Module outlines 2011/12

YEAR 1
Sem 1
4AAQS100 Introduction to Film Studies: Forms
4AAQS110 Research & Scholarship in Film Studies
4AAQH115 History of Contemporary Cinema (1975-present)
 
Sem 2
4AAQS105 Introduction to Film Studies: Contexts
4AAQS150 Critical Debates in Film Studies
4AAQH120 History of Post-war Cinema (1945-1975)
 
YEAR 2
Sem 1
5AAQH225 History of Silent Cinema (1895-1927)
5AAQS260 Hollywood Cinema
5AAQT222 Cinema and Spectatorship
5AAQS259 Asian Popular Cinemas (Hong Kong Cinema from the 1970s)
5AAQS240 Film Forms: Documentary
5AAQS235 French New Wave
 
Sem 2
5AAQT200 Film Theory I 
5AAQH230 History of Sound Cinema 
5AAQS275 British National Cinema
5AAQS247 Contemporary Spanish Cinema
5AAQS246 Italian Cinema
5AAQS270 Topics in World Cinema (Ozu and his influence)
 
YEAR 3
Sem 1
6AAQT320 Film Theory II
6AAQS400 Independent Study
6AAQS325 Film Noir
6AAQS385 Film Genre: Hollywood Musical
6AAQS360 Third Cinema and Beyond 
6AAQS370 American Underground
 
Sem 2
6AAQS315 Film and New Media
6AAQS365 European Crime Film
6AAQS395 Film and Religion
6AAQS310 Film and Trans-nationalism (East Asian Focus)
6AAQS375 American Independent Cinema
 
 

Module convenor: Mark Betz

The purpose of this module is to introduce students to the formal characteristics of film, to acquire a critical vocabulary for describing and analyzing films and to gain practice in discussing and writing about them. This is achieved by focusing on a range of narrative films, examining the various visual, aural and narrative conventions by which they create meaning and practicing film analysis through discussion and written work. Issues of mise-en-scène, framing, cinematography, editing, sound, narrative structure, and point of view will be discussed as components of cinematic style and meaning.

‘Introduction to Film Studies: Forms’ is designed to be taken in conjunction with Introduction to Film Studies: Contexts’, taught in the Lent term. Where ‘Forms’ focuses on the basic properties of films themselves, ‘Contexts’ introduces ways of considering films in relation to the social, cultural, and institutional contexts in which they are produced and received.

Assessment: Participation (10%), Shot Analysis (15%), Sequence Analysis Essay (25%), Exam (50%)
(2,000 word Replacement Essay for one semester- only JYAs)

(open to single honours Film Studies students only)

Module convenor: Mariana Liz

This module is different from other film modules as it has a strong methodological and practical basis. It aims to introduce you in depth to the main tools necessary to research and analyse films. At the very beginning of your degree, Research & Scholarship is geared to helping you acquire an advanced knowledge of resources and methods that are specific to Film Studies. To this end, the module will include:
• Visiting institutions geared towards the knowledge and dissemination of film and film culture (Maughan and Senate House Libraries, BFI Southbank, among others);
• Exploring internet resources that are appropriate to academic film study;
• Workshops on writing essays in film, highlighting textual analysis, accurate referencing of scholarly work, compiling filmographies and bibliographies;
• Workshops on oral presentations using film extracts.
 
Assessment: Participation (5%), Class presentations (10%), Library exercise (10%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (50%)
 

Module convenor: Michele Pierson

The international landscape of film production and distribution has changed dramatically since the mid-1970s. National and international initiatives to support local film industries, the growth in international film festivals, and the development of new production and distribution technologies, have all paved the way for the accelerated development of hitherto nascent film industries and the revitalisation of others. Over the same period, Hollywood has continued to dominate the world’s film markets, setting a global standard for production values that has forced other industries to develop creative strategies both for financing films and differentiating them in the international market place. This module introduces students to the key film movements, major directors, and principal technological developments underpinning these changes.
 
Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Catherine WheatleyThis module follows on from 'Introduction to Film Studies: Forms' in Semester 1. Building on that module's focus on the film text, its specific properties and how to analyse them, this module turns its attention to the contexts in which films are produced and received.Assessment: Participation (10%), Essay - 3000 words - (40%), Exam (50%)

Module convenor: Belen VidalEstablished as an academic discipline in the 1960s, Film Studies drew from its inception on a variety of critical vocabularies, methodologies, and theoretical agendas common to or emerging in other disciplines in the Humanities. In this sense, many of the vocabularies and intellectual histories underpinning the material covered in this module are not specific to Film Studies, which should be understood as a strength: students will appreciate in broad terms the significance of these debates in the Humanities in general, as well as how they have led to new fields of inquiry and even disciplines themselves. At the same time, these debates have played a crucial role in the development of Film Studies. Readings and discussions are crystallised through screenings of key classical Hollywood films as well as modern case studies and organised around three sites of critical inquiry: Textuality, Reading Strategies and Spectatorship, and Cultural Reception and Institutions. Textuality looks at how the idea of the film text has been elaborated and studied in the discipline. Reading Strategies and Spectatorship examines the reciprocal relationship between the critical enterprise of reading (or engaging critically) with a film and the ideas about spectatorship that inform such an enterprise. Cultural Reception and Institutions investigates the ways in which film production and reception are influenced and shaped by the institutions of film criticism, scholarship, and programming.Assessment: In-Class Test 1 (20%), In-Class Test 2 (20%), Essay (60%)

Module convenor: Mark BetzWithout postwar cinema, there would be no Film Studies as we know it today. In other words, it was this period in film history that produced many of the canonical films, national film movements, and conceptual categories by which we have come to understand the cinema as a crucial part of our culture ever since. In surveying world cinema from the end of World War II through the mid-1970s, this course covers key developments in national and international film culture by situating them within broader social, political, and cultural contexts. It also charts the important aesthetic and critical developments, as well as the technological and institutional factors of the era, which made film the art of its time. Attention is primarily given to feature films, but documentary and experimental films in both feature and short-film length will also be screened and considered.The module proceeds in a roughly chronological fashion and focuses on important issues of this period, including: • the turn towards realism• the growth in independent production• the industrial and political developments giving rise to particular film movements• the prominence of differing national traditions of filmmaking over and against the commercial dominance of Hollywood• the legitimation of film as an art and an object of intellectual inquiry• the question of alternative or oppositional political or national film styles Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Lawrence NapperThis module will provide an introductory overview of the earliest period of cinema from the very first short films of 1895-6 to the passionate and extravagant features of the late 1920s. Students will gain an understanding of the changes in film form, in exhibition practices, in representational strategies and in industrial production which occurred through this period. Political, aesthetic and social contexts will illuminate the texts themselves, together with a consideration of differences between dominant Hollywood modes, and those of other national production centres, particularly in Britain, Russia and Germany. Key issues will include: the development of star systems, genre systems, narrative v. spectacle, political and gender representation, national cinemas, non-fiction films, and the full supporting exhibition programme.You will emerge with a thorough understanding of the key issues of early film history and criticism. You will be able to discuss the film text produced in the pre 1930 period both as products of a particular set of industrial and commercial activities, and as representatives of wider aesthetic and representational cultures. You will be able to approach the texts in the terms of their period rather than as prototypes or primitive versions of modern products. You will be experienced at doing your own historical research, using the rich resources available in the Library and elsewhere, including trade and fan magazines, local newspapers, etc. You will also have developed skills of film interpretation, textual analysis, and the ability to relate your insights to an understanding of wider cultural and/or political movements. You will have experience of presenting material researched on your own, both verbally in class, and in writing through coursework, responding to criticisms and questions as appropriate.Films/topics considered will include: (Films selections may change)• Technology and the ‘Cinema of Attractions’: A range of short films from 1895-1905. • The Development of Narrative and Editing: Early short films of DW Griffith• Film and WW1 (The Battle Of the Somme, 1916)• The Classical Hollywood System (The Cheat, 1919 & The Unknown, 1927)• Hollywood Stars and codes in the 1920s: (It, 1927)• European Alternatives: British Cinema in the 1920s (Hindle Wakes, 1927), German Expressionism (The Last Laugh, 1924), Soviet Montage (The End of St Petersburg, 1927)• Emigres and the Hollywood Style (Sunrise, 1927) Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

