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  • Film 356: Television Culture and Cult TV: Critical Approaches to Fandom

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    Why do television series inspire passionate involvement on the part of some viewers? What are the differences among being a viewer, an audience member, and a fan? How can we make scholarly sense of cultural practices such as learning to speak Klingon or building a "repli-car" of the General Lee? Studies of fandom have attempted to answer such questions and continue to explore issues that are crucial to understanding contemporary television culture. The phenomenon of "Cult TV" offers fertile ground for examining the complex dynamics at play among fans, popular culture, the institutions of American media, and individual programs. In its exploration of cult television and fans, this course engages with key issues in contemporary media such as the proliferation of new media technologies and the repurposing of existing media forms, the permeable boundaries between high and low or mass and oppositional culture, and the fragmentation and concentration of media markets. The class combines close textual analysis with studies of fan practices to examine a variety of television programs, from canonical cult texts such as Star Trek and Doctor Who to "quality" fan favorites such as Designing Women and Cagney & Lacey to contemporary cult/quality hybrids such as Lost and Heroes. In mapping out this cultural territory, we develop a set of critical perspectives on audience identities and activities and examine the continuing and conflicted imagination of fans by media producers, distributors, regulators, and critics. Required screenings. Prerequisite: Film 220 or Film 350, or consent of instructor.
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  • Film 357: Quality Television and the "Primetime Novel"

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    Over the past four decades, the cultural status of television in the United States has been reconfigured and complicated with changes in industrial structures, audience formations, regulatory presumptions, and production techniques and strategies. This course examines these interrelated forces, particularly as they have fostered a set of programs and practices often hailed as "Quality Television." The class surveys the institutional paradigms that gave rise to particular generations of programming celebrated as "quality" and analyze the systems of distinction and cultural value that make the label socially and industrially salient. We critically investigate the role of audiences and the conceptions of viewer choice at play in these developments. In addition, the course analyzes the textual features that have come to signify narrative complexity and aesthetic sophistication. We examine foundational historical examples of this phenomenon from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Hill Street Blues and Cagney & Lacey to Northern Exposure as well as more contemporary broadcast and cable fiction such as Lost, The Wire, and Mad Men. In addition, students are expected to watch a complete series, chosen in consultation with the instructor, as part of their final research project. Required screenings. Prerequisite: Film 220 or Film 350, or consent of instructor.
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  • Film 359: The American Musical Film

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    Film musicals were crucial to the success of the American film industry from the dawn of sound film in the late 1920s to the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s. This course examines the American film musical from a variety of aesthetic, critical, and historical perspectives, with particular attention to how the genre interacted with popular music and dance and the major political and social trends of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. Required screenings.
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  • Film 360: The History of the Film Score

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    Moving pictures have always needed sound, and long before film actors could talk, the emotions on their faces were literally underscored with music. This course considers the breadth of film history, from the silent era to the present, by way of music and how it has been deployed for artistic effects and commercial purposes. Topics include: live accompaniment practices in silent film, thematically integrated original "classical" scores; pastiche scores; popular music scores; how music defines and supports various film genres; technical and creative practices behind the making of film scores; Hollywood film music vs. selected world cinemas; the highly personal uses of music by important writer-directors; the power of music to generate nostalgic feelings (often for a quite recent past); the relationship between classical and popular music as vehicles of emotional expression within film narratives; and the shifting commercial connections between the music and film industries. Structured around 14 screenings, the course surveys the uses of music in narrative feature-length films, with particular emphasis on films that bring music-making as a creative human activity directly into plot or overall theme. The films range from The Jazz Singer (1927) to The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). Required screenings.
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  • Film 361: Film Sound

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    Although film critics and theorists tend to think of cinema as a "visual art," this shorthand description of the medium overlooks the importance of film sound in cinematic storytelling. This course is intended to provide a general overview of the way in which film theorists have treated the issue of sound in the cinema. Among the issues addressed in the course are: the contribution sound technology and practice make to film form; the various possible formal relationships between sound and image; the effects of sound technologies on notions of realism and verisimilitude; the importance of sound to particular genres, such as the horror film; and lastly, the role of sound in film spectatorship. The course also showcases the work of the most important sound stylists in film history, such as Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, and David Lynch. Required screenings.
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  • Film 363: Video Post-Production

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    While post-production of the soundtrack has been around for years, post-production of the "visual track" has increasingly become a major phase in the video and movie-making process. It often allows filmmakers to enhance existing footage with potentially dazzling results. As in all our production courses, we are concerned with developing strong content. The focus is not on special effects per se, but rather on how they may be used to enhance the message. Students find a nonprofit organization of vital importance in need of exposure and produce a Public Service Announcement to be broadcast. Key post-production software such as Commotion, AfterEffects, and Motion are explored throughout the semester. Prerequisite: Film 230 (Moving Images and Sound) or consent of instructor.
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  • Film 366: Women and Film

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    The aim of this course is primarily to familiarize students with the work of prominent women directors over the course of the 20th century, from commercial blockbusters to the radical avant garde. Approaching the films in chronological order, we consider the specific historical and cultural context of each filmmaker's work. In addition we discuss the films in relation to specific gender and feminist issues such as the status of women's film genres, representations of men and women on screen and the gender politics of film production. Required screenings.
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  • Film 370: American Horrors

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    Horror movies. Fright films. Scream marathons. Blood and gore fests. Why should we want to look at movies that aim to frighten us? What is the attraction of repulsion? Is there an aesthetics of ugliness? Except for some early prestigious literary adaptations such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the horror film began as a low-class genre, a notch above exploitation movies. In the 1970s and 1980s, it became the dominant commercial genre by offering increasingly graphic images of violence and mayhem. The horror film had arrived: lavish budgets, big stars, and dazzling special effects in mainstream major studio films competed with low-budget, no frills productions that helped establish artistically ambitious and quirky filmmakers such as George Romero and David Cronenberg. By a chronological survey of the American horror film, this course explores how differing notions of what is terrifying reflect changing cultural values and norms. Throughout, we consider the difficult questions raised by horror's simple aim of scaring its audience. In addition to weekly screenings, work for the course includes analytical and theoretical essays on the horror film. Written analyses of films with a close attention to visual style is required. Prerequisite: Film 220. Required screenings.
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  • Film 371: Making War

    3.00 Credits
    Washington University in St Louis

    This course examines the cinematic representation of war. Using World War II as a case study, students examine a series of combat pictures, documentaries, and "home front" films from the 1940s to the present. Several key questions guide the class discussion: How do war films respond to and shape the political worlds in which they are produced? How do these films confront the aftermath of war and the soldier's homecoming? Where is the line between the home front and the front line? More broadly, what does it mean to portray the violence and suffering that war inevitably brings? At the close of the semester, students partake in an in-class symposium presenting their research on the cinematic treatment of other conflicts, from the Civil War to the "War on Terror." Films include: The Boat, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Why We Fight, and Mrs. Miniver. Readings include works by Susan Sontag, Kaja Silverman, and W.G. Sebald. Required screenings.
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