Below are descriptions for courses in the undergraduate concentration in Cinema and Media Studies (CMS). For further work in Cinema and Media Studies, students are also encouraged to investigate other courses taught by the Resource Faculty. Film screenings add three to four hours per week to class time for the majority of courses. Please note: This page is updated only periodically; for the most accurate, up-to-date information, consult the Registrar's online timeschedules.

10100. Introduction to Film I (=ARTH 20000, ARTV 25300, ENGL 10800, ISHU 20000):

This course introduces basic concepts of film analysis, which are discussed through examples from different national cinemas, genres, and directorial oeuvres. Along with questions of film technique and style, we consider the notion of the cinema as an institution that comprises an industrial system of production, social and aesthetic norms and codes, and particular modes of reception. Films discussed include works by Hitchcock, Porter, Griffith, Eisenstein, Lang, Renoir, Sternberg, and Welles. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

14601. Chinese Martial Arts Cinema:

In this course, we are going to study some of the most significant Chinese martial arts films, by such directors like King Hu, Zhang Che, Lau Kar- leung, Tsui Hark, and Wong Kar-wai. Through them, it is hoped that we can get a better sense of the range and scope of the genre; in particular, we shall focus on a number of recurrent issues, including the ideas of chivalry, violence, and nationalism; the interplay between body, film style, and technology; the representation of masculinity and femininity; as well as the complex interactions between the global and the local. M. Yip. Winter.

15401. The Film Musical (=MUSI 23906):

This course will primarily consider the historical and theoretical questions that the Hollywood film musical invites, although it will also make room to explore some related issues by looking at versions of musicals/dance films outside of Hollywood and beyond the studio era. Some of the questions the course will consider center on the following issues: the particular nature of the diegesis in Hollywood musicals (how the "numbers" relate to the narrative); the apparent boundaries of the genre; the generation of excess and affect; and ideological and feminist interpretations. Films will include The Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch, 1931), Le Million (Rene Clair, 1931), Jolly Fellows (Grigori Alexandrov, 1934), Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935), The Gang's All Here (Busby Berkeley, 1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli, 1944), Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen, 1952), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953), and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967). S. Keller. Spring.

21801. Chicago Film History (=CMST 31801, ARTV 26750/36750):

This course will screen and discuss films to consider whether there is a Chicago style of filmmaking. We will trace how the city informs documentary, educational, industrial, narrative feature, and avant-garde films. If there is a Chicago style of filmmaking, one must look at the landscape of the city, the design, politics, cultures, and labor of its people, and how they live their lives. The protagonists and villains in these films are the politicians and community organizers, our locations are the neighborhoods, and the set designers are MIes van der Rohe and the Chicago Housing Authority. J. Hoffman. Spring.

23201. From Page to Screen: Literary Adaptation in the Italian Cinema (=CMST 33201, ITAL):

Italian cinema has a long history of adapting literary texts to the screen. From silent versions of Dante's Divine Comedy, to Pasolini's iconoclastic film version of Boccaccio's Decameron; from neorealist cinema's often disavowed connection to literary sources, to very recent film adaptations both of classic texts such as Pinocchio and contemporary novels by authors such as Cavazzoni and Ammaniti, Italian cinema has fostered a strong tie with literature that is at once enriching to the two artistic modes in question, and theoretically complex. In this course we shall study selected theories of film adaptation, the history of Italian cinema's use of literature, and we shall analyze specific cases of book to screen adaptations. The wide influence of Pirandello on not only Italian but other national cinemas will be considered as well. Films studied will include Pasolini's Decameron, Visconti's Ossessione and Death in Venice, Benigni's Pinocchio, Fellini's La voce della luna, Rossellini's Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thief), Salvatores' Io non ho paura (I Am Not Afraid), and we shall read the texts upon which these films draw. Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, set in Italy and based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, will also be studied, as will one or two films that show the strong influence of Pirandellian concepts of the interplay of reality and illusion. Students concentrating in Italian studies will be expected to read materials in Italian; non-concentrators will do their work using English-language materials.R. West. Winter.

