Conversation, Culture, Communication 2: French Culture Through French Film

3 units

This course enables students to pursue your exploration of French culture through French film. Though not a history of French cinema, it introduces some of France's most celebrated actors and directors. We focus on excerpts that illustrate important life themes, including childhood, coming of age, existential crises, the search for happiness, the need for laughter, the threat of crime and violence, the complexities of love, and attitudes toward death. Students are asked to contrast their expectations of how such themes are to be treated with the way in which the French choose to portray them. Students write film reviews as though they were, alternately, an American or a French critic. As a final project, they write their own screenplay and imagine how it might be filmed in France. By the end of the course, they will have begun to view French culture with a French eye. Prerequisite: French 201D or the equivalent. May be taken before or after Frrench 215.