The History of Film - in our 32-seater cinema
Course Duration: 5 Monday nights
Week One Course Introduction
Overview - Students will be introduced to the course and a general outline of the themes and objectives of the course will be covered. The students will learn a basic understanding of Film through Genre.
Genre 1 - The Comedy
Students will be introduced to one of the most popular and enduring genres, Comedy. They will explore the most popular comedies. We will examine how the Comedy achieved popularity and how comedic tastes have both changed and endured.
Week Two
Genre 2 - The Western
Like no other genre, The Western is representative of the film industry. From initial widespread popularity to cultural influence to decline and resurgence, The Western has endured as much as film and therefore exploring its cultural impact is very informative.
Students will explore the early silent movies, the serials, the introduction of sound and its influence on camera movements, the classics, the decline and eventual Post-modern rebirth.
Week 3
Genre 3 - Science Fiction
Students will explore the genre of Science Fiction from its blockbuster silent days to its B-movie adolescence, through to its eventual domination of the box office.
Week Four
Genre 4 - Horror
From the beginnings of cinema, Horror has been a popular genre that still endures.
Students will explore this popular genre from its early days in silent cinema (FW Murnau) to the schlock of the 60s (Hammer, American Imperial Studios) to the slasher movies of the 80s (Jon Carpenter, Wes Craven) and beyond.
Week Five
Genre 5 - Crime/Noir
Students will be introduced to the main characters of the seedy underbelly of cinema: the desperate criminals, the gangsters, femme fatales, two time losers and the gritty detectives who seek justice.
Crime movies have been around from the beginning of cinema but it wasn't until the 1930s and the run of Warner Brothers movies starring James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G Robinson that they found cultural appeal.
Students will explore these movies and beyond charting the common archetypes and subgenres, through to their modern manifestations.
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