23401. Cinema Francais Classique:

Taught as part of the College's Autumn in Paris Program. French cinema (from the earliest filmmakers through beginnings of the New Wave to recent French films) will be studied through the examples of ten movies, which influenced its history and represented the development of an esthetical movement. Selections might include: the French school before 1914 (Louis Feuillade's Fantomas), the avant-garde of the 20s (Jean Epstein's La Chute de la maison Usher), the surrealist cinema (Luis Bunuel's L'Age d'or), the musical comedy (Rene Clair's Le Million), the "100% talking" film (Sacha Guitry's Le Roman d'un tricheur), the poetic realism (Jean Renoir's La Bete humaine, Marcel Carne's Le Jour se leve), the cinema under the Occupation (Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau), the evocation of the Belle Epoque (Max Ophuls' Le Plaisir), the revival of the literary adaptation (Robert Bresson's Journal d'un cure de campagne), recent films (Arnaud Desplechin's Rois et Reines or Agnes Jaoui's Le Gout des autres). When appropriate, efforts will be made to coordinate this course with the History of Paris course offered in the same program. N. Herpe. Autumn.

24201. Cinema in Africa (=CMST 34201, ENGL 27600/48601):

This course examines cinema in Africa as well as films produced in Africa. It places cinema in Sub-Saharan Africa in its social, cultural, and aesthetic contexts ranging from neocolonial to postcolonial, Western to Southern Africa, documentary to fiction, art cinema to TV. We will begin with La Noire de... (1966), ground-breaking film by the "father" of African cinema, Ousmane Sembene, contrasted with a South African film, The Magic Garden (1960) that more closely resembles African American musical film, and anti-colonial and anti-apartheid films from Lionel Rogosin's Come Back Africa (1959) to Sarah Maldoror's Sambizanga, Ousmane Sembene's Camp de Thiaroye (1984), and Jean Marie Teno's Afrique, Je te Plumerai (1995). The rest of the course will examine cinematic representations of tensions between urban and rural, traditional and modern life, and the different implications of these tensions for men and women, Western and Southern Africa, in fiction, documentary and ethnographic film. L. Kruger. Winter.

24401. Czech New Wave Cinema (=CMST 34401, SLAV 26700/36700):

The insurgent film movement known as the Czech New Wave spawned such directors as as the internationally acclaimed Milos Forman (The Fireman's Ball, Loves of a Blonde), Jiri Menzel (Closely Watched Trains), Jan Kadar (The Shop on Main Street), and Vera Chytilova (Daisies), and the lesser known but nationally inspirational Evald Schorm, Jarmir Jires, Oldrich Lipsky and Jan Nemec. "Of course," Peter Cowie notes, "many of these directors had already slogged through various worthy feature-length assignments [before 1964]. But some magical alchemy worked upon them to respond to the spirit of their time in a way that remains unsurpassed." This indeterminate "magical alchemy of their time"--the serendipitous life of the Czech New Wave--is as much a subject of the course's inquiry as close technical and semantic research of the films themselves. M. Sternstein. Spring.

24801. Iranian Cinema (=CMST 34801, NELC 2xxxx/3xxxx):

This course will introduce the history of the Iranian cinema, the major directors and films from the 1960s through the 1990s, and situate them in the political and historical context of modern Iranian society. The focus will be on feature films made in Iran but will also include some documentaries, shorts and films made outside Iran. In addition to analyzing the films as artistic constructs, we will consider larger questions such as how the political and intellectual history and ideology of modern Iran is reflected in its films, the aesthetics of Iranian cinema, "third-world" cinema and the economics of the Iranian film industry, the image of women, the system of film censorship, etc.F. Lewis. Autumn.

24903. Cinema in Japan: Art and Commerce in a Transnational Medium (=CMST 34903, EALC 24903/34903):

This course surveys Japanese cinema from its prehistory to the work of contemporary transnational auteurs. We will focus on both aspects of the object of study: Japan and the cinema. Each week will present, in roughly chronological order, a "moment" from the history of Japanese cinema and a methodological issue in film studies brought into focus by that week's films. For example, we will study vernacular modernism in 1930s Japan, the war film and theories of propaganda, genre theory and 1950s program pictures. We will of course pay attention to the Masters of Japanese cinema (Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kurosawa, et. al.) but we will also study film in relation to broader cultural movements such as the "new wave" and the "political modernist" turn. We will also interrogate theories of national cinema and study theories of ethnicity and recent Japanese representations of the Other. All readings on the course are in English; no Japanese is required, though accommodations will be made for students who wish to read original language material. M. Raine. Autumn.

24904. Time Images: Cinematic Mediations of History in Japan (=BPRO, EALC 24601, HIST):

This course deals with theories of time, history and representation while making those ideas and problems concrete through a study of the way in which history in Japan has been mediated by the cinema. It explores the "timefulness" of cinematic images without assuming their automatic relation to the world or dismissing films for their invention, compression, and elision of historical facts. A close reading of a wide range of films produced in and about Japan in tandem with primary and secondary materials on theories of time, images, and national history will highlight the historicity and history of both film and Japan. All readings are in English; no knowledge of Japanese is required. Co-taught by professors of film studies and Japanese history this course seeks to focus attention on the emerging nexus between audio-visual media and historical studies. J. Ketelaar, M. Raine. Spring.

