Module Information

Film and Representation is designed to interrogate the broad ways in which films represent a variety of different processes, peoples, objects and other social phenomena. In doing so, it will focus on film as a form that mediates reality and re-presents aspects of this reality in new contexts. It will consider themes that have long concerned academic researchers, such as how class, race and gender are constructed within a filmic culture, and look into a number of related issues: the ideological mechanisms of different modes of representation (film as reflecting and also constructing, social reality); and the aesthetic and historical mechanisms of representation (fitting types of people into an aesthetic, for example, as well as how films draw on established conventions that precede them). The module will also go beyond these examples to look into a number of other representational issues: how are space and place, for example, represented within film? How are historical moments represented on film? In this respect, the course will look into the importance of costume, design, geography and a number of other important elements which help to construct specific representations. The module will draw on a range of methodological approaches including semiotic theory (Saussure; Levi-Strauss; Barthes) and theories of discourse (Foucault; Stuart Hall). It will also consider key concepts such as denotation, connotation, and will engage with ideology and hegemony (Althusser and Gramsci). While the course is not strictly historical, it will follow a broadly historical trajectory which will therefore allow students to think about how changing ideological norms may (or many not) impact upon film representation, as well as broad epochal shifts and their significance: for example, how does an increasingly globalized postmodern society impact upon the representation of localities? How are marginalisation, exclusion and difference worked through in contemporary films? How can 'virtual spaces' be represented within an increasingly digitized society?