 - Creative Development Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 244 ) This course explores various approaches to the conception and development of works of screen art, with special attention to the short form. We consider the often unheralded role that research plays in the artistic process, as well as the types of critical and imaginative thinking across disciplines that can support us in the early stages of any creative project. While different forms of writing remain important to the work of creative development, in this course we also employ non-textual traditions and techniques that have long been crucial to filmmakers and more broadly to artists of all kinds, including inspiration boards, mood reels, video “sketches,” and various improvisational and collaborative exercises that can aid in the genesis of original artistic ideas. Students learn through practice, study, and reflection how these creative methodologies provide the foundation for later stages of development and pre-production. This course foregrounds collective practices and paragogy (peer-learning) as essential components of creative development: beyond project-level collaboration, we explore how our membership to various creative and scholarly communities brings with it a whole range of responsibilities, opportunities, and challenges. In so doing we are revisiting and reimagining what the concepts of the auteur and the caméra-stylo might mean to us in this particular cultural moment, when mobile devices and social media have transformed our relationship to the moving image. Shane Slattery-Quintanilla.
Prerequisite(s): MEDS 160 or FILM 209 and permission of the instructor; first-years are not eligible to take this course. Apply using this form: https://forms.gle/MyRi56VGBns9gM2D7
One 3-hour period and additional lab time required.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 245 - Producing Audio Narratives Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 245 ) This practice-based course places contemporary podcast forms within the larger context of sonic artistry across cinema, radio, and other media. As we produce our own original short audio narratives, we draw from a wide range of disciplines, techniques, and methodologies, including oral history, deep listening, non-extractive journalism and documentary practices, radio drama, voice acting and live performance, audio essay and collage, as well as abstract sound art and design. Students use professional equipment and software to produce their audio assignments, and they work collectively to create a showcase event and/or platform for their final projects. Shane Slattery-Quintanilla.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 240 or FILM 241 or MEDS 250 and permission of the instructor.
Corequisite(s): FILM 246 - Wild Sound .
Required for students enrolled in FILM 246 - Wild Sound .
One 3-hour period and additional lab time required.
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FILM 246 - Wild Sound Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
“Wild sound” is any audio used in film or broadcast media that has been recorded asynchronously from the visual content or from the primary sonic component (as in the case with radio or other purely sonic media). It’s also a poetic term that conjures a landscape of possibilities and practices that might seem increasingly exotic in our screen-mediated lives, but which professional sound designers and sound artists still employ to powerful effect. This intensive introduces those possibilities primarily through a series of exploratory “sound walks” that take us and our field recording gear out of the classroom and into the built and natural environments around us. Over the course of the intensive we collectively curate a library of original sounds from which we construct or supplement at least one purely sonic project and one audiovisual project, which can take the form of a short narrative scene, image-essay, or collage. Shane Slattery-Quintanilla.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 240 or FILM 241 or MEDS 250 and permission of the instructor.
Corequisite(s): FILM 245 - Producing Audio Narratives ; Required for students enrolled in FILM 245 .
One 90-minute period.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 254 - Emotional Engagement with Film
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 254 and PSYC 254 ) While movies engage our emotions in psychologically significant ways, scholarship on the psychological allure and impact of film has existed primarily at the interdisciplinary margins. This course aims to bring such scholarship into the foreground. We begin with a careful examination of the appeal and power of narrative, as well as processes of identification and imagined intimacy with characters, before taking a closer analytical look at specific film genres (e.g., melodrama, horror, comedy, action, social commentary) both in their own right and in terms of their psychological significance (e.g., why do we enjoy sad movies? How do violent movies influence viewer aggression? How might socially conscious films inspire activism or altruism?) In addition to delving into theoretical and empirical papers, a secondary goal of the course is to engage students as collaborators; brainstorm and propose innovative experimental methods for testing research questions and hypotheses that emerge in step with course materials.
Prerequisite(s): For Psychology majors - PSYC 105 ; for Film majors - FILM 175 or FILM 209 ; for Media Studies majors - MEDS 160 .
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 255 - Four Italian Filmmakers (in English)
1 unit(s)
(Same as ITAL 255 ) Close analysis of the narrative and visual styles of Bernardo Bertolucci, Federico Fellini, Gianni Amelio and Nanni Moretti, in the context of post-war Italian cinema and culture. Theoretical literature on these directors and on approaches to the interpretation of film-such as psychoanalytic film theory, feminist theory, deconstruction, and post-colonial analyses of dominant discourses-aid us in addressing questions of style and of political and social significance. Cinematic interpretive skills are developed through visual and linguistic exercises, group projects, and film-making. Conducted in English. Rodica Blumenfeld.
Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. May be counted towards the Italian major.
Two 75-minute periods and two film screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
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FILM 256 - American Television History Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 256 ) This course surveys the history of television in the United States from the 1940s to the present. It examines the social and industrial significance of television and its impact on issues such as class, race, gender, consumerism, and national identity. We investigate changes in televisual aesthetics and narrative paradigms and the ways that television responded to significant cultural, political and technological changes in American society. Throughout the semester we draw upon a range of critical frameworks including media industry studies, genre theory, and celebrity studies as we address topics such as the attempts to develop alternate models of broadcasting, networks’ efforts to bolster television’s cultural status, media convergence, and the formal characteristics of different television genres. Screenings include I Love Lucy, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Orange is the New Black. Alexander Kupfer.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 for students registering for FILM 256. MEDS 160 for students registering for MEDS 256.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 260 - Documentary: History and Aesthetics Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course explores the history, theory, and aesthetics of documentary cinema from its emergence to the present day. We examine the ways that cultural, political and technological factors have shaped the development of non-fiction film. In addition, the interrelationships between documentary and narrative cinema as well as other media including photography, comic books, and television are considered. The class places documentary in its broader contexts to include forms such as sponsored, experimental, scientific, and amateur films. Throughout the semester, students read primary historical sources along with scholarly approaches to the development, uses, and meanings of documentary cinema. Screenings include films by Michael Moore, George Stoney, Robert Drew, Agnes Varda, Chick Strand, Errol Morris, and many others. Alexander Kupfer.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 265 - German Film in English Translation
1 unit(s)
(Same as GERM 265 )
Readings and discussions are in English, and all films have English subtitles.
Open to all classes.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 266 - Genre: Asian Horror
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 266 ) This course examines contemporary Asian horror. Using a variety of critical perspectives, we deconstruct the pantheon of vampires, monsters, ghosts, and vampire ghosts inhabiting such diverse regions as Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines to explore constructions of national/cultural identity, gender, race, class, and sexuality. We ground these observations within a discussion of the nature of horror and the implications of horror as a trans/national genre. Sophia Harvey.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 280 - Israeli and Palestinian Cinemas: The Films of Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course focuses on two directors, one Palestinian, Michel Khleifi, one Israeli, Eyal Sivan, with important bodies of work that challenge official narratives and take on traumatic histories. In 2003, Sivan and Khleifi made a significant four-and-half-hour documentary together entitled Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel. Through close analysis of both directors’ individual works, Route 181, and other films, the course examines how Israeli and Palestinian history and traumatic events are represented in fiction and documentary cinema. We also look at influences on the directors’ films, including earlier Israeli and Palestinian cinema, and consider contemporary Israeli and Palestinian film within the context of Khleifi and Sivan’s oeuvres. Scholars we read include Edward Said, Ella Shohat, Hamid Naficy, Livia Alexander, Ariella Azoulay, and Nadia Yaqub. Katherine Model.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods accompanied by film screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 281 - Film Editing Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course provides students with an overview of the entire post-production process, emphasizing how new technologies shape the way we tell a story. Topics include picture and sound editing, color correction, basic motion graphics, and visual effects. The class explores film history, aesthetics, and technology. Students review narrative, documentary, and experimental work, as well as edit several projects, exploring these different modes using pre-existing footage. The goal of the course is to develop the practical and analytic skills required of an editor as a member of the filmmaking team. Chithra Jeyaram.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 and FILM 240 or FILM 241 .
