Honors - Critical Approaches to Film: The American Crime Film

This course examines the postwar Hollywood crime film as the ground for the exploration of a number of central issues in contemporary film studies. Topics include the genres, links to prewar cinema, including other national cinemas and stylistic schools, and to popular literature and documentary expression. The course explores issues of iconography, visual and narrative style, and the cinematic treatment of gender, ethnicity, urban space, and social class. The course serves as a capstone experience for minors in film studies, but also welcomes students from a variety of academic backgrounds. By the end of the course, students will be able to 1) synthesize and apply in writing and oral presentations a range of critical methods for the study of film; 2) perform close analysis of the visual and formal elements of film style; 3) analyze and deploy a range of critical methods and theoretical approaches to narrative film, 4) and demonstrate an appreciation of the relation of Hollywood filmmaking to its industry.