FILM104 Introduction to Collaborative Documentary Filmmaking

In this immersive, time-intensive, hands-on introduction to the documentary film process, students will create compelling stories where real people are the protagonists and narratives are informed by real life. Through close study and analysis of feature-length and short documentaries, plus active research, writing, producing, directing, shooting, sound recording, editing, and re-editing, students work in three-person crews to rigorously explore the power and possibilities of nonfiction storytelling and record, engage with, and understand our present moment. Each fall, the course has a theme around which film screenings and student projects are organized; for 2024, our focus will be food, farming, and sustainability. Students should expect to spend up to 10 hours of work per week outside the class time shooting, editing, and working collaboratively with their classmates, including multiple weekends. Film production experience is not required. Lessons include how to craft a compelling nonfiction narrative based on interviews and research, how to build partnerships with the protagonists of the stories you want to tell, how to shoot on-camera interviews and observational footage, how to record and edit sound, and how to edit using Adobe Premiere. Students will present works in progress in all phases of the creative process and actively participate in constructive critical discussions of one another's work. For more information about the course please visit: https://collaborativedocumentary.wescreates.wesleyan.edu/



PLEASE NOTE: This course has no prerequisites, is open to non-majors/minors and is not a FILM major/minor elective.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM105 Writing the Moving Image: Coming of Age

Designed for first-year students, this is an introduction to some of the core fundamentals of visual storytelling through an exploration of coming-of-age films. How do characters' emotional worlds guide their actions? How are characters informed by and created by the places they inhabit? How is a scene the building block -- as well as a microcosm -- for a film as a whole? Through close study and analysis of a wide variety of short and feature length coming-of-age films, weekly writing assignments, and in-class writing workshop sessions, students will explore the power and possibilities of story craft and learn how to write short film loglines, synopses, outlines, and screenplays. Students should expect to spend several hours per week outside of class reading, writing, and watching films. Over the course of the semester students will present works in progress, participate in constructive critical discussions, offer weekly editorial feedback to their peers, and develop two short film screenplays.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM158 Form, Story, and Genre: An Introduction to Wesleyan Film Studies

What does it mean to "study film" at Wesleyan? Get a taste of the College of Film's approach to visual storytelling in this online course featuring genres and filmmakers from across our curriculum. We will consider how film guides viewers on an emotional journey through image and sound, with classes devoted to melodrama, comedy, action, horror, documentary, film noir, and the movie musical. In all cases, we explore the moment-by-moment experience of the viewer as guided by specific cinematic choices of editing, cinematography, staging, performance, sound, alignment, point-of-view, and placement of the audience. Instead of interpreting what films mean, we will seek to understand how they capture our attention, how they absorb us into stories, and how they make us feel. Guest lecturers will include members of the CFILM faculty. Each week students will watch one or two feature films on their own and gather for two lecture/discussions. This is a for-credit class (pass/fail) with grade determined by participation and two quizzes.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM201 Film Crew

This is a course designed to train students in the main positions on a film production using the small-crew model. It covers sound recording, lighting, assistant directing, gripping, and gaffing.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM202 Difficult Women: Post/Feminism in Television Comedies and Dramedies

Although postwar family sitcoms represented women as homemakers, one of the first and most popular sitcom wives also articulated discontent with domestic femininity. Lucy Ricardo became the prototype of the "unruly woman," a figure with feminist potential whose desires exceed and disrupt dominant gender norms. As those norms have shifted, so have TV's unruly women. Second-wave feminism, anticipated in I Love Lucy, was incorporated into a 1970s cycle of comedies centered on single working women whose career aspirations were rewarded. Over the following decades, a postfeminist sensibility dominated television comedies and dramas and became central to a gendered neoliberalism in which energetic individuals "empower" themselves. In recent years, a new type of female protagonist has emerged. Alongside the can-do optimism of single-women comedies from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Sex and the City to 30 Rock and Parks and Rec, a stream of comedies and dramedies, made largely by and for women, have depicted a variety of flawed, difficult, unruly women coming of age under conditions of socioeconomic precarity, whose less focused energies seem to articulate a more uncertain, downbeat, post-recessional mood. In this course we will situate the latter cycle in relation to both the longer history of televisual representations of women and to the current state of feminist politics. Among the shows we will look at are: I Love Lucy, Bewitched, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Sex and the City, Ally McBeal, Girlfriends, The Mindy Project, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, Girls, Insecure, Broad City, Better Things, Two Broke Girls, New Girl, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, Unreal, Abbott Elementary, Fleabag, Dear White People, and Somebody Somewhere.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CHUM
Identical With: CHUM397, AMST391, ANTH397, FGSS397
Prereq: None

FILM203 Hollywood and Big Data

Taught by a media research executive with a long industry experience this course is designed to provide students with an introduction and understanding of how the media industry is using data to make decisions that shape the art landscape of our times. Data around consumer behavior--what, how and why people are watching--has exploded recently and is extensively used in making decisions about what TV shows and movies to produce, how to promote them and how to make them. The course will explore how the media industry quantifies different kinds of content, the ways in which people watch and pay for that content, and how value is attributed across the media landscape. Students will be introduced to essential "media metrics" (e.g. viewership, box office, engagement) and learn to evaluate different data sets for their integrity and representative insights. Visiting media executives will discuss how data informs their jobs ("evidence-based decision making"). Assignments will include written briefs based on different data sets and a final project presentation highlighting skills in analyzing and presenting insights extracted from media research data. By the end of this course, students will be familiar with key decision-making tools in the media industry and be able to analyze and understand the impact on media output
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-QAC
Identical With: QAC203
Prereq: None

FILM210 The Foundations of Cinema

This course offers a seminar-style, comparative introduction to film form and aesthetics through an exploration of films from around the world spanning a range of eras. Students will learn how to describe and analyze the key formal elements of a film, including plot structure, narration, cinematography, editing, sound, and mise-en-scène (sets and props, costumes and makeup, lighting, and performance). Emphasis will be placed on discerning the functions of formal elements and how they shape the viewing experience.



Classes will integrate lecture, discussion, and creative exercises designed to provide students with the opportunity to both analyze and experiment with the formal elements of film. The course will also highlight Shanghai's pivotal role in China's rich film history, including a field trip to the Shanghai Film Museum. The material in this course will enable students to expand their understanding of global film history; assess the unique visions of individual filmmakers; develop their descriptive and analytical skills; and practice fundamental filmmaking techniques.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM230 Introduction to Korean Cinema

During the last few decades South Korean cinema has taken center stage in world cinema with the phenomenal success of its film industry and critical acclaim in the global context. However, Korea has boasted a thriving film culture and aesthetics since the "golden age" of the 1950s, of which renowned contemporary directors such as Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook have claimed they are the inheritors. This course introduces Korean cinema from its beginnings in the colonial era to its recent achievements. While learning the concepts and theories of film studies as well as the cultural and political contexts to which Korean film culture has responded, students will explore films by key directors that constitute the crucial "moments" of South Korean cinema. We will examine the main topics in Korean cinema, including colonial production, the liberation and Western influence, nation and nationalism, modernity and women, gender politics, realist and modernist cinema, popular cinema and cultural depression, the Korean New Wave, democratization and political cinema, the Korean blockbuster, the questions of "Koreanness," and the "Korean Wave" in the global film market.



The course also seeks to establish a balance between understanding Korean cinema as both a reservoir of historical memory and as an example of evolving world cinema. Through engagement with methodological issues from film studies in each week's readings, including the question of archives, national cinema discourse, feminist film theory, auteurism, and genre studies, students in this course will learn to analyze Korean filmic texts not only as a way to understand the particularity of Korean cinema but also as a frontier of cinematic language in the broader history of film.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CEAS
Identical With: CEAS212
Prereq: None

FILM231 Wartime Film Culture in the Japanese Empire

Just as in many other countries, cinema, within a short time of its emergence, became the most popular entertainment in modern Japan. Mindful of this, the Japanese government tried to turn the country's film industry into an arm of its propaganda machine to support its imperial program, especially the military component. This began with Japan's invasion of the Chinese continent in 1931 and lasted through the end of World War II in 1945. How did Japan's private film studios respond to such governmental efforts? How did wartime Japanese cinema manage to strike a balance between being entertainment and political texts? What are the characteristics of Imperial Japan's wartime film culture, and how are they different from the counterparts in other countries? Was the campaign to support war via movie productions in Japan successful, in terms of providing seamless propagandistic messages? What kind of legacy has the wartime film culture left in contemporary Japan and East Asia?



