COURSES

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150 Introduction to Film Studies
This course offers an overview of cinema as an artistic, industrial, ideological and social force. Students will become familiar with the aesthetic elements of cinema (visual style, editing, cinematography, sound, performance, narration and formal structure, etc.), the terminology of film production, and the relations among industrial, ideological, artistic, and social issues. Films (both classic and contemporary, mainstream and experimental) will be discussed from aesthetic, historical and social perspectives, enabling students to approach films as informed and critical viewers. Enrollment limited to 60. Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies Majors. Formerly FLS 150. {A} 4 credits
Alexandra Keller
Offered Fall 2011

234 The Art of Film

This intermediate-level course, crossed-listed in ENG, and designed for students interested in both film studies and film production, is meant to give sustained practice in the analysis of classic films—films from several countries, films from many periods.  It is meant to follow FLS 150 and build on the teaching of that course.  We will not revisit some of the larger concerns of FLS 150 (e.g., the industrial, ideological, and social issues of cinema) but concentrate instead on one approach to film, in some ways the most basic, in some ways the most essential: formal analysis.  Class meeting by class meeting, students will gain practice in understanding how films work—in mise-en-scène, camera work, sound, editing, and performance—and practice as well in discussing and writing about these things.   We will use a film textbook as basic guide (Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction), to which will be added, via e-reserve, essays on individual techniques as appropriate.  Some readings will be draft chapters from a book I am currently writing on this subject. 

I’ve conceived of this course as a “workshop,” by which I mean that, after an introductory couple of weeks, students will share the responsibility for finding materials for study.  Everyone will bring in brief film sequences showing effective, original, and interesting uses of particular techniques, and class will consist mostly of discussion of these sequences.  (I say “film” sequences, but in fact I’ll be happy to have the class look at sequences from television or other media as well.)  As preparation for class, students will write frequent short papers, while for the end of the semester I’ll assign a longer project including a research component and a preliminary oral report: the formal analysis of a single film, chosen by the student.  This will provide the opportunity for students to talk about film techniques not in isolation, but as contributions to a single aesthetic effect, and perhaps to an identifiable film style.  

Some of the film techniques to be covered (this is a provisional list; I’d be delighted to put on the syllabus other techniques suggested by members of the class):

            Mise-en-scène (set, costumes, make-up, location shooting, lighting, black-and white, color). 

            Camera work (framing, close-ups and long shots, tracking and crane

            shots, zooms, slow-motion, widescreen filming, long takes, depth of field).       

            Sound (diegetic and nondiegetic music, voiceovers, sound bridges, silence).

            Editing (cuts and jump cuts, dissolves, wipes, fades, montage sequences, split screens).

            Performance (acting for the camera, singing and dancing, improvisation).

Jefferson Hunter
Offered Spring 2012

240 Film and Music

This Film Studies course, cross-listed in English, is about what its title says: film and music in their various relations.  We will consider music as a basic technique of screen works, but also as a frequent and powerfully suggestive subject of screen works.  In some particularly ambitious films technique and subject are so complementary that they become hard to distinguish from each other, and these are the works I will particularly emphasize.  The course is at the intermediate level, designed for students with some beginning work behind them. 

After an introduction about key concepts as illustrated by Casablanca (directed by Michael Curtiz) we’ll look at a range of screen work from various times and places:

“Background” or nondiegetic scores in two large-scale films about war: Alexander Nevsky

    (Sergei Eisenstein) and Ran (Akira Kurosawa)

Animation: a selection of Disney’s Silly Symphonies, followed by Disney’s full-length feature

     Fantasia

Film from the period of transition to sound: A nous la liberté (René Clair), Modern Times

     (Charlie Chaplin), and if possible a silent film with live musical accompaniment

Filmed musical comedy: The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli) and Cabaret (Bob Fosse)

Musical biopic, of the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester), of Mozart in Amadeus

     (Milos Forman)

Comedy about music: Unfaithfully Yours (Preston Sturges) and A Mighty Wind

     (Christopher Guest)          

Television drama: Dennis Potter’s series Pennies from Heaven, with lip-synched 1930s pop songs

Filmed opera, and drama about opera: Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Ingmar Bergman), Farewell

     My Concubine (Kaige Chen)

Bollywood musical: Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker).

