HMS-440A Topics in Cinema/Media Studies: Film's True Stories: Biography, Historical Fiction and Documentary

3 Credits

How do our real lives compare to our stories about real lives? This course explores narrative conventions for telling true stories in film. We will investigate differences in approach according to who is presenting the narrative and what the audience is expected to know about the subject. We will identify forms, sounds, and images associated with true stories and trace them across biopics, documentaries, and historical dramas.