In order to answer these questions, this course explores film culture of Imperial Japan and its territories during the wartime era, spanning roughly from the early 1930s through 1945. We will watch wartime films, and at the same time examine the ways in which the film culture coexisted along with other forms of visual propaganda practice and political discourses. While probing how the films reflect the "virtues" of wartime conservatism, patriotism, perseverance, and self-control, this course will explore topics that include the propaganda culture of wartime Japan as a whole, Nazi propaganda and Japan, cultural films, monumental cinema, films featuring Japan-China or Japan-Taiwan romances, children-centered films, "kokumin eiga," films of volunteers and Japanese Spiritism, "Military Mothers" and gender, and the defeatist aesthetics and cracks in Imperial Japanese cinema. While we will for the most part watch and discuss films directed by the Japanese of mainland Japan, including such prominent directors as Mizoguchi Kenji and Kurosawa Akira, the films produced in the Japanese colonies of Korea, Taiwan, and Manchuria--whether independent productions or collaborative efforts--will also be examined. Film production in colonial Korea, in particular, was quite vibrant, relative to the cinematic output of Taiwan and Manchuria. We will observe how the films made in Japan's colonies joined the empire-wide filmic war-mobilization campaign, presenting their own justifications for war cooperation. Ultimately, this course will ask what kind of relationship Japanese cinema has had with the state and Japanese nationalism during the mid-century of Japan's tumultuous modern history.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CEAS
Identical With: CEAS238
Prereq: None

FILM232 Minority Voices in Japanese Film and Literature

Although there is no such thing as a "homogeneous nation" in the world, Japan often has been falsely regarded as a country of a singular ethnicity and civilization. Is Japan a nation-state of one race and unified culture? Who are the voices in Japan defying this kind of Japanese myth? How do they claim their rights and agencies as members of Japanese society? What peoples have been discriminated against by other communities, despite their indigenous Japanese roots? What kind of relationship do these internal "others" have with the Japanese state?



This course explores Japan's domestic minorities as depicted in Japanese literature and film, whose stories and images have been largely untold and invisible in the mainstream culture. Among the various minority groups in Japan, we will pay special attention to four groups: (1) the country's culturally defined minority group since the feudal era, burakumin (the untouchables); (2) the country's oldest and biggest foreign ethnic group, Koreans ("zainichi"), and other Asians; (3) the people of Japan's internal colony, Okinawa; and (4) Japan's medical outcasts, the victims of atomic disasters in Hiroshima and Fukushima. Students will deal with materials about the specified groups produced by prominent figures in Japanese literary and cinema history. At the same time, students will examine materials created by the otherized subjects themselves to probe how marginalized beings represent themselves in ways that are different from the dominant media portrayals.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CEAS
Identical With: CEAS302
Prereq: None

FILM234 Introduction to Russian and Soviet Cinema (CLAC.50)

This course provides an introduction to the history and poetics of Soviet and Russian cinema--in Russian. From the avant-garde experimentation of Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, and Dziga Vertov to the masterpieces of Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov, and Kira Muratova, the course will explore the development of Russian film as artistic medium and as national tradition. The discussion and comparative analyses of different forms and genres, including silent cinema, propaganda films, blockbusters, and auteur cinema, will be situated within the cultural, political, and aesthetic contexts of the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia. Students will learn the key works, names, events, and concepts of the Russian cinematic tradition. They will develop skills in analyzing and interpreting films and will acquire the basic critical terminology of film studies in Russian and English. They will also learn how film form and aesthetics are conditioned by technology, ideology, economics, theory, tradition, and culture. The overarching goal is to see how cinema in Russia and the Soviet Union has created and contested narratives of history and identity, how cinema has served the interests of the state, and how it has defied them. This class consists of lectures and focused discussion of films. It will be taught in Russian and is open to students who have successfully completed RUSS202, as well as to heritage and native speakers. Students can expect to practice speaking Russian and honing their writing skills. Credit: 0.5
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-REES
Identical With: RUSS234, CGST234, REES234
Prereq: RUSS202

FILM250 Computational Media: Videogame Development

This course examines the interplay of art and science in the development of contemporary videogames using the Unity development platform and commercial artistic game tools. Students develop a comprehensive understanding of computational media, including legal and commercial aspects, combined with hands-on experience in a creative process that integrates design, art, and coding. There will be discussions with invited industry leaders in various subject areas. Students will have the opportunity to work as part of development teams and create working prototypes to better understand the challenges and rewards of producing graphic interactive software within a professional context.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 2.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Identical With: IDEA350, COMP350, CIS350
Prereq: None

FILM290 Global Film Melodrama

Often patronizingly dismissed as 'women's weepies', this course will examine the proliferation and transformation of melodrama film within various national, subnational, postcolonial, queer, and global contexts. The course will focus on the specific language ad conventions of melodrama. We will watch a wide range of films from India, China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iran, Egypt, Kenya, Spain, Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico among various global film contexts. Importantly, this course will ask, what are the stakes and implications of 'Global' in "Global Film Melodrama"? Moving away from an additive model that often present global film histories as an addendum to the "mainstream" cinemas, the focus will instead be on the emergence and significance of melodrama, and its specific idioms within transnational contexts. The course is open to all sophomores including non-film minors and non-film majors at Wesleyan. No previous experience in Film is required.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: CEAS292, FGSS290
Prereq: None

FILM300 First Things Film

First Things Film is a 0.5-credit seminar to be taken along with FILM 307 Cinematic Storytelling. We will focus on the fundamentals of thinking and writing about film, expanding on ideas presented in FILM 307 and exploring a diverse range of historical and contemporary movies. Assignments are geared toward supporting and deepening skills for success in FILM 307 and The College of Film and the Moving Image. This class welcomes enrollments from historically underrepresented groups and first-generation college students.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM301 History of Spanish Cinema

This course explores the development of Spanish cinema from the early 20th century to the present. We will evaluate how social, political, and economic circumstances condition Spanish cinematography at key junctures of Spanish cultural history in terms of the production and distribution of films, cinematographic style, and thematics. The course will also highlight key facets of the Spanish star system as well as the auteurism of those directors who have achieved international acclaim by reworking a national film idiom within international frames of reference.



For a detailed description of the objectives, materials, viewing requirements and modes of assessments, please visit the course web site at: https://span301.site.wesleyan.edu/
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-RLAN
Identical With: RL&L301, COL334
Prereq: None

FILM302 Not Just Neorealism: Italian Cinema, Its History and Politics

This introductory course on Italian cinema, taught in English, investigates major silent and sound films and contextualizes them, their production, and the subjects they treat within a historical, cultural, and political framework. We will trace the intersection among politics, ideology, and Italian cinema, from its Golden Age of silents through fascism and neorealism (as well as its contested legacy), from a consideration of the "exquisite" examples of the auteur directors like Fellini and Sorrentino to the ways these and other directors enter into dialogue with genre cinema (the giallo, spaghetti westerns, melodrama, etc.), and beyond. Featured filmmakers will be drawn from this list: Pastrone, Rossellini, De Sica, Fellini, Bertolucci, Antonioni, Wertmuller, Cavani, Pasolini, the Taviani Brothers, Leone, Sorrentino, Rohrwacher, Nicchiarelli, Crialese, and others. Additional material includes readings in film theory and criticism, Italian history, literary sources, screenplays, and interviews. For interested students with advanced competency in Italian, there will be a .50 credit (CLAC) discussion section, ITAL245/CGST245, at a time to be determined but very likely after our second class of the week. Italian and Romance Studies Majors, please see additional comments below.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-RLAN
Identical With: RL&L245, WLIT248
Prereq: None

FILM303 History and Analysis of the Animated Cinema

We will study the major trends in animation from its inception through our contemporary period with an emphasis on aesthetics and storytelling. Our main questions: How has the animated film developed and been defined as a film technique, a genre, and an art form? American works will be in conversation with Eastern European, Russian, Canadian, British, French, and Japanese animated film and television. Our approach is grounded in the rigorous historical study of form.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM304 History of Global Cinema

This class will cover prehistory, early cinema, and the classic cinemas of Russia, Germany, France, Japan, and Hollywood, as well as the documentary and experimental traditions. This course is designed for those wishing to declare the film major as well as a general education class. It is one of several that may be used to gain entry into further work in film studies.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM305 Sophomore Colloquium for Declaring Majors

This course is designed for sophomores who have completed the CFILM gateway courses and wish to deepen their exploration of film art. The curriculum aims to draw connections across different eras, origins, and story forms by linking films in comparative units. For example: we might compare a documentary to a heist film, a melodrama to a horror movie, a musical to a superhero movie, a studio-era Western to an Italian independent film, and so on. Potential units include: - forms of adaptation (silent to sound, stage to screen) - non-linear narratives - internal vs. external conflicts - challenges to audience alignment around "difficult" characters - conflicts based around migration, community, family We're searching for different cinematic solutions to shared questions, or different applications of common cinematic tools. Through close viewing of films from many eras and origins, in-class discussions, and analytical papers, students will strengthen their engagement with cinema in preparation for continued study in film. Hopefully, this course also encourages students to find new favorite movies in unexpected places, to discover topics that draw them to further study in future film electives, and to better know their sophomore classmates via a collaborative, small class setting.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM306 First Things Film

