Cinematic Spectacle and the Genre Film

This class was taught as a Freshman Seminar, aiming to introduce students to the principles of film study and film criticism. It combines silent, classic and popular films, and emphasizes what we learn when we see films from different periods, genres or traditions together.

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Cinematic Spectacle and the Genre Film

In this class we will explore how film assaults or alters human vision through the self-conscious representation of the spectacular. We will focus on the moments that make us notice film as a medium for astonishment: extravagant visual detail, impossibly closed or open spaces, running crowds, helicopter/car/rocket/motorcycle chases, fantastic human or non-human bodies, super-fast whirling dance or martial arts sequences, hallucinatory colors, impossible filming techniques, or impossible narratives. We will formulate a theoretical background for the many different kinds of techniques for spectacle, trace their historical developments, and discuss contemporary theories of film art and spectatorship. In order to enable a historical and theoretical understanding of spectacle, each week we will focus on two films which explore similar formal experiments but in different genres. How do the formal "codes" change when they are transposed from a classic Hollywood melodrama to an action film? Since genre difference is considered primary in most film criticism, we will study the specific formal makeup of a variety of genres, but at the same time attempt an integrative theory of the spectacular moment.


Our discussion will include both "popular" and "classic" films from the early twentieth century to the present. In "Part One: Definitions and Some Film History" we will reverse the usual order of film study by formulating a vocabulary of the spectacular through experimental films. In "Part Two: What is Spectacle? History, the Future, and Space" we will focus on the representation of the "large scale" movie spectacles that often participate in political propaganda: historical epics and science fiction, for example, both traffic in the cultural myths we create about the past and about the future. "Part Three: Motion, Emotion and Visible Bodies" will focus on the popular genres of melodrama, action film, suspense thriller, and musical, as carriers of the main methods of astonishment: representing the extreme in pain, speed, fear and movement. Finally, in "Part Four: Postmodern Themes," we will look at recent versions of the spectacular moment in relation to gender, race, sexuality and class.


I expect that we will be able to view and discuss two feature films each week, and possibly some shorter experimental material. Students do not need a formal background in film theory or the history of film. There will be three short response papers (2 pages), each on a different aspect of film criticism; one midterm paper (5-7 pages); one creative project or group presentation; and a final analytical paper (6-8 pages). 

Cinematic Spectacle and the Genre Film

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