| QC Home | Contact Us |

Film Studies Course Offerings: Fall 2008

 

To Students: The film courses listed below will earn credits toward either the major or minor in Film Studies. All students are responsible for checking the Queens College course bulletin to determine what prerequisites, if any, they need to enroll in any particular course.

Students seeking advisement on enrollments for Film Studies courses offered should contact:

Professor Amy Herzog, Coordinator,
Film Studies Program
Office: “G” 102-C         Phone: 718-997-2956
Office hours: (Fall 08) TBA

R  =  required course for Film Studies major and/or minor          E  =  elective course

ITAL 250: Italian Cinema: "Framing History"	(E) 4 hr, 3 cr
F 9:15 AM-1:05 PM	Prof. Eugenia Paulicelli

The course will focus on issues of representation and on how crucial historical events in Italian history have been recounted in film. Starting with films produced under fascism, and continuing with films of the postwar years and present, the course will analyze the implications of fascism, antifascism, the so-called economic boom, and the student protest of 1968 and ask what interpretations and re-interpretations of these crucial events the filmmakers have provided. The course will examine how and why the meanings attributed to certain traumatic events such as WWII and fascism were portrayed and later revised at different moments in Italian history and how these events are implicated in national identity, in Italy's economic and cultural transformation, and in the outbreaks of terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s. Authors will include, Alessandro Blasetti, Roberto Rossellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Francesco Rosi, the Taviani Brothers, Marco Tullio Giordana, Mario Martone. The course will be taught in English and counts for the majors in Italian and Film Studies. Textbooks: Marcia Landy, Italian Film; Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli; S. Di Scala, Italy from Revolution to Republic:1700 to the Present. For further information, please contact the instructor: epaulicelli@gmail.com

MEDST 143: "Film History I, Origins to 1930"	(R) 4hr, 3cr
T 1:40-6:20 PM	Prof. Heather Hendershot

This survey course examines the history of cinema from its origins in the late 19th century to the transition to sound film in the late 1920s and early 1930s. We will study a range of films from all over the world, but we will focus in particular on U.S. films. Topics covered will include: the rise of the star system, early film industry economics and business strategies, German Expressionism, French Impressionism, and the ongoing struggle for silent film preservation. Directors will include: D.W. Griffith, Germaine Dulac, Sergei Eisenstein, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Fritz Lang, Georges Méliès, and Hans Richter. Students will read essays by Tom Gunning, Richard Koszarski, David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Anton Kaes, among others. Entire films will be screened in class, along with clips. Films to be studied in whole or in part will include: Metropolis, M, Battleship Potemkin, Steamboat Willie, The Jazz Singer, The Fall of the House of Usher, Un chien andalou, Son of the Sheik, and Birth of a Nation.

MEDST 146: "History of Cinema III (1970-the present)"	(E) 4hr, 3 cr
F 9:15AM-1:05 PM	Prof. Amy Herzog

A survey of the development of world cinema from the 1970s to the present. Covers economic, institutional, aesthetic, and political changes in cinema throughout a range of contexts: 1970s American Independents, the rise of the blockbuster, new trends in European, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern cinema, and the evolution of digital technologies. In-class screenings will include works by Alan J. Pakula, Bob Rafelson, Gordon Parks, Jr., Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, David Lynch, Pedro Almodóvar, Tsai Ming-liang, Abbas Kiarostami, and Werner Herzog.

MEDST 200: "Principles of Sound and Image"	(R)4 hr, 3 cr
T/Th 10:15 AM-12:05 PM	Prof. TBA

An examination of the dominant visual and sound conventions characteristic of most film, television and video production. Lectures illustrated with a wide range of media examples present the basic principles of sound and image combinations, including technological principles, shot language, composition, editing, and storytelling. Students apply these principles in the production of two short video projects. Students are also introduced to the fundamentals of the FINAL CUT PRO editing software program, which they will use to edit their second video project. Readings cover both practical material and theoretical discussions of visual and audio parameters.

MEDST 240: "Styles of Cinema"	(R) 4 hr, 3 cr
T 12:40-4:30 PM	Prof. Julian Cornell

The course will introduce students to the systematic "formalist" analysis of film stylistics in both non-narrative and narrative modes. We will focus on the way filmmakers use the film medium's techniques and strategies to develop constructions of and reflections about aspects of human lives and their societies. The major course text will be David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art: An Introduction, 8th ed. and it will be supplemented by other readings. Films of widely differing types will be screened, including A wide variety of films will be screened including Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock); Citizen Kane (Orson Welles); 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick); Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard); All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk) and The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel) among others.

