Module: FSS4102-20 European Cinema

Level: 4

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Stephen Manley

Module Tutor Contact Details: S.Manley@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

European Cinema offers you an opportunity to study in depth some of the key movements and moments in Europe’s extraordinarily rich and varied cinematic, televisual and audiovisual culture. Themes such as European and national identity, aesthetics and politics, the avant-garde, realism and anti-realism, modernism and post-modernism, will be explored in relation to a range of filmmaking practices and screen industries. The module relates film to questions of identity in relation to local, national, and international contexts, and considers the ways in which film aesthetics respond to cultural, economic and political forces. European cinema's origins and subsequent development - often as the self-conscious antithesis of the 'Hollywood' style - will be considered, as will its current status within an increasingly globalised cultural arena.

2.Outline syllabus:

This module adopts the approach of a 2-hour lecture and 2-hour seminar. Lectures will introduce module topics, concepts, and debates. These have been grouped into broadly thematic sections: ‘Definitions’, ‘Modernity, Modernism & the avant-garde’, ‘Realism and Anti-Realism’, ‘European Genres’, ‘Issues and Debates in Contemporary European Cinema’ and ‘Postmodernism’. These overarching themes will provide contextual and analytical frameworks within which a wide variety of films and texts can be explored and understood. Short film clips will be used to illustrate key issues, concepts and themes. Seminar sessions will provide a forum for discussion of themes / issues / debates raised in the lectures, in the set weekly reading and by the screenings of film extract(s). The latter will provide ‘case studies’ of the topic / theme for the week.

3.Teaching and learning activities:

This module adopts the approach of a 2-hour lecture and 2-hour seminar. Lectures will introduce module topics, concepts, and debates. These have been grouped into broadly thematic sections: ‘Definitions’, ‘Modernity, Modernism & the avant-garde’, ‘Realism and Anti-Realism’, ‘European Genres’, ‘Issues and Debates on Contemporary European Screens’ and ‘Postmodernism’. These overarching themes will provide contextual and analytical frameworks within which a wide variety of films and texts can be explored and understood. Short film clips will be used to illustrate key issues, concepts and themes. Seminar sessions will provide a forum for discussion of themes / issues / debates raised in the lectures, in the set weekly reading and by the screenings of film extract(s). The latter will provide ‘case studies’ of the topic / theme for the week.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Contextual Analysis of contemporary European film, tv programme, screen media

• % Weighting: 35%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Essay

• % Weighting: 65%