Explore History, Culture & Writing

The Coens’ Blood Simple (1984) was a new kind of film noir set in Texas. A career later they returned to post-Civil War Texas to re-make True Grit (2010). This map of their USA trips through Raising Arizona (1987), then mainstreams to Fargo (1996), but somehow never far from Hollywood and its genres: Barton Fink (1991), O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), or Hail, Caesar (2016). If their America was No Country For Old Men (2007), then where art they now? (See separate but related courses on Once Upon a Time in New Hollywood, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, and David Lynch).

Science fiction (SF) cinema of the 1950s drew on the social, political and technological concerns of the period, producing a rich body of films that reflect these themes. Looking at a range of American SF films of the period, this course considers the ways in which these films accommodate such issues, their function as popular, genre cinema, their production contexts, and the way that critics have understood them.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

The Godfather (1972) defined an era of cult filmmaking and redefined the gangster genre. It had been turned down by Arthur Penn, Otto Preminger, Elia Kazan, and Fred Zinnemann—but they weren’t 31 and in debt. Coppola was the oldest of the ‘movie brats’ and had just hit a cultural nerve by comparing Michael Corleone to President Nixon just before Watergate broke, which led him to The Conversation (1974). He was the hottest young director in Hollywood. The Godfather not only changed his career but also the structure of Hollywood itself. No other American classic so repays repeated viewings. What would he—and Hollywood—do next? Well, he started his own Studio, Zoetrope, with Michael Powell as an adviser. (See separate but related courses on Once Upon a Time New Hollywood, Robert Altman, David Lynch and the Coen brothers).



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Although primarily associated with American cinema, the gangster film is also a major genre in British and French cinema. Explore gangster cinema in each of these three production contexts, looking at themes such as the representation of the gangster, violence, masculinity and style - particular that of the film noir - while considering the ways in which it has evolved at key historical moments.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Celebrate strong women for International Women's Day with this inclusive one-off session on how to create your own, powerful fictional women.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.