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.

101. Introduction to Film I (=ArtH 190, CMS 101, COVA 253, ENGL 108, GS Hum 200). PQ:

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 first part 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. T. Gunning. Autumn.

236/336. Mastroianni and Keitel: Comparative Masculinities and Ethnicities (=Ital 285/385, GenSt 285/385):

Using films in which Marcello Mastroianni and Harvey Keitel star, we shall study the diverse concepts of masculinity and ethnicity that these actors embody. We will employ theoretical approaches to filmic representations of maleness and ethnic "types," to cultural assumptions and stereotypes regarding men, and to Italian and American styles of filmmaking in the analysis of such films as La Dolce Vita, Otto e Mezzo, Una Giornata Particolare, La Città Delle Donne, Stanno Tutti Bene, and Mean Streets, The Duelists, Two Evil Eyes, Reservoir Dogs, Bad Lieutenant, and The Piano. Particular attention will be given to Mastroianni's close collaboration with Fellini, and to Keitel's penchant for working with debut directional projects (Scorsese, Tarantino, Ridley Scott) and with independent directors (Jane Campion, Spike Lee, Abel Ferrara). All work in English, although Italian Ph.D. students and majors will be expected, in addition to writing a final research paper in English, to read some critical materials and to write a short book review in Italian. R. West. Winter.

241/341. Film in India (=Anth 206/31, Hist 267/367, SALC 205/305):

Considers the film world from just before Independence (1947) down to the present. Most attention will be paid to the Hindi film, especially to its "peculiar" features, for example, the song and dance. Emphasis is placed on reconstruction of film-related activities that can be taken as life practices from the standpoint of "elites" and "masses," "middle classes," men and women, people in cities and villages, governmental institutions, businesses, and the "nation." The course will rely on people's notions of the everyday, festive days, paradise, arcadia and utopia to pose questions about how people try to realize their wishes and themselves through film. How film practices articulated with colonialism, nationalism, "socialist development," and, now, "free markets" will be a major concern. Students will be asked to familiarize themselves with existing approaches to Indian film against the background of more general approaches to film and the media. Some knowledge of Hindi desirable but not required (most films will be subtitled in English and have English synopses). R. Inden. Winter.

240/340. Capra and Hollywood (=ENGL 236/486). PQ: Consent of Instructor:

Primary focus will be on Capra's programmatic series of films from the 30s and 40s, especially Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, It's a Wonderful Life, and The State of the Union. But we will also attend to a range of other achievements: his pioneering contributions to screwball comedy (e.g., Platinum Blonde and It Happened One Night); his less widely-known early work for Columbia Pictures (e.g., The Miracle Woman, American Madnessand The Bitter Tea of General Yen); the best of his silent films (Strong Man and Long Pants); and his contributions to the Why We Fight series of educational/propaganda films. The course will attempt to locate Capra both within the contexts of comparable Hollywood filmmaking (work by Ford, McCarey, Sturges, and Hawks) and the long history of sentimentality and spectatorship that extends back through Dickens and into the eighteenth-century emergence of the sentimental novel and its theorization. We will also deal with Capra's preoccupation with his cinematic "authorship," which will mean some attention not only to his signature gestures in the films but also to biographical issues. Finally, we will consider recent films that conspicuously redeploy "Capraesque" modes of representing ethical and political experience in America: e.g., The Hudsucker Proxy, Hero, It Could Happen to You, Groundhog Day, and Dave. One short paper and one long, and a take home exam. J. Chandler. Spring.

242. Cinema in Africa (=AFAFAM 219, ENGL 276) PQ: African Civ and/or Intro to Film I:

This course places cinema in SubSaharan Africa in its social, cultural, and aesthetic contexts ranging from neocolonial to postcolonial, Western to Southern Africa, documentary to fiction, art cinema to TV. Depending on availability, films will include African film-makers with international reputations such as Ousmane Sembene, Djibril Diop Mambety, Flora Gomez, Idrissa Ouedraogou, Lionel Rogosin, neocolonial adventure pics like Zulu (Enfield), ethnographic film, both metropolitan (Rouch's Maitres Fous) and local (Bringing Back the Goddess, about the revival of a Zulu tradition), and narratives of anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and anticolonial struggle elsewhere. L. Kruger. Winter.

