Introduction to Film Studies

Pre-requisites for enrolment

No prior knowledge is required.

Content of Course

1. Narrative. Rear Window
2. Style. La Regle de Jeu
3. editing, Breathless
4. Genre. The Searchers
5. Authorship. Mulholland Dr.
6. Realism. Bicycle Thieves
7. Documentary/Ideology Battleship Potemkin
8. Stardom. Raging Bull
9. Recent American Cinema Elephant
10. Recent European Cinema. The Child

Teaching method(s)

Film clip and class discussion based.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students should be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the basic interpretive techniques of film-making: eg know how camerawork, editing, mis-en-scène are used to create meaning.
• Appreciate how a combination of industrial, commercial and artistic factors contributes to shape the history of cinema as an art form.
• Demonstrate an awareness of the ways in which films are made from socio-political and ideological angles and how these shape the representation of characters, places, etc.

Sources

Core Readings

Essential

Bordwell, D.& Thompson, K. 2010 paperback or any other edition. Film Art: An Introduction. USA: McGraw-Hill

Recommended

Monaco, J. 2009 paperback or any other edition. How to Read a Film, London, Oxford University Press.
Cook P. and Bernink M. The Cinema Book, London, bfi, any edition.
Bazin, André. 1984. What is Cinema?, vol 1 and 2, Berkeley, University of California Press.
Bordwell, D. 2006. The Way Hollywood Tells It, Berkeley, University of California Press.
Perez, G, 1998. The Material Ghost, London, Johns Hopkins University Press.

Key Films

• Battleship Potemkin, 1925, Sergei Eisenstein, USSR,
• La Regle du Jeu, 1939, Jean Renoir, France
• Citizen Kane, 1941, Orson Welles,USA
• Bicycle Thieves, 1948, Vittorio De Sica, Italy.
• Rear Window, 1954, Alfred Hitchcock, USA.
• Breathless, 1960, Jean Luc-Godard, France
• The Searchers 1956, John Ford, USA
• Raging Bull, 1980. Martin Scorsese, USA.
• The Taste of Cherry, 1997, Abbas Kiarostami, Iran,
• Mulholland Dr. 2001, David Lynch, USA
• The Child, 2005, The Dardennes Bros. Belgium
• Elephant 2003, Gus Van Sant, USA

Web Sources

IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/
Senses of Cinema - http://www.sensesofcinema.com/
British Film Institute – http://bfi.org.uk/

Class Handouts

Handouts will be provided.

Queries

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email COL@ed.ac.uk or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website.