Silent Cinema

Prerequisites: Film W3001. Fee: $75. This course rethinks the “birth of cinema” from the vantage point of “when old media was new.” The standard approaches include from actualities to fiction, from the “cinema of attractions” to narrative, from the cinématographe to cinema, from cottage industry to studio system. Classes are devoted to silent film music, early genres, film piracy and copyright, word and moving image, and restoration—the film archivist’s dilemma in the digital era.