Courses / Undergraduate

Spring 2015

  • Berlin/Hollywood: German Expressionism and Popular Cinema

    160 - 002 | CCN: 31749

    Anton Kaes

    Date and Time: W 11-2P, 188 DWINELLE

    4 Units

    German expressionist cinema of the 1920s was a laboratory in which a modernist film language was invented. The aim of this course is to investigate how the expressionist visual style came to be identified with German art cinema and how Hollywood adopted the so-called “German style" for commercial genre movies, including horror, science fiction, melodrama, and film noir. We will analyze new readings of expressionist classics (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Last Laugh, Metropolis, M) and explore lesser-known, but recently restored films of that period. Throughout the course, we’ll discuss German films in dialogue with Hollywood productions, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, Sunrise, and Hitchcock’s The Lodger and Spellbound, among others.