Film & Television Studies: Contemporary Cinema

Introduction to basic film history, theory, and analytical skills. An historical overview of contemporary international cinema.

Open to Degree and PACE students Colocated with FTS 1430 B; total combined enrollment = 100

“No film ends badly. Cinema is true. A story is a lie,” wrote Jean Epstein. His words capture the spirit of this course, which explores cinema’s capacity to reveal truth beyond narrative or meaning. How does film make visible what cannot be seen—war, trauma, love, God, sexuality, grief? What distinguishes the cinematic image from the images that saturate today’s visual culture is its relationship to the invisible: as André Bazin observed, the screen never shows reality in full but only through its partial revelation, its masking. In cinema, truth emerges not by being fully exposed but through what remains hidden. Spanning from the 1960s to the present, the course features filmmakers who expand the possibilities of cinematic form: Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959), La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966), Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972), Tokyo-Ga (Wim Wenders, 1985), Maborosi (Koreeda Hirokazu, 1995), Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997), The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001), Still Life (Jia Zhangke, 2006), The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012), Burning (Lee Chang-dong, 2018), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019), Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021), and The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, 2023). Through close analysis of these films, we will ask how contemporary cinema transforms the moving image into a philosophical and ethical encounter with the invisible—how it defends intimacy and opacity in an age of exhibition.

Each week, students will watch one or two assigned films and read one critical essay (typically less than 30 pages). Active participation in class discussions is essential, as our conversations will develop from close attention to both the formal and theoretical dimensions of the films. Students are expected to complete all screenings and readings before class and to bring thoughtful observations and questions to our discussions. Content Warning: This course includes films that contain depictions of violence, including sexual violence, as well as explicit sexual content integral to their artistic and philosophical exploration.

Screening Notes 25% Weekly Reading Response 25% Two Exams: 50% (25% Each)