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COM ARTS 350

INTRODUCTION TO FILM

3 credits.

Explains how films work using classics such as "Citizen Kane," "Vertigo," "Battleship Potemkin," and "Do The Right Thing." Study film as an art form and a medium, cover all the major film types (silent, classical, and contemporary narrative cinema, art cinema, animation, documentary, and experimental film), and get introduced to two basic approaches to film criticism: authorship criticism and genre criticism. Learn to recognize film techniques--mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound--and to analyze how filmmakers make us watch, think, and feel.

Prerequisites & course information

Requisites: Sophomore standing or COM ARTS 250 Course Designation: Core GenEd - Humanities & Arts Breadth - Humanities Level - Intermediate L&S Credit - L&S Liberal Arts and Science Repeatable for Credit: No Last Taught: Fall 2026 Learning Outcomes: 1. Use the basic analytical tools that are required for a sustained critical engagement with cinematic narrative and form Audience: Undergraduate 2. Examine the formal elements, historical and contextual specificities that shape film Audience: Undergraduate 3. Demonstrate how directors, actors, cinematographers, producers, sound engineers and VFX artist build up a film brick-by-brick Audience: Undergraduate 4. Analyze the aesthetic and stylistic aspects of film through form and content Audience: Undergraduate 5. Identify the vocabulary of film language and criticism Audience: Undergraduate 6. Combine course concepts to investigate contemporary media production in a sustained way Audience: Undergraduate Learning Outcomes: 1. Use the basic analytical tools that are required for a sustained critical engagement with cinematic narrative and form Audience: Undergraduate 2. Examine the formal elements, historical and contextual specificities that shape film Audience: Undergraduate 3. Demonstrate how directors, actors, cinematographers, producers, sound engineers and VFX artist build up a film brick-by-brick Audience: Undergraduate 4. Analyze the aesthetic and stylistic aspects of film through form and content Audience: Undergraduate 5. Identify the vocabulary of film language and criticism Audience: Undergraduate 6. Combine course concepts to investigate contemporary media production in a sustained way Audience: Undergraduate

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