Spring 2023

UMASS SPRING 2023 FILM COURSE GUIDE

Film Studies

FILM-ST 170 – Introduction to Film Analysis: Cinematic Time Travel

Instructor: Barry Spence
Credit: 4
GenED: AT
Meeting: Thursday 4:00-7:00
Discussion sections: Friday 12:15-1:05; 1:25-2:15; 2:30-3:20.

This is an introduction to film studies and to the analysis of film. The course explores the complex nature and cultural function of cinema by focusing on time travel as both a central theme of a wide range of films and as a way of understanding how cinema works as a time-based medium. By studying films from various points in the global history of cinema - including films from nine countries and five continents - this course performs a transcultural introduction to the formal and stylistic aspects of cinematic storytelling. (Gen. Ed. AT)
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: I, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A

FILM-ST 284 – The Undead Souths

Instructor: Patrick Mensah
Credits: 4
Meeting: Tu & Th 10:00 am-11:15 am and online

This course will explore themes of the Southern Gothic in works of Cinema and popular Televisual narratives. We will study the development of the lurid motifs of the Gothic that works affiliated with this genre often deploy to invoke a sense of horror and dread, moral corruption, and psychological abjection, all seemingly meant to assimilate the South and its citizens to the category of a degenerate and menacing otherness. The imagery of dismal landscapes, dark swamps, decaying architecture, fanatical and occult religious practices, and the often grotesque or monstrous figures and cultural tropes that aspire to associate the South with an imaginary medieval past, will be examined mostly as marks of an ambivalent ideological struggle surrounding the self-identity of America. Thanks to this regime of gothic tropes and insignia, America, on the one hand, heralds its own self-identity as culturally rich and historically continuous, and yet, it is, at least partly thanks to this same regimen of gothic tropes (understood as figures of otherness), on the other hand, that America also typically (or stereotypically) deals with anxieties arising from its attempts to define its own modern identity, and its identity as modern and exceptional. Such anxieties give rise to instances of negative stereotyping, and practices of cultural exclusion that the course critically interrogates. We also study several important ways in which the Gothic serves as an important voice for the marginalized, while enabling critical reflections on the social and cultural practices of exclusion we have alluded to.

The history of slavery, the civil war, and its aftermath, as well as literature produced by certain Southern writers (such as William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Katherine Anne Porter, and others) since the late 19th century, will be identified as important defining contexts of emergence for the Southern gothic, and as the indispensable conditions that have made its deployment into 20th century film and television possible. Due attention will also be paid to the influence of French colonial adventures and interventions in shaping cultures and "gothic" mythologies of the American South, and the Caribbean, as well as the role played by America's own efforts to secure and maintain hegemonic influences on the region.

The course is conducted in English, and requires no prior knowledge of the field. All films are streamed to your computer from the UMass library on demand. Required readings are provided online, and no book purchases are necessary. (Gen. Ed. AT, DU)
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A (can be exception for elective)

FILM-ST 296F – Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival

Instructor: Daniel Pope
Meeting: Wednesday 7:30 pm-10:30 pm
Credits: 1

Join the audience of students, faculty, and area community at the 29th annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival with films and directors from around the world introduced by leading scholars and filmmakers. The first and longest-running University-based film festival of its kind, the MMFF brings the best of new fiction, documentary and experimental filmmaking by international filmmakers and seeks to cultivate an appreciation of film and moving image media, to inspire audiences to a deeper understanding of the world’s cultures through film, and to celebrate past, present and future achievements of international filmmaking in a university setting. In this colloquium, you will attend festival screenings and participate in online discussions with other students about what most interested, inspired, surprised you about the filmmakers, filmmaking, and the subject matter of works programmed in this season’s festival.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: N/A
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A

FILM-ST 353 – African Film

Instructor: Patrick Mensah
Credits: 4
Meeting: Tuesday 4:00 pm-6:45 pm and online

