Transnational Cinema(s): Film Flows in a Changing World

3 units

Across a century of extreme nationalism, Cold War imperialism, and increased globalization, moving image culture remains deeply tied to the evolution of global economics, shifting notions of local identity, and human migration. Recent changes in the dynamic of international economics and cultural flow have led to new critical approaches that reassess international cinema as being constructed by relationships that transcend national borders. This course examines multiple ways in which cinema works transnationally, focusing on recent theories of modernism, globalization, and borderless cultures. Exploring a range of contexts from American domination of the early international market, to the recent evolution of Chinese blockbuster action films, to contemporary Palestinian video art, this course looks at the way in which material developments, narrative and aesthetic conventions, and film professionals have circulated over the past century. We will also look at how new technologies of production, distribution, and exhibition challenge traditional notions of cultural borders. Required screenings and in-class textual analysis will be used to complement industrial studies of how transnational flows have come to define contemporary audio-visual media practices. Required Screenings.