Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Feder, S. (Director). (2020). Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen [Film]. Netflix., Galen D. Bunting

Feminist Pedagogy

Sam Feder’s documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen (2020) braids together an overview of trans cinema through the voices of transgender actors, alongside clips from classic and current cinema, and commentary from trans academics. Featuring commentary from an impressive array of voices, including actress Laverne Cox and historian Susan Stryker, the film offers a variety of perspectives on film and representation. Beginning with an impressive timeline of trans representation from the earliest representations of gender crossing in silent movies and ending upon the debut of Pose, in which trans people represent themselves, this Netflix Original offers a comprehensive visual history …

Cinema Studies: Different Perspectives, Burak Turten

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

PREFACE

Cinema Studies: Different Perspectives is essential reading for anyone interested in cinema discipline. The singular aim of this edited book of scholarly text is to stimulate and engage readers in the fast-changing, complex, and increasingly interdisciplinary nature of cinema studies, and to serve as a catalyst for future intellectual, academic, and professional-driven research agendas. It is believed that the integration of cinema studies with other disciplines will undoubtedly contribute to the development of the cinema field both in practice and in theory.

Therefore, each chapter of this book, which consists of 9 chapters, focuses on a sub-discipline such as …

When We See Us: Coming 2 America And The Intricacies Of Black Representation And Diasporic Conversation, Terri Bowles

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This is a review essay of the film Coming 2 America (2021) by Craig Brewer, a follow-up to the 1988 comedy classic Coming to America , which stars Eddie Murphy as a newly crowned African king confronted with shifting family dynamics and evolving challenges to his royal authority. The review examines the cultural space occupying the 30 years that separate the first film and its sequel, and interrogates the structures of popular film and comedy that situate representational discourses of gender and diasporic Black representation.

Stanley Kubrick, Jewish Filmmaker: A Review Essay, Michael Gibson

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a review of two books: Nathan Abrams, Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018), and David Mikics, Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020).

Influential Storytelling At Its Finest: Why The Postwar West Took Notice Of Yasujirō Ozu’S Tokyo Story, Abigail Deveney

Japanese Society and Culture

Tokyo Story (1953) came to fame in 1958, when Yasujiro Ozu’s postwar film about a fragmenting family won the Sutherland prize at the London Film Festival – or so cinematic scholarship suggests. There is, however, a much more complex tale to be told. In fact, director Ozu’s shomingeki-genre film was being discussed and promoted internationally long before what is considered that watershed moment.

This dissertation explores why the western world took note. It argues that Tokyo Story’s nuanced and humanist narrative was a unique form of soft power, attracting and persuading decades before that concept was formally articulated. Tokyo Story’s …

La Diffusion Des Films Tunisiens Postrévolutionnaires, Emna Mrabet

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

After a long period of stagnation, Tunisian cinema is experiencing a new boom today. The postrevolutionary era is thus marked by an artistic proliferation which is reflected through a multiplication of cinematographic achievements. We witness a diversification of styles and aesthetics and the advent of trends that dare to question society on its taboos and the barriers it poses to the development of the individual. These new productions are often awarded prizes in international festivals and are supported by an essential event: The Carthage Film Festival. In light of these considerations, it is necessary in this article to observe in …

On The Banality Of Transnational Film, Ian Reyes, Justin Wyatt

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

“Breakthrough” global blockbusters like Black Panther (2018) and Crazy Rich Asians (2018) create disturbances among critics and firms forced to wonder if such ripples of diversity will become waves of new cinema wiping out the hegemony of Hollywood and the global West. In this essay, we establish the context for this phenomenon in terms of film’s historical relationship to marketing. Through this context, we theorize a transnational aesthetic for global blockbusters, one that may serve to limit ripples of diversity, breaking waves of change against the rocks of a banal cinema of Americanized nothingness.

Transcendental Style In Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (2nd Edition), Michael Gibson

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Paul Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, 2nd edition (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018).

Christina Gerhardt And Sara Saljoughi, Editors. 1968 And Global Cinema. Wayne State Up, 2018., Anne Cunningham

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Christina Gerhardt and Sara Saljoughi, editors. 1968 and Global Cinema. Wayne State UP, 2018. 422 pp.

Finding Fīlmfārsī: Reevaluations Of Pre-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema, William E. B. Sherman

Journal of Religion & Film

This article reviews two books: Pedram Partovi's Popular Iranian Cinema before the Revolution: Family and Nation in Filmfārsī, and Golbar Rekabtalaei, Iranian Cosmopolitanism: A Cinematic History.

