courses 2010 spring

CINEMA STUDIES CORE REQUIREMENTS

CINE 101.401 - World Film History to 1945
ARTH 108; ENGL 091
Meta Mazaj
TR 10:30 am-12:00 pm | FBH 401
This course surveys the history of world film from cinema’s precursors to 1945. We will develop methods for analyzing film while examining the growth of film as an art, an industry, and a political instrument. The course begins with the emergence of film technology and early film audiences. We will then look at the rise of narrative film and the birth of Hollywood before turning to a number of national film industries that flourished after World War I, including French, Italian, Soviet, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian film. Along the way, we will look at different genres and topics including African-American independent film during the silent era, animation, ethnographic and documentary film, censorship, and the coming of sound. We conclude with the transformation of several film industries into propaganda tools during World War II (including the Nazi, Soviet, and US film industries). There are no prerequisites. Requirements include a short essay, a research project, a midterm, and a final. Fulfills the Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes).
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 102.601 - World Film History, 1945-present
ARTH 109; ENGL 092
Peter Gaffney
T 5:30-8:30 pm | FBH 201
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 the cinematic revolution signaled by the Italian Neo-Realism (of Rossellini and De Sica), we will follow the evolution of postwar cinema through the French New Wave (of Godard, Resnais, and Varda), American movies of the 1950s and 1960s (including the New Hollywood cinema of Coppola and Scorsese), and the various other new wave movements of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (such as the New German Cinema). We will then selectively examine some of the most important films of the last two decades, including those of U.S. independent film movement and movies from Iran, China, and elsewhere in an expanding global cinema culture. There will be precise attention paid to formal and stylistic techniques in editing, mise-en-scene, and sound, as well as to the narrative, non-narrative, and generic organizations of film. At the same time, those formal features will be closely linked to historical and cultural distinctions and changes, ranging from the Paramount Decision of 1948 to the digital convergences that are defining screen culture today. There are no perquisites. Requirements will include readings in film history and film analysis, an analytical essay, a research paper, a final exam, and active participation. Fulfills the Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes).
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 103.401 - Introduction to Film Theory
ARTH 107; ENGL 095
Karen Beckman
MW 10:00-11:00 am | FBH 401
This course will provide an introduction to some of the most important contributions to the discourse of film theory, and allow us to explore how writers and filmmakers from different countries and historical periods have attempted to make sense of the changing phenomenon known as "cinema." Topics under consideration will include: theories of spectatorship, the apparatus, editing, sound, realism, auteurism, race, gender and sexuality, stardom, genre, the culture industry, the nation, and new media. There will be no screenings for this course. No knowledge of film theory is presumed. Course requirements: attendance at lecture and participation in section discussions; blackboard postings; 1 midterm; 1 10 page paper. This course is required for Cinema Studies majors and minors.
Syllabus: TBA

CINEMA STUDIES ELECTIVE COURSES

CINE 059.401 - Jewish Film and Literature
ENGL 079; GRMN 261; JWST 261
Kathryn Hellerstein
TR 12:00-1:30 pm | WILL 202
From the 1922 silent film Hungry Hearts through the first "talkie," The Jazz Singer, produced in 1927, and beyond Schindler's List, Jewish characters have confronted the problems of their Jewishness on the silver screen for a general American audience. Alongside this Hollywood tradition of Jewish film, Yiddish film blossomed from independent producers between 1911 and 1939, and interpreted literary masterpieces, from Shakespeare's King Lear to Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the Dairyman, primarily for an immigrant, urban, Jewish audience. In this course, we will study a number of films and their literary sources (in fiction and drama), focusing on English- language and Yiddish films within the framework of three problems of interpretation: a) the different ways we "read" literature and film, b) the various ways that the media of fiction, drama, and film "translate" Jewish culture, and c) how these translations of Jewish culture affect and are affected by their implied audience. All texts will be read in English. All films are in English or have English subtitles.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 100.403 - Native American Films and Photographs: A Bridge to Indian Country
ARTH 100, ENGL 016
Karen Beckman & Timothy B. Powell
W 2:00-5:00 pm | JAFFE 104
The course will allow students access to rare films and photographs made by Navajo Indians in the Penn Museum’s archives and to Ojibwe Indian Sacred Pipe Carriers and students who are exploring the innovative use of film and digital technologies to preserve their language and culture. In addition to working with the Penn Museum archives, our research will include trips to the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. to look at how Native American culture is archived and displayed within the museum space, focusing in particular on the use of film and photography. The Ojibwe section of the course will offer Penn students the unique opportunity to travel to the Ojibwe Indian reservations of northern Minnesota, where they will be hosted by a Sacred Pipe Carrier who teaches at Itasca Community College (ICC) in the heart of Ojibwe country. Tim Powell, Director of Digital Partnerships with Indian Communities (DPIC), has been working with Ojibwe tribal historians and Sacred Pipe Carriers for the past eight years to create Gibagadinamaagoom: An Ojibwe Digital Archive in partnership with the Mass Communications department at ICC. The project has produced fifty hours of video and 35 digital images of objects from the Penn Museum. Students would work in teams to curate digital exhibits using this archival material that could then be exhibited on the DPIC website.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 159.401 - The City in Israeli Literature and Fim 
