Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Ai Film Aesthetics: A Construction Of A New Media Identity For Ai Films, Priya Parikh

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

Recognized as the fourth industrial revolution, Artificial Intelligence is poised to take the film industry by storm. While the current applications of it help streamline production practices, its escalating employment in the generation of film scripts and visuals complicates notions and functions of authorship and new media aesthetics. This thesis examines the unique junction of Cinema and Artificial Intelligence, where experimentation is not only celebrated, but also necessary in order to re-evaluate the conditions of new media. By analyzing the ways in which three films co-written by Oscar Sharp, Ross Goodwin and an AI negotiate with Foucault’s theory of the …

A Case For The Common Good: How Training In Faith-Based Media Literacy Helped Teachers Address Social Justice Issues In The Classroom, Maria Rosalia Tenorio De Azevedo

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This case study reveals how a faith-based initiative offering structured teacher training in media literacy. The program is centered in Catholic Social Teaching, encouraging the use of critical media literacy in the classroom to aid the learning of social justice issues. The critical literacy of Paulo Freire serves as theoretical framework to help answer the research question: How has a teacher training program in faith-based media literacy influenced teachers’ practice when addressing social justice issues in the classroom? This case study relates the accounts of a middle school teacher, a high school teacher, and a college professor, graduates of the …

Saura Y Herzog: Dos Visiones Sobre La Búsqueda De El Dorado, Ramon Muniz Sarmiento

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

Este ensayo realiza una comparación entre dos de las películas de los cineastas Werner Herzog y Carlos Saura. Ambas cintas se inspiran en un mismo suceso histórico: la expedición de Pedro de Ursúa en búsqueda de la mítica ciudad de El Dorado. Un aspecto central en ambas producciones es el personaje de Lope de Aguirre, quien es tratado de forma diferente bajo la mirada de los directores. La comparación se lleva a cabo con el fin de profundizar en el mensaje ideoestético e identitario de sendas producciones.

Stardom, Spectacle, Show, And Salability: United Artists And The Founding Of The Hollywood Blockbuster Model, Jessica Johnson

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

United Artists was an independent film distribution company that Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, and Mary Pickford jointly formed in 1919 to maintain creative autonomy over their work. Without the benefit of block booking practices through studio-owned theater houses, each founding artist established specific economic and aesthetic practices within their respective oeuvres in order to maintain company solvency. The resulting films produced during the company’s formative years (1919-1931) saw increased emphasis and innovation in regard to stardom, spectacle, show, and salability, features which ultimately innovated the model for the contemporary Hollywood blockbuster. Attributing the formation of the blockbuster to …

Iranian Cinema In Transition: Relative Truth And Morality In Asghar Farhadi’S Films, Mazyar Mahdavifar

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

In addition to box office success, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s films have achieved national and international critical acclaims. However, it is not only this rare achievement of critical and commercial success that sets Farhadi apart from other Iranian filmmakers, but also, his new approach to the issues of truth and morality which have been age-long themes in the history of Iranian art, literature, and cinema. Compared to his predecessors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Jafar Panahi, Farhadi’s viewpoint on these themes is distinctly secular. This thesis focuses on the significance of the change Farhadi’s approach has brought on …

Batman’S Animated Brain(S): Paper Presented To The Batman In Popular Culture Conference, Lisa Kort-Butler

Department of Sociology: Presentations

I was in the beginning stages of a project on the social story of the brain (and a neuroscience more broadly), when a Google image search brought me a purchasable phrenology of Batman, then a Batman-themed Heart and Brain cartoon of the Brain choosing the cape-and-cowl.1 A quick search of “Batman brain” yielded something interesting: various pieces on the psychology of Batman (e.g., Langley 2012), Zehr’s (2008) work on Bruce Wayne’s training plans and injuries, the science fictions of Batman comics in the post-World War II era (Barr 2008; e.g., Detective Comics, Vol. 1, No. 210, 1954), going back to …

Baltimore Mobility: The Wire, Local Documentary, And The Politics Of Distance, Richard M. Farrell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extending scholarship on Baltimore’s media landscape, I observe how two moving-image texts, HBO’s The Wire (David Simon, 2002-2008) and 12 O’clock Boys (Lotfy Nathan, 2013), figure space and, by extension, mobility in the city. Specifically, I articulate how both figures of mobility relate with each other and to the mobility inequality that has historically and disproportionately plagued communities along the city’s east-west axis. Overall, in both texts, I read a shared anxiety toward sources of distant mediation. Through its sober audio-visual style and serial organization, I find The Wire fatalistically figures Baltimore mobility as conditioned by omnidirectional flows of power. …

Seeing Like The Buddha: Enlightenment Through Film, Skyler Osburn

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Francisca Cho's Seeing Like the Buddha: Enlightenment through Film.

