Film Appreciation: An Introduction

Instructor: Suresh Chabria

October 27 to 29, 2009 | 9.30 am to 5.30 pm
M. C. Ghia Hall, Mumbai

The course is designed to draw the participants’ attention to some of the salient ways of looking at questions of cinema, and image making and meaning in general. The nature of the medium will be introduced through analysis of the structure and sequencing of representative films; some film historical subjects such as early cinema and Indian film style; the variety of filmmaking with examples of documentary and experimental films; and cinema’s position in contemporary social consciousness. Each day’s program will conclude with a screening of an important feature length film that will be followed by discussion and analysis.

Day 1:
1. Structure and Image Construction: Organization of time, space and event in composition
2. Metaphor and how it works in cinema
3. Principles of film analysis

Day 2:
4. Visual Art and Cinema: How illusionist Renaissance and Baroque painting anticipates cinema and modernist art deviates from photographic realism.
5. The different kinds of films: Documentary and Experimental Cinema

Day 3:
6. Early cinema and Indian film style: Traditions of frontality, addressing and ‘inserting’ the spectator in the frame.
7. Classic or the ‘analytic-dramatic’ style contrasted with modern strategies of storytelling developed in cinema.

Suresh Chabria taught Political Science at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai before joining the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune as Professor of Film Appreciation. He was Director of the National Film Archive of India, Pune from 1992—1998 during which period he initiated several restorations and programming events showcasing Indian film heritage. He has published several articles on cinema and a book, Light of Asia: Indian Silent Cinema 1912-1934 which is perhaps the most authoritative publication on the subject. Associated with the Film Society movement for more than 30 years, he is best known as a teacher and his courses and workshops on film appreciation are much sought after.