COML 282; JWST 102; NELC 159
Nili Gold 
TR 1:30-3:00 pm | VANP FLMCR
This course focuses on the artistic ways in which the Israeli city, be it Jerusalem, Haifa or Tiberias, is represented in Israeli literature and film. The emotional and physical connection between the writer and his/her place of dwelling is transformed in the literary or cinematic work. The artistic depiction of the city reflects the inner world as well as ideological and political conflicts and highlights questions of belonging. The “city” may become a locus for national expression, of gender identification, or even of pure aesthetic enchantment. We will analyze how, through her portrayals of the Carmel Mountain and the Haifa bay, Yehudit Katzir expresses the complex bond with her mother; how Tel Aviv’s streets enable Dahlia Ravikovitch to examine questions of loyalty; how the “Jerusalems” of A.B. Yehoshua and Yehuda Amichai reflect their loves and hatreds and how the film director Shemi Zarhin sings a love song to the Sea of Galilee through shooting his film in his native Tiberias. There will be five film screenings; the films will also be placed on reserve at the library for those students unable to attend the screenings. The content of this course changes from year to year, and therefore, students may take it for credit more than once. Fulfills Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) and Cross Cultural Analysis – Class of ’10 and after.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 165.401 - Russian and East European Film II
RUSS 165; SLAV 165
Vladislav Todorov 
MW 2:00-3:30 pm | WILL 316
The purpose of this course is to present the Russian and East European contribution to world cinema in terms of film theory, experimentation with the cinematic language, and social and political reflex. We discuss major themes and issues such as: the invention of montage, the means of visual propaganda and the cinematic component to the communist cultural revolutions, party ideology and practices of social engineering, cinematic response to the emergence of the totalitarian state in Russia and its subsequent installation in Eastern Europe after World War II; repression, resistance and conformity under such a system; legal and illegal desires; the nature of the authoritarian personality, the mind and the body of homo sovieticus; sexual and political transgression; treason and disgrace; public degradation and individual redemption; the profane and the sublime ends of human suffering and humiliation; the unmasking of the official "truth" as a general lie.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 170.401 - History of Animation
ARTH 170
Susan Napier
TR 1:30-3:00 pm | FBH 401
Animation History is a survey course, looking at animation worldwide, from its beginnings to the present day, in the USA, Asia and Europe. We will explore how the the commercial production contexts (e.g. studio system), technologies and alternative approaches affect both form and content (art and indie filmmaking) in different countries. Emphasis is on viewing and discussion. Feature films, TV series and short films will be covered. Topics may also include: is there a canon? Politics and animation. The role of music in animation. Gender in animation. Relationships between live action and animation.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 202.401 - Film Festivals: Global Cinephilia, Culture, Politics and Business
ENGL 292
Meta Mazaj
TR 3:00-4:30 pm | FBH 244
This course is an exploration of multiple forces that explain the growth, global spread and institutionalization of international film festivals. The global boom in film industry has resulted in an incredible proliferation of film festivals taking place all around the world, and festivals have become one of the biggest growth industries. A dizzying convergence site of cinephilia, media spectacle, business agendas and geopolitical purposes, film festivals offer a fruitful ground on which to investigate the contemporary global cinema network. Film festivals will be approached as a site where numerous lines of the world cinema map come together, from culture and commerce, experimentation and entertainment, political interests and global business patterns. To analyze the network of film festivals, we will address a wide range of issues, including historical and geopolitical forces that shape the development of festivals, festivals as an alternative marketplace, festivals as a media event, programming and agenda setting, prizes, cinephilia, and city marketing. Individual case studies of international film festivals—Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary, Toronto, Sundance among others—will enable us to address all these diverse issues but also to establish a theoretical framework with which to approach the study of film festival. For students planning to attend the Penn-in-Cannes program, this course provides an excellent foundation that will prepare you for the on-site experience of the King of all festivals.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 225.401 - Connecting: From Stage to Screen to Monitors and Back Again 
ENGL 256; THAR 275 
Timothy Corrigan  & Marcia Ferguson
TR 9:00-10:30 am | FBH 231
Exploring the multiple connections between theatre, cinema and the many other screens of contemporary technology, the course will trace the artistic and social cross-pollinations between a variety of media through readings, screenings, performances, and theoretical positions. Three-dimensional, living stage pictures, cinematic dramas, and various cyber and digital interventions, all cohere in a shared impulse: the drama of representing the world through images. Their connections reveal not only the structural and formal differences (and similarities) informing these different dramas; they also uncover the cultural and social positions of their audiences, as well as the material, historical, technological, and economic pressures that leave their marks in various ways. The course will be taught by two instructors, one each from Theatre Arts and Cinema Studies. There are no prerequisites. 
