ENGL 103 B25: Case Studies in Research: Reading Cinema

E. Ostrowska

Today movies seem to appear everywhere: in movie theatres, our laptops, and our iPhones. Cinema is not only one of the most important forms of entertainment, but is also the dominant cultural practice through which our life experience is mediated. Thus cinematic text needs to be read within larger cultural practices. In this section of Case Studies in Research, we will explore the question of how to read cinematic image. First, we will analyze and interpret films as cultural texts and, second, we will analyze critical writing about these films. We will explore multiple research methods and problems of interpretation, employing various approaches to cinema such as ideology, gender, and ethnicity and how these are modified by various political, historical, and cultural contexts of film production and reception.