Oppositional Cinemas

This seminar explores the ways in which cinema is mobilized in the service of “opposition,” that is critique, revolution, resistance, and the invention of alternative pleasures. It asks how films and their spectatorship become matters of political urgency. The arc of our screening itinerary moves at a deliberate pace from the historical avant-garde’s interest in the revolutionary potential of cinema as a new industrial medium to an examination of the themes of realism, gender, race, geopolitics and temporality. Discussions and readings will emphasize close reading, theoretical concerns, and historical contexts of production, distribution and exhibition.