Long: First course in a two-semester survey on American Cinema (each course stands on its own; no requirement to take both or take these in sequence). We study American cinema from its beginnings, rooted in fairground exbibition and nickelodeons, and track the establishment of the great studios in the 1910s and 20s, the height of the studio system in the 30s and through World War II, and the decline of this mode of filmmaking in the late 50s/early 60s. Focus is on Hollywood cinema, with some documentaries, independent films, and experimental shorts covered. Topics stardom and glamour, the Production Code/censorship, Cinema during the Depression, Realism and Expressionism, Hollywood and World War II, the anti-Communist witch hunt, the advent of color and widescreen film, TV as early competitor, and the B-movie, the teen market, and drive-ins. We pay special attention to the intersection of economics and the representation of race, gender, and sexuality. Genres include slapstick comedy, the gangster film, the musical, screwball comedy, film noir, the melodrama, westerns and historical epics. We study the impact of important individuals, including directors Alice Guy Blach?, D.W. Griffith, Oscar Micheaux, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mabel Normand, Erich von Stroheim, Cecil B. DeMille, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Dorothy Arzner, Orson Welles, William Wyler, Frank Capra, Ida Lupino, Shirley Clarke, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, and Elia Kazan, cinematographers James Wong Howe and Gregg Toland, choreographers Busby Berkeley and Arthur Freed, and producers Irving Thalberg, David O. Selznick, Sam Spiegel, and Lou Wasserman.