Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Film Review: Operation Finale, Melanie O'Brien

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

In 1960, the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, undertook an operation in Argentina to capture the architect of the Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann, and bring him to Israel to stand trial. Operation Finale [Chris Weitz, 2018] tells the story of this intelligence operation: the actions of and challenges for the agents involved, in a way that captures the banality of Eichmann’s personality before it was put on show for the world to see in his televised trial. Operation Finale is available on Netflix, rendering it a Holocaust film with an extraordinarily large reach.

Whatever Happened To The Movie Theme Song?, Luka Vasic

Capstones

Film music is as important as it’s ever been and a good theme song can absorb you into the world of a movie. Despite this, our idea of the theme song has changed a lot, and the kinds of themes that have traditionally been memorable parts of classic cinema have now lost their importance and role in modern filmmaking.

http://lukavasic.com/capstone/

Changing Gender Representation In Television, Alexandria N. Palmer

Sociology Student Work Collection

Representations on television have lasting effects on those who watch it, especially children. Unfortunately, in such a male-dominated industry, the lack of women creating television content mean men are predominately telling women's stories.

Here To Win, Not Here To Settle, Sarah Kaino

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Ethnic representation goes beyond color blind casting, the diversity of actors, or non-stereotypical casting choices. It is not just a matter of minorities being included in mainstream storylines, but minorities being able to tell their own stories as well. The relevance and relatability of storytelling in film and theatre transcends culture, which is in part the beauty of these mediums. But the impact of Asian Americans seeing stories from their own culture cannot be exchanged for anything less because there is no substitute for visibility. Movies are the source of inspiration for many. Movies can also reinforce a transparent ceiling …

Apocalypse Lakardowo: Ecocritical Analysis In The Film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan, Aulia Maulida, Abdul Basid

International Review of Humanities Studies

Human-nature interaction today enters a worrying stage. Film as a literary work begins to record this interaction. The film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan to be one of them. This research uses the content analysis method with an ecocritical approach. This film is a research primary data source supported by various related references. The analysis emphasizes the study of environmental literature which focuses on apocalyptic reading with pastoral views that surround it through Creswell spiral analysis methods: data management, reading, and note-taking, classification and interpretation, then data visualization. In this research, Lakardowo's environment in the film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan reflects the impact …

Steven Ungar. Critical Mass: Social Documentary In France From The Silent Era To The New Wave. U Of Minnesota P, 2018., Mary Mccullough

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Steven Ungar. Critical Mass: Social Documentary in France from the Silent Era to the New Wave. U of Minnesota P, 2018. Xxii + 300pp.

Orientalism, Resistance Or Global Harmony? Entangled Strands In The Film Isle Of Dogs, Soonkwan Hong

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Schizophrenia In Film: The Missing Narrative, Art Thomas

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Film characters with schizophrenia are most often depicted as (1) violent and threatening or (2) extraordinary and talented. As a result of these cinematic representations, audiences have false assumptions about the reality of schizophrenia. Films give the impression that people with schizophrenia should be separated from society in some way by being placed in a mental institution or on a pedestal to show that even a sick brain can be marvelous.

I studied films that portray schizophrenic characters in order to identify a story that is not being told by Hollywood. By looking at the romantic, platonic, and familial relationships …

Kai Duc Luong Interview, Stuart Hutson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio Born in 1975 in Phnom-Penh, KAI-DUC LUONG fled the oppressive Khmer Rouge regime from Cambodia to Vietnam to France, where his family settled in Paris, in 1978. KAI-DUC operates between Chicago and Paris. His artistic projects include video (art / doc / film), photography, and mixed media installations. His unconventional path as a self-taught outsider artist, trained in digital communication & systems engineering, gives him a unique perspective, at times questioning subject matters through the understanding of transmission and systems (e.g. the primary emotions, the five senses, the stages of grief, the art industry). His works have been …

Immigrants And National Anxieties In 21st-Century Spanish Film, Julia C. Barnes

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This article analyzes the ways that gender and race inform the portrayals of native-born Spaniards and immigrants in Flores de otro mundo (Flowers from Another World) (1999), Un novio para Yasmina 'A Fiancé for Yasmina' (2008), Retorno a Hansala (Return to Hansala) (2008), Biutiful (2010) and 15 años + 1 día (Fifteen Years and One Day) (2013). These films position the white Spanish man at the center of their stories, even when they are not the sole protagonists. Immigrant men of color, in contrast, are most frequently portrayed as parasitical, delinquent, and criminal. White …

5 Or 6 Amphibians: An Animated Short Film, Nicholas Lockwood

Honors Theses

My art project, “5 or 6 Amphibians”, explores a feeling I have had at Union - that of being split between too many things. It is six minutes of rotoscoped animation, presented on an array of nine screens. It is the culmination of my interest in time-based art, especially film and animation, as well as construction and technical knowledge.

