This course introduces students to cinematic aesthetics, or the “art of film,” as well as methods for reading and understanding film and other moving image media. Throughout the course, we will explore the tools and techniques that film and media makers use to make meaning and express mood and emotion. While our focus will be on close reading and formal analysis, we will also analyze film and media in relation to technology, genre, stars, and social/cultural/political context. In the first part of the course, we will read selections from Cinema is a Cat by Daisuke Miyao and watch a series of feline films that highlight some of the fundamental aspects of cinema, namely framing, lighting, and editing. We will then move on to films and other moving image media, including television and video, that help us to explore topics such as feminism, queer and trans representation, realism, experimentalism, camp, and race. Along the way, some of the genres we may examine include the gangster film, music video, screwball comedy, sitcom, home movie, noir, musical, documentary, science fiction, video essay, horror, and “chick flick,” as well as cult and indie films. In the final part of the course, students will work in groups and present on films from a selection of genre-bending indies.
Assignments: six quizzes on the readings; six film viewing blog posts; one film analysis paper (4-6 pages); and a group presentation. Class participation will comprise a significant portion of the final grade. Attendance is mandatory.
Required text(s): Cinema is a Cat: A Cat Lover’s Introduction to Film Studies (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2019) by Daisuke Miyao: https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/cinema-is-a-cat-a-cat-lovers-introduction-to-film-studies/; All additional readings will be made available on Laulima free of charge.
Films (subject to change): Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Cat People, To Catch a Thief, Jungle Emperor Leo, Shozo, a Cat and Two Women, Bringing Up Baby, The Blob, Flower Drum Song, Female Trouble, Medicine for Melancholy, Touki Bouki, In the Mood for Love, Meek’s Cutoff, Chan Is Missing, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, After Hours, Bacurau, The Lure