Required Courses
CINEMA: THEORY AND CRITICISM
George H. Amberg, Professor of Cinema
Begins with the study of theory as a foundation for criticism. Theory defines and establishes the specificity of the moving image in both its technical and functional aspects; emphasis is on dymanics, kinetics, and visual perception. Criticism systematically examines formal and stylistic criteria for the evaluation… Extensive reading of theoretical and critical writing. Selected films are reviewed and analyzed.
HISTORY OF THE CINEMA
Robert Gessner, Professor of Cinema
A comprehensive analysis of historical development of cinema in terms of technical and social growth, including narrative and documentary types. Students will be required to do a term paper, researching in depth a particular period. Selected screening will cover from 1984 to the present.
Required Electives
FILM ARTISTS FROM LUMIERE TO GODARD
Andrew Sarris, Visiting Lecturer, Drama and Cinema
A study of film history through the personal styles of directors, both European and American, from the beginning to the present.
SOURCES OF THE MAGIC CINEMA
Amos Vogel, Visiting Lecturer, Drama and Cinema
The cinema of poetry, dream, and allusion from Melies to Warhol and beyond. Follows the main currents of the imaginative, fantastic, and experimental cinema, as distinct from the realist-documentary trends.
THE EMERGENCE OF AMERICAN FILM ART
Lewis Jacobs, Visiting Lecturer, Drama and Cinema
Traces the development of film art in America from 1900 to present-day explorations through the analysis of the formal contributions of significant motion pictures.
THE FILM AND THE MODERNIST REVOLUTION IN THE ARTS
Annette Michelson, Visiting Lecturer, Drama and Cinema
A consideration of the major movements of this century as they have reflected and inflected the development of film. Expressionism, Dadism, Surrealism, Cubism, Neoclassicism, Constructivism, and other styles as developed in other art forms (poetry, painting, music, the novel, theatre) are discussed in terms of their connection to film aesthetics and film-making.
CONTEMPORARY BROADCAST PROGRAMMING: A CRITICAL STUDY
Richard J. Goggin, Professor of Film and Television
Is television a “vast wasteland”? If so, how vast and why? What are the oases? What are the score and character of program and of programming patterns? Who make the decisions? What are the social-cultural-educational-economic-political influences on broadcast programming? How does television as a mass medium of communication affect all aspects of our pluralistic society?