Film & Media Studies

The course allows students to develop their natural gift for creative thinking.  To this end, students make films of poems - film poems. These cinematic works usually exceed the likely intentions of the poet, becoming something new; one creative work is used as a springboard for another. In this course, students are shown how to make film poems using a combination of mobile phone technology and analysis of style, enabling them to produce novel cinematic interpretations of poetry.  Students learn how to conduct an authoritative stylistic analysis of a poem, using this as the basis for creating a screenplay which they film on their mobile phone (or other device), editing, and enhancing through their employment of freely available apps.  

Paris inscribes on every street corner a page of France's history. Its cobblestone streets record centuries of struggle, offering a narrative of this history. Writers, chroniclers, and later filmmakers have picked up these narratives and turned them into eternal works of art. The historian of today, retracing this past, has turned them into sites of memory. This course uses literary texts and films as well as historical texts to search for and reconstruct these sites of memory. From the French Revolution to the student revolt of May 1968, this course follows Parisians, exploring the ways in which cinematic representations and literary texts shape collective memory and are a particular historical/political representation of France. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach and compares and contrasts works of fiction with works of non-fiction, the written word with the visual representation, and includes site visits. Classes are broken up into specific themes each pertaining to a major event in the life of France.

This course follows the discussions, the topics, and the paradigm changes concerning film music from a historical point of view. The course studies context and content of the most prominent functions of music within (most importantly) narrative feature film. At the same time, the course provides a historical tour d’horizon on technology, aesthetics, and implications of film sound and film music, using several theoretical approaches. A HISTORY OF FILM MUSIC by Mervyn Cooke provides the historical framework. Students of this class practice various theoretical approaches and coinciding audio-visual analyses in a series of weekly assignments. A weekly film viewing is part and parcel of the course. This course requires students to have intermediate to advanced knowledge of Western music history, and elementary to intermediate knowledge of music theory, as a prerequisite.

The course focuses on the relationship between literature and film and the connections between the two languages through the in-depth study of a selection of historically relevant and exemplary works. A section of the course is devoted to the question of the historical adaptation of literary texts to the screen–from early works to the present. The course focuses in particular on the construction of the fictional movie character through a comparative approach between literary studies and film studies that places emphasis on the peculiarly cinematic element: the human factor linked to the role of the actor. The course focuses on the construction of a particular cinematic character, the history of Hollywood production (divas and audience) and the cultural role played by Hollywood in its historical context through its role in the production of film adaptations of literary works. Required film screenings: QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933), CITY LIGHTS (1931), GONE WITH THE WIND, (1939), CITIZEN KANE (1941), NOW VOYAGER (1942), WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939), A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951), REAR WINDOW (1954), WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956), THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL (1957). Assessment is based on a written exam that covers the required readings, the critical analysis presented in class and the required film screenings.

As a subject, film aesthetics includes two areas of study: film storytelling and film interpretation. Films and topics change, but these two subjects are fundamental. Both are discussed throughout the course. To explore the first subject, the course focuses on a sample of types of cinematic expression within the narrative tradition. Students study examples of canonical films in narrative filmmaking, from a wide range of periods and countries, films, about which many critics and historians have written. To explore the second subject, the course considers different ways in which these critics and historians have interpreted films. Students read exceptional film criticism and consider some of its underlying principles. By considering how critics have celebrated cinema in prose, students study films critically and historically. 

To what extent do stereotypes and prejudices affect the way we read and interpret news? How is wrong or inaccurate information conveyed, and how can we detect and contrast it? Is fake news a novelty of our time? This course examines the characteristics of the contemporary Italian media landscape in the light of some specific cultural traits of the country: attachment to family, distrust of institutional power, the influence (now in decline) of the Catholic Church, and the low propensity to read books and newspapers. The course analyzes historical moments where information, disinformation, and counter-information are closely intertwined, including the rumors after the fire of Rome under Nero; the anonymous epigrams of Pasquino and other "talking statues" in the 16th century as a reaction to papal censorship; the cause célèbre around a child, Edgardo Mortara, stolen in the mid-19th century from his Jewish family by the papal state; and will include moments from the last decades. The topics covered include the era of "Hollywood on the Tiber"; the media coverage of two cases between Italy and the US; the Islamophobia phenomenon; the long silence on the Italian colonial past finally broken thanks to Black Lives Matter protests; the controversies on vaccines; and the memes and the conspiracy theories related to the pandemic. Students research, discuss, and edit and produce texts, images, and audio and video materials on each topic within a simulated newsroom.