FILM 194AFilm Theory Seminar

Advanced senior seminar examining classical and contemporary film theory and those theoretical paradigms and methods that have illuminated the medium: formalism, realism, structuralism, semiology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, and phenomenology. Primary texts are read.

• COURSE TOPIC: "Deep Focus on Jaws (1975): Film Theory at Its Limits" It is an understatement to say that Jaws (1975) is, by nearly any measure, one of the most successful American films of all time. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that monster of a summer blockbuster, a whale of a film, and the cinematic ship that launched countless parodies, snatched the title for most instantly identifiable musical theme from Psycho, re-introduced the power of deep focus cinematography, and, due to the legendary fierceness of one hard-to-get-along-with animatronic shark, made behind-the-scenes Hollywood history. Surprisingly, Jaws has been neglected and disregarded in the scholarship of film theorists. It was considered too entertaining, too obvious, too workmanlike, too profitable... too much. This seminar invites you on a ten-week excursion into the deep theoretical waters of Jaws as a film of cultural, historical, and ecological significance worthy of film & media theory. Beginning with scholarly and popular treatments of the film’s production history, sonic and visual aesthetic elements, and its reception, each member of the seminar will help lay the groundwork for deeper analysis. The second and third sections of the course delve into Jaws as an ideological and philosophically meaningful symbolic relic of the 1970s. In the final section of the course, our conversations will turn to the non-human perspectives animated by undersea photographic perspectives. We will encounter narratives of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal experience alongside the recent marine research that reveals how the film’s cultural impact affected real shark populations and conservation efforts.

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