This course offers students the opportunity to study the American commercial film industry since 1945, with an emphasis on the changes to the Hollywood mode of production in Hollywood’s “post-classical” period – i.e., the decades since the collapse of the studio system in the 1950s. Individual films and filmmakers will be considered in principal relation to the institutional, economic and stylistic changes occurring at that point on Hollywood’s historical evolution. Where appropriate, reference will also be made to relevant historical context during this period of enormous social and political upheaval and momentous cultural change in the United States. Topics to be discussed include the decline of the studio system (including the Paramount Decree, the HUAC hearings, the impact of television and the demise of the Production Code), the emergence of the New Hollywood, the rise and decline of Hollywood auteurism, genre revisionismand its meanings, the shifting forms of corporate organisation in Hollywood since the 1950s and their practical and aesthetic consequences, and the impact of contemporary media technologies.