This course will focus on topics in the history, theory and aesthetics of sound cinema.

The goal of this course is to focus on particular issues in film aesthetics, particularly as a way to understand the relationships between film, culture, and politics. Film Aesthetics familiarizes students with some of the major technological and aesthetic innovations of the past 90 years which have given rise to the cinema as we know it today. Goals of the course include: fostering students’ awareness of the aesthetic, economic, social, and political contexts in which sound cinema developed, and the impact which cinema had, in turn, on nations, cultures, and historical events; helping students acquire a conceptual vocabulary to describe and analyze the formal strategies of films and the way they construct meaning; introducing students to some of the theoretical frameworks that have shaped thinking about the cinema; to give students a clear sense of some of the major movements in sound cinema (including Studio Era Hollywood, fascist cinema, Italian Neo-Realism, the French New Wave, New German Cinema, Japanese Cinema, Third Cinema, the Hong Kong Kung Fu genre, Bollywood, and New Queer Cinema), and how movements and industries inspire and connect with critical, theoretical, and popular responses to the medium.

Credit Restrictions

Students will receive no credit for FILM 30 after completing FILM 25B. A deficient grade in FILM 30 may be removed by taking FILM 25B.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.