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Full-Text Articles in Visual Studies
Frederick Wiseman's Essene (1972): The Duality Of Mary And Martha, Nilita Vachani
Frederick Wiseman's Essene (1972): The Duality Of Mary And Martha, Nilita Vachani
Journal of Religion & Film
America’s legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman shot Essene 50 years ago at the height of the commune movement in the United States. Unlike his previous institutional films which showcase an insane asylum, a public high school, an inner city police force, a hospital, and a military training school, Essene's canvas is the far less turbulent terrain of a serene and austere Benedictine monastery devoted to the love and service of God and the divine spirit. This paper undertakes a close textual and hermeneutic analysis of Essene alongside an appraisal of Wiseman’s working methodology, his cinematic portrayals of character and dramaturgy, …
Apocalypse And Eschatology In John Ford's The Grapes Of Wrath (1940), Nancy Wright
Apocalypse And Eschatology In John Ford's The Grapes Of Wrath (1940), Nancy Wright
Journal of Religion & Film
John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) visualizes conventions of the apocalypse genre to represent not simply a particular historical setting, the Great Depression, but also a vision of history to be interpreted in terms of eschatology. Expressionistic photography transforms the characters’ experiences into enigmatic visions that invite and guide interpretation. A comparison of montage sequences in Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and Pare Lorentz’s The Plow That Broke The Plains (1936), a Farm Security Administration documentary, clarifies how Ford’s narrative film aligns spectators within and outside the mise-en-scène.