(open to single honours Film Studies students only)Module convenor: Lawrence WebbThis module surveys the history of Hollywood cinema from its origins in the 1910s to the present day. We pay equal attention to the Hollywood film industry (production, distribution, and exhibition) and to the content, form, and meanings of Hollywood films — subjects and themes, narrative, setting, visual style, sound, and performance. Key concepts dealt with include: the studio system, classical realism, genre, the auteur, stardom, and the blockbuster. We also explore Hollywood cinema’s representation of class, race, and gender, and the different audience groups to which it has sought to appeal. Throughout we relate Hollywood cinema to other kinds of visual and popular culture, while bearing in mind that Hollywood cinema has always been not only American but global in its reach.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay (25%), Exam (60%)

Module convenor: Catherine WheatleyIn recent years energising debates on spectatorship within Film Studies have broadened, and begun to contest, a privileged focus on vision, the visual, and viewing. As a result, psychoanalytic theories of identification and suture - which were prominent in the 1970s and which understood sight to be the dominant sense of spectatorship - have been subject to intense scrutiny and critical revision. The burgeoning field of sound studies has centred attention on the audio, as well as the visual, qualities of cinema, while also opening out to broader discussion of the senses and spectatorship. Through a range of theoretical texts and in conjunction with detailed analysis of select films, this module addresses questions of texture and touch (haptics), the materiality of the image and embodied response (phenomenology and post-phenomenology), and synaesthesia. The material aspect of film and changing technologies will also be explored as we progress through theories of spectatorship on a weekly basis. Taking on board new media debates with regard to the image, spectatorship as a concept will be examined alongside the interactivity of computer and gaming culture, and the screen itself will be explored in its varied guises, from the cinema auditorium, through the television set, to the computer monitor, and the mobile phone.The first half of the module focuses on:. exploring key founding debates in contemporary spectatorship theory from the 1970s onwards, from psychoanalytic theory, through sound studies, and into theories of materiality, tactility, embodiment, and synaesthesia. performing close analyses of selected films relevant to each theoretical areaThe second half of the module addresses:. central questions within new media debates, in addition to gaming culture, and definitions of the screen. filmic examples that permit exploration of new media issues and a heightened sense of inter-activityAssessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Jinhee ChoiThis module is an introduction to Hong Kong cinema designed to provide you with an overview of its history since the 1970s. We will focus on the commercial aspects of Hong Kong cinema, honing in on aspects that are similar to or dissimilar from Hollywood as well as other national cinemas. Through the study of popular genres and stars of Hong Kong cinema—martial arts, comedy, gangster cinema, and romantic comedy, Bruce Lee, Hui brothers, Jackie Chan, and Stephen Chow—we will learn how the Hong Kong film industry has been operating with the aim to reach audiences of the regional and international market. Further, this module will examine the ways in which the changes in the political and cultural dynamics of the region affected the Hong Kong film industry and its films.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Martin BradyThe first films of the Skladanowsky brothers in Germany and the Lumières in France were documentaries: recordings of circus acts, workers leaving a factory, a train arriving at a station. The film camera is first and foremost a recording instrument, whether it captures ‘life caught unawares’ or a fictional scenario; as Jean-Luc Godard has claimed, ‘all films are documentaries’. This module examines the history of ‘non-fiction’ film¬making, or what has been termed ‘reality-driven representation’, from 1895 to the present. We will concentrate on landmark films from America, Russia, Britain and France to examine the different ways in which documentary filmmakers have engaged with contemporary society and asserted the ‘truth value’ of cinema. Focusing on Robert Flaherty’s and Dziga Vertov’s pioneering work in the 1920s, British Free Cinema of the 1950s, cinéma vérité and Direct Cinema of the 1960s, the ‘essay film’ of the 1980s, and concluding with examples of contemporary practices (recent work of Errol Morris and Werner Herzog for example), political, social and historical issues will be addressed alongside more theoretical concerns. Debates on the status of the image, methods of representation and the politics of documentary practice will be discussed in the weekly seminars. Students taking this module will acquire an understanding and overview of the history, practice and theory of documentary film from 1895 to the present, and acquire skills to describe, analyse, interpret and compare different forms and styles of non-fiction film¬. Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenors: Davina Quinlivan and Olga KourelouThis module explores the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), the most famous film movement in post-war French cinema - a group of innovative, exuberant and seductive films that came out in the late 1950s and early 60s. The work of young, rebellious figures, many of whom had started as film critics, The New Wave films marked a radical break from French mainstream cinema and a new departure in world cinema. As Martin Scorsese put it: ‘the French New Wave has influenced all filmmakers who have worked since, whether they saw the films or not. It submerged cinema like a tidal wave’. The module surveys and interrogates the films along three main interlocking frameworks: • Authorship. Aiming to lift cinema out of mass entertainment and into the domain of ‘art’, New Wave practitioners theorised and celebrated the director as auteur. The module examines the politique des auteurs and the passage from theory to practice.• Cinephilia. New Wave filmmakers were steeped in the love of cinema, especially Hollywood. The module traces the rise of cinephilia in post-war France, and the engagement with and rethinking of American cinema.• Representation. New Wave films notoriously ‘broke the rules’ by experimenting with location shooting, dislocated narratives and idiosyncratic editing. At the same time, they offered seductive images of ‘modern’ gender relationships and lifestyles against the background of iconic Parisian locations. The module explores the connections between filmic style and representation, and how these express the achievements and contradictions of a key historical moment in French history. Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

