How can a film express the complexities of coming of age–a stage that, by definition, involves incompatible and often competing developmental progressions? By studying “coming of age” films, we can refine our understanding of style and story through the accelerated and sharpened character development inherent to this genre: how does a character move from one place and age and toward another, and how does film style portray this double-movement? Through studying films from many nations and of many different kinds of coming of age, we will learn about character development, cinematic and narrative time (the competing and complementary trajectory of the protagonist who comes of age often differs from the surrounding characters’ development; likewise, these films often involve the temporal underpinnings of retrospection or anticipation), and stylistic expressivity (cinema’s visual and aural qualities can uniquely show this sometimes inarticulate and awkward phase of human development).

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