-
Film History & Form
10 001 | CCN: 17091
Jaimie Rachel Baron
Location: Dwinelle 142
Date and Time: TU, TH 9:30am - 10:59am
4 Units
This course focuses on the earliest years of cinema, from its 19th century prehistory in optical technologies, such as the panorama and photography, to its cultural life at the end of the 1920s. We will consider how film technology, industry, and art took shape in the late 1890s and how cinematic narrative forms that are familiar to us now (like the serial and the feature film) became codified during the early years of the 20th century. We will learn about films made by and featuring women and people of color during these years, histories that have often been neglected in the past. The course will introduce students to influential styles and movements, such as German Expressionism and Soviet Montage. Students will learn about the transition from silent to sound cinema in the 1920s and the introduction of the American film industry’s practice of self-regulation, the Motion Picture Production Code. Students will also learn some basic vocabulary of film form and how to develop a compelling and original analysis of film sequences using visual and audial, as well as narrative, evidence.