VSA3240

Cinema Institutions: The New Hollywood ( 6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL)

Leader: Con Verevis

Offered:
Not offered in 2006.

Synopsis: Cinema Institutions looks at contemporary Hollywood cinema, its films and its industry. This unit considers blockbuster and independent films, and a number of institutionalised and unofficial, public and industrial discourses. These include film industry publicity and marketing; advertising and commercial tie-ins; media coverage of stars and directors; film censorship and studio self-regulation; motion picture palaces and suburban multiplexes; film reviewing and academic film criticism; the impact of television and wide-screen technologies in the fifties; the impact of home video and cable television in the seventies and eighties; and new media technologies in the nineties and beyond.

Objectives: By the completion of this unit students will be expected to: 1. Recognise that meaning is not simply an intra-textual property of a particular text but an effect of historically specific extra-textual, material technologies or "institutions". 2. Demonstrate an understanding of historically specific material technologies of production, distribution, exhibition and reception, in relation to a range of contemporary Hollywood films. 3. Translate the particularity of Hollywood institutions into a methodology for investigating the material - social, historical and political - difference of other national cinemas.

Assessment: Visual test (1.5 hours): 40% + Essay (3000 words): 60% + Third-year students will be expected to read more widely and work at a higher level than second-year students.

Contact Hours: 4 hours (1 x 1 hour lecture, 1 x 1 hour tutorial and 1 x 2 hour screening) per week

Prerequisites: One unit at first-year level in Visual Culture

Prohibitions: VSA2240