It’s been about a week now since I completed my first five-week Cinejourneys course on Film Theory. It was a great time! If you weren’t able to take the class, I wanted to give a little preview of the kinds of things I do here at Cinejourneys and encourage you to keep an eye out for my future course offerings, including my upcoming class on Genre Theory, which begins on Monday, August 11th on Zoom at 8PM EST.
Film Theory was a cool experience and I want to thank everyone who signed up and stuck with it; I’ve taught online at various academic institutions before and after Covid, but this is a completely new form that I’m still trying to master to make it worth your money, time, and interest. I’m also trying to make these classes an effective venture, one that actually teaches you something while not dumping a bunch of college work at you. Find that sweet spot of when the internet used to be good, and try and bring that back to the space of cinephilia that we still have in the various corners of the web we occupy.
After Film Theory, I think I have a little better idea about how I want to run these things, and what the structure of each class will look like. Some of that will be easier with classes about specific film genres, periods, or ideas rather than a compressed introduction to the basics of film theory—which, I should acknowledge is just my version of the tradition. But I think we had a lot of fun. Here are the kinds of slides you’ll see if you sign up for one of my courses:
I love showing paintings in class. By the way, I won’t lie to you—if you take one of my classes, chances are I will make you look at at least one painting. It took me a while to understand my own sense of what I think cinema actually is, and I think these screengrabs should give you a sign as to what that sense might be. This is the kind of stuff I like to talk about. You think we are going to just talk about story? Nah dog, we are gonna be looking at paintings from the 11th century and a few tweets, and then you’re going to see a clip from a documentary about the postwar French film scene. You’ll like it, trust me!
I do like to lecture but I also want to make space for you to have a chance to talk. This class was probably full of the former more than the latter, and I’m hoping to have more space for conversation in my future course offerings built around more specific films or concepts–Genre Theory in particular is one that I think will be useful in this regard.
Ok two last slides, I was particularly proud of showing these outside of the university for a film class:
We show clips in class and I like to do formal analysis. But I don’t want you to feel like it’s needlessly complicated. I’ve always felt that my best strength as a working academic is that I know how to translate complicated theoretical abstractions into more useful vernacular forms. I try to do this in my courses at college, but it’s something I really want to do here at Cinejourneys, and know that this is what will be happening in the classes I offer.
In any case, I want my Cinejourneys classes to be a chance for you to come think with me, and to learn about cinematic art, culture, and history in the process. I want to make you a better viewer, and I want to show you some cool stuff. But I also want to show you how to look at things, including movies you might not think are interesting to look at because you didn’t realize they are asking to be seen another way. As I’ve been piecing together the theoretical and historical structure of this book for the past few years, I’ve really missed the chance to just get my hands dirty talking about movies. My next set of classes for Cinejourneys are going to be more in that direction.
For now, I can tell you about my next course, Genre Theory, which you can register for while you are reading this. The class runs over Zoom for five consecutive Mondays, starting August 11th, at 8PM.
I would love to have you in the course—this one is a new offering for me and I’m excited to try out a new theory of cinematic genre I have been developing for the past two years. I’d love to have you–and please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you may have!