FS10070 Doing Film History

Academic Year 2024/2025

This module introduces key moments in film history and approaches to film studies up to 1980. We will explore these aspects of the study of cinema through three key points of focus: methodology, theory, and national cinemas. The methodological section introduces students to different scholarly approaches to studying film, including aesthetic history, technological history, industrial history, and cultural history. The historical survey will facilitate our understanding of various theoretical lenses scholars have used to understand film, including apparatus theory, genre theory, psychoanalysis, and Marxist analysis. The module culminates in application of the methodologies and theories to key national film movements, including German expressionism, Italian neorealism, Soviet cinema, the Iranian New Wave, and New Hollywood. The overview of these various elements of film studies will also emphasise research skills that will be useful throughout your study of film.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand different theoretical and methodological approaches to studying film
• Apply aspects of these approaches to original analysis
• Examine historical and national film movements using the theories and methodologies
• Write scholarly analyses of individual films using concepts studied in the course

Indicative Module Content:


Indicative readings:

David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).

Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,’ Screen 16, no. 3 (1975): 6–18.

Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 7th ed, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, trans. Jay Leyda (Orlando: Harcourt, 1977).

André Bazin, What Is Cinema? Volume 1, trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

Indicative screenings:

Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1920)

Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette, Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

The Cow (Gav, Dariush Mehrjui, 1969)

Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)

Note: Final selections may vary.

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Specified Learning Activities

20
Autonomous Student Learning

32
Lectures

12
Tutorial

12
Studio

24
Total

100
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
Lectures, screenings, and tutorials. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Assignment(Including Essay): Annotated Bibliography n/a Graded No

30
Reflective Assignment: Learning Journal, which should be completed weekly but will be due by the end of the module in toto. n/a Pass/Fail Grade Scale No

10
Assignment(Including Essay): Final Essay (approx 1850 words) n/a Graded No

60

Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Autumn No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Not yet recorded.