This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to film analysis. We will examine the ways in which meaning is constructed in cinema by looking at the various techniques employed by filmmakers and the manner in which these elements operate as a formal system. The course will stress the importance of close textual analysis of individual scenes, while also emphasizing the need to look at films as a whole. A range of films will be viewed in class, although for the sake of coherence the majority will be Hollywood productions from the 1940s and 1950s, in particular the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock.
- Teacher: Jonathan Stubbs