Film Text/Film Context

Module code: MS3006

Module Outline

This module examines some of the main critical and theoretical approaches to the study of film as mass communication, looking at a number of key debates and issues that have emerged in film studies over the past hundred years. Starting with an examination of the ways in which meaning is constructed and communicated in film texts through cinematic codes and conventions, the module will proceed to explore a range of selected films in relation to issues such as ideology, spectatorship, narrative star images, and film adaptation. The theories which will be explored to analyse these issues are:

• Semiotics
• Psychoanalysis
• Cognitive Theory
• Socio-historical theory
• Narratology
• Theories of Cinematic Apparatus.