Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Disarticulating The Artificial Female, Allison De Fren

Allison De Fren

No abstract provided.

What Documentary Films Teach Us About The Criminal Justice System - Introduction, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

Film . . . has been used effectively to shape public perceptions about the criminal justice system. . . . [and] the documentary form has power to convict or release a defendant, as well as to disclose the positive and negative aspects of the criminal justice system. . . . Three articles on this subject appear in this issue of the UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND LAW JOURNAL OF RACE, RELIGION, GENDER AND CLASS and add to this body of scholarship. . . .Our goal was to foster a series of dialogues among and between a number of individuals: filmmakers....

The Temporal Aesthetics Of Cindy Sherman’S Photography: Revisiting The "Centerfolds" As Single-Frame Cinema, James Magrini

James M Magrini

No abstract provided.

Surrealism's Revisionist Reading Of Freudian Psychology: Surreal Film And The Dream, James Magrini

James M Magrini

No abstract provided.

Towards An Understanding Of Antonin Artaud’S Film Theory: The Seashell And The Clergyman, James Magrini

James M Magrini

A study of an avant-garde artist’s theory through the frames of the first surreal film: The Seashell and the Clergyman, made in 1927.

Troubled Waters: Mid-Twentieth Century American Society On "Trial" In The Films Of John Waters, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

In this Article Professor Banks argues that what makes many of filmmaker John Waters early films so subversive is his use of the “white-trash” body—people marginalized by and excluded from conventional white America—as countercultural heroes. He uses the white trash body as a surrogate for talk about race and sexuality in the early 1960s. I argue that in many ways Waters’ critiques of mid-twentieth century American society reflect the societal changes that occurred in the last forty years of that century. These societal changes resulted from the civil rights, gay pride, student, anti-war and women’s movements, all of which used …

Technofetishism And The Uncanny Desires Of Asfr (Alt. Sex. Fetish. Robots), Allison De Fren

Allison De Fren

This essay interrogates the visual landscape of technofetishism, particularly in relation to the machine woman, using as a springboard a little-known internet community of technosexuals who collectively refer to their fetish for artificial bodies as A.S.F.R. (alt.sex.fetish.robots). Although A.S.F.R. was made possible by the advent of virtual communities, its fetishistic interests have historical antecedents that were documented in the early literature of sexology. Against their classifications of similar fetishistic practices as variations of necrophilia, as well as subsequent Freudian interpretations of fetishism as grounded in castration anxiety, this essay argues that A.S.F.R. is less about technology in general, or the …

The War On Twitter, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

Michael I. Niman tells how the Feds busted a Twitter tweeter and impounded Curious George and Buffy videos in a terror probe.

Focalizing On The Fringe: Foucault And Contemporary French-Language Film (Panel Presentation), Mariah Devereux Herbeck

Mariah E. Devereux Herbeck

In the last twenty-five years, a plethora of French and Francophone directors have made films that feature characters marginalized by their socio-economic status, race, religion and / or gender, thus taking these individuals’ stories out of the fringe and placing them center-stage on the big screen. In fact, a trend can be traced in these films whereby when marginalized characters’ narratives are privileged, so-called norms of both filmmaking and society are often examined and questioned. Through the optic of Foucault’s theories of the Panopticon (Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the New Prison)—a structure that bestows upon those located in …

Hearing Screen Animation, Rebecca Coyle

Dr Rebecca Coyle

Animation has become a lucrative and contemporary screen medium. As a film form, animation increasingly engages with expressive tools and techniques, whether as two-dimensional drawn components or 3-D modelled or computer-generated imagery. The popular appreciation for animation is manifest in audience and critical reception to animation feature films. Today these products offer a major challenge to live-action in terms of box office performance and profits, especially in the powerful United States entertainment industry. In Japan, too, feature films are often produced after a television anime series has earned a strong following.

Savage Messiah: Ken Russell’S Forgotten Masterpiece, John A. Duvall

John Duvall

Cash For Clunkers?, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

Landfilling old gas-guzzlers for new gas-guzzlers isn’t green – it’s a subsidy for the motor industry, argues Michael I. Niman

Constructing Legal Narratives: Law, Language And The Media, Jane Johnston, Rhonda Breit

Jane Johnston

This paper proposes using the theory of narratology to connect to legal discourses and processes with the way the media translate the law into news. Focussing on the Australian context, it looks at the choice of language used my media in covering courts, how stories are told and retold within these primarily textual environments, as well as the selection processes used by journalists in covering these rounds. The paper extends the argument for a narratology of courts, to a narratology of court reporting, suggesting fundamental criteria of story, discourse and the interpretative context be examined. It foreshadows the need for …

Pornography, Female Spectacle And Modernity In Mexico City, 1915-1939, Ageeth Sluis

Ageeth Sluis

No abstract provided.

