Subject Area: Film Studies

This course introduces students to the early history of film and its social and cultural impacts; considers key theoretical issues in the examination of film histories, and perspectives, traditions and methods in the historiography of film. Through case studies and analysis of key texts and films, it highlights the role of film in modernity and its transformations, and introduces students to the use of a wide range of archival and research materials used in the documentation of film history. The course does not offer a comprehensive history but studies in depth key aspects of film prior to the 1960s. This includes: prehistories of film, art and experimental film, German Expressionism, cinema and colonialism, propaganda and war film, the Hollywood epic, the American dream.