MEDST 244: "16 mm Film Production"	(E) 4 hr, 3 cr
F 9:15 AM- 1:05 PM	Prof. Zoe Beloff

This class focuses on cinematography and storytelling using 16mm film. The following technical aspects of film are covered: lenses, light eters, 16mm silent cameras, film stock and an introduction to lighting for film. Particular attention is given to shot construction and the language of fiction film. Each student storyboards, shoots and directs two very short fiction films. In addition each student is required to work as an assistant cameraperson or gaffer on two of their classmate's projects.

MEDST 245: "Screenwriting"	(E) 3 hr, 3 cr
F 1:40-4:30 PM	Prof. Richard Vetere

This class will help students develop a screenplay from an original idea to the first act of a finished script. In a simulation of Hollywood's story development process, students will begin with a pitch, move to a treatment of their screen story, then act one of their scripts. Special attention will be paid to the fundamentals of storytelling, including creating memorable characters; three-act structure; and story points, such as the "inciting action" and the "climax." This will be achieved through an in-class writing workshop and exercises; screening mainstream, foreign, and independent films; reading film and TV scripts from accomplished writers such as Ted Tally and Larry David; and studying excerpts from screenwriting bibles, including Robert McKee's Story and William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade.

MEDST 263: "The American Film Industry"	(E) 3 hr., 3 cr.
M/W 10:50 AM-12:05 PM	Prof. Juan Monroy

After World War I, the American film industry became the dominant cinema throughout the world, dwarfing national cinemas in number of productions and in box office revenues. Since then, the industry vertically integrated into the Hollywood studio system, was broken up by the US courts, challenged by television and new media, acquired by global conglomerates, and surpassed by emerging cinemas in East and South Asia. By most measures, however, the American film industry remains a dominant force in the culture industries of the world. This course examines the history of the American film industry since 1918 in a global context. We will focus on the cultural and economic changes of the industry, and pay special attention to how film produced inside (and outside) of this system have responded to those changes.

MEDST 265: "Producing Independent Media"	(E) 3 hr, 3 cr
M 6:30-9:20 PM	Prof.Andrea Swift

The course presents an overview of the current media landscape and of all aspects of independent production: from development and fundraising through pre-production, production, post-production and distribution. Students will also explore the various roles that independent producers play: from small business owner and project developer to line-producer, amateur legal expert and distribution manager. Applicable to all kinds of programming, including feature films, documentaries, TV, cyber programming and other media, the course will focus most on project development, presentation, and funding. Students emerge from the course with one project "presentation packaged" and ready for further development, funding, and pre-production.

Required reading: Film & Video Budgets, 4th Updated Edition by Deke Simon and Michael Wiese and a course packet.

MEDST 311: "Film Culture, New York"	(E) 3 hr, 1 cr
Thursday 6:00-9:00 PM DATES TBA	Profs. Beloff, Buchsbaum, Hendershot, Herzog

Students are introduced to five of the premier venues for film screenings in New York City on five evenings, TBA. Venues include the Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, the Walter Reade Theatre, and Film Forum, among others. Students are required to attend all five sessions. One or more articles will be assigned for each film and discussed with the professor who accompanies the students to each screening. A short final paper surveying what students learned about non-commercial programming and exhibition practices will also be required.

NOTE: Interested students must have at least taken MEDST 143 or 144 or other more advanced courses at Queens or elsewhere. Please consult with Professor Herzog about eligibility and enrollment, which will take place in the first two weeks of the Fall, 2008 semester.

MEDST 342W: "Genre: The Horror Film"	(E) 4 hr, 3 cr
Th 4:00-7:50 PM	Prof. Heather Hendershot

This course surveys the history of the horror film, from its emergence in early American sound films to its more recent manifestations in the slasher film and the explosion of Asian horror. We will focus on issues of gender and spectatorship as well as the horror film's critique of the ideology of the family. The class will also examine industrial and economic forces that have shaped the horror film such as the fall of the studio system and the rise of gimmicks such as 3D. Finally, the class will examine the issue of taste and the horror film's simultaneous status as "trash" and "art," the dynamics of horror fandom, and the high/low aesthetic of Italian giallo films. One film will be screened in class each week, and students will also be assigned additional films to view on their own; recommended films are optional.

Representative Films: Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Brood, Suspiria, The Wasp Woman, The Stepfather, Deathdream, Audition, Dead Alive.

Representative Readings: Barry Keith Grant, ed. The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Modern Horror Film; Kevin Heffernan, Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953-1968, and essays by Carol Clover, Christopher Sharrett, Tony Williams, Rhona Berenstein, Adam Lowenstein, and Sumiko Higashi.