244/344. Eastern European New Wave (=Ger 349, CompLit 320, EEuro 249/349):

Throughout Eastern Europe, New Wave filmmaking emerged in the late 1950s as part of a larger political and cultural de-Stalinization process and in response to earlier modes of Communist film culture. This course follows the attempts of New Wave filmmakers to reform socialism (and the cinema as an institution), and their search for a form adequate to describe political life and historical experience in their full complexity. Screenings include pathbreaking films from Poland (Wajda, Zanussi, Skolimowski, Kieslowski); the Soviet Union (Kalatozov, Paradjanov, Kozintsev); the German Democratic Republic (Wolf, Beyer, Klein); Hungary (Jancsó, Makk, Kovács, Meszáros, Tarr); Czechoslovakia (Nemec, Forman, Chytilová, Jakubisko); and Yugoslavia (Makavejev). All films will be subtitled; knowledge of relevant languages and (film)cultures welcome but not necessary. K. Trumpener. Spring.

263. The Films of Billy Wilder (=ENGL 289, GSHum 209):

Known primarily for films that establish him as a Hollywood insider (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot), Billy Wilder began his five-decade-long career in Weimar Germany and France and returned to Germany in 1945, where he worked on a documentary on Nazi death camps (Todesmühlen / Mills of Death) and A Foreign Affair. Through close readings of exemplary films, we will explore Wilder's range from gentle ethnographer of modern life to caustic satirist of American society and the culture industry, focusing on issues of authorship and reception (in particular his exclusion from the auteurist canon). In addition, we will consider his uneven relation to Hollywood genres, his systematic blurring of boundaries between comedy, romance, and drama. M. Hansen. Spring.

273/373. Perspectives on Imaging (=ArtH 257/357):

This course focuses on the evolution and history of the production and dissemination of knowledge by visual means. Topics include evaluation of light perception and vision; emergence of drawing, writing, and printing; early optical instruments to extend vision; photographic recording of images; X-rays and computer-based, non-optical imaging methods; conceptual foundations of imaging science; visual knowledge, education, and multi-media learning; and the cultural impact of imaging in the twenty-first century. B. Stafford. Autumn.

275/375. Theories of Photographic Image and Film (=ArtH 272/372, COVA 255, GSHum 233/333):

This course is an introduction and survey of theories concerning photography and cinema. A variety of works by the following authors, among others, is discussed: Stanley Cavell, Erwin Panofsky, Siegfried Kracauer, André Bazin, Christian Metz, Susan Sontag, Edward Weston, Ernst Gombrich, Nelson Goodman, and John Szarkowski. J. Snyder. Winter.

276/376. Beginning Photography (=COVA 240). PQ: COVA 101, 102, or consent of instructor:

A camera and light meter are required. Photography affords a relatively simple and accessible means for making pictures. Through demonstration, students are introduced to technical procedures and basic skills, and begin to establish criteria for artistic expression. Possibilities and limitations inherent in the medium are topics of classroom discussion. Class sessions and field trips to local exhibitions 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. Lab fee $40. L. Letinsky. Autumn, Winter.

277/377. Advanced Photography (=COVA 278). PQ: COVA 101 or 102, and 240 or 241, or consent of instructor:

Throughout the quarter, students concentrate 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 towards the production of a cohesive body of either color or black-and-white photographs. An investigation of contemporary and historic photographic issues informs the students' photographic practice and includes visits to local exhibitions, critical readings, darkroom techniques, and class and individual critiques. Lab fee $40. L. Letinsky. Spring.

