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 2025/26a: Reconceptualizing Melodrama. Melodrama is more than a genre - depending on the scholar or artist, it has also been framed as a mode of address, a style, or even a sensibility. While “melodrama” may suggest popular films from the 1930s to the 1950s that relied on stylization and heightened emotion and have since fallen out of fashion, melodrama is also a mutating mode of address that has remained consistently present throughout the years. In this seminar, we read theory that repositions melodrama, tracking its lingering presence and popularity in different national film traditions (Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Hong Kong), its recurrence in post-modern remakes, and its afterlife in television serials, animations, documentaries, and experimental films. Alongside classics by David Lean, Douglas Sirk, and Emílio Fernandez, screenings may include works by Wong Kar-wai, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lucrecia Martel, Todd Haynes, Mathias Müller, Yvonne Rainer, Chantal Akerman, Eduardo Coutinho, Werner Schroeter, João Pedro Rodrigues, among others. Fabio Andrade.

Topic for 2025/26b: Black Documentary Traditions. For decades, filmmakers across the African diaspora have utilized documentary to address social justice, elevate unknown histories, and celebrate talented artists. Black documentary films are densely layered and carefully crafted to reflect the complex, contradictory and contested subjects they address. Twenty years after the establishment of The Black Documentary Collective, many formerly fledgling artists are now award-winning filmmakers working as producers, directors, cinematographers, editors, curators, distributors and archivists. This course examines the history, politics and formalism of Black documentary practice across the diaspora through close analysis of work by Gordon Parks, Saint Claire Bourne, Marlon Riggs, Camille Billops, William Greaves, Ava DuVernay, Raoul Peck, Isaac Julien, Yance Ford, and Yvonne Welbon. Films studied may include: The Negro Sailor (1945), Diary of a Harlem Family (1968), Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther (1969), The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971), Malcolm X: His Own Words as It Really Happened (1972). Mia Mask.

One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.

Course Format: CLS