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 231.401 - Anthropology and Cinema
ANTH 231
Louise Krasniewicz
TR 12:00-1:30 pm | MUSE B17
Anthropology and the Cinema explores the relationship between anthropological theories and mainstream American movies. This semester will focus on the long history of alien invasion movies that have provided American culture with a way to talk about self and Other. The course will look at these movies as if they were ethnographic accounts of these encounters and will consider consider issues of metaphor, categorization, ritual, identity, The Other, and authenticity. The class will create a group video that explores these issues of ethnographic documentation and alien entities.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 224.401 - Military Culture?: Literature, Film and Music in Dictatorship Brazil
LALS 220; PRTG 222
Kirsten Ernst
TR 3:00-4:30 pm | WILL 214
The years of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1984) were turbulent politically and tumultuous artistically. In this panoramic course, we will situate some of the period’s most characteristic cultural production within its historical and political context(s). Our explorations will encompass film (Cinema Novo), music (MPB, Tropicália), and multiple literary genres (including science fiction and children’s literature), with some attention to theatrical production, as well. We will examine the relationship between art and politics, considering the impact of censorship on artistic expression, the various forms of political resistance in art, and the ways in which Brazilian artists negotiated national identity in the midst of Cold War politics and an expanding global media and consumer culture. The course is taught in Portuguese.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 240.401 - How Movies Tell the Story of Italy
ITAL 204
Lillyrose Veneziano Broccia
TR 12:00-1:30 pm | NEGB 110
How has our image of Italy arrived to us? Where does the story begin and who has recounted, rewritten, and rearranged it over the centuries? In this course, we will study Italy’s rich and complex past and present. We will carefully read literary and historical texts and thoughtfully watch films in order to attain an understanding of Italy that is as varied and multifaceted as the country itself. Lectures, discussions and readings will allow us to examine the problems and trends in the political, cultural and social history from ancient Rome to today. Students will watch films independently. Readings and discussions will be in English. Students with a knowledge of Italian are encouraged to read available texts in Italian.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 271.401 - American Musical Theatre
ENGL 274; THAR 271
David Fox
MW 2:00-3:30 pm | ARCH CREST
The American musical is an unapologetically popular art form, but many of the works that come from this tradition have advanced and contributed to the canon of theatre as a whole. In this course we will focus on both music and texts to explore ways in which the musical builds on existing theatrical traditions, as well as alters and reshapes them. Finally, it is precisely because the musical is a popular theatrical form that we can discuss changing public tastes, and the financial pressures inherent in mounting a production. Beginning with early roots in operetta, we will survey the works of prominent writers in the American musical theatre, including Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers, Hart, Hammerstein, Bernstein, Sondheim, Guettel and others. Class discussions will be illustrated with film and recorded examples.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 275.401 - Russian History in Film
RUSS 275
Vladislav Todorov
MW 3:30-5:00 pm | WILL 316
This course draws on fictional, dramatic and cinematic representations of Russian history based on Russian as well as non-Russian sources and interpretations. The analysis targets major modes of imagining, such as narrating, showing and reenacting historical events, personae and epochs justified by different, historically mutating ideological postulates and forms of national self-consciousness. Common stereotypes of picturing Russia from "foreign" perspectives draw special attention. The discussion involves the following themes and outstanding figures: the mighty autocrats Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great; the tragic ruler Boris Godunov; the brazen rebel and royal impostor Pugachev; the notorious Rasputin, his uncanny powers, sex-appeal, and court machinations; Lenin and the October Revolution; images of war; times of construction and times of collapse of the Soviet Colossus.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 282.401 - Rebelling against Stereotypes: Native American Film
ANTH 282; ENGL 282
Timothy B. Powell
TR 12:00-1:30 pm | FBH 24
