As a recorded audiovisual medium, cinema is especially suited to the representation of place and movement through the simultaneous registration of space and time. This module will examine the implications of this proposition in a series of film texts that mainly privilege the representation of a particular city or geographical landscape, often in relation to the underlying narrative trope of the journey. It will thus introduce you to a range of current disciplinary and inter-disciplinary debates about film’s engagement with urban space, landscape, place, ecology and mobility. In particular, the module will also give you a chance to engage with a deliberately broad range of global and local cinemas. In so doing, it will think both about the representation of cities and landscapes, and look at the way in which travel, location and terrain may be understood more broadly as fundamentally significant cinematic concepts.
This module will focus on film and history, exploring the various ways film texts have been analysed as reflecting social and cultural historical moments, filmmaking movements of particular eras, and how films have historicised individuals and events. There are many ways to ‘do’ film history and this term will not be an exhaustive survey of the history of cinema. Instead, it will offer some key contexts, methodologies, and traditions that have formed the wide-ranging study of film and history.
Aims and Objectives
·     To provide an appreciation of film history through important eras
·     To understand how to methodologically study film and history
·     To provide the means for students to engage with key theorists and key texts in relation to film and history
·     To access some of the traditions that have formed the study of film and history
Intended Outcomes
By completing the module, including all its assessment components, students will be able to:
·     Demonstrate knowledge of the development of film history as a way to study film
·      Identify key theorists and key texts in film history
·      Consider social and cultural history in relation to film
·      Assess film history through key theoretical debates about film and history
·      Understand the diversity of film history studies