Spring, 2006

Professor: Frances Weller Bailey

Office: New Snell 182

Phone: 268-3969

Office Hours: 8:30-9:30 AM and 1:00-2:30 PM Tuesday/Thursday and by appointment

Film is a complex medium that surrounds its participants, conveying ideas and emotions through the combination of words, images, sounds, and music. Within an historical context, this course will explore the different means through which movies communicate with viewers, focusing on technical components such as photography, frame composition, movement, sound, and editing, as well as more literary components such as screenplay, acting, directing, and producing. In the process of this exploration, class members will also learn about the major areas of film theory, since the ultimate goal of the course is to acquire the knowledge and critical tools critical to gaining a better understanding of the movies that both reflect and affect the lives and times of those who make and see them.

Since application is a crucial part of learning, students will work in groups to script, storyboard, shoot and edit a short movie that will demonstrate their mastery of the basics of film technique.

READINGS:

• David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson, Film Art (7th edition)
• Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Film Theory and Criticism (6th edition)

FILMS:

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919; 69 min.; d. Robert Wiene)
• Un Chien Andalou (1928; 17 min.; d. Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali)
• Citizen Kane (1941; 119 min.; d. Orson Welles)
• Cowboy Bebop (1998; 25 min.; d. Shinichuro Watanabe)
• Do the Right Thing (1989; 120 min.; d. Spike Lee)
• Fargo (1996; 105 min.; d. Joel Coen)
• The Great Train Robbery (1903; 12 min.; d. Edwin S. Porter)
• Laura (1944; 88 min.; d. Otto Preminger and Rouben Mamoulian)
• Living in Oblivion (1995; 90 min.; d. Tom DiCillo)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941; 100 min.; d. John Huston)
• The Mummy (1932; 72 min.; d. Karl Freund)
• The Mummy (1999; 125 min.; d. Stephen Sommers)
• North by Northwest (1959; 136 min.; d. Alfred Hitchcock)
• Our Hospitality (1923; 74 min.; d. Buster Keaton)
• Out of the Past (1947; 97 min.; d. Jacques Tourneur)
• Singin' in the Rain (1952; 102 min.; d. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen)
• A Voyage to the Moon (1902; 14 min.; d. Georges Melies)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939; 101 min.; d. Victor Fleming)
• Young Mr. Lincoln (1939; 100 min.; d. John Ford)

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