History of Film Period: New Wave

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Taught at host institution. This course, which serves as a first approach to cinematic history, aims at the acquisition of broad temporal markers that constitute its framework, as well as the instilling of a sensibility to the diverse methods that found its discourse. This course will teach about the "New Wave" in particular, a cinematographical movement emblematic of French cinema that critics have qualified as a movement as revolutionary as the time period in which it occurred. The course will both return to the genesis of the formula invented by critics to understand the arguments of the movement's principal authors, discovered at times against their will, and delve into the movement's heritage. We will take up the historical, economic, formal, and cultural dimensions of this New Wave by watching excerpts from filmmakers, and by constructing a commentary based on a number of critical texts (a packet will be distributed at the first class).