Core modules
Year One
In the first year on the film side of your degree you will delve into the history of cinema, the fundamentals of film and television criticism, film theory and film and television analysis. You will also take a module called Adaptation, taught jointly by Film and Television Studies and English and Comparative Literary Studies, as well as Modes of Reading, also in the English department.
Year Two
In the second year, you will have more flexibility to tailor the course to your own interests, and core modules will focus on Hollywood Cinema and explore the concept of World-Cinemas using case studies linked to the expertise of your tutors.
Year Three
In the third year, you will have the opportunity to apply to write an independent supervised dissertation and the opportunity to apply for a place on a specialist film production module delivered exclusively by the world-renowned London Film School. You can also explore a wide range of specialist topics supported by the research expertise of staff in the department.
Year One
Adaptation
On this module, Adaptation is considered in its broadest sense: from the traditional conception of the printed page to the filmic image, to the multiform texts crossing contemporary multimedia platforms. The module covers key debates, such as the issue of fidelity, the role of heritage cinema and the rise of contemporary multimedia forms.
Students will engage with the work of major theorists in the field, including Robert Stam and Allesandra Raengo, Sarah Cardwell and Linda Hutcheon, contextualising their approaches within the wider movements of post-structuralism and postmodernism. In the second term, students will undertake detailed analyses of a specific case study. One such case study might, for example, encompass the multiple iterations of hardboiled crime fiction – including radio and filmic adaptations – and the many faces of Sherlock Holmes. The case study will be determined by the research expertise of the module leader.
Read more about the Adaptation moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study).
Film and Television Analysis
Look closely. No, closer still. Let’s watch that again.
In this module, viewing and close analysis is everything. We want to give you intensive practice in looking at and listening closely to films and television programmes. Lectures will equip you with the technical and analytical vocabulary of textual analysis. In the discussion-based seminars that follow, you’ll get to practice using and applying these terms yourself in a supportive environment, building up your confidence and command of the terminology that will be your academic language for the next three years. Written work is designed to build you up to a point where you can create your own reasoned and carefully argued interpretations of film and television texts. We’ll set readings each week that introduce you to the best of critical scholarship and get you to begin to evaluate and reflect upon other accounts and interpretations of film.
We think it’s really important that you are exposed to a variety of films and television programmes from different times, in different styles and from different nations. Each year, we carefully choose our screenings to offer you the chance to experience and compare different approaches to the expressive use of film form and mise-en-scène. We want you to be able to examine, in detail, the ways in which stylistic choices create meaning and affect interpretation.
What might you watch? Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, US, 1950), Elephant (Gus Van Sant, US, 2002), La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, France, 1939), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, 2010), Edge of Heaven (Germany/Turkey, Fatih Akin, 2007), M (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1931), The West Wing (NBC, 1999-2006), Miranda (2009-2015), This Morning (ITV, 1988- present), The Wire (HBO, 2002-2008)
Read more about the Film and Television Analysis moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study).
Film and Television Criticism
In this module you will be introduced to key critical debates in Film and Television Studies. You will explore a range of approaches to critical writing about film as well as the key critical turns in the study of television. There will be a historical focus to this work which will think about the development of film and television scholarship over time.
As your skills develop you will be encouraged to make reasoned and carefully argued interpretations, and to reflect upon the validity of other accounts and interpretations, both in group discussion and through reading of critical scholarship on module films and programmes.
What might you watch? The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939), Gun Crazy (Deadly is the Female) (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950), Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991), Alice in den Städten (Wim Wenders, 1974), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), Gogglebox (Channel 4, 2013-), Ghostwatch (BBC Television, 1992), The Royal Wedding (BBC1, 2011); London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isles of Wonder (BBC1, 2012); Dallas (Lorimar Productions, CBS, 1978-1991); 24 Hours in A&E (The Garden Productions, Channel 4, 2011-present); CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Jerry Bruckheimer Television, Alliance Atlantis, CBS, 2000-present); Seinfeld (Castle Rock Entertainment, NBC, 1989-1998).
Read more about the Film and Television Criticism moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study).
Film History
You will connect your growing understanding of film’s technological development with its industrial and social history. In exploring the relationship between cinema and society, you will increase your understanding of the role of the state in film production, and the place of cinema in mass culture. These fundamental theoretical approaches will be accompanied by case studies, giving you a firm grounding in film history as well as an enhanced understanding of the different ways of analysing the historical record.
Read more about the Film History moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study).
