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Film

Program Office
Art Building 128
707 664-2364

Faculty
James E. Gray / American Multicultural Studies
William Guynn / Art
Michael G. Litle / Communication Studies
Robert Coleman-Senghor / English
Robert Tellander / Sociology

Course Plan / Individual Course Descriptions

Programs offered
Minor in Film Studies
Major in Film: See Art History: Film Emphasis

The film studies minor is an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental program that analyzes the history, theory, and practice of film in the larger context of humanistic studies. Students will study a broad range of film texts, from the classic narrative to abstractionist and experimental, and learn to appreciate the aesthetics and film making practices of both Western and non-Western cultures. While exploring the medium?s connection with several disciplines and art forms, students will also become familiar with the phases of film production and learn to approach film and the cinema in a critical and analytic manner. The film studies minor offers students a flexible curriculum that complements several existing major degree programs in the humanities and constitutes excellent supplementary preparation for a number of careers. In consultation with the program coordinator, students can design a minor with an emphasis relevant to their academic and career objectives.

Minor in Film Studies

The minor consists of a minimum of 18 semester units distributed among a core (9 units) and a choice of electives (9 or more units).

Minor Core Requirements

ArtH 212A or B Introduction to World Film History 3
ArtH 361 Classic Narrative Film 3
ArtH 363 Other Cinemas 3
Total units in the minor core 9

Minor Electives

Students may complete the film studies minor by choosing additional courses in film history or three courses within any one of the following four options.

Film and Literature Option

These courses study different aspects of the complex relationship between film and literature: the role of screenwriting in the process of film production; the problems of adaptation; the comparative study of literary and filmic texts; and the special contribution that literary analysis has made to the study of film.
ENGL 329 Screen/Script Writing (Film-TV-Stage) (3-6)
ENGL 377 Film and Literature (3)
FREN 415 Selected Topics: French Film (3)
Total units in the option 9-12

Critical Perspectives Option

Each of the following courses brings a specific disciplinary approach to bear on the study of film, drawing on perspectives from the humanities and social sciences: aesthetics, ethics, structuralism, semiology, politics, and sociological analysis.
COMS 202 Methods of Media Criticism (3)
COMS 402 Advanced Media Criticism (3)
LIBS 356 Film and Politics (3)
PHIL 368 Philosophy and Film (3)
SOCI 434 Cinema and Society (4)
Total units in the option: 9-11

Film and the Fine Arts Option

This group of courses focuses on the relationship of film to artistic and theatrical traditions and practices: film analysis and theories of visual aesthetics; film and artistic movements in the 20th century (such as expressionism, futurism, and surrealism); film and the media arts; film and the theatrical arts of production design, acting and directing.
ART 208 Basic Black and White Photography (1-4)
ArtH 464 History of Modern Art: 20th Century (3-4)
ArtH 465 History of Modern Art: American (3-4)
COMS 201 Media Arts I (3)
THAR 120A Beginning Acting (2)
THAR 144A Beginning Theater Technology: Scenery (2) or
THAR 144B Beginning Theater Technology: Lighting (2)
THAR 350 Directing Workshop (2)
Total units in the option 9-12

International and Crosscultural Perspectives Option

These courses develop an understanding of aesthetics and film making practices that stand outside the dominant model of the classic narrative film and the representation of the cultural ?other? within the dominant Western tradition.
AMCS 392 Ethnic Images in Film and Media (3)
CALS 393 Chicano/Latino Cinema (3)
FREN 415 Selected Topics: French Film (3)
NAMS 338 Native Americans and the Cinema (3)
Total units in the option 9-12
Total units in the minor 18-21

Note: No more than 6 units of work in the student?s major may be counted toward the film studies minor. Students are encouraged to take at least one elective course with a regional or intercultural perspective.

Film Studies Courses (ArtH)

Classes are offered in the semesters indicated. Please see the Schedule of Classes for most current information and faculty teaching assignments.

212A Introduction to World Film History (1894 to WWII) (3)

Lecture, 2 hours; films, 2 hours. A chronological survey of historically representative and significant films tracing the evolution of the cinema as an art form. Includes study of the primitive period, the emergence of the feature film in America, Europe, and Japan, the advent of sound, the ?great studio era,? and alternative cinemas of the 1930s and 1940s. Satisfies GE, category C1 (History of the Fine Arts).

212B Introduction to World Film History (WWII to Contemporary) (3)

Lecture, 2 hours; films, 2 hours. A chronological survey of historically representative and significant films tracing the evolution of the cinema as an art form. Includes study of post-war movements such as neorealism and the French New Wave, modernism, the post-war film in Asia, and the emergence of new cinemas in the Third World and Eastern Europe. Satisfies GE, category C1 (History of the Fine Arts).

361 Classic Narrative Film (3)

Theory and analysis of classic Hollywood film. Emphasizes the evolution of the narrative systems, the art of editing, the history of American genre film making, the problematic notion of the auteur, and the place of the spectator in the classic fiction film.

363 Other Cinemas (3)

Alternative film practices (i.e., outside the classic Hollywood model). Each semester?s course is organized around a movement, a theme, or a critical problem and includes the study of Western and non-Western films. May be repeated for credit toward the minor. Satisfies GE, category C4 (Comparative Perspectives)

461 Selected Topics in Film (3)

A genre, the work of a single film maker, a cinematic movement, a national cinema, a focused study of a problem in film history or aesthetics, etc. May be repeated for credit toward the minor.


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