Authors (321-0-20)

Topic

Paul Thomas Anderson

Instructors

Nathaniel Rossi

Meeting Info

Helmerich Auditorium: Mon 3:00PM - 6:50PM

Overview of class

What does it mean to call a filmmaker an auteur? This course explores the history, affordances, and limitations of auteur theory through the films of Paul Thomas Anderson. Examining Anderson's distinctive visual style, recurring themes, collaborations, and audience/scholarly reception, we will consider how authorship is constructed, negotiated, and contested across a filmmaker's body of work. Additionally, we will situate Anderson's cinema within broader cultural and historical contexts, paying particular attention to representations of geographical space, masculinity, whiteness, and aging. How do Anderson's films reveal the anxieties, contradictions, and cultural investments of generation x? Through focusing on authorship, what is uncovered or obscured about the relationship between his film's "artistic vision" and the social worlds in which movies are made, viewed, and received?

Class Materials (Required)

All readings will be available on canvas.

Class Attributes

SoC Humanities and Fine Arts Distro