Codruța Morari

Professor of Cinema & Media Studies

Contact
Phone:
+1 (781) 283-2479
Email:
cmorari@wellesley.edu
Department
Cinema & Media Studies
Art

Film Theory and Media Aesthetics, Media Ecologies, History of Ideas, French Culture and Intellectual History, Surveillance Studies, Environmental Humanities.

Trained in film theory at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle, I completed a dissertation that focused on the cognitive, affective, and ideological properties of film perception. I went on to write The Bressonians: French Cinema and the Culture of Authorship (2017), a book that revisits the legacy of the so-called politique des auteurs and incorporates previously underappreciated aesthetic, epistemological, and sociological perspectives. In particular, the study ponders the interplay between the singularity of individual filmmakers and the plurality of professional communities, talking about film authors not as solitary geniuses but as working artists. in addressing the key concepts in our understanding of authorship, the book relies on close analyses of exemplary films by Robert Bresson, Jean Eustache, Maurice Pialat, Eric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette. My scholarly work, though to a great extent devoted to film and visual studies, takes its larger impetus from 20th- and 21st-century intellectual history. To date my articles include studies on such topics as art, labor, and the market, Roland Barthes's ambivalent relation to the film medium, Jacques Rancière on the democratic potential of cinephilia, and French film criticism of the early 1960s. I have also written essays on the films of Olivier Assayas, Alain Resnais, Claire Denis, Thomas Bidegain and Valeska Grisebach. My current research focuses on the place of cinema in the public sphere, media ecologies, and the status of film industries in the age of climate change.
In addition to chairing the Cinema and Media Studies Program, I offer classes on such subjects as film theory, mass media in the public sphere, surveillance media, film festival culture, world cinema, and the history and theory of French cinema. In my classroom endeavors I train students to understand the historical and political implications of aesthetic forms, to fathom the shaping power of moments in time for artistic expression, and to appreciate both the historical determinations of theoretical discourses as well as the theoretical ramifications of historical constructions. I also teach cinema courses in French where I aim to enable students to expand their sense of the real and the possible as they partake of a foreign culture.
As a scholar, teacher, and program director, I am committed to fostering an academic environment that stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and movements for racial and social justice.
Recent publications:
"Jean Eustache, L'Autorisation de l'intime: Je(ux) d'Auteur dans La Maman et la putain," in La Maman et la putain de Jean Eustache, ed. Arnaud Duprat de Montero, Paris: Éditions du Bord de l'eau, coll. Ciné-focales, 2020
"'Equality Must Be Defended!' Cinephilia and Democracy," in Distributions of the Sensible: Rancière, Between Aesthetics and Politics, eds. Scott Durham and Dilip Gaonkar, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2019, 97-118
"Properties of Film Authorship," in The Anthem Handbook of Screen Theory, eds. Hunter Vaughan and Tom Conley, London, New York: 2018, 157-172
"Le Cinéma comme festival d'affects: Roland Barthes et le septième art," in Roland Barthes: Création, émotion, jouissance, ed. Maja Zoric Vukusic, preface Eric Marty, Paris: Flammarion/Classiques Garnier, 2017, 147-158
"Art, Labor and the Market: Jacques Rivette and Maurice Pialat at Cannes," Contemporary French Civilization, Vol. 41, no. 3-4, 2016, 477-488

Education

  • B.A., Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3
  • M.A., Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3
  • Ph.D., Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3

Current and upcoming courses

Cannes: The French Film Festival

FREN215

This course considers the history of the Cannes Film Festival and employs a diverse array of published and audio-visual materials to foster student fluency in written and spoken French. The course seeks to promote understanding of how a minor festival in a town on the Côte d’Azur would develop and come to gain world-wide recognition, rivaling the Oscars in matters of glamour, star allure, and cinematic cachet. To document the operation and impact of this annual event as well as the festival’s formative role in French film culture, the course will rely on French radio shows, newspapers reports, magazine and TV coverage, along with selected films, memoirs, and a bande dessinée.

  • Film Festivals: Art House Aesthetics and Alternative Distribution

    CAMS310

    This course examines how the over 4,000 annual film festivals impact the economics, circulation, and aesthetics of cinema. Events like Cannes, Berlin, and Venice may be known for glitzy red carpet premieres but are also important nodes in the global film market; less well-known, local, or niche festivals bring communities together and raise awareness about social issues. Students will learn the history of major A-level festivals and examine their global geopolitical implications. Furthermore, academic texts from the new and burgeoning subfield of festival studies will help us consider film’s role in conversations about human rights, environmentalism, and LGBTQ+ identity. Students will compare festival histories, objectives, and programming to construct arguments about how festivals have impacted global film circulation. Students will also plan a hypothetical festival to think through the practical concerns of programming.

  • From the Fairground to Netflix: Cinema in the Public Sphere

    CAMS225

    How did cinema, originally hailed as a popular entertainment, achieve the social legitimacy that elevated it to the rank of an art form and an industrial force? This course examines the development of cinema as an institution from its origins to its present digital extensions, with a particular focus on the United States and its dominance in the domestic and global markets. Relying on academic scholarship, film criticism, and a selection of films, we will examine the historical, social, and aesthetic conditions that led to the creation of the movie theater, art houses, and multiplexes, as well as cinema's relationship to television and online streaming. The study of the screening technologies and physical spaces will be accompanied by an analysis of how race, gender, and class played in drawing in or keeping out moviegoers.