"This online course looks at how the movies historically evolved as both an institution and an art form.  The "Part 1" part of the course title is because we will focus on the very beginning of cinema, from the late 19^th century until around 1930 or so i.e. we're looking at old movies.  Why would anyone (beyond Arts & Letters credit) be interested in watching or studying old movies? For one thing, old films provide the same sorts of insights that we get from watching contemporary movies. Some offer intense artistic experiences or penetrating visions of human life in other times and places. Some are documents of everyday existence or of extraordinary historical events that continue to reverberate in our times. Still other old movies are resolutely strange. They resist assimilation to our current habits of thought. They force us to acknowledge that films can be radically different from what we are used to. They ask us to adjust our field of view to accommodate what was, astonishingly, taken for granted by people in earlier eras."