There will be a final work chosen by the class.

I’ll assign regular short readings in criticism, but the main work of the course will be the films themselves, and as the list above shows there will be a lot of them: students should be prepared for twice-a-week screenings.  Exactly how the films are shown will be determined by the class: in regular screenings, or posted on Moodle for streaming to individual computers.  In any case all the films will be on reserve in multiple copies in Neilson, in case they need to be seen at other times.

Course requirements: regular attendance, a group exercise in annotating a film list, graded pass-fail, an hour exam, two medium-length papers, and a final examination.  Prerequisite: a prior college course in film, literature, or music, or permission of the instructor.

{A/L}  4 credits

Jefferson Hunter

251 Everything New is Old Again: Linking Cinema and New Media
Cinema faces sweeping changes in the twenty-first century: digital technologies are widely replacing celluloid film, theatrical exhibition continues to decline, and the list of competing entertainment forms is growing. Appropriating Peter Greenaway's provocation, "Cinema is dead, long live cinema," this course will consider the challenge new media presents to cinema's primacy, but also the ways in which cinema survives and thrives in a digital age. We will identify the aspects of new media indebted to "old" media and will uncover how new media has reshaped cinema through CGI, video games, digital editing, and so on. Enrollment limited to 20. Prerequisite: FLS 150 or FLS 200 strongly recommended. Permission of the instructor required. (E) {A} 4 credits
Jennifer Malkowski
Offered Spring 2012

280 Introduction to Video Production
Section I Fall: In this course, we’ll radically rethink what it means to use film to tell the truth, bear witness, or represent reality. We’ll explore work that challenges conventions while still locating itself (if uneasily) under the umbrella of documentary. Through screenings, readings, and our own video projects, we will investigate various critical interventions into the form. We will look at the diary film, performative documentary, reworked archival imagery, the essay film, ambient video, multimedia, hybrid forms, queered texts, and more. As an introduction to video production, the course will provide a foundation in the principles, techniques, and equipment involved in making short videos. Prerequisite: Introduction to Film Studies (which may be taken concurrently). Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies majors. Application and permission of instructor required. Enrollment limited to 12. {A} 4 credits
Bernadine Mellis
Offered Fall 2011

Section I Spring:
This course is an introduction to the contemporary practice of independent experimental video and video art production, through screenings, discussion, class exercises and the acquisition of conceptual and basic technical skills. Students will complete three individual video projects. Each project will involve the development of a concept or narrative arc, manifested through moving visuals and audio. Projects are designed so that students learn to develop content, as well as foundational proficiency in the use of a video camera and digital video editing. Prerequisite: Introduction to Film Studies (which may be taken concurrently). Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies Majors. Permission of the instructor required. Enrollment limited to 12. {A} 4 credits
Lucretia Knapp
Offered Spring 2012

282 Advanced Documentary Production Workshop
In this class, we will take skills and insights gained in introductory production courses and develop them over the length of the semester through the creation of one short documentary project, 10 minutes long. We will explore the ethical questions and ambivalences inherent in this medium, seeking complex answers to difficult questions about representation and the often blurry lines between fiction and non-fiction. We will watch documentaries each week, films that introduce us to new ideas both in their content and in their form. Come with your idea; we will hit the ground running with proposed writing the first week. Prerequisites: Beginning Video Production. Application and permission of the instructor required. Enrollment limited to 12.
{A} 4 credits
Bernadine Mellis
Offered Spring 2012

345 Seminar: "Death 24x a Second": Violence, Mortality, and the Moving Image
If cinema is, as Andre Bazin writes, "change mummified," then violence and death are among the most dramatic physical changes to "mummify" on film. This course will study the long and complex relationship cinema has had with these bodily spectacles, stretching back to the medium's technological predecessor in nineteenth century photography. We will examine diverse strategies for their representation to consider questions such as: In what ways have censorship and taboo impacted the way violence has been screened? How can cameras make the internal processes of death externally visible - especially in the case of natural death? Although violence and death are often portrayed as universal experiences of embodiment, how do politics and identity (gender, race/ethnicity, age, etc.) influence their representation? What are the ethics of filming "real" violence and death in a documentary mode and how do audiences respond to such footage? Lastly, how are cultural attitudes toward violence and death reflected in and shaped by their filmic representation? Prerequisite: FLS150 or FLS 200, permission of the instructor. (E) {A} 4 credits
Jennifer Malkowski
Offered Fall 2011

