Topics vary by semester. Different topics may satisfy different Core requirements.
New Waves of East Asian Cinema
The history of cinema is marked by New Waves reflecting both artistic and cultural movements and shifts in cinematic practice. This survey course focuses on the New Waves of East Asian Cinema, engaging their sociocultural history alongside aesthetic and technological developments. Topics include: Japan’s Nūberu bāgu in the 1950s, which borrowed its name from the inaugural movement of the French Nouvelle Vague; the waves in Hong Kong cinema, which were thematically linked to the impending expiration date of the 1997 handover to China; and the developments in Taiwanese art and film that were spurred by the ending of martial law in 1982. We will examine the historical events of resistance underlying these cinematic movements and their long-lasting impacts on society and culture. Students will engage with the material critically through projects and presentations alongside weekly screenings, readings, and discussions. Additional Requirement Met: Regional Focus.
Modernity and the Rise of Cinematic Visuality
Many have argued that the history of modernity has been, above all, a history of visualization, changing the way we see. In this course, we will examine a diverse range of nineteenth and early twentieth century visual practices, technologies, and experiences including train rides, panoramas, shopping arcades, assembly lines, and amusement parks that helped shape the "modern observer" by altering both the perception and understanding of time and space, public and private, work and leisure, the normal and deviant, and the individual and collective. Through a combination of critical readings, screenings, and field trips, we will ask how such practices of looking not only influenced early cinematic form and content, but also how they continue to inflect postmodern media culture, from television to the internet. The course culminates in a 3D screening of HUGO (2011, Scorsese).
The Philosophy of Classical Hollywood Cinema
This course will attempt a survey of current philosophical approaches to classical Hollywood film, beginning with Stanley Cavell’s The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Cinema (1971). This work initiated a new and flourishing sub-discipline within contemporary academic philosophy called film-philosophy. The central assumption within this body of inquiry is that film is (or can be) “philosophy in action.” In this course we will be returning to the source of this idea to read Cavell’s original work, as well as selections from his two subsequent books: Pursuits of Happiness: the Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (1981) and Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman (1996). We will then extend our inquiry to other writers inspired by Cavell (and reflections on later developments within Hollywood), such as Robert Pippin (writing on Film Noir), Stephen Mulhall (writing on the Alien series and other sci-fi), and William Rothman (writing on Hitchcock). Weekly screenings and discussions will be part of the course, as well as one or two field trips to Los Angeles archives. Cross-listed as PHIL 317.