Approaches film and related media as socially and politically engaged practice, with focus on screen media produced or received in "opposition" to dominant cultural and entertainment industry norms. Topics vary.

This course will provide an introduction to classical Hollywood cinema through the work of several key filmmakers, beginning with the golden age of the studio system in the 1930s and 1940s and extending up to the New Hollywood of the 1960s. We will consider the role of directors in a mature studio system marked by an industrialized and collaborative approach to filmmaking. At once ruthlessly efficient and innovative, both liberating and stifling, the studios were responsible for some of the most ambitious and influential works of American culture in the twentieth century.

Varying topics relating to film in social contexts. Offered by resident or visiting faculty.

Introduction to the history and significance of genre in film and/or television. May examine one or a selection of several genres, drawn from a list including, but not limited to, the western, melodrama, musical, thriller, sitcom, film noir, and documentary. Topics include form, ideology, authority, history, innovation, and parody.

Introduction to film form, style, and techniques. Examples from silent film and from contemporary film.