MEDST 342W: "Genre: Film Noir"	(E) 4hr, 3cr
T 6:30-10:20 PM	Prof.Julian Cornell

This course will examine one of the most evocative and complex genres of Hollywood Cinema - Film Noir. The term itself instantly conjures images of dark shadows, doomed protagonists, alluring femme fatales, tough, world-weary private investigators and bewilderingly complex narratives. Whether one considers film noir a genre, style or cycle, film noir continues to be one of the enduring and distinctive forms of mainstream American filmmaking. Students will be asked to consider the films in terms of aesthetics, ideology, gender and narrative and to explore the historical contexts and cultural attributes of the form. We will scrutinize the genre's influence in the 1940s and 1950s and consider it's lasting legacy through its reinvention in recent years in the form of neo-noir and retro-noir. Our primary texts will be Women in Film Noir, The Film Noir Reader and More Than Night. Screenings will include: The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, Kiss Me Deadly, Chinatown, The Long Goodbye, The Usual Suspects and others.

MEDST 343W: "Nonfiction Forms"	(E) (E) 3 hr, 3cr
M 9:15 AM-12:05 PM	Prof. Ghen Zando-Dennis

Study of strategies of non-fiction film, television, and video, including feature-length social and political documentary forms as well as experimental personal documentary formats. Historical films screened may include Kino-Pravda Newsreels and Man With A Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov); early "actuality" films by Thomas Edison; Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl); and Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty). Contemporary films may include Hoop Dreams (Kartemquin Films); Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke); High School (Frederick Wiseman); as well as the diverse works of Errol Morris, Barbara Kopple, Werner Herzog and Ngozi Onwurah. In addition to screenings, the course will examine important theories of documentary production, history and ethics through readings, journal and essay assignments and class discussions.

MEDST 345W: "Great Directors: Europe"	(E) 4hr, 3 cr
M 4:00-7:20 PM	Prof. Julian Cornell

This course will introduce students to the works of four of Europe's most distinctive cinematic artists: Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Krzysztof Kieslowski. Students will be asked to consider each director's films from two complementary perspectives. First, each artist's work will be examined in terms of its distinctive aesthetic attributes. How does a given film express the unique vision of the director in terms of cinematic technique, approach to narrative and recurring thematic preoccupations? Second, the director and their films will be discussed in light of the larger historical, political and cultural contexts. The course will employ a rough chronological format, studying each director's works within a ten year period beginning with the 1950s and Bergman. Therefore, we will consider each artist in relation to their times and view their films in light of the political and cultural developments of the day. How do the films function as a form of social criticism and attempt to define their given society's history and culture, and their country's relation to the rest of Europe?

PHIL 105: "Film/Philosophy/Politics: The Films of the 1960s"	(E) 4 hr, 3 cr
T 1:40-5:20 PM	Prof. John Matturri

The films of 1960s were among the most influential and culturally important in the history of the cinema. Technological, economic, legal, and social changes expanded possibilities for filmmakers to approach the medium as a form of personal expression and experimentation. This artistic freedom reflected the cultural emphasis on freedom - both in civil rights, women's and gay liberation movements and in the personal and social experimentation that was so central to the era. The 1960s were also a period of war and social disorder and these also left their mark on both the films and the social life of the era. By the mid-1970s, the commercial blockbuster came to be emphasized over the personal commercial film and a change in political and social climate reduced the cultural emphasis personal and social experimentation in many sectors of society. The 1960s, however, left a substantial, and still controversial, mark both on films and on modern life, making a philosophical consideration of the films of the era, with a special emphasis on the theme of freedom, of more than merely historical importance. Films to be screened and discussed include: Jules and Jim (Truffaut,, 1962); Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1963); Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor (1963); Pierrot le Fou ( Jean-Luc Godard, 1965); Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967); Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider (1969); Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966); Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1966); Michael Snow's Wavelength (1967); and a short film by Jordon Belson, (1970).

SPANISH 291: "Contemporary Spanish Film"	(E) 3 hr, 3 cr
W 6:30-9:20 PM	Prof. Nora Glickman

The films shown in this course follow through fictional renditions, literary adaptations, documentaries and criticism, the migrations of peoples in and out of the Hispanic world from North Africa, Spain, England, the Caribbean, the U.S. and South America. The films examine upheavals caused by wars, military dictatorships, economic hardships, religious and ideological persecutions.
Required course texts: Crossing Continental Bridges: Cinematic and Literary Representations of Spanish and Latin American Themes, Nora Glickman and Alejandro Varderi,, eds. (Tucson: Chasqui Press/Arizona U. Press, 2005). Tim Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, 6th ed. (Pearson Longman, 2007).