Foreign Films In The Context Of Hollywood: A Look Into Adaptations And Remakes From Foreign Cinema, Christina Schrage

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Adaptations of novels are not an uncommon thing in the global cinema market, but what is it that Hollywood wishes to accomplish by adapting foreign films into their own language and context? This paper takes a look at the differences in Swedish, French, Argentine, and Korean cultural codes through the lenses of film narrative and how those codes are translated, or in some cases eradicated, from their Hollywood counterparts. This paper analyzes the films narrative, themes, and aesthetics, as well as the audience’s reception, to question whether Hollywood’s remake has added any new meaning to the film’s world, or if …

Superhero Movies And Politics: The Moral Obligations Of Film Makers According To Virtue Ethics, Russell Hendrickson

Senior Theses

The theory of virtue ethics implies that filmmakers have a moral obligation to explore political themes within superhero films. My thesis is comprised of four main sections. I begin by discussing the general theory of virtue ethics and what moral obligations are placed upon someone who subscribes to this moral theory. From there, I establish my argument for why film can be used as a tool of moral education, and I outline a framework for how artists can work to cultivate virtue in themselves through the use of Arnold Berleant’s Artists and Morality: Toward an Ethics of Art as a …

It's Me, Sarah, Fabiola Y. Andrade Chinchilla

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes the making of It’s Me, Sarah, a University of New Orleans thesis film. It explores the process of creating the film in three parts. Part one will examine the pre-production, including the writing and preparation for the shoot. Part two will detail the production, including the shooting affairs. Part three will cover the post-production process, which will include the editing. The document will then reference these three segments regarding the film’s theme and will conclude by evaluating whether the final film achieves its intended conception.

Past The Darkness, Kathleen M. Vieira

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper will discuss the making of my thesis film, Past the Darkness. I will describe the entire process including story conception, film production, and post-production stages. I will also evaluate the merits, flaws, and outcome of this project.

Inflicted Viewing: Examining Moral Masochism, Empathy, And The Frustration Of Trauma Cinema, Kira Smith

Film Studies (MA) Theses

The contemporary turn of psychoanalytic film analysis has opened a new mode of understanding cinematic language. However, rejecting classical psychoanalysis would be premature. This thesis will place the two in conjunction, specifically through Sigmund Freud’s conceptualization of moral masochism and Wilfred Bion’s theory of thinking. Through four films: Una, The Tale, The Tribe, and Son of Saul I explore the affective nature of films that depict trauma and why one would gravitate towards such upsetting material. The spectator who seeks to be frustrated is not looking to harm oneself but to process this frustration in order to expand their …

To Listen: Semiotics, Deaf Representation, And A Silent Voice, Kristen Stedman

Senior Capstone Theses

A Silent Voice, a Japanese film released in 2016, serves as an example of how deaf communities in media can be more accurately portrayed.

Semiotics, the study of how we assign and derive meaning from language, images, and cultural phenomenon, often overlaps with film analysis and representational studies. These three fields are inherently interrelated in the power of film in conveying messages about an issue, location, or group to a wide audience. Too often, inaccurate portrayals of minority groups in film lead these groups to be simplified culturally, fostering misunderstanding and conflict between groups. Just one group that is …

Needle And Thread, Caitlin Carvalho

Theses and Dissertations

Needle and Thread is an expanded cinema performance that involves the projection of 16mm film, archival footage, video, 35mm slide projection, soundscape and liquid light projection. It explores the fibers of connection, the thread that ties together my matriarchy, utilizing the language of cinema to piece together the memories.

Without A Scratch, Samantha Farinella

Theses and Dissertations

Without a Scratch is a short form personal essay film that explores the themes of fear, loss, love, hope and renewal as it relates to my brain tumor diagnosis spanning from the initial symptoms through my recovery.

‘Yellowface’: An Exploration Of Hollywood’S Film History With The Yellow Race, Kelly Ng

Honors College Theses

This study explores the history behind Hollywood’s relationship with the depiction of Asians and Asian Americans in film. Through tracking examples of Hollywood’s use of yellowface and whitewashing in movies from the 1920s into modern day, the study explores the historical and financial reasons behind controversial casting decisions, and how they affect the perceived image of Asians in America. In exploring the quantitative aspect, three films created within the last five years that were known to have participated in whitewashing were chosen and analyzed critically and financially. The data from these three movies were then used in comparison to Crazy …

Duik Bassel In Usage In After Effects And An Animated Short Film, Kennedy L. Galpin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis was made with the goal of creating a 2D short film in the end, with mainly using a program that is not normally used for character animation: Adobe After Effects. With the usage of an originally French plugin called DuIK Bassel (v16.0.9), I was able to create a model in Adobe Photoshop and then put it into After Effects. When the files were imported, the plugin would then assist in the rigging process, wherein I would be able to create the character’s rig and make the 2D model within the program. This document discusses the entire creation of …

Acting Hysterical: Analyzing The Construction, Diagnosis And Portrayal Of Historical And Modern Hysterical Women, Gillian Singer

Honors Theses

Hysterical women’s stories from the 19th and 20th centuries have all too often been ignored and furthermore, invalidated through the capitalization and spectacularization of hysterical women’s experiences. “Acting Hysterical: Analyzing the Construction, Diagnosis and Portrayal of Historical and Modern ‘Hysterical’ Women” aims to acknowledge hysterical women’s narratives by studying the visual documentation of hysterical women. Visual documentation of hysteria began with the photographing of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s “hysterical” female patients and extends to modern cinematic representations from the last two decades of historical and modern hysterical women.