Fm Radio News: Spreading The News Or Spread Too Thin?, Denise Raward, Jane Johnston

Jane Johnston

United Kingdom investigative reporter Nick Davies has coined the term 'churnalism' to describe the UK print media's reliance on wire copy and press releases for the vast majority of its news. This study looks at this trend in Australia, focusing on the FM radio industry and a case study of one radio station which also serves as a news 'hub' for a national network. Davies found that up to 80 per cent of Fleet Street news is based on wire service, other media or press releases. This Australian FM newsroom study found nearly 90 per cent of networked news bulletins …

The Anatomical Gaze In Tomorrow's Eve, Allison De Fren

Allison De Fren

In the sf novel "L'Eve future" [Tomorrow's Eve, 1886] by Philippe Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, the female body is dissected repeatedly: a female android is technologically disassembled, a living woman is poetically blazoned, and a dead woman is cinematically deconstructed. This article explores the novel's central thematic of dissection, tracing its rhetorical and visual coding to the anatomy theater of the Renaissance, and in particular to the work of Andreas Vesalius, to whom the scientist-anatomist Thomas Edison (a character in the novel) is explicitly compared. Within the anatomy theater, the medical investigation of the body was conducted within a highly …

What Documentary Films Teach Us About The Criminal Justice System - Introduction, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

Film . . . has been used effectively to shape public perceptions about the criminal justice system. . . . [and] the documentary form has power to convict or release a defendant, as well as to disclose the positive and negative aspects of the criminal justice system. . . . Three articles on this subject appear in this issue of the UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND LAW JOURNAL OF RACE, RELIGION, GENDER AND CLASS and add to this body of scholarship. . . .Our goal was to foster a series of dialogues among and between a number of individuals: filmmakers....

Silver Screen Tarnishes Unions, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Organizing a film festival of pro-labor Hollywood films would be rather difficult. When unions do appear, they are often part of the subplot or the background for the main story line.

Love, Sex, And Gender Embodied: The Spirits Of Hatian Vodou, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Writing And Multimedia Projects, Thomas Burkdall

Thomas Burkdall

No abstract provided.

Review Of 'Saving Paradise' (2008) By Brock & Parker And 'The Passion Story' (2008) Ed Kupfer, Vaughan S. Roberts

Vaughan S Roberts

No abstract provided.

Review Of Happy Endings, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Scars, Cars, And Bodies Without Organs: Techno-Colonialism In J.G. Ballard's Crash, Matthew A. Holtmeier

Matthew A. Holtmeier

Contemplative Video Art Interview, Joanna Spitzner

Anne Beffel

Spectacular Synchronisation: Songs, Animation And Happy Feet, Rebecca Coyle, Philip Hayward

Dr Rebecca Coyle

No abstract provided.

Future Visions: New Technologies Of The Screen, Philip Hayward, Tana Wollen

Professor Philip Hayward

Introduction: surpassing the real / Philip Hayward and Tana Wollen -- The bigger the better: from Cinemascope to IMAX / Tana Wollen -- Computer technology and special effects in contemportary cinema / Robin Baker -- Towards higher definition television / Jean-Luc Renaud -- Multimedia / Frank Rickett -- Refiguring culture / Timothy Binkley -- Interactive games / Leslie Haddon -- The genesis of virtual reality / Rebecca Coyle -- Virtual reality: beyond Cartesian space / Sally Pryor and Jill Scott -- Situating Cyberspace: the popularisation of virtual reality / Philip Hayward.

Off The Planet: Music, Sound And Science Fiction Cinema, Philip Hayward

Professor Philip Hayward

A lively, stimulting and diverse collection of essays on aspects of music, sound and Science Fiction cinema. Following a detailed historical introduction to the development of sound and music in the genre, individual chapters analyse key films, film series, composers and directors in the post-War era.

Thin Encounters With Knowledge, Chandan Gowda

Chandan Gowda

No abstract provided.

Reboot America: Lessons From Post-Consumerist Cuba, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Fighting Through Their Filmwork: The Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit, Lisa Milner

Dr Lisa Milner

This essay examines the origins and development of a radical Australian film unit of the Cold War, the Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit (WWFFU). With the active support of the Communist-led Waterside Workers’ Federation, it arose in the 1950s in response to the repressive policies of a conservative government.