ENGL 364(F) Classical Hollywood Cinema
This course addresses the "Golden Age" of Hollywood cinema, the 1930s and 1940s, when Hollywood set the stylistic and narrative norms for mainstream cinema, solidified an unprecedentedly industrial mode of producing works of art for a mass audience, and turned out more films, of an arguably higher general quality, than at any other time in its history. We will survey this enormous and varied cultural outpouring by moving continually among several different approaches to cinema: tracking the work of individual "authors" or directors (e.g., Ford, Hawks, Lubitsch, Welles); exploring the many film genres that were established during the period, such as the gangster film, the Western, the musical, the screwball comedy, film noir, and the melodrama (e.g., respectively, Scarface, Stagecoach, Top Hat, Bringing Up Baby, Double Indemnity, and The Letter), as well as a few major films that fall outside these genres (e.g., Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane); analyzing the nature of the star system in general and the cultural significance of particular stars (e.g., Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne, Ingrid Bergman); and considering Hollywood as an industry by comparing the commercial, social, and aesthetic characteristics of different studios. This course will require a substantial commitment of time for the frequent mandatory screenings and the regular critical and theoretical readings. Requirements: active participation in class discussions, two papers, a midterm, and a final exam. Prerequisite: a 100-level prerequisite course, except 150, and English 204, or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 25.