Course Catalog

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Course Catalog

PARIS REEL & IMAGINED: PERSPECTIVES ON THE CITY OF LIGHTS (FM3034)

Paris has always been a fertile meeting ground for artists and stimulates the imaginations of newcomers and natives alike. Writers, artists and—in the 20th century—filmmakers have come together in this magical space and shared their fascination with a city of lights, communally recognizing its potential to become home to their fantasies and at times, their despair. Students consider how the Parisian urban landscape is imagined differently by French native vs. expatriate or immigrant writers and filmmakers. They study the comparative methods for visualizing the city unique to writers and filmmakers respectively and gain historical perspective on the central place played by Paris in the evolution of literature and cinema. Titles for viewing and critical reading include: Alain Resnais’ Same Old Song, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris and its contexts; André Breton’s Nadja; Raymond Queneau’s Zazie in the Metro and André Techiné’s The Girl on the RER. Excerpts from Jean-Luc Godard’s Parisian cycle will also be analyzed.

DIRECTING & PRODUCING THE SHORT FICTION FILM (FM3039)

The course will help you learn to direct and produce complex, personally expressive short fictions films. We’ll do this through incremental exercises designed to help you explore storytelling structures, staging, expressive frames, working with actors, sound design, crew negotiation and editing. We’ll also learn essentials of producing, press and distribution. Conducted from the director/producer viewpoint, the course challenges students to create a film that matches form with content and develops production skills through all stages of the process. The class is also an immersive creative workshop, incubating everyone’s ideas with support from the group. Some students will direct their own films. Others will produce other students’ short films in lieu of directing their own film. For best results, it is advised that you have already taken Principles of Video Production and at least one Film Studies course.

FILM/MUSIC (FM3040)

This course examines the reciprocal relationship between film and music, specifically focusing on the ways in which the artistic concerns,technological developments and cultural contexts of each art form influenced or otherwise shaped the other.

SHAKESPEARE & FILM (FM3048)

This course considers how the language of film can sometimes unlock the secrets of Shakespeare's world and help us to understand his contribution to the evolution of art cinema as well as to blockbuster culture. Focus is given to close readings of Shakespeare's plays, analysis of cinematic adaptations and a study of films such as Al Pacino's Looking for Richard or Shakespeare in Love. Directors Kozintsev, Welles, Godard, Olivier and Kurosawa are also studied.

THE ART OF DOCUMENTARY (FM3063)

Documentary filmmaking enables a creative mode of inquiry about the world, a person, a landscape, an issue, or even ourselves. It encourages an open-ended layering of observations: visual, auditory, movement-based, historical and even fictional, as a rich backdrop to researching a topic. This workshop class will introduce students to a range of documentary video practices and impart technical skills to create their own documentary shorts. We will ask questions, watch, play, experiment, respond and explore how form contributes to content. We will engage issues in contemporary documentary practice from the avant-garde to commercial production as inspirations for your own inquiry into your ideas. Students will use research, framing, sound, duration, juxtaposition and different editing strategies to explore their ideas. While we will cover "traditional" documentary genres (interview-based, observational, essay, etc), we will also explore expanded and experimental documentary strategies.

THE AESTHETICS OF CRIME FICTION (FM3069)

Traumatic reaction in the aftermath of WWI, the rapid evolution of cinema and photography, emerging trends of psychoanalytic thought, all contributed to a disturbing, often volatile, re-examination of the aesthetics of literature in the wake of a culture of ruin characterizing early 20th century Europe. Trends in mass consumption, such as the popularity of crime fiction and its existential outgrowth film noir, are largely rooted in this struggle to come to terms with cultural transitions taking place between the two wars. This course will examine the origins and aesthetics of crime fiction and film, notably, the evolution of film noir and the série noire, and other developments in Europe and America just before and after WWII. Students will analyze some of the canonical writers whose works influenced a second generation of crime fiction writers as well as the works of film directors who presided over these crucial moments of transition.

JAPANESE NEW WAVE CINEMA (FM3071)

This course explores Japanese New Wave Cinema by placing the films within the wider discourses of historical, political, social and cultural contexts. We will investigate the ways in which Japanese filmmakers of the period used cinema as a political tool and a weapon in a cultural struggle,while working in a rigid system of commercial film production.

GERMAN CINEMA (FM3072)

Focuses on two major periods of production: Weimar and the New German Cinema. Features the work of Lang, Murnau, Wiene, Pabst, and Lubitsch, and studies their important contribution to film form. Attention given to 'emigre' directors in Hollywood, and then moves onto works by Fassbinder, Kluge, Wenders, Schloendorff, Herzog, Margarethe von Trotta, and Doris Dorrie.

ASIAN CINEMA (FM3073)

Studies post-1945 Japanese cinema, including the Kurosawa epics (Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Ran, Dream). Other masters include Ozu, Mizoguchi and Oshima. Examines Indian cinema and Satyajit Ray, and his masterful Apu trilogy. Concentrates on new Asian film, with works by Chinese (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Wong Kar-Wai, Tsai Ming Liang, and Ang Lee.

ITALIAN CINEMA (FM3074)

Focuses on periods when Italian cinema was at the cutting edge of World Cinema. Begins with films such as Fellini's autobiographical Amarcord. Studies silent-era spectacles (Quo Vadis, Cabiria), and Italian film under fascism and its renaissance with Rossellini and De Sica. Examines leading filmmakers including Fellini, Pasolini, Visconti, and Antonioni. Explores Italian comedy, and the links between cinema and society.