Alessandro Rocco. Gabriel García Márquez And The Cinema. Tamesis, 2014., Silvio Gaggi

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Alessandro Rocco. Gabriel García Márquez and the Cinema. Tamesis, 2014

Seeing (As) The Eroticized And Exoticized Other In Spanish Im/Migration Cinema: A Critical Look At The (De)Criminalization Of Migrants And Impunity Of Hegemonic Perpetrators, Maureen Tobin Stanley

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This article examines cinematic perspective in six Spanish im/migration films to show that by resituating the identification from an alignment with that of a hegemonic character (who accepts the systematic bias that confers impunity to perpetrators) to identification with a criminalized migrant subject, these films 1) denounce systemic intersectionality that confers impunity to perpetrators and criminalizes the racialized and/or feminized other and 2) aim at fostering empathy in the hegemonically identified viewer. Parameters for the selection of the six films are: immigration to Spain, African (whether geographic or ethnic) origins, eroticization of the migrant, objectification/(ab)use/commodification/victimization of the Other, criminalization of …

La Fermeture Des Salles De Cinéma En Afrique De L'Ouest Et Ses Impacts Sur L'Internet Et La Télévision, Mouhamadou Cissé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article analyzes the importance of the film industry in West Africa by posing the problem of the closure of cinemas in recent decades in three countries: Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso. The disappearance of movie theatres jeopardizes reception and drives the use of the Internet and television as broadcasting outlets for movies. This issue occupies little space in film criticism that privileges, according to Claude Forest, the "creative and cultural aspects" and therefore the aesthetics of African film.

New Zealand Film Industry: Building Culture And Identity, Victoria Swart

The Kabod

Below Australia, as close to the bottom of the populated world as one can go, lies the small country of New Zealand, the true “land down-under.” New Zealand offers close to 103,500 square miles of picturesque and varied landscape, along with a population of less than 5 million, as of the 2016 census. Despite its isolated geography and small population, the country has made a large international presence, especially in the film industry. The development of the New Zealand film industry is unique, beginning soon after the birth of film itself but refraining from substantial growth until recent years. The …

Anthony Paraskeva. Samuel Beckett And Cinema. London: Bloomsbury, 2017., Katarzyna Peric

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Anthony Paraskeva. Samuel Beckett and Cinema. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. 195 pp.

The Big World – Reha Erdem And The Magic Of Cinema, Andreas Treske

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Reha Erdem’s latest film Big Big World (Koca Dünya) was selected for the “Horizons” (“Orizzonti”) section at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival in 2016 and won a prestigious special jury award. The Venice selection is standing for a tendency to hold on, and celebrate the so-called “World Cinema” along with Hollywood blockbusters and new experimental arthouse films in a festival programming mix, insisting to stop for a moment in time a cinema that is already on the move.

New Hollywood: Classical Hollywood In A New Light, Wesley D. Buskirk

Cinesthesia

This essay analyzes the manifestations of America’s post-1960 film industry, more specifically the rise of “New Hollywood.” In response to governmental intervention of the studio system, the popularization of commercial television, and the influences of the French New Wave, Hollywood’s emerging “film generation” embraced the commercialization of the star auteur and the blockbuster picture. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, sons of the “Hollywood Renaissance,” capitalized on the potential of “high concept,” “ultra-high-budget” feature films and their associated synergetic marketing systems, a phenomenon referred to as the “blockbuster syndrome.” Jaws, a pioneering New Hollywood megapicture directed by Spielberg, exhibits the “Lucas-Spielberg” …

The Judas Effect: Betrayal In Jean-Luc Godard’S Breathless, Vlad Dima

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This article revisits the ending of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) in an attempt to untangle the complicated relationship between the two main characters, and to claim that they are characters that belong to no identifiable genre. Instead, they come to life as characters at the intersection point of existentialism, creationism, and two radically different genres, film noir and neorealism. In essence, they are characters without a genre, always out of place, and their existential drifting generates a Judas effect—a trope that establishes betrayal and sacrifice as necessary narrative tools and that suspends the classical (cinematic) Oedipal cycle.

Biopolitical Education: The Edukators And The Politics Of The Immanent Outside, Roland Vegso, Marco Abel

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The article examines the relationship of biopower and cinema through the analysis of a specific film, Hans Weingartner’s The Edukators (2004). It argues that in the age of biopower, resistance to power cannot be conceived of in terms of a radical outside to power. Rather, biopolitical resistance must take place on the terrain of this power itself, that is, within the field of life. Therefore, what we call the “viral” politics of The Edukators must be interpreted precisely in this context. The film argues that the exhaustion of political paradigms inherited from the past century forces us to take the …

Le Cinéma Face À L’Oblitération Génocidaire. Silences Éloquents Et Hors-Champ Intérieur Chez Philippe Van Leeuw Et Kivu Ruhorahoza, Alexandre Dauge-Roth, Ayse Irem Ikizler

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Philippe Van Leeuw and Kivu Ruhorahoza’s cinema proposes an esthetic and ethical gaze that distances itself from the historic realism that defines the majority of the films on the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. By conferring an unprecedented eloquence to different types of silence and by maintaining viewers in a concerted state of ignorance, both filmmakers question societies’ will to know within the legacy of genocide and their willingness to culturally acknowledge the traumatic resonance of its aftermath.

