The Face in Cinema

Catalog description

Cinema has always been obsessed with the thematics of the human face. The close-up is most frequently associated with a revelation of intense human signification, with a rendering legible of the face as the signifier of the soul, and with the face as the privileged signifier of individuality, truth, beauty, and interiority as well as the most basic support of intersubjectivity. We will examine the face in the cinema in relation to the star system, theories of desire and affect, and a history of representation of the face (Darwin, Galton, Duchenne, etc.). Films by Dreyer, Hitchcock, Warhol, Wiseman, and others. Students must register for the primary meeting and one film screening. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.