FILM 2900.001: Introduction to Film Studies (GE:HU)
Instructor: Anna Froula
Times Offered: TR 11:00-12:15
Film screenings: Films will stream
This course “introduces” you to the broad field of film studies, including formal analysis, genre studies, film history and theory. By the end of the semester you will have the basic critical tools necessary for understanding and analyzing the language of motion pictures. Ideally, this course will enable you to not only gain a richer understanding of the films you watch but also the shows, You Tube videos, and other media. This course is also the springboard for the interdisciplinary film studies minor.
FILMS: Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989), Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941), Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019), Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1961), Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959), Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016), 13th (Ava DuVernay, 2016), Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
****FILM2900 is a required course for the Film Studies minor****
FILM 2900.002: Introduction to Film Studies (GE:HU)
Instructor: Randall Martoccia
Times Offered: MWF 11-11:50
Film screenings: M, 6-8:30pm
FILM 2900 introduces students to the basic elements of film. The course will cover a few of the major critical approaches for studying film. After the class, students will have a deeper understanding of cinematic history and greater knowledge of the thematic and aesthetic tendencies of a handful of major artists. Also, they should gain more understanding of how filmmakers use various techniques to make meaning and manipulate emotion. In this visual age, the analytical skills students develop will help them make better sense of the world they experience through online videos, television shows, commercials.
Films: Modern Times(Dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1936), Bicycle Thieves (Dir. Vittorio DeSica, 1948), Rear Window (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954), Chinatown (Dir. Roman Polanski, 1974), Do the Right Thing (Dir. Spike Lee, 1989), Goodfellas (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1990), and Little Women (Dir. Greta Gerwig, 2019)
****FILM2900 is a required course for the Film Studies minor****
SOCI 3035-601: Sociology Through Film
Instructor: Dr. Sitawa R. Kimuna
Class times: Online
Film Screenings: Streaming titles watched outside of class
Course description: The course will examine the importance of film in shaping and creating cultural perceptions. The goal of the course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills to critically analyze film as it is organized and presented for public consumption. The course is designed to introduce students to issues of diversity. For example, what films teach us about social class, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and the different forms of disability, etc. We will go beyond overly simplified discussions of stereotypes to address cultural products subject to a variety of interpretations. Films can be viewed using Joyner Library’s streaming sites such as Films on Demand, Swank or Kanopy.
Films: Crazy Rich Asians (2018,Jon M. Chu); The BlacKkKlansman (2018, Spike Lee); Puss Boots (2011, Chris Miller); Happy Feet (2006, George Miller); Knocked Up (2007, Judd Apatow); The Blind Side (2009, John Lee Hancock); The Devil Wears Prada (2006, David Frankel); The Informant (2009, Steven Soderbergh); Dirty Pretty Things (2002, Stephen Frears); It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck); American Violet (2008, Tim Disney); Doubt (2009, John Patrick Shanley); Brokeback Mountain (2005, Ang Lee); Crash (2004, Paul Haggis); Gran Torino (2009, Clint Eastwood); A Serious Man (2009, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen), Slumdog Millionaire (2008, Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan); Thelma & Louise (1991, Ridley Scott), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008, David Fincher).
**** SOCI 3035-601 counts as an elective for Film Studies minor in Fall 2021****
FILM3901: American and International Film History, Part II
Instructor: Amanda Ann Klein
Times Offered: MW, 2-3:15pm
Film Screenings: Films will stream
This course is a broad survey of the major films, genres, regulatory bodies and economic structures that defined cinema, both American and international, from approximately World War II until the present day. The course will address the social, industrial, and aesthetic history of these films, studying how they were made, sold, and exhibited in theaters. While the major concern of this course is to understand these films in terms of their historical context, students will also examine specific formal, narrative and rhetorical choices made by the individual films and filmmakers, tracking the development of US and international cinema. Students will learn to identify the historical and political contexts and events that have shaped the way various national identities are represented in films and how cultural beliefs and values shape people’s perceptions and impact cinematic representations of different nationalities. Students will also learn how differences in ethnicity, culture, and national origin impact our experiences of life in a particular historical moment and how that translates to the cinematic image.
Films: Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder), The Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa), The 400 Blows (1959, Francois Truffaut), A Taste of Honey (1961, Tony Richardson), Black Girl (1966, Ousmane Sembene), Battle of Algiers (1965, Gillo Pontecorvo), The Killer (1989, John Woo), Dil Se (1998, Mani Ratnam)
***FILM3901 counts toward the Film History Cognate for the Film Studies Minor***
FILM3920: Film Theory and Criticism (WI)
Instructor: Amanda Ann Klein
Times Offered: T,Th, 2-3:15pm
Film Screenings: Films will stream
This course introduces the basic problems and arguments that have been addressed and engaged by film theory and criticism over the past one hundred years. These problems and arguments address the function and the basic nature of the medium, analyzing the ways in which it affects viewers and their relationship to reality, to the arts, and to society. Students will learn how to read and analyze complex theoretical texts and how to apply these theories to the film text. This course asks basic questions, such as: What is the cinema? What makes the cinema different from other art forms? Is film a record of reality, a way to manipulate reality, or something in between? What is the language of film and how do audiences read this language? How are movies products of their culture that make impact on the societies they reflect and shape? How do audiences react to and interpret what they see? How do race, gender, sexual orientation affect the relationship between film and viewer?
Films: Umberto D (1952, Vittorio DeSica), Requiem for a Dream (2000, Darren Aranofsky), Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019), The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, John Ford), WALL-E (2008, Andrew Stanton), The Seven Year Itch (1955, Billy Wilder)
***FILM3920 counts toward the Film Theory Cognate for the Film Studies Minor***
FILM 4985: Topics in Film Studies – Intertextuality and War (WI)
Instructor: Anna Froula
Times Offered: TR 12:30-1:45
Film Screenings: Films will stream
This course is both the capstone for the film studies minor and an opportunity to pursue your own course of research in film studies! The semester will start with Dr. Froula providing an overview of intertextuality through films and texts about the Vietnam War. Then the class will choose the remaining texts that the class will watch and discuss together, according to individual projects. For example, one past project traced the filmic evolution of Frankenstein’s “monster,” another the experiences of children in World War II, and another on the use of satire in texts by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Choose your own adventure!
Screenings: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (Eleanor Coppola, 1991), Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller, 2008), Anthony Bourdain in Vietnam (TV episodes), Exterminate All the Brutes (Raoul Peck, HBO, 2021)
****FILM4985 is a required course for the Film Studies minor****
Film Studies at ECU 