“Course Summaries” are listed below – simply click on the course title to view the course summary information. Special Topics courses may vary from year to year.
Please note:
- the TIME and LOCATION of courses is published in the Public Class Schedule
- OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTIONS are available in the Undergraduate Calendar
- the OFFICIAL COURSE OUTLINE will be distributed at the first class of the term
- FILM 1000 A - Introduction to Film Studies, Term: May-August
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- Instructor: José Sánchez
- FILM 1000 “Introduction to Film Studies” is the only Film Studies course offered in first year at Carleton University. It is offered by the Film Studies Program, one of the three Programs within the School for Studies in Art and Culture. (The School’s other two Programs are Music and Art History). Students may pursue a B.A General or a B.A. Honours in Film Studies. Many students take Film Studies courses as options within other degree Programs.
- This course is organized as an introduction to the different ways in which films may be studied. We pay particular attention to questions of form, style and critical method. The objectives of the course are to familiarize students with the vocabulary and concerns of cinema studies and to survey three overlapping areas of inquiry: film as art, the aesthetics of film form and film as a social practice. While there is obviously a historical dimension to the course, we do not follow a strictly historical chronology in the presentation of films or issues.
- The course is divided into four units. Unit 1, “Style and Technique,” introduces students to the basic elements of cinema as an artistic and communicative form. During Unit 2, “Film Genres,” we look at generic categories as a way of classifying films and examine particular genres. The genres studied are the Romantic Comedy and the Horror Film. Unit 3, “The Filmmaker,” looks at the problems and advantages of analyzing films in terms of the creative personality of the director as Auteur. We will examine three different filmmakers. Finally, Unit 4, “A Period in Film History,” focuses on specific movements within film history. This year we will look at Contemporary Québec Cinema
- CAVEAT: Films screened in this course may contain disturbing images and sounds. In order to conduct valid film analyses, students must be able to adopt a critical distance vis-à-vis audiovisual material that might be unsettling or shocking. Individuals who are unable or unwilling to adopt such critical distance should not take this Film Studies course.
- Evaluation: Each section of the course will be examined separately by an In-Class Test and/or Out-of-Class Essay and/or Formal Exam. Attendance and participation are compulsory and will be evaluated as part of the final grade.
- Lecture format: lecture & screening & discussion (4 hours/ twice a week)
- Text: Understanding Movies with Custom Intro to Film (available at Carleton Bookstore)
- FILM 2401 B - The Film Maker: Spike Lee, Term: July-August
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- Instructor: Sylvie Jasen
- This course examines Spike Lee as a provocative filmmaker whose outspoken celebrity status and films dealing with racial and interracial tensions have established Lee as a controversial public figure. While examining the thematic and aesthetic developments in Lee’s oeuvre, the course will present this diverse body of work (including fiction films, documentaries, music videos, and commercials) as an on-going engagement with the history of and discourse on images of African-American men and women in Hollywood and popular culture. As Lee’s (contradictory) position as both an independent and Hollywood auteur, political and commercial filmmaker, has generated equal praise and criticism, we will explore Lee’s complex and changing relationship with the mainstream film industry and take into account critical perspectives on his films’ frequently problematic portrayals of women, masculinity, and homosexuality.
- Evaluation: Attendance, Reading summaries, Short Essay, Final Exam (may be subject to change)
- Readings: Weekly readings will be available digitally through ARES.
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