(open to single honours Film Studies students only)Module convenor: Sarah CooperBetween 1915 and the end of World War II a series of groundbreaking and highly influential writings on photography, film, and their relationship to other more established art forms emerged. Indeed, one of the central questions pursued in such writing relates to the possibility of affording film the status of an art form and the specific, autonomous means of expression that might define it as an aesthetic medium. The texts of this era are foundational to the study of the history of film. More particularly, they define the contours of classical film theory, along with its legacy to more recent theoretical developments in film studies. The main aim of this module is to provide an energizing critical survey of some of the principal authors, concepts, and films within this period. The primary, though not exclusive, emphasis will be the period of silent film and theorists writing in the context of French and German avant-garde cinema. We will study the aesthetic debates of the period in their context, and the defining social forces and functions of cinema as a mass art will also be explored. Weekly readings and discussion will examine major movements of the period – for example, French Surrealism – as well as the work of major figures such as Hugo Münsterberg, Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, Jean Epstein, Germaine Dulac, Béla Balázs, Erwin Panofsky, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and André Bazin.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay - 2500 words - (35%), Exam (50%) 

Module convenors: Maurizio Cinquegrani and Louis BaymanSound Cinema surveys the international developments of the film medium and the film industry from the introduction of sound in the late 1920s to the close of WWII in 1945, covering key technological, textual and institutional developments and tying these together with the broader cultural and social context in which films were made, exhibited, and understood. Students will gain understanding of the style, content, industrial organisation, and production and marketing strategies of mainstream Hollywood cinema, and of other national cinemas. Special emphasis will be given to questions about entertainment and politics in filmmaking of this period.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Lawrence Napper This module offers an introduction to British cinema history, focussing on some of the key issues and debates which have concerned British film-makers and critics in the period from the late 1920s to the present day. In particular, we will look at the representation of the city of London through a number of key films, and consider the remarkable range of national associations which have been mobilized by cinematic stories set or filmed within walking distance of Kings College on the Strand.Operating ‘under the shadow of Hollywood’, British cinema is often understood to be caught between that spectacularly successful commercial model, and the more artistically and aesthetically complex national cinemas of Europe. The module will analyse some of the pressures that British film-makers have traditionally worked under, and consider some of the key genres, styles and cycles that have emerged as a result.The module will respond to three interlocking themes:• Cinema and StateThe relationship between the industry and State legislation designed to protect and encourage it, as well as the more general concerns over the contribution of the cinematic experience to the enrichment of ‘national life’ as expressed through a range of state interventions into British film-making.• Representational StrategiesAn exploration of the notion of a specifically ‘British’ cinematic style, expressed through generic cycles and their relationship to wider concerns over the representation of the national both at home and overseas. London and the various meanings associated with it will form a key strand. • Industrial imperativesAttention to the range of texts not simply as aesthetic objects but also as responses to the variety of economic, political and social pressures exerted on the industry throughout the C20th Assessment: Participation (15%), In-Class Timed Essay (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Belen VidalThis module offers an introduction to key trends and directors in contemporary cinema from Spain. The module examines key textual and contextual issues shaping Spanish film since the political transition to democracy in the mid-1970s, concentrating on the rapid transformation of Spanish cinema into a global cinema since the 1990s. We will look at the ways in which Spanish cinema has negotiated the political past and reinvented itself through genres and forms such as comedy, the fantasy/horror film, the social film or the experimental film, as well as the work of directors such as Alejandro Amenábar, Icíar Bollaín, Álex de la Iglesia, Julio Medem, Agustín Díaz Yanes, José Luis Guerín or Pedro Almodóvar.