We live in one of the most exciting eras of Native American – Euro-American relations, especially when it comes to the field of film. For most of the 400+ years of European occupation, Native Americans were decimated, dispossessed, and nearly destroyed. The 21st century, however, has witnessed the building of the National Museum of the American Indian on the national mall in Washington D.C.—which makes extensive use of digital technology and film—and the rise of a new generation of films that open portals into the remarkable, complicated, and enthralling depths of American Indian culture. The class will review the history of Native American image making, but will focus primarily on contemporary films. The course is designed to be both challenging and fun. “Texts,” for example, will include novels, film, the world wide web, and buildings such as the Penn Museum which has changed dramatically over the last 130 years in terms of how it displays Native American culture, now utilizing videos in the Native American exhibits. Students will not just study this new historical moment from a distance, but will be involved with two on-going projects. The first is a digital exhibit that will demonstrate how digital technology brings the Native American oral tradition to life and will compare how different chronological “history” is from the spirit-infused narratives told by an Ojibwe tribal historian. The second another on-going project to finally return films made by Navajo people in the 1960’s, now housed at the Penn Museum archives, to the community that produced them… forty years after they were made! We will read a beautiful novel by Louise Erdrich, anthropological studies of how films and digital technology are allowing Native American to express themselves in new and exciting ways, and watch contemporary films like “Smoke Signals” and “Whale Rider,” which make Native American ways of understanding accessible to non-Indian audiences for the first time in American history.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 285.401 - Art & Business of Film: Creating, Managing, Exhibiting, and Marketing Film
MGMT 253
John Katz
T 1:30-4:30 pm | FBH 222
A study of the creation, exhibition, management and marketing of film, the context of public culture, including the similarities and differences in creating, managing, exhibiting and marketing Hollywood studio films and independent films. The course will consider the management structures, distribution of the cultural product, strategies for acquiring and spending capital and decision-making, with emphasis on the differences between film that is financed by Hollywood studios and independently financed film. The course will explore how a screenplay is conceptualized and developed, the role of agency relationships in the film business, and the financing, production, direction, distribution, exhibition and marketing of both independent and studio films. A combination of lectures by instructors and practitioners, case studies, film screenings, and consulting projects with independent and Hollywood creators, packagers, financiers, exhibitors, distributors and publicists will illustrate the relationship between the art of film and the business of film. Guests will include screenwriters, agents, producers, directors, distributors, film festival curators and film critics. We will explore the film business from initial concept through marketing and publicity for the finished film. We will focus on the relationship between the creative process and the business of film for both independent and Hollywood films.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 286.401 - Studio in Contemporary Black Women Artists
AFRC 287; COMM 287; GSOC 287
Tanji Gilliam
TR 3:00-4:30 pm | DRLB 2N36
This course begins by grounding students in “bodies of work” by 14 contemporary artists. In addition to investigating these artists for the multiple mediums and languages they create in, we will also be using their works to address recent theorizations of the black female body in relationship to a diverse set of sub-themes including: Diasporic notions of beauty, violence, religion, labor, immigration, aesthetics, pleasure, movement, hip-hop, and health. From there we will in turn develop our own critiques of how we, as individuals and members of various collectives, fashion our own bodies in our contemporary world, allowing students to become more aware of their racialized and gendered selves. This course combines weekly seminar and studio classes. In lieu of more traditional, weekly response papers, the students will be trained in the studio classes to develop their own creative responses, using the genre/medium of the artist that is being studied in that week’s seminar. The midterm paper and final film screenplay will be responses to both one or more of the 14 artists we will discuss and the work the students create in the studio exercises.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 292.601 - Woody Allen
ENGL 292
Valerie Ross
M 5:00-8:00 pm | FBH 201
This course will explore the work of Woody Allen, a major figure in American humor and one of our most influential, controversial, and prolific filmmakers. A pioneer of the American personal film, Allen made movies steeped in film history, technically masterful, intellectually ambitious and, despite all this, popular. Exploring European art cinema, satirizing American culture, transforming a genre, or criticizing himself, Allen invariably smartened whatever genre he focused upon, creating great roles for women, reinventing romantic comedy and returning resonance to the crime story—what he did with the musical we’ll talk about some other time. Taking on everyday concerns, particularly work and sex, his films point up how these entwine or neglect the meaning of life, love, and death, the value of art, the silence of God. Our course will likely view twelve of his films, including Love and Death, Annie Hall, Stardust Memories, Zelig, Purple Rose of Cairo, Match Point, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Coursework includes film screenings, readings, short weekly writings, and a collaborative filmmaking project. Critical Writing in the Major course (CWIM).
