This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module explores the relationship between film and other visual media such as painting, photography, theatre, video and comics across the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, considering the intersection of these art forms from a variety of angles. Taking a historical approach to the subject, the module examines artistic/film movements such as German Expressionism, French Impressionism and Soviet Montage, as well as the work of multimedia artists who have moved between art and film, such as Andy Warhol, Agnès Varda and David Lynch. In addition, the module explores a number of topics that cut across the boundaries of different visual media, including colour, flatness and depth, staging and composition, temporality and movement. It also considers the institutional frameworks and settings (such as museums, galleries and cinemas) for which works of art and films are produced and in which they are viewed, examining how these settings influence the experience of those works. Students will explore historical debates about the status of cinema as an art form, and examine the ways in which filmmakers have drawn upon and adapted techniques from painting and theatre for the purposes of visual storytelling. They will also learn how concepts from art history can be used to deepen their understanding of film as a visual art.
Contact hours will include a one-hour lecture and two-hour seminar each week. The remaining hours will be dedicated to private study, and the development of subject-specific and key skills through carrying out the learning tasks. Total study hours: 300.
100% Coursework:
Essay 1, 2000 words (35%)
Essay 2, 3000 words (55%)
Seminar preparation notes (10%)
Bordwell, David. 1997. On the History of Film Style. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Conway, Kelley. 2015. Agnès Varda. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Higgins, Scott. 2007 Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Lynch, David. 1997. Lynch on Lynch. London: Faber, 1997.
Peterson, James. Dreams of Chaos, Visions of Order: Understanding the American Avant-garde Cinema. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. 2009. Film History: An Introduction, 3rd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
- Demonstrate skills of visual, critical and historical analysis, together with generic intellectual skills of synthesis, summarisation, critical judgement and problem-solving, that will allow for the construction of original and persuasive arguments;
- Develop the key skills of communication, improving performance, problem-solving, and working with others;
- Communicate effectively, using appropriate vocabulary and illustrations, ideas and arguments in both a written and oral form;
- Read critically, analyse and use a range of primary and secondary texts;
- Locate and use appropriately a range of learning and reference resources (including visual resources) within the Templeman Library and elsewhere, including museums, galleries and the internet;
- Employ information technologies to research and present their work.
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