easy but boring. would not recommend this class unless you want an easy A. I learned nothing in this course.

Very easy class, highly recommend to anyone who wants to view movies in a new light. Class structure is basically just to make sure to read the reading for the class, and watch one movie a week. There is also group worksheets - due two a week. They're fairly easy and repetitive; Professor Lefkowitz says to work in a group to do it but you can easily just split up the work (although that is not the intention of the group sheets). Final exam is a multiple choice exam on collab that focuses on the readings and lecture, so make sure to pay attention to those! Readings don't take longer than 2 hours a week to be honest. There are two textbooks required for this class but you can find both online. Professor Lefkowitz is a great lecturer! Most of the notes taken are directly copied from his powerpoint and also he records the class. For my discussion section I talked max like twice through the whole semester and only missed one class, but I was still able to get a 96% on participation.

there was lot of interesting topics covered, but a lot of busy work and readings too. i wish that some weeks we could have heard more discourse on the topic rather than just the professor's take on it. it all seemed well-intentioned, but it was obvious that some weeks were valued more than others, which felt weird when each week focused on a different marginalized group's representation in film. the grade is mostly from worksheets that you do as a group twice a week every week based off of the movie and some other show/clip. the rest of the grade was from discussion section, attendance quizzes, and the final. the final relies a lot on the readings (of which there are a lot). leah was my ta and they were great! they would ask general questions for us to talk about in groups and when the readings were tricky, leah would spend extra time breaking down the terms and important takeaways. the section part of the grade was from participation, but if you are worried at any point about that just bring it up in private. we had to do weekly reading responses on collab, but it was just a sentence or two about something you found in the reading so it really wasn't hard.

Keep in mind when taking this course there is a strong emphasis on language (phonetics, dialects, etc.) and that the movies are watched outside of class on top of other homework. The class was pretty easy until the final, but make sure to take notes on all of the readings. Also Professor Lefkowitz is not the most approachable professor on the planet. I was really excited to take this class because of shared interests with him and the cinema element sounded really interesting, but it fell flat for me. Most of my peers that I talked to felt the same. This class was not terrible by any means, but not as intriguing as I had hoped. If this is your first time taking an anthropology class, I would recommend going a different route. I came to UVA planning to be an anthropology major, but after this class I feel like my time is better doing something else. Again, not a BAD class, but in all honesty, not a great one either.

*TA: Leah Tedesco
I came into this class expecting a mix of film studies and linguistics/Anthropology, but it was definitely slanted towards the latter. The class covered films from the early 1910s all the way to 2018. Professor Lefkowitz is a pretty engaging lecturer and mixes in clips from the various movies in his lectures. The lectures heavily feature information from the readings, and use that information to go over certain things and scenes from the movies. They can be a bit draining at times (especially at 9 AM), but are pretty interesting once you learn to take the anthropologist's point of view. I definitely see some things in films differently after taking this class, especially relating to speech and representation.
There are usually three readings assigned each week (one per class period + discussion), but none are too heavy once you get the hang of them. There is only a final exam at the end, no midterm or final project. He takes attendance each class by having students write a thought on the movie or do a short reading quiz (which you'll get right if you even just skim the reading). The largest time consumer (and portion of the grade) is twice-weekly group worksheets that discuss the films and readings, which definitely got to be a pain after a while as it's hard to meet twice a week, outside of class, with a group.
The discussion section wasn't super helpful to me, and my TA had a hard time jumpstarting the class discussions and keeping everyone engaged. The readings that we had to do before each section also rarely applied to that week's discussion (usually the following week's), which got pretty confusing after a while.
I definitely recommend this class if you're looking to get a new perspective on lots of movies - it's definitely super interesting.