First Things Film is a 0.5-credit seminar to be taken along with FILM 304 History of Global Cinema. We will focus on the fundamentals of thinking and writing about film, expanding on ideas presented in FILM 304 and exploring a diverse range of historical and contemporary movies. Assignments are geared toward supporting and deepening skills for success in FILM 304 and The College of Film and the Moving Image. This class welcomes enrollments from historically underrepresented groups and first-generation college students.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM307 Cinematic Storytelling: Styles, Tools, and Journeys

This history and analysis course explores how fundamental changes in film technology affected cinematic storytelling. We will consider the transition to sound, to color, to widescreen, and more recent "digital revolutions." Each change in technology brought new opportunities and challenges, but the filmmaker's basic task remained the emotional engagement of the viewer through visual means. We will survey major directors and genres from across history and point forward to contemporary cinema. Our aim is to illuminate popular cinema as the intersection of business, technology, and art. Through film history, we will learn about the craft of filmmaking and how tools shape art.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM308 The "Hollywood" Musical

The musical genre, born in the Hollywood studio system and taken up by filmmakers around the world, has been a wellspring of cinematic invention for nearly a century. We will trace the history of the form and examine specific approaches to the genre (Busby Berkeley, Astaire/Rogers, Freed Unit, etc.). Through the musical, we will consider: the relationship of emotion to form in cinema; how filmmakers control audience perception of the cinematic world; the interplay between story and spectacle; popular film's personal and communal address; the potential for abstract experimentation in studio films; and the complexity and value of entertainment. We will study the contributions of individual stars, producers, directors, composers, and art directors and consider how different filmmakers define the genre. Songs will get stuck in your head.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM309 Film Noir

This course is an in-depth examination of the period in Hollywood's history in which the American commercial film presented a world where "the streets were dark with something more than night." The course will study predominant noir themes and visual patterns, as well as the visual style of individual directors such as Fuller, Ray, Mann, Lang, Ulmer, DeToth, Aldrich, Welles, Tourneur, Preminger, and Lewis, using their work to address how films make meaning through the manipulation of cinematic form and narrative structure. In the latter portion of the course, we will also look at noir's influence on modern cinema and the rise of "neo noir."
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM311 Israel in Therapy: Society Under the Influence of TV Series

The course deals with the prototypes of the Israeli character as they appear in the original Israeli TV series In Treatment, and other Israeli TV series, such as Florentine and A Touch Away. We will compare the structure and the characters of the series to other dramatic Israeli series, examine the appearance of the characters, and discuss the similarities and differences between the roles they perform. In addition, we will examine the role of television drama series as a tool to define and characterize our societies, and also look over the five characters that appear in the first season of In Treatment, define them, and examine the five prototypes of the Israeli character they represent.



The instructor is the co-creator and head screenwriter of the original version of the TV series In Treatment as well as the Center for Jewish Studies distinguished Visiting Professor.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CJST
Identical With: CJST234
Prereq: None

FILM312 The Short Film: Study and Practice

For first-time filmmakers, the short film is an essential learning tool for finding and honing a personal vision. This course is designed for prospective majors and introduces the core fundamentals of visual storytelling for short fiction films. Through close study and analysis of a wide variety of short films by established and emerging filmmakers, students will learn how to identify and employ the principles of narrative structure and examine the strategy and impact of formal choices on the viewer. Course assignments include a short film analysis paper, loglines and treatments, pitch deck presentations, and two short film screenplays. Please note: This course cannot be taken simultaneously with other screenwriting courses.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM313 Videographic Criticism

Since the 2010s, audiovisual essay practice or videographic criticism has set the foundations for a new mode of film scholarship by editing, remixing, reinterpreting, and deconstructing media. In this course, we will explore the recent history and practice of videographic criticism and create original video essays and accompanying theoretical statements. Students should expect to spend several hours reading, writing, watching, and video editing outside of class per week. Weekly screenings and readings will include work featured in journals including [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, Tecmerin Journal of Audiovisual Essays, ASAP/Review, and others. Prior experience with Adobe Premiere Pro is helpful but is not required. Students will produce weekly video essay exercises, write two short papers, and create a final project video essay.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-WRCT
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM314 Directorial Style: Classic American Film Comedy

This course examines the personal formal and narrative style of various American film directors and personalities in the comic tradition. The class will discuss the overall worldview, the directorial style, and the differing functions of humor in films of each director and/or personality. The course is organized roughly chronologically: the first section focuses on silent- and studio-era filmmakers like Buster Keaton, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Capra, and Billy Wilder; the latter section looks at contemporary filmmakers who have advanced and/or drawn influence from these earlier traditions.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM316 Cinema and Moviegoing in American Chinatowns: Digital Tools and Storytelling

In the latter decades of the twentieth century, movie theaters dedicated to the screening of Chinese-language cinema dotted Chinatowns and Chinese ethnoburbs across the United States. What historical and economic forces explain the development of these unique exhibition sites, and how can we understand their social and cultural impacts? This seminar explores the production, distribution, and exhibition of Chinese-language films for overseas audiences and the moviegoing cultures that emerged around cinemas in Chinatowns and Chinese ethnoburbs. Units will explore Chinese immigration to North America, the establishment of Chinatowns, and early cinema spaces; Chinese immigrant and American-born Chinese filmmaking pioneers, the growth of "Chinese Hollywood," and challenges to Hollywood's dominant representations of Chinese characters and communities; the significance of diaspora audiences for Hong Kong movie studios and the creation of affiliated film distribution chains in the US; the expansion of Chinese-language cinemas in the 1960s and 1970s; the Mandarin and Cantonese films seen by overseas audiences and their range of appeals; and the social and cultural functions served by Chinese-language movie theaters. Students will learn qualitative and quantitative digital tools for film history research and use them to analyze original data sets, visualize research results, and create interactive GIS maps, storymaps, digital timelines, databases, web pages, oral histories, and other digital work related to cinema and moviegoing in American Chinatowns.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CEAS
Identical With: CEAS306, WLIT324
Prereq: None

FILM318 Awesome Cinema: Religion, Art, and the Unrepresentable

How does one represent the unrepresentable? In particular, how might a medium like cinema, founded on recording the visible world, move us to sense something beyond human experience? Various artistic, religious, and religiously artistic traditions use mystery, horror, surprise, disgust, and pleasure to evoke the uncanny, the majestic, the terrifying, and even the sublime in us. This class examines how filmmakers prompt audiences to feel awe (which might be awesome, awful, or both) and how that relates to religious engagement with the non-rational. Noting parallels in painting, ritual, architecture, and other means of expression, we consider how art structures emotion, perception, and cognition to exceed representation of the known. This class will examine how aliens, avatars, black holes, death, deities, demons, saints, saviors, superheroes, and nature have been conduits to that which appears to escape reason.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: RELI318
Prereq: RELI151 OR FILM307 OR FILM304

FILM319 Television Storytelling: The Conditions of Narrative Complexity

This course examines the industrial and cultural conditions for the development of relatively complex forms of storytelling in commercial U.S. television. Narrative complexity is a cross-generic phenomenon that emerged over the 1980s and has proliferated within an increasingly fragmented media environment. In class discussions and individual research projects, students will analyze particular programs in-depth, with attention to their industrial and social conditions of production, their aesthetic and ideological appeals, and the cultural tastes and viewing practices they reflect and promote. We will also consider how television studies has responded and contributed to the increased prestige of certain types of programs.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ANTH
Identical With: ANTH308, AMST316
Prereq: None

FILM320 The New German Cinema

This course will investigate the aesthetics, politics, and cultural context of the new German cinema. Having established a critical vocabulary, we will study the influence of Bertolt Brecht's theoretical writings on theater and film, ambivalent positions vis-à-vis the classic Hollywood cinema, issues of feminist filmmaking, and the thematic preoccupations peculiar to Germany, for example, left-wing terrorism and the Nazi past. Attendant materials will include literary sources, screenplays, and interviews.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: GRST253, GELT253
Prereq: None

FILM322 Alfred Hitchcock

This course presents an in-depth examination of the work of a major formalist from the beginning of his career to the end, with an emphasis on detailed analysis of the relationship between film form and content. Students will examine various films in detail and conduct their own analyses of individual movies. Films screened encompass Hitchcock's best-known works (such as Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest) as well as his experiments and flops; other filmmakers' work will be screened for comparison, including Otto Preminger and modern-day students of Hitchcock.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: (FILM304 AND FILM 307)

FILM323 Film and Anthropology

Film & Anthropology is an exploration of the cross-pollinating relationship between ethnographic and filmmaking methods and styles. This is, in part, an effort to understand the contributions of both to the observed and documented experience of cultural life. We will watch films weekly and discuss them, as well as respond to them individually in weekly critical précis. We will, in the course of these viewings, come to some consensus as to what we mean by ethnographic and cinematic elements. The films themselves will cross genre boundaries, running the gamut from "traditional" ethnographic films to various forms of documentary and experimental film that in some way address or explore what I consider ethnographic elements. We will cover canonical early ethnographic work (Gardner, Asch, Marshall), feminist experimental interventions in ethnographic film (Minh-Ha, Varda, Deren), and contemporary work that experiments with ethnographic elements, and we will synthesize various genres into new forms of long-form documentary, ethnofiction, and trance film (Marker, Oppenheimer, Sensory Ethnography Lab, Gonzalez, Rosi, Minervini, Kuchar). We will observe the progression of style through the 20th century into the 21st, with the various intellectual threads of post-structuralism, creating modifications of centering the experience and voice of the oppressed, narrative reflexivity/abstraction/unreliability, formal experimental editing styles, the decolonial method as filmmaking practice, and the historicization and interrogation of anthropology as a fraught discipline.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ANTH
Identical With: ANTH285
Prereq: None

