Film History: Silent Cinema
CINE-UT 10
Dan Streible
Wednesdays, 12:30-4:30pm
Room 648
4 points
Class # 15670
This course provides an introduction to the aesthetic, technological, and cultural development of cinema from the emergence of film to the arrival of sound. The class also addresses issues of silent film historiography and explores the basic tools for analyzing the art of film. Topics include: the emergence of cinema from various scientific experiments and popular entertainments of the nineteenth century, the “cinema of attractions”, D.W. Griffith and the origination of narrative form, film expressivity through the use of camera, editing, set design, and acting, “location” as a cinematic concept, the city in cinema, the body and corporeality, film genres, silent film sound, the usage of color, women and the silent screen, the rise of the Hollywood glamour culture, and the movie star system. Screenings cover examples from national cinemas around the world such as American early drama and comedy, Scandinavian cinema, Italian cinema, French Impressionism and the avant-garde, Weimar cinema from Expressionism to New Objectivity, Russian pre-revolutionary melodrama and Soviet montage, Japanese silent cinema, and Hollywood of the 1920s. Readings, screenings, and written essays required.
RECITATIONS
Mondays, Room 646
Section 002 / 11:00am-12:15pm, class # 15671
Section 003 / 12:30-1:45pm, class # 15672
Section 004 / 2:00-3:15pm, class # 15673