Art Cinema and the Love Story

This subject is a study of many manifestations of the love story represented in Australian, Italian, French, British and North American art cinema traditions. Through detailed close-analysis of a range of films, the subject explores topics such as romantic love, Surrealism and mad love, the marital gothic, adultery, gay and lesbian love, inter-racial romance, perversion, loss and melancholia. Concentrating on art cinema treatments of romantic comedy, melodrama, the backstage musical, horror and gothic romance, the subject highlights the various formal strategies employed to create the love story in art cinema. The subject looks at the way in which film theory has explained the idea of love and desire in the cinema by drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis, mythology and gender studies. In addition to the close reading of the love story through prescribed films, the subject also explores the way film intersects with theatre, television, literature, art and popular music on the subject.