Discours Sur L’Environnement Et Stratégies Empathiques De L’Hégémonie Dans Les Écritures Francophones D’Afrique Noire, Jean-Blaise Samou

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

It is a known that discourse developed on Africa in the European imagination between the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century had largely contributed to the implementation of colonial ideology. Today, African writings recover and rework those discourses, highlighting the language strategies by which the construction of a tropical otherness, territorial dispossession and colonial domination in Africa were part of a pragmatic discourse. The analysis of those discourses in some novels and movies from French-speaking Black Africa not only reveals the environmental issues that underlay the European colonial adventure in Africa, but also the interest for …

Egyptian Film And Feminism: Egypt’S View Of Women Through Cinema, Wesley D. Buskirk

Cinesthesia

This essay analyzes the history of Egyptian film in relationship to the common perception of women in Egypt. From the early stages of Egyptian cinema, women assumed leadership positions, helping build the undeveloped industry to its height in the mid-1900's. An increasingly state-led and male-dominated film industry, however, adopted women as a symbol of nationalism, while neglecting them as equals through traditionalist film content. Furthermore, in the last quarter of the 20th century, governmental influences resulted in a shortage of production resources. Although commercial motion pictures suffered, social-issue, realist movies have reignited feminist initiatives and provided hope for a recovering …

Staging Quakerism In American Theatre And Film, James Emmett Ryan

Quaker Studies

Arguing that Quakers have been used as influential stock characters in American performance culture, this essay profiles several examples of Quakers as represented in American theater and film: John Murdock's play The Triumphs of Love (1795), Harry F. Millarde's lost silent film The Quack Quakers (1916), and the Academy Award winning film High Noon (1952). Paradoxically, in each of these productions, which range from farce to serious drama, Friends are shown as either claiming or as striving for unattainable moral and religious human ideals, but also as an exemplary community of individuals against which other Americans might and should be …

Moral Anxiety, Mortal Terror: Considering Spielberg, Post-9/11, Jake T. Bart

Cinesthesia

In the wake of 9/11, a defining moment in the young 21st century, Spielberg’s thematic concerns undergo a marked evolution. As film historian Joseph McBride noted, “(n)o other American artist confronted the key events of the first decade of the century with such sustained and ambitious treatment” (450). Together, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005), Munich (2005), and Minority Report (2002) create an informal trilogy, each exploring a different facet of American shock and anxiety in the War on Terror era.

Cloud Atlas’ Queer Tiki Kitsch: Polynesians, Settler Colonialism, And Sci-Fi Film, Gabriel S. Estrada

Journal of Religion & Film

Polynesian theories of film reception, visual sovereignty, feminisms, and worldview offer critical insights into The Wachowskis' and Tykwer's 2012 film Cloud Atlas. From Indigenous and Native feminist film perspectives, Cloud Atlas offers a sci-fi future deeply entrenched in the queer tiki kitsch of settler colonialism as situated within a comparative context of other queer Indigenous film. As an example of heteropatriarchal settler colonialism, the Cloud Atlas plot supports the heterosexual triumphs of cross-racial couples and sublimates the possibilities of transgender reincarnation. Although Cloud Atlas attempts to critique Christian slavery and defend a secular abolitionist stance in the 1848 South Pacific, …

The Cinematic Power Of Night And Fog, James M. Christie

Cinesthesia

A contemplative camera glides fluidly through a vacant field, one that appears like any other. As it glides, somber images of barbed wire, dilapidated barracks, and rusted railroad tracks beckon the audience to witness the ruins of the Aushwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. “Going slowly along the tracks, seeking what?” asks narrator Michel Bouquet. These questions are more rhetorical than anything, allowing the audience to question their own moral and social obligations to the unfathomable. For the sake of humanity, it is crucial to remember the events of the Holocaust and deny them from happening again. Released only ten years after the …

Exploring Time And Space In Frame By Frame Animation, Daniel L. Ketchum

Cinesthesia

No abstract provided.

Cynthia Tompkins. Experimental Latin American Cinema. Austin: U Of Texas P, 2013. X+ 294 Pp., Carolina Rocha

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Cynthia Tompkins. Experimental Latin American Cinema. Austin: U of Texas P, 2013. x+ 294 pp.

A Brief Historical Account Of Trends In Contemporary Peruvian Cinema, Sebastián Pimentel

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This essay is an overview of the thematic and stylistic tendencies in Peruvian cinema starting with the work of Armando Robles Godoy. It also focuses on the effect of the Law 19327 of 1973 , which was responsible for the formation of a group of influential filmmakers led by Francisco Lombardi. At the beginning of the 21st century, female directors like Claudia Llosa and Rosario Garcia Montero achieved recognition for their cinematic visions of a traumatic Peruvian past. The Vega brothers and Gianfranco Quatrinni also contribute with their styles to an existential sntdy of the Peruvian identity. From the provinces …

‘There’S A Lot More To Ogres Than People Think’: Shrek As Ethical Fairy Tale, Eugene O'Brien

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

No abstract provided.