54
Cinema, Photography and Television
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI "L'ORIENTALE"
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
The course provides an introduction to the study of film history, enabling students to become familiar with the filmmakers, works, styles, modes of production, movements, and periods that have played a fundamental role in the development of the medium; to understand the aesthetic, historical, economic, technological, and social factors that have shaped the evolution of cinema within the broader context of media and the arts; and to critically grasp the main lines of transformation and continuity that have characterised film language.
The course is designed to achieve the following learning outcomes:
1) Knowledge and understanding. Students acquire knowledge of the filmmakers, works, styles, production practices, movements, and periods that are fundamental in the history of cinema; they understand the aesthetic, historical, economic, technological, and social factors that have shaped the development of cinema within the broader media environment; they develop an understanding of the concepts of film genre and film authorship, as well as their various functions in film history.
2) Applying knowledge and understanding. Students are able to identify and contextualise a work, a filmmaker, a style, or a movement within the history of cinema; they can situate a work, a filmmaker, a style, a movement, or a production model within its broader aesthetic, historical, economic, and social context; they use the concepts of film genre and film authorship correctly and can define their distinctive features.
3) Making judgements. Students acquire a critical understanding of the main issues related to film historiography and its methodologies, together with essential analytical skills for the interpretation of film texts.
4) Communication skills. Students are able to use and apply correctly the specific vocabulary of the discipline.
5) Learning skills. Students develop the conceptual and methodological tools needed to recognise and define the key turning points in film history.
Course Prerequisites
None.
Teaching Methods
The course combines lectures, screenings of significant sequences, textual analysis, and in-class discussion.
Assessment Methods
The final assessment is a written examination and lasts 2 hours. It includes the screening of a sequence taken from one of the films listed in the course filmography. Following the screening, students are required to address the following points in a concise written format:
1) Identification: title, director, and year of the film;
2) Context: contextualisation of the film within a specific national cinema; within a given economic and cultural framework; within a genre, movement, or school; within an authorial poetics (max. 15 lines);
3) Text: analysis of the main formal features of the sequence at the levels of mise-en-scène (e.g., lighting, costumes, setting), framing (camera use), montage (editing), characters and themes (max. 15 lines);
4) Intertext: connections between the sequence analysed and other periods/works/tendencies in film history (max. 10 lines).
Assessment criteria
In the final exam, students will be required to demonstrate:
1) Knowledge and understanding: that they have acquired the fundamental notions related to the topics and films included in the course syllabus.
2) Applying knowledge and understanding: that they are able to situate works, filmmakers, styles, production models, and movements listed in the syllabus within film history and within their broader aesthetic, historical, economic, and social contexts of origin; and that they are able to recognise and define the noir genre.
3) Making judgements: that they have developed the ability to formulate autonomous and critical evaluations of the topics addressed in the course, and that they can analyse films and their contexts of origin.
4) Communication skills: that they master the specific vocabulary of the discipline and can present the course topics accurately and clearly.
5) Learning skills: that they are able to use the conceptual and methodological tools acquired to independently develop a critical reflection.
Texts
For exam preparation, it is essential to complement the material discussed during the lectures with the viewing of the films listed in the filmography (which constitute an integral part of the exam) and with the study of the following required texts:
1. General section.
P. Bertetto (ed.), Introduzione alla storia del cinema, Utet, 2023.
2. Film noir. One of the following texts:
a) L. Gandini, Il film noir americano, Lindau, 2019.
b) L. H. Eisner, Lo schermo demoniaco. L’influenza di Max Reinhardt e dell’espressionismo, Cue Press, 2023 (or earlier editions).
Students taking the 9 cfu version of the course are also required to read the following articles that will be made available by the professor:
- P. Schrader, Notes on Film Noir, in Film Comment, 1972;
- P. Gates, The Maritorious Melodrama: Film Noir with a Female Detective, in Journal of Film and Video, 2009.
Given the teaching methodology adopted, non-attending students in particular are advised to read:
D. Tomasi, Analisi del film e storia del cinema, Utet, 2023.
FILMOGRAPHY
1. Lo studente di Praga (Stellan Rye, 1913) – The Student of Prague
2. Il gabinetto del dottor Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
3. Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922) – Nosferatu
4. M (Fritz Lang, 1931) – M
5. L’angelo del male (Jean Renoir, 1938) – La Bête humaine / The Human Beast
6. Rebecca – La prima moglie (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) – Rebecca
7. Quarto potere (Orson Welles, 1941) – Citizen Kane
8. Ossessione (Luchino Visconti, 1943) – Ossessione
9. La fiamma del peccato (Billy Wilder, 1944) – Double Indemnity
10. Cronaca di un amore (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1950) – Cronaca di un amore
11. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) – Rashomon
12. La belva dell’autostrada (I. Lupino, 1953) – The Hitch-Hiker
13. Un maledetto imbroglio (Pietro Germi, 1959) – The Facts of Murder
14. Fino all’ultimo respiro (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) – Breathless
15. L’avventura (M. Antonioni, 1960)
16. Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967) – Blow-Up
17. Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981) – Blow Out
18. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) – Mulholland Drive
19. Le conseguenze dell’amore (Paolo Sorrentino, 2004) – The Consequences of Love
20. Gatta Cenerentola (Alessandro Rak, 2017) – Gatta Cenerentola
Contents
Magnificent Obsessions. Understanding Film History Through Film Noir
The course offers an introduction to the study of film history through the notion of “genre” and, more specifically, that of “film noir” — a historically transcultural genre that has continually evolved through encounters among different cultures. The noir will serve as a framework for critically understanding the main lines of transformation and continuity that have shaped film language.
Main topics:
• From pre-cinematic optical devices to the invention of the cinematograph
• European avant-gardes of the 1920s
• The Hollywood studio system and classical American cinema
• The coming of sound
• French poetic realism
• Classical Hollywood noir
• Italian Neorealism and the emergence of modern cinema
• The French Nouvelle Vague and its global impact
• Art cinema
• New Hollywood
• Postmodern and contemporary cinema
Drawing on a selection of representative films, the course will address key turning points in film history and explore: historiographical methods; hypotheses and criteria of periodisation; modes of production and representation; the notions of authorship, genre, school, and movement; national cinemas and transnational perspectives; relations between cinema and other arts / other media; and film and media theories.
Course Language
Italian.
More information
None.