Cinema Studies | Academic Requirements | Courses | Faculty
The Cinema Studies Program: Courses
Required Foundation Courses
Introduction to Modern Art
ARH 2050 Refer to Art History Undergraduate Courses for description.
Art Since 1945
ARH 2060 Refer to Art History Undergraduate Courses for description.
Cinematic Expression I
CIN 2760 / 4 credits / Fall
An intensive study of film history with analysis of specific films that represent stages in the evolution of the formal aspects of cinematic expression. Film showings, lectures, seminars. Offered as TFI 2760 for film majors.
Cinematic Expression II
CIN 2770 / 4 credits / Spring
A continuation of CIN 2760. Offered as TFI 2770 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and permission of instructor
Film History, Theory, and Elective Courses
Added Fall 2009 (11/24/08):
Introduction to Film Studies
CIN 1000 / 4 credits / Every year
Introduces students to the language of film and to analytical tools for discussing and writing about films. The first part of this course centers on formal analysis (visual, oral, and narrative conventions). The second part examines different filmmaking practices (documentary, experimental) and the most important critical approaches in film studies (genre criticism, auteurism, feminist film theory, multiculturalism, and queer theory).
Shooting and Editing Digital Video
NME 1195 Refer to New Media Courses for description.
Close Analysis
CIN 2000 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
The techniques of filmic expression are examined through a focused, detailed analysis of cinematography, editing, lighting, mise-en-scène, and soundtrack in celebrated cinematic works from around the world. Course content is organized around the establishment or subversion of narrative, generic, and stylistic conventions through the works of one director, a particular genre, or a film movement.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Principles of Montage
CIN 2500 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An intensive course for cinema studies majors that combines hands-on practice with close analysis. Students explore the art of montage by analyzing the film language of great directors and by shooting and editing short video projects, with an emphasis on the major principles of montage.
Prerequisite: CIN 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
The Film Noir
CIN 2720 Refer to TFI 2720 in Film Courses for description.
Cinema and Revolution
CIN 3000 / 4 credits / Alternate years
Third cinema was a movement proposed by Latin American directors in the 1960s and further developed by African directors in the 1970s. It addresses important questions about independent national cinemas, colonialism, race, and identity. This course examines the movement and its global influence, with emphasis on the cinemas of Latin America, Africa, black Britain, and American minorities. Offered as TFI 3001 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, or permission of instructor
Highlights of Italian Cinema
CIN 3015 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly, summer, in Italy)
An introduction to the great works of Italian cinema, from the Italian super-spectacle to Italian neorealism and the art cinema of Fellini, Antonioni, and Pasolini. Students consider the influence of Italian cinema on international cinema and explore developments in Italian cinema in relation to Italian culture and politics.
Women and Film
CIN 3025 Refer to LIT 3025 in Literature Courses: 3000–3999 for description.
Documentary Film and Theory
CIN 3030 / 4 credits / Alternate years
Through a historical survey of documentary and ethnographic film, this course explores documentary theory, aesthetics, and ethics. Topics include early cinema, World War II propaganda, cinema verité, radical documentary, the essay film, counter-ethnographies, and contemporary mixed forms. Films by the Lumières, Flaherty, Marker, Rouch, Minh-ha, and others.
Prerequisite: CIN 2760 and 2770, or permission of instructor
Film Sound: Technique and Theory
CIN 3040 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An intense focus on sound technology, with careful attention to the way image, dialogue, music, and sound interact in both film and video. The history of sound technology and sound theory are explored by comparing sound innovations in other fields (music, radio, television) to developments in film/video. Films include The Jazz Singer, The Conversation, Pi, and Run Lola Run. Offered as TFI 3040 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, or permission of instructor
Added Spring 2009:
Cult Cinema
CIN 3060 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
An exploration of cult films and the subculture surrounding them. What elements determine the second life of films beyond their initial phase of consumption? Do these films share certain characteristics, or does their cult status depend entirely on viewing practices? How do these subcultures police their boundaries? What reading strategies do these subcultures employ? These questions also allow students to reflect on their attachment to films. Offered as TFI 3060 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Added Spring 2009 (TFI crosslisting added 9/10/08):
Mexican Cinema
CIN 3080 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
A survey of the history of Mexican cinema from the early 1930s to the present. Students examine popular genres like la comedia ranchera (Mexican cowboy musical), el género cabaretil (dancehall film), and el cine de luchadores (wrestling film) as well as the work of the most prominent Mexican filmmakers (e.g., Arturo Ripstein, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Nicolás Echeverría, María Novaro, Guillermo del Toro). Also offered as SPA 3080 and, for film majors, as TFI 3080.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Light and Truth: Film, Photography, and Reality
CIN 3275 Refer to PHI 3275 in Philosophy Courses for description.
