Film Studies

About the Major

Film studies is a department in which the motion picture is explored in a unified manner, combining the liberal arts tradition of cultural, historical, and formal analysis with filmmaking at beginning and advanced levels. The requirements for admission include a minimum overall academic average of B (85.0) and the successful completion by the middle of the sophomore year of two designated entry-level courses, FILM304 and FILM310. A minimum grade of B+ must be earned in each of these courses and entry to the major by an application process. Please see the Department Chair to place your name on the list to receive an application form. To fulfill the major, the student must also complete satisfactorily the additional required courses listed below as Group I, as well as a minimum of six other courses to be selected from Group II. (Note that electives in Group III count toward graduation but not toward fulfillment of the major.) Please see our departmental Web site for further information regarding the specifics of our major www.wesleyan.edu/filmstudies/ 

Please be aware that cross-listed courses must be counted in all departments in which they are listed.

Course offerings vary from year to year and not all courses are available in every year. With prior approval by the department chair, one history/theory course from other institutions may be transferred to the Wesleyan major.  The department does not offer group or individual tutorials other than senior thesis projects, but uncredited opportunities to work on individual senior films are available. Consult the chairman of Film Studies for further details.

Students may become involved in the Film Studies Department in ways other than class enrollment. Film Studies runs the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, and its majors run the Wesleyan Film Series.

Gateway Classes (Minimum grade of B+ must be earned in each class for admission to the major.)

  • *FILM304 History of World Cinema to the 1960s
  • *FILM310 Introduction to Film Analysis

Group I Additional Required Courses After Entry into the Major

  • FILM414 Senior Seminar
  • FILM450 Sight & Sound Workshop or FILM451 Introduction to Digital Filmmaking

Group II Electives

  • FILM308 The Musical Film
  • FILM309 Film Noir
  • FILM312 The Western: History and Definition
  • FILM313 Early Cinema and the Silent Feature
  • FILM314 Directorial Style: Classic American Film Comedy
  • FILM319 Television Storytelling; The Conditions of Narrative Complexity
  • FILM320 The New German Cinema
  • FILM322 Alfred Hitchcock
  • FILM341 The Cinema of Horror
  • FILM342 Cinema of Adventure and Action
  • FILM343 History of the American Film Industry in the Studio Era
  • FILM344 Color and Light in the Cinema
  • FILM346 Contemporary East Asian Cinema
  • FILM347 Melodrama and the Woman’s Picture
  • FILM348 PostwarAmerican Independent Cinema
  • FILM349 Television: The Domestic Medium
  • FILM350 Contemporary International Art Cinema
  • FILM351 Classical Film Theory
  • FILM352 From Caligari to Hitler: Weimar Cinema in Context
  • FILM353 Visual Effects: History and Aesthetics
  • FILM365 Kino: Russia at the Movies
  • FILM366 Celebrating Elia Kazan
  • FILM385 The Documentary Film

Group III

  • FILM140 Making the Science Documentary
  • FILM150 Documentary Advocacy
  • FILM386 The Documentary Film for Majors
  • FILM453 Animation in the Digital Age
  • FILM454 Screenwriting
  • FILM455 Writing for Television
  • FILM456/457 Advanced Filmmaking (Fall/Spring)
  • FILM409/410 Senior Thesis Tutorial (Fall/Spring)

*FILM304 and FILM310 must be completed before admission to the major.