Module Identifier |
TF10220 |
Module Title |
STUDYING FILM |
Academic Year |
2003/2004 |
Co-ordinator |
Professor Martin J Barker |
Semester |
Semester 2 (Taught over 2 semesters) |
Other staff |
Dr Ernest Mathijs, Mr Jamie Medhurst, Dr Kevin J Donnelly, Dr Mikel Koven |
Assessment |
Assessment Type | Assessment Length/Details | Proportion |
Semester Exam | 2 Hours For information on due dates for submission of assessed work, please refer
to the departmental web pages at http://www.aber.ac.uk/tfts/duedates.shtml | 50% |
Semester Assessment | one essay of 2000 words 25%, and one textual analysis of 2000 words 25% | 50% |
|
Learning outcomes
On completion of this module, students should be able to:
1. Examine a range of different films, and explore the ways in which individual film form and content may be related to wider contexts.
2. Reflect critically on the relevance of the study of film to personal, social and historical understandings.
3. Understand and deploy some key methods of analysis of films.
4. Draw critically uopn a range of reading from the field of film studies, both for the knowledge of films it offers, and for its understanding of the purposes and importance of film studies.
Brief description
The module will explore a variety of answers which have been given to the question; why is film worth studying? Students will be invited to explore the way different ways of attaching significance to films, connect with different accounts of films in general and particular films, and to encounter different ways of examining and analysing films. The course will cover, among other aspects:
1. Moral debates about films.
2. The economic significance of the film industry.
3. Processes of marketing and distribution and their impact on the meaning of films.
4. Issues of genre.
5. Debates around stardom.
6. The module will introduce methods of close analysis of elements of film form (for instance, the relations of sound and image, editing practices, mise-en-scene, and narrative structure).
7. It will also explore related concepts of representation.
Reading Lists
Books
** Recommended Text
Altman, Rick (1998) Film/Genre
London:BFI
**Barker, Martin with Thomas Austin (2000) From Antz To Titanic: Reinventing Film Studies
London: Pluto Press
Barker, Martin & Julian Petley (eds) (1997) Ill Effects: The Media/Violence Debate
London: Routledge
Bordwell, David (2001) Film Art: An Introduction
New York: McGraw-Hill
Gledhill, Christine & Linda Williams (eds) (2000) Reinventing Film Studies
London: Arnold
Harper, Graeme & Xavier Mendik (eds) (2000) Unruly Pleasures: The Cult Film and its Critics
Guildford: FAB Press
**Hill, John & Pamela Church Gibson (1997) The Oxford Guide to Film Studies
Oxford: OUP
Reeves, Nicholas (1999) The Power of Film Propoganda: Myth or Reality?
London:Cassell
Staiger, Janet (2000) Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception
NY: New York University Press
Journals
Telotte, J.P (Spring 01) The Blair Witch Project
Film Quarterly, Spring 2001
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 4