280. Sound in the Cinema (=ENGL 282, GSHum 205):

This course will develop our abilities to discuss, analyze, and research sound recording, audio media, and aspects of auditorship in theoretical and historical terms. Beginning with basic terminology and concepts specific to sound forms, we will investigate specific historical and theoretical topics including the emergence of recorded sound in the 1870s-1890s, the coming of sound to the American and international cinemas in the 1920s-1930s, and theoretical investigations of acoustic technologies and of listening. Throughout, we will remain attentive to the specificity of audio and audio-visual forms, but open to inter-media debates, concepts, and issues. We will pay particular attention to innovative works in audio-visual media that have shaped the boundaries of aesthetic and theoretical exploration. Readings will include essays by Edison, Benjamin, Adorno, Eisenstein, Prokofiev, Frith, and Altman. Films and videos will include works by Vertov, Eisenstein, Disney, Kubelka, Lang, Coppola, and Cage/Cunningham. J. Lastra. Winter.

281/381. Issues in Film Music (=Music 229/309):

This course will explore the role of film music from its origins in silent film, its significance in the classical Hollywood film, to its increasingly self-reflexive use in recent cinema (both avant-garde and commercial, Western and non-Western). We will look at the ways music plays a central role both as part of the narrative and as non-diegetic music, how its stylistic diversity contributes another semiotic universe to the screen, and how it becomes a central qualifying agent in twentieth-century visual culture. Readings will include selections from Prendergast's, Film Music: A Neglected Art, Gorbman's Unheard Melodies, Kalinak's Settling the Score, Chion's Audio-Vision, Brown's Overtones and Undertones, Marks's Music and the Silent Film, as well as a number of theoretical texts by authors such as Eisler/Adorno, Eisenstein and Kracauer. Since the course will partly focus on technical, compositional, and stylistic aspects of film music, some reading knowledge of music will be helpful, but is not a prerequisite. B. Hoeckner. Spring.

282/382. Styles of Performance and Expression from Stage to Screen (=ArtH 293/392, Russ 280/380):

This course will focus on the history of acting styles in silent film (1895-1930) mapping "national" styles of acting that emerged during the 1910s (American, Danish, Italian, Russian) and various "acting schools" that proliferated during the 1920s ("Expressionist acting," "Kuleshov's Workshop," et al.). We will discuss film acting in the context of various systems of stage acting (Delsarte, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold) and the visual arts. Y. Tsivian. Spring.

283. Opera and Screen (=Music 221). PQ: Any 100-level music course or consent of instructor:

This course explores opera of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, with special attention to cinematic interpretations. Critical questions it will raise include how the conjunction of these two media -- staged and filmic -- has been negotiated; how a variety of "texts" (verbal, musical, visual) intersect as opera is realized in film; and how filmed opera attracts and shapes different modes of spectatorship from staged opera. Among the operas to be considered are Mozart's The Magic Flute (Ingmar Bergman), Mozart's Don Giovanni (Joseph Losey), Verdi's La Traviata (Franco Zefferelli), Bizet's Carmen (Francesco Rosi), and Brecht/Weill Three Penny Opera (G. W. Pabst). M. Feldman. Autumn.

285/485. History of International Cinema, Part I, Silent Era (=ArtH 285/385, ENGL 293/487, MAPH 336). PQ: 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.

286/486. History of International Cinema, Part II, Sound Cinema to 1960 (=ArtH 286/386, ENGL 296/489, MAPH 337). PQ: 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 survey will deal with issues of film form, industry organization and film culture during three decades, focusing on the crystallization of the Classical Hollywood Film as a key issue. But international alternatives to Hollywood will also be discussed, from the unique forms of Japanese cinema to movements like Italian Neo-realism and the beginnings of the New Wave in France. Film style, from the classical scene break down to the introduction of deep focus, stylistic experimentation and technical innovation (sound, wide screen, location shooting) will form the center of the course, while attention will also be paid to the development of a film culture. Texts will include Bordwell and Thompson, Film History: An Introduction, and works by Bazin, Belton, Sitney, Godard and others. Screenings will include films by Hitchcock, Welles, Rossellini, Bresson, Ozu, Antonioni, and Renoir. T. Gunning. Spring.

297. Reading Course PQ: Consent of faculty adviser and Director of Undergraduate Studies:

Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

298. Senior Colloquium PQ: CMS 101 and 102. Required of all Cinema and Media Studies concentrators:

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.

299. B.A. Essay. PQ: Consent of instructor:

Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Form. May not be counted toward distribution requirements for the concentration, but may be counted as a free-elective credit.