Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lawn Story Short, Sarah Johnsrude

Theses and Dissertations

Lawn Story Short is a short essay film on lawn culture in a subdivision development outside of Louisville, Kentucky. The film is presented from the point of view of a first person narrator who guides the audience through an inquiry: why are lawns a pervasive icon in the US today?

Film After Authority: The Transition To Democracy And The End Of Politics, Kalling Heck

Theses and Dissertations

A comparison of films made after the transition from authoritarianism or totalitarianism to democracy, this dissertation addresses the ways that cinema can digest and extend moments of political transition. By comparing films from four different nations—the Italian Germany Year Zero, Hungarian Sátántangó, South Korean Woman on the Beach, and American Medium Cool—in relation to ideas drawn from critical and political theory, this project examines how and why these wildly diverse films turn to ambiguity as their primary means to disrupt the ravages of unchecked authority. By intervening in discussions of aesthetics and politics, this dissertation contends that ambiguous aesthetics has …

Institutional Influence On Documentary Form: An Analysis Of Pbs And Hbo Documentary Programs, Mark Joseph Irving

Theses and Dissertations

INSTITUTIONAL INFLUENCE ON DOCUMENTARY FORM - A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PBS and HBO DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMS

by Mark Irving

The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, 2015

Under the Supervision of Professor Michael Z. Newman

Beginning in the 1980s, the documentary genre has undergone a transformation to accommodate modes of stylistic expression and subjective thematic exposition previously not evident in the genre. This deviation from the form’s traditional modes of expression typically associated with fact-based, journalistic pursuits can be attributed to the institutional underpinnings of media outlets that exhibit documentary programming. These institutional factors, a consequence of an evolving marketplace and shifts …

Animating Aesthetics: Pixar And Digital Culture, Eric Duwayne Herhuth

Theses and Dissertations

In the pre-digital age of cinema, animated and live-action film shared a technological basis in photography and they continue to share a basis in digital technology. This fact limits the capacity for technological inquiries to explain the persistent distinction between animated and live-action film, especially when many scholars in film and media studies agree that all moving image media are instances of animation. Understanding the distinction in aesthetic terms, however, illuminates how animation reflexively addresses aesthetic experience and its function within contexts of technological, environmental, and socio-cultural change. “Animating Aesthetics: Pixar and Digital Culture” argues that the aesthetics that perpetuate …

In Search Of A Transcendental Film Style: The Cinematic Art Form And The Mormon Motion Picture, Thomas J. Lefler

Theses and Dissertations

This project is an effort to establish a paradigm for reading and tracing transcendence in film art and film propaganda. It addresses the intersection of aesthetic and spiritual planes which is supported by a long and complex tradition of art within religious worship. The study selects a single film as a microcosm of larger issues of cinematic representation and spirituality, in particular the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). It makes a formalistic comparison of structural and and stylistic elements between a Mormon long-form narrative, Legacy (1994) with the classic Hollywood narrative on the one …