Film and Media Studies Commons^™

The Elusive Eastern Film Corporation Of Providence, Rhode Island: Resurrecting A Footnote In Film History, Adam Tawfik

Film Studies Honors Projects

Eastern Film Corporation was a local studio but its films were distributed and screened throughout New England with the exception of Rhode Island. At least twelve of its films, of various genres, which seemed to have generous budgets for size of the studio, have survived. Eastern’s prime years of business were brief, 1915-1917. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the building in 1917 and the expenses it would cost to repair it too high for its original founder, Frederick S. Peck, a wealthy Barrington politician. Nevertheless, the studio staggered on throughout the 1920s.

A Current Study And Comparison Of Realism And Romanticism In Europe, Shreya Thakar

Master's Level Graduate Research Conference

The following presentation is based on a comparative study of the artistic movements of Realism and Romanticism in early 19th century Europe. The object is to analyze how each movement affected politics and social hierarchy. The movements are linked to other genres; Romanticism is coupled with Classicism, and Realism is associated with Idealism. This presentation identifies how both movements faced criticism due to a conservatism of mass taste and a shock of subject matter. Despite the obstacles, the movements prevailed to be considered innovative in context and style. The most compelling arguments found within the current scholarship outlines the opposition ...

Reimagining The Silver Screen: Contemporary Film Stills, Kyle Demartino

Senior Honors Projects

During the late 19^th century longer rolls of celluloid photographic film, and motion picture cameras were first introduced, which allowed for the capture of rapid sequences of still images at a relatively high speeds. The first films shown to audiences on a larger screen, although rudimentary, caused people to gasp or run from the cinema, as they believed the images on screen were real. As technology increased feature films progressed from only showing a simple static event to creating full stories spanning over various sets and containing multiple characters. With the advent of sound, filmmakers were given another tool ...

Nietzschean Narratives Of Hero And Herd In Walt Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

A critical reading of the Nietzschean politics of the Walt Disney/Pixar film The Incredibles.

Brave New Wireless World: Mapping The Rise Of Ubiquitous Connectivity From Myth To Market, Vincent R. Manzerolle

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation offers a critical and historical analysis of the myth of ubiquitous connectivity—a myth widely associated with the technological capabilities offered by “always on” Internet-enabled mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. This myth proclaims that work and social life are optimized, made more flexible, manageable, and productive, through the use of these devices and their related services. The prevalence of this myth—whether articulated as commercial strategy, organizational goal, or mode of social mediation—offers repeated claims that the experience and organization of daily life has passed a technological threshold. Its proponents champion the virtues of the invisible ...

Captain America Comics As Historically Grounded Cultural Criticism, Richard D. Deverell

Master's Level Graduate Research Conference

I'm glad to hear that. The abstract should read: After Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created him in 1941, Captain America served the writers and editors of Timely, then Atlas, and finally Marvel comics as a means to comment upon and critique American culture. In the 1950s, Atlas Comics, wrapped up in the frenzy of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, rebranded Captain America the “Commie Smasher” for a short, and ultimately retconned (negated after the fact), run. Following the character’s second resurgence in the 1960s, Marvel tapped into the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement and wrote the ...

Arts & Letters, The Magazine Of Potter College At Western Kentucky University, David Lee, Dean, Potter College, Western Kentucky University

PCAL Publications

No abstract provided.

Almodóvar Y El Cómic Underground Español: Pepi, Luci, Bom Y Otras Chicas Del Montón, Ramiro Garcia-Olano

Entrehojas: Revista de Estudios Hispánicos

En este trabajo analizo el film de Pedro Almodóvar, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980) en relación al cómic underground español surgido a principios de los años 70 y que hizo eclosión en la primera mitad de la década del 80 del pasado siglo. Mi principal objetivo es ilustrar la influencia que este fenómeno cultural tuvo en las primeras películas de Almodóvar.

In this work I analyze Pedro Almodovar's film Pepi, Luci, Bom y otra chicas el montón (1980) in relation to the Spanish underground comic that emerged in the early 70 and consolidated during the ...

Active, Disorienting, And Transitional: The Aesthetic Of Boredom In The Works Of Nam June Paik (1932-2006), Eugene Kwon

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The term boredom has a long and complex history. Boredom has been a topic of interest for both critical theorists and artists from various disciplines since antiquity. In the sixties, the meaning of the term boredom took on new significance as several art critics employed the term “boredom” to describe contemporary artworks. One artist from this period did not hesitate to describe his artworks as boring: Nam June Paik (1932-2006), a multimedia artist known for his avant-garde installations, sculptures, videos, and films. In my study, I argue that an aesthetic of boredom underlies certain works by Paik that employ particular ...

Romantic Exoticism: The Music Of Elsewhere In The Nineteenth Century, Josiah Raiche

Senior Honors Papers

Western art music has drawn on many sources. One of these is non-western music, which can be integrated into European classical music tradition in the form of exoticism. This paper will highlight musical elements used by composers seeking to create exoticism, examine selected works, and note common elements of western music that have exotic roots. In the nineteenth century, there were three general trends in exoticism. The first, non-musical exoticism, utilizes conventional western music alongside extra-musical exotic elements. Romantic exoticism portrays distant lands using musical elements, drawing these from the audience’s perceptions of the music represented. Realistic exoticism attempts ...

