Insegnamento a.a. 2023-2024

This course offers the student a complex understanding of cinema, its structure and its meaning.

• Analysis of the cinematic language and its relation to social theories and Consumer Culture Theory.
• Theoretical basis of the cultural questions represented through cinema and their relationship to social and psychological needs.
• How story structure guides our emotional response and therefore how structuring a story can lead to social change.
• The vision of key films or streaming episodes in order to understand their lingustic development and social significance as well as their productive complexities, such as cinematography, production and mis-en-scene.

The course is based on the vision and subsequent in-class or on-line discussion of specific films or streaming episodes which have attracted the public's attention for various motives. The technical as well as stylistic elements of a film will be discussed in order to render the student capable of analysing story, production and the commercial value of a script.

• Analyze the semiotic meaning of any scene in any film.
• Understand the social theories at the basis of a film's narrative and the protagonist's relation to society.
• Identify the cinematographic elements utilzed in a film's narration.
• Understand how story structure is translated into cinematic narration.
• Appreciate various genres of film from various cultures.
• Distinguish the anthropological as well as cultural values expressed in a film's narrative.

• Evaluate the sociological and psychological basis for a films cultural appeal.
• Understand and evaluate the professional roles connected to the production of a film.
• Relate a film's theme to a larger understanding of contemporary culture and social theory.
• Recognize a story's potential appeal relating to the psychological and social treatment of the protagonist.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Online lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Individual assignments
• Interactive class activities on campus/online (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

• The in-class or on-line vision of films or episodes followed by group discussion on the intrinsic connection between technical, cultural and psychological elements in any scene .
• In-class and on-line lectures.
• Flash quizzes asking to relate cinematographic themes to social theories. 
• An analysis of a Musical Video Clip as a mid-term exercise.

The assessment methods are identical for both attending and non attending students. Those attending will have more elements graded and their final grade will be a sum of those elements (mid-term paper, final exam) whereas non-attending students will be graded only on their final exam. 

The assessment is based on how well you analyse a film or a scene semiotically and cinematographically, how well you integrate an understanding of social theory in your film analysis and how you relate themes and character development into both the cultural understanding of the film as well as its cinmatographic narration. 

Cod. 30475 Class Dispensa: Cinema & Social Theory, edited by Edward Rozzo - Pelican Editions, EGEA

Introducing Social Theory, Third Edition, Pip Jones and Liz Bradbury, Polity Press

Into the Woods, John Yorke, Penguin Press