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This course will survey the major works of French cinema from the outset of filmmaking to contemporary films. The French made the first films and we will examine various different genres and styles of French film in relation to their representations of French culture.

This course focuses on Turkish German cinema, its history and aesthetic conventions, and also introduces students to literature, music, and cultural production at large along the Turkish German axis. We will discuss questions of identity, migration, mobility, nation, and belonging, and explore how these topics have been treated cinematically and across other genres. Special emphasis will also be placed on the cities of Berlin and Istanbul. Through on-site visits and field trips, we will explore firsthand the connections between historical context, cultural expression, social practices, and urban form, and trace the lasting impact of Turkish German entanglements and transnational cultural flows on the makeup and identity of those cities today. Sample filmmakers and other artists might include: Fatih Akın, Kutluğ Ataman, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Sabahattin Ali, and Ipek Ipekcioglu.

The purpose of the class is to study the history and themes of great movie thrillers. We will start early (1930, Fritz Lang) and go late (2017), and look at key elements of form and theme in these films, from the heist film to the political thriller, the police procedural, Hitchcock, the drama of the final girl, and ?race? and the thriller. All of our films raise important political and existential questions. We?ll look a little at genre theory, and film form: why do Lang or Hitchcock or Jordan Peele do this with the camera, with the lighting, with that graphic match. Another question: why do (some) people seek to be frightened by these movies?