Journalism In A Pr World, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

Mike Niman discusses the future of journalism in a PR-dominated communication environment. In particular, he examines the migration of talent from journalism to the PR industry, the collapse of mainstream journalism and the role of an emergent alternative media as American journalism goes through metamorphosis from what it was to what it could become. Journalism is a social good that should equip people to understand and resist spin. Niman argues that mainstream American journalism, rather than rising to this challenge, has transparently succumbed to serving as an arm of the corporate PR industry, thus laying the groundwork for its own ...

Testing Reality's Limits: 'Mad' Scientists, Realism, And The Supernatural In Late Victorian Popular Fiction, Jennifer Sopchockchai Bankard

English Dissertations

In the late Victorian period, approaching the fin de siècle, popular fiction frequently featured what critics would now call mad scientists. These mad scientist characters served as a vehicle for Victorian authors to explore the epistemological relationship between humans and the material world, often highlighting the shortcomings of the human eye or subjective perception of reality. By tracing the scientific and supernatural discourses surrounding representations of scientists featured in works by H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle, this revisionist literary history demonstrates that Victorian popular fiction and "classic realist" novels share a common interest ...

Meet Them Where They Gather: An Analysis Of Nasa’S Communications Approach For The 21st Century, Amanda D. Stein

Theses and Professional Projects from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications

Since the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been tasked with not only governing the United States’ space activities, but also sharing those efforts and subsequent findings with the American public. When President Barack Obama issued the Open Government Directive in 2009, NASA was well positioned to meet the objectives. Today, the administration has built one of the most successful web-based information-sharing presences by government agency, largely by tailoring communications efforts to reach the public on popular social media platforms. This paper will explore how NASA has utilized two-way symmetrical communications ...

The Truth Can Be A Funny Thing: A Comparison Of Traditional Broadcast News To The Daily Show With Jon Stewart In Coverage Of The 2012 Presidential Campaign, Madeleine Sciarra

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Refresh. Create. Inspire. The Mission, Vision And Values Behind The Coca-Cola Company And The Digital Marketing Strategies Of The "Open Happiness" Campaign, Sara Svendsen

Masters Theses

Due to the influence of Coca-Cola on advertising, digital marketing, and marketing strategies, the present rhetorical analysis seeks to show the many aspects of digital media in the Company's present "Open Happiness" campaign. The study of the campaign seeks to show that the Company mission statement, Company values and the vision of The Coca-Cola Company are implemented into all of the different facets of the Open Happiness campaign, and in the context of Mood Management Theory, exude the overall theme of the campaign, happiness. The parts of the campaign that were analyzed were focused on the YouTube channels of ...

Holocaust Cinema, Beth Dotan

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Historical Dictionary of Holocaust Cinema, by Robert C. Reimer and Carol J. Reimer. (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc. 2012), and “Holocaust Movies,” by Guy Matalon, in The Bloomsbury Companion to Religion and Film, edited by William L. Blizek. (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013). Previously published as The Continuum Companion to Religion and Film, 2009.

Racing Through My Mind: An Als Journey, Gwyn Griffiths

The Spectrum: A Scholars Day Journal

The researcher will share the process and results of an independent study - she created a ten minute documentary piece on ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Over the course of the semester, she was responsible for all aspects of film production including scriptwriting, interviewing, filming, and editing. She chose this topic in honor of late family friend Douglas Adamson in hopes of raising awareness about the disease.

The Discourses Of Vincent Chase, Eric Wolf

Undergraduate Review: a Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

In lieu of an abstract, below is the first paragraph of the paper.

There is a common notion that those who make it big, whether it be as a professional athlete, a Grammy award-winning artist, or as an A-list actor, forget where they came from. Fame and fortune go to their heads and they become completely different people than they once were prior to their fame. Though fictional, one could make the argument that Vincent Chase, the protagonist of H.B.O.'s critically acclaimed series Entourage, underwent this drastic shift as the show progressed. One way of analyzing this ...

Homeric Heroes In Ethan And Joel Coen's The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998) And No Country For Old Men (2007), Vaughan S. Roberts

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper explores how the Homeric trope of the ‘hero’ appears in three films by the writer/directors Ethan and Joel Coen – The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998) and No Country for Old Men (2007). It will identify the classical traits of hero and anti-hero, mapping them onto characters in these movies. The paper concludes by examining how the ways in which the Coen brothers' play with the notion of the 'hero' connects with recent thinking on culture and myth in the work of Graham Ward, William A. Dyrness and Robert N. Bellah.

Shinto And Buddhist Metaphors In Departures, Yoshiko Okuyama

Journal of Religion & Film

Cinematic language is rich in examples of religious metaphors. One Japanese film that contains religious “tropes” (figurative language) is the 2008 human drama, Departures. This paper focuses on the analysis of religious metaphors encoded in select film shots, using semiotics as the theoretical framework for film analysis. The specific metaphors discussed in the paper are the Shinto view of death as defilement and Buddhist practices associated with the metaphor of the journey to the afterlife. The purpose of this paper is to augment the previous reviews of Departures by explicating these religious signs hidden in the film.