Topics in Film: Significant Cinema Directors

Catalog description

This course offers an in-depth look at the work and influences of selected individual directors or groups of filmmakers in the context of auteur theory, film and art history, and cultural studies. Students will exercise formal and contextual analysis in order to better understand the director-as-auteur trope and will also be asked to deconstruct these theories and traditions in order to create new narratives surrounding authorship, genre, and intertextuality in cinema. On the one hand, this course honors the work of particular filmmakers that are undeniably accomplished, while on the other hand also taking into account issues of privilege, collaboration, technological developments, and economic support from the film industry that makes such authorship possible. Directors will thus be celebrated and critiqued with these issues in mind. This course may be repeated for credit when content varies. Prerequisite(s): A ARH 260.