111-246 International Art Cinema

Note

Available as 111-346 at 3rd-year level.

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Subject Description

A study of major developments in European art cinema such as Surrealism and Expressionism in the 1920s, poetic realism of the 1930s, and the Post World War II cinema of existential crisis, modernist ambiguity and sexual politics. The aesthetic, social and cultural imaginaries which provided the impetus for the development of new forms of subjective and objective realism are examined in relation to developments in film theory, interpretation and criticism. Particular aspects of art cinema to be given close examination include a fascination with the feminine and ambiguity of film narrative characteristic of films of the French New Wave, Italian neo-realism and art cinema, and the New German Cinema. The concept of art cinema in the 1990s is scrutinised in relation to contemporary postmodern, postcolonial and postsocialist forms.

Assessment

Written work which may comprise class papers, essays or take-home examinations totalling about 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• Bordwell D, Narration in the Fiction Film. University of Wisconsin Press Madison 1985.
• Bordwell D, Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema. Harvard University Press Cambridge Massachusetts and London 1989.
• Caughie J (ed), Theories of Authorship. BFI London 1981.