Psychoanalysis, French Film, and Literature
CIN 3285 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Art aspires to “represent” human experience, but certain events and emotions seem beyond the reach of language and image. To explore the capacities and limits of representing such inner states as rage, passion, grief, and joy, this course pairs key texts of psychoanalysis with works by Sartre, de Beauvoir, Artaud, Genet, Bazin, and several filmmakers, including Buñuel, Dulac, Dreyer, and Kirsanoff. Also offered as FRE 3285 and LIT 3285.
Prerequisite: CIN 2760 or LIT 2450
The Screenplay
CIN 3325 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Designed to foster screenwriting, beginning with creation of the script and working toward completion of a short film by the end of the term. Creative writing and cinema studies students collaborate at all stages of the process, including writing, producing, directing, and editing. Offered as CWR 3325 for creative writing majors.
Prerequisite: CIN 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Genres of Affect
CIN 3330 Refer to TFI 3330 in Film Courses for description.
Prerequisite: CIN 2760 and 2770
Research Practicum: Silent Cinema
CIN 3340 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
The goals of this course are two-fold. First, the history of silent film through the advent of sound is explored to reveal what early cinema can teach about the present and future of visual culture. Second, students use this exploration into early cinema to improve their film research skills, from data gathering to revision. Limited to cinema studies majors; offered as TFI 3340 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Contemporary Global Cinema
CIN 3400 / 4 credits / Alternate years
A study of contemporary global cinema and recent trends in cinematic style and narrative. The course focuses on non-American/non-European cinemas and co-productions and on important developments in the regional cinemas of Africa and Latin America. The final quarter examines “cinema” from a global perspective, particularly the extent to which new technology and cultural circuits have fostered techniques, styles, and narrative forms. Offered as TFI 3401 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770 or permission of instructor
Intermediate Video
NME 3470 Refer to New Media Courses for description.
Methods in Film Criticism
CIN 3480 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Fall)
An introduction to the history and modes of film criticism, using the films of Alfred Hitchcock as the focal point. The goal is to familiarize students with the diversity of critical approaches in film studies, to make them better critics, and to do so by understanding both the aesthetic qualities and social forces that have made “Hitchcock” not only one of the great film personae of the 20th century, but also a marketing device, an aesthetic, a genre, and a field of study.
Prerequisite: CIN 2760 and 2770
Eastern European Film
CIN 3515 / 4 credits / Alternate years
Major tendencies in Eastern European cinemas between World War II and the late 1980s are explored. Focusing on Polish, Hungarian, Czechoslovakian, and Yugoslav films, students examine the development of these national cinemas in the sociopolitical context of state socialism, and the flourishing of these cinematic traditions into internationally recognized movements and schools. Major thematic and stylistic preoccupations of Eastern European filmmakers are addressed through a close study of works by Polanski, Wajda, Forman, Jancso, Makavejev, Kusturica, and others. Offered as TFI 3515 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770 or permission of instructor
Race and Representation: U.S. Literature and Film
CIN 3533 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Racial imagery in the U.S., from the minstrel era to the present, is examined. Students interrogate the mythologies of this imagery as depicted in U.S. literature and film; rethink key analytical categories in cinema and literary studies in light of U.S. race history (genre and spectatorship); and study the racial uses of and meanings behind certain technical innovations in U.S. literature and filmmaking. Also offered as LIT 3533.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Queer Cinema
CIN 3540 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Emerging queer cinema is explored in its historical contexts and its relation to contemporary theories of gender, sexuality, and their intersection with race, class, and nationality. The course focuses on the “queering of the gaze,” interrogating conventional notions of representation, desire, identification, filmmaking, and spectatorship. Featured directors: Warhol, Fassbinder, Haynes, Von Trotta, Akerman, Rozema, La Bruce, Araki, Denis, Jarman. Also offered as GND 3540, PHI 3540, and TFI 3540.
Kubrick
CIN 3600 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Stanley Kubrick was one of the most original and cinematic of all film directors. His films were highly original in form, with an innovative use of the medium’s primary elements, including editing, composition, and camera movement. Most were also adaptations of classic and contemporary literature. His ability to transform an author’s literary vision into his cinematic vision was one of the keys to his genius. This course analyzes his films on their own terms and in comparison to their literary sources. Offered as TFI 3600 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
American Film Genres
CIN 3705 Refer to TFI 3705 in Film Courses for description.
Prerequisite: CIN 2760 and 2770
The Western
CIN 3715 / 4 credits / Special topic (every third year)
In light of a resurgence of the western in film and television, this course spans the history of the genre, from the earliest silent screen versions of dime store novels to its contemporary manifestations. While paying careful attention to the western as myth, epic, and landscape art, the course also explores themes of freedom, justice, and individualism as embedded and transformed in the genre. Offered as TFI 3715 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Philosophy and Film
CIN 3716 Refer to PHI 3716 in Philosophy Courses for description.
