Year One
Adaptation
On this module Adaptation is considered in its broadest sense from the traditional conception of the printed page to the filmic image to the multiform texts crossing contemporary multimedia platforms The module covers key debates such as the issue of fidelity the role of heritage cinema and the rise of contemporary multimedia forms
Students will engage with the work of major theorists in the field including Robert Stam and Allesandra Raengo Sarah Cardwell and Linda Hutcheon contextualising their approaches within the wider movements of post-structuralism and postmodernism In the second term students will undertake detailed analyses of a specific case study One such case study might for example encompass the multiple iterations of hardboiled crime fiction – including radio and filmic adaptations – and the many faces of Sherlock Holmes The case study will be determined by the research expertise of the module leader
Read more about the Adaptation moduleLink opens in a new window including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2021 22 of study)
Film and Television Analysis
Look closely No closer still Let’s watch that again
In this module the text is king We want to give you intensive practice in looking at and listening closely to films and television programmes Lectures will equip you with the technical and analytical vocabulary of textual analysis In the discussion-based seminars that follow you’ll get to practice using and applying these terms yourself in a supportive environment building up your confidence and command of the terminology that will be your academic language for the next three Written work is designed to build you up to a point where you can create your own reasoned and carefully argued interpretations of film texts We’ll set readings each week that introduce you to the best of critical scholarship and get you to begin to evaluate and reflect upon other accounts and interpretations of film
We think it’s really important that you are exposed to a variety of films from different times in different styles and from different nations Each we carefully choose our film screenings to offer you the chance to experience and compare different approaches to the expressive use of film form and mise-en-scène We want you to be able to examine in detail the ways in which stylistic choices create meaning and affect interpretation
What might you watch? Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder US 1950) Elephant (Gus Van Sant US 2002) La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir France 1939) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 2010) Edge of Heaven (Germany Turkey Fatih Akin 2007) M (Fritz Lang Germany 1931) The West Wing (NBC 1999-2006) Miranda (2009-2015) This Morning (ITV 1988- present) The Wire (HBO 2002-2008)
Read more about the Film and Television Analysis moduleLink opens in a new window including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2021 22 of study)
Film and Television Criticism
In this module you will be introduced to key critical debates in Film and Television Studies You will explore a range of approaches to critical writing about film as well as the key critical turns in the study of television There will be a historical focus to this work which will think about the development of film and television scholarship over time
As your skills develop you will be encouraged to make reasoned and carefully argued interpretations and to reflect upon the validity of other accounts and interpretations both in group discussion and through reading of critical scholarship on module films and programmes
What might you watch? The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming 1939) Gun Crazy (Deadly is the Female) (Joseph H Lewis 1950) Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott 1991) Alice in den Städten (Wim Wenders 1974) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper 1974) Gogglebox (Channel 4 2013-) Ghostwatch (BBC Television 1992) The Royal Wedding (BBC1 2011); London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony Isles of Wonder (BBC1 2012); Dallas (Lorimar Productions CBS 1978-1991); 24 Hours in A&E (The Garden Productions Channel 4 2011-present); CSI Crime Scene Investigation (Jerry Bruckheimer Television Alliance Atlantis CBS 2000-present); Seinfeld (Castle Rock Entertainment NBC 1989-1998)
Read more about the Film and Television Criticism moduleLink opens in a new window including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2021 22 of study)
Film History
You will connect your growing understanding of film’s technological development with its industrial and social history In exploring the relationship between cinema and society you will increase your understanding of the role of the state in film production and the place of cinema in mass culture These fundamental theoretical approaches will be accompanied by case studies giving you a firm grounding in film history as well as an enhanced understanding of different ways of analysing the historical record
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Film Theory
Film Theory introduces key theoretical concepts related to film form spectatorship and politics The module will enable you to read film theory as a written text and a historical document and to use it as a theoretical tool for interpreting screen media As a theory course the module will give you the skills needed to approach theoretical texts and we will be focusing as much on analysing written arguments as discussing the screenings
