Module Identifier
TF30720
Module Title
RECENT AND CONTEMPORARY HOLLYWOOD
Academic Year
2008/2009
Co-ordinator
Professor Martin J Barker
Semester
Semester 2
Pre-Requisite
Successful completion of Part 1 Film and Television Studies
Other Staff
 

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Seminars / Tutorials Seminars 1 x 1 hour per week every other week (Students will be informed of their group allocations)
Other Viewing sessions 10 x 2 hours-3 hours
Lecture 1 x 2 hour lecture per week
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
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%
Semester Assessment Critical essay (2500 words)  40%

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 List

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

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6