Course Catalog

Is melodrama a genre, a way of imagining the world, or the predominant aesthetic mode to represent intense emotions? Throughout the history of film it has been all of these, traveling across cultures and cinematic contexts. In this course we explore theories and concepts that can help us make sense of melodrama, and apply them to a number of key films from different countries. We question why these films move us, and how their narrative and mise-en-scene create stark moral conflicts and “excessive” pathos. Through group assignments and an individual research project, we also explore the ways in which melodrama affects our current understanding of history, politics, and society. The first part of the course focuses on melodrama from early cinema to the post-WWII period, whereas the second part addresses a number of international films spanning from the early 1990s to the 21st century.

Courses on different topics in the discipline, enriching the present course offerings. These classes are taught by permanent or visiting faculty. Topics vary each semester. For the course description, please find this course in the respective semester on the public course browser: https://www.aup.edu/academics/course-catalog/by-term.

Teaches how to analyze cinematic language and films critically by focusing on the work of four modern European film directors, beginning with Pasolini in 1965 and his contemporaries, followed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Examines how the critical concepts learned can be applied to the work of other directors - taking as representative examples the works of Bergman and Kieslowski.

Uses film to examine various philosophical ideas and critical concepts. Students look at a number of key Western texts and thinkers and discuss them in the context of a broad range of films. Uses these films as illustrations to investigate questions about knowledge, the self and personal identity, moral philosophy, social and political thought, and critical theory.

The Western has used to examine American myths about history, race, gender and politics on an uncertain frontier. Looking at films from three continents and from directors including Ford, Hawks, Mann, Leone, Greenwald, Reichardt, Peckinpah, Lucas and Kurosawa, we’ll explore how film works to show the limits and possibilities of culture in collision with ideas of itself.

This course examines the intricate relationship existing between cinema and the body. How is cinematographic art able to represent the creative faculties but also the dark sides of the body : its gestures, desires, needs and pulsions (in sexuality and gender identity) ? How can it account for the cognitive, cultural, political and technological revolutions associated with the body throughout European history (such as the Body Politics or the Technological Body) ? Structured around screenings and classroom lectures, the course addresses these questions by introducing the students to elements of film studies and Body Theory as well as locating each of the screened films in their historical and cultural contexts. The aim of the course is for students to develop an informed appreciation of the issues at stake in the variety of cinematographic representations of the body.

Studies the intricate relationship between politics and cinema : how films represent, document but also problematize the political dimension of cultures, societies and individual experience. Both content of films (themes, plot, contexts) and their forms (narrative structures, mise en scène, cinematography, editing) are analyzed to understand how ideological messages are put together and communicated to the spectator. Studied films include political subjects such as war, 9/11, revolution, electoral politics, issues of race, gender, media, globalization, the politics of history and identity politics. The course is organized around screenings and seminars.

Examines film theory with two motives: how does it help us read individual films, and what does it tell us about this medium? Studies theorists such as Sergei Eisenstein, Andre Bazin, Robin Wood, Christian Metz, Joan Mellen, Laura Mulvey, and Gaylyn Studlar, in relation to certain seminal films - Potemkin, Citizen Kane, Vertigo, A bout de souffle, and Pulp Fiction.

Paris has always been a fertile meeting ground for artists and stimulates the imaginations of newcomers and natives alike. Writers, artists and—in the 20th century—filmmakers have come together in this magical space and shared their fascination with a city of lights, communally recognizing its potential to become home to their fantasies and at times, their despair. Students consider how the Parisian urban landscape is imagined differently by French native vs. expatriate or immigrant writers and filmmakers. They study the comparative methods for visualizing the city unique to writers and filmmakers respectively and gain historical perspective on the central place played by Paris in the evolution of literature and cinema. Titles for viewing and critical reading include: Alain Resnais’ Same Old Song, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris and its contexts; André Breton’s Nadja; Raymond Queneau’s Zazie in the Metro and André Techiné’s The Girl on the RER. Excerpts from Jean-Luc Godard’s Parisian cycle will also be analyzed.