350 Questions of Cinema
Topic: Film and Visual Culture from Surrealism to the Internet
This class will investigate cinema and its relationship to the rest of 20th and 21st century art. Working with the premise that film was arguably the most influential, powerful and central creative medium of the 20th century, the course will examine how film has been influenced by, and how it has influenced, interacted with, critiqued, defined, and been defined by, other media, including photography, painting, sculpture, performance and what has become known as New Media. Historically, we shall examine how film moved from a marginal to a mainstream art form, while still maintaining a very active avant-garde practice. The class also looks at how cinema has consistently and trans-historically grappled with certain fundamental issues and themes, comparing the nature of cinematic investigation with that of other media. Among the movements and ideas we will explore are Surrealism, Abstraction, Seriality, Structural Materialism, Conceptual Art, Feminism, Monumentality, Duration, Blockbuster Culture, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism, New Media. Enrollment limited to 12. Prerequisite: FLS 150 or FLS 200 and permission of the instructor. {A} 4 credits
Alexandra Keller
Offered Spring 2012

351 Film Theory
This upper-level seminar explores central currents in film theory. Among the ideas, movements and concepts we will examine: formalist, realist, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, and poststructuralist theories, and auteur, genre, queer and cultural studies approaches to questions regarding the nature, function, and possibilities of cinema. We will also consider how new media and new media theories relate to our experience in film and film theory. We will understand film theory readings through the socio-cultural context in which they were and are developed. We will also be particularly attentive to the history of film theory: how theories exist in conversation with each other, as well as how other intellectual and cultural theories influence the development, nature and mission of theories of the moving image. We will emphasize written texts (Bazin, Eisenstein, Kracauer, Vertov, Metz, Mulvey, DeLauretis, Doty, Hall, Cahiers du Cinema, the Dogme Collective, Manovich, etc.), but will also look at instantiations of film theory that are themselves acts of cinema (Man with a Movie Camera, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, The Meeting of Two Queens). The course is designed as an advanced introduction and assumes no prior exposure to film theory. Fulfills the film theory requirement for the major and minor. Enrollment limited to 12. Prerequisite: FLS 150 or the equivalent. Priority given to Smith College Film Studies Minors and Five College Film Studies Majors. Priority given to seniors, then juniors. {A} 4 credits
Alexandra Keller
Offered Spring 2012

400 Special Studies
1-4 credits
Offered both semesters each year

Crosslisted Courses

CLT 266 South African Literature and Film
Katwiwa Mule
Spring 2012

ENG 334 Servants in Literature and Film
Ambreen Hai
Fall 2011

FRN 252 Cities of Light: Urban Spaces in Francophone Film
Dawn Fulton
Offered Fall 2011

FYS 119 Performance and Film Criticism
Kiki Gounaridou
Offered Fall 2011

FYS 170 Crime and Punishment
Jefferson Hunter
Not offered 2011-2012

GER 230 Topics in German Cinema
Topic: East German Cinema 1946-1992
Joseph McVeigh
Not offered 2011-2012

GER 231 Topics in German Cinema
Topic: Cinema of East Germany
Barton Byg
Offered Fall 2011

GER 300 German Literature and Society (Taught in German)
Topics: German Culture and Society
Mara Taylor
Offered Fall 2011

GER 360 Advanced Topics in German Studies
Topic: Brave New Worlds: The Experience of Exile and Migration in Twentieth Century German Literature and Film
Gertraud Gutzmann
Offered Spring 2012

ITL 252 ITALY: “La Dolce Vita”
Alfonso Procaccini
Offered each Fall

JUD 362 Seminar in Jewish Literature and Culture
Topic: Yiddish Film
Justin Cammy
Offered Spring 2012

THE 344 Directing I
Daniel Kramer
Offered Spring 2012

THE 361 Screenwriting
Andrea Hairston
Offered Spring 2012

THE 362 Screenwriting
Andrea Hairston
Offered Spring 2012