FS 205

This course examines the historical and theoretical contexts of cinema from the emergence of synchronized sound in the early 1930s through to the global modernist impulses that followed World War II. Moving in roughly chronological order, we will explore the events, causes, and consequences of major phases in international film, including Hollywood classicism, German Fascist cinema, wartime Canadian and British documentaries, the French New Wave, Italian Neorealism, and postwar modernist art cinema. In addition to studying films in their historical contexts (i.e., technological, economic, industrial, sociocultural, and aesthetic), we will attend to critical commentary and theoretical debates engendered by the nascent film medium. Weekly course screenings outside of class time are a mandatory component of this course. <br>