This course introduces students to close reading as a foundational method of film criticism, focusing on the detailed analysis of cinematic form: mise-en-scène, camera movement, editing, sound, performance, and narrative structure. Drawing on traditions of film criticism and pedagogies of sustained formal analysis, the course trains students to attend carefully to how films work and to examine how meaning, affect, and ideology emerge from formal choices at the level of the moving image and sound.
The course emphasizes critical judgment grounded in close observation. Students learn to describe precisely what they see and hear, to build arguments from concrete cinematic evidence, and to articulate evaluative claims without relying on plot summary or purely sociological explanation.
By the end of the course, students will be able to conduct sustained close readings of films; develop coherent critical arguments rooted in formal analysis of sound and moving images; and produce analytically rigorous writing that balances attentiveness to detail with conceptual clarity. The course also provides a strong foundation for film practice and creative work. By identifying and articulating how specific formal choices operate within completed films, students acquire a practical vocabulary for reflecting on and justifying their own creative decisions in filmmaking and media content production.