24905. Propaganda and Agitation: film policy and film style in wartime Japan, 1937 to 1945 (=CMST 34905):

This class surveys the ways in which cinema was understood and deployed as both national art and "optical weapon" during a time of total war. We will study the attempts to control cinema, particularly the Film Law of 1939 and the debates over "national policy films" and "people's films." We will analyze the German connection (co-productions and culture films) that was part of an attempt to raise the aesthetic and technical level of cinema in Japan in order to compete with the memory of Hollywood films both at "home" and in the Asian countries occupied by Japan. We will also study more local sources of wartime Japanese cinema, in the prewar leftist film movement, the documentary film movement, the narrative avant-garde, and the broader image culture of wartime Japan. Filmmakers we will study include Arnold Fanck, Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujiro, Tasaka Tomotaka, Imai Tadashi, Yamamoto Kajiro, and Kurosawa Akira. No knowledge of Japanese is required: a separate section will be held for those wishing to read and discuss Japanese sources. Research topics and credit will be assigned according to interest and capabilities. M. Raine. Spring.

25501. Poetic Cinema (=CMST 35501, SLAV 29001/39001):

Films are frequently denoted as "poetic" or "lyrical" in a vague sort of way. It has been applied equally to religious cinema and to the experimental avant-garde. Our task will be to interrogate this concept and to try to define what it actually is denoting. Films and critical texts will mainly be drawn from Soviet and French cinema of the 1920s-1930s and 1960s-1990s. Directors include Dovzhenko, Renoir, Cocteau, Resnais, Maya Deren, Tarkovsky, Pasolini, Jarman, and Sokurov. In addition to sampling these directors' own writings, we shall examine theories of poetic cinema by major critics from the Russian formalists to Andre Bazin beyond. R. Bird. Winter.

26801. Antonioni's Films: Reality and Ambiguity (=ARTH 28904, BPRO 26600, HUMA 26600):

PQ: Third- or fourth-year standing. In this in-depth study of about six of Antonioni's films, our eye will be on understanding his vision about "reality" and the element of ambiguity that pervades nearly all of his films. In some of his films, and in his published writings, Antonioni shows a strong interest in science and in the physical world. Together, as a film scholar and a physicist, we can bring out these aspects of his work together with his unique cinematic contributions. We believe that Antonioni is an artist of Joycean stature (and there are interesting parallels between the two) whose work often gets lumped into categories such as "new wave European cinema" and the like. The goal of the course is to introduce students to this poet of the cinema and to see the relevance of Antonioni's themes in their own studies and their own lives. As a course project, students might very well be asked to develop an idea based upon the unfilmed sketches, consistent with Antonioni's vision. Y. Tsivian, B. Winstein. Winter.

27300. Perspectives on Imaging (=CMST 37300, ARTH 26900/36900, BPRO 27000, HIPS 24801)

Imaging plays a central role in biomedical research and practice. This role is likely to grow in the future as seen by the recent creation of the new National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering within the National Institutes of Health. This course explores technical, historical, artistic, and cultural aspects of imaging from the earliest attempts to enhance and capture visual stimuli through the medical imaging revolution of the twentieth century. Topics include the development of early optical instruments (e.g., microscopes, telescopes); the first recording of photographic images; the emergence of motion pictures; the development of image-transmission technologies (e.g., offset printing, television, the Internet); and the invention of means to visualize the invisible within the body through the use of X-rays, magnetic resonance, and ultrasound. B. Stafford and P. La Riviere. Autumn.

27502. The Frankfurt School, Cinema, Modernity (=ENGL 28103):

This seminar is concerned with debates, within and on the margins of the Frankfurt School (Kracauer, Benjamin, Adorno, Lowenthal, Kluge, et al.), on the transformation of culture in capitalist modernity. We will focus on discussions concerning the technological media, in particular film (but also photography, radio, and television) and new forms of subjectivity, reception, and publicness catalyzed by these media. We will consider the issue of alternative cinema, for example through responses to Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, as well as the question of a specific aesthetics of film and its relevance in the age of video and digital media. Not least, this course is about how to read, and work with, theoretical texts. MA students by permission of instructor only. Miriam Hansen. Spring.

