Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Internalizing Data Collection: Personal Analytics As An Investigation Of The Self, Neal R. Swisher

Theses and Dissertations

Personal analytics, aka self-tracking, is the practice of using a digital device to track aspects of behavior, such as exercise habits, heart rate, sleep patterns, location, diet, and a host of other data points. This dissertation is an exploration of “self” in self-tracking, informed by theories of subjectivity, autonomy, power and knowledge. As a technological intervention, self-tracking devices change how we experience our own body and behavior. They also serve as methods to digitize human behavior. This data is combined with other data and processed using computational methods. Self-tracking devices are both personal and bureaucratic. They are devices used for …

Prey Begins With Play, Seren C. Moran

Theses and Dissertations

My work examines the lasting psychological and emotional torment of trauma focusing on sexual violence against women. My thesis consists of five short animated films recounting non-fiction experiences of sexual assault. To contextualize my work within cultural and historical representations of sexual violence, this text reflects my research on the mishandling of rape in Western art history as well as contemporary politics and cinema. In both my work and research, I address the complicated, and often contradictory, internal reality of experiencing and remembering trauma and how this relates to artistic strategies such as collage and maximalism. My personal struggles recovering …

Simultaneous Intersectionality In The Comics Of Catel And Sabrina Jones: Understanding Women’S Life Stories, Jeorg Ellen Hornsby

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

The project examines how the theories of simultaneity and intersectionality are useful in analyzing the lived experiences of the authors and their subjects. Specifically, this dissertation analyzes how French comic artist Catel and American comics artist Sabrina Jones use the medium of comics to recount their autobiographical stories within and alongside their biographical stories of Benoîte Groult and Margaret Sanger, respectively.

‘Not Shap’D For Sportive Tricks:’ Representations Of Disability In Film And Digital Broadcast Cinema Adaptations Of Early Modern Drama, Grace Mccarthy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In films that feature disability, we see the recursive and discussion-limiting impulse to say “this representation is negative. Therefore, the representation should not be seen,” based on critical theories and methodologies outside the purview of film studies. Unfortunately, the overlay of an English, narratological, sociological, or medical methodology and terminology onto a film representation of disability is ultimately recursive and self-limiting; critical and advocate calls for accuracy to the lived experience of people with disabilities in on-screen representations decline to engage with the visual construction of cinematic representations of disability and the often fascinating cinematographic and thematic patterns that emerge …

Victims, Heroes, And Villains: Imaginary Beings In Contemporary Television Serials, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Communications: Faculty Publications

This chapter traces melodrama’s historical triumvirate of characters – victims, heroes, and villains – to examine how they are applied in contemporary television serial dramas. Looking in particular at the examples of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, the author argues that the characterological trio now often exists within singular protagonists who follow a narrative trajectory from victim through hero to arrive, ultimately, at villainy. Collapsing the characterological triad into single protagonists marks a late modern version of melodrama in which the possibilities for heroism are circumscribed, leaving characters able to opt only for victimization or villainy.

Ensemble Storytelling: Dramatic Television Seriality, The Melodramatic Mode, And Emotions, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Communications: Faculty Publications

This chapter considers seriality in contemporary television dramas in light of arguments that most popular culture falls within melodrama as modality (to include legal shows, police and detective programs, westerns, and medical series), instead of narrow genres, such as soap operas. The recent success of fully serialized dramas is a noteworthy development, producing highly popular and highly regarded programming. The traditions of melodrama, including its deep commitment to the uses of emotionality, address story worlds and audiences in terms of social relations, in contrast to psychological realism’s more individualized and inward turning tendencies. “Ensemble Storytelling” explores three specific strategies available …

@Karlnarcs: A Comedic Critique On The Digital Age, Evelyn Davis

Scripps Senior Theses

An outline of the pre-production, production, and post-production of a five-minute comedic short on the digital age and its influence on Generation Z using Marxist theory.

Traumatized Characters In Traumatized Environments: A Look At Repression And Horror, Rebecca L. Goldman

Scripps Senior Theses

Using Sigmund Freud’s theory of ‘return of the repressed’ as a theoretical basis, this paper takes a case study approach using three critically acclaimed horror films. These films include Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1974), Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), and Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019). With use of each film, the interaction between the repressed trauma of the protagonists’ and the film environment is explored, utilizing the notion that repressed trauma will always manifest itself as a symptom of the unconscious mind. Supporting theories include Slavoj Zizek’s notion that dreams must be read in terms of their form, stemming from …

Latin American Cinema, Mirna Vohnsen

Articles

Although studies of Argentine, Mexican and Cuban cinema continue to dominate the Latin American film scholarship, in the past two years, there has been increasing interest in examining the minor cinemas of the region. The expanding local film industries, the new technical trends and the increase in cinematic productions across all Latin America have captured the attention of academics and critics who have devoted their research to explore the lesser-known films of, for example, Uruguay, Colombia and Central America

“The Very Essence Of French Cinema”(?): Jacques Feyder’S Return To France, 1944–1948, Barry Nevin

Articles

No abstract provided.

