124260 KO Critical Media Analysis (2020S)

Hollywood – as a physical location, an industry, an image – has much evolved over time. This course will survey the history of Hollywood from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. It will explore both the evolution of the Hollywood film industry with its production, distribution, and exhibition techniques and the changing content, forms, and meanings of Hollywood films.

The course will relate Hollywood to its socio-historical context within the United States, considering how significant events like the Great Depression, World War II, and the Reagan era have impacted on American film culture. Furthermore, it will acknowledge Hollywood’s productive exchanges with other national cinemas (e.g. German expressionist cinema and American film noir, New Hollywood drawing on the French New Wave and Italian neorealism) and its global reach in the wake of the digital revolution and multi-national media conglomerates.

Among the key concepts to be covered in the course are ‘classical’ Hollywood cinema, the studio system, genre, stardom, auteurism, ‘independent’ cinema, and the blockbuster. The course will also address Hollywood’s representation of gender, race, class, and sexuality and familiarize students with methods to study the reception of films.