Othering in Film

Catalog description

This course looks at how difference (othering) is constructed in film. We accomplish our goals via in class viewing of short and full length features, and critical analysis of the visual form and content in mainstream Hollywood, independent, and international films. This inquiry takes note that while some of these films may be conventional in form, in content they challenge accepted notions of differences or other. Our goal is to catalog films and other media that resist accepted notions of the “other.” We deal primarily with textual analysis that focuses on story, character and cultural spaces, as well as cinematic space and time. With the help of reading assignments, we examine socially accepted notions of the “other” and see how they are derived and/or challenged in and by films, thus looking at how an art form can interact with socially accepted forms of “othering.” The objective of the course is to train emerging artists and scholars to engage in critical analysis that can make profound contributions to the individual’s unique creative or academic process. Another intention of the course is to delineate and occupy the space left for debate between authorship as expressed from a directorial perspective from authorship from the spectator’s point of view.