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 305.401 - Film and the City
ARTH 305; URBS 235
Leo Charney
T 1:30-4:30 pm | FBH 224
Students will make short films in Philadelphia as final class projects for this special seminar, offered as part of Penn's Arts & The City Year. The course examines the history and importance of cities on film, from early cinema in New York, Europe, and Moscow, through gangster movies, films noir, French New Wave, American films of the 1970s, British cinema of the 1980s, and DIY, indie, and "mumblecore" movements today. Readings include theories of urban planning and urban experience, from the Frankfurt School to Richard Florida; other required work includes screenings, class participation, and writing assignments.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 320.401 - Anime Auteurs
ARTH 320
Susan Napier
TR 4:30-6:00 pm | FBH 224
"Anime Auteurs" is an in depth look the four most important animation directors in Japanese animation history, Otomo Katsuhiro, Miyazaki Hayao, Oshii Mamoru and Kon Satoshi. Otomo’s Akira was the first anime taken seriously as art by critics, while Miyazaki, whose films include the Academy Award winning Spirited Away, is commonly considered the greatest living animation director in the world. Oshii’s cool cyberpunk vision influenced the Wachowski Brother’s Matrix and Kon’s imaginative, color saturated narratives explore the borders between fantasy and reality. Topics will include: What is an auteur? Links between anime and manga. Anime as art. Anime and Japanese society. Anime and the marketplace.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 359.401 - The Holocaust in Israeli Writing and Film
COML 359; HEBR 359; JWST 359
Nili Gold
TR 10:30 am-12:00 pm | JAFFE 113
Israeli literature “waited” until the 1961 public indictment of a Nazi war-criminal to hesitantly begin to face the Holocaust. The Zionist wish to forge a “New Jew” was in part responsible for this suppression. Aharon Appelfeld’s understated short stories were the first to enter the modernist literary scene in the 1960s, followed in 1970 by the cryptic verse of Dan Pagis, a fellow child survivor. Only in 1988 two Israeli-born pop singers -- haunted children of survivors -- broke the continuous practice of concealing the past and its emotional aftermath in the watershed documentary Because of That War. The process of breaking the silence intensified in the last two decades; the “Second Generation” burst forth artistically with writers like Etgar Keret, Amir Gutfreund and Savyon Liebrect who told what their parents were unable to utter. This course will analyze the transformation of Israeli literature and cinema from instruments of suppression into means for dealing with the national trauma. The class is conducted in Hebrew and the texts are read in the original. The content of this course changes from year to year; therefore students may take it for credit more than once. Seminar. Fulfills Literatures of the World, Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) and Cross Cultural Analysis – Class of ‘10 and after.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 382.401 - Horror Cinema
FREN 382
Philippe Met
T 1:30-3:00 pm | FBH 231
This version of the course will explore European Horror Cinema from the 1970s to the present time, focusing on a number of cult films that have helped rejuvenate and redefine the genre in a radically modern sense by pushing the envelope in terms of subversive representation of gore, violence and sex. We will look at various national cinemas (primarily Western Europe – Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands – with the occasional foray into Eastern Europe and Scandinavia) and at a range of subgenres (giallo, mondo, slasher, survival, snuff, …) or iconic figures (ghosts, vampires, cannibals, serial killers, …). Issues of ethics, ideology, gender, sexuality, violence, spectatorship will be discussed through a variety of critical lenses (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, aesthetics, politics…). The class will be conducted entirely in English. Be prepared for provocative, graphic, transgressive film viewing experiences. Not for the faint of heart!
