FILM101

How do films invite us to emotionally identify with characters? How has cinema cultivated or challenged gendered and racialized ways of seeing? How does economics of the film industry influence the form and content of movies? Students will have an opportunity to engage with such critical debates within film studies and thereby give students the tools to closely analyze and write about cinema. In addition to working with excerpts, each week students watch and discuss in class a new feature-length film. Primary texts include a range of international films—from early silent shorts to more recent feature-length productions by directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Agnes Varda.