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EN212 (EX17) OK - Intro to Cinema

This course has an assignment that is due by 11:55 pm Central Standard Time on Wednesday night of the first week of class. Failure to complete this assignment will result in your removal from the course for non-participation.

Course Required Textbook and Readings

Ellis, Jack C. and Virginia Wright Wexman. A History of Film. 5^th ed (or later). Allyn & Bacon.

Other required readings will be provided on the Resources and Materials page of the course.

Course Special Requirements

Students are encouraged to subscribe to Netflix for the duration of this course, as all required movies are available in dvd format (but not streaming). You can sign up for Netflix, including a free one-month trial, at https://signup.netflix.com

Films that you will need to view for the course:

For Week 1 Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail and D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms

For Week 2 Fritz Lang's Destiny and Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin

For Week 3 Michael Curtiz's Casablanca and Orson Welles' Citizen Kane

For Week 4 John Ford's Stagecoach

For Week 5 Howard Hawks' Scarface: The Shame of the Nation and Donen/Kelly's Singin' in the Rain

For Week 6 Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront and Frederico Fellini's 8 1/2

For Week 7 John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy and George Lucas' Star Wars

For Week 8 Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo

Course Description

The class examines themes, impacts, and techniques in cinematic art. Through experiencing, reading about, and discussing a series of films, the class studies the history of film, the major film genres, and some of the important film directors. Fulfills “Fine Arts” requirements. Prerequisite: EN120 or EN110/EN111.

Course Objectives

This course is designed to give students critical insight into the "language" of motion pictures, film theory, the history of cinema, and appreciation of the common elements of commercial and artistic films. The course will consist of two sections. In the first, students will discuss the birth of cinema and early cinemas in the United States, Russia, and Germany. In the second, the emphasis will be on main cinematic genres, including Westerns, movie musicals, social-problem films, comedies, horror films, and the new independent American cinema.

The two primary objectives of this course are to elevate students’ appreciation for motion pictures and to further enhance students’ expressive, communicative, and critical skills through writing about film.