Objectives

Film Studies is an interdisciplinary liberal arts program offering insight into motion picture media. Broadly understood to encompass inquiry into the aesthetics, history, and cultural meanings of the moving image, the Film Studies Program has two primary goals: to offer an informed background in motion picture history and to develop a critical appreciation of the cultural meanings of film. It is not a pre-professional program emphasizing technical skills but a humanities-based course of study stressing inquiry into film style and content, film history, and the relationships between film and culture.

The curriculum is designed to provide a broad overview of the history of the moving image, to develop expertise in cinematic style and cultural meaning, to lend theoretical sophistication to an understanding of the moving image, and to ensure some appreciation of the practical and technical side of motion picture production. A field especially congenial to interdisciplinary inquiry, film studies is a practical complement to a range of established concentrations for which an expertise in visual style and motion picture history is becoming ever more important--American studies, English and American literature, fine arts, history, politics, sociology, and theater arts.

How to Become a Program Member

The program is open to all Brandeis undergraduates. To enroll in the program, consult with a member of the film studies committee and fill out declaration forms from the Office of Academic Affairs. Students who complete the requirements of the program receive film studies certificates and notations on their transcripts.

Committee

(American Studies)

(Fine Arts)

(Music)

(Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

(English and American Literature)

Requirements for the Program

Students must complete six courses:

A. Core course: FILM 100a (Introduction to the Moving Image).

B. An approved film studies seminar or research project usually taken in the senior year. The senior seminar or research project, which requires permission of the instructor, is designed to function as a capstone experience to the Film Studies Program, an occasion to demonstrate a sophisticated mastery of the history, style, and cultural impact of the moving image.

C. Four additional courses from the approved film studies curriculum, which must include one course in a non-American cinema and one course in some creative aspect of film production.

Courses of Instruction

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

Usually offered every year.

Staff

Usually offered every year.

Staff

Usually offered every year.

Staff

Usually offered every year.

Staff

(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

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An interdisciplinary course surveying the history of moving image media from 1895 to the present, from the earliest silent cinema to the age of the 500-channel cable television. Open to all undergraduates as an elective, it is the introductory course for the Film Studies Program. Usually offered every year.

Ms. Allara

Electives

The following courses are approved for the program. Not all are given in any one year. Please consult the Course Schedule each semester.

Images of the American West in Film and Culture

American Film and Culture of the 1950s

American Film and Culture of the 1940s

American Film and Culture of the 1930s

American Film and Culture of the 1920s

Television and American Culture

News on Screen

Communication and Media

Sexualities and Cinema

Film Noir

Modern Art and Modern Culture

Jews on Screen

Jewish Life in Film and Fiction

Film and the Holocaust

Sociology on Film

Topics in French Film

German Film in Cultural Context

Dreams and Nightmares: The Third Reich on Film

German Cinema

Israeli Films

Twentieth-Century Russian Literature, Art, Film, and Theater

Spanish Fictions and Films of Modern Life

Film Workshop: Recording America

Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music

Sound for Theater, Film, and Television

Fundamentals of Lighting

Film Theory and Criticism

Feminism and Film

American Avant-Garde Film and Video