SCME3004 History of Film Style

Filmmakers construct and manipulate time and space, as well as seeking to guide spectators' attention to narratively or thematically important material. Since the beginning of the cinema they have done this in radically, as well as subtly, different ways. This topic explores ways in which stylistic elements such as cinematography, decoupage, staging, editing and sound design have been employed by filmmakers at various historical moments. We will look at silent cinema and Soviet montage conceptions of film practice, as well as the commercial Hollywood cinema of both the studio period and the contemporary scene. We will end with an analysis of art cinema filmmakers who exemplify directions in modernist stylistics.

This topic aims to:

• Enhance students' ability to identify, and think critically about, the poetics of film form
• Increase knowledge of the varieties of practice in the history of the cinema
• Allow students to try out stylistic ideas in their own practice of filmmaking
• Offer a framework for, and practice in, independent research in the cinema

1. Demonstrate the ability to analyse and discuss, in oral and written forms, formal components of the cinema
2. Demonstrate a more detailed understanding of the possibilities involved in cinematography, staging, editing and sound design
3. Demonstrate a more detailed historical understanding of the cinema