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 285 - The Cinema of Sidney Poitier Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
Sidney Poitier, KBE, was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, producer and diplomat. He was also the first African American performer to win an Academy Award for Best Actor (Lilies of the Field, 1963). In addition to his career in entertainment, Poitier was a political activist. In this intensive, students study the life and times of the man who—by many accounts—changed Hollywood. Watching landmark movies and social problem pictures, reading biographies and memoirs, analyzing press interviews, film criticism and historical analysis, students gain a fuller sense of the social climate in which the actor-director-producer (and his compatriot Harry Belafonte) worked and lived. Beginning with his stage career in the American Negro Theater and moving into his directorial debut (Buck and the Preacher, 1972), as well as his work as producer, this intensive offers a close analysis of the artistry and activism of a world-renowned talent. He was a man to whom Queen Elizabeth granted knighthood and President Barack Obama bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Students may produce a collaborative Poitier encyclopedia or filmography in addition to papers. Reading, film screenings and papers required. Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
One 1-hour period plus outside screenings.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 288 - Women and/in Cinema: a French Perspective Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as FFS 288 and WFQS 288 ) Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968) is not a household name in the 21st century; it might surprise many of us to learn that she was a pioneer in filmmaking, and is credited with directing as early as 1896 one of the first fictional narrative films, La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy). Many French cinéastes have followed in her footsteps, making films that foreground women’s perspectives. This course highlights the long but not-always-recognized legacy of Guy-Blaché by considering the ways in which French cinematographers have harnessed the power of the cinematic medium to interrogate what it means to be “feminist.” Focusing on discussions of the effects of patriarchy on perceptions of gender and sexuality in France and by paying attention to (post)colonial histories that have shaped that nation’s complex response to the feminist turn, we analyze themes such as migration, class, gender politics and the roles that personal choice and ethics play in shaping women’s narratives. Possible filmmakers and films (in French, with English Subtitles) include: Agnès Varda (One Sings the Other Doesn’t [1977]), Brigitte Roüan (Outremer [1990]), Claire Denis (I can’t Sleep [1994]), Philippe Faucon (Dans la vie [2008], Fatima [2016]), Céline Sciamma (Girlhood [2014], Portrait of a Lady on Fire [2019]) Catherine Corsini (Summer Hours [2015]). Knowledge of French is welcome, but not required. Vinay Swamy.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 2 unit(s)
To be elected in consultation with the adviser and the Office of Community-Engaged Learning.
May not be used toward the Major requirements.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
To be elected in consultation with the adviser.
Course Format: OTH
Film: III. Advanced
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FILM 300 - Film Research Thesis Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
An academic thesis in film history or theory, written under the supervision of a member of the department. Since writing a thesis during fall semester is preferable, film majors should talk to their advisers spring of junior year. In Film, a research thesis is recommended but not required, especially for those students not writing a FILM 301 or enrolled in FILM 327 Senior Project: Fiction or FILM 326 Senior Project: Non-Fiction . The Department.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 , two additional courses in film history and theory, and permission of the instructor.
Course Format: OTH -
FILM 301 - Film Screenplay Thesis Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
The creation of a feature-length original screenplay. Open only to students electing the concentration in film. Senior status required. Students wishing to write a screenplay instead of a research thesis must have produced work of distinction in FILM 317 Introduction to Screenwriting and FILM 319 Advanced Screenwriting . No correlates are eligible to write a screenplay thesis. The Department.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Course Format: OTH -
FILM 310 - Film Authorship
1 unit(s)
This course examines the complications of authorship in film by analyzing various competing theoretical models. Then it tests these models against the work on an auteur. Students are expected to attend screenings, conduct independent research, and keep up with wide variety of historical and theoretical readings.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 .
Note that this class does not replace the major requirement of FILM 392 .
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
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FILM 317 - Introduction to Screenwriting Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as DRAM 317 ) Study of dramatic construction as it applies to film, plus practice in story development and screenwriting. Joseph Muszynski.
Prerequisite(s): DRAM 102 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
Writing sample required two weeks before preregistration.
Open only to juniors and seniors.
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 319 - Advanced Screenwriting Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
An in-depth exploration of the screenplay as a dramatic form and a workshop aimed at the development, writing, and rewriting of a feature-length screenplay. Students study the work of noted screenwriters and are required to complete a feature-length screenplay as their final project in the course. Film majors who have produced works of distinction in FILM 317 are given first priority. This course is not open to Film correlates. Joseph Muszynski.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 , DRAM 317 or FILM 317 , and permission of the instructor. Film Majors are given first priority.
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 324 - Cinema Modes Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
The course exposes students to narrative, documentary, and experimental approaches and explores how these modes mutually inform and fertilize one another. Prepares students for senior-level work as they create one narrative, one documentary, and one experimental film. The course culminates in a final project that can be any of the three modes or hybrid that fruitfully overlaps or evades these categories. Denise Iris.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 240 or FILM 241 and permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 325 - Writing the Short Film Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
A screenwriting course that explores and celebrates the possibilities of the short form, not simply as subordinate or preliminary to the work of feature filmmaking, but as its own vital approach to the moving arts.
