CMS 480 A: Senior Capstone

This senior capstone is designed for CMS majors who are familiar with the history and theory of film, but it does not require previous coursework on either documentary or the avant-garde. We will explore each film together, in depth, and in the spirit of what the great American filmmaker Stan Brakhage called an “adventure of perception.” Documentary and the avant-garde represent different filmmaking practices, each with a range of agendas and approaches, and each with different histories. But they are also interconnected. This course will survey historical and contemporary intersections of documentary and the avant-garde through the films of John Akomfrah, James Benning, Luis Buñuel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Bruce Conner, Robert Flaherty, Patricio Guzmán, Barbara Hammer, Christopher Harris, Sky Hopinka, Claude Lanzmann, Jonas Mekas, Ross McElwee, Bill Morrison, Luis Ospina, Walter Ruttmann, Cauleen Smith, Trinh Minh-ha, Agnès Varda, and Andy Warhol, among others. My hope is that their films will alter how you think about moving images and the act of seeing. Indeed, the goal of this course is to see better or, at least, to see differently. What that means for each of us will vary, but that’s the goal.