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Mark ShielThis module will explore the emergence, evolution, and demise of the movement in Italian cinema known as 'neorealism' which flourished, roughly speaking, from 1943 to 1957. We will examine the social and political events which shaped neorealism from the overthrow of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini to the liberation of Italy by Allied forces, following which (and as a response to which) neorealist filmmaking became known for its great aesthetic, technical, political, and philosophical innovation, quickly gaining critical acclaim and much, though not consistent, box office success worldwide. We will focus on a range of well-known and lesser-known films by key neorealist filmmakers such as Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, and Michelangelo Antonioni, seeking to understand the special claim to a 'new' kind of 'realism' (hence 'neo-realism') upon which their films were based, a realism which had to do with a deliberately raw, frank, often beautiful, but often controversial representation of everyday life after World War Two.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Jinhee ChoiThis module will offer students an opportunity to examine in depth the work of Japanese director Ozu Yasujiro (1903-1963) and his influence on internationally acclaimed directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Koreeda Hirokazu, Claire Denis, and Jim Jarmusch. The module will enable students to acquire a complex understanding of the issues at stake in the production, distribution, and reception of Ozu’s work and his aesthetics both in, and outside of, Japan. The module will also help students to develop the knowledge and understanding of the questions, theories and controversies, which have informed the theoretical debates on film authorship. It will thus appeal to students who wish to extend their skills in analysing film aesthetics and practice in both conceptual and historical context. Furthermore, as the module will invite students to consider what ‘film directing’ is, as an artistic and cultural practice.Assessment: Participation (15%, Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

(open to single honours Film Studies students only)Module convenor: Sarah CooperThe dates of 1945 and 1968 mark major turning points in the history of film theory, as indeed they do in broader socio-historical and political terms in the modern and contemporary world. In conjunction with, and sometimes in response to, cataclysmic changes in global and local politics, film theory produced around these watersheds is characterized in the former case by a search for structure, rigour, and stability, and in the latter by revolution, deconstruction, and proliferation. The module will pivot on these two dates and take us through to current, cutting edge theoretical debates. We begin with a thorough examination of the influential theories of structuralism, semiology, and narratology before moving on to consider the post-structuralist era of film theory. We will explore how critics address questions of form, structure and narrative in film and photography, mainly using examples from France and Italy. Readings will include work by Christian Metz, Umberto Eco, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Then, as we move to the late 1960s, the grand narratives of ‘Theory’ in the two preceding decades are suddenly viewed with intense suspicion and are thrown into question in favour of multiple different ‘theories’, many of which can be characterized by a challenge to positions of mastery, albeit in their separate, highly nuanced ways. Following the legacy of structuralist theories, the course will progress through Lacanian psychoanalytic film theory and Derridean deconstruction, through feminist, queer and postcolonial theory, taking on board the work of Gilles Deleuze, in addition to recent developments in phenomenology, before considering current debates that claim that we have moved into a post-theoretical age within film discourse.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay - 2500 words - (35%), Exam (50%) 

