124260 KO Critical Media Analysis (2021S)

Hollywood – as a physical location, a cultural institution, an industry, an image – has much evolved over time. This course will survey the history of Hollywood from the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of its Golden Age in the 1960s. It will explore both the evolution of the Hollywood film industry with its production, distribution, and exhibition techniques and the changing content, forms, and meanings of Hollywood films.

The course will relate Hollywood to its socio-historical context within the United States, considering how significant events like the Great Depression and World War II impacted on American film culture. It will also acknowledge Hollywood’s productive exchanges with other national cinemas, particularly the link between German expressionist cinema and American film noir.

Among the key concepts to be covered in the course are ‘classical’ Hollywood cinema, the studio system, genre, stardom, auteurism, and the frontier myth. The course will also address Hollywood’s representation of gender, race, class, and sexuality and familiarize students with methods of archival research and the study of film reception and film ephemera.