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Film screening Room at Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to films. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies. Film studies is less concerned with cultivating proficiency in film production than it is with exploring the narrative, artistic, cultural, economic, and political implications of the cinema. In searching for these social-idological values, film studies takes a series of critical approaches for the analysis of production, theoretical framework, context, and creation.[ In this sense the film studies discipline exists as one in which the teacher does not always assume the primary educator role, but the featured film(s). Also, in studying film possible careers include critic or production, a conflict in the classroom between Hollywood and textual analysis. Overall film studies continue to grow, as does the industry that it focuses on. Academic journals publishing film studies work include Screen, Cinema Journal, and the Journal of Film and Video.

History

Film studies as an academic discipline is a twentieth-century concept that has not been intertwined with origins and History of Film. Not to be confused with the technical aspects of film creation, film studies exists only with the creation of film theory which approaches film critically as an art. Due to the fact the modern film only became an invention and industry in the late nineteenth century a generation of simply created films by self investigative producers and directors existed significantly before the academic analysis that followed in later generations. Early film schools focused on the production and subjective critique of film rather than the critical approaches, history and theory used to study academically. Since the time film was created the concept of film studies as a whole grew to analyze the formal aspects of film as they were created. The Moscow Film School was the first to focus on film in established in 1919. In the United States the USC School of Cinematic Arts was the first cinematic based school, which was created in agreement with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They were also the first to offer a major in film in 1932 but without the distinctions that are assumed in film studies. Universities began to implement different forms of cinema related curriculum however, without the division between the abstract and practical approaches. A movement away from Hollywood productions turned cinema into a more artistic independent endeavour, and the creation of auteur theory, which asserted film as the director's vision and art, prompted film studies to become truly considered academically worldwide in the 1960s. In 1965 film critic Robin Wood, in his writings on Alfred Hitchcock, declared that Hitchcock's films contained the same complexities of Shakespeare's plays. With stable enrollment, proper budgets and interest in all humanities numerous universities contained the ability to offer distinct film studies programs. There were no individuals that created the criteria for film studies; rather the growing community of the Film Industry and academics began to criticize, document and analyze the films within itself, eventually conforming the concepts of film studies that pertain to artistic academia. With the success in first half of the twentieth century the film industry prominent persons could become an endownment source for schools focusing primarily on film at universities, creating the location for film studies as a discipline to form; a prominent example is George Lucas' US$175 million donation to the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 2006.

Modern film studies

Today film studies exists worldwide as a discipline with specific schools dedicated to it. The aspects of film studies have grown to encompass numerous strategies for teaching history, culture and society. Many universities and liberal arts colleges contain courses specifically geared toward the analysis of film. Also exemplifying the increased diversity of film studies is the fact that high schools all across the nation offer classes on film theory. Many programs conjoin film studies with media and television studies taking knowledge from all parts of visual production in the approach. With the growing technologies of film such as 3-D film and Youtube films are now concretely used to teach a reflection of culture and art around the world as a primary medium. Due to the ever growing dynamic of film studies a wide variety of curricula have emerged in analyzing the critical approaches used in film. Though each institution has the power to form the study material students are usually expected to grasp a knowledge of conceptual shifts in film, a vocabulary for the analysis of film form and style, a sense of ideological dimensions of film, an awareness of extra textual domains and possible direction of film in the future.

Common curriculum

The curriculum of college level film studies programs often include but are not limited to:

Film strip

• Introduction to film Studies
• Modes of film studies
• Close analysis of film
• Analysis with emphasis

1. Attention to time period
2. Attention to regional creation
3. Attention to genre
4. Attention to creators

• Screenwriting
• Methods of film production

With diverse courses the make up for film studies majors or minors come to exist within schools.

United States film studies

In the United States universities offer courses specifically toward film studies and schools committed to minor/major programs. Currently 161 different colleges nationwide offer film studies programs. This number continues to grow each year with new interest in the film studies discipline. Colleges offering film degrees as part of their arts or communications curriculum differ from colleges with a dedicated film program. The curriculum taught is in no way limited to films made in the United States rather a wide variety of films that can be analyzed critically. With the United States' film industry second worldwide only to India the attraction for film studies is high. Any person to gain any level of degree in the United States is likely to pursue careers in the production of film especially directing and producing films.Often classes in the US will combine new forms of digital media such as television in combination with film study. The people who choose to study film desire the capacity to analyze the numerous films that are released in the United States every year in a more academic setting. Films can reflect the culture of the period not only in the United States but around the world.

World film studies

Film studies throughout the world exist in over 20 countries. Due to the high cost of film production third world countries are left out of the film industry especially in the academic setting. Despite this fact more prosperous countries have the ability to study film in all the aspects of film studies. Foreign films created often reach some United States audience as a result of foreign film schools. The discipline of film studies proves to be universal. In this sense the abstract analysis of film is taught in any accredited university worldwide that offers film studies.Discourse in film can be found in the schools around the world, however very often international attention to the aesthetics of film emerge in Film festivals. For example the Cannes Film Festival is the most prestigious in the world.Though this discourse revolves around the film industry and promotion and does not exist within an academic school setting, numerous aspects of analysis and critical approaches are taken into account on this international stage.

Prominent persons in film studies

Film screening room at Georgetown University

• Alfred Hitchcock
• Scott Buchanan
• Walter Benjamin
• Steven Spielberg
• William Kennedy Laurie Dickson
• Sergei Eisenstein
• Andre Bazin
• Robert Flaherty
• Stanley Kubrick
• James Agee
• Akira Kurosawa
• Jean-Luc Godard
• Francis Ford Coppola

See also

• Experimental film
• Fictional film
• List of film schools
• List of film schools in the United States
• History of film
• Film theory

Further reading

• Sikov, Ed. Film Studies: an Introduction. New York: Columbia UP
• Dix, Andrew. Beginning Film Studies. Manchester UP. Print.
• Grant, Barry Keith. Film Study in the Undergraduate Curriculum. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1983. Print.
• Polan, Dana, and Haidee Wasson. "Young Art, Old Colleges." Inventing Film Studies. Durham: Duke UP, 2008. Print.
• Villarejo, Amy. Film Studies: the Basics. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
• Bergan, Ronald. Film. New York: DK Pub., 2006. Print.
• Stam, Robert. Film Theory: an Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. Print.
• Dana Polan, Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of Film (UC Press, 2007)

External links

• Berkely film studies
• USC School of Cinematic Arts
• LA FIlm
• Washington Post
• Film Connection
• Introduction to Film Art
• Top US Film Schools
• Screensite listing of college film programs