FILM324 Visual Storytelling: The History and Art of Hollywood's Master Storytellers

This course studies distinctive auteurs including Frank Borzage, Howard Hawks, Dorothy Arzner, John Ford, and Vincente Minnelli. Each director uses popular genres to build unique cinematic worlds. Together, their films form the bedrock of a visual language for telling stories, engaging emotion, and shaping perception. Studying some of the studio era's greatest filmmakers reveals the possibilities of narrative cinema and provides models for new creative work. In addition to these auteurs, we consider how a broad range of subsequent filmmakers have developed and renewed their techniques. This class makes the craft of Hollywood visible so that students gain access to the tools of cinematic storytelling.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM326 At Home in the World: Transnational Women's Cinema

What does women's cinema signify? Is it cinema created exclusively by women, for women? Is it cinema that puts women at its center? Do these narratives privilege one type of woman over another? How do we understand and investigate these questions within non-Western and global contexts?



This course delves into the multiple subjectivities, sociocultural geographies, media practices, and politics that are folded into the category called "women's cinema." Beginning with an exploration of the 1970s "cine-feminism" that focused on women's filmmaking and political activism, we will expand our discussion to transnational contexts and explore how feminist politics advocated by female and male filmmakers influence an understanding of women-oriented issues, forms, and values in circulation. We will examine women's films produced within national and transnational geo-cultural spaces and pose questions about national, exilic, or postcolonial auteur subjectivities. We will analyze the films' aesthetics, institutional contexts, and global circulations and situate them within the frameworks of feminist theory, authorship, postcolonial studies and transnational feminist scholarship. We will study women's cinema from South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. The course screenings will include films such as "Fire," "Water," "Like Water for Chocolate," "Bhaji on the Beach," and "Silent Waters/Khamosh Pani."
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM328 Moving Images Beyond the West: An introduction to Global Media

The globalization of media has become a key issue of debate around the world. Yet, many discussions about globalization tend to obscure the often complex and contradictory relationships among global, national and local forces. This course critically examines the role that film, television, video games, and other media play in shaping our sense of global, national, and local cultures and identities. Focusing on Indian, Chinese, South Korean, African and other media producers, it examines how diverse audiences use global media to negotiate with issues of cultural identity in everyday life.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307

FILM329 Bollywood and Beyond: Introduction to Indian Cinema

India is one of the world's largest film-producing nations, releasing over 900 films every year. The Indian film industry remains an exceptional industry, holding its own against Hollywood's expansion into markets like India. This course will provide a historical and thematic introduction to Indian cinema commonly known as "Bollywood." We will examine the codes and conventions that are unique to Indian films as we attend to the ways in which Indian cinema addresses the socio-political issues of caste, class, religion, and gender. The course is open to all sophomores including non-film majors and non-film minors at Wesleyan. No previous experience in film is required.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: GSAS329
Prereq: None

FILM330 The Art and Business of Contemporary Film

Taught by a leading professional in independent film distribution, acquisition, and marketing, this course explores the contemporary cinema marketplace and its relationship to filmmaking. We will consider the process of defining and finding the potential audience for independent and studio films. The class mixes case studies of production, marketing, and reception with film screenings and analysis. Students will hone their skills of practical analysis: articulating a film's essential appeal, distilling its story, and assessing its artistic and commercial merits. Visiting producers and filmmakers will discuss their work in light of its intended audience and reception. Assignments include written briefs on recent releases and their market profiles, analyses of exemplary independent American films, and a collaborative case-study presentation. This is a master class in the film business taught from the perspective of effective cinematic storytelling.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM331 Video Games as/and the Moving Image: Art, Aesthetics, and Design

Video games are a mess. As a relatively new medium available on a range of platforms and in contexts ranging from the living room to the line for the bathroom, video games make new but confusing contributions to the meaning and possibilities of the moving image. We will work to understand what games are, what they can do, and how successful games do what they do best. Students will complete game design exercises, create rapid prototypes, playtest their games, and iteratively improve their games with play and their players in mind. They will complete analyses of games and game design projects both alone and in groups and participate in studio-style critiques of one another's work. Experience with computer programming is helpful but not essential.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: CIS331
Prereq: None

FILM332 Women Make Movies: Histories of Women's Contributions to World Cinema

This course is not only about the cinema BY women but also work of women IN cinema. The course will engage critically with a variety of roles that women perform--from directors, writers, actors, film editors, critics, producers, costume designers, cinematographers, singers, and more. Attending to global feminist historiography, it will foreground the ways in which women shape the content, style, and development of the movie business globally as they navigate social, political, cultural, and industrial contexts. Addressing film cultures from Asia, Latin America, Iran, Africa, Europe, and the US, the course will expand the western cine-feminist critical tradition and ask: How does an investigation of women's contributions at all levels of filmmaking change our conception of film history? The course is open to all sophomores including non-film minors and non-film majors at Wesleyan. No previous experience in film is required.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM333 Introduction to Russian and Soviet Cinema

This course provides an introduction to the history and poetics of imperial Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russian cinema. From the avant-garde experimentation of Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, and Dziga Vertov to the masterpieces of Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov, and Kira Muratova, the course will explore the development of film from the Soviet and post-Soviet periods as artistic medium and as national tradition. The discussion and comparative analyses of different forms and genres, including silent cinema, propaganda films, blockbusters, and auteur cinema, will be situated within the cultural, political, and aesthetic contexts of the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-REES
Identical With: REES233, RULE233, RUSS233, WLIT255
Prereq: None

FILM333Z Introduction to Russian and Soviet Cinema

This course provides an introduction to the history and poetics of imperial Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russian cinema. From the avant-garde experimentation of Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, and Dziga Vertov to the masterpieces of Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov, and Kira Muratova, the course will explore the development of film from the Soviet and post-Soviet periods as artistic medium and as national tradition. The discussion and comparative analyses of different forms and genres, including silent cinema, propaganda films, blockbusters, and auteur cinema, will be situated within the cultural, political, and aesthetic contexts of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and contemporary Russia and Ukraine. Students will learn the key works, names, events, and concepts of the Russian and Soviet cinematic traditions. They will develop skills in analyzing and interpreting films and will acquire the basic critical terminology of film and media studies. They will also learn how film form and aesthetics are conditioned by technology, ideology, economics, theory, tradition, and culture. The overarching goal is to see how cinema in Russia and the Soviet Union has created and contested narratives of history and identity, how cinema has served the interests of the state, and how it has defied them. No knowledge of Russian is expected or required. All films have English subtitles.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-REES
Identical With: REES233Z, RULE233Z, RUSS233Z, WLIT255Z
Prereq: None

FILM336 Silent Storytelling

This course examines the development of visual storytelling from the post-nickelodeon cinema's presentational styles to the expressionistic filmic poetry of silent cinema's twilight years. Taught by noted film historian and accompanist Ben Model, it explores how silent-era filmmakers developed creative ways to invoke the audience's imagination as a storytelling component. Major filmmakers include Griffith, Keaton, Pudovkin, Lubitsch, Chaplin, Weber, and Vidor. We will look closely at silent film comedy, melodrama, and action. Our work will be based on close viewing of films and attention to the interaction between image, music, and the viewer's journey through each film. Films will be screened with live piano accompaniment in class sessions.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307

FILM341 The Cinema of Horror

This course focuses on the history and development of the horror film. We will seek to understand the appeal of horror. One of our guiding questions will be: "Why do audiences enjoy a genre that, on the surface, seems so unpleasant?" Toward this end, we will take up several distinct theories of how the genre is constructed, defined, and used by producers and viewers. Horror has been a watershed topic for scholars interested in film, and this course gives us the chance to critically engage with important arguments and methodologies in contemporary film studies. The genre has been equally inspiring for filmmakers interested in playing with form to elicit audience reaction. So, we will also be concerned with the aesthetics of horror: how film technique has been developed to terrify viewers.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM342 Cinema of Adventure and Action

The action film reached new heights of popular and commercial success during the 1980s and 1990s, but it is a form of cinema with a long history. This course will examine the genre from cultural, technological, aesthetic, and economic perspectives. We will trace the roots of action cinema in slapstick, early cinema, and movie serials over to the historical adventure film, and, finally, to contemporary action movies in both Hollywood and international cinema. We will also cover conventions of narrative structure, character, star persona, and film style, as well as the genre's appeal to audiences and its significance as a cultural form.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM346 Contemporary East Asian Cinema

