Meet Your Instructor
Hi, my name is Denah Johnston and I'm a teacher, writer, filmmaker and curator working in San Francisco as Film Studies professor and Chair of the Cinema Department at CCSF. I've been working in the department since 2015. With a background in photography I moved to San Francisco in 2001 to attend the graduate Film program at SFAI and study with Ernie Gehr, George Kuchar, Janis Lipzin, Craig Baldwin, Steve Anker and others. I continued my line of inquiry as a post-graduate student at the European Graduate School and completed a PhD in Media & Communication in 2011.
I worked at Frameline in educational distribution and later as the Executive Director of Canyon Cinema Foundation (Links to an external site.) – the West coast source for experimental film, guiding the organization to attain nonprofit status in 2014. Involved in Bay Area film and arts since 2002, I have worked as programmer and pre-screener for the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival; organized and moderated a panel on Queer Underground Film supported by the NEA and Warhol Foundation; and presented screenings at institutions, festivals and micro cinemas from San Francisco to Oaxaca, Mexico, Berlin to Melbourne facilitating partnerships with local, international and national organizations to make experimental film more accessible.
Some of my written work can be seen on agnesfilms.com (Links to an external site.) and in my book No Future Now: A Nomadology of Resistance and Subversion, which considers the core of artistic rebellion, its antecedents and descendants through post-war American avant-garde cinema and the resulting influence on punk and no wave filmmaking and music to the Cinema of Transgression. If you want to know more about my work outside of CCSF take a look at my website (Links to an external site.).
Looking forward to a great class!
The history of cinema as a unique expressive medium from the mid 20th century to the present. CINE 20B covers the post-WWII film renaissance: movements, genres, changing technologies, the expansion of filmmaking to newly represented people, and cinema in the digital age.
Course Textbook: A Short History of the Movies (11th ed.)
Module 1: Course Introduction
Module 2: Hollywood in Transition: 1946-1965
Module 3: Italian Neorealism
Module 4: Italian Modernism
Module 5: France Postwar Classicism
Module 6: The French New Wave and Beyond
Module 7: National Cinemas Post 1945: Sweden, Denmark, England
Module 8: National Cinemas Post 1945: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia
Module 9: Midterm
Module 10: National Cinemas Post 1945: Japan, India, China
Module 11: Hollywood Renaissance: 1964-1976
Module 12: National Cinemas Post 1968: Germany, Australia, Canada, Third Cinema
Module 13: National Cinemas Post 1968: Russia, Iran, Spain
Module 14: The Return of the Myths: 1977-
Module 15: Conglomerates and Video: 1975-
Module 16: Digital Cinema: 1999-
Module 17: Final
Course Introduction :
- Please tell us about yourself: Where you are from? What is your major? What are your career goals and future educational or career plans at CCSF or beyond? Also, please let us know if you prefer to be addressed by a different name than what is reflected in Canvas.
- Why are you taking this course? For fun or for a degree program or certificate? What is your interest in studying film? Are you interested in making films?
- Please let the class know what films/genres you enjoy and share favorite directors, actors etc. Please refrain from talking exclusively about television or serialized programs in our discussion posts. The focus of the course is the history of feature films distributed in theaters, festivals, and via digital streaming platforms.
- Post a profile picture.
My name is Ida Z. daRoza, please call me Ida. I live in San Francisco in the Richmond District which I enjoy. Especially being right across from the park. I have degrees in Italian Literature and Library Science. I’m especially looking forward to the Italian films we will cover in the beginning of the class. I’m familiar with the Neorealism movies of Fellini my favorites of that period are La Strada and Nights of Cabiria. I’m looking forward to learning about Antonini. I’ve seen most of Fellini’s films.
I’ve taken the cinema classes on Women in Film and Hitchcock. This opened a new world for me of directors like Agnes Varda, Maya Dern and Hitchcock. Since I started taking classes I’ve joined Facebook groups of the Criterion Collection and Pure Cinema. I’ve learned a lot through posts of others and I write down films I want to see on Letterboxd.com. For example, I’m a fan of Werner Herzog so wrote down the film pictured for this class of Stroszek it is now on my watch list in Letterboxd.
This will be my first time taking a comprehensive class on film and I’m looking forward to it. I’m starting with 20B because in my other two classes especially Women in Film we covered the beginning of cinema, how it started and when women had a more powerful role as directors until that was taken away by studios.
During the quarantine I’ve been enjoying watching and growing a film collection of auteur directors. I recently found out there is a Cinema Studies certificate at CCSF. The classes look amazing and I’d like to try to get the certificate.
I tried the CCSF class in Production to make films. I was terrible at it. So much of it had to do with lighting and apertures. I don’t know anything about that and it went really quickly. I did one film on film with the class and one film on digital. The next assignment required knowing the editing software which I didn’t and most of the class did, so I dropped.
I follow films based on the directors not the actors. On my Letterboxd lists I made categories for each director whose complete works I want to know. In this list I have: Hitchcock; Kubrick; Bergman; Wes Anderson; Herzog; Allen; Jarmusch; Almodovar; Fellini; Lynch and then general categories of French and Asian Cinema. I need to add Spanish/Latin Cinema as well. I’m looking forward to adding more categories and directors to this list.
I don’t know how to answer the question about genre, I’m not sure what that would be for me. I still have a lot to learn about cinema, I'm just self taught by reading and discussing film with friends who know cinema well.
Ida - nice to "see" you here! Nights of Cabiria is one of my favorites too.
I think you will enjoy this trek through time and continents to get a wider look at the development of film production and industries around the world. You gathered quite a bit about how things were done during Hitchcock's career span from the UK to US and back again and how women have been marginalized in the industry around the world in Women in Film. Now to get an even more comprehensive look from the 1940s until now. I think you might find some other filmmakers to add to your list!
Discussion with other student:
Course Introduction
My name is Citlaly Silva, I am from Mexico and I am currently studying at CCSF as an internarnational student. My major is Cinematography and Film/ Video Production. My future career goals consist in basically working at any position that my major involves and hopefully work my way up from there. I am taking this class since is an important one for my major, and I will also have fun and learn a lot.
My interest for film began when I was about 13 and ever since I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the film industry. There are many reasons why I admire filmaking; films have the power to change your reality, to change your perception of life and to make you feel so many different emotions. It is also a form of art and expression, which I have always been interested in. I would love to some day be able to make films of my own perspective and ideas.
Some of the genres I enjoy the most are horror, thriller, drama and science fiction. Among the directors whose craft I appreciate are Alfonso Cuaron, Christopher Nolan, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Greta Gerwig, and Luca Guadagnino, just to name a few. Some of my favorite actors would be Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jake Gyllenhaal, Al Pacino, again just to name a few.
I am excited to be in this class!
Me:
Thanks for mentioning Luca Guadagnino. I've seen Call me by your Name. What other film do you suggest?
Citlaly:
Hello Ida! Yes, Suspiria is a solid film and the tone is completely different from Call me by your name, check it out!
Denah:
Citlaly, nice to have you here! I have spent a bit of time in Mexico City and Oaxaca at festivals and really enjoyed the serious love Mexicans have for cinema and art, both places have such vibrant creative communities that have been inspiring to me. We do go around the world in this class, but I must admit we have been wanting to add an International Cinema class that would focus solely on non-western cinema. Hopefully in the next year or two we can make that happen!
It is great to have a mixture of filmmakers and film lovers/enthusiasts to get a few different points of view on things.
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