Film and the City

SOC 3810: Film and the City

Washington University in St. Louis
Department of Sociology
Spring 2023
MW 4:00-5:20p
Course Flyer
Syllabus 2022
The syllabus above is for the 2022 version of the course, and while there will be some minor changes to the 2023 (including some new films!) the basic format is the same. If you have any questions about this course, please contact Prof. Moore: rick.moore@wustl.edu

Course Description

What makes a city a city? Is there something unique about urban life, in comparison to the way life is lived in rural areas and small towns? Only recently has over half of the world’s population started to live in urban centers. What issues, if any, might have arisen from this development?

In this course, we will think about and explore how sociology and related disciplines have approached the study of cities. We’ll read classic and contemporary theorists on urban life and consider how cities shape the human experience. We’ll then apply what we learn to consider the city as portrayed in film. Movies will become our lab where we grapple with the good, the bad, the ugly, and also the beauty of cities.

“The city is, rather, a state of mind…”
Robert Park, in The City, 1925

We’ll use films because movies allow us to visit faraway places and examine the city in both its realistic and fanciful imaginings. Robert Park, one of the founders of the original Chicago School of urban thought, long ago argued that the city is a “state of mind.” The medium of film will let play with this idea, as each week we will view a different movie giving us a new presentation of urban life with a fresh take on the state of mind that a city cultivates. Taken together, films and a diverse array of scholarship tackling urban issues will allow us to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary social life.

“Hey kid, this is the city. I don’t help anybody but myself.”
Dawson, in Adventures in Babysitting, 1987

The movies we will watch are set in many places, including the actual cities of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin, Singapore, Manilla, and others. Some of the films take place in fictional locations like Wakanda in Black Panther, or the unnamed city featured in the futuristic utopia/dystopia of Metropolis. Their stories will help us work through that question of what makes a city and engage both the promise and challenges that they present. Each week you’ll watch one of these films on your own (think of it as part of your assigned reading) and we’ll discuss the film and related urban theory in class.

In addition to thinking about cities in film, the course also asks you to visit some St. Louis neighborhoods in person and make firsthand observations of what you find in order to compare what we’ve witnessed on the screen and in text with our local reality. The course then culminates in a final project for you to showcase what you’ve learned during the semester: either a research paper on a theme related to the course or a creative project of your choosing.

“And you thought we wouldn't have any fun. Shame on you.”
Ferris Bueller, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986

So, pop some popcorn, grab your reading glasses, and get ready to think about cities!

Course Outline & Films 2022 (Spring 2023 Films TBA)

Studying Cities
Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: City as a Celebration, Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Week 3: City as a Problem, Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
Week 4: The Chicago School, Taxi Driver (1976)
Week 5: The L.A. School, The Big Lebowski (1998)
Week 6: Structure of Urban Space, Tangerine (2015)
Week 7: Suburbia, American Beauty (1999)
Issues of Urbanism
Week 8: Inequality, Metropolis (1927)
Week 9: Racial Tensions, Do the Right Thing (1989)
Week 10: Dystopian Futures, Soylent Green (1973)
Week 11: Hopeful Futures, Blank Panther (2018)
Global Cities
Week 12: Global Cities, Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Week 13: Urbanization on the World Stage, Manila in the Claws of Light (1975)
Week 14: Bringing it Together, Class Choice