This is a seminar on comparative narrative and stylistic analysis that focuses on contemporary films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Japan, regions that have produced some of the most exciting commercial and art cinema in the last thirty years. We will begin by examining the basic narrative and stylistic principles at work in the films, then broaden the scope of our inquiry to compare the aesthetics of individual directors. Our goals are to analyze the narrative and stylistic tendencies of filmmakers while considering their work in a historical, cultural, and industrial context, and to develop our film analysis skills via formal comparison. Films from Bong Joon-ho, Fei Mu, Hong Sang-soo, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Kitano Takeshi, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Jia Zhangke, Jeong Jae-eun, Kon Satoshi, Lee Chang-dong, Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujiro, Suo Masayuki, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Johnnie To, Tsai Ming-liang, Tsui Hark, Wai Ka-fai, Wang Xiaoshuai, Wong Kar-wai, Yim Soon-rye, Yoon Ga-eun, Yuen Kuei, and others will be featured.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: CEAS346, WLIT326
Prereq: FILM304 OR FILM307

FILM347 Melodrama and the Woman's Picture

Within film history and criticism, the usage of the term "melodrama" has changed over time, as has the presumed audience for the genre. This course will investigate the various ways in which melodrama and the woman's picture have been understood in the United States and around the world, beginning in the silent period; ranging through the 1930s, '40s, and '50s; and culminating in contemporary cinema. We will pay particular attention to issues of narrative construction and visual style as they illuminate or complicate various analytical approaches to melodrama and speak to gender, sexuality, race, and class. Screenings include films directed by D. W. Griffith, Evgenii Bauer, Oscar Micheaux, John Stahl, Frank Borzage, Naruse Mikio, King Vidor, Wu Yonggong, Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli, Max Ophuls, Mizoguchi Kenji, Kim Ki-young, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodovar, Ann Hui, Lars von Trier, Farah Khan, and Luca Guadagnino, among others.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: FGSS347
Prereq: FILM304 OR FILM307

FILM348 Postwar American Independent Cinema

What exactly defines an "independent" film or filmmaker? How do independent filmmakers situate themselves in opposition to mainstream filmmaking and/or work in tandem with major studios? How have notions of independence changed over time? This course addresses these and other questions as it examines various models of American independent filmmaking in use from the studio era to the present day. We will explore the methods of production, distribution, and exhibition used by independent filmmakers and their range of reliance on the major studios. In addition, we will consider the aesthetic and cultural relationship between independent films and mainstream filmmaking, focusing in particular on how independents have used film form, narrative, and content to differentiate their product. Screenings will likely include films directed by Ida Lupino, Sam Fuller, Herbert Biberman, Dwane Esper, Roger Corman, Russ Meyer, Melvin Van Peebles, John Waters, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, John Cassavetes, Shirley Clarke, Maya Deren, Su Friedrich, Sadie Benning, Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, Mike and George Kuchar, Barbara Kopple, Julie Dash, Marlon Riggs, Charles Burnett, Wayne Wang, Jim Jarmusch, Chris Eyre, Todd Haynes, Ramin Bahrani, Kelly Reichardt, Aurora Guerrero, Joe Talbot, and Sean Baker, among others.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 OR FILM307

FILM349 Television: The Domestic Medium

Of all the mass media, television is the most intimately associated with domestic and familial life. Its installation in American homes over the postwar decade coincided with a revival of family life that encouraged an emphasis on private over public leisure. Most television is still watched at home, where viewing practices are interwoven with domestic routines and provide a site for negotiating family and gender relations. Television production is shaped at several levels by the images broadcasters and advertisers have of viewers' domestic lives: Broadcast schedules reflect socially conditioned assumptions about the gendered division of family roles; a common televisual mode of address uses a conversational style in which performers present themselves to viewers as friends or members of the family; and families or surrogate families figure prominently in the content of programming across a wide range of genres, including sitcoms, primetime dramas, daytime soaps, and talk shows. Sitcoms, in particular, have responded to and mediated historical shifts in family forms and gender relations over the past 50 years, and they will be a focus in this course. We will explore how television has both shaped and responded to larger cultural discourses about family and gender from the postwar era into the 21st century.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ANTH
Identical With: ANTH244, FGSS243
Prereq: None

FILM350 Contemporary International Art Cinema

What exactly defines an "art" film or filmmaker? How do art house filmmakers situate themselves in relation to mainstream filmmaking and within the global film market? This course addresses these and other questions as it examines the aesthetics and industry of contemporary international art cinema. The class will explore the historical construction of art cinema; its institutional, cultural, and economic support structures; and the status of art cinema today. Featured directors include Marin Ade, Roy Andersson, Jayro Bustamante, Leos Carax, Alan Clarke, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Terence Davies, Claire Denis, Mati Diop, Jaco van Dormael, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Joanna Hogg, Aki Kaurismaki, Abbas Kiarostami, Samira Makhmalbaf, Steve McQueen, Cristian Mungiu, Lucretia Martel, Corneliu Porumboiu, Abderrahmane Sissako, Thomas Vinterberg, Edward Yang, and Andrey Zvyagintsev, among others.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM352 From Caligari to Hitler: Weimar Cinema in Context

This course offers a critical introduction to German silent and sound films from 1919 to 1932. It will test the thesis of Siegfried Kracauer's classic study that expressionist films in particular prepared the way for Hitler's rise to power. The focus will be on canonical films of the era including THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, and THE LAST LAUGH (Murnau); METROPOLIS and M (Fritz Lang); and THE JOYLESS STREET and PANDORA'S BOX (Pabst). Some attention will also be given to films made at the ideological extremes of Weimar culture: KUHLE WAMPE (with a screenplay by Brecht), Leni Riefenstahl's THE BLUE LIGHT, and Pabst's THREEPENNY OPERA. Readings will include screenplays, essays, and reviews from the period as well as selected literary works such as Brecht's THREEPENNY OPERA and Irmgard Keun's novel THE ARTIFICIAL SILK GIRL.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: GRST252
Prereq: None

FILM355 Newest German (and Austrian) Cinema

This course examines the history and aesthetics of German cinema between the fall of the Wall and the present and also considers work by important Austrian directors of the same period. Topics include the ongoing response to World War II and the Holocaust, reactions to the reunification of Germany, and the problematic integration of German Turks and other minorities. We will look at films by Maren Ade, Fatih Akin, Dorris Dörrie, Michael Haneke, Christian Petzold, Ulrich Seidl, Margarethe von Trotta, and Tom Tykwer.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: GRST255
Prereq: None

FILM357 Fassbinder & Sirk: Limitations of Life

The relationship between Hollywood and Germany has always been both uneasy and productive. This course will examine the well-known interaction between the master of the postwar melodrama and the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema. Initially, we will follow the lead of Fassbinder's famous essay, "Imitation of Life: On the Films of Douglas Sirk," and consider the films that ostensibly influenced the young German director most immediately. Special focus will be on FEAR EATS THE SOUL, Fassbinder's provocative remake of ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, and on the late melodramas of so-called FRG Trilogy, including THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN. We may also look at some of Fassbinder's important films before his encounter with Sirk, as well as some of Sirk's German films.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307

FILM358 Italian Cinema: 1945-1965

The decades just after World War II were a transformational period in the history of Italy--and of Italian cinema. After the traumas of war and fascism, the country underwent social and economic changes that affected every aspect of life, changes that fed the imaginations of the nation's filmmakers. Religion, family, gender relations, class struggle, and regional conflict provided themes for comedy, melodrama, and the characteristically Italian hybrid of fiction and documentary known as neorealism.



In examining some of the great films of this period, the course will explore some of these themes, and it will also emphasize the extraordinary creative power and artistic variety of the films themselves. We will examine the contrasting styles and approaches of some of the great Italian auteurs--including Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio de Sica. We will also attend to the careers of charismatic actors like Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, and Anna Magnani, whose emergence as global movie stars enhanced the glamour and prestige of a national cinema rooted in local experience.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307

FILM360 Philosophy and the Movies: The Past on Film

This course examines how films represent the past and how they can help us understand crucial questions in the philosophy of history. We begin with three weeks on documentary cinema. How do documentary films achieve "the reality effect"? How has the contemporary documentary's use of reenactment changed our expectations of nonfiction film? Much of the course is devoted to classic narrative films that help us critically engage questions about the depiction of the past. We think about those films in relation to texts in this history of philosophy and contemporary film theory.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: PHIL160, HIST129
Prereq: None

FILM362 Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: The Dark Turn in Television Storytelling

This course, offered in association with the Calderwood Seminars in Public Writing, examines a certain tendency in contemporary television storytelling. Taking the debut of "The Sopranos" in 1999 as a benchmark, we will explore the emergence in dramas and comedies of a dark, uncertain, pessimistic, or disillusioned address within a medium long known for its reassuring tone. We will consider the industrial and social conditions for this tonal shift, as well as the role it has played in elevating public perceptions of television's cultural value.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: ANTH361, AMST362
Prereq: None

FILM362Z Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: The Dark Turn in Television Storytelling

