Meet Dr Adrian Danks – Cinema Studies co-ordinator (Quicktime movie)
Cinema Studies as a Major
Cinema Studies - taking single courses
Course Descriptions
Frequently asked questions
Resources for students
Contact: Dr. Adrian Danks tel. 03 9925 3841 or adrian.danks@rmit.edu.au

This is a brief introduction to the Cinema Studies courses offered by the School of Applied Communication. Cinema Studies courses are designed to be studied as a three year major sequence consisting of six units but most may also be studied as single courses or sub-majors depending upon the requirements of the particular student's program. Though prerequisites are imposed upon enrolment in some courses these may be waived in consultation with the lecturer in charge.

Through a program of regular screenings and intensive classes students will be immersed in audio-visual film analysis. The films studied cast a wide net over film history, and cover varied stylistic traits, national cinemas (including America, China, Japan, France and Australia) and production systems (e.g. Hollywood, alternative, state-financed). Students also have the opportunity to delve into documentary, the work of a particular director (such as Scorsese, Kiarostami, Malick, Wong Kar-Wai or Campion), films within a particular genre (such as the road movie or film-on-film), the wide range of Asian cinemas, and the history of film theory. The scope of the courses range from early examples of the film medium to contemporary cinema, from 'classics' of the discipline to works seldom analysed, from Classical Hollywood narrative to avant-garde cinema, from short to feature filmmaking. Cinema Studies will broaden a student's notion of cinema, aims to expand their notions of what film might be, and develops their knowledge of the medium.

Students studying Cinema Studies at RMIT University can take a variety of courses throughout their degree which offer a range of learning experiences and assessment tasks (e.g. close analysis, online, research-based). You will hear guest lecturers from the Australian film industry and international experts on a variety of film topics. A variety of undergraduate employment and research opportunities also mean that studying Cinema at RMIT University can lead to employment in one of the many areas of the local film industry.

It is not assumed that students enrolling in the program will have previous experience (at VCE level or elsewhere) in studying cinema. Connections with other courses and streams offered within the School of Applied Communication (e.g. Cultural Studies, Literature, Communications and Hypertext) will also be provided and promoted.

Courses vary from a two-hour seminar structure to a one hour lecture and one-hour tutorial structure. All courses however, are supplemented by a two-hour film screening. Each course is worth 12 credit points and accounts for three contact hours.

Given the variety of courses offered by Cinema Studies, there is no single set text. But students enrolling into Introduction to Cinema Studies should purchase David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art: An Introduction (7th Edition), available from RMIT's bookshop for around $85. Though this book is particularly useful in first semester it will prove to be extremely valuable and helpful throughout the program. Students will also be provided with other directed reading (including dossiers) throughout the program.

If you take Cinema Studies as a major in the Contextual Studies strand of your Bachelor of Communication program, it is structured as follows:

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If you are not taking Cinema Studies as you major, but wish to take one or more Cinema Studies courses as part of your program, your options are listed here:

Enrolled students can access full course descriptions, which include reading lists and viewing schedules.

COMM-1031 INTRODUCTION TO CINEMA STUDIES

COMM 1031 is an introductory course and forms the basis for studying in the Cinema Studies stream in the School of Applied Communication. Through a program of weekly screenings and seminars students will be introduced to the skills of audio-visual film analysis and the basic analytical terminology of Cinema Studies.

The films to be studied cast a wide net over film history, and cover varied stylistic traits, national cinemas (including the United States, Hong Kong, France, Iran, Poland and Australia) and production systems (from large studio-based productions to personal, ‘hand-made’ cinema). The scope of the course ranges from early examples of the film medium to ‘contemporary’ cinema, from established ‘classics’ to works seldom analysed, from Classical Hollywood narrative to formalist experimental cinema, from analogue to digital forms. Thus, the course introduces students to a broad notion of cinema, and aims to expand their notions of what film might be and to develop their knowledge of the medium; as well as to discuss the expectations we bring to the viewing of films and examine what we might like or not like about specific films. The course also provides an introduction to many of the concepts, streams and subjects that will be examined in more detail in other Cinema Studies courses within the School: narrative, authorship, film theory, gender, national cinema, realism, documentary, etc.

COMM-1032 AUTHORSHIP AND NARRATIVE IN THE CINEMA

The main focus of COMM1032 deal with issues relating to narrative, genre and authorship (or auteurism) in the cinema. The course examines how these 'broad' concepts operate as ways of understanding, categorising, reading, marketing, historicising and contextualising specific films. Within this context the course will introduce students to specific theoretical concepts and a broad program of reading and viewing within the field of cinema studies.

The specific focus of this course is an analysis of authorship in relation to the cinema of Martin Scorsese. Scorsese’s films will be used as launching-pad to discuss and analyse such topics as: the place of the author within cinema; the significance of particular styles of narration at specific points in film history; the possibilities offered and difficulties faced by directors in different production conditions; the relevance of film history and criticism to authorship; the importance of an understanding of an understanding of film history to particular filmmking practices; intertextuality; the development of specific genres over time; the explicit relation between specific films and traditions over time.

A key aspect of the course will be an analysis of films by such significant filmmakers as: Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard, John Ford, Sergio Leone, Max Ophuls, Jean-Pierre Melville, and Wong Kar-Wai. The choice of this particular ‘auteur’ will also allow us to analyse films from a variety of different countries, systems of production, and filmmaking practices (both canonical and non-canonical, classical, non-classical and post-classical films), and across the history of cinema. Thus, the course looks short and feature film practice in the United States, France, Italy and Hong Kong.

