Film & Media Studies

This course explores what makes Japanese film directors not mere metteur-en-scene (director) but auteurs (authors) by surveying the visual forms and styles of their films as well as analyzing their preferred narrative concerns, contents and themes. It is not difficult to find auteurs in the Japanese cinema world: Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujiro, Kurosawa Akira, and Oshima Nagisa are a few of the representative Japanese auteurs who, commanding absolute control over most stages of film-making, managed to create films with superlative characteristics in narrative, theme and visual style. Auteurs are film directors who have imprinted their own signature on their work. By the end of this course, the class is expected to recognize the signature of each auteur.

If the ‘everyday' refers to the mundane, the unremarkable – to the forms of life routinely taken for granted – it is also through the practices of everyday life that we experience who we are, how our lives are invested with meanings, and how we engage with change. In the modern world (especially in the developed north), it's difficult to think about cultures of everyday life without also considering the media and its contribution to the structuring of daily life, its varied use in daily life, and its discursive construction and engagement with aspects of everyday life. In this course, students explore critical approaches to everyday life, including those engaging with media.

In this introductory course, students examine key concepts and approaches that are relevant to the study of film. The course develops the skills needed for film analysis by looking at aspects of film form such as mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography, narrative, and sound. Students also examine particular aspects of Film Studies such as genre, authorship, stardom, acting, fandom, and film industries. This course introduces students to notions of popular and art cinemas as well as documentary through a range of important cinematic texts from around the world.