This course, offered in association with the Calderwood Seminars in Public Writing, examines a certain tendency in contemporary television storytelling. Taking the debut of "The Sopranos" in 1999 as a benchmark, we will explore the emergence in dramas and comedies of a dark, uncertain, pessimistic, or disillusioned address within a medium long known for its reassuring tone. We will consider the industrial and social conditions for this tonal shift, as well as the role it has played in elevating public perceptions of television's cultural value. The course will use the "beat model" developed in certain Calderwood Seminars, where students become "experts" in specific bodies of material. In this case, students will select a particular series on which they will focus over much of the course.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM366 Elia Kazan's Films and Archives

Elia Kazan was one of the most successful and influential cross-platform artists of the 20th century. In the world of theatre, he rose to success with the famed Group Theatre, he co-founded the Actor's Studio, and he directed the first runs of landmark works by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Upon moving to cinema, he directed major films such as Gentleman's Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and A Face in the Crowd. This course serves as an exploration of Kazan's directorial style in the medium of cinema--how he discovers, defines, and experiments with the form as he goes--and his lasting impact on American filmmaking. Kazan made movies about difficult protagonists and could himself be described as such, earning notoriety for his friendly testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee as well as his many extramarital dalliances. But his work was also personal and frank, emerging from his own struggles as a Greek immigrant trying to find a place in an American culture defined as much by its hostility as its opportunity. Kazan's films involve audiences in irreconcilable conflicts built around misfits and outcasts, propelled by pain and desire, trying to assert their individuality in the face of social forces. They consider contradictory questions like: When can love be destructive? When can anger be communicative? How can a synthetic art form capture authenticity and truth? This course is designed to combine both analytical and research-based approaches to understanding Kazan and his work. Screenings will encompass selections from Kazan's career as well as the work of influences, acolytes, and other filmmakers whose movies illuminate the distinctiveness of Kazan's approach. Additionally, students will be tasked with performing archival research with the primary documents in the Elia Kazan Collection at Wesleyan University's Reid Cinema Archives.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 FILM307

FILM370 The Art of Film Criticism

This course will consider film criticism as a literary genre and an intellectual discipline, with the goal of helping students develop strong writerly presences and aesthetic points of view. Readings will include important critics of the past and present. Short writing assignments will focus on the techniques and challenges of analyzing complex works of art concisely and on deadline. A longer essay will aim to synthesize aesthetic analysis and the personal voice.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM372 Hong Kong Cinema

This course offers an introduction to the dynamic history of Hong Kong cinema from 1960 to the present day. The course will acquaint students with Hong Kong's major films, genres, directors, and industrial trends; explore the factors that enabled the Hong Kong film industry to become a regional and global powerhouse; and consider the reasons behind the contraction of the industry since the mid-1990s and the outlook for Hong Kong cinema's future. Screenings will feature the films of Fruit Chan, Jackie Chan, Peter Chan, Chang Cheh, Mabel Cheung, Tony Ching Siu-tung, Chor Yuen, Stephen Chow, King Hu, Ann Hui, Michael Hui, Stanley Kwan, Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, Li Han-hsiang, Lo Wei, Johnnie To, Cecille Tong, Tsui Hark, Wang Tian-lin, Wong Kar-wai, John Woo, Corey Yeun Kwai, Toe Yuen Kin-to, and others.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: CEAS372, WLIT327
Prereq: None

FILM379 The Artist on Film

How can we get the essence of a painter, dancer, musician on film? The Artist on Film comes with the aesthetic challenge of translating artistic expression from one medium to another. Part of the problem is that the reason artists interest us in the first place is that they transmitted themselves so effectively into a different shaped box. We will consider what cinema shares with its neighboring arts, how it can evoke other media, and how distinctions between art forms shape our experience. Through creative assignments, this class will look at how filmmakers tackle the challenge of creatively representing artists and transforming their works into a new medium. This course is taught in the Basinger tradition of combining filmmaking with film watching. It is taught by a writer/director and a particularly good course for those interested in screenwriting and/or directing, but all cinephiles are welcome. The course is designed for majors but will consider sophomores who have completed 304 and 307. Assignments are screenplays and the course will not be covering basic screenwriting format, so some coursework or familiarity with screenwriting is recommended. Class will consist of two screenings a week with lecture and discussion.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 and FILM307

FILM381 The Films and Influences of Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese is a student of the cinema who, for over 60 years, has openly processed his fascination with the medium into strikingly original work. His fiction features--such as Raging Bull and Goodfellas--and documentaries--such as Italianamerican and Rolling Thunder Revue--exhibit the same love for cinema that motivates his parallel efforts as film historian and preservationist. His directorial style has continued to evolve across his career, finding new approaches to form and content that engage and provoke audiences. In this course, students are asked to: - Define Scorsese's film style and its evolution over time. - Make comparisons between Scorsese's work and films from which he drew inspiration and reference. - Navigate the confrontational "push-and-pull" around difficult protagonists in social worlds defined by sexism, racism, and violence. - Develop tools of film analysis and an understanding of cinema that they can, in turn, carry into their own academic and creative work.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM383 History and Practice of Television Writing

This course offers a historical/industrial introduction to American television, and uses that as a springboard into analytical and creative exercises. Each unit will involve students viewing TV episodes (outside of class time) that are bound by theme, genre, production context, etc. These will serve as the foundation for in-class lecture and discussion on the industry and the decision-making of television creators. At the end of each unit, students will work on a culminating assignment of either analytical or creative writing. Key learning goals for the course: - An overview of television history: industry, censorship, technology, culture, and storytelling. - Identifying key concerns and parameters that affect creative decision-making, and how TV writers/creators work within them to respond to and reflect the concerns of their era. - Having students generate their own TV writing from imposed prompts/restrictions
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM384 Documentary Storytelling

This course explores the range of approaches, methods, and techniques employed by documentary filmmakers to tell their stories. After an introduction to elements of creative nonfiction storytelling, we will spend the semester looking at films organized by topical lens. Through close reading of documentary texts, filmmaker statements and academic writing, we will examine how past and current documentaries successfully -- and sometimes unsuccessfully -- have tackled a wide variety of subject areas. During the semester, students also will develop an original documentary film idea based on a book or long magazine article and demonstrate their storytelling knowledge through final verbal pitches and a pitch deck. Industry guests visit to share their insight into documentary storytelling and provide students with additional pitch feedback.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM385

FILM385 Introduction to Documentary

This course provides foundational knowledge for documentary filmmaking introducing students to the history and aesthetics of documentaries and exploring international nonfiction filmmaking from the origins of cinema to the end of the 20th century. The writings of film theorist Bill Nichols, including his influential documentary modes, play a central role in the course. Students learn how documentary has been defined and redefined through the study of how filmmakers were inspired by the concerns and technology of their age. This course also addresses issues of accountability, representation, access, and ethics in documentary filmmaking.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304

FILM386 Cinematic Language of Documentary

Drawing from documentaries produced since the advent of television, this course deconstructs the cinematic tools employed in the art of documentary filmmaking. We will explore how cinematography, sound, performance, mise-en-scène, and editing as well as archival material, character/subject, and location/place operate to serve filmmakers' storytelling goals. Students will learn how technological changes through to the present have influenced creative and practical filmmaking choices as well as brought forth issues of accountability, representation, access, and ethics. This class provides an opportunity for students to realize that the lines between documentary and fiction film are more porous than typically appreciated.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM385

FILM387 Seminar on Television Series and Aesthetics

Through frequent viewing of episodes, classroom discussion, and written exercises, students will consider television programs over multiple seasons and series as they work to describe and differentiate models of television series construction. Of primary interest is the creative decision making that goes into creating this commercial art form--recognizing patterns of intention, choice, and effect; how these operate on a variety of scales; and what attitudes a program may manifest toward the medium and the viewer. Series viewed may include I LOVE LUCY, ATLANTA, THE X-FILES, RUSSIAN DOLL, and others, including student-generated selections.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM388 Global Film Auteurs

This course offers a comparative introduction to film auteurs from around the world spanning the 1930s to the present day. Our aim is threefold: to analyze the narrative and stylistic tendencies of each filmmaker while considering their work in a historical and industrial context; to develop our film analysis skills via formal comparison; and to consider the formation, redefinition, and influence of film canons. Emphasis will be placed on describing and analyzing the functions of narrative and stylistic elements and their effects on the viewing experience. Each week will include two film screenings, a lecture, and a discussion. Screenings will include films directed by Andrea Arnold, Julie Dash, Fernando Eimbcke, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Akira Kurosawa, Jafar Panahi, Satyajit Ray, Ousmane Sembène, Céline Sciamma, Wong Kar-wai, Agnès Varda, Yim Soon-rye, and Zhang Yimou, among others.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: WLIT301, CEAS388
Prereq: None

