CMS 297 A: Special Topics in Cinema and Media Studies

Even as cinema is an aesthetic experience, a commercial institution, and a social practice - it is first and foremost a mode of using machines. This course surveys the history of cinema as technology from its origins within the machines of 19th century visual culture to its digital manifestations in the present. The moving image originally came into being from experiments measuring motion, before film technicians around the world (most prominently in Hollywood) created a language for narrating stories through techniques and tricks of camera, editing and eventually, sound. The post-World War II new cinemas and revolution in documentary would not have been possible without the miniaturization of cameras, better film stock, and ease of sound recording. As cinema moved from film to video, and now to digital, what has not changed is the urge to experiment with the means of production, that is the material equipment of movie making. In this course, we will be watching and reading about movies, where the story content will not be so much our focus, but the technologies that allow us to experience the magic of cinema.