History of Film I

An introduction to the major developments in the history of film from its nineteenth-century, pre-cinematic origins through the coming of sound in the 1920s to the wartime productions of the early forties. The significant aesthetic innovations that have marked the growth of film as an art form will be studied, together with the social implications of the medium and its relationship to other arts. Screenings of American and international films, with emphasis on such major figures as Griffith, Eisenstein, Renoir, and Hitchcock. Readings and written reports required.