FILM389 Film Genres: The Western

Once the most popular Hollywood genre for decades, the Western still has a palpable impact on the form and content of present-day cinema. This course is devoted to aesthetic and cultural analysis of key films belonging to the Western genre throughout its more than 100-year history. Our aesthetic approaches will include discussions of typical components of the Western, authorship in the Western, narrative structure, and the construction of the West via visual space and sound. Our cultural analysis will place particular emphasis on the myth of the frontier, the relationship between the Western and political rhetoric, and the genre's treatment of race, ethnicity, and gender. Roughly equal weight will be placed on these two approaches. We will also address the historical trajectory of the Western from its early silent days through its decline in the early 1970s to its present-day status.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM390 History of Film Sound

Sound is one of the most powerful tools at a filmmaker's disposal, yet in comparison to visuals, it remains difficult to describe and poorly understood. This course aims to do for the ear what film studies more commonly does for the eye by examining basic sound practices over the course of narrative film history. Focusing especially on U.S. cinema, but also devoting time to sound-conscious auteurs, we will develop an understanding of basic film-sound methods, look at more experimental uses, and track the technological developments of sound from its beginnings to the present day. The focus throughout the course will be on how such elements as music, sound effects, dialogue, and even silence play covert yet vital roles in telling stories and affecting viewers.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM391 Sex and Violence: American Film-making Under Censorship

This course examines how US filmmakers have used narrative and stylistic techniques to address censorship requirements in US cinema. Though the course will cover early cinema through recent cinema, a major emphasis will be placed on studio-era filmmaking from 1930 to the 1950s, when censorship was at its tightest. Through close film analysis, we will examine how censorship altered films and how filmmakers manipulated film form and style to convey their intended meanings. Our analysis will serve as a way to reflect broadly on methods for making films within constraints, the range of cinematic techniques available to filmmakers, and how creative decisions can impact viewers.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM392 Cinema Stylists: Sternberg, Ophuls, Sirk, Fellini

This course analyzes the films of four international renowned auteurs--Josef von Sternberg, Max Ophuls, Douglas Sirk, and Federico Fellini--whose work is consistently defined by the use of highly noticeable, expressive, and even dazzling stylistic techniques. The course will cover the major works of all four filmmakers and will examine each director's films in terms of narrative techniques, personal worldview and--especially--a distinct set of stylistic concerns. Relevant film style topics will include, but are not limited to, lighting, set design, costume, camera movement, color, sound, and editing. Studying these four filmmakers will reveal how filmmakers can define cinema in deeply personal terms and employ a flashy--even flamboyant--style to achieve their goals.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM393 Hip Hop Visual Culture and Cinema

This class explores the intersections between hip hop and cinema. It considers the development of hip hop-centered films in the 1980s, the casting of rap stars in subsequent 90s films, and the varied constructions of race, gender, and place that are integral to hip hop's visual/sonic culture. We will discuss many filmmakers, including Spike Lee, John Singleton, Cauleen Smith, Mario Van Peebles, Ernest Dickerson, Leslie Harris, F. Gary Gray, Rusty Cundieff, Radha Blank, Bryan Barber, and more.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM394 Afrofuturist Cinema

In Space is the Place, jazz musician and cosmic philosopher Sun Ra states that "the first thing to do is to consider time as officially ended. We work on the other side of time." Afrofuturist narratives tend to unfold in this inverted time, or "after the end of the world." In this class, we will begin our research in the loop of Sun Ra's speculative refrain. We will examine cinematic depictions of hauntings, dystopias, aliens, the surreal, and space travel. We will discuss works by Anisia Uzeyman, Ryan Coogler, Wanuri Kahui, Ngozi Onwurah, Terrance Nance, Jordan Peele, Mati Diop and more.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: AFAM394
Prereq: FILM304 OR FILM307

FILM395 Autobiographical Storytelling

How do filmmakers and writers negotiate memory, identity, and the author's voice to create original work drawn from life? Through analysis of a broad range of autobiographical narratives by experimental, documentary, and fiction filmmakers and writers, we will investigate various modes of working with personal source material, and explore the capacity and complexities of family and individual narratives to showcase diverse perspectives and interrogate assumptions about the self on screen. Inspired by the films and writing we will study, the creative work produced in this course may be drawn from a variety of sources: one's own lived experience, the lived experience of a family or community member, an event, a place, an artistic and/or cultural tradition. Thinking through the fluid nature of autobiography and the vast range of narrative possibilities for representing autobiographical material on screen will be part of class discussions. In this reading- and writing-intensive course, students should expect to spend several hours reading and writing outside of class per week. For most class periods, students will use Perusall to read and annotate either scholarly articles or pieces of autobiographical writing, or to read and comment on their peers' screenplays via Google Drive. Weekly screenings and readings may include work by Pedro Almodovar, Chantal Akerman, Radha Blank, Julie Dash, Mati Diop, Nathalie Léger, Barbara Loden, Lucrecia Martel, Jonas Mekas, Nanni Moretti, Alice Rohrwacher, Céline Sciamma, Agnès Varda, and others. In addition, the course will include screenings and discussions of videographic criticism (e.g., audiovisual work that critically reappropriates existing works of film and media).
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: WLIT207
Prereq: None

FILM396 Black American Cinema

What is Black Cinema? Is it, as Tommy Lott has claimed, a critical form of filmmaking that resists the "Hollywood master narrative"? Or, as Michael Gillespie claims, does it elaborate Black visual and expressive culture without any pressuposed commitment to a "real" Black lifeworld? While these are critical questions that we will encounter in this class, we will not attempt to answer them. The class surveys a wide range of films to tell a conceptual story about the complex relationship between Blackness and cinema. We will discuss works by filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles, Oscar Micheaux, Spencer Williams, Kathleen Collins, Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Ayoka Chenzira, and more.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: AFAM395
Prereq: FILM304 OR FILM307

FILM397 Cinema and City in Asia

This course will look at the representation of the city in Asian cinema. It will explore links between urban and cinematic space across a range of thematic, historical, and cultural concerns. We will watch a wide range of films from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Philippines, and Singapore--and learn to critically examine the ways in which cinema becomes an innovative and powerful archive of urban life as it engages with the events and experiences that shape the cultural, social, and political realities of the past, present, and future in Asia. The course is open to all sophomores including non-film minors and non-film majors at Wesleyan. No previous experience in Film is required. Among other assignments like videographic criticism, students will also have an opportunity to make short city films using their phone-cameras and readily available editing software as an option for their final class projects.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: CEAS397
Prereq: None

FILM398 Analyzing Music Videos

Music videos are fascinating objects. One can think of them as marketing assets. However, they can also be very experimental. While movies tend to foreground the visual, music videos typically begin with a song. In this class, we will think critically with and about music videos. We will discuss music video history, directors, styles, sound-image relations, and the star. Some of the artists and directors we will cover include Michael Jackson, Prince, Beyonce, Rihanna, Hype Williams, Michel Gondry, Dave Meyers, Hiro Murai, and Kahlil Joseph.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307 OR FILM304

FILM399 Senior Proseminar on Art and Business

This half-credit course designed for senior FILM majors and minors features regular sessions with entertainment industry professionals. Students will discuss the intersection of art and business with leaders in the field. Attendance will be strictly monitored.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307

FILM401 Individual Tutorial, Undergraduate

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM402 Individual Tutorial, Undergraduate

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM403 Department/Program Project or Essay

Project to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F

FILM404 Department/Program Project or Essay

Project to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F

FILM407 Senior Tutorial (downgraded thesis)

Downgraded Senior Thesis Tutorial - Project to be arranged in consultation with the tutor. Only enrolled in through the Honors Coordinator.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F

FILM408 Senior Tutorial (downgraded thesis)

Downgraded Senior Thesis Tutorial - Project to be arranged in consultation with the tutor. Only enrolled in through the Honors Coordinator.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F

FILM409 Senior Thesis Tutorial

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM410 Senior Thesis Tutorial

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM411 Group Tutorial, Undergraduate

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM412 Group Tutorial, Undergraduate

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM420 Student Forum

Student-run group tutorial, sponsored by a faculty member and approved by the chair of a department or program.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM430 Documentary Production

In this course, documentary history and theory meet production: "What does it take to make different style documentaries -- including observational, poetic, expository, participatory, and reflexive?" Students will explore documentary story elements and film grammar as they learn how to capture sound, record video, edit material, light subjects, conduct an interview, and work with archival materials, graphics, and music. They will learn through practice and by screening and analyzing a wide range of long-form documentaries made by a wide range of filmmakers.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: None
Prereq: FILM385

FILM435 Directing the Documentary

Students embark on an intensive journey into the world of short-form documentary filmmaking through a hands-on course designed to help foster the emergence of their cinematic voices. The methods that many documentary filmmakers use to develop and craft their work serve as a model for the coursework. In a supportive environment, students engage in progressive learning to allow each to tackle many of the same key creative, practical, financial, and ethical decisions working researchers, directors, producers, writers, camera operators, sound recordists, and editors make during research and development, pre-production, production, and post. Students screen and analyze documentary shorts throughout the semester. During the first half of the semester, students complete exercises designed to help them to improve their technical skills while completing research and development and a written proposal for a five-to-seven-minute documentary. In the second half of the course, students direct, shoot, and edit their work. Ongoing feedback during the entire semester is provided. The course includes self-directed online training assignments and in-class workshops. Students enrolled in this course should anticipate heavy and unevenly distributed time demands.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM430