This course offers an introduction to African film as an aesthetic and cultural practice. Students should expect to be familiarized with the key ideas and objectives that have inspired and driven that practice since the early 1960s, and be furnished with the technical tools and methodological skills that would permit them to understand, analyze, and think critically about the artistic and thematic aspects of the films that are screened. They should also expect the course to provide them with a critical peek into several cardinal issues of social and cultural relevance in contemporary Africa and its history. Issues of interest typically include, the nationstate and its declining status, imperatives of decolonization, economic dependency and structural adjustment programs, orality and changing traditional cultures, diasporic migrations, urbanization and its problems, gender relations, civil wars, child soldiers, gangs, and related themes. Filmmakers studied include, but are not limited to, Abderrahmane Sissako, Gillo Pontecorvo, Ousmane Sembene, Raoul Peck, Jean-Marie Teno, Dani Kouyate, Mweze Ngangura, Gavin Hood, Neill Blomkamp, Moufida Tlatli, Djibril Diop Mambety (please note that this list is subject to change, and shall be updated as future changes are made). The course is conducted in English, and requires no prior knowledge of the field. All films are streamed to your computer from the UMass library on demand. Required readings are provided online, and no book purchases are necessary. (Gen.Ed. AT, DG)
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N, E

FILM-ST 381 – Self-Reflective Avant-Garde Film

Instructor: Don Levine
Credits: 4
Meeting: Online

Explores modern origin of film experimentation in avant-garde modes such as Expressionism, Surrealism and contemporary results of this heritage. Trying to determine if film is the most resolutely modern of the media, we'll look at cinema as the result of two obsessive concerns: 1) the poetic, dreamlike and fantastic, 2) the factual, realistic and socially critical or anarchistic. Thus, we'll attempt to discover how modern culture deals with avant-garde imperatives to always "make it new." Films and filmmakers such as Breathless (Godard), My Own Private Idaho (Van Sant), The American Soldier ( Fassbinder), others. Requirements: one 5-page paper for midterm, ten-page final paper or project; attendance. (Gen.Ed. AT)
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: H2, E

FILM-ST 395A – Global Film Noir

Instructor: Don Levine
Credits: 3
Meeting: Online Wednesday 4:00 pm-6:30 pm

Often referred to as the only indigenous American film style, "film noir" in its very appellation reveals that its major effects (for certain modern conceptions of cinema) lay elsewhere. We will examine film noir in its American heyday (1945-1957) and how it came to be a major propelling force in the new European cinema of the 1960's (Godard, and the Cahiers du cinema).
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G, E

FILM-ST 397Q – Production Sketchbook

Instructor: Patricia Montoya
Credits: 3
Meeting: Online

Video, still images and sound are used in this course to explore the fundamental character of storytelling, filmmaking and time-based art practices. Students perform all aspects of production with particular attention to developing ideas and building analytical, critical and production skills. We will read seminal written work and interviews with practicing artists in order to expand our knowledge, understanding and love for the medium. Through exercises that include weekly projects students will produce sketches aimed at exploring video as an experimentation tool. There will be special emphasis paid to sound design that includes original music, and ambient sound gathered with a separate sound recorder. The class will review students the basic theoretical tools to critique their own productions and develop an understanding of the possibilities that medium offers.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: E

FILM-ST 446 – Film Documentary

Instructor: Bruce Geisler
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 2:30 pm-4:30 pm
Discussion: Tuesday 4:45 pm-5:35 pm

We will view, analyze, and discuss films by modern documentary masters such as Michael Moore ("Sicko"), Chris Paine, ("Revenge of the Electric Car"), Seth Gordon ("The King of Kong - A fistful of Quarters"), Pamela Yates ("Granito") and many others to further the understanding of the documentary craft and art from a filmmaker's perspective. Students will also do preproduction (research and treatment) for their own short documentary, along with shorter hands-on exercises in writing narration, interview techniques, etc. Enrollment Requirements: Open to Seniors & Juniors only. Prerequisite: either COMM 140 (formerly 240), 231, 340, 342 or 445 (formerly 493E.) This course was formerly numbered as COMM 493F. If you have already taken COMM 493F you cannot take this course.Open to Seniors & Juniors only, or by permission of the instructor at geisler@comm.umass.edu.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G, E

