76 439 - Advanced Seminar in Film and Media Studies

Institution:

Carnegie Mellon University

Subject:

Description:

Topics will vary by semester. Consult the course descriptions provided by the department for current offerings. Spring 2011: Throughout most of its history, Hollywood film has been star driven. Films were created for particular stars, who were far more important to most viewers than any other creative contributors. While the presence of a star was not a guarantee of box office success, it made the odds much better. As a result, the studios worked hard to create stars. They produced back-stories for stars so that the public could believe it knew them personally, while the stars' actual private lives were carefully shielded from public scrutiny. By limiting and crafting the kinds of roles stars might perform, the studios helped to develop star personas, which were public personalities that persisted from role to role. This course will focus on those personas. We will watch representative films featuring leading stars and work at interpreting what these icons meant to film audiences and the culture at large. Among the stars we are likely to consider are Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Betty Davis, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Woody Allen, Jack Nicholson, Julia Roberts, and George Clooney. We will look at how film stardom changes over nearly a century, moving from Chaplin's everyman, to the finely honed personalities of Grant and Hepburn, to the politically inflected Wayne and Dean, and perhaps back to pure personality with Roberts and Clooney.

Credits:

9.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.cmu.edu/

Phone Number:

(412) 268-2000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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