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Close WarningSpring Break is March 17-21, 2025. While CSU Online will remain open, please note that many campus services and individuals may experience delays during this time.

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SPCM 350 - Evaluating Contemporary Film

  • 3 credits
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As seasoned spectators, most of us are familiar with the fundamental look, structure, sound, and feel of contemporary movies. Filmmakers rely on our familiarity with film form to craft movies that we are able to interpret and, hopefully, appreciate. However, most spectators tend to overlook - let alone question or analyze - how the phenomenal language, techniques, and conventions of film form actually function to make us laugh, cry, frightened, curious, aroused, shocked or even disgusted.

Also, rarely do we contemplate the historical background, political and economical influences, and cultural assumptions that help shape the films we watch. Therefore, through introduction, explanation, examples, and discussions of these elements, this course attempts to encourage a more informed, critical spectatorship of contemporary film.

The hope is that the knowledge and insight you gain through taking this course will result in a stronger awareness and deeper understanding of, as well as greater appreciation for, the movies you watch as well as cinema in general.

Prerequisite

CO 150 (College Composition (GT-CO2)) or SPCM 100 (Communication and Popular Culture (GT-AH1)) or SPCM 130 (Relational and Organizational Communication (GT-SS3)) or SPCM 200 (Public Speaking) or SPCM 201 (History and Theory of Rhetoric (GT-AH3)) or SPCM 207 (Public Argumentation); and sophomore standing.

Important Information

Hours arranged. Must also register for Lab. Must have sophomore standing.

Textbooks and Materials

Please check the CSU Bookstore for textbook information. Textbook listings are available at the CSU Bookstore about 3 weeks prior to the start of the term.

Instructors

Scott Diffrient

9704917898 | scott.diffrient@colostate.edu

David Scott Diffrient is Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. Since 2015 he has served as the Director of Programming for the ACT Human Rights Film Festival. His articles have been published in Cinema Journal, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Journal of Film and Video, Journal of Popular Film and Television, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and Velvet Light Trap, as well as in several edited collections about film and television topics. He is the author of MASH (Wayne State University Press), Omnibus Films: Theorizing Transauthorial Cinema (Edinburgh University Press) and the co-author of Movie Migrations: Transnational Genre Flows and South Korean Cinema (Rutgers University Press), as well as the editor of Screwball Television: Critical Perspectives on Gilmore Girls (Syracuse University Press).