Families on Film: The American Civil War and the Opening up of the West
Thursdays, 1:00 - 4:00 PM
Starts: 29th October
(Anita Fernandez)
5-week course: £68.00
How has Hollywood reflected the changing social realities of the United States? In this fascinating five-week course, we will use film to explore American social history from the Civil War to the dawn of the new millennium.
Taking inspiration from Tolstoy’s famous observation in Anna Karenina that “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” (while remembering that “all happy families are alike”), we will examine how filmmakers have used family stories to explore wider questions about American society, identity and change.
Through the work of directors including Sam Mendes, Steven Spielberg, Greta Gerwig and Wes Anderson, we will consider how cinema portrays family relationships, social tensions and national myths. American culture often looks nostalgically to the past as a way of questioning the present, and Hollywood films can provide fascinating insights into the hopes, anxieties, obsessions and neuroses of modern America.
An engaging course that combines film appreciation, social history and cultural analysis.
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