Gwybodaeth Modiwlau

The module 'Film Authorship' is designed to supplement the provision of Level 2 film studies modules in Year 3, by introducing students to a topic area that has a long tradition in academic film studies, which remains one of the most persistent and widespread ways in which movie-goers talk about and evaluate films, and which has served as one of the key ways in which critics have attempted to champion and defend cinema's status as a significant modern art-form. Currently, this topic is examined during Part 1 only and this module therefore aims to expand on the debates and issues covered at introductory level. The module is also designed to complement the critical, theoretical and historical approaches to film studies which are at the centre of a range of other film studies modules in the department through the alternative context of film authorship and its historical and critical circulation. It is designed to fit within the Third Year framework of Advanced Critical Approaches modules (20 credits), and, consequently, is designed to enable students to enhance their skills of critical evaluation of academic arguments and theories, and to also engage with historical methods within film studies.

The module aims to introduce students to the different ways in which authorship has been conceived and approached within film (and television) studies, both theoretically and in relation to changing historical, cultural and institutional contexts. Consequently, the module serves, through a focus on debates around and research into film authorship, to further develop student engagement with theoretical traditions and approaches within film studies, and methods of historical research within film studies. The module aims to illustrate how changing approaches and methods within film studies have impacted on the conception of the film's authorship to their films and to cinema institutions more generally. Consequently, students will be encouraged to explore the ways in which film directors (and other perceived film authors) have been approached, at different times and in different contexts, as individuals and creative personalities, as a set of textual stuuctures, as critics of the Hollywood system, as a form of discourse or critical classification, and as a star, brand and marketing strategy. In order to facilitate this process, the module will move from a focus on key theoretical claims and debates about film authorship, to historical studies of film authors and their changing reputations, to a focus on the historical, technological and institutional contexts which have informed changing conceptions of the film author. In lectures and seminars, students will be encouraged to engage with these debates and approaches through a focus on key figures who have been approached and discussed, in different ways, as authors or auteurs (including Alfred Hitchcock, Doulas Sirk, Luchino Visconti, Werner Herzog, Terry Gilliam, Ed Wood, Stephen Spielberg and David Lynch). The two module assessments are designed to enable students to, firstly, engage in the critical evaluation of key theoretical debates around authorship, and, secondly, to conduct a small-scale piece of historical research focused on a film director of their choice.