Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Texas State University/History of French Cinema I, 1895-1960 (Fall 2023)

French filmmakers have made invaluable contributions to film style, technology, and criticism since the beginnings of the medium. This course will trace the evolution of French cinema from 1895, the year of the first demonstration of the Lumière cinématographe (camera and projector) to the eve of the Nouvelle vague in the late 1950s. Students will examine the primary stylistic movements (the magical trick films of Georges Méliès, silent genres like the comic chase movie from the first decade, the melo-mystery serials of Louis Feuillade of the 1910s, French Impressionism from the 1920s, Poetic Realism from the 1930s, French film under the German Occupation, and the Cinema of Quality associated with the late 1940s and 1950s. It will also prepare them for a course on French cinema from 1960 to the present and for the study of selected topics in French film