Film Studies

From their humble beginnings as sideshow attractions a little over a century ago, moving pictures quickly advanced toward their current status as the most popular narrative form of our time.  Film 1022 (Introduction to Film Studies) offers a broad survey of films produced from the 1890s to the present, with a particular focus on how movies work, how filmmakers shape their material, using both the possibilities and limitations of evolving technologies to make film art within ever shifting societal and institutional contexts.  Topics covered include classical Hollywood narration and the Hollywood studio system, some of the international film movements (such as German Expressionism, Italian Neo-Realism and the French New Wave) that have variously rivalled, opposed and revitalized mainstream Hollywood cinema, as well as film genres, documentary film, and the cinematic avant garde.