Undergraduate Courses (list)

01  T TH5   CAC   07051   FLITTERMAN-LEWIS  MU-301
       TH 6,7         FILM SCREENING                     MU- 301

This course will take an in-depth look at two of the most important directors in the history of world cinema, Jean Renoir and Fritz Lang.  Renoir, son of the French Impressionist painter, was a master of what some scholars consider to be the Golden Age of French cinema, Poetic Realism of the 1930s.  His fluid camera work and his use of deep space, his careful attention to populist subjects and settings of daily life, make his films strong examples of French national cinematic identity.  On the other hand, Lang, noted for his meticulous precision and highly controlled narrative style, is a landmark director of both German cinema and what is known as Classical Hollywood cinema.  His “unique blending of passion, detachment and irony,” along with his ongoing concern for social justice have made him one of the most innovative, committed modernist directors.  After screening typical films of each director (eg. Lang: M, The Big Heat; Renoir: The Grand Illusion, Rules of the Game, among others) we will consider two pairs of films made by both Renoir (La Chienne, La Bête Humaine) and Lang (Scarlet Street, Human Desire) as a way of understanding “the pulse of the popular” and “the hand of fate” that characterize the respective cinematic signatures of Jean Renoir and Fritz Lang.

One midterm, one paper, one final plus class participation (this last is very important)