History of Film

History of Film provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of cinema from the 1890s to the present, with a focus on feature-length fictional narratives. The course covers a wide range of topics, from early cinema in Europe and the United States to contemporary digital cinema in South Korea and Asia, and explores the historical, social, cultural, and industrial contexts that have shaped the development of film. This course completely reshaped my perspective on films completely as it gave me insight into all the things that happen behind the scenes that allow films to be as influential as we perceive them to be. Throughout this course, we watched films weekly and reported on the visual elements we could analyze in the film that contributed to the film's meaning and goal. For instance, lighting, camera cuts, camera angles, settings, and acting all play huge roles in creating a certain sentiment among the audience and pushing their psyches in a specific direction to achieve a specific goal, typically a politically motivated one. By examining the historical and cultural contexts of film production, I was able to identify the ways in which the absence of Coptic representation in Egyptian cinema is rooted in deeper issues of cultural identity and representation. Understanding the historical context of film production also helped me identify potential solutions, such as promoting more diverse representation in the film industry and creating opportunities for Coptic filmmakers to tell their own stories.  Overall, the course has provided me with a solid foundation for understanding the history and evolution of cinema, and the tools necessary to critically analyze films and their place in society.