Film Studies Course Listing

Introduction to basic formal concepts in film analysis including mise-en scène, cinematographic properties, editing, and sound, as well as narrative qualities.

Introduction to basic formal concepts in film analysis including mise-en scène, cinematographic properties, editing, and sound, as well as narrative qualities.

Introduction to basic formal concepts in film analysis including mise-en scène, cinematographic properties, editing, and sound, as well as narrative qualities.

The history of film has often been told as a narrative of classic films made by 'genius' directors. Yet, a truer history of the medium encompasses all kinds of material that was recorded on film-- from home movies to educational films to feature-length. Although this course will focus primarily on the development of the narrative film it will question the traditional narrative of film as a sequence of masterwork films made by great filmmakers. We will examine the development of film from its beginning in the late 19th century up to 1950 as both an art form as well as a commercial product, and much that falls between. We will learn about key film movements, genres, development of film technique, but also some of the lesser-known figures, movements, and films that have been sidelined by traditional film histories. 

Many people argue that television has been “revolutionized” in an age of technological convergence and streaming services. Yet there remains continuity amidst the radical shifts within the television industries. This course introduces students to the history of television broadcasting and the transition to a post-network era. It also provides an overview of the foundational theories of television criticism and issues of representation of race, gender, class, and sexuality in televisual storytelling.

Did you know that Quebec filmmakers are excelling on the world stage? Three years in a row (2011-2013) a film from Quebec was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-an award that Denys Arcand won in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions. Other filmmakers such as Xavier Dolan and Denis Coté are picking up top prizes at film festivals in Cannes, Berlin, and Locarno. Denis Villeneuve is one of Hollywood’s most sought after directors. So what led up to this watershed moment? This course provides an overview of the achievements in Quebec cinema placing the major developments in Quebec filmmaking in their social, political, and historical contexts. Attention will be paid to important auteurs such as Michel Brault, Denys Arcand, Anne Claire Poirier, Claude Jutra, and Lea Pool, as well as contemporary transnational directors such as Jean Marc Vallée and Denis Villeneuve, along with the directors of Quebec’s most recent New Wave (Xavier Dolan, Denis Coté, Ariane Louis-Seize). Underpinning these investigations will be an exploration of the themes and concerns that dominate the formation of Quebec cinema including the role of women filmmakers and Quebec-Indigenous relations.

A study of the science fiction film genre in relation to its aesthetics, themes, and historical development.By the time you finish this course, you will be conversant with the aesthetic and thematic conventions of the science fiction genre. We will also explore its historical development and how the genre acted as an imaginative displacement of social and cultural concerns. Assessments are designed to test your understanding of these aspects of the genre.

Genres are categories that structure the narrative dimensions and audience expectations of any television series. These categories provide both constraints and opportunities for TV showrunners. This course analyzes the aesthetic and socio-cultural implications of various TV genres. Three to four of the following genres will be covered in alternating semesters: comedy (both multi-camera and single-camera), crime procedurals, sci-fi/fantasy, dramas, anthology series, soap operas, "dramedy," historical fiction, action-adventure, thriller/mystery, animation, "art television," and reality TV.

Do you want to learn how to write a film? This course introduces you to the essentials of screenwriting including concept, story, plot, dialogue and structure. Through analyzing scripts and working on your own project you will learn the fundamental components of screenwriting including how to develop an outline and synopsis, formatting, developing a character, writing effective dialogue, and constructing scenes and sequences.

Though his career spanned almost a half-century, Stanley Kubrick’s output was limited to thirteen feature films, some made as many as twelve years apart. His films ranged vastly in terms of genre, from dramas to dark comedies to war films to horror to science fiction, but each remains, first and foremost, “Kubrickian” – Kubrick’s signature directorial style predominating over genre distinctions. This class will explore the singular career of Stanley Kubrick by engaging with such matters as authorship, film style and adaptation, as well as Kubrick’s status as a cult figure.

Cinematic representations of the prison coincide with the birth of the medium and have been pivotal to shaping public perceptions of prisons and punishment. This seminar explores how prisons have been represented and contested within cinema, how cultures of punishment have shaped cinematic spectatorship, and what it might mean to create abolitionist films about carceral power. We will survey films across forms, genres, and periods, from early cinema and film noir to avant-garde film, social documentary, and sexploitation. While the course will emphasize North American films, we will also study examples from other geopolitical contexts, including Palestine, Angola, France, and the United Kingdom. Throughout, film screenings will be paired with readings in film theory and critical theories of prison abolition.

Introduction to basic formal concepts in film analysis including mise-en scène, cinematographic properties, editing, and sound, as well as narrative qualities.

This course covers the history of world cinema from 1950 to the present, touching on a variety of national cinemas. We will focus on the changes in world cinema in the 1960s and 70s and talk about how those changes have influenced contemporary world cinema.

What is film? How should we study it – as an art form, as a technology, as an industry and social institution, and as a political and cultural practice? And how does film represent and intervene in our shared, collective world? 

This course introduces students to the ways a range of thinkers have responded to these questions by surveying the major critical traditions and approaches that have shaped both the historical development and contemporary practice of film theory. We will investigate the status of film as a medium and its relationship to other arts; how film organizes perception, produces meaning, and affects embodiment; the forms of spectatorship and subjectivity that cinema constructs; and film’s participation in broader struggles over ideology, representation, and power. 