Film Theory
Film Theory introduces key theoretical concepts related to film form, spectatorship, and politics. The module will enable you to read film theory as a written text and a historical document, and to use it as a theoretical tool for interpreting screen media. As a theory course, the module will give you the skills needed to approach theoretical texts, and we will be focusing as much on analysing written arguments as discussing the screenings.
By the end of the module you will be familiar with some of the key theoretical frameworks and debates in film scholarship, and their position within broader interdisciplinary contexts. You should be able to read complex critical writing with confidence and precision, and to deploy theoretical arguments in your own writing with similar confidence and rigor. You will be able to apply theoretical frameworks to screen media texts in both oral and written communication.
What might you watch? Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir, 1939), The Gleaners & I (Agnès Varda, 2000), The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass, 2007), Il posto (Ermanno Olmi, 1961), Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956), Gilda (Vidor, 1956), Mahogany (Berry Gordy, 1975), Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997)
Read more about the Film Theory moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study).
Year Two
Hollywood Cinema: History, Theory, Industry
This core module will build on what students have learned about Hollywood in first year modules (such as Film History and Screen Technologies) by expanding their knowledge about Hollywood as an industry, its history (depending on when it is taught this may extend from the classical period into the post-classical and contemporary period), and theoretical concepts that engage with Hollywood cinema. The module will illustrate important aspects about the Hollywood industrial filmmaking system, including style, genre, and stars. By first focusing on Hollywood as an industry, examining the practices and cultures of film production, the module will then consider its ideological influence by promoting specific American values and traditions through political issues, such as race and ethnicity.
Read more about the Hollywood Cinema: History, Theory, Industry moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study).
World Cinema
The category of ‘world cinema’ represents a point of convergence for both the flattening impulses of a universalizing neoliberalism and the more radical bents of internationalist coalition-building. In other words, such cinema figures large in affective negotiations of global culture, world community and international human rights. This module looks at the wide range of fictional feature films, including the work of Deepa Metha, Akira Kurosawa, Samira Makhmalbaf and Satyajit Ray, among others. This course addresses several specific topics, including: transnational marketing, the touristic gaze, the politics of dubbing/subtitling, and the slow cinema debates.
This module reassesses ‘world cinema’ in light of globalization and global crises. Since the term ‘world cinema’ has always simultaneously invoked industrial, generic and aesthetic categories, our reckoning of the field hopes to expose otherwise unseen geopolitical fault lines. We investigate the historical and current contexts for the widening distribution of non-Hollywood films. We also examine the renaissance of international art cinema practices in recent decades, including new waves from East Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
What you might watch? Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998); Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972); Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974); Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker, 2003); The Baader Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel, 2008); Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa 1949); Sansho Dayu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954); Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953); Crazed Fruit (Ko Nakahira, 1956); Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966); Ring (Hideo Nakata, 1998); My Neighbour Totoro (Hiyao Miyazaki, 1988); Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008); Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955); Riso Amaro / Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949); Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950); De cierta manera / One Way or Another (Sara Gómez, 1977); The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf, 1998); What Time Is It There? (Tsai, 2001); Fire (Deepa Metha, 1996); Lan Yu (Stanley Kwan, 2001); Peking Opera Blues (Tsui, 1986)
Read more about the World Cinema moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study).
Year Three
Film Aesthetics
You will begin by exploring overarching ideas about aesthetics and how these relate to evaluative, historical and political discourses. The study of film aesthetics will subsequently see you applying these tenets to the evaluation and interpretation of film, particularly in the light of considerations of representation, mode and genre, and social context. By bringing together philosophical and theoretical questions of aesthetics with detailed textual analysis of a range of films, you will learn to apply such concepts to your understanding of contemporary international cinema.
Read more about these modules, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2023/24 year of study):
Optional modules
Optional modules can vary from year to year. Example optional modules may include:
- Dissertation
- Film Production
- Practice of Film Criticism
- British Film and Television Fiction
- Envisioning the World
- Hollywood Cinema of the 1970s
- Horror and the Gothic in Film and TV
- Television History and Criticism
- Postwar Japanese Cinema
- Screenwriting
- Issues in Documentary
- Ecocinema
- Global Visions
- The Art of Animation
- Science Fiction Theory as Film
- Film and Social Change
- Queer Screens
- American Horror Story
- The English Nineteenth-century Novel
- US Writing and Culture, 1780-1920
- Romantic and Victorian Poetry
- Chaucer
- Devolutionary British Fiction
- Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of his Time
- Crime Fiction
- States of Damage: Twenty-First Century US Writing and Culture
- Queering the Literary Landscape: LGBTQ+ Literature and Culture in the Contemporary World
- Small Press Publishing: History, Theory, Practice
- Restoration Drama
- The Question of the Animal
- Modern American Poetry
