Overview
Aims
Provide a comprehensive overview of the historical evolution of world cinema, exploring major film movements, technological breakthroughs, and influential filmmakers.
Develop foundational skills in film analysis, equipping students with the essential terminology and methodologies needed to decode cinematic language, aesthetics, and genres.
Foster critical and historical thinking, encouraging students to contextualize films within their socio-political eras and recognize the cultural impact of cinema as an art form.
Course contents
1-2. Pre-cinema. The invention of the first optical & projection devices. The emergence of the motion-picture camera. The first moving images: Louis Lumière. The inventor of film direction: Georges Méliès. The Lumière and the Méliès approach. The first film studios. The first cinema stars. The beginnings of the Pathé studios. Hollywood, the cinematic capital of the world.
3. The cinematic avant-garde and the studio system. The transition from entertainment to art. The birth of cinema as an art form and the development of its own language of expression.
4. The fervor of the 1920s in the USA. The flourishing of film comedy. Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, etc. The cinematic language of the 1920s.
5. 1915–1930 – Masterpieces of silent cinema in USA. David W. Griffith, the father of cinema. The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms.
6-7. German Expressionism as a mirror of the era. Robert Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, The Last Laugh, Sunrise. Fritz Lang: Metropolis, "M", the ”Dr. Mabuse” series. The social cinema of Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
8-9. The birth of the documentary film. Cinéma vérité. Robert Flaherty, Nanook, Moana. Flaherty & Murnau, Taboo (1931).
10-11. The birth of the cinematic novel and the psychological drama in cinema. Erich von Stroheim. "Greed", the director's first masterpiece.
12-13. The birth of Soviet cinema. Soviet avant-garde between experiment and propaganda. Lev Kuleshov, The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks". Vsevolod Pudovkin, ”Mother” and "The Fall of Saint Petersburg".
14. Sergei Eisenstein, a synthesizer of cinematic language. *Battleship Potemkin*, *Strike*, *October*. The masses as a collective character. The symphonic nature of the filmic structure.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Identify and analyze the key periods, movements, and milestones in the history of world cinema.
Contextualize major films and filmmakers within their socio-cultural, political, and economic frameworks.
Critically evaluate different film styles, genres, and aesthetic techniques using specific academic terminology.
Assessment
Final Oral Examination (60%) based on pre-announced synthesis topics. Continuous Assessment / Seminar Performance (30%). Complementary Academic Activities (10%)