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Rear Window poster.
See Credits.
Courses See the MU Course Catalog for course descriptions.
Core Courses
First required course
Film Studies 2810 (formerly 131): Introduction to Film Analysis
(Same as German 2810 and Romance Languages 2810)
This course familiarizes students with the basic analytical tools for describing and interpreting films, and helps them develop a critical vocabulary for discussing and writing about film. It also introduces some theoretical approaches to film analysis.
Second required course (FS
2810 is prerequisite)
(One of the following three fulfills the
second core course requirement)
Film Studies 2820 (formerly 132): Trends in World Cinema
(Same as German 2820 and Romance Languages 2820)
This course offers an historical overview of the major trends in international cinema. It focuses on the intersection of aesthetics, industry, and ideological and social concerns in cinematic production.English 2830/Film Studies 2830 (formerly 191): American Film in an International Context, 1895-1945
A survey of key developments in American cinema and how social, historical, and industrial concerns influenced the relationship between Hollywood and the world.English 2840/Film Studies 2840 (formerly 192): American Film in an International Context, 1950-Present
A survey of key developments in American cinema and how social, historical, and industrial concerns influenced the relationship between Hollywood and the world.
Electives
English 2005: Blackness and Gender in American Film
This course focuses on the evolution of black images in American film. It concerns itself in particular with the impact of filmic techniques on portrayals of black masculinity and femininity. Of course, such a focus necessarily includes a consideration of whiteness and white constructions of gender. Hence the course will not be simply a historical overview of black cinematic images, but rather an exploration of how the magic of film has contributed to the social construction of racial/gendered categories. For example, how does the use of lighting, the interplay between light and dark, shadow and substance, in specific films serve as visual narratives about white and black masculinity and femininity in America? How do we read these narratives and what do they say? How do cinematic conventions of dialogue contribute to these narratives? How do the uses of costuming, sequencing, framing, etc. contribute to inscriptions of racialized and gendered meanings in American films.The course will consist of lecture, discussion, and the viewing of films and film segments. Texts include: Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies: Key Concepts, Ed Guerrero, Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film, Sarah Kozloff, Overhearing Film Dialogue, and articles by authors such as bell hooks, Vincent Rocchio, Stella Bruzzi, and Richard Dyer.
English 2005: Crime Film and American Culture, 1930-present
English 4180: Major Women Writers: Fiction to Film
English 4060: Film Theory in History and Practice
English 4109: Film Genres: History, Criticism, Culture
English 4169: Major Filmmakers (Hitchcock)
English 4240 (or taught as 8240): The Eighteenth Century on Screen
This course reads several 18th-century British novels (including Moll Flanders, Robinson Crusoe, Tom Jones, and Mansfield Park) in relation to their film adaptations and vice versa in order to examine issues of genre, media, and translation from verbal to visual popular art forms. Novels and films will be read in their respective and intersecting socio-cultural-historical contexts. Novels are the first modern mass culture narrative art form; movies, the second. Both are touchstones of the beliefs and agenda, announced and tacit, of their respective cultures. As such, they simultaneously reflect and cross-examine the politics and discourses of "nature" in the systems that produce and consume them.French 2005: Introduction to French Cinema
Honors Humanities Curriculum 2120H: Film Style: Politics and Aesthetics
This course looks at the narrative, cultural, and political subtexts of cinematic style. Some of the issues it examines are: How does style shape our experience of a film and the way that we understand it? How have various styles developed by painters been adapted to cinematic representation? What is their relationship between cinematic representation and "reality"? How have critical evaluations of film styles been grounded in political as well las aesthetic issues? What happens to film styles that are grounded in some aesthetic and/or political manifesto when they are transferred to another time and place? How is style implicated in the relationship between art and commerce in Hollywood?Honors Humanities Curriculum 2120H: American Film Genres as American Mythology
The purpose of this course will be to examine a range of texts from three of the most important genres of popular film-the western, the police story, and the vampire tale-as a way of determining how genres function in our society to shape our ideas about what it means to be American men and women, particularly in relation to the social problem of violence. Each of these genres has a long history, so each provides a good yardstick for the measurement of changes in American values and self-definitions. Moreover, each film self-consciously participates in its generic tradition by conforming to, and departing from, certain conventions and formulas. As the semester goes on, you should become aware of and more sophisticated in dealing with these similarities and differences.Honors Humanities Curriculum 2120H: Literature and Film
German 3830: History of German Film
This course gives an introduction into the development of German film Depending on the semester and the instructor, the course usually includes both older (early silent, Weimar cinema, Nazi film, post-1945) and more recent (New German Cinema, contemporary) films. They are are viewed and discussed in terms of techniques, artistry, psychology and social impact. No knowledge of the German language required—the course is taught in English and all films have subtitles. No foreign language credit. Prerequisites: sophomore standing or instructor's consent.German 3840: German Film After 1945
German 3005: Nazi Aesthetics and Film
Italian 2850: Italian Cinema
This is a writing intensive course dealing with Italian films from the Fascist period to the 80s. It is foreseen that you will progressively acquire---through your reading, class discussion and extensive film viewing--the critical tools necessary to understand visual meaning, contextualize and analyze the artistic quality of the films you will view (and any films you will view subsequently) and that you will also develop the ability to state strong, arguable theses, to defend them, and to hone the editing skills needed to filter your acquired understanding effectively, and analytically, into the written word.Italian 3810: The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini
This course studies the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian director, author and intellect. This course will trace the development of the artist (past semiotics and Gramscian socialism to nihilism) across his films. In addition, a selection of his written works will be considered as background to the intellectual content of his films.Italian 3820: The Films of Federico Fellini
This is a course which follows the evolution of film director Federico Fellini from his days of a "neo" neo-realist up to his last film Intervista. Special attention will be given to the original trilogy in order to understand the subsequent development of nostalgia, surrealism and the circus motif in his films. Pre-requisites: one of the following, or instructor's permission: Italian Cinema 2850, Film Studies 2810, 2820, 2830, 2840.Portuguese 2005: Brazilian Cinema
Theatre 1150: African-American Cinema
Theatre 3005: Screenwriting for Television and Film
This course instructs students in the fundamentals of storytelling. Students gain insight into the various tools that television and film writers utilize. Participants experiment with the structure of a screenplay, the collaborative process, and the marketing approach to selling scripts. By the end of the course students will present their work at the Missouri Playwright's Workshop.
Related Courses
NOTE: These do not qualify for credit toward the
Film Minor
Japanese 3830: Japan and its Cinema
Russian 3890: Russian and Soviet Cinema
Computer Engineering and Computer Science 361: Computer Graphics I
Computer Engineering and Computer Science 461: Computer Graphics II
Information Science and Learning Technologies 4363: Digital Video Production
copyright © 2002
Curators of the University of Missouri
last update winter 2003
