Introductory & General Film Studies Courses

Explore British cinema of the 1930s, a decade that reflects the first instance of an industry in which film production of all kinds was able to flourish. From cheap 'quota quickies' to lavish prestige productions and genres including comedy and crime, a British national cinema began to emerge, its critical reputation bolstered by a series of striking documentaries and the Hitchcock thriller.

When you choose a film to watch you are choosing a genre (if not a star) for an idea of what to expect: Action (Die Hard, F1), Horror (Psycho, Bring Her Back), Sci-Fi (Star Wars, Avatar), Film Noir (Double Indemnity, Destroyer), Westerns (Stagecoach, Eddington), Musicals (Singin' in the Rain, Kneecap), or Fantasy (The Lord of the Rings, Begonia). Genre links storytelling to themes, to style-and to the audience. Genre is the invisible architecture of cinema, shaping audience expectations, guiding narrative choices, and influencing everything from set and costume design to music score. From Hitchcockian suspense to Anderson’s fantasy adventures: cinematic genres define the filmmaking landscape and influence the cultural zeitgeist because genres are never static, having evolved through the history of cinema by pushing boundaries and altering the way stories get told. Genre is used from first ‘pitch’ to final marketing and subsequent film reviews. Genre is the key that unlocks the studio system and fulfils audience desire. Which genres are most popular now? On this course each week we’ll view a different genre-and that’s entertainment!

We all recognise film as a potentially immensely powerful medium; many of us will have undoubtedly wept in sorrow or trembled in fear when watching films that have moved us or frightened us. There are times when something, a moment or moments from a film stay with us beyond the duration of its screening; it may be that we experience these almost immediately or it might be that this something emerges days later. This course aims to explore the film moment as a particularly powerful effect (and affect) of the film viewing experience by examining a moment or moments from a specific film and exploring it/them in the context of the entire film. We tend to think of a film in terms of its entire narrative, its full running time, but the ‘moment’, the thing that resonates and reverberates afterwards can be just as important, possibly more so as this course aims to consider. Each two hour Film Moments course will explore moments specific to a film or films that will be revealed at the start of each course; there will also be the opportunity to examine and discuss your own film moments…

In the 1930s, audiences were introduced to a new type of comedy style blending Hollywood social commentary with a battle-of-the-sexes. What was new? Eccentric romance, rapid-fire dialogue, gender relations as near combat, and farcical slapstick-a cycle of films known as screwball comedies, a distinct time capsule of the decade and one of the most transcendent genres of the classical Hollywood period. More modern films like the homage of What’s Up Doc? (1972 Peter Bogdanovich) or Silver Linings Playbook (2012 David O. Russell) attempted the speed & spirit of films like Bringing Up Baby (1938 Howard Hawks) or The Lady Eve (1941 Preston Sturges) but screwball’s effervescence is difficult to recapture. In O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) the Coen Brothers attempted a sequel to Preston Sturges’ great Hollywood satire, Sullivan’s Travels (1941), but screwball is tied to a time and a place. The time was the Great Depression, when audiences needed escapism. The place was Hollywood and an industry making full use of talking pictures, finding writers from the New York stage (or Dorothy Parker’s Round Table) who would seize the opportunity to get smart talk into the films. But over and above all that I think the real reason for screwball was Hollywood’s need to fast-talk its way around the new Production Code censorship of 1934. No coincidence then that in that same year Frank Capra made It Happened One Night (1934) and Howard Hawks directed Twentieth Century (1934). Both shared an unorthodox portrayal of romance and cynicism. A new genre was off and running.

We all recognise film as a potentially immensely powerful medium; many of us will have undoubtedly wept in sorrow or trembled in fear when watching films that have moved us or frightened us. There are times when something, a moment or moments from a film stay with us beyond the duration of its screening; it may be that we experience these almost immediately or it might be that this something emerges days later. This course aims to explore the film moment as a particularly powerful effect (and affect) of the film viewing experience by examining a moment or moments from a specific film and exploring it/them in the context of the entire film. We tend to think of a film in terms of its entire narrative, its full running time, but the ‘moment’, the thing that resonates and reverberates afterwards can be just as important, possibly more so as this course aims to consider. Each two hour Film Moments course will explore moments specific to a film or films that will be revealed at the start of each course; there will also be the opportunity to examine and discuss your own film moments…