FILM-ST 470 – Film Theory

This course provides an in-depth overview of key theoretical approaches to the study of cinema by examining historically significant ways of analyzing film form and its social and cultural functions and effects. The course seeks to equip students with a command of the diverse history of theoretical frameworks for understanding the medium and experience of cinema, from early concerns over film?s relation to other arts to the way the movie as a cultural form has been reconceptualized within the contemporary explosion of new media. The pressing relevance of film theory becomes clear once we stop to consider–taking just one small example–the many implications of a society-wide movement away from the collective experience of movies in a public theater to private viewing with earbuds on the tiny screen of a cell phone or tablet. We will explore a wide range of questions (concerning the nature of the cinematic medium and its apparatus, aspects of the spectator’s experience of film, and the aesthetic and ideological dimensions of film genre, to name just a few) as a way of putting ourselves in dialogue with various film theoreticians. And we will ground our examination by looking at cinematic practice in relation to theory. This will be done through regular film screenings throughout the semester.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: T, E
Prerequisites: Students should have taken an intro to film course and at least two film courses at the 300 level.
Registration is by instructor permission only. bspence@umass.edu

FILM-ST 490B – Advanced 16MM Filmmaking

Instructor: David Bendiksen
Credits: 3
Meeting: Th 4:00 pm-6:30 pm

This course is an advanced workshop in 16mm single-camera filmmaking, emphasizing experimental formal approaches, hand-processing, eco-friendly film chemistry, printing, color film, tinting and toning techniques, sound technologies, telecine and digitalization techniques, and digital-analog hybrid processes, with the goal of presenting a final work in a curated screening at the end of the semester. A previous 16mm course or instructor permission are prerequisite.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY:
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY:

FILM-ST 497FL – Fellini: The Liar

Instructor: Andrea Malaguti
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 4:00 pm-5:15 pm

The course examines how Fellini's irony constantly debunks the imagery of the so-called "western culture" and highlights the need for new cultural narratives.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G, E

FILM-ST 497K – Short Documentary Filmmaking

Instructor: David Casals Roma
Credits: 3
Meeting: Online

In the same way that fiction films are the mirror of our imagination, documentaries are the mirror of our surrounding reality. But making a documentary requires a creative point of view by the director and the knowledge of some filmmaking techniques. In this course you will learn how to develop your ideas for documentary, how to write a script, how to plan de production, how to shoot interviews and how to structure your movie in the editing room. Moreover, you will write, shoot and edit a 5-minute documentary during the course. It is important that you have access to a camera, a computer and an editing software to edit your documentary.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: E

FILM-ST 497P – Film Podcasting

Instructor: Daniel Pope
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tuesday 4:00 pm-7:30 pm

This is a course in film criticism in the podcast medium. For as long as there has been cinema there has also been film criticism, from print and broadcast media to websites and social media. Podcasting offers a powerful digital medium for film criticism, drawing on many of the strengths of traditional media and bringing its own unique qualities of engagement. In this course, students will design their own show formats and produce a suite of episodes for their podcasts. We will examine the varieties of film writing, exploring the craft of creating compelling and illuminating film criticism, and our concentration will turn to the key techniques for producing rich, engaging podcast content. Our work will take inspiration and guidance from analysis of a vast diversity of leading film podcasts. We will also work with films across a variety of genres and time periods and do hands-on work in all aspects of producing a film criticism podcast?research, analysis, writing, planning, conducting interviews, moderating, recording, editing, and posting your finished podcasts.
Pre-requisite: 1 introductory film course (FILM-ST 170, COMM 140, or COMM 230).
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: E