Subverting The Patriarchy And Its Ties To Feminism: Du Maurier And Her Adaptations, Samantha Koller

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

This paper describes the common (mis)reading of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca as upholding Victorian patriarchal values and attempts to demonstrate that the novel is indeed feminist and acts as a critique and subversion of those patriarchal standards; it then examines the film and stage adaptations of Rebecca, demonstrating via comparison to the original medium that feminism has begun to affect other cultural interpretations and depictions of the narrator, Mrs. Danvers, and Rebecca herself.

Bat Meets Girl: Adapting The Dark Knight’S Love Life To The Big Screen, Brandon Bosch

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

It is no secret that Hollywood loves a good romance. What is perhaps sometimes overlooked however is how important romance and female characters are to male-dominated action films. Esma Kartal argues women and romance are deliberately placed into action films to create “romantic relief” and attract female viewers for greater crossover appeal.¹ In addition to romance, Yvonne Tasker observes how women in action films serve as a witness for “the hero’s suffering” and humanity in action films.² Finally, a classic use of women and romance in action films is that of the damsel-indistress, which continues to this day …

“‘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.

Review Of Environmental Humanities And Theologies: Ecoculture, Literature And The Bible, By Rod Giblett, Sam Mickey

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This is a review of Rod Giblett's Environmental Humanities and Theologies: Ecoculture, Literature and the Bible, published by Routledge in 2018. The review notes Giblett's contributions to the field in tracing wetlands iconography through theological and literary discourses in landmark works in the Anglo-American tradition, Judeo-Christian doctrine, and Australian Aboriginal myth.

Zemlja And Pioneer Day, Natalie D-Napoleon

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Poems: Zemlja and Pioneer Day by West Australia born author Natalie D-Napoleon.

Snorkel Virgin, Emma J. Young

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Snorkel Virgin

Plunging Down Under, Ian Smith

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Plunging Down Under

The Junk That 8 K-Town (View-Master Haiku Series 1, 2 & 3), Brenton M. Rossow

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

THE JUNK THAT 8 K-TOWN (View-Master Haiku Series 1, 2 & 3)

My first session taking photos of bush junk near the K-Town train station led to an addiction. I started to see things within images that aroused deeper contemplation. The miniature Eiffel Tower within one landscape seemed to expertly align with a gasping car belly that paid homage to Peter Dam’s The Dogs That 7 Sparrows.

Absent past owners became unconscious artists. Objects in their adopted environments became creatures with lives beyond previous incarnations. I saw things as representations, serendipitous alignments, but more importantly, a culture addicted to …

Solastalgia, Nostalgia, Exhilarating, Immersive: Landscapes: Heritage Ii, David F. Gray

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Landscape: Heritage II presents the scholarly and creative contributions to Landscapes, Volume 9, Issue 1.

Issue Introduction By Icll Director Glen Phillips, Glen Phillips

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

General Introduction by ICLL Director Glen Phillips

Complete Issue 1, Volume 9

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

The complete issue 1 of volume 9, Landscapes Journal.

Groundhog Day At 25: Conflict And Inspiration At The Tipping Point Of Seasonal Genres, Wayne Glausser

Journal of Religion & Film

Groundhog Day has been recognized by leaders of many religions as an inspirational film. It tracks all the responses a person might have to the suspicion that the world has no God, design, or inherent purpose: first, transgressive self-indulgence; next, acedic depression; and finally, redemptive benevolence. During the filming, however, a conflict in vision between Harold Ramis and Bill Murray tore apart their friendship. Ramis wanted a romantic comedy founded on evolution from arrogance to selfless benevolence; Murray preferred a darker satire. Although the finished film reflects Ramis's vision of comedy--the genre of spring--Murray's satirical gestures leave traces of winter …