Royal Holloway, U of London

This course introduces to students the neglected field of avant-garde film making through a study of its development in Europe during the 1920s and ’30s and its specific relationship to the thought and practice of the modernist avant-garde in other media, especially art and literature. Suitable for second year students in modern language departments as well as in media, the course provides a counter-balance to the emphasis on commercial films made in the period for large audiences. Here the emphasis is on filmmaking as a personal practice, and its relation to developments in fine art and literary practices within western culture. Content will vary depending upon emerging developments in the field Learning Outcomes: The student will have acquired knowledge of a specific area of modernist culture, gaining a broad familiarity with the exchanges between vanguard painting, literature, drama and film making, as well as specific insights into the uses made of film by the modernist avant-garde, and the part that film played in its thought The student will learn to make use of a wide range of resources, including access to period documents, through the course website and access to other digital sources such as that provided by the University of Iowa; the student will learn to produce coherent, critical verbal presentations and write intelligible and intelligent essays
Required Materials: Click here for the reading list system
Technical Requirements: The total number of notional learning hours associated with course are 150. These will normally be broken down as follows: 22 hour(s) of Screenings across 11 week(s) 11 hour(s) of Lecture(s) across 11 week(s) 11 hour(s) of Seminar(s) across 11 week(s) 0.3 hour(s) of Tutorials across 1 week(s) 105.7 hours of Guided Independent Study Formative Assessment: Presentation (20 Minutes) Book/Film Review (1000 Words) Summative Assessment: Essay (5000 Words) - 100%