Those wishing to take FILM 327 are strongly encouraged to take FILM 325. Denise Iris.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 240 or FILM 241 and permission of the instructor. This course is closed to Film correlates.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 326 - Senior Project: Non-Fiction Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Students create short nonfiction films, from concept to final delivery. Participants offer reciprocal support of their peers’ projects by filling crew positions. Students wishing to enroll in the course must submit a project proposal in the preceding semester. Shane Slattery-Quintanilla.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 240 or FILM 241 and permission of the instructor. Strong preference given to students who have completed FILM 324 Cinema Modes . This course is closed to Film correlates.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 327 - Senior Project: Fiction Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Students create short fiction films, from concept to final delivery. Participants offer reciprocal support of their peers’ projects by filling crew positions. Students wishing to enroll in the course must submit a project proposal in the preceding semester. Those wishing to make narrative films are strongly encouraged to take FILM 325 Writing the Short Film . Denise Iris.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 240 or FILM 241 and permission of the instructor.
This course is not open to Film correlates.
One 3-hour period.
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FILM 331 - Compilation Films: The Uses of Cinema and the Archive Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This seminar examines the history, theory, and aesthetics of the compilation film, or non-fiction motion pictures that utilize footage produced for another purpose to generate a new text. Drawing on theories of non-fiction cinema and experimental film, we explore the complex questions that compilation films pose about the circulation and re-appropriation of moving images by artists, governments, corporations, and documentary filmmakers. The course addresses a range of critical frameworks and historical issues though a series of overlapping case studies related to the archive, propaganda, cinephilia, and cultural memory in order to consider how compilation films shaped and are shaped by conceptions of the past shared by members of particular subcultures. The final part of the semester is devoted to the intersection of new media and the compilation film in remix culture, database cinema, and digital archives. Screenings include works by Bruce Conner, Santiago Álvarez, Connie Field, Joseph Cornell, Craig Baldwin, Esfir Shub, Emile de Antonio, and many others. Alexander Kupfer.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 335 - Celebrity and Power: Stardom in Contemporary Culture Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Celebrity fascinates Americans. It informs popular culture, professional sport and national politics. Yet what defines celebrity? How are stars manufactured by the Culture Industry? Why is the ubiquitous cult of celebrity so important in contemporary Western culture and across global mediascapes? Through classic and contemporary theoretical writings, the course examines stardom and various brands of star charisma. We interrogate conventional forms of celebrity power as well as the conversion of entertainment industry charisma into forms of political charisma and cultural capital (i.e., the careers of Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sidney Poitier, Jennifer Lopez, John Leguizamo, the Brangelina trademark, and Beyonce Knowles). The course will address the rise of reality television celebrities. As intertextual signs, stars reveal the instabilities, ambiguities and contradictions within a given culture. The changing configuration of American society is revealed in an examination of celebrity and stardom as social phenomena. This course transverses from Mary Pickford to Oprah Winfrey and beyond. Readings, screenings and writing assignments required. Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
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FILM 336 - African Cinema: A Continental Survey
1 unit(s)
African national cinemas reflect the rich, complex history of the continent. These films from lands as diverse as Chad, Senegal, and South Africa reveal the various ways filmmakers have challenged the representation of Africa and Africans while simultaneously revising conventional cinematic syntax. This survey course examines the internal gaze of African-born auteurs like Ousmane Sembene (La Noir De, Xala, Mandabi), Djbril Diop Mambety (Hyenes), Desire Ecare (Faces of Women), Manthia Diawara (Conakry Kas), and Mahmat-Saleh Haroun (Bye-Bye Africa). It places these films alongside the external gaze of practitioners Euzan Palcy (A Dry White Season), Jean-Jacques Annaud (Noir et Blancs en Couleur) and Raoul Peck (Lumumba). The films of documentary filmmakers Anne Laure Folly, Ngozi Onwurah and Pratibah Parmaar are also examined. This course utilizes the post-colonial film theory and scholarship of Imruh Bakari, Mbye Cham, Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike and Manthia Diawara. Screenings, readings and papers required. Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 or FILM 209 , and permission of the instructor.
Corequisite(s): FILM 337 .
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 337 - The Films of Ousmane Sembene
0.5 unit(s)
This intensive is designed as a collective independent study to introduce students to the films of Ousmane Sembene, one of Africa’s most celebrated and pioneering filmmakers. Trained in Moscow at the Moscow Film School; writer of novels; and the director of such classics as Mandabi (1968), Xala (1975), Faat Kine (2000) and Moolaadé (2004), Sembene has been called the father of Black African cinema. By closely studying his films and completing course readings, students will learn in greater depth about his aesthetics and poetics. Students meet together as a group every other week (7 times a semester) for discussions of films and directed readings. The reading list includes scholars such as Manthia Diawara, Frank Ukadike, Hamid Naficy, Nugugi Wa Thiong’o, Teshome Gabriel, Sylvia Winter and Kobena Mercer. Mia Mask.