Module convenor: Belen VidalStudents in Film Studies have the option of undertaking a research dissertation in their final year. In giving you the opportunity to tackle such a project, our aim is to allow you to pursue a subject or topic which is of special interest to you and which you have either not had the chance to study on the degree or one which you feel you have not been able to explore in sufficient detail. Note that this opportunity is defined as independent study – while you will be assigned a supervisor, you yourself will be expected to formulate the topic, research it and develop a structure for writing it up. This module requires: attending a workshop on independent study early in the summer term and the submission of a dissertation proposal towards the end of the summer term.The length of the dissertation (10,000 words) invites sustained and in-depth analysis. The dissertation option is also an invitation to further develop the skills and enthusiasms which, we hope, have been fostered by the taught modules on your degree programme. In particular, the dissertation will test your independence of mind, your motivation and your ability to organise and synthesise a rich range of primary and secondary materials and arguments. The dissertation is, then, both a good way to ‘round off’ your BA degree and good preparation for the kind of work that will be required of you either in postgraduate study or in any number of professional careers. Students should take note of the fact that the dissertation option is worth 30 credits. In other words, the dissertation requires of you nothing less than the amount of total work you would be expected to do for two semester-long modules. The dissertation should not be treated as simply a longer than normal essay; it should certainly not be considered as an easy option. Assessment: Dissertation (100%)