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 385.401 - Spanish Cinema
SPAN 386
Michael Solomon
TR 10:30 am-12:00 pm | WILL 28
This course offers an introduction and overview of the cinema from Spain. We track the thematic, technical, and stylistic development of Spanish cinema from its first manifestations in the late 19th century to the present. The course has been designed to introduce students to fundamental cinematic concepts, movements, and theories as well as provide a historical context for the required feature-length films. The course concludes with an overview of recent developments in new media and participatory cinema. Required screenings include films by Segundo de Chomón (Slippery Jim), Luis Buñuel (Un Chien Andalou, Tierra sin pan), Luis Berlanga (Bienvenido Mr. Marshal), Juan Antonio Bardem (Muerte de un ciclista), Carlos Saura (La caza), Victor Erice (El Espítitu de la Colmena), Narciso Ibáñéz Serrador (¿Quien puede matar un niño?), José Luis Borau (Furtivos), Pilar Miró (Crimen de Cuenca), Pedro Almodóvar (Pepe, Luci, Bom, La ley del deseo, Todo sobre mi madre), Julio Medem (La ardilla roja), Alex de la Iglesia (El día de la bestia), and Nacho Villalongos (Cronocrímenes). Course requirements include a midterm and a final exam, several short writing assignments, and a final project.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 385.402 - The (In)Visible Tradition: Avant-Garde and Clandestine Cinema in Catalunya
SPAN 386
Sara Nadal
TR 1:30-3:00 pm | WILL 315
The social and political imaginaries of Francoist Spain created a singular instance of dislocation in the Catalan filmic avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970. This course proposes an examination of the political, historical, and aesthetic conjunctures that allowed the emergence and survival of an often clandestine experimentalism. The commitment to avant-garde practices, emerging an established tradition in the Catalan context, pushed the envelope of political possibility by establishing an elective affinity and an effective transfer between the political and the aesthetic. By addressing this productive double enunciation through a transnational lens, this course hopes to throw new light both on European peripheral cinematic avant-gardes and on the historicization of political dissent in Francoist Spain. Some of the films maybe in Spanish.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 385.403 - Spain and the Role of Censorship in Literature and Film
SPAN 386
Francisco Fernandez
MWF 12:00-1:00 pm | WILL 304
In this course, we will study the way authors, playwrights and filmmakers portray Spanish society during the second half of the twentieth century. When dealing with works created during the years of Franco’s dictatorship, we will examine the role and the influence censorship had on the making of such works. Additionally, we will analyze the different take post-Franco authors and filmmakers had on the same era when they were not restricted by the censors. We will study works by Camilo José Cela, Carmen Martín Gaite, Ana María Matute, Antonio Buero Vallejo, Alfonso Sastre, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Carlos Saura and Luis García Berlanga, among others.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 386.401 - Paris in Film
FREN 386
Philippe Met
TR 4:30-6:00 pm | WILL 215
Latter-day examples like Christophe Honoré’s Dans Paris or the international omnibus Paris, je t’aime (with each director paying homage to a distinctive “arrondissement,” or district, of the capital), both released in 2006, or even more recently Cédric Klapisch’s Paris (2008), are there to remind us that there is something special – indeed, a special kind of magic – about Paris in and on film. Despite the extreme polarization between Paris and provincial France in both cultural and socio-economic terms, cultural historians have argued that Paris is a symbol of France (as a centralized nation), more than Rome is of Italy and much more than Madrid is of Spain or Berlin of Germany, for example. The prevalence of the City of Lights on our screens, Gallic and otherwise, should therefore come as no surprise, be it as a mere backdrop or as a character in its own right. But how exactly are the French capital and its variegated people captured on celluloid? Can we find significant differences between French and non-French approaches, or between films shot on location that have the ring of “authenticity” and studio-bound productions using reconstructed sets? Do these representations vary through time and perhaps reflectspecific historical periods or zeitgeists? Do they conform to genre-based formulas and perpetuate age-old stereotypes, or do they provide new, original insights while revisiting cinematic conventions? Do some (sub)urban areas and/or segments of the Parisia population (in terms of gender, race or class, for example) receive special attention or treatment? These are some of the many questions that we will seek to address… with a view to offering the next best thing to catching the next non-stop flight to Paris! Films by such directors as Renoir, Minelli, Truffaut, Godard, Malle, Bertolucci, Losey, Rohmer, Tavernier, Carax, Kassovitz, Jeunet, Haneke. This class will be conducted in French.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 430.601 - National and Ethnic Conflict in Film
RUSS 430
Vladislav Todorov
M 5:30-8:30 pm | WILL 219
Forms a part of the CLPS Masters in Liberal Arts Program. This course studies the cinematic representation of civil wars, ethnic conflicts, nationalistic doctrines, and genocidal policies. The focus is on the violent developments that took place in Russia and on the Balkans after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and were conditioned by the new geopolitical dynamics that the fall of communism had already created. We study media broadcasts, documentaries, feature films representing the Eastern, as well as the Western perspective. The films include masterpieces such as Time of the Gypsies, Underground, Prisoner of the Mountains, Before the Rain, Behind Enemy Lines, and others.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 492.401 - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Representation in Popular Media
COMM 430; GSOC 430
Katherine Sender
W 2:00-5:00 pm | ANNS 225
This class investigates the history of LGBT representation in a range of popular media since the 1960s—in film, television, music, pornography, the internet, video games, and so on. We will consider on-going debates about queer images, including stereotypes, camp, and the value and limits of “positive images.” The class includes a strong emphasis on independent research: students will learn how to develop and carry out an original qualitative research project throughout the semester.
