Courses > 2007 Spring

Graduate Courses

CINE 548 - Cinema and the Sister Acts

ITAL 588 | COML 587
401 | T 4-6pm

This course explores film as a pan-generic system constructed of other art forms, including fiction, theater, painting, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, photography, music, and dance.  The interrelationships between film and its sister arts will be discussed 1) with respect to the historical emergence of cinema as a new medium that evolved from antecedents in painting, photography, and (melo)drama; 2) as a reflection of an individual director's own style and programmatic choices (e.g., Visconti in his relationship with opera); 3) to consider how the conscious citation and appropriation of non-verbal narrative forms function emblematically to enhance cinematic meaning (e.g., in musical commentary on a soundtrack; in the incorporation of folksongs to serve "realism"; in the use of dance as a metaphor for social interaction or sexual seduction). Emphasis will be on Italian cinema with occasional comparisons that draw in films and texts from other national cultures.  Each week class discussion will focus on one film. Students will present a final class report on a film of their choice (with prior approval of instructor)and submit a final paper based on the report of 15-20 pp. Reading knowledge of Italian desirable but not required.