FILM-ST 497S – Untold Screenwriting

Instructor: Daniel Pope
Credits: 3
Meeting: Monday 4:00 pm-7:00 pm

This is a course in writing unconventional screenplays, singular film scripts that not only take innovative forms but also tell stories not often found in established film and media production. We will read from an international selection of screenplays, examine clips from unconventional films, and address questions of representation, inclusion, and the work of writing underrepresented characters and untold narratives for the screen. ?Untold? signifies in two ways?it can mean boundless or limitless, and it can refer to a narrative that is not recounted. We are witnessing the beginnings of a film and media renaissance, with new works emerging and evolving that tell stories not commonly told and take innovative forms that can surprise, edify, delight, and enrich us. In this class, we will write screenplays for such works, starting with an appreciation for established forms and conventions of screenwriting, and pushing to expand the boundaries of what stories films can tell, and how.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: E

FILM-ST 691J – Holocaust Cinema

Instructor: Olga Gershenson
Credits: 3
Meeting: Wednesday 4:00 pm-6:45 pm

This seminar provides a cultural history of cinematic treatments of the Holocaust, traces major trends and changes in Holocaust representations, and raises questions concerning historical memory of the Holocaust in national cinemas. The seminar will progress historically from the first-ever cinematic depictions of Nazi anti-Semitism, to the current plethora of genres and styles of Holocaust films. The scope of issues discussed in this seminar is defined by two sets of tensions: first, tensions between history and narrative, and second between eastern and western understanding of the Holocaust. To address the first set of tensions, we'll discuss modes of representation in fiction and documentary films, cinematography, style, and language. To address the second set of tensions, we will compare and contrast representations of the Holocaust in the major national cinemas of the Soviet bloc, with those of the US and Western Europe. We will consider circumstances of films' production and circulation, including censorship, funding, distribution, audience and critical reception. All films and film excerpts are with English subtitles.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: H2, E

FILM-ST 695A – Global Film Noir

Instructor: Don Levine
Credits: 3
Meeting: Online Wednesday 4:00 pm-6:30 pm
Often referred to as the only indigenous American film style, "film noir" in its very appellation reveals that its major effects (for certain modern conceptions of cinema) lay elsewhere. We will examine film noir in its American heyday (1945-1957) and how it came to be a major propelling force in the new European cinema of the 1960's (Godard, and the Cahiers du cinema).
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: D&G, E

FILM-ST 697FF – Gender, Film, Theory and Practice

Instructor: Barbara Zecchi
Credits: 3
Meeting: Wednesday 4:00 pm-6:30 pm

UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: T, E

FILM-ST 697FL – Fellini: The Liar

Instructor: Andrea Malaguti
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 4:00 pm-5:15 pm

EALC

Japanese 197L – Manga/Anime

Instructor: Bruce Baird
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 11:30 pm-12:45 pm

Japan has become a phenomenally successful exporter of pop culture. This course will give students tools to understand Manga and Anime; it will investigate the role Manga and Anime play in Japan; and, it will examine ways that Manga and Anime flow from one place to another. Course is conducted entirely in English.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A

Communication

COMM 140 – Introduction to Film Studies

Instructor: Marty Norden
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 2:30 pm-3:45 pm

This course offers an introduction to the study of film as a distinct medium. It introduces the ways in which film style, form, and genre contribute to the meaning and the experience of movies. Topics include film as an industrial commodity, narrative and non-narrative form, aspects of style (e.g. composition, cinematography, editing, and sound), and the role of film as a cultural practice. Examples are drawn from new and classic films, from Hollywood and from around the world. This course is intended to serve as a basis for film studies courses you might take in the future. Enrollment Requirements: This course is open to Freshmen, Sophomores and Juniors. And others with permission of the instructor.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: I, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A

COMM 345 – Contemporary World Cinema

Instructor: Anne Ciecko
Credits: 3
Meeting: M & W 4:00 pm-6:00 pm

This course offers an overview of recent filmmaking from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and elsewhere. While narrative fiction feature films are central, documentary, short-form work, and other digital/audiovisual media will also be included. Developing tools of film analysis and criticism, we will explore representational strategies and issues of context: current events, cultural, political, social, historical, and economic circumstances that impact the production, exhibition, marketing, distribution, and reception of films. The class meeting time includes lectures, discussions, class activities, and regular screenings of feature films and clips; at least one screening outside class may also be required. All undergraduates are welcome. No prior background in film studies is required, only an openness to diverse cultures and representations. Enrollment Requirements: Open to Undergraduate Students only. This course was formerly numbered COMM 397T. If you have already taken COMM 397T you cannot take this course.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: H2, E

