COMM 35008 - Film & Television Genres & Styles

Course Credit: 1
Maximum Credit: 0

(COMS, FILM, WGSS)
Film and Television Genres and Styles This course introduces students to film aesthetics through the analysis of film form and style. The course aims to provide students with a fluency in and understanding of film’s unique language as it evolves technologically, historically and generically. Beyond teaching students how to recognize and describe formal choices and techniques, students will be asked to engage in close readings of films, attending to the greater aesthetic significance and stakes of formal choices and innovations evident within a particular film, directorial oeuvre, period or movement. This course provides students with an introduction to genre studies facilitated through an overview of a sampling of highly contemporary film and television genres. As the course uses genre studies to introduce students to the synergized yet stratified film and television industries, each genre is represented through one film example and one example from television, creating a closely comparative study of genres across different yet related industrial spheres. In this class, we will ask the following questions: What are the generic tropes associated with certain genres? Can a film or television show belong to more than one genre? Does a film’s or television show’s genre stay the same over time? Does a genre-based view expand or delimit our conception of a motion picture? These are some of the many questions, concerns and misconceptions raised by the study of film and television through genre.