Every other Tuesday you can join Film Club BETA organized in cooperation with the Faculty of Social Sciences. In the club you can see essential American movies which have shaped the history of modern American cinematography and played significant economic and esthetic roles.
After the film, expert Dr. Richard Nowell will host a discussion on the film and provide information about the works of individual film studios, their strategies, impact etc.
Upcoming screenings please check in Film Screening section.
Film Club Beta offers insight into the ways in which the American film industry has functioned as an economic and aesthetic institution in the contemporary period – accepted by most film historians to have begun in 1967. Focusing on both the dominant major Hollywood studios and diverse companies that have made up the American independent sector across the last forty years, the module asks students to consider how the structure of the industry, along with different forms of commercial logic and strategy, have shaped the conduct and output of the most powerful film industry on the planet.
Accordingly, we will examine how US-based film companies have produced, promoted, and disseminated their products in response to changing social and historical circumstances and in response to changing market conditions. Topics such as the economic functions of genres and star talent will be examined alongside assessments of big-budget filmmaking, efforts to target audiences, and promotional practices. The discussion therefore encourages audience to analyse a wide variety of film texts – from exploitation and art cinema to blockbusters and teen films – within the production, marketing and merchandising, publicity, distribution, and exhibition contexts that they have operated. In the process, we will be assessing issues such as the impact on the American movie business, its product, profile, and practices of conglomeration, globalization, and the rise of powerful independent companies.
