RLFR 202(F) French Film

This course will be an opportunity to view and discuss a series of films that are representative of the rich and varied tradition of French cinema from its origins to the recent past. We will be paying particular attention to the ways in which films engage the spectator and use moving images and recorded sound to tell their stories. We will also be considering how the films reflect on and interrogate aspects of twentieth-century French and Francophone culture and society, and in particular on the role of film itself as a vehicle of cultural perception. We will be viewing the early films of the Lumière brothers, films from the twenties and thirties of Jean Vigo, Abel Gance and Jean Renoir; films from the fifties and sixties of François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Alan Resnais and more recent films of Agnes Varda, Luc Besson, and Chantal Ackerman. Conducted in French. Requirements: 1-page email journal entries on each of the films, one 5-page paper, one presentation, and a final 10-page paper. Prerequisite: French 109 or 110 or 112 or permission of the instructor.

Hour: GREENBERG