Basic Concepts of Cinema
This will be a course on theory, methodology and debates in the study of three general rubrics: 1) mode of production, or industry 2) apparatus, or the technology of cinematic experience and 3) text, or the network of filmic systems (narrative, image, sound), we will work through and examine a set of concepts (narrative, filmic statement and enunciation, the gaze, suture, sexual difference) that have emerged over the past decades as the most powerful interpretive tools available to the practice of film analysis. Our emphasis will be less on the appreciation of film, but rather on clarifying what is at stake in the act of critical reading. I will argue that any reading worthy of the characterization "critical" must confront socio-cultural conditions of the cinematic, including, of course, its status as a disciplinary object. The class will thus serve as a context for testing our ability to make sense of film texts, while also giving us the opportunity to examine how sense is made within contemporary film studies.
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