Monash University Handbook 2011 Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Notes

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%

Chief examiner(s)

Claire Perkins

Contact hours

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

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Film and television studies

Prerequisites

One unit at first-year level in Visual Culture