27600. Beginning Photography (=CMST 37600, ARTV 24000):

Camera and light meter required. Photography affords a relatively simple and accessible means for making pictures. Demonstrations are used to introduce technical procedures and basic skills, and to begin to establish criteria for artistic expression. Possibilities and limitations inherent in the medium are topics of classroom discussion. We investigate the contemporary photograph in relation to its historical and social context. Course work culminates in a portfolio of works exemplary of the student's understanding of the medium.Field trips required. Lab fee $60. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

27602. Photography Workshop I (=CMST 37602, ARTV 24401/34401):

PQ: ARTV 10100 or 10200; or consent of instructor.Camera and light meter required. Using photographic materials, black & white or color, students focus on a set of issues and ideas that expand upon their experience and knowledge, and that have particular relevance to them. All course work is directed toward the production of a cohesive body of photographic work. An investigation of contemporary and historic art issues informs the students' exploration as does extensive darkroom work, gallery visits, critical readings, group and individual critiques, and presentations. Course can be taken several times as color and/or black and white, with series of projects developing and changing. Taught concurrently with Photography Workshop II. Lab fee $60. L. Letinsky. Winter, Spring.

27702. Photography Workshop II (=CMST 37702, ARTV 24402/34402):

PQ: ARTV 10100 or 10200; or consent of instructor. Camera and light meter required. Using photographic materials, black & white or color, students focus on a set of issues and ideas that expand upon their experience and knowledge, and that have particular relevance to them. All course work is directed toward the production of a cohesive body of photographic work. An investigation of contemporary and historic art issues informs the students' exploration as does extensive darkroom work, gallery visits, critical readings, group and individual critiques, and presentations. Course can be taken several times as color and/or black and white, with series of projects developing and changing. Taught concurrently with Photography Workshop I.Lab fee $60. L. Letinsky. Winter, Spring.

27800. Theories of Media (=CMST 37800, ARTH 25900/35900, ARTV 25400, ENGL 12800/32800, ISHU 21800, MAPH 32800):

PQ: Any 10000-level ARTH or ARTV course, or consent of instructor. This course explores the concept of media and mediation in very broad terms, looking not only at modern technical media and mass media but also at the very idea of a medium as a means of communication, a set of institutional practices and a habitat in which images proliferate and take on a "life of their own." Readings include classic texts (e.g., Plato's Allegory of the Cave and Cratylus, Aristotle's Poetics); and modern texts (e.g., Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, Regis Debray's Mediology, Friedrich Kittler's Gramaphone, Film, Typewriter). W. J. T. Mitchell. Winter.

28000. Documentary Video (=CMST 38000, ARTV 23901):

This course focuses on the making of independent documentary video. Examples of direct cinema, cinema verite, the essay, ethnographic film, the diary and self-reflexive cinema, historical and biographical film, agitprop/activist forms, and guerilla television are screened and discussed. Topics include the ethics and politics of representation and the shifting lines between fact and fiction. Labs explore video pre-production, camera, sound, and editing. Students develop an idea for a documentary video; form crews; and produce, edit, and screen a five-minute documentary. A two-hour lab is required in addition to class time. Lab fee $50. J. Hoffman. Winter.

28001. Documentary Video: Production Techniques (=CMST 38001, ARTV 23902):

PQ: ARTV 23901 or consent of instructor.This course focuses on the shaping and crafting of a nonfiction video. Students are expected to write a treatment detailing their project. Production techniques focus on the handheld camera versus tripod, interviewing and microphone placement, and lighting for the interview. Post-production covers editing techniques and distribution strategies. Students then screen final projects in a public space. Lab fee $50. J. Hoffman. Spring.

28302. Adaptation: Literature, Drama, Opera, Film (=CMST 38302, GRMN 27600/376000, MUSI 30706):

An intensive, comparative examination of theories & practices of adaptation. We consider a disparate set of case studies spanning a host of epochs and genres (e.g., Schiller/Brecht/Dreyer's St. Joan; Heine/Wagner's Flying Dutchman; Fontane/Fassbinder's Effi Briest; Buechner/Berg/Herzog's Woyzeck). Beyond exploring the stakes and traces of adaptation in each work, we will be occupied by interstices--the generic, programmatic, historical, institutional and expressive spaces that open between a work and its precursors. I'm guessing that all materials are available in English, but a reading knowledge of German would be exceedingly helpful. Open to advanced undergraduates and beginning graduates.D. Levin. Winter.

