Christian Keathley
Professor of Film and Media Culture
- Office
- Axinn Center 211
- Tel
- (802) 443-3432
- ckeathle@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- Fall 2024: Monday 10am-12pm, Tuesday 10am-11am, and by appointment
Christian Keathley is the Walter J Cerf Distinguished Professor of Film & Media Culture. He teaches Film History, International Cinema, Authorship & Cinema, French New Wave, and Film & Literature, among other courses.
Keathley, who arrived at Middlebury in 2002, holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Iowa, an MFA in Filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MA and a BA in English and Film Studies from the University of Florida.
He is the author of Cinephilia and History, or the Wind n the Trees (Indiana UP, 2007), as well as a variety of essays in journals such as Screen, Movie, Framework, Photogénie, and The Cine-Files, and in volumes such as The Last Great American Picture Show, Directed by Allen Smithee, and The Language and Style of Film Criticism.
Keathley is also co-author, with Catherine Grant and Jason Mittell, of The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound & Image (caboose books, 2016; second edition revised and expanded 2019). Now available online as The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy. http://videographicessay.org/works/videographic-essay/index
He is a founding co-editor of [in]TRANSITION: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, recipient of the 2015 Anne Friedberg Innovative Scholarship Award of Distinction from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/intransition/
Along with his Middlebury colleague Jason Mittell, Keathley is the co-recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities for “Scholarship in Sound & Image: A Workshop on Videographic Criticism” (2015, 2017, 2018), a summer program for teaching videographic criticism to faculty from around the world. For these workshops, Keathley and Mittell were recipients of the 2020 Innovative Pedagogy Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
Keathley is currently at work on several projects: an essay video, The Signature Effect, that explores the relationships between himself, the Warner Bros director William Keighley, and their shared ancestral home of Keighley, West Yorkshire, England; and a BFI Film Classics volume on All the President’s Men, co-authored with Robert B Ray.
Courses Taught
FMMC 0102
Current
Global Film Histories I
Course Description
Global Film Histories I
This course will survey the development of the cinema from 1895 to 1960. Our study will emphasize film as an evolving art, while bearing in mind the influence of technology, economic institutions, and the political and social contexts in which the films were produced and received. Screenings will include representative and celebrated works from world cinema. 3 hrs. lect./3 hrs. screen
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0202
Cinema and Memory
Course Description
Cinema and Memory
Depicting the experience of memory is a challenge that filmmakers have returned to repeatedly throughout cinema’s history. In this course, we will screen films from around the world to explore the ways in which individual and cultural memory have found expression in cinema. We will screen narrative features, documentaries, and experimental films as we consider the various aesthetic strategies filmmakers from different periods and cultures have used to portray the complex relationships between past and present, real and imagined. (FMMC 0102; Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1242) 3 hrs. lect./disc./3 hrs. screen.
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0204
Upcoming
Clas Hollywood/New Hollywood
Course Description
Classic Hollywood/New Hollywood
During the period know as “New Hollywood” (1967-76), American filmmakers routinely turned to classical genres as a way both to celebrate the films that had inspired them and to re-think their values and themes in light of the changes in American culture during that period. In this class, we will focus on three film genres (detective, western, and gangster films) and will view classical versions and New Hollywood reworkings. Films screened will include The Maltese Falcon (1940), Chinatown (1974), My Darling Clementine (1946), McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971), Little Caesar (1931), and The Godfather (1972), among others. (FMMC 0101 or FMMC 0102 or by approval) 3 hrs. seminar/3 hr. screen
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0244
International Cinema:
Course Description
International Cinema
Topic is determined by the instructor - refer to section for the course description.
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0252
Hitchcock & Renoir
Course Description
Authorship & Cinema: Hitchcock and Renoir
Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Renoir are commonly regarded as two of the greatest filmmakers in history, yet their cinematic styles stand in sharp contrast to one another. In this course, we will survey the careers of these two directors, viewing a representative selection of their films and considering the national production contexts in which they worked. Most importantly, we will engage in careful analysis of their works in order to understand the ways in which their approaches to film style resulted in sharply contrasting ideas of cinema and the world. Films screened will include: The 39 Steps, Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho (Hitchcock); Toni, The Crime of Monsieur Lange, Grande Illusion, Rules of the Game (Renoir). (FMMC 0101 or 0102)
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0255
French New Wave
Course Description
French New Wave
Beginning in 1959 and continuing through the 1960s, dozens of young French cinephiles, thrilled by Hollywood genre movies and European art films, but disgusted with their own national cinema’s stodgy productions, took up cameras and began making films. This movement, known as La Nouvelle Vague, remains one of the most exciting, inventive periods in cinema history. This course focuses on the major films and directors (Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Alain Resnais) of the period and also gives consideration to the cultural, technological, and economic factors that shaped this movement. (Formerly FMMC 0345)
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0354
Upcoming
Film Theory
Course Description
Film Theory
This course surveys the issues that have sparked the greatest curiosity among film scholars throughout cinema's first century, such as: What is the specificity of the film image? What constitutes cinema as an art? How is authorship in the cinema to be accounted for? Is the cinema a language, or does it depart significantly from linguistic coordinates? How does one begin to construct a history of the cinema? What constitutes valid or useful film research? Readings will include Epstein, Eisenstein, Bazin, Truffaut, Wollen, Mulvey, Benjamin, Kracauer, and others. (Formerly FMMC 0344) (FMMC 0101 or FMMC 0102 or instructor approval) 3 hrs. lect./3 hrs. screen.
Terms Taught
Requirements
FMMC 0507
Current
Upcoming
Independent Project
Course Description
Advanced Independent work in Film and Media Culture
Consult with a Film and Media Culture faculty member for guidelines.
Terms Taught
FMMC 0700
Current
Senior Tutorial
Course Description
Senior Tutorial
All FMMC majors must complete this course in their senior year, during which they undertake the process of devising, researching, and developing the early drafts and materials for an independent project in Film and Media in their choice of medium and format. Students will be poised to produce and complete these projects during Winter Term, via an optional but recommended independent study. Prerequisites for projects in specific formats are outlined on the departmental website.
Terms Taught
FMMC 0701
Upcoming
Senior Project
Course Description
Senior Projects
Students may enroll in this project-based independent credit to complete the thesis work started in the fall. Requires faculty approval based on satisfactory progress in the Senior Tutorial. Projects will include a public presentation at the end of Winter or beginning of Spring term.
Terms Taught
FMMC 0707
Upcoming
Senior Independent Work
Course Description
Senior Independent Work
After completing FMMC 0700, seniors may be approved to complete the project they developed during the previous Fall semester by registering for this independent course during the Winter Term, typically supervised by their faculty member from FMMC 0700. Students will complete an independent project in a choice of medium and format, as outlined on the departmental website. This course does not count toward the required number of credits for majors, but is required to be considered for departmental honors. In exceptional cases, students may petition to complete their projects during Spring semester.
Terms Taught
FYSE 1242
Cinema and Memory
Course Description
Cinema and Memory
Depicting the experience of memory is a challenge filmmakers have returned to repeatedly throughout cinema’s history. In this seminar we will screen films from around the world to explore the ways in which individual and cultural memory have found expression in cinema. We will screen narrative features, documentaries, and experimental films as we compare the various aesthetic strategies filmmakers from different periods and cultures have used to portray the complex relationships between past and present, real and imagined. Films screened will include After Life; The Bad and the Beautiful; The Long Day Closes; Hiroshima, mon amour; La Jetée; Shoah. 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
IGST 0702
Upcoming
EUS Senior Thesis
Course Description
European Studies Senior Thesis
(Approval Required)
Terms Taught