FILM448 Directing Actors for the Camera

Working with actors is an essential component of cinema and television. This workshop course leads students through exercises both as actors in front of the camera and directors behind the camera. Topics include: directing actors for the camera, casting actors, the analysis of screen performance, script analysis from the actor and the director's POV, on-camera acting technique, introduction to the craft of staging dramatic scenes for single-camera shooting, director/actor collaboration, and communicating with actors to create successful performances.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM448Z Directing Actors for the Camera

The actor is arguably the most important instrument in the director's arsenal for storytelling. This course aims to give students a set of tools to draw on when facing the actual task of telling a story through a lens with performers. Through discussions and exercises, we'll cover script analysis, casting, rehearsing, staging, framing, editing, and more. Emphasis will be on creating strategies for getting the desired performance. Students will be acting in scenes as well as directing them. The goal throughout is to demystify all elements and for each student to understand better what kind of director they want to be. The instructor has been a member of the Directors Guild of America since 1990 and a member of the Writers Guild of America since 1985. As director, writer, and producer, he has credits on over 500 episodes of television. Smartphones with cameras are strongly recommended and will be used for class exercises.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307

FILM450 Sight and Sound Workshop

Film 450 explores the elements of cinematic form and style through filmmaking exercises. The focus of this course is to introduce concepts of narrative form and visual audio design in order to create coherent and emotionally engaging experiences for an audience. In other words: visual storytelling. Each exercise will challenge students to address both aesthetic and practical decisions in taking an idea from concept to the screen. Sections one and two provide technical training and practical experience in the 16mm film format, including lighting, cinematography, and editing. Section three (when offered) includes an introduction to digital non-linear editing and examines the differences between film and video. No assignments will have dialogue or synchronous sound recording. However, we will use this sound restriction to deepen our understanding of visual storytelling.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM451 Introduction to Digital Filmmaking

This course is designed for NON-FILM MAJORS to provide a basic understanding of how films are made, providing technical training and practical experience with digital video cameras, sound gear, and lighting equipment. Through a series of exercises, students will refine their critical and aesthetic sensibilities and develop a basic understanding of how to use composition, lighting, sound, and editing to tell a story. No required time demands out of class. The course format is Lecture with Technical Exercises
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: None

FILM453 The Art and Craft of Film Adaptation

Film adaptations of literary texts have been a staple of cinematic production from the silent era to the present day, and remain both an enduringly popular phenomenon and an occasional source of derision or disbelief: Can the movie ever be as good as the book? In this course we will interrogate the long-held assumption that source materials for adaptations are the authoritative texts while secondary works are necessarily inferior. Adopting a lateral approach that allows us to examine how stories change and are changed by new iterations and new mediums, we will examine the varied modes, motives, and techniques of film adaptations, analyzing how filmmakers transform character, plot, setting, and point of view as they adapt varied source material into feature films. Students will be asked to annotate and analyze literary sources, film scholarship, screenplays, and films, and should expect to spend several hours reading and writing outside of class time per week. In addition to film analysis assignments and in-class writing exercises, students will create an original adapted screenplay treatment and pitch deck.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM454 Screenwriting

This course focuses on writing for the screen, with emphasis on how the camera tells stories. We will be focused exclusively on the screenplay.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307

FILM455 Writing for Television

This demanding, writing-intensive course focuses on (1) the creative development of a script, individually and collaboratively; (2) scene structure, character development, plot, form and formula, dialogue, and the role of narrative and narrator; and (3) understanding the workings and business of television. Each student will conceive of, synopsize, and pitch a story idea with their "producing partners" to "network executives." Each student will also serve as producer and as an executive for others. After absorbing the feedback, students will construct a detailed beat outline and will turn in an original script at the end of the semester.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Identical With: WRCT256
Prereq: None

FILM456 Advanced Filmmaking

This workshop is designed for senior film majors who, having successfully completed FILM450, are prepared to undertake a thesis film project. Because of space and equipment, the number of projects that can be approved is limited. Students must petition for enrollment by proposal at the end of their junior year. Production costs are borne largely by the student.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM450

FILM457 Advanced Filmmaking

This workshop is designed for senior film majors who, having successfully completed FILM450, are prepared to undertake an individual or small team project. Because of space and equipment, the number of projects that can be approved is limited. Students must petition for enrollment by proposal at the end of their junior year. Production costs are borne largely by the student.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM450

FILM458 Screenwriting: The Short Film

This is a writing course and study of the short film that will start from ground zero: separating the screenplay from other forms (e.g., the play and the novel), and grounding students in visual language as the basis of the medium. How do we write in pictures? We will study four feature screenplays, but place particular emphasis on how to scale a project for the short form. We screen 12 short films in class, and perform case studies of previous student films from first draft to finished film. This course is designed for students intending to make a film or write a screenplay for their thesis. The course prioritizes majors, but will consider sophomores who have completed Film 304 and 307 and intend to major.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM 307

FILM458Z Screenwriting: The Short Film

Since watching movies (good ones) is so easy and pleasurable, screenwriting is a medium that everyone's uncle thinks they can do. But anyone who has had to read an amateur screenplay knows different. This is a writing course that will start from ground zero: separating the screenplay from other forms, e.g., the play and the novel, and grounding students in visual language as the basis of the medium. How do we write in pictures?
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM459 Writing for Television II

This advanced course requires that each student act as writer, producer/network executive, and lead discussant on one of the professional scripts we read. Students will be responsible for two meetings with the professor during the semester, two to three meetings with their producing partners, and one meeting with their actors (who will perform a short scene from the student's script at the end of the semester). Each student will conceive of and pitch three story ideas in the first classes, winnowing down to one idea for which they will write a story area, an outline, and a final script (which will go through three major revisions). Students are expected to come to class with a background in creative writing, focusing on character and dialogue as well as having completed one TV screenplay.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ENGL
Prereq: None

FILM460 TV Writer's Room

This course will introduce television series structure, including both the half-hour and one-hour formats. We will start by analyzing familiar shows and then each student will write original scenes for discussion in class. We will then develop an original series idea in class as a group and function as a "writers room" would on a series. Each student will be required to write equal parts of the outline/beat sheet, develop characters, and write/revise scenes, with the goal of executing a full pilot script in collaboration with one another under the guidance of the instructor. Grading will be based on weekly assignments, as well as regular attendance, class punctuality and attention to deadlines.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM304 AND FILM307

FILM461 Directing with Nicholas Ray and Robert Bresson

This is a hybrid studies/production course taught by a filmmaker that looks at two iconic filmmakers to learn what directing is beyond talking to the actors. What is it we are directing when we pick up a camera or making a cut? Nicholas Ray and Robert Bresson are two artists who had opposite cinematic approaches to express their deep spiritual struggles. We are going to compare these two seekers as a way to deepen our understanding of film style. Assignments will be screenplays, storyboards, and other pre-production material for your own films. The last section will look at five modern filmmakers influenced by Ray and Bresson to focus on incorporating their influence into your own work.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307 AND FILM304

FILM465 Education in the Field, Undergraduate

Students must consult with the department and class dean in advance of undertaking education in the field for approval of the nature of the responsibilities and method of evaluation.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM466 Education in the Field, Undergraduate

Students must consult with the department and class dean in advance of undertaking education in the field for approval of the nature of the responsibilities and method of evaluation.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM467 Independent Study, Undergraduate

Credit may be earned for an independent study during a summer or authorized leave of absence provided that (1) plans have been approved in advance, and (2) all specified requirements have been satisfied.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM469 Education in the Field, Undergraduate

Students must consult with the department and class dean in advance of undertaking education in the field for approval of the nature of the responsibilities and method of evaluation.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: None
Prereq: None

FILM470 Independent Study, Undergraduate

Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: None
Prereq: None

FILM480 Senior Film Production: Senior Capstone

This is a project-based class for seniors who have taken FILM 450 (Sight and Sound). Each student will write and direct a six-minute short fiction film to be produced collaboratively by members of the class. We will use a small-crew model with students working on one another's films. Completed films will be screened for the Wesleyan campus at the end of the term.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-FILM
Prereq: FILM307 AND FILM304 AND FILM450

FILM491 Teaching Apprentice Tutorial

The teaching apprentice program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to assist in teaching a faculty member's course for academic credit.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM492 Teaching Apprentice Tutorial

The teaching apprentice program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to assist in teaching a faculty member's course for academic credit.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM503 Selected Topics, Graduate Sciences

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor. A seminar primarily concerned with papers taken from current research publications designed for, and required of, graduate students.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM504 Selected Topics, Graduate Sciences

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor. A seminar primarily concerned with papers taken from current research publications designed for, and required of, graduate students.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM591 Advanced Research, Graduate

Investigation of special problems leading to a thesis.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

FILM592 Advanced Research, Graduate

Investigation of special problems leading to a thesis.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT