Film Studies Concentration

As we progress further into a century marked by transnational movement and the centrality of images in our daily lives, the study of motion pictures is vital to an understanding of the aesthetic, cultural, and sociological conditions of modern and contemporary life.  Publicly exhibited for the first time in 1895, photochemical motion pictures are the foundational form for mass experiences dependent on moving images.  Film Studies allows us to learn how film is both a medium for aesthetic modes of communication and a modern, industrial product whose production varies by nation, economies of scale, and artistic project. 

Whether your interests are in film history and theory, film production and criticism, or one of the many national cinemas studied at St. Olaf -- including Russian and Soviet-era, Chinese, Japanese, German, and Nordic -- Film Studies offers a diverse mix of courses to explore.  While the introductory core course, Film Studies 101, is ideally taken at the beginning of the program, the five courses required for the concentration may be taken in any order.  Above all, with its distinctly interdisciplinary focus, a Film Studies concentration may serve as a compelling and contemporary complement to a wide variety of majors.

By Sean Fleming, Elle Marker, and Andrew Mullins for Introduction to Film Studies, spring 2010

In Introduction to Film Studies, film students are asked to learn film's formal structure and styles by making short films from still images they have staged, shot, and edited.

"Shallow is an experimental film made for Film 210: Filmmakers/Film Theorists that is influenced by Hollis Frampton's use of differing imagery to create a unique form of narration in his structural film Zorn's Lemma and the film theories of Maya Deren, particularly her ideas regarding a film world that exists apart from reality. My attempt was to create a humorous post-modern vignette where I took a conversation between a couple, cut up the dialogue, and had the two actors featured draw the lines out of a hat and arrange them together to make a new conversation. This conversation was then combined with complementary found footage from commercials, soap operas, instructional videos, and talk shows to create a relationship raised entirely on television, the morals found in the media, and the lessons that are taught on the screen when no other influence is apparent." -- Film and Media student Ben Van Howe '13

Also check out our Media Studies website