This course examines the origins and development of cinema from the late nineteenth century, when Thomas Edison first invented the kinetograph in his New Jersey studio, through the 1960s. Our survey of film history will engage with a range of methods for studying film history as articulated by film historian David Bordwell: these include film history and technology, industry, form, and social-cultural-political context. We will also by necessity pay attention to genre, “invention,” and the cultural logics of capitalism, which has powerfully shaped the evolution of film. Throughout the term, we will primarily study narrative fiction as a dominant mode of film production, though we will also consider documentary and experimental filmmaking. Our survey of film history will include the Silent Era, Soviet Formalism, German Expressionism, French Poeticism, Italian Neorealism, The Golden Age of Hollywood, American Avant-Garde, Postwar Japanese Cinema, The French New Wave, South Asian Realism, and Third World Cinema.
Assignments: At the start of the course, students will play with moving images by making their own zootrope (an animation device); students will also shoot their own actuality, a short slice-of-life film. The major assignment in the second half of the term is a group presentation on an aspect of film history chosen in consultation with the instructor.
Note: This is not a writing intensive course. All quizzes and exams will take place in class.