HUM 1045 - American Film

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture 3 Lab 0
Internship hours per week 0
Course Description: American Film is an introductory film studies course designed to bring American filmmaking into clear focus as an art form, an economic force, and a system of representation and communication. The course explores how American films work technically, artistically, and culturally. Course activities ask students to analyze the deeper meaning of American movies - the purpose of genres, the social and psychological effects of Hollywood film style, the mutual influence of society and popular culture - and how they represent social, political, and/or economic inequities. Included in this course are examples of major American filmmakers, film genres, film theories, film techniques, and the historical and cultural events related to production, exhibition, styles, and content of films in the United States from 1895 to the present.
MnTC Goals
Goal 6 Goal 7B

Prerequisite(s): None
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: None

Major Content
1. Introduction to American Film: From Spectacles to Stories

2. The Emergence of Cinema as an Institution

3. Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narration

4. Classic Hollywood Cinema: Cinematography

5. Classic Hollywood Cinema: Style

6. The Studio System and the Star System

7. Introduction to Genre: Comedy

8. Melodrama

9. The Musical

10. The Western

11. War and Cinema

12. Horror and Science Fiction

13. Politics, the 1960s, and When Independent Films Become Commercial Successes

14. The Film School Generation

15. Digital Cinema and the 21st Century 

 
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course students will be able to:

1. explain the scientific, artistic, and socio-historical origins of the film industry in the United States. 
2. describe how subsequent historical, technological, aesthetic, and cultural developments and trends impact film form, content, production, and exhibition in the United States.
3. analyze how Hollywood developed institutionally as a business and as a form of entertainment that contributed to maintaining social and structural inequalities and misrepresentations.
4. examine significant challenges and contributions of filmmakers and actors who have experienced racism and other forms of oppression such as sexism, classism, and heterosexism.
5. analyze how cinematic codes (cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing, sound, etc.) are used to create narrative and aesthetic meaning.
6. compare and contrast American film genres and genre conventions in terms of their histories, themes, style, form, and narrative structures.
7.  articulate an informed critical and personal reaction to films of various genres and types of American cinema.
8. analyze the beliefs, behaviors, values, and ideologies of their own culture in relationship to the ones they see in American Films.

06. 02. Understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within an historical and social context.

06. 03. Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.

06. 05. Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.
Theme Goals (MnTC Goals 7-10)
07B. 01. Understand historical and contemporary systemic structures of racism that sustain social, political, economic, and/or environmental inequities, particularly for Black, Indigenous lands and people, and other communities of color.

07B. 02. Describe individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations among racial groups in the United States and how inequality is maintained by redefining race and other social identities and structures.

07B. 03. Examine significant challenges of and contributions by people in the United States who have experienced racism and other forms of oppression such as sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, transphobia, antisemitism, and Islamophobia. 

Practicum hours per week: 0

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