Catalog Description
Critical survey of world cinema as art and cultural artifact. Provides critical methodology and practical tools for analyzing and interpreting international film movements, genres and themes. GE C1
Course Description
The primary goal of this course is to improve students’ capacity to view, interpret and enjoy World Cinema. The course will enable them to become more effective readers of film and to develop their ability to articulate responses to films through writing. During the class, students will examine in detail a number of wonderful films from such places as Algeria/Italy, Germany, Britain, India, Mexico, Japan, Sweden, Spain and France. In watching and reviewing these films, students will learn how to view films as rich signifying texts, enabling them to understand World Cinema (and film in general) in more informed, sophisticated, and nuanced ways.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Understand different global film traditions within the aesthetic and philosophical terms of that tradition.
- Develop critical film literacy and articulate complex responses (ideas, emotions, concepts) to films through writing.
- Evaluate the aesthetic, thematic and philosophical contributions of different film traditions to global culture.
- Reflect upon the interconnectedness of our globalized world and the role of film in shaping an individual’s relationship to it.
Course Outline
Course content might be organized in a number of ways; below is one possible method of organizing this course:
UNIT 1: The European Tradition (Bergman, Renoir, Buñuel, Italian neo-realism); Introduction to the French New Wave; The New German Cinema (The Edukators)
UNIT 2: Introduction to Postcolonial Cinema (Battle of Algiers)
UNIT 3: Introduction to Latin American Cinema (The Violin)
UNIT 4: Introduction to Anglophone Cinema
UNIT 5: Introduction to Indian Cinema
UNIT 6: Globalization and Film (Welcome)
About the Banner: Still of the Odessa Steps sequence from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkim. (Image from Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Potemkin-still3.jpg))