COMM 445 – Screenwriting

Instructor: Marty Norden
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 10:00 am-11:15 am

An examination of the art, craft, and business of screenwriting from theoretical and practical perspectives. Topics include screenplay format and structure, story, plot and character development, dialog and scene description, visual storytelling, pace and rhythm, analysis of professional and student scripts and films. Enrollment Requirements: Open to Senior and Junior Communication majors only. Other students, with permission of the instructor. This course was formerly numbered as COMM 493E. If you have already taken COMM 493E you cannot take this course.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: IV, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: E

Comparative Literature

COMP-LIT 170 – Introduction to Film Analysis: Cinematic Time Travel

Instructor: Barry Spence
Credit: 4
GenED: AT
Meeting: Thursday 4:00-7:00
Discussion sections: Friday 12:15-1:05; 1:25-2:15; 2:30-3:20.

German

GER 297J – Germans and Jews

Instructor: Jonathan Skolnik
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 11:30 am-12:45 pm

This seminar will be taught in English and will investigate German-Jewish writers, artists, and filmmakers from the late 18th century to the post-Holocaust present. Readings from figures such as Heine, Kafka, Lasker-Schuler, Celan.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A (can count as 200 exception)

GER 397E – Weimar Cinema

Instructor: Mariana Ivanova
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 1:00 pm- 2:15 pm

The Weimar Republic is known for its extremes: corrupt wealth existed alongside destitute poverty and an underground world of wild parties and glamour. In this course, we delve into the internationally acclaimed Weimar cinema, films made during the period of the so-called Golden Twenties in Germany. The period began with the end of World War I and came to a close with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, shortly before Hitler's rise to power. This short-lived period has become the symbol of a resolutely modern lifestyle, including gender equality and androgyny (the New Man and the New Woman), artistic innovation and experimentation, sexual emancipation, economic and political crises. Film was part of this vibrant and contested culture; indeed, it was the central art form. Filmmakers invented narratives and images that obliquely addressed trauma and paranoia and devised a visual language that still shapes genre such as horror, science fiction, film noir and melodrama. In this course, we will draw on sources from literature, art, photography, music and fashion as well as materials in psychology, criminology, and filmmaking to deepen our understanding of the time period and its films.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: III, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N, E

Journalism

JOURNAL 333 – Introduction to Visual Storytelling

Instructor: Brian McDermott
Credits: 4
Meeting: Tu & Th 10:00 am-11:15 am

This course introduces students to the concepts and practices of visual storytelling, including visual ethics, aesthetics, representation, and the currents of the modern visual journalism ecosystem. This is a hands-on class in which students will learn the basics of visual storytelling, including how to use a DSLR camera, capturing and editing video, and creating simple data visualizations. (Gen. Ed. AT)
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: II, V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: E

Anthro

ANTHRO 106 – Culture Through Film

Instructor: Roman Sanchez
Credits: 3
Meeting: Online

Exploration of different societies and cultures, and of the field of cultural anthropology through the medium of film. Ethnographic and documentary films; focus on gender roles, ethnicity, race, class, religion, politics, and social change.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A

Art

ART 274 – Animation Fundamentals

Instructor: Abby Paccia
Credits: 3
Meeting: Tu & Th 4:00 pm-6:45pm

Introduction to traditional animation techniques as used in fine art animation and experimental film/video. Basics of locomotion, timing, lighting, camera moves, exposure, sound design and audio an visual editing. Studio course.
UNDERGRADUATE FILM STUDIES CERTIFICATE CATEGORY: V
FILM STUDIES MAJOR CATEGORY: N/A (can count as 200 exception)

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