FA 270N Film Genres: Noir

Film Genre Topics is a course focused on the theoretical, historic, and aesthetic investigation of a chosen genre (including but not limited to film noir, film comedy, and horror film). Students will be introduced to debates within genre theory, various theories of a given genre, as well as representative cinematic texts. The course will focus on analyzing, historicizing, and exploring a chosen genre and its cycles.

Credits

4

Prerequisite

Recommended: placement into WR 115 or higher

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Understand and apply one or more of the theories of genre studied during the term
2. Explain the larger socio- historical and generic con text from which the chosen films emerge and which helps to shape them
3. Explain the ideological implications of the genre and representative texts in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and class
4. Apply a framework and formal cinematic vocabulary for thinking and talking about the genre
5. Recognize and be able to describe narrative and stylistic conventions of representative texts
6. Identify, evaluate, and analyze significant examples of the genre studied
7. Write meaningfully about the formal, generic, and ideological issues of the films studied during the quarter