Waves on Different Shores: France, Japan

FILM4325GU : Waves on Different Shores: Film in France, Japan, Brazil. 3 points.

Instructor: Richard Pena

​Taught in English.

This course is approved as a Global Core at Columbia.

In the early 1960s, a number of new film movements emerged in national cinemas around the world. Called “new waves” or “new cinemas,” these movements, made up of young filmmakers, would challenge the cinematic industrial structures in each of their respective nations, as well propose both radically different approaches to filmmaking and to cinematic storytelling. Perhaps inevitably, these films and filmmakers would also be drawn into larger political discussions about the futures of their respective nations. This course will explore three important examples of this development—the French New Wave, the Japanese New Wave and the Brazilian Cinema Novo—detailing both the commonalities among these movements (aesthetic, social, technological, political) as well those factors which made each unique. Among the filmmakers included will be Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Nagisa Oshima, and Glauber Rocha. The relationship of these respective “new waves” to simultaneous radical experiments in visual arts, theater, literature and music will be a special focus of the course. A watershed moment in film history that would forever change the way films were made, financed, seen and discussed.

To enroll in this course, you must apply to the Columbia Summer in Paris program through the Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement (UGE). ). Global Learning Scholarships available. Tuition charges apply

Please note the program dates are different from the Summer Term A & B dates.