31 - 40 of 84 results for: FILMSTUD

Although art and science are often characterized as "two cultures" with limited common interests or language, they share an endeavor: gaining insight into our world. They even rely on common tools to make discoveries and visually represent their conclusions. To clarify and interrogate points of similarity and difference, each week¿s theme (time, earth, cosmos, body) explores the efforts of artists and scientists to understand and represent it and the role of technology in these efforts. Focus on contemporary examples.

Preference to sophomores. Do you want to learn more about independent film as it was practiced in major urban centers by young filmmakers? This class focuses on major movements by groups such as the Sankofa Film Collective and the L.A. Rebellion. Learn how to analyze film and to discuss the politics of production as you watch films by Spike Lee, Julie Dash, Melvin Van Peebles, Ngozi Onwurah and more. We will discuss representation, lighting, press material, and of course the films themselves. This course includes a workshop on production, trips to local film festivals and time to critique films frame-by-frame. It matters who makes film and how they do so. When you have completed this class you will be able to think critically about "alternative viewpoints" to Hollywood cinema. You will understand how independent films are made and you will be inspired to seek out and perhaps produce or promote new visions.

John Wayne's imposing corporeality and easy comportment combined to create an icon of masculinity, the American West, and America itself. Focus is on the films that contributed most to the establishment, maturation, and deconstruction of the iconography and mythology of the John Wayne character. The western and war film as genres; the crisis of and performance of masculinity in postwar culture; gender and sexuality in American national identity; relations among individualism, community, and the state; the Western and national memory; and patriotism and the Vietnam War.

This course surveys a range of critical perspectives and debates on Chinese cinema. It is organized on the basis of weekly topics, such as genre, historiography, gender, modernity, and the idea of national cinema. Consent of instructor required.

From 1945 to the mid-80s, emphasizing Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and Yugoslav contexts. The relationship between art and politics; postwar establishment of film industries; and emergence of national film movements such as the Polish school, Czech new wave, and new Yugoslav film. Thematic and aesthetic preoccupations of filmmakers such as Wajda, Jancso, Forman, and Kusturica. Permission of instructor required prior to the first day of classes.

This course proposes to look at how even the most seemingly objective films are shaped by a subjective eye. An eye which is molded by gender, race, culture and class - all of which influence the entire film-making process and experience from how something is framed to how it is cut and and how it is perceived it. How we look at something, for how long we look at it and in what context we are shown something is as important as what we are looking at. Similarly the subjective eye of the viewer shapes how he or she understands and interprets the film. Whether the viewer is an insider or outsider to the subject completely changes expectations and reactions to the film. So then what are we really talking about when we talk about documentary films? What makes a documentary a documentary? Why is such a categorization valuable? necessary? useful? nThe course will combine analysis of films, theoretical texts, and some practical ¿production" exercises.

A broad engagement with Indian cinema: its relationship with Indian politics, history, and economics; its key thematic concerns and forms; and its adaptation of and response to global cinematic themes, genres, and audiences. Locating the films within key critical and theoretical debates and scholarship on Indian and world cinemas. Goal is to open up what is often seen as a dauntingly complex region, especially for those who are interested in but unfamiliar with its histories and cultural forms.

In a culture obsessed with new media, we are bombarded with hype about the present as a revolutionary phase of convergence. But everything old was once new, and pioneering media of the past also had to negotiate existing technologies, ideologies, and fantasies. This seminar is organized around case studies of transitional media moments from the long 20th century, including proto-cinema, ham radio, early television, hypertext, and digital film. In exploring the material and discursive aspects of remediation through theoretical, historical, and media archaeological readings, we will ask: what is a medium and how do they emerge and evolve.

Course on the history of twentieth and twenty-first century American images of space and how they shape conceptions of the universe. Covers representations made by scientists and artists, as well as scientific fiction films, TV, and other forms of popular visual culture. Topics will include the importance of aesthetics to understandings of the cosmos; the influence of media and technology on representations; the social, political, and historical context of the images; and the ways representations of space influence notions of American national identity and of cosmic citizenship.