This course will focus on the cinema of a particular nation or region.

This course introduces a century of Chinese cinema through the prism of Shanghai-- as a major site of film production and exhibition, an object of cinematic imagination, a changing urban space marked by colonial modernity, socialism, and postsocialism, a node of transregional and transnational traffic, a point of historical reflection, reconstruction, fetishism, and nostalgia. The class will span from the silent era to contemporary cinema, covering a wide range of genre (slapstick, martial arts, melodrama, opera film, animation, noir, socialist realist cinema, neonoir, documentary) and auteurs such as Sun Yu, Wu Yonggang, Yuan Muzhi, Zheng Junli, and Lou Ye. Students will view some of the most celebrated yet rarely screened films while they hone the foundational skills for film analysis, engage film theory, and familiarize themselves with the complex social and political history of China. All readings in English. No Chinese language skills are required

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