This module encourages students to critically examine the cultural and commercial institution of Hollywood, and its relationship with modern visual culture, and illustrates how films produced in America from the silent period to the present offer critical points of entry into debates regarding film authorship, the impact of history on film, and the politics of film style. This module will also explore some of the reasons why American cinema has retained universal appeal whilst exerting a palpable influence on film aesthetics internationally.
This module focuses on films screened in mainstream cinemas and underground cinema (Shadows, 1958), television films (Requiem for a Heavyweight, 1956), and digital media such as Netflix (Marriage Story, 2019). Genres addressed include melodrama (Broken Blossoms, 1919), the western (Stagecoach, 1939, film noir (Gilda, 1946), the musical (Singin’ in the Rain, 1951), romantic comedies (It Happened One Night, 1934), horror (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956) and the “teen pic” (Rebel Without a Cause, 1955). Special attention will be paid to the deconstruction of these genres after the collapse of the studio system and the repeal of censorship regulations in the late 1960s.
Theoretical questions involve the implications of classical narrative style, the constituents of particular genres and their development over time as Hollywood faced economic, industrial and technological issues including the Great Depression, the introduction of sound, the emergence of widescreen, the rise of television, the Hollywood blacklist, the decline of censorship, the collapse of the studio system and changing audience tastes of audiences over time. These issues will be linked with contemporary American politics, particularly, the Roosevelt and Reagan administrations, and American warfare in Europe and Vietnam.
There are no prerequisites for this module; it builds on the critical and analytic skills that students will have developed in Studies modules in years 1 and 2. These modules and World Cinema (MED2000) may be an advantage as students who have successfully completed those will either have some knowledge of cultural representation and/or of critical approaches to the study of film as a cultural product.
Students view 10–12 films over the course of the year, possibly including:
Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919)
Sunrise (Murnau, 1927)
Stagecoach (Ford, 1939)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren, 1943)
Gilda (Vidor, 1944)
Mildred Pierce (Curtiz, 1945)
Sunset Blvd (Wilder, 1950)
Singin’ in the Rain (Donen & Kelly, 1951)
The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel, 1956)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (Nelson, 1956 [TV])
Shadows (Cassavetes, 1959)
Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967)
First Blood (Kotcheff, 1982)
Drive (Refn, 2005)
Marriage Story (Baumbach, 2018 [Netflix])
Each text and its film or television adaptation offers a particular range of ideological and technological attributes that relate to particular tendencies in American films of the period in question.
From week to week, we will compare reactions to films during their initial release to more recent reactions, posing questions regarding the extent to which the films examined reveal contemporary issues pertaining to class, gender and nation among others.
We will also interpret films through the prism of critical theory. Each week, essential reading will be prescribed in order to raise questions regarding how ideological questions such as those noted above are raised through the properties of filmic narration. This links with queries regarding classical narrative style in cinema and how experiments in film style either signal sea changes in American society or operate as an affective catalyst, prompting members of the audience to interrogate forces operating in the world around them. Along with these political questions, we will consider the importance of considering the filmmaker’s own outlook and the technology at his/her disposal.
Teaching and viewing materials will be advised by the lecturer as appropriate.
| Module Content & Assessment | |
|---|---|
| Assessment Breakdown | % |
| Formal Examination | 50 |
| Other Assessment(s) | 50 |