American Cinema (1970's to the Present). A survey course on American independent cinema and Hollywood studio productions from the late 1970's to the present. Topics include: the response of independent and experimental cinemas to Hollywood's hegemony; the cultural significance of American cinema; the global success of American films and their impact upon production, stardom, distribution, and exhibition; the aesthetics of film image, sound, and narration; and the effects of new digital technologies on spectacle, and spectatorship. The course will draw upon Occidental's location in Los Angeles as a source of research, screening, and programming opportunities.
Classical and Post-Classical American Cinema (1930's to 1960's). A survey course on American independent cinema and Hollywood studio productions, from the emergence of sound cinema and the fortification of business models and generic conventions in the studio system, up through the social, political, and civil rumblings of the early 1960's. Topics include: genre theory, gender, race, and class in American cinema and society, independent and experimental counter-cinemas operating outside the Hollywood model, censorship, and the evolution of film genres. The course will draw upon Occidental's location in Los Angeles as a source of research, screening, and programming opportunities.
Modernity and the Rise of Cinematic Visuality. Many have argued that the history of modernity has been, above all, a history of visualization, changing the way we see. In this course, we will examine a diverse range of nineteenth and early twentieth century visual practices, technologies, and experiences including train rides, panoramas, shopping arcades, assembly lines, and amusement parks that helped shape the "modern observer" by altering both the perception and understanding of time and space, public and private, work and leisure, the normal and deviant, and the individual and collective. Through a combination of critical readings, screenings, and field trips, we will ask how such practices of looking not only influenced early cinematic form and content, but also how they continue to inflect postmodern media culture, from television to the internet. The course culminates in a 3D screening of HUGO (2011, Scorsese).
The Philosophy of Classical Hollywood Cinema.
This course will attempt a survey of current philosophical approaches to classical Hollywood film, beginning with Stanley Cavell’s The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Cinema (1971). This work initiated a new and flourishing sub-discipline within contemporary academic philosophy called film-philosophy. The central assumption within this body of inquiry is that film is (or can be) “philosophy in action.” In this course we will be returning to the source of this idea to read Cavell’s original work, as well as selections from his two subsequent books: Pursuits of Happiness: the Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (1981) and Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman (1996). We will then extend our inquiry to other writers inspired by Cavell (and reflections on later developments within Hollywood), such as Robert Pippin (writing on Film Noir), Stephen Mulhall (writing on the Alien series and other sci-fi), and William Rothman (writing on Hitchcock). Weekly screenings and discussions will be part of the course, as well as one or two field trips to Los Angeles archives. Cross-listed as PHIL 317.