Department of French and Italian

Joint-offered with MSCH-F398 and EURO-W406

Taking a comparative, transnational approach, this course offers an overview of European cinema as an evolving art and as a means of tracing the evolution of European society, politics, and identity during the twentieth century, using representative films from Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Soviet Union. We will also investigate how cinema has shaped national identities and promoted international competition and collaboration. In so doing, our study of film will naturally touch upon a variety of other disciplines, such as history, psychology, sociology, political science, and gender studies. More specifically, we will address the following goals:

• To understand the diverse social and political functions of film as an instrument for articulating and legitimizing state policies and normative cultural values, as well as a means of critiquing and resisting them
• To evaluate how institutional practices (such as censorship, financing, and access to technology and training) have shaped the form and function of cinema in various countries at various historical moments;
• To think critically about how positive and negative stereotypes of various kinds are created, disseminated, and perpetuated by cinema;
• To understand film as a transnational form of expression that constantly disseminates, adapts, and recycles ideas, aesthetics, and practices across time and space.

Taught in English.