Framing “L’Âme Des Personnages”: Performance And Affect In Jacques Feyder’S Pension Mimosas (1935), Barry Nevin

Articles

Although Jacques Feyder's authorial control over his productions and his direction of actors constituted two of the most widely appreciated aspects of his approach to filmmaking during his own lifetime, the impact of each on his mise en scene has received little critical attention. This article aims to remedy this oversight by linking both aspects in three stages: first, drawing on contemporary periodicals, recollections of Feyder's performers and his own writings, it illustrates Feyder's preoccupation with the creation of in-depth psychological portraits through his actors; second, focusing on Pension Mimosas (1935), it demonstrates that Feyder's technical style, although aligned closely …

(Re)Visions Of The Outre-Mer: Looking At The Male Gaze In Jacques Feyder’S Le Grand Jeu (1934), Barry Nevin

Articles

Cinéma colonial is regarded by certain scholars as a highly conventionalised and commercialised film practice that grants spectators a sense of control over the potentially threatening colonial Other, and Belgian director Jacques Feyder has been subject to particularly harsh criticism in this regard. This article argues that Feyder’s Le Grand Jeu (1934), which depicts a young legionnaire’s relationship with a cabaret singer who bears an uncanny resemblance to a previous lover who jilted him in Paris, challenges dominant tendencies in portrayals of gender and colonialism in French cinema of the 1930s. Drawing on the relationship between Laura Mulvey’s theorisation of …

The Making Of Broken: A Manifesto For A Democratised Cinema, Damian Fasolo

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

(Orson Welles cited in Hurbis-Cherrier, 2011, p. 16)

While much has been written on low budget independent film movements, there is little research on the correlations that exist between them, and in particular, the filmmaking approaches and techniques which significantly affect their final form. The key argument of this project is that, central to the critical success of any low budget film, is a filmmaker’s ability to transform the limitations imposed on them, and the constraints that they choose, into creative gain. Though it would appear to operate contrary to ordinary …

[Introduction To] Wim Wenders: Making Films That Matter, Olivier Delers, Martin Sulzer-Reichel

Bookshelf

"Wim Wenders: Making Films That Matter is the first book in 15 years to take a comprehensive look at Wim Wenders's extensive filmography. In addition to offering new insights into his cult masterpieces, the 10 essays in this volume highlight the thematic and aesthetic continuities between his early films and his latest productions. Wenders's films have much to contribute to current conversations on intermediality, whether it be through his adaptations of important literary works or his filmic reinventions of famous paintings by Edward Hopper or Andrew Wyeth. Wenders has also positioned himself as a decidedly transnational and translingual filmmaker …

Minority Representations In Crime Drama: An Examination Of Roles, Identity, And Power, Megan E. Chatelain

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The storytelling ability of television can be observed in any genre. Crime drama offers a unique perspective because victims and offenders change every episode increasing stereotypes with each new character. In other words, the more victims and criminals observed by the audience, the more likely the show creates the perception of a mean world. Based on previous literature, three questions emerged which this study focused on by asking the extent of Criminal Minds’ ability to portray crime accurately compared to the Federal Bureau of Investigations Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s (BAU-4) report on serial murderers and …

American God Story: Creating Shared Cultural Context With Popular Television, Timothy Joseph Rosenberger

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Believers increasingly encounter a stark divide between their cultural contexts and those of the people they seek to evangelize. This divide is particularly pronounced in popular culture where the television, movies, music, and books that appeal to Christians often are radically different than those that appeal to mainstream Americans. Without a shared cultural language, and a shared network of cultural touch points, it can be challenging to form meaningful connection between, and amongst, church members and unchurched community members. This study pioneers an intervention in which church members, and unchurched community members, come together to view popular television episodes and …

Pathos, Winter 2020, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Sadie Jordan

Shah Rukh Khan: Journey From Charisma To Celebrity, Priya Kapoor

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Chapter 3. This essay studies the particular brand of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) as he achieves superstardom in the Hindi film industry and as a thought leader, earn ing him the moniker Badshah (king). By transcending ossifying gender roles and ethnic-religious divisions might SRK be the quintessential Indian man who stands for the nation (Cayla in Advertising Soc Rev 9(2), 2008)? Or is he a modern metro sexual whose identity is hybrid? This accounts for the dialectical tension that arises from the ‘celebrity’ of SRK as global businesses boldly recruit cinephile audiences as consumer-patriots of neoliberal India transforming dated identities …

Becoming The Lion's Historian, Khadija-Awa Diop

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This professional project examines the ways in which French colonial documentaries were used in conjunction with governmental legislation to enforce dominant narratives and repress marginalized perspectives about the nature of colonialism and the roles of the French and West Africans in its execution. Through the limitations and powers of documentary filmmaking, this project explores the ways in which counter narratives can allow media professionals today to remedy the one sided dominant narratives about marginalized communities that have existed for decades. The culmination of this project is in the creation of a documentary treatment and sizzle reel that will be the …

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.