Corequisite(s): FILM 336 .
One 1-hour period.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 339 - Contemporary Southeast Asian Cinemas Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 339 ) This course is designed to introduce students to the dynamic and diverse contemporary film texts emerging from Singapore and Thailand. The course focuses on the themes of urban spaces and gender and sexuality. The course reading material is designed to provide (1) theoretical insights, (2) general socio-cultural and/or political overviews, and (3) more specific analyses of film texts and/or filmmakers. Sophia Harvey.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
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FILM 380 - Sports Documentaries and Docuseries Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This seminar examines the history, theory, and aesthetics of sports documentaries and docuseries. Drawing on theories of non-fiction cinema, sports media, and media industry studies, we will consider the complex questions that sports documentaries pose about issues related to race, gender, and inequality. The course addresses a range of ciritcal frameworks and historical issues through a series of overlapping case studies related to the archive, star studies, sports-washing, and cultural memory to consider how sports documentaries shaped and are shaped by conceptions of the past shared by members of historically marginalized groups. Special attention is devoted to the increasing cultural and economic significance of sports docuseries to media industries and their centrality on broadcast, cable, and streaming television. To cover a wide range of sports, screenings will include: OJ: Made in America, Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Happy Valley, Athlete A, Dawson City: Frozen Time, Senna, When We Were Kings, and Hoop Dreams. Alexander Kupfer.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 or MEDS 160 .
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 391 - Sensuous Theory Writing Workshop
0.5 unit(s)
This intensive is attached to FILM 392 . The writing workshop is based upon peer review, works-in-progress presentations, writing accountability groups, in-workshop writing sessions, and end of the semester paper presentations. This intensive meets with the instructor five times throughout the semester. Sophia Harvey.
Corequisite(s): FILM 392 .
Required for students enrolled in FILM 392 Research Seminar in Film History and Theory .
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: INT -
FILM 392 - Research Seminar in Film History and Theory Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
This course is designed as an in-depth exploration of a theoretical topic. Students contribute to the class through research projects and oral presentations. Their work culminates in lengthy research papers. Because topics change, students are permitted (encouraged) to take this course more than once. Preference is given to film majors who must take this class during their senior year; junior majors and others admitted if space permits.
Topic for 2023/24a: Artist, Auteur: Spike Lee. The son of a musician and a teacher, Shelton Jackson Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Nicknamed “Spike”, he grew up in a household that valued education as well as the arts. With the release of his first feature film, Lee initiated another cinematic revolution. He demonstrated to Hollywood studios that serious contemporary African-American films were not only aesthetically innovative, they were also commercially profitable. His success has created opportunity for other writers, directors, actors and technicians. Over the last twenty years Spike Lee has directed an array of challenging, innovative and provocative features, documentaries and commercials. The themes embedded in his work are often culled from news headlines, making him one of the most politically engaged filmmakers of his generation. This course is a senior seminar in which the films of Lee are rigorously examined. Mia Mask.
Topic for 2023/24b: Political and Militant Cinemas. How can film participate in or precipitate revolutionary social change? What are some dominant ways in which engaged cinemas have depicted such change? This course begins by defining political and militant cinemas, exploring the different ways in which cinema has been used in revolutionary struggles across the past century, as well as the ways in which the meanings of these terms changes drastically depending on their context. We examine films that played key roles in organized resistance to fascist and authoritarian regimes (Battle of Chile, In the Name of God) as well as those that draw attention to their afterlives (Wolf House). In addition, we attend to the cinemas of various liberation movements within established democracies, such as those of the Newsreel and New Day collectives in the United States. Throughout the course, a key concern are the ways in which political and militant cinemas have foregrounded and utilized form as a way to articulate their positions and achieve their goals, from Derek Jarman’s use of experimental minimalism in Blue to Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’s invocation of Tropicalism and exploitation in Bacurau. Assignments include a topic proposal workshop, discussion leadership, annotated bibliography, and seminar paper. Erica Stein.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 ; two additional units in film history and theory, and permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
FILM 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
To be elected in consultation with the adviser.
Course Format: OTH
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