FILM 250 - The Early Film Experience

FDR: HA
Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring 2012 and alternate years.

Prerequisite: Completion of the FDR FW requirement. The invention of motion picture technology at the end of the 19th century brought about the development of a new aesthetic medium in Europe and America. This course examines the origins of cinema and its “silent” era (1896-1927), focusing on the practices of spectatorship and artistic production that accompanied the growth of early film culture. Students gain an aesthetic and historical understanding of the early film experience–an experience that is remarkably “other” and yet also uncannily familiar for the 21st-century viewer. Chenoweth.