Module convenor: Ginette VincendeauFilm noir has long exerted a fascination on audiences, as well as on scholars. It has been described as a genre, a cycle, and a distinctive visual style in cinema. This module is particularly devoted to exploring:a) The archeology and evolution of the concept of film noir and the complex historical and stylistic negotiations that have taken place within the ‘genre’ between Europe and America. b) Some canonical – yet underexplored – examples of American film noir – such as The Lost Weekend, Phantom Lady and This Gun for Hire.c) Some key examples of European noir, in particular Spanish (Death of a Cyclist) and French (Rififi).We will look at the antecedents of classic American noir in pre-war German Expressionism, French Poetic Realism, and the American gangster film. We will examine the coining of the term film noir in post-war France (in the process challenging some received ideas), the films’ relationship to American society and culture, their distinctive use of black and white cinematography and narrative form, and preoccupation with crime. Across the module we will also be concerned with the films’ depiction of ‘masculinity in crisis’, and the figure of the femme fatale. A Jules Dassin case study will enable us to compare closely American, British and French noirs (The Naked City, Night and the City, Rififi).The module is taught through ten weekly film screenings, each preceded by a one-hour lecture and followed by a one-hour seminar discussion of the film and required readings.Assessment: Participation and in-class presentation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Lawrence NapperThis module will trace the history of one of Hollywood’s most popular and important genres, the musical, from its beginnings in the early sound period to its most recent incarnation in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). While the musical might be considered a relatively dominant genre between 1931 and the late 1960s, it suffered a loss of favour during the early post-classical period, but has recently shown signs of rebirth in such recent successes such as Moulin Rouge (2001), Chicago (2002) and Sweeney Todd. The module will focus on the changing aesthetics of the musical throughout this period, considering the ways it can be understood to respond to wider changes in American and British society, popular culture, music and film-going.Key themes will include:• The tension between spectacle and narrative within the musical form• The development of the ‘integrated’ musical• Popular entertainment forms and genre criticism• Stardom and the function of the star performance • Ethnicity, sexuality and gender as represented through the musical• Mutations in the genre in response to the post-classical period, and changes in popular musicFilms/topics will include: (Film selections may change)• The fairy-tale musical and the image of Europe (Love Me Tonight, 1934)• Work, Mass Culture and Myth (Footlight Parade, 1934)• Race and Performance (Stormy Weather, 1943)• Sexuality and Camp (Words and Music, 1948)• Integration and Self-Reflexivity (The Band Wagon, 1953)• The Showgirl and the Gaze (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1955)• The Blockbuster and the Break up of Hollywood (The Sound of Music, 1965)• The ‘new’ musical post 1970 (Dirty Dancing, 1987)• The musical and contemporary Hollywood (Hairspray, 2007)Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Mark BetzWhat is Third Cinema — and what is beyond it? This module will initially examine the cinemas and filmmaking traditions that have been considered to be under the banner of ‘Third Cinema’. Originating in 1960s Argentina, the term quickly became used to describe all manner of socially committed cinema, mainly but not exclusively from the so-called ‘Third World’. We will therefore look at politically inflected cinemas from Latin America, Africa, and Asia since the 1960s, as well as of the growing body of diasporic, exilic, and indigenous moving image production in the West since the 1980s, including African-American and Asian-British filmmakers. Readings will be drawn both from the writings and the manifestos of the filmmakers themselves and from contemporary critical and theoretical work.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Ryan PowellThis module begins by tracing the historical development of the American underground cinema from the early post-war period to the mid-1970s. Topics covered include examination of the key figures, social and artistic movements, and institutions that collectively created a culture for underground filmmaking; and the relation between underground filmmaking and experimentation in other arts such as music (jazz, avant-garde and experimental music), the visual arts (collage, abstract expressionism, happenings, environments, assemblage), and performance. Varying greatly in style and subject matter, these personally crafted films range from George Kuchar’s lurid melodramas, shot on a borrowed 8mm camera, to Paul Sharits’ dazzling flicker films. Later weeks examine the very different institutional circumstances in which avant-garde filmmakers who began working with film and video in the 1980s and 1990s later emerged. In addition to examining contemporary critical and theoretical writing on avant-garde film and spectatorship, this module will look at the way filmmakers themselves discuss their work in their own writing; investigating the diverse philosophical origins of their aesthetic philosophies.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

(open to single honours Film Studies students only)Module convenor: Michele PiersonSince the emergence of digital technology, the way in which we understand and engage in cinema and other visual media has changed. Within Film Studies, the term ‘new media’ is to distinguish between analogue (old) and digital (new) technologies used in the production of moving images. At the same time, ‘new media’ refers to new forms of screen technologies such as computer games, web-based media, and interactive installation. From the technical side of digital technology, to animation, DVDs and the Internet, this module looks at the impact that digital technologies are having on the types of contemporary films that are being made, and on the varieties of spectatorial experiences they offer the viewer. At the same time, this module is concerned with thinking about the extent to which digital media draw upon – or remediate – conventions that are characteristic of an analogue culture. The question of how, and in what circumstances, viewers actually engage with new media will be central to our concerns. In what circumstances, for instance, are viewers aware of special effects when they watch a movie? How interactive is interactivity? What kinds of institutional processes shape cinephilic pleasures related to Internet fandom, as well as DVD collecting and viewing? And what difference might it make if we record events with digital rather than analogue equipment? In order to address these questions, we will turn to a variety of philosophical and theoretical debates regarding our contemporary culture in cinema and visual media.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay - 2500 words - (25%), Exam (60%) 

Module convenor: Richard DyerSerial killing is a statistically unimportant crime that has an enormously high cultural profile and not least in cinema. It is also often thought to be an especially American crime. This module interrogates the persistence and popularity of the figure of the serial killer in European cinema. It does this through detailed attention to the filmic construction of the serial killer and the cultural and historical contexts of such constructions. It considers these texts and contexts in relation to such wider issues as the definition of this form of murder, concepts of narrative (seriality) and explanation, the relation to the American model, the relative absence of serial killer cinema in Scandinavian and Eastern European cinema and the view that serial killing is symptomatic of both modernity and postmodernity. It will be organised around case studies: Jack the Ripper (e.g. Pandora's Box (Germany 1928), The Lodger (UK 1927), A Study in Terror (UK 1965)); films made in and about serial killing in Weimar Germany(e.g. M (Germany 1931), The Vampire of Dusseldorf (France 1965), The Tenderness of Wolves (Germany 1974), The Deathmaker (Germany 1995)); the Italian thriller-horror cycle known as the giallo (e.g. Blood and Black Lace 1964, The House with the Laughing Windows 1976, Tenebre 1982)); auteur treatments (such as Le Boucher (France 1965) and Matador (Spain 1986)); and films addressing the role of the media or urban anonymity in the creation of serial killing (e.g. Man Bites Dog (Belgium 1992), The Hours of the Day (Spain 2003). [Titles above are indicative].Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Catherine WheatleyThe module provides an introduction the burgeoning field of studies in Religion and Film, with a primary focus on the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths (although other religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism will be touched upon). After an introductory session to academic approaches to religion and film, the module will proceed along chronological and thematic lines, beginning with an examination into the relationship between early and classical Hollywood and Judeo-Christian faith, and culminating in an analysis of contemporary cinematic engagement with religion, via topics including the denunciation of contemporary right-wing Christianity in US cinema; post-9/11 depictions of Islam; and religious syncretism in post-colonial film from Australia and New Zealand.Via an exploration of the complex and multiple ways in which religion comes into contact with film, the module thus synthesizes questions of representation; film form and aesthetics; spectatorship; ethics; politics and national cinema. Throughout, emphasis will be placed on the dynamic between Hollywood and its others, and on the various stylistic approaches taken by filmmakers in order to visually render and evoke faith and the sacred.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Jinhee ChoiThis module will examine how filmmakers in the East Asian region are actively adopting, franchising, and reworking film styles and genres. A genre or style initiated in one country can be quickly adopted in another, with filmmakers tailoring the specifics of that genre or style to the tastes of local audiences. We will both analyze some of the generic conventions that these films foreground and/or transform and isolate some of the national subtleties that are only discernable to local audiences. As the number of co-productions continues to rise, critics and viewers feel perplexed, and sometimes even amused, in their attempts to discern and identify the nationality of a film. We will critically assess whether there are limitations embedded in such co-production strategies, which blur and obscure the specificities of each nation-state involved. Finally, we will explore the changing mediascape – one of transnational, multi-media corporate conglomerate involvement in film production – and examine whether these industrial/institutional changes have transformed the status of regional stars such as Leslie Cheung and Bae Yong-joon.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)

Module convenor: Ryan Powell This module looks at some of the varieties of independent cinema that have emerged from America since the early 1980s. Films by directors such as John Waters, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Spike Lee, Todd Haynes, Lisa Cholodenko, and Richard Linklater, will be examined both within the context of their cinematic precursors and influences, and the wider social and institutional circumstances that helped to create audiences for them. At a time when all of the major Hollywood studios have independent subsidiaries, which produce big-budget ‘indies’ that regularly grab the limelight at the Academy Awards, trying to decide what makes a film ‘independent’ raises a number of questions. Within the context of commercial feature film production, has the term ‘independent’ become just another form of branding or product differentiation (mapping out its own pantheon of producers, auteurs and stars)? Or are the circumstances of independent production, distribution, and exhibition more varied and complex than this? While American independent cinema has often been defined according to industrial and institutional criteria, it has just as often been identified with formal experimentation and/ or a willingness to tackle subject matter considered too controversial, confrontational, or just plain obscurantist for Hollywood. From New Minimalism to New Queer Cinema, from Trash to Gen-X, this module plumbs the last quarter-century of American independent cinema to pose questions about its continuing social and aesthetic vitality.Assessment: Participation (15%), Essay 1 (25%), Essay 2 (60%)