By the end of the module you will be familiar with some of the key theoretical frameworks and debates in film scholarship and their position within broader interdisciplinary contexts You should be able to read complex critical writing with confidence and precision and to deploy theoretical arguments in your own writing with similar confidence and rigor You will be able to apply theoretical frameworks to screen media texts in both oral and written communication
What might you watch? Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir 1939) The Gleaners & I (Agnès Varda 2000) The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass 2007) Il posto (Ermanno Olmi 1961) Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk 1956) Gilda (Vidor 1956) Mahogany (Berry Gordy 1975) Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven 1997)
Read more about the Film Theory moduleLink opens in a new window including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2021 22 of study)
Year Two
Hollywood Cinema History Theory Industry
This core module will build on what students have learned about Hollywood in first modules (such as Film History and Screen Technologies) by expanding their knowledge about Hollywood as an industry its history (depending on when it is taught this may extend from the classical period into the post-classical and contemporary period) and theoretical concepts that engage with Hollywood cinema The module will illustrate important aspects about the Hollywood industrial filmmaking system including style genre and stars By first focusing on Hollywood as an industry examining the practices and cultures of film production the module will then consider its ideological influence by promoting specific American values and traditions through political issues such as race and ethnicity
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World Cinema
The category of ‘world cinema’ represents a point of convergence for both the flattening impulses of a universalizing neoliberalism and the more radical bents of internationalist coalition-building In other words such cinema figures large in affective negotiations of global culture world community and international human rights This module looks at the wide range of fictional feature films including the work of Deepa Metha Akira Kurosawa Samira Makhmalbaf and Satyajit Ray among others This course addresses several specific topics including transnational marketing the touristic gaze the politics of dubbing subtitling and the slow cinema debates
This module reassesses ‘world cinema’ in light of globalization and global crises Since the term ‘world cinema’ has always simultaneously invoked industrial generic and aesthetic categories our reckoning of the field hopes to expose otherwise unseen geopolitical fault lines We investigate the historical and current contexts for the widening distribution of non-Hollywood films We also examine the renaissance of international art cinema practices in recent decades including new waves from East Asia Latin America and the Middle East
What you might watch? Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer 1998); Aguirre the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog 1972); Ali Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1974); Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker 2003); The Baader Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel 2008); Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa 1949); Sansho Dayu (Kenji Mizoguchi 1954); Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu 1953); Crazed Fruit (Ko Nakahira 1956); Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara 1966); Ring (Hideo Nakata 1998); My Neighbour Totoro (Hiyao Miyazaki 1988); Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda 2008); Pather Panchali (Ray 1955); Riso Amaro Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis 1949); Rashomon (Kurosawa 1950); De cierta manera One Way or Another (Sara Gómez 1977); The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf 1998); What Time Is It There? (Tsai 2001); Fire (Deepa Metha 1996); Lan Yu (Stanley Kwan 2001); Peking Opera Blues (Tsui 1986)
Read more about the World Cinema moduleLink opens in a new window including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2021 22 of study)
Year Three
Film Aesthetics
You will begin by exploring overarching ideas about aesthetics and how these relate to evaluative historical and political discourses The study of film aesthetics will subsequently see you applying these tenets to the evaluation and interpretation of film particularly in the light of considerations of representation mode and genre and social context By bringing together philosophical and theoretical questions of aesthetics with detailed textual analysis of a range of films you will learn to apply such concepts to your understanding of contemporary international cinema
Read more about these modules including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2021 22 of study)
Film Aesthetics 1Link opens in a new window
Film Aesthetics 2Link opens in a new window
Optional modules
Optional modules can vary from to Example optional modules may include
Dissertation
Film Production
Practice of Film Criticism
British Film and Television Fiction
Envisioning the World
Hollywood Cinema of the 1970s
Horror and the Gothic in Film and TV
Television History and Criticism
Postwar Japanese Cinema
Screenwriting
Issues in Documentary
Ecocinema
Global Visions
The Art of Animation
Science Fiction Theory as Film
Film and Social Change
Queer Screens
Romantic and Victorian Poetry
Seventeenth-Century Literature
Arthurian Literature and its Legacy
The English Nineteenth-Century Novel
New Literatures in English
Literature Environment Ecology
Modernist Cultures
Asia and the Victorians
Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of his Time
European Theatre
Twentieth-Century US Literature
English Literature and Feminisms 1790-1899
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