COMM-1033 AUSTRALIAN CINEMA

The main focal point of this course are issues relating to Australian cinema. The course tracks a rough chronological course through Australian cinema with a specific focus upon several pertinent issues and periods, including: the reconfiguring of identity in ‘recent’ Australian cinema (feminist, multicultural, indigenous, queer, etc.); and the representation of location in Australian cinema. The course takes particular approaches to this Australian cinema and does not attempt to cover every aspect or period. The course is roughly divided up into two sections. The first section charts a more orthodox history of Australian cinema, the second counters the first by examining other voices within and ways of looking at Australian cinema (indigenous, multicultural, avant-garde, queer, feminist/female, explicitly practitioner based).

COMM-1034 TRUE LIES: DOCUMENTARY STUDIES

This course aims to introduce students to the history and theory of documentary film practice, and to develop a critical understanding of the relationship between changes in both. By the end of this course, students should have an overview of the historical development of documentary film form and practice.

Students should also develop an understanding of the relationship between ideas of truth and representation, political agency and the ethics of documentary film practice, and how these concepts and practices can be related to historical changes in documentary filmmaking. To this end, we will examine a number of different approaches to documentary film, ways of defining, categorizing, and contextualizing different kinds of documentary in relation to institutional, historical, technological and theoretical discourses.

COMM-1035 ASIAN CINEMAS

This course (COMM2035 – Asian Cinemas) will introduce students to the exciting and significant cinemas of the Asian region. The course covers a broad spectrum of Asian cinemas – with a particular focus on Japanese and Chinese cinemas – in order to reflect various aspects of film culture in Asia. The course will focus on film history, genre and authorship studies, to contrast styles and themes found within and between different Asian cinemas. It will consider mutual influences and cultural confluences that bind the Asian cinemas together (for example, humanitarianism, family values, polemics over the city-countryside divide, tradition and modernity, Westernisation, the indigenisation of non-Asian cultural forms). Amongst other things, this course will discuss theoretical questions which reflect on contemporary Asian cinemas: the questions of Orientalism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, or whether or not we adopt perspectives of cultural relativism or poststructural formations to look at Asian films.

Cultural diversity within the scope of specific national cinemas will also be examined (for example, in some cases, the relationship of dialects to 'national' languages). The course will also be informed throughout by themes of globalisation and cross-fertilisation (particularly in relation to film genres, national cultural forms, narrative styles and aesthetic practices) with a specific focus upon the effects of these processes on more fixed notions of national and cultural identity, as well as the hegemonic role played by Hollywood in global culture. This will partly be addressed through the analysis of the work of particular directors, genres and films that cross cultural/national boundaries and borders (e.g. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Tears of the Black Tiger, In the Mood for Love).

The course will also address the following questions: What if anything constitutes a national or regional cinema? What is a local film? Is the cultural imperialism thesis as applied to cinema still valid in the context of global culture? What happens to local, national and regional cinemas under the conditions of globalisation/internationalisation? Is there something distinctive that defines Asian cinema? How do Asian cinemas respond to the aesthetics and economics of ‘Hollywood’ cinema?

COMM-1036 HISTORIES OF FILM THEORY

This course is intended to complement other Cinema Studies courses through a sustained engagement with film theory. It will provide students with a survey of the history of theoretical strategies for analyzing, assessing and interpreting film.

Film theory has covered most aspects of cinema: aesthetics, authorship, production, reception, spectatorship, and so on. Theorists have drawn on disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, history, sociology, economics, art history, and literature. There are strong historical links between film theory, film history and filmmaking practice. Because film theory is a large and diverse field, students will be introduced to selected contexts, modes of analysis and constructions of view.

In 2004 the course will concentrate on four key areas that reflect this diversity and complexity: Russian montage; Andre Bazin, realism, and the French New Wave; ideology, psychoanalysis and feminism; and recent directions in film theory.

COMM-1037 APPLIED FILM RESEARCH

A critical overview of the practice of film research with specific attention to both academic and industry understandings of 'research'. The course examines and incorporates research techniques and methods employed in both the university and the film and television industries. The course has a focus on Australian film. Students will undertake creative production research; in pursuing a research question, the will also apply the research to achieve a 'applied' outcome (such as a short video, radio program, web site, journal article etc.).

Does it matter whether I have studied Cinema Studies before?
No. There are no prerequisites for first year Cinema Studies and most students have never studied cinema before. Though we do require that you actually like movies.

What films do you study?
The films studied cast a wide net over film history, and cover varied stylistic traits, national cinemas (including America, China, Japan, France and Australia) and production systems. In the Cinema Studies program you will study films like The Wizard of Oz, Run Lola Run, Happy Together, Mad Max and Sunrise. A mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the local and the global.

Will cinema studies teach me to be a film critic?
Not exactly but it will improve your capacity to write in an informed manner about the cinema. In Cinema Studies you will learn to write and think about cinema in a manner which exceeds that practiced by many film critics.

Will cinema studies help me become a filmmaker?
Cinema Studies is an established academic discipline, and in itself is not preparation for a career in filmmaking. Nonetheless, broadening and deepening your knowledge of film will certainly enhance your prospects. The best filmmakers are normally those who know something about the history and theory of cinema.

Is this course fun?
Of course. But just because it involves watching films does not mean that you won’t encounter complex ideas or develop a a more sophisticated appreciation of what the cinema has to offer.