Disclaimer: I took this class remotely during the Covid pandemic.
As a student who loves both social sciences and movies, I was very disappointed in this class. Do not take this lightly, as I hate bashing classes and teachers and Professor Lefkowitz is a very nice man. However, what I thought would be a fun and easy class turned into a stressful nightmare that haunted me my entire semester. In summary, this class combines the study of linguistics, film and anthropology and analyzes how movie dialogues can influence the popular culture. Essentially, you will look at how movies can convey messages that may be sexist, racist, ableist, etc. through their dialogue. That is the summary of the content. As a white male, I sometimes felt attacked by the content. I think that was for the best and I may have learned to better recognize my privilege through some of those moments. While I cannot fault the class for making me uncomfortable at times due to my privilege, I can fault it for being the most boring class I have ever taken and it was also much more work than expected. The workload consisted of watching a movie each week (of which there were many great movies that I would never have watched without taking the class), at least 3 readings a week, and around two group worksheets a week. The movies as I said, were for the most part really good. The group worksheets, while annoying at points, usually consisted of writing a paragraph or two about the readings/movies and were usually pretty easy and helped boost my grade (got >100% in this section which really helped my final grade). It's the readings I had a problem with. There were around 3 readings a week, which usually summed up to be between 60 to 150 pages. This is not that bad compared to some other classes. It was about a 50/50 split between textbook chapters and papers written in the academia circuit with the occasional article written for the general populace sprinkled in. In terms of the textbook, the chapters could honestly be pretty interesting at times and I thought that it was a pretty decent read. The papers that were written by professors, for professors, were where I had a problem. I was the student in high school who did every single homework assignment, textbook reading, and book reading that was ever assigned to me. When it came to these academic papers, they were so long, so boring, and typically only amounted to one sentence's worth of information you had to know in summary. I could not read any of the assigned readings past 10 pm or else I would fall asleep. For the first time in my life, I was not doing assignments, and I was slacking big-time. As a student who is obsessed with perfection, I was stressed the whole semester because I simply could not handle the amount of readings that were assigned. In terms of a positive about this class, it was pretty easy to get a good grade as I ended up doing only half the material, studying for an hour the night before the final, and finishing with an A. I hate to be negative about any class and much of the blame lays with me, as it was my first semester in college and I just did not know how to effectively manage my time. Also, I'm sure this class is more interesting in person (again, pandemic). Professor Lefkowitz was a really sweet guy who you could tell is passionate about this subject and I'm sure is a really lively lecturer (and I'm so sorry if you are reading this review professor, do not take it personally). Overall, this class was not for me due to the type of content and amount of work outside of class, but I'm sure it will be interesting to some and do not let this review scare you about the class, just make sure you're pretty good at managing your time. Sorry for the rant but this class just wreaked havoc on my mental health and I wanted to give a warning to kids like me who are perfectionists, new to college, or who just think this will be an easy movie class.

This course definitely lies more on the film studies spectrum of things rather than linguistics, so be prepared for that. Professor Lefkowitz is a pretty dry lecturer but nothing too terrible. The discussion section was ok, but it felt a little bit pointless, as we would go over the exact same material as the main lecture. Grading was very confusing for a lot of the class at the end as the grades in Collab didn't match up with our final grades (apparently the Collab grades were just guidelines, not the real thing, but he neglected to tell anyone that). Grades were made up of weekly reading responses, daily group worksheets, weekly quizzes, discussion section attendance and occasional responses, and a multiple-choice final. All of that was fine, but the worksheets were often very tedious and often required you to view additional clips on top of the heavy reading load and film for that week. All in all the class wasn't too difficult materials wise, there was just a LOT of material to get through. I enjoyed the class on the whole, but don't truly feel that I've learned that much aside from watching some great movies. The most influential weeks of instruction linguistically were without a doubt the first few. After that it just kind of meanders through various categories of film and scholarly essays until the end. If you're interested in linguistics or film studies I think you'll enjoy this class, but I doubt it's making anyone's top 5.

This was my favorite course that I took in my first semester. The weekly assignments are fun and super easy to do. We watched a different movie each week and talked about the content in our discussion section. The lectures were a little dry, but Prof Lefkowitz is a super nice teacher and I learned a lot of fun and interesting material about films, and I was exposed to a lot of movies I wouldn't have seen if not in this class. Highly recommend!!

This is about equal in terms of film studies and anthropology, though Prof. Lefkowitz approaches it as an anthropologist, so keep that in mind. The lectures are usually engaging, though not always. There are required responses on the weekly films and a final, 5-page paper, but those aren't difficult. I will say that this class has changed how I look at language both in film and in life. Definite recommendation for Media Studies and Linguistics majors, but it's easily accessible for anyone.

I love all things film, so I might be a little biased, but I LOVED this class. There are some pretty technical things that might bore you (and Lefkowitz himself says that he's not a film expert, he's a linguistics scholar), but the opportunity to see films in a different lens with this class is extraordinary, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. I agree that taking the class with friends is definitely the way to go. The response papers are really quite simple if you support your ideas, and the final paper is really just a chance to tie a favorite film to a few concepts from the class. The quizzes at the beginning of each class are super easy, and there's no final, so you don't have to worry about taking amazing notes (every lecture is posted too). Basically, this is a great fun class where you get to watch movies with the excuse that it's for school. Highly recommend.