History of World Cinema I: Silent Cinema and Modern Life (FILMEDIA 300A)

5 credits · Undergraduate

Film's first decades were among its most exciting, as filmmakers explored the possibilities of this new medium. Modern life had exploded with technologies of production, communication, & transportation, and writers and filmmakers alike pondered the implications of this new mode of experiencing a new, modern world. From one-shot "actualities" to the development of storytelling techniques, to experiments in visual, rhythmic, and polemical form, and feature films in opulent picture palaces, 1895 to 1930 presented a blizzard of exploration and achievement that set the stage for what followed, but which remains, today, absolutely thrilling in its own right.