Ever since its debut in 1981, MTV has had a powerful effect on
American culture and image production. The rapid-fire style of music
video was increasingly found in television and film throughout the
1980s, and this dialog can be seen to have become even more intimate
of late, with the recent successes of video-directors-turned-
Hollywood auteurs, Spike Jonez (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation)
and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunchine of the Spotless Mind). But MTV
is only the most recent site of interaction between these two
influential cultural institutions of the last century, American
popular music and Hollywood film.
This course provides a broad survey of the styles and contexts of
film musicals and music video. How have American popular music and
dance been represented in Hollywood film and music video? What have
been the implications of these modes of representation? How has
musical performance been integrated into Hollywood narratives?  How
have makers of musical films in other nations like France, India or
Taiwan mobilized these forms and changed them? Students will test
these historical and theoretical perspectives in video production
labs. Several lab assignments over the course of the semester will
acquaint students with the basics of filming, editing and sound
recording, as well as offering opportunities to explore the dynamics
of sound, music, and image that have been used in the works we will
study.
An important aspect of this facet of the class will be to investigate
the ways in which production can serve as a vital site of cultural
criticism: how the myriad decisions made in sound and image
production are used to create meaning.