Reading closely and situating theoretical texts within their historical contexts, we will trace how different approaches to film theory are connected, in tension, and at times incompatible. Throughout the term, we will attend to the relationship between film theory and film practice by screening works from a variety of historical, national, and generic contexts. At the same time, the course treats the practice of theory itself as an object of inquiry. We will ask what theory aims to do, how it shapes our practices of looking and listening, and how it structures our ways of reading, engaging, and living with cinema. Emphasis will be placed on developing students’ ability to analyze, evaluate, and construct theoretical arguments.

A study of the gangster film genre in relation to its aesthetics, themes, and historical developments.By the time you finish this course, you will be conversant with the aesthetic and thematic conventions of the gangster film genre. We will also explore its historical and national developments and how the genre acted as a critique of society. Assessments are designed to test your understanding of these aspects of the genre.

This course will introduce students to international developments in film animation. The course is structured as a historical survey that will explore animation as popular entertainment and an art form. The course will move mostly chronologically from the classic pioneering animation of Winsor McCay and Emile Cohl through to animation innovators such as Lotte Reiniger, Norman McLaren, Len Lye, and Mary Ellen Bute before moving onto an analysis of animation produced under the studio system (Walt Disney, Warner Bros., UPA) while paying attention to the unique contributions of individual animators both within and outside of the studio system. Various forms of animated film will be explored such as cartoons, narrative films, abstract and experimental animation. You will be introduced to different animation production techniques such as pin screen, pixilation, stop-motion, cell, clay, collage, rotoscoping, scratch, painted, sand, limited animation, and computer animation.

Horror is one of the oldest and most versatile of film genres. This course will track its development from the silent era to the present day and across the world, while paying attention to how it served its audiences and responded to social tensions. Horror is often seen as a barometer of cultural anxiety, and its status as a “low” genre often puts it in the unique position of allowing social commentary that would otherwise not be permitted.

What is an experimental film? This course will take up this question, asking how issues of history, identity, aesthetics, and geopolitical location have shaped and pressured the meaning of experimental film. Thus, rather than understanding experimental film as a clearly defined mode of filmmaking or charting a chronological history of experimental film, we will explore multiple approaches to – and genealogies of – experimental cinematic form, from surrealist and abstract film to underground and “third” cinema. Taking a conceptual and thematic approach, we will ask how experimental film has pressured the language of dominant cinema by both remaking and refusing realism, spectacle, narrative, and various genres from the documentary to the musical. We will pay special attention throughout the course to the films and practices of Black, Indigenous, anti-colonial, feminist, and queer filmmakers, whose works have often been marginalized by, if not completely left out of, histories of experimental film. Filmmakers examined include, among others, Luis Buñuel, Julie Dash, Maya Deren, Med Hondo, Sky Hopinka, and Toshio Matsumoto.

This course introduces you to the essentials of screenwriting including concept, story, plot, dialogue and structure. Through analyzing scripts, films, and working on your own screenplay you will learn the fundamental components of screenwriting including how to develop an outline and synopsis, formatting, developing a character, writing effective dialogue, and constructing scenes and sequences. The goal of the class is to complete a 10 to 30-minute short fiction film script.

More films have been produced outside of the Hollywood studio system than within it, but these films have not garnered the same level of critical attention because they fall within the domain of the non-theatrical. The term ‘nontheatrical’ describes films screened in spaces outside of the traditional movie house--in classrooms, civic centres, museums, churches, prisons, clubs, factories, union halls, amongst others. The term non-theatrical refers to seemingly innumerable genres and modes of production distinct from Hollywood including, amongst others, industrial and sponsored films, home movies, amateur films, educational, medical and science films, social guidance films, religious films, domestic science films, as well as travelogues and government films. From the 1910s to the 1980s tens of thousands of non-theatrical films were produced. In this seminar we will dip into the vast world of primarily North American non-theatrical film production to explore prominent technologies, infrastructures, organizations, and filmmakers that were key to non-theatrical film. 

Indigenous women have been making screen-based work since the early days of cinema, but it took the work of Alanis Obomsawin, Shelley Niro, Loretta Todd, Christine Welsh and others to make space for the current explosion of Indigenous women’s media in North America. The course will chart the way in which Indigenous women use the screen to engage with themes such as social justice and the land, violence against women, legal complexities, and relationality. Particular emphasis will be on Indigenous women and the film industry, exploring innovation, participatory filmmaking, engagement with oral history, and Indigenous futurism. Media makers include but are not limited to Dana Claxton, Tracey Deer, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Sydney Freeland, Danis Goulet, Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, Razelle Benally, Asinnajaq, and Amanda Strong. As a Cree woman filmmaker, Tasha Hubbard will also provide students with a detailed look at the filmmaking process. Several filmmakers will be guests via zoom and students will also collaboratively curate a screening series.

This course looks at how the urban crime genre depicts urban space and the social transformations that have taken place with urbanization in the modern era in East Asia. We will trace the history of the genre from the interwar to the postwar era, and how it came to influence and intersect with art house films and other genres. We will follow aesthetic shifts in the formal presentation of urban space in these films, such as the prominence of location shooting in some films and the use of abstracted studio sets in others.