I think the historical grade distributions speak for themselves. This class is not only an easy A but an easy A+.

Grading is based on quizzes, participation, film diaries, a midterm paper, and a final assignment. Nothing is done under a strict time constraint, making it a class that you can put on the back burner for weeks on end.

Quizzes have no time limit and simply test whether you have paid the slightest bit of attention to the syllabus/prescribed films.

Participation comes from posting to the course Slack page. If you are the kind of person to wait until the last minute to complete assignments, this grading category will work splendidly in your favor: the overwhelming majority made their first and last posts in the Slack page during finals week.

The film diaries can be whatever you want them to be, as long as they're around 250 words long and show that you've engaged with the films from class. You can literally write down bullet points on a film as you watch it and get full credit. 5 are mandatory, and the other 5 count for 2% extra credit toward your final course grade if you elect to do them.

Let me pause for a moment to draw your attention to that last sentence. You can get a total of 10% extra credit toward your final grade just by writing down bulleted notes for 5 five films. For perspective, since I did well on my midterm paper, I only needed to get somewhere in the 50's or 60's on the final to get an A in the class. All because of the extra credit. And that's pretty wild.

The midterm paper tasks you with analyzing a scene from a prescribed film. Focusing on the stylistic devices the directors employ—cinematography, mise en scène, and editing—you discuss how the scene contributes to the meaning of the film in under 1000 words. This counts for 25% of your grade. If you play your cards right and get a good grade in this assignment, you can literally fail the final and get an A in the class.

For the final, you can either write a 6-to 8-page research paper comparing/contrasting any element of any two films from the class or do a creative project with an accompanying explanation of your stylistic choices. This counts for 40% of your final grade.

Although I paid minimal attention to this class and nearly never attended lecture or discussion, I very easily got an A+. I found this class interesting and still did my own research and viewings outside of class, but you definitely do not need to pay attention to everything covered in the class to do well. Take this class if you want the easiest (and most interesting) A you have ever achieved.

If you consider yourself interested in movies, maybe you've flirted with the art-house genre, then it's imperative you take this class — you will get a lot out of it. A lot of people take this class cause they know it will be easy and they have no interest in watching old movies or talking about them, and for those people, I say: get out. You are going to be bored out of your mind, get nothing out of it, and overpopulate what would otherwise be a nice community of active and engaged students. Not that I discount other perspectives and people who don't like to speak up in discussion or class, but there were so many people I talked to who were extremely disinterested in the content, but knew it was an automatic A. It's just frustrating to see those kinds of people in a class such as this. Professor Shneyder is a gem, he is so kind, and I love the ideas he invoked in the survey of Russian film. 10 weeks is truly not enough, but I think he did a fantastic job curating the films we watch and provoking interesting questions about the material. My only critique is that I wish he interacted with the students more during lectures and lectured less. On the last day of class we had an inclusive conversation about the nature of "Russian film" and it was only then did I feel super excited to be surrounded by the film lovers in this class and we touched on some really interesting topics. This class would have worked much better with more hybrid seminar elements. The Slack page is a terrific addition to the class format, but I wish we could have had even more conversation during lecture and discussion, and it took a little while for people to get comfortable on Slack. Suryansu Guha is a funny and engaging TA, I enjoyed what he offered to the course as well. Both Shneyder and Guha are great during office hours I highly recommend you take advantage of those.

Writing this years later but I remember the class being ridiculously easy but also pretty boring - at least to me. It's good for people interested in film or Russian history, because the professor is also not the most engaging lecturer. So unless you're really interested in the subject matter you may get bored, but if you're looking for an easy GE . . . this is it.

This class is very fun. It's pretty interesting and there is almost no work whatsoever in this class. Every week we would have to watch a movie and then write one page of just things we thought about the movie (these could just be bullet points as that's what I did). There was also weekly presentations in discussion from different groups about the movie that was watched that week but these were extremely easy.
There are 2 essays in this class: one 4-5 page essay in the middle of the year analyzing a certain sequence in a movie and then another 4-5 page essay at the end of the quarter that would be a critique of the film you made with your group (this was the final project). However, because of Coronavirus, this final film was amended so that you could either just write a screenplay or record a film by yourself if you hadn't already filmed something with your group. Then, the final essay would be written about whatever option you chose.
Professor Shneyder himself is a pretty boring lecturer but I found the content interesting enough to make up for it.
All in all, this class is extremely easy and requires very little work to get an A. If you like film and history then I highly recommend taking it.

This class was not difficult, but it was super boring. Prof. Shneyder is a dry lecturer, and he just paces around the room looking at the ground and taking unnecessary pauses in between his sentences. Grading consisted of discussion participation (easy), a midterm paper (also easy), and mostly a final paper (doable).

I loved this class. As a GE, it is very easy and interesting. The workload is a little much to watch a movie a week, but even if you did not watch the movie you can learn enough in class about the movie to get through. There are three quizzes and the lowest score gets dropped (they are all super easy). Midterm is a 4-page essay about one film, and the final is a 7-page essay about two films. Attendance of class is required but the class is quick and you can be on your computer working on whatever the whole time. The prof really cares about this class and subject but takes a little to become comfortable with the class, so he seems pretty awkward at first. Easy and interesting A.

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