Face-to-Face: Modern Identities in Contemporary Film

Catalog description

The course looks at contemporary film through the lens of Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of "recognition." We will discover that Classical Greek poetics and aesthetics not only continue to shape the visual arts but also allow us to think about how art in turn shapes us. The course also introduces students to cinematic form; how does film affect us? What are the nuts and bolts of filmmaking? How are emotional and cognitive effects produced by identifiable technical mechanisms? The course pays close attention to the role cognition, affect, projection, introjection, catharsis, and enjoyment play in our approaches to film.