Film and Visual Culture

Programme Structure & Content

Film and Visual Culture Courses are available from first to fourth year. Students complete one semester of Film in their first year for joint Honours, and a History of Art core course for single Honours, and two semesters of Film in their second year, before proceeding to the Honours years, during which they will be able to choose from a wide range of elective modules.

First Year
Introduction to Film and the Cinematic Experience looks at film form in relation to the other arts from which it sprang. The course introduces students to the primary visual, sound and narrative conventions of visual media to create and comment upon significant social experiences and historical events. We discuss issues of framing, mise-en-scène, montage, sound, narrative structure, cinematography, cinematic style and ideology. It features a range of films made since the birth of cinema.

Second Year
The second year core courses Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life, and Cinema and Crisis examine an exceptionally rich and diverse choice of films from around the world. Students are introduced to various national cinemas and movements covering the last 100 years of cinema history; and consider the principal aesthetic, cultural and institutional factors influencing their distinguishing features. With an emphasis upon making both connections and disconnections between global cinemas and Hollywood, these courses encourage students to understand and appreciate the film text as both individualistic art form and intertextual product of an increasingly globalised world.

Third & Fourth Year (Honours)
Students select from a variety of Honours course options. Depending on the particular year offerings, which draw on staff research expertise, these may include modules on such areas as Femmes Fatales, Cinematic Cities, Looking Up: Representations of the Child, God at the Movies, Road Movies, The Real Thing, L.A. Film Noir and Transcultural Cinema. Courses are also offered on French, Hispanic and German cinema. In addition, different types of production courses are available and students may write their dissertation in some area of Film and Visual Culture, and include a practical element.

Teaching & Assessment

Film is a popular subject, and first and second year courses therefore involve large lecture classes. However, weekly tutorials enable closer work with the tutor and with other students. Marks for the course are normally based in part on participation in these tutorials, and involve research, essays, exams and Web CT written submissions, depending on individual course requirements.

Honours courses are based on seminars which encourage active participation. The Honours degree requires you to write a dissertation in your final year, which can also include a practical film-making component.