Course Description:
This is part two of the class Film Art & Ideology; however, students do not have to have taken FA&I part one to participate in this course. This class focuses on the close analysis of film. Our analytical activity includes study of film form and structure, consideration of thematic interpretation, and theorizing about the relationships films have to psychological, cultural, and political processes. The course’s first responsibility is to pay attention to the complexity of our experience of actual films, and subsequently, examine the ways films generate meaning and ascribe values vis-a-vis their viewers. We will study a limited number of films drawn from the “canons” of the narrative film modes. We will first investigate three silent films, followed by three “modern” films of the 1960s, and conclude with three Asia-Pacific films. Finally, you will be asked to use the notions you have been exposed to - in class and in the readings - in an analytic exercise.