Complete Course Listing

FILM 505: Narrative Theory and Practice for Screenwriters (4)
Section I and Section II: Wigor
Study and practice of the fundamentals of narrative, the art of visual storytelling, and the elements of dramatic writing for the screen. Narrative strategies for establishing structure, pacing, setting, characterization, and dialogue will be provided through model films and writing exercises. Writers will have the option of writing an original script or adapting their own work or a work in the public domain. Offered in 2008.

FILM 507: Creative Writing Seminar: Screenwriting (4)
Section I: Albaugh
Section II: Johnson
Workshop course in which class members further develop skills in the writing and analysis of narrative screenplays. Designed for those with prior experience in screenwriting. May be repeated for credit. (Prerequisite: FILM 505 or permission) Offered in 2008.

FILM 510: Film Analysis and Research (4) Davidson
Study of methods of film analysis and research. Course covers the major approaches to film analysis, the tools used in film research, and the problems and methods of film historiography. Required course. Offered in 2008.

FILM 530: Film Styles and Genres: Cinema of Confinement (4) Phillips
The course explores cinematic representations of complex narrative and cultural spaces of hotels, trains, boats, planes, automobiles, caves, and other confined areas. Readings include philosophical essays on space and confinement. Films may include: Grand Hotel, Silver Streak, Life Boat, Goundhog Day, Night on Earth, 12 Angrey Men, Stalag 17, and The Descent. Offered in 2008.

FILM 530.2: Adaptations—Literature into Film (4) Phillips
The course investigates the interrelationships and interactions, comparison and contrasts, between film and literature; it also explores history, theory, and practice of filmic adaptation by confronting texts by Bluestone, Naremore, Corrigan, Stam, and others. Among the films and literary sources examined closely during the course are Witness for the Prosecution, Rear Window, and Tom Jones, Blow-Up, Noises Off, and Silence of the Lambs.

FILM 531: The Aesthetics of Narrative Film (4) McLean
This course is designed to familiarize new film graduate students with the history and aesthetics of narrative filmmaking. We will explore the major components of film form, narrative, and narration, including mise-en-scene and color, camera work and cinematography, editing, sound and genre, as they have been used over the past century by filmmakers from Hollywood and around the world. Other key industrial or theoretical elements covered include film authorship, the star system, representation and ideology, and spectatorship.

FILM 532: The Tradition of Neorealism in Films (4) Perez
Among the most influential of all film movements, Italian neorealism broke with the theatrical tradition in cinema and gave a new emphasis to the representation of place, the particulars of an actual environment, and the social and material circumstances in which the characters find themselves. Story, character, and place have been called the “neorealist triad,” and the course pays special attention to the means by which neorealism puts these elements together. Students will examine several major works of Italian neorealism as well as various important predecessors and successors to the movement.

FILM 540: Film Styles and Genres: Queer Film/Queer Theory (4) Boyle
In the 1984 film, Another Country, one of the main characters utters what has now become a kind of cult one-liner of queer culture: “All problems solved for life. No commies and no queers.” Immersed as we are in a contemporary moment that often tends to privilege filmic representations of queers, gays, and lesbians in terms of identity and self-discovery, this statement reminds us of the deep historical and aesthetic imbrications of global politics (amid gender and class) with notions of normative sexuality. This course will survey a range of queer sexualities in film, locating such representations in dialogue with recent work in the field of queer theory and queer studies. A second aim of this course is to explore in a more expansive context the very limits of what constitutes a ‘queer’ film. How does Hitchcock’s Rear Window, for example, presage connections between genre, narrative form, and a “gaze” that can to an extent only be imagined in terms of normative and non-normative sexuality? How do the limits of normative and non-normative desire inform a much broader array of issues surrounding filmmaking and experimentation with narrative, form, and the construction of interior and exterior filmscapes? Possible films for the course may include: Before Night Falls; Boys Don’t Cry; The Crying Game; Rock Hudson’s Home Movies; Go Fish; Jodie – an Icon; Mädchen In Uniform (1931); Happy Together (Wai Wong); Fire (Deepa Mehta); Watermelon Woman; Summer in My Veins.

