Department of English

Focusing on movies made after 1945, this course allows students to learn and to sharpen methods, terminologies, and tools needed for the critical analysis of film. Beginning with films reflecting on the immediate postwar period, such as the Italian Neo-Realists, the course will follow the evolution of global New Wave movements in regions such as France, Japan, Czechoslovakia, the USSR, Germany, and the United States. Then the course will turn to independent, experimental, and documentary productions worldwide, with a focus on non-Western film forms. Alongside feature-length narrative films, the course will include documentaries, animated films, and experimental productions. There will be precise attention paid to formal and stylistic techniques in editing, mise-en-scene, cinematography, and sound, as well as to the narrative, non-narrative, and various genre organizations of film. At the same time, those formal features will be closely linked to historical and cultural distinctions and changes that are defining screen culture today. There are no prerequisites. Requirements will include readings in film history and film analysis, an analytical essay, a research paper, weekly Canvas postings, and active participation in class discussion.