Module Identifier TF30720  
Module Title RECENT AND CONTEMPORARY HOLLYWOOD  
Academic Year 2004/2005  
Co-ordinator Professor Martin J Barker  
Semester Semester 2  
Other staff Dr Kevin J Donnelly  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   5 x 1 hour  
  Practical   Viewing sessions: 10 x 2 hours  
  Lecture   10 x 2 hours  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Assessment Critical essay (2500 words)  40%
Semester Assessment Research project (3000 words) For information on due dates for submission of assessed work, please refer to the departmental web pages at http://www.aber.ac.uk/tfts/duedates.shtml 60%

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Examine and critically evaluate a range of recent and contemporary Hollywood films, addressing the relations between their textual form and the ways in which they were produced and distributed.

Draw critically upon a good range of recent research and debate concerning the Hollywood system, and its role in contemporary culture.

Conceive and carry out a small-scale research project into a chosen recent Hollywood film, attending to the relations between its process of production, the range of satellite materials which accompany it, figures of the audience, and how these together serve to establish the 'meanings' of the film.

Content

The module takes a number of (in the main recent) films, and uses them to examine a series of processes not normally given much attention within film studies: the role of publicity, marketing, merchandising, reviews, interviews, debates and gossip around films in shaping audiences` expectations and ways of responding; the ways films fit within taste-cultures, and the implications of these for understanding, for examples, controversies over some films; the way analyses of films (both academic and non-academic) import `figures` of the audience to support their claims about films` `meanings`, `messages`, or `effects`; and how, in the light of these, we may ourselves make claims about the purpose, quality, function and effectivity of films.

Aims

To provide students with an opportunity to examine Hollywood films and film culture since the 1970s, as the dominant mode of film production and cinematic textual formation.
To introduce students to current bodies of theoretical and empirical investigation of the contribution of film to contemporary culture, in particular as they have been applied to contemporary Hollywood.
To provide an opportunity for small-scale research into Hollywood's contemporary modes of production and distribution

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Background
Balio, Tino (1990) Hollywood in the Age of Television London: Unwin Hyman
Cohan, Steven & Ina Rae Hark (1993) Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema London: Routledge
Evans, Peter & Celestino Deleyto (eds.) (1998) Terms of Endearment: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1980s and 1990s Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP
Hillier, Jim (1994) The New Hollywood NY: Continuum
Austin, Thomas & Martin Barker (eds.) (2003) Contemporary Hollywood Stardom London: Arnold
Ryan, Michael & Douglas Kellner (1998) Camera Politics: the Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film Bloomington: Indiana UP
Thompson, Kristin (1999) Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP
Neale, Steve & Murray Smith (eds.) (1998) Contemporary Hollywood Cinema London: Routledge
Wasko, Janet (1994) Hollywood in the Information Age: Beyond the Silver Screen Oxford: Polity Press
Wasser, Frederick (2001) Veni, Vidi, Video: the Hollywood Empire and the VCR Austin: University of Texas Press

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6