Cinema and Society

This course is designed to introduce students to ideas about the relationship between cinema and the larger society in which it is produced and promulgated. In this course students will learn how to “read a film”, i.e., how to critically analyze what is generally viewed as entertainment. Analysis will focus on how social and cultural identities are identified, developed, and shot on film as a society’s way of representing, or re-presenting (depicting or distorting) itself, and changes that occur within or in relation to it. Why is this important? The world is not only becoming “smaller”, but it is also often watching the same fantasies on screens and tuning into the same channels, and these form a powerful imprint in terms of how we see ourselves and others, and of what we view as “reality”. After music, in the 21st century cinema increasingly communicates more and more of these ideas throughout the world - and you will need to know and identify what you see. In general, students will study film from 3 main perspectives: the film as socio-cultural history, the nature/structure of societies and subcultures depicted in the film, and how a particular film compares with others of the same genre.