Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis A study of a selection of films representative of a range of stylistic diversity in the cinema, concentrating on alternative cinema practices. The aim of this subject is to develop in students an awareness of film form and of films as systems of communication that tend to affect audiences in particular ways. Amongst the areas of cinema to be considered will be the early development of film form in Hollywood; the Russian experiments with editing, particularly works by Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Vertov; some avant-garde film practices; the work of a woman filmmaker in Hollywood (Arzner); alternative formal systems in the work of Ozu and Oshima in Japan; significant postwar developments, including European art cinema (Antonioni), the work of Godard and Kluge and women filmmakers; the emergence of third world political filmmakers in the 1960s; contemporary Australian independent features and short films. Students will be encouraged to engage with recent theories of narrative and ideology, with feminist film theory and with issues of the institutional and economic frameworks in which films are produced.
Assessment Essay (2000 words): 33% + Essay (2500 words): 42% + Visual test (1.5 hour): 25%