Reading Film: Rome on the Big & Small Screen

In this class we will learn how to 'read' films. Like literary scholars investigating the poetics of text, we will similarly 'read' videographic language to understand how films convey meaning. We will analyze storytelling elements (plot, genre, context) and technical aspects (cinematography, montage, mise-en-scène) of filmmaking. The city of Rome will serve as our central cinematic landscape to study works spanning over a century from the Italian silent era (Cabiria, 1914) to the digital blockbusters of the new millennium (Gladiator, 2000). Class will comprise lectures, discussion, creative assignments and presentations.