28500. History of International Cinema, Part I, Silent Era (=CMST 48500, ARTH 28500/38500, CMLT 22400/32400, ARTV 26500, ENGL 29300/48700, MAPH 33600):

PQ: CMST 10100 must be take before or concurrently with this course. This is the first part of a two-quarter course. The two parts may be taken individually, but taking them in sequence is helpful. The aim of this course is to introduce students to what was singular about the art and craft of silent film. Its general outline is chronological. We will discuss main national schools and international trends of filmmaking. Y. Tsivian. Winter.

28600. History of International Cinema, Part II, Sound Era (=CMST 48600, ARTH 28600/38600, ARTV 26600, CMLT 22500/32500, ENGL 29600/48900, MAPH 33700):

PQ: CMST 10100. This is the second part of the international survey history of film covering the sound era up to 1960. It is strongly recommended that students take the first section first. This course focuses on industrial practices and aesthetics during Hollywood's studio era (1927 to 1960) and alternatives to the Hollywood film, including French poetic realism, Italian neorealism, and Japanese cinema. We will also consider the important political, economic, social and cultural forces, which influenced Hollywood and other cinemas during this period, particularly the rise of fascism in the 1930s, WWII, Hollywood's postwar economic struggles, and various national new wave cinemas. Screenings will include films by Berkeley, Renoir, Huston, Welles, De Sica, Ozu, Hitchcock and Godard. Y. Tsivian. Spring.

28700. Early Video Art, 1968-1979 (=CMST 38700, ARTV 26700/30100):

A survey of the first wave of video art in the U.S. We will be screening and discussing the first ten years of video produced by artists and activists, primarily on the east coast and in California, including Bruce Nauman, John Baldessari, Martha Rosler, Eleanor Antin and Top Value Television. Because of relatively inexpensive equipment and inherently synced sound, video democratized the production of moving images, allowing artists to challenge imagined limits of broadcast television and encultured gender representations. Much of the work we will be looking at in this new medium was made as an auxillary activity by artists already working in sculpture, conceptual art, and performance. We will analyze the work as it relates both to this art context and to the socio-political climate of the seventies.Staff. Winter.

28800. Digital Imaging (=ARTV 22500):

Using the Macintosh platform, this course introduces the use of digital technology as a means of making visual art. Instruction covers the Photoshop graphics program as well as digital imaging hardware (i.e., scanners, storage, printing). In addition, we address problems of color, design, collage, and drawing. Topics of discussion may include questions regarding the mediated image and its relationship to art as well as the examination of what constitutes the "real" in contemporary culture. Lab fee $60. Staff. Winter.

28900. Video I: Beginning Video (=CMST 38900, ARTV 23800/33800):

This course is an introduction to video-making with digital cameras and non-linear (digital) editing. Students produce a group of short works, which is contextualized by viewing and discussion of historical and contemporary video works. Video versus film, editing strategies, and appropriation are some of the subjects that are part of an ongoing conversation. Taught concurrently with Video 2: Beginning Video; may be taken multiple times. Lab fee $60. Staff. Autumn.

28901. Video 2: Beginning Video (=CMST 38901, ARTV 23802/33802):

This course is an introduction to video-making with digital cameras and non-linear (digital) editing. Students produce a group of short works, which is contextualized by viewing and discussion of historical and contemporary video works. Video versus film, editing strategies, and appropriation are some of the subjects that are part of an ongoing conversation. Taught concurrently with Video 1: Beginning Video; may be taken multiple times.Lab fee $60. Staff. Autumn.

28903. Video Workshop (=CMST 38903, ARTV 23801):

PQ: ARTV 23800 or consent of instructor.This is a production course geared towards short experimental works and video within a studio art context. Screenings include recent works by Harrison and Wood, Fischli and Weiss, Martin Kersels, Jane and Louise Wilson, Halflifers, and Douglas Gordon. Discussions and readings address non-narrative strategies, rapidly changing technology, and viable approaches to producing video art in a world full of video images. Lab fee $60. Staff. Winter.

29700. Reading & Research Course:

PQ: Consent of faculty adviser and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. This course may be used to satisfy distribution requirements for Cinema and Media Studies majors. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

29800. Senior Colloquium:

PQ: CMST 10100. Required of all Cinema and Media Studies majors. This seminar is designed to provide senior concentrators with a sense of the variety of methods and approaches in the field (such as formal analysis, cultural history, industrial history, reception studies, psychoanalysis). Students will present material relating to their B.A. project, which will be discussed in relation to the issues of the course. J. Lastra. Autumn.

29900. B.A. Research Paper:

PQ: Consent of instructor. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. This course may not be counted toward distribution requirements for the major, but may be counted as a free-elective credit. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.