Narratives of illness and medical practice have been the subject of much detailed analysis and commentary by scholars in the relatively new field of the ‘Medical Humanities’.  Literary works have provided many nuanced accounts of the ways in which ill-health and medicine affect the lives of individuals, their families and communities. However, for much of the twentieth century, film and television have provided mass audiences with equally powerful and more readily accessible sources of images and ideas about many aspects of health care and medicine, including the doctor-patient relationship, the promise and perils of medical research, changes in medical and nursing education and practice and patients’ experience of serious illness. Notwithstanding this, thus far medical movies and television dramas have attracted much less scholarly attention.This module seeks to understand the complex relations between medicine and cinema by critically examining some of the large number of fiction films in which health professionals, health care and health conditions play important or leading roles. Together, we will try to answer questions like: Why has medicine proved such an enduring source of fascination and inspiration for screenwriters, directors, producers and cinema audiences alike? How have doctors and other health professionals been portrayed in fiction films, and what does this tell us about changing societal expectations of – and misgivings about – medicine? What kinds of narratives recur, and what wider social and moral agendas, aspirations and values have been conveyed or critiqued through the cinematic representation of doctors and medicine?  While the emphasis will be on representations and narratives of ‘medicine in general’, rather than on the systematic presentation of different aspects or elements of medicine, the films screened and discussed in this module feature many such aspects, including medical education and apprenticeship; doctor-patient relationships; professional ambitions and rivalries, in particular the role of nurses in health care; gender issues in medicine and health care; medicine in war; medical experimentation and medical research; medicine in non-Western contexts; medical-ethical conflicts and dilemmas, and the peculiar psychological and professional challenges and conflicts associated with the practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy. We shall also examine some of the ways in which the performative aspects of medical education, medical practice and professional development are represented in film. As will be apparent from what follows, there are many more of these aspects or topics than there are available sessions or weeks of Term in which to deal with them all.  So in the first half of Term, the course tutors will introduce presentations of 4 or 5 ‘core’ subject-areas with related screenings and discussions, and in the second half of Term, following the Reading Week, we will all explore 4 or 5 other topics chosen by those taking the module from an extended list or ‘menu’, each of which two (or three) of you will introduce. The list of optional topics follows below, after the details of the ‘core’ topics and presentations in Weeks 1-5.     The majority of the films screened and discussed in this module are English-language productions, from vintage classics of Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ to well-known contemporary movies, but others are drawn from a variety of world cinema cultures, including those of France, Spain, China, Korea, India and Japan, and feature the work of ‘auteur’ directors such as Georges Franju, Akira Kurosawa and Pedro Almodovar as well as more ‘mainstream’ studio productions. No previous special knowledge of medical cinema or medical film history is required, but students will be expected to develop a broadly-based knowledge of this area of film studies in the course of the module and to apply their background knowledge and understanding of the technical language or ‘grammar’ of film-making (shot selection, editing, mise-en-scène, etc.) together with relevant aspects of film theory to provide close textual and contextual analyses of chosen films in their final essays.Credit Value:  30 credits  Teaching Arrangements:    1 x 2-hour Seminar each week in Semester 2 Assessment: 1 x 6000-word EssayCOURSE TIMETABLE (provisional)Week 1 - Introduction to Medical Movies (1): Disciplinary and Thematic Perspectives Purpose of the Session: In addition to housekeeping, timetabling and other practical information, the first two sessions are intended to provide a broad overview of the course’s content and structure, together with some basic conceptual and practical tools and relevant theoretical and disciplinary perspectives for use throughout the module.1. Exploring course participants’ existing knowledge of film, their expectations of the course and their particular research interests. [BG] 2. What is a ‘Medical Movie’? – Definitions and implications for mapping and conceptualising the field of study [MJC]3. An introduction to some of the principal underlying themes of the module, e.g.   - Cinematic representations of medical practice and medical research as proxies for society’s overall      attitude towards science and technology and their relation to human values;    - The importance of medicine as a cinematic metaphor for the wider social and moral health or sickness of society;   - The historic role of inspirational narratives of medical progress in providing lay audiences with social and cultural reassurance in times of depression, austerity and insecurity.   - Medical movies in the broader context of the Medical Humanities, especially their shared interests in visuality,narrative and embodiment. [MJC]4. Constructing the Doctor – a case-study:     Screening and discussion of the first 22 minutes of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde(U.S., 1931) [BG] ---->> Friday Screening: Arrowsmith (U.S., 1931) Week 2 – Introduction to Medical Movies (2): Historical Perspectives and Exemplary NarrativesPurpose of session: To provide a historical overview of medical movies and to examine and discuss some recurrent narratives commonly found in medical movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood and beyond. 1. A brief historical overview of changing representations of the medical profession and medical care in English-language cinema from c. 1920 to the present [BG]2. Exemplary Narratives? – Portrayals of Doctors, Medical Practice and Medical Research in the  ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’, c. 1931 – c. 1950 [MJC] 3. An introduction to some common recurrent narratives in medical movies:      - The doctor as ‘Wounded Healer’;     - Death and Resurrection/Medical nemesis and rebirth;     - Illness narratives – patient experiences of illness and health care;                                       - Ethical and professional conflicts between the demands of medical science and the obligation to        heal or at least care for sick individuals [MJC]4.   Class discussion of Arrowsmithin the light of (1) – (3) above. ------>> Friday Screening: The Doctor(U.S., 1991)Week 3 – The Medical Body on ScreenPurpose of Session: To examine the complex relationship between the body, health and medicine and the various different ways in which this relationship and the idea of the ‘medical body’ has been interpreted and represented on screen in film. 1. The ‘medical body’ as denoting the bodies of sick or injured people undergoing medical or surgical treatment2. The ‘medical body’ as referring to the corporate body of professional medical men and women, the ‘corpus medicorum’;3. The ‘medical body’ as referring to the human body as appropriated and visualised by medical science and technology for diagnostic, therapeutic and didactic purposes 4.   Class discussion of The Doctor in the light of (1) – (3) above. ----- >> Friday Screening: A Matter of Life and Death (U.K., 1946)Week 4 – Medical Movies Between Genre Films and Auteur CinemaPurpose of Session: To consider the relevance of the concepts of genre theory and auteur cinema to the analysis and understanding of medical fiction films1. The concept of film genre in relation to medical movies [MJC]    - Film images, subjective representations and the construction of genres and stereotypes;    - To what extent can medical fiction films be regarded as a film genre? 2. Two film auteurs, and the uses to which they have put doctors and medicine: Akira Kurosawa, John Ford [BG]3. A case-study in medical auteur cinema – Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger and A Matter of Life and Death     - ‘A Question of Balance’ [MJC]    - ‘At a Crossroads: Tradition and Modernity in ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ [BG] 4. Class discussion of A Matter of Life and Deathin the light of (1) – (3) above. ----- >> Friday Screening: The English Surgeon (U.K., 2008)Week 5 – ‘The Creative Treatment of Actuality’? Non-Fiction Films, Documentaries and Health Care [BG]Purpose of Session:  To examine non-fictional and documentary representations of medicine and health on screen and their broader relationship to non-fictional and documentary genres in cinema? What differences - and similarities - are there between these genres and fiction films in relation to health-related subjects? In particular, are documentaries more ‘real’ than fiction films? If not, what kinds of mediation do they deploy?  [BG]Class discussion of The English Surgeon in the light of (1) – (3) above.----->> Friday Screening (optional, but strongly recommended!): Red Beard(Japan, 1965)  ~~~~ READING WEEK ~~~~ Week 6 - Discussion of Student Essay ProposalsWeek 7 - 10 Optional Topics