Set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, Guillermo del Toro’s dark fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth follows a young girl named Ofelia as she navigates a brutal military outpost and a series of eerie, mythological trials. The film is celebrated for its seamless blend of historical tragedy and grotesque "fairy tale" imagination, utilising incredible practical effects blended with CGI. Its legacy lies in proving that fantasy can be a sophisticated, adult medium for exploring complex themes like fascism, disobedience, and trauma.In this one-day workshop, we will watch Pan’s Labyrinth together, but with a crucial difference. Instead of viewing the film simply from start to finish, students will be given the power to pause the film at will, and discuss whatever they want. Guided by an expert on the film’s themes, ideas and production history, we will subject the film to extensive debate and analysis, discussing its visual language and hidden depths whilst reflecting on its universal themes.
By getting to “freeze” the film at key moments, we can look past the familiar story and investigate how the movie actually works. We will treat the film as a living document, pausing to unpack a specific camera angle, a lighting choice, or a piece of dialogue, allowing for a deep-dive analysis that is impossible during a standard screening.
This is an invitation to stop being a passive viewer and start being a cinematic detective.

Hitchcock established his reputation early on in his British career, particularly with a series of thrillers that showcased his distinctive style. This course explores his British films and the factors that helped to shape his filmmaking and, subsequently, his reputation as a major film artist, while also considering his position in, and relationship to British cinema of the 1920s and 1930s.

The horror film has a lengthy history with F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) generally acknowledged as one of the all-time greats of cinema, expressing as one critic describes it, the ‘poetry of fear’. As one of the first feature length vampire films it’s influence, and legacy has been widely felt. Film remakes also have a history that goes back to cinema’s origins with filmmakers copying films made by others almost from the outset. This course will explore this phenomenon but through the specific genre of the horror film, focussing on films that feature vampires and werewolves (and other assorted ‘monsters’). Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) comes just over one hundred years after its silent progenitor and marks one of the most recent instalments in a genre that continues to renew itself for each generation of film viewers. Exploring a range of key vampire and werewolf films from across this century of cinema, this course will explore why these films remain such a popular sub-genre of the horror film and it will consider why they continue to exercise such power over its spectators.

Celebrated within international film culture and renowned for a willingness to experiment formally, French cinema has long sought to challenge and delight audiences, but it has also always pushed the boundaries of the permissible and the acceptable. From the violent eye-slice in Un Chien Andalou/An Andalusian Dog (Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali 1929), to the darkly satirical Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard 1969), cinema in France has continued a long tradition of artistic and social dissent that can be traced back to the Marquis de Sade, the Comte de Lautréamont and Georges Bataille. In the late 1990s and early 2000s a series of films appeared in France that the critic James Quandt famously labelled the ‘New French Extremity’. This one-day course will explore some of these provocative films, directed by filmmakers such as Gaspar Noé, Virginie Despentes, Catherine Breillat and Marina de Van, among others. It will consider the historical, cultural, social and political context for this phenomenon and seek to examine a number of these films in detail.

Please note that some of the films studied on this course contain explicit sexual content and depict graphic violence. While care will be taken in the presentation of sequences from these films and in the discussions around them, please be aware that some of the material will be challenging and difficult.

Emerging in the 1980s, and promoted as a prestige cinema, the British heritage film is typified by high production values, period settings and, often, a canonical literary source. We will view films such as A Room with a View (1985) and The Remains of the Day (1993) and discuss their appeal for both domestic and international audiences, while exploring the critical debates around heritage cinema.

We all recognise film as a potentially immensely powerful medium; many of us will have undoubtedly wept in sorrow or trembled in fear when watching films that have moved us or frightened us. There are times when something, a moment or moments from a film stay with us beyond the duration of its screening; it may be that we experience these almost immediately or it might be that this something emerges days later. This course aims to explore the film moment as a particularly powerful effect (and affect) of the film viewing experience by examining a moment or moments from a specific film and exploring it/them in the context of the entire film. We tend to think of a film in terms of its entire narrative, its full running time, but the ‘moment’, the thing that resonates and reverberates afterwards can be just as important, possibly more so as this course aims to consider. Each two hour Film Moments course will explore moments specific to a film or films that will be revealed at the start of each course; there will also be the opportunity to examine and discuss your own film moments…