Can films really tell us what to think? This module begins by considering what is meant when we speak of a text as propaganda, assessing historical arguments as to why cinema was championed as the perfect vehicle for the transmission of State ideologies in the interwar period, especially in Stalins Soviet Union and Hitlers Third Reich, and then moves on to consider a range of films, from gritty documentary to glossy musical comedy, produced within these contexts. The primary focus of the analyses will be on the production and reception of these films: as well as assessing each text as a piece of rhetoric, geared towards co-opting its spectators into a specific world-view, critical attention will also be drawn to problems inherent within the straightforward model of encoding and decoding messages assumed by the cultural authorities in either context, through a historicising consideration of the grounds of reception, and the possibilities of such messages going astray.
This module can be challenging for film students, in that it requires them to assess arguments from the discipline of History and incorporate these assessments into their analyses; the two State-sponsored film industries which provide the contexts are not necessarily all that familiar and may well require extra reading; as much as the focus will be on the rhetorical strategies of each of the given film texts in their respective attempts to change hearts and minds, this is equally a module that emphasises the need to ground these texts firmly in their context, and, most importantly, to consider seriously audience responses. On the other hand, students who are prepared to engage with these additional historical dimensions of film analysis undoubtedly benefit from the broadened perspectives on film studies that this module supports.
Module Supervisor's Research into Subject Area
As part of a wider investigation into the variety of relationships between film, film studies, and history, Dr Haynes has researched and published widely on cinema and Soviet society, focusing especially on the Stalinist era. His key interests in the field are focused on the political and cultural production of gendered representations, and the material and imaginary structures of Stalinist patriarchy. He has also published articles on the textual/rhetorical and political strategies of contemporary US social justice documentary filmmaker and activist Robert Greenwald, emphasising both their attempted appropriation of the iconography of "middle America", and the distinctive framing of the reception situation encouraged by the mode of distribution developed by his production company, Brave New Films, in partnership with online activist networks. More recently, Dr Haynes has broadened the scope of his research into Soviet cinema to include further questions of reception, and to assess critically-and in dialogue with his teaching on this module-the usefulness and limitations of a variety of frameworks for understanding film production and reception in socalled "totalitarian" societies. The guiding questions here revolve around the availability, not to mention the reliability, of evidence through which to formulate such an assessment any proposed solutions are informed by a degree of caution regarding the intentions of the filmmakers, the social locations and primary motivations of their audiences, and the possibilities for any "messages" to go somehow astray.
This module can be challenging for film students, in that it requires them to assess arguments from the discipline of History and incorporate these assessments into their analyses; the two State-sponsored film industries which provide the contexts are not necessarily all that familiar and may well require extra reading; as much as the focus will be on the rhetorical strategies of each of the given film texts in their respective attempts to change hearts and minds, this is equally a module that emphasises the need to ground these texts firmly in their context, and, most importantly, to consider seriously audience responses. On the other hand, students who are prepared to engage with these additional historical dimensions of film analysis undoubtedly benefit from the broadened perspectives on film studies that this module supports.
Module Supervisor's Research into Subject Area
As part of a wider investigation into the variety of relationships between film, film studies, and history, Dr Haynes has researched and published widely on cinema and Soviet society, focusing especially on the Stalinist era. His key interests in the field are focused on the political and cultural production of gendered representations, and the material and imaginary structures of Stalinist patriarchy. He has also published articles on the textual/rhetorical and political strategies of contemporary US social justice documentary filmmaker and activist Robert Greenwald, emphasising both their attempted appropriation of the iconography of "middle America", and the distinctive framing of the reception situation encouraged by the mode of distribution developed by his production company, Brave New Films, in partnership with online activist networks. More recently, Dr Haynes has broadened the scope of his research into Soviet cinema to include further questions of reception, and to assess critically-and in dialogue with his teaching on this module-the usefulness and limitations of a variety of frameworks for understanding film production and reception in socalled "totalitarian" societies. The guiding questions here revolve around the availability, not to mention the reliability, of evidence through which to formulate such an assessment any proposed solutions are informed by a degree of caution regarding the intentions of the filmmakers, the social locations and primary motivations of their audiences, and the possibilities for any "messages" to go somehow astray.