Film & Media Studies

This course examines in depth the critical legacies of and debates surrounding film authorship. The course surveys key theoretical texts and explores them in themselves as well as through comparative case studies of two directors-Robert Bresson and Takeshi Kitano-who have both produced a significant body of work and given rise to substantial attention to their respective careers in film. Students consider how Bresson and Kitano fit into and/or defy the "auteur theory" and its variants through close attention to both the films themselves and the critical discourses (aesthetic, historical, national, generic) they have generated. The course invites students to consider what "film directing" is, as artistic, and cultural practice.

This course examines the politicization manifested in works of fiction and the political effects of the creation and the use of artwork. Incorporating an international and comparative dimension, it explores censorship, politics, mobilization, and conflicts within the art world. The course studies several aesthetic registers including cinema, television, literature, and painting to examine the tension present in various worlds of art, between artistic recognition and the politicization of works and creators. It explores the mechanisms of this tension as well as the practices and forms of action and creation through which artists engage and see their creations become objects of disruption.

Course topics include program planning; broadcast and television media; comparison of the characteristics of different media forms; current trends in China's radio and television industry; content-based audio-visual media planning; content-based audio-visual media planning practice; integration of business and humanities; and similarities and differences between entertainment and new programs.

This course examines how architecture and urbanism are represented in film and investigates how film influences and constructs the built environment and vice versa – how the built environment is experienced and perceived through moving images. It looks as the questions: How does architecture use its structure, form, enclosure, floor plans, materials, and lighting to produce effects and backgrounds? How does (built) space provoke emotions and influence everyday lives? Likewise, how does the film use space, architecture, and landscape to situate its characters and create dramatic action and emotions?  In other words, how does it produce narratives and iconic images and shape collective memories?