This course explores cinema as a pan-generic system constructed of other art forms; fiction, theater, painting, photography, architecture, music and dance. The interrelationships between film and its sister arts will be discussed 1) with respect to the historical emergence of cinema as a new medium that evolved from antecedents in painting, photography, and (melo)drama; 2) as a reflection of an individual director's own sytle and programmatic choices (e.g., Visconti in his relationship with opera); 3) to consider how the conscious citation and appropriation of non-verbal narrative forms function emblematically to enhance cinematic meaning (e.g., in musical commentary on a soundtrack; in the incorporation of folksongs to serve "realism"; in the use of dance as a metaphor for social interaction or sexual seduction). Emphasis will be on Italian cinema, with selected films and texts from other national cultures. Each week class discussion will focus on one film and draw as well on one or more secondary films, using clips to focus discussion. Students will be responsible for viewing supplementary films independently each week and for weekly readings. The latter include literary texts on which films have been based as well as film theory and criticism.