Politics + Aesthetics of Hollywood

Hollywood is an industry, a cultural bellwether, and a globally distributed artform. This course will consider these functions together, asking how Hollywood’s aesthetics connect to its ideology and commerce. Focusing on the post-studio life of Hollywood, and on Hollywood’s preoccupation with sex and violence, we’ll pay special attention to the genres of melodrama and crime film, 1945-2000. We’ll read film theory, “Hollywood novels,” and documents of film culture, and watch films by filmmakers who were central to the industry (like Hitchcock and Minnelli) as well as by those at its margins (from Lupino and Waters to Burnett and Cronenberg).