The American Avant-Garde Film
CIN 3730 Refer to TFI 3730 in Film Courses for description.
The Independent Spirit in American Film
CIN 3736 Refer to TFI 3735 in Film Courses for description.
Meaning and Truth in Cinema
CIN 3745 / 4 credits / Alternate years
A survey of the most important developments in film theory. Early theoretical discussions were mostly guided by the need to understand and to legitimize film as a distinct art form and as a new technology of seeing. As a result of the legitimization of film as a cultural fact, film theory became more specialized and a field of its own, alongside art history, literary theory, and philosophy. This course explores how each of these fields has contributed to a deeper understanding of cinema.
Transcendent Visions: The Spiritual on Film
CIN 3755 Refer to TFI 3755 in Film Courses for description.
New Waves of East Asian Cinema
CIN 3757 Refer to TFI 3757 in Film Courses for description.
Japanese Cinema
CIN 3760 Refer to TFI 3760 in Film Courses for description.
Contemporary Asian Cinema
CIN 3763 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An exploration of contemporary Asian cinema, focusing on films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan, and India made in the last 20 years. The class includes units on methods of comparative analysis, popular genres, authorship in art cinema, and national film industries. Offered as TFI 3763 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Topics in Classical Cinema
CIN 3765 / 4 credits / Alternate years
A key element of the classical Hollywood tradition (e.g., classical form, the auteur, the star system, or studio practices) is considered in detail. Offered as TFI 3765 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770
American Cinema of the ’50s
CIN 3783 / 4 credits / Alternate years
American cinema underwent significant upheaval during the 1950s with the crumbling of the studio system, the proliferation of television, fallout from the McCarthy hearings, and the Cold War. This course examines how such directors as Minnelli, Fuller, Welles, Preminger, Sirk, and Ray responded to these extremes, with attention to the historical circumstances and formal innovations that defined the era. Offered as TFI 3783 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Hawks and Wilder: Hollywood Auteurs
CIN 3785 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder—two of Hollywood’s greatest directors—made sophisticated, brilliantly crafted variations on such genres as the gangster film, comedy, western, musical, and film noir. This course examines the complex issues surrounding authorship in Hollywood film, while considering films to be artworks, social artifacts, and commercial entities shaped by genre expectations and factors beyond the control of any individual creative figure. Offered as TFI 3785 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770
The New Hollywood
CIN 3787 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
A study of American mainstream films of the “New Hollywood” or “New American” period of cinema, c. 1965 to the present. Students explore the evolution of American popular cinema in relation to stylistic innovation in international cinema, shifting audience demographics in the domestic market, and industrial and social change in the U.S. Offered as TFI 3787 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Added Spring 2009 (9/03/08):
Warhol in Context
CIN 3795 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Andy Warhol was the most influential visual American artist to emerge during the 1960s, redefining the practice and meaning of fine art and popular culture. Turning his studio, the Factory, into an avant-garde version of a Hollywood soundstage, Warhol created films that are astonishingly rich in pictorial and behavioral nuance. This course examines Warhol’s films and his legacy in film/video art. Offered as TFI 3795 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770
Italian Cinema After Neorealism
CIN 3830 Refer to TFI 3830 in Film Courses for description.
André Bazin, Realism, and Cinema
CIN 3835 Refer to TFI 3835 in Film Courses for description.
French Cinema Since 1930
CIN 3855 Refer to TFI 3855 in Film Courses for description.
Contemporary French Cinema
CIN 3857 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
The profile of what people think of as “French” cinema has undergone considerable change from the turbulent post-1968 period to the present. This course focuses on major developments in contemporary French cinema from the vantage points of aesthetics, industry, and culture. The role of government subsidies, large European co-productions, and shifts in cultural attention from high-art auteurs (individual authors) to the banlieue (suburb) are studied closely. Also offered as TFI 3857 for film majors and FRE 3857.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Melodrama
CIN 3870 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Melodrama is both a historical genre and a mode of imagination that operates across media. To bridge these two aspects of melodrama, the course examines its theatrical origins, the film genres that employ its rhetorical devices (the woman’s film, action and disaster films, horror), and its further development in television series and soap operas. Offered a TFI 3870 for film majors.
Prerequisite: CIN/TFI 2760 and 2770, and permission of instructor
Advanced Broadcast News
CIN 4310 Refer to JOU 4310 in Journalism Courses for description.
The following courses with FTF prefixes are offered on an irregular basis by the School of Liberal Studies & Continuing Education:
- Introduction to Video Techniques and Technology FTF 1500
- Documentary Production FTF 2110
- Motion Picture Production Workshop FTF 2240
Cinema Studies Senior Project
CIN 4990 / 4 credits (per semester) / Every semester
Students are expected to write an extended (c. 40-page) essay on a distinctive topic in cinema studies, in consultation with a senior thesis advisor. Two semesters required (8 credits total).
Updated Nov. 24, 2008
