Brandeis University

    ENG 147A: Film Noir

    Instructor: William Flesch
    Prerequisites: None
    Course Description: This is a course on some of the greatest Hollywood movies of all time, films about the strange, sometimes unexpected relationships between criminals and detectives, and their shared suspicion of cops, films about alienation in the modern city, and how that alienation plays out, sometimes as cynicism, sometimes as a strange sort of idealism. We'll certainly do some classic movies, starting with The Maltese Falcon and including The Big Sleep and Out of the Past. Depending on student interest, we can stick to classic noir or move on to neo-noir in doing movies like Chinatown or Body Heat, cyberpunk, for example Blade Runner, and twenty-first century noirs like Brick. We'll do a total of about ten movies, and immerse ourselves in the noir sensibility, the sensibility that develops when you look at the world, as noir heroes and antiheroes do, as though it's created by the movies.
    Session: Session II
    Day: M, T, Th
    Time: 8:30am - 11:00am
    Credit Hours: 4 Credits
    Course Format: 2186
    Brandeis Graduation Requirement Fulfilled: HUM
    Enrollment Limit: 20 students
    Course Classification: Undergraduate Level Course
    Course Tuition: $3,100
    Course Fees: None
    Open to High School Students: Yes