Click here for syllabus

CINEMA STUDIES PRODUCTION COURSES

CINE 062 - Video II
FNAR 062
401 | Paul Buck | R 7:30-10:30 pm | ADDM 111
402 | Ellen Reynolds | W 5:00-8:00 pm | ADDM 207
Video II offers opportunities to further explore the role of sound, editing and screen aesthetics. Through a series of three video projects and a variety of technical exercises, students will refine their ability to articulate more complex and creative projects in digital cinema. In addition, advanced level production and post-production equipment is introduced in this course.
Click here for syllabus

CINE 068.401 - Cinematography
FNAR 068
Emory Van Cleve
W 2:00-5:00 pm | ADDM 207
This course will be a technical, practical and aesthetic exploration of the art of cinematography as it pertains to film and digital video. Through screenings, in-class exercises and assignments, students will increase their Video I skills in lighting and cinematography as a form of visual expression. Topics covered include shot composition, camera movement, lenses, filtration and color, exposure, lighting techniques, location shooting and how to use grip equipment. Discussions, demos and lectures will include relevant and illustrative historical motion picture photography, current digital video technology, and examples that explore interactions between film and video.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 116.401 - Screenwriting
ENGL 116
Kathleen DeMarco Van Cleve
M 2:00-5:00 pm | CPCW 111
This is a workshop-style course for those who have thought they had a terrific idea for a movie but didn't know where to begin. The class will focus on learning the basic tenets of classical dramatic structure and how this (ideally) will serve as the backbone for the screenplay of the aforementioned terrific idea. Each student should, by the end of the semester, have at least thirty pages of a screenplay completed. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class, and students will also become acquainted with how the business of selling and producing one's screenplay actually happens. Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email briefly describing their interest in the course to Kathleen DeMarco Van Cleve.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 130.401 - Advanced Screenwriting 
ENGL 130 
Kathleen DeMarco Van Cleve
W 2:00-5:00 pm  | FBH 222
This is a workshop-style course for students who have completed a screenwriting class, or have a draft of a screenplay they wish to improve. Classes will consist of discussing student's work, as well as discussing relevant themes of the movie business and examining classic films and why they work as well as they do. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class in addition to some potentially useful texts like /What Makes Sammy Run?/ Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email. Please send a writing sample (in screenplay form), a brief description of your interest in the course and your goals for your screenplay, and any relevant background or experience. Applications should be sent to Kathleen DeMarco Van Cleve. 
