FILM 2900.001: Introduction to Film Studies (GE:HU)
Instructor: Anna Froula
Times Offered: TR 2:00-3:15
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.
Screenings: 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)
FILM 2900.002: Introduction to Film Studies (GE:HU)
Instructor: Anna Froula
Times Offered: TR 12:30-12:15
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.
Screenings: 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)
RUSS 3220 (601): 19th Cent. Russian Literature in Film Adaptation (GE:HU)
Instructor: Elena Murenina
Times Offered: M: 3:30-6:00 pm, synchronous online via Canvas/WebEx
Film screenings: students screen films on their own
Course description: In this online humanities course, we will explore American, British, and international film adaptations of the 19thcentury masterpieces written by Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, with the focus on ethical, philosophical, and psychological dimensions of their prose and drama. How the problems of artistic creativity, human dignity, gender, love, marriage, environment, pandemic, war, and peace – highlighted in canonical texts – can enrich our today’s critical thinking and decision-making? What can we learn about ourselves and the world by reading Anna Karenina, or watching its film adaptation? What are the narrative and rhetorical choices made by legendary filmmakers in their revealed through the screen ‘truth’ about the past and present? We will examine the most intriguing issues of cinematic adaptation such as function of character in narrative, pacing of action in text and in film, role of landscape in verbal and visual arts, etc. We will discuss how the single elements of film technique – such as image composition, editing or sound, can re-create the main themes and plot elements of the literary work, or transform its original meaning and themes. Taught in English. May count toward International Film credit for Film Studies minor, or Russian Studies major/minor elective, or GE:HU requirement.
Screenings: Onegin (1999, Martha Fiennes), Amadeus (1984, Milos Forman), Anna Karenina (2012, Joe Wright), A Gentle Women (1969, Robert Bresson), War and Peace (1956, King Vidor), The Last Station (2009, Michael Hoffman), Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano(1978, Nikita Mikhalkov), Vanya on the 42nd Street (1994, Louise Malle), Country Life (1995, Michael Blakemore), Winter Sleep (2014, Nuri Bilge Ceylan), and more in excerpts.
FILM 3900-001: American and International Film History, Part I
Instructor: Dr. Anna Froula
Times Offered: Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00-12:15
Film screenings: Films will stream
Before George Clooney charmed, Cary Grant enchanted. Before Jim Carrey’s pratfalls, Buster Keaton coined the art of gag. Before Aunt Becky cheated, Fatty Arbuckle scandalized. How much have our stars, our stories, and our storytelling devices changed since the invention of cinema? Find out as we study the major films, genres, regulatory bodies, economic structures, and pure joy of cinema, both American and International, from the mid-1890s to the onset of World War II.
Films: The Playhouse (Buster Keaton, 1921), Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920), The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928), The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932), The Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933), The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938), His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
FILM4980 Topics in Film Aesthetics: Trash Cinema and Taste (WI)
Instructor: Dr. Amanda Ann Klein
Times Offered: Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 pm
Film screenings: Films will stream
Though most film studies courses strive to provide students with the accepted canon of “quality films” like Citizen Kane and Casablanca, this course is focused on those texts existing on the margins of good taste: “trash cinema.” As a course on film aesthetics we will discuss what qualities categorize a film alternately as trash – as “bad,” “low brow” or “cult” — and how taste cultures and taste publics are established. We will discuss why certain films are believed to have “cultural capital” and why and how trash cinema rewrites the rules about which films are worth watching.
Films: The Room (2003, Tommy Wiseau), Freaks (1932, Tod Browning), Reefer Madness (1936, Louis J. Gasnier), Glen or Glenda? (1953, Ed Wood, Jr), Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965, Doris Wishman), 2000 Maniacs (1964, Herschell Gordon Lewis), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, Jim Sharman), Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971, Melvin Van Peebles), Pink Flamingos (1972, John Waters), Magic Mike XXL (2015, Gregory Jacobs)
NO TEXTBOOK PURCHASE NEEDED
Summer I
Film 2900-601: Introduction to Film Studies
Instructor: Dr. Anna Froula
Class Time: online
Films will stream
The goal of this course, as its title suggests, is to “introduce” 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 television shows, You Tube videos, commercials, and other media you encounter on a daily basis.
Screenings: Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007), Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955), BlackKklansman (Spike Lee, 2018), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962), Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016), Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959), Dope (Rick Famuyiwa, 2015), Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1924), Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)
Film Studies at ECU 