FILM 541: The Star System and Star Images (4) McLean
Examines the history and ideological importance of Hollywood’s star system, focusing on its development, its relationship with theatrical stardom, its flourishing during the heyday of the Hollywood studio contract system, and its change in response to the decline of that system. We will analyze in detail how representative stars were promoted and managed, and consider how stars embody and represent issues of gender and sexual identity, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, and power at particular times.

FILM 542: Topics in Film History: Hollywood 1965-1975 (4) Prince
American film in the late 1960s and early 1970s has been called Hollywood’s last golden age. The course explores the films of this period in their aesthetic, cultural, and historical contexts and traces key changes in the industry. Offered in 2008.

FILM 543: American Independent Cinema (4) Phillips
Most critics agree that the new independent films eschew the "Hollywood formula," instead offering viewers something more daring, provocative, refreshing, and ultimately rewarding. The course explores American movies made without Hollywood studio backing or creative control. Filmmakers under consideration are likely to include Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, Vincent Gallo, John Cassavetes, and the Coen brothers.

FILM 544: Children’s Film (4) Phillips
An exploration of films produced primarily for juvenile audiences, with particular attention to the films’ entertainment and didactic value, the treatment of controversial themes, and the depiction of children.

FILM 550: Special Topic: Photography (4) Sulkin
Introduction to the medium of photography, including historical and theoretical perspectives. Students will learn the basics of film-based black-and-white photography en route to the development of a self-designed portfolio. Lab fee of $150 includes film and paper. Student furnishes film (not digital!) camera.

FILM 550: Special Topic: Writing Short Scripts (4) Kornhauser
The focus of this class is to explore the short narrative film by writing and workshopping four scripts of no more than five pages each.

Film 550.1: Special Topic: Short Script (4) Johnson
This course is designed to help student learn to think small; examine the differences between writing short form and long form scripts; explore various means of discovering stories; analyze models of short films; compile writing exercises in a portfolio to generate story concepts; imagine and articulate stories visually; explore narrative devices germane to the short form; apply creative problem-solving techniques during the writing process; function in a cooperative learning environment comprised of peer writers; and write rough drafts of several short scripts and a polish of one short script. Offered in 2008.

Film 550.2: Special Topic: Screenplay Rewrite (4) Albaugh
The Screenplay Rewrite Workshop is a course for screenwriters who have a completed feature length screenplay that needs to be rewritten. The emphasis is on critique and applying that criticism to the rewrite of the student’s screenplay. In an intensive classroom workshop environment we will examine the basic three-act structure as it applies to screenwriting; the development of film characters which fulfill those story requirements; the need for a strong, identifiable theme and emotional through-line in their screenplays; tightening and punching up of dialogue; and ways in which to sustain second acts. Students will read the screenplays of each student in the class to understand the process of rewriting that each student will go through. Offered in 2008.


FILM 552: Chaplin and Hitchcock (4) Prince
Study of the visual styles and cinematic and cultural impact of Charles Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock. The course examines the characteristic visual, narrative and thematic elements in their films and places those films in their social and historical context.

FILM 553: Kurosawa and Peckinpah (4) Prince
This course studies the visual styles and cinematic and cultural impact of the work of Akira Kurosawa and Sam Peckinpah. We will specify and analyze the characteristic visual, narrative, and thematic elements in their films, and we will place their work in its social and historical content (post-war Japan for Kurosawa, the upheavals of late sixties America for Peckinpah).

FILM 580: Introduction to Filmmaking (4)
An intensive, hands-on introduction to 16mm filmmaking: Students work individually and in groups to produce a series of short films. The course comprises screenings, critiques, assignments and technical instruction. Instruction covers equipment usage, metering, lighting and b/w cinematography, concept development, and the full range of film editing modes. All equipment provided. Lab fee includes film stock and processing.

FILM 581: Video Production (4) Allamehzadeh
The study and practice of moving picture art through the medium of video. Students learn video production as a technical skill and an art, with practice in the making of narratives, experimental videos, and documentaries. All equipment provided. Lab fee: $200.

FILM 595: Advanced Screenwriting Tutorial (4) Maerker
Highly concentrated, intensive course to be taken during a student’s final summer in the program. Students will write 15-20 pages each week and complete a full-length screenplay during the six weeks. Not open to students in the MA program. Required course for the MFA. Offered in 2008.

FILM 599: Thesis (4,4)
An extended critical essay or an original screenplay (or screenplays) written in consultation with thesis advisor.

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