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 267.401 - Computer Animation
FNAR 267
Leland Burke & Hagerty
MW 9:00 am-12:00 pm | ADDM 106
Through a series of studio projects, this course will focus on 2D and 3D computer animation. Emphasis is placed on time-based design and storytelling by developing new sensitivities to movement, cinematography, editing, sound, color, and lighting. Compositing software covered in the course will be used to combine 2D graphics, 3D animation, and sound. Recommended materials: Wacom Pen.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 289.401 - Mixed Media Animation
FNAR 289
Leland Burke & Hagerty
MW 1:00-4:00 PM | ADDM 106
This animation course fuses hands-on studio drawing, modeling, and cinematicprocesses with digital tools. Real world techniques such as stop-motion, claymation, hand-drawn and multi-plane animation will be practiced in the studio. Other techniques, such as keyframe animation, editing and blue-screen composition compositing will be practiced in the digital labs. Both production teams and individuals will create short mixed-media animations in form, material and time.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 353.401 - Advanced Projects in Animation
FNAR 353
Joshua Mosley
TR 9:00 am-12:00 pm | ADDM 106
Through a series of studio projects, this course will focus on advanced concepts in 3D computer animation and 2D compositing. The courses will cover advanced techniques for rigging animated characters or structures, shading 3D forms, working with dynamic simulations, rendering projects, and compositing complex shots. Topics discussed will include production pipelines, motion-capture, and methods of developing ideas for animation. The schedule of the course will lend itself to allowing members to complete ambitious self-conceived animation projects.
Syllabus: TBA

CINEMA STUDIES GRADUATE COURSES

CINE 515.401 - Auteurism: Theories and Practices
ARTH 573; COML 570; ENGL 573; FREN 573; GRMN 573
Timothy Corrigan
R 12:00-3:00 pm | FBH 25
Auteurism has arguably been at the center of film practice, theory and historiography since the 1950s. Originating in the work of the French New Wave, auteurism has shaped our understanding of many film cultures around the world and across different media beyond the cinema. This course will examine the history of auteurism as it has evolved from France to the U.S. and through national cinemas from China and India to Iran and Denmark. As part of this study, we'll investigate the changing theoretical terms of auteurism as it has adapted to the pressures of post-structuralist theory, feminist interventions, cultural and racial distinctions, and the challenges of new media.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 548.401 - Italian Women Directors
ITAL 586
Stefania Benini
R 1:30-3:30 pm | MEYH B5
In Peter Bondanella' s book, "Italian Cinema, from Neorealism to the Present," only two Italian women directors are mentioned: Lina Wertmuller and Liliana Cavani. However, in recent years, the Italian cinema has generated a new wave of Italian women directors who have significantly made their mark on the national cinematic imagination. Francesca Archibugi, Roberta Torre, Cristina e Francesca Comencini, Antonietta De Lillo, Fiorella Infascelli, Anna Negri,Laura Muscardin among others, have established themselves as important voices of the last generation of Italian filmmakers in feature films, Angela Ricci Lucchi in the realm of non-fiction films and Alina Marazzi in the realm of documentary. In this course, we are going to explore their films, in connection to feminist and post-feminist culture in Italy, examining the originality of their approach and their relationships to the challenges offered by the advent of new technologies. The course will be taught in Italian.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 842.401 - The Filmic
ANTH 842; COMM 846
John L. Jackson, Jr.
F 9:00 am-12:00 pm | ANNS 223
This interdisciplinary graduate course takes "film" as its object of study, theorizing it as a medium/mode of representation. We draw on film theory, psychoanalysis, literary analysis, cognitive theory, communication studies, and visual anthropology to discuss several key issues related to the state of film/filmmaking in an age of "digital" media. We interrogate contentious notions of authority, reflexivity, and objectivity. We analyze film's claim to "realistic" (iconic and indexical) representation. We interrogate how "film" and "video" get imagined in all their visual particularity, sometimes conflated into a single visual form and at other moments distinguished as a function of the difference between photochemical and electro-magnetic processes. We also highlight the kinds of techniques filmmakers use to thematize these same issues "on screen." Students will be responsible for watching one film each week (along with the the course readings), and part of the final project involves helping to produce a group documentary/ethnographic "film" that engages the course's central concerns.
Syllabus: TBA

CINE 846.301 - Ordinary People and the Media: The Demotic Turn
COMM 846
Graeme Turner
M 11:00 am-1:00 pm | ANNS 223
This course will explore the proposition that we are witnessing a ‘demotic turn’ in media culture: the development of a broader, possibly even a new, field of relations between media and culture in which the participation of ordinary people has become a more fundamental component than ever before. Rather than necessarily signifying the rise of a democratic politics or a process of media democratization, the politics of that participation are contingent and instantiated rather than determined in advance. The course will explore how this politics of participation actually plays out in a range of contemporary media ‘hot spots’ – reality television, user-generated content online, debates about the future of journalism in an online environment heavily populated by bloggers and citizen journalists, the connection between the commodification of celebrity and the construction of social identities, utopian and dystopian readings of the potential of new media, and populist formations of talk radio.
Syllabus: TBA