BA English Literature and American Studies

This course unit will examine cinema in the United States since World War II but more particularly since the 1970s and the break-up of the studio system. It will explore a range of key historical and analytical approaches used in Film Studies and put these in dialogue with specific American film texts. This strategy will allow students to identify key issues and engage with important debates in the study of American film, to explore the implications of certain social, cultural and theoretical perspectives, and to test the usefulness of various methodological approaches to the study of film, through history, theory, and culture.

The unit will take a close look at both the textual operations of individual films as well as historicising and contextualising the films via genres, authorship, race, gender, and politics. Through a discussion of their meanings in relation to the operations of the film industry, to audiences, and more broadly to American culture, economics, and politics, we begin to plot out the influence and legacy of a range of key cinematic texts up to the present day.
 

• To develop student understanding of cinema in the United States
• To introduce conceptual debates in film studies
• To foster students’ ability to apply film studies concepts to individual films and genres
• To develop students’ understanding of certain aspects of American film history in the post-war era and more especially since the 1970s
• To develop skills in the narrative, thematic and stylistic analysis of films
• To foster skills in written and verbal forms of expression, and in critical and analytical thinking
• To encourage students to work productively within a group

By the end of the course unit, students should be able to: 

• To recognise the influential role of the film industry in American culture and society
• To engage with, apply, and evaluate a range of conceptual models to American film texts
• To demonstrate the ability to conduct thematic, narrative and stylistic analyses of films
• To identify and interrogate film genre classifications and conventions
• To recognise the importance of social and historical contexts in the study of film
• To work independently and collaboratively in undertaking a range of written and research tasks
• To demonstrate an increased precision and thoroughness in written and oral communication

Essay (40%)

Exam (60%)

• Written feedback on research task
• Written feedback on essays

Adrian Martin “The Challenge of Narrative,” Cineaste, Vol XLIV, No. 3, Summer 2019, 22-27.

Geoff King, “Spectacle, Narrative and the Spectacular Hollywood Blockbuster”, Julian Stringer  (ed.),  Movie  Blockbusters  (London: Routledge,  2003),  114-127; 

Ian Scott, “Spectacle vs. Narrative: Action Political Movies in the New Millennium,” The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics, Yannis Tzioumakis and Claire Molloy (eds.) (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 291-301; 

Andrew Dix, Beginning Film Studies, Second Edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 106-37.

James Naremore, “Spies and Lovers”, Naremore ed. North by Northwest: Alfred Hitchcock, Director (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1993), pp. 3-21. 

William Rothman, “North by Northwest: Hitchcock’s Monument to the The Hitchcock Film”, "I" of the Camera: essays in film criticism, history, and aesthetics (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), 241-53. 

 Lester D. Friedman, Bonnie and Clyde (London: British Film Institute, 2000), 21-41: Mark Harris “Introduction” and “One” from; Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of New Hollywood (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2008), 1-19.

Barry Langford, Post-Classical Hollywood (Edinburgh: EUP, 2010), 107-131 

Eithne Quinn,  A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post-Civil Rights Hollywood (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020);

 
Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls:  How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (London:  Simon & Schuster, 1998).

Pam Cook & Mieke  Bernink (eds.), The Cinema Book (2nd Edition) (London:  BFI, 1999), 98-105.

Timothy Corrigan, A Cinema Without Walls:  Movies & Culture After Vietnam (New Brunswick:  Rutgers University Press, 1991).

Geoff King, New Hollywood Cinema:  An Introduction (London:  I.B. Taurus, 2002).

Peter Kramer, The New Hollywood:  From ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ to ‘Star Wars’ (London:  Wallflower, 2005).

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2027 will be £10,050 per annum. Tuition fees for international students will be £29,200 per annum.

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