Module Content and Indicative Topics 

This module will ask questions such as: What are the key transformative moments of cinema and media history? How did cinema begin? How and why did it change? What is the function of cinema? How did/does cinema emerge and transform across the world? What happens to film and cinema after the digital revolution?

The module is designed to work as a postgraduate-level foundation module both for students without any training in film studies and for those with a first degree in it or a related discipline. (Attached to the Core course is the related non-credit module CMII0072 Reading and Researching Films.)

Moving Images focuses on the four-way relationship between changing moving image technologies; the communicative and expressive forms associated with them; the reception of these technologies and forms by contemporaries, including practising film-makers, critics and theorists; the political, social and economic contexts in which these technologies and forms emerged and proliferated.

The module begins with cinema as it emerged in the second stage industrial revolution and traces out the global transformations that re-shaped cinema and media thereafter, and is designed to be a useful introduction to the diverse global cinema histories that are explored at UCL. Together with CMII0072 Reading and Researching Films, it is taught over 20 weeks in Terms 1 and 2 and it concentrates on three periods of profound transition in cinema and media history: 1895-1927: The First Cinema(s); 1954-1992: The Third Cinema; 1999-2017 The Last Cinema?

The module will cover the following topics, which may be subject to variation depending on developments in academic research and the interests of the class:

Early cinema and the emergence of a dominant form of fictional, narrative, commercial cinema (often labeled ‘classical Hollywood cinema’)
	A range of mid-century cinema movements such as Third Cinema, documentary, national and international new waves
	The advent of the digital and its film-theoretical and industrial implication
Teaching Delivery

One or more films are specified as set viewing per week, to be watched by the student in their own time via a variety of streaming platforms. There is pre-recorded and live lecture content for each topic in a variety of formats, and weekly seminars in small groups. The seminars emphasise student participation in a supportive and open atmosphere. Students are expected to come to class having undertaken the weekly preparatory reading and viewing, and to be prepared to contribute to class discussion.

This is a compulsory module for the MA Film Studies.

Enrolment on this module is restricted to students on specific programmes of study or to those who have already completed specific modules, as detailed in the Restrictions box. You will not be able to join the module if you do not meet these criteria.

By the end of the module, you should be able to:

Describe and discuss key developments in cinema history as regards technology, industry, aesthetics and theory
Articulate the relations between cinema and society in terms of, for example, the politics of representation, national cinemas, distribution and reception
Identify appropriate primary and secondary sources for the study of cinema history, and engage with them in appropriate ways in class discussions and essays
Productively compare and contrast cinema cultures diachronically and synchronically
Undertake sequence analyses of films, incorporating the analysis into broader arguments about cinema history and practice
Design, research and write a 3500-word essay on cinema history, under the guidance of the module tutor.
Recommended Reading: 

In preparation for the module, we advise reading the following core texts:

Grieveson, L. and P. Krämer, eds., 2004. The Silent Cinema Reader. London: Routledge. [Available in hard copy via UCL Library]
	Biltereyst, Daniel , R. Maltby and P. Meers (eds), 2019. The Routledge Companion to New Cinema History. Abingdon: Routledge. [Available as e-book via UCL Library]
	Denson, S. and J. Leyda, J. (eds), 2016. Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film. Falmer: Reframe. https://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/post-cinema [Open access]
Trigger Warnings

This is a module focusing on cinema history and visual culture, encompassing a range of world cinemas and movements. As such, during the module you will be expected to watch, and to discuss, films from a variety of traditions. Many of these emanate from film cultures and political movements dealing with challenging ideas. You are likely to encounter images, sounds, dialogue and narratives which some students may find challenging or disturbing, including violence, death, sexuality, exploitation, and disease.