The course is taught over two terms (one session per week) and divided into four blocks that cover different historical moment and periods. Each block is arranged around a small number of important key films that encompass a range of different approaches (ideological, political, stylistic) to the historical period and serve to emphasise history in its longue durée. The chosen films will thus serve as case studies for the appreciation of cinema as a means of conveying and constructing history.

The first block will provide a concise, accessible introduction to the use of film in historical enquiry and a summary of some of the main critical debates. It will equip students with the methods both to analyse film texts (from narrative fiction cinema to political documentary) and to understand the place of film in history and culture. All four blocks will emphasise film as an art form, as ideology, as historical source, and as social practice. In each session, through a combination of general thematic study and close textual reading of key sequences, students will be identify some of the key elements of the French social, cultural and political tradition and gain a vivid sense of how a nation is bound up within the flow of world history and generational change, including global war, the French story of decolonisation, and the students’ and workers’ revolt of May 68.