COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course will examine the multiple ways that Hispanic and Brazilian filmmakers have seen Hispanic world, its people, religious beliefs and cultures for more than a century. This course provides the student with a range of perspectives on cultural developments in Spain, Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean from the colonial to the modern period, using critical and literary texts as well as films. Taught in English.
Credit to CSUMB Catalogue.
COURSE NARRATIVE:
This course was taken as an elective during my final semester Spring 2020 at CSUMB. The primary focus of this course was to analyze and discuss the perspectives and representations of people through the medium of film. The films that we viewed in this course were viewed in chronological order from release, ranging from the start of modern film and a few of the most notable silent films that offered great style and insight into the. historical. context they were created in. One of these films was Que Viva Mexico! by Sergei Einstein, that provided an outside perspective of the Mexican society of that time. This film displayed a range of indigenous religious practices, gender roles, aspects of colonization influence that have become common place in society. Other films provided an insight into recurring problems in Latin America, like Even the Rain directed by Icíar Bollaín. This film utilized the meta cinema style to create a parallel perspective of the conquest of Christopher Columbus and the conflicts with the privatization of water, events that were centuries apart but displayed similar conflicts and abuses.
One task of this course was to selected a film to present in groups, requiring us to include information about the director, the historical context, aesthetic approach, and the significance of the film (to find why it is that this particular film was selected to be viewed in class above others). My group selected Guillermo de Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. In addition to the aforementioned information, our presentation (provided below) provided insight into the mythical aspects included into the film and the importance in understanding the perspective of the protagonist, when taking into consideration the context in which this film was written.
This course will examine the multiple ways that Hispanic and Brazilian filmmakers have seen Hispanic world, its people, religious beliefs and cultures for more than a century. This course provides the student with a range of perspectives on cultural developments in Spain, Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean from the colonial to the modern period, using critical and literary texts as well as films. Taught in English.
Credit to CSUMB Catalogue.
COURSE NARRATIVE:
This course was taken as an elective during my final semester Spring 2020 at CSUMB. The primary focus of this course was to analyze and discuss the perspectives and representations of people through the medium of film. The films that we viewed in this course were viewed in chronological order from release, ranging from the start of modern film and a few of the most notable silent films that offered great style and insight into the. historical. context they were created in. One of these films was Que Viva Mexico! by Sergei Einstein, that provided an outside perspective of the Mexican society of that time. This film displayed a range of indigenous religious practices, gender roles, aspects of colonization influence that have become common place in society. Other films provided an insight into recurring problems in Latin America, like Even the Rain directed by Icíar Bollaín. This film utilized the meta cinema style to create a parallel perspective of the conquest of Christopher Columbus and the conflicts with the privatization of water, events that were centuries apart but displayed similar conflicts and abuses.
One task of this course was to selected a film to present in groups, requiring us to include information about the director, the historical context, aesthetic approach, and the significance of the film (to find why it is that this particular film was selected to be viewed in class above others). My group selected Guillermo de Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. In addition to the aforementioned information, our presentation (provided below) provided insight into the mythical aspects included into the film and the importance in understanding the perspective of the protagonist, when taking into consideration the context in which this film was written.
pans_labyrinth_presentation_325.pdf | |
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