Medical Muses, a book based in years of research by Asti Hustvedt served …

İbne, Gey, Lubunya: A Queer Critique Of Lgbti+ Discourses In The New Cinema Of Turkey, Azmi Mert Erdem

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In my thesis, I examine the intersections between liberalism, neoliberal globalism, and LGBTI+ visibility and identity politics, through films that present “openly” non-normative sexualities through cis/transgender male, female, or non-binary characters in the new cinema of Turkey. First, I survey existing scholarship on how liberal capitalism impacts the formation of LGBTI+ subjectivities and identity politics. Furthermore, I trace how non-normative sexualities, practices, and discourses evolved along with socioeconomic and political shifts in the Turkish Republic following the Ottoman Empire. Accordingly, I review Turkey’s adoption of neoliberal ideologies in the 1980s and how these ideologies engage with its local, heterogenous gender …

Production Design In The Film And Television Space: An Analysis, Kaitlyn N. Ryan, Charles Howard

Honors Thesis

Due to the differences between film and television production, the methodologies for doing production design in film and television are necessarily different, as both can fall victim to a number of disparate constraints and limitations that affect the art department. However, a large part of the difference also comes down to the individual designer, as well as the intentions of the film or TV show. To further explain this conclusion, I will give a brief overview of the history and general methodology of production design as a whole. I will then dive into my research on the subject, which includes …

Cinematographic Aspects Of The Francophone Film: The Scale Of Realism To Formalism, Angelo Lozada, David Sickles

Student Symposium

Films can be placed on a formalist-realist scale based upon the style taken upon by filmmakers, whether a film leans toward aesthetic forms over objective subject matter, leans towards replicating objective reality, or is a mixture of both. As film evolved and took shape within the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema, experimental forms of film were produced from the Francophone Film Industry, in both in cinematic aspects of camera techniques and editing. This presentation will discuss two films in particular: La Règle du Jeu by Jean Renoir, and La Bataille d’Alger by Gillo Pontecorvo. Renoir, son of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, …

Owu's First Asian Horror Film Festival, Kaitie Welch

Student Symposium

Under an apprenticeship with Dr. Sokolsky, I planned and hosted Ohio Wesleyan University's first "Asian Horror Film Festival." The project began after the realization that among OWU's various film festivals, which celebrate diversity and differing cultures, there were no East Asian or Asian film festivals to speak of. Together, Dr. Sokolsky and I prepared a course of action and settled on the horror genre. I spent my winter break watching many Asian horror films via Kanopy and narrowed down films from four different Asian countries and territories through a rubric of criteria that I created. The films I selected were …

Hispanic Stereotypes In Contemporary Film, Emily M. Pressler

Honors College Theses

Stereotypes are present even in the most popular films. Groups of people are often misrepresented in a way that is entertaining, but not necessarily truthful, causing viewers to have a narrow, often incorrect, view of a particular culture or people. This research serves as an analysis of selected contemporary American films that feature a Hispanic character or cultural element. My aim is twofold: first, to shed light on the stereotypes surrounding Hispanics and the excessive appearance of these stereotypical representations in popular U.S. films, and second, to promote open-mindedness by educating others on the cultural diversity of Spanish speakers, especially …

La Batalla Del Cine Chileno: Chilean Cinema’S History Of Resisting Hollywood, Alexander V. Berdy

Cinesthesia

The United States has been a global superpower for over a century now and that first place title also extends to Hollywood. Since WWI the Hollywood system has controlled the global film market by exporting their films all over the world. These American films took profits from many national cinemas but they have also influenced filmmakers worldwide to do some spectacular things; especially in countries like Chile. The story of Chile’s film industry shares a lot of similarities with European filmmaking. There seems to be a common theme of countries failing to beat American import films, then resisting the commercial …

“‘Hel-Heime!’: The Daring Love Between Men In Dome Karukoski’S Tolkien”, Christopher Vaccaro

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article briefly summarizes the homo-amorous connections between members of the T.C.B.S. in the Karukoski's film, Tolkien.

Sustainable Messaging In Film: A Survey Of A College Community, Chelsea Faught

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The concept of sustainability encompasses environmental, social, and economic issues. A sustainable approach encourages a balanced earth in both well-being and resource conservation for the sake of future generations. Unfortunately, awareness of and participation in various dimension of sustainability are currently inadequate given the current projections of the negative impact of climate change to humanity. Therefore, this project was designed to research if there was a relationship between viewing sustainably themed films and becoming more sustainably-conscious as a way to explore a potential avenue for mental and behavioral change. Furthermore, this project examines audience perception of sustainable messaging and content …