Motion picture class at Columbia University, 1927. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-106955 (b&w film copy neg.)])
Instructor(s)
Prof. Alvin Kibel
MIT Course Number
21L.706
As Taught In
Fall 2005
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
This course investigates relationships between two media, film and literature, studying works linked across the two media by genre, topic, and style. It aims to sharpen appreciation of major works of cinema and of literary narrative. The course explores how artworks challenge and cross cultural, political and aesthetic boundaries. It includes some attention to theory of narrative. Films to be studied include works by Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Francis Ford Coppolla, Clint Eastwood, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, and Federico Fellini, among others. Literary works include texts by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Honoré de Balzac, Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald.