COMM4460 · Communication

Film, Video and Everyday Life

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

This course satisfies one of two writing intensives required within the Communication major. Restricted to Juniors and Seniors.This course will examine how film and video have been used to depict, confront, contest and reimagine everyday life over the last century. Beginning with early cinema and proceeding chronologically, we will look at various forms of moving image production, including documentary, Hollywood narrative, experimental film and video, live television, animation, and new media. As we do, we will supplement our analysis with different accounts of modern and contemporary life, concentrating in particular on theories that foreground the cultural and political forces that influence and mediate social existence. In turn, we will attempt to develop a critical and historical framework for understanding the diverse ways that film, video, and related media reflect, reshape, challenge, or otherwise respond to the conditions and experiences that define everyday life.