Courses in London & Online

The noir style had dominated the American crime thriller during the 1940s, but by the late 1950s it was clear that the industry was no longer interested in producing such films. Explore how, after 1960, the dark thriller reconfigured its look and themes in films such as Cape Fear (1962), Point Blank (1967) and Chinatown (1974) in response to both evolving production strategies and audiences.

Once cinema began to develop, Hollywood began to promote stardom. Starting with Florence Lawrence, the industry began to capitalise on star personalities and encourage fandom. This course will examine how the Hollywood star system began and evolved. The course will begin by examining the ‘picture personality’ in 1912 through to the collapse of the traditional star system in the 1960s.

A major figure in German expressionist cinema, Lang's work in this context embraces both large scale fantasy adventure and smaller, contemporary crime thrillers. Through two celebrated films, we will explore a key example of each approach: Metropolis(1927), a dystopian, futuristic fantasy, and M (1931), his first sound film, a serial killer and detective narrative set against the rise of Nazism.

Explore one of cinema's most imaginative and influential movements through films such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Nosferatu, Metropolis, M and many others. We will consider the production context of German cinema in the period 1919 to 1933 and expressionism as its defining style, key filmmakers associated with the movement and critical accounts of both the films and the movement as a whole.