Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Machinima And Copyright Law, Matthew Brett Freedman

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Digital Photography And The Internet, Rethinking Privacy Law, Jim Barr Coleman

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Screen Jesus: Portrayals Of Christ In Television And Film, Steven Vredenburgh

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Peter Malone, Screen Jesus: Portrayals of Christ in Television and Film (Boulder, CO: Roman & Littlefield, 2012).

Verdens Undergang (1916) And The Birth Of Apocalyptic Film: Antecedents And Causative Forces, Wynn Gerald Hamonic

Journal of Religion & Film

This essay describes the antecedents and causative forces giving rise to the birth of apocalyptic cinema in the early 20th Century and the first apocalyptic feature, Verdens Undergang (1916). Apocalyptic cinema's roots can be traced back to apocalyptic literary tradition beginning 200 BCE, New Testament apocalyptic writings, the rise of premillenialism in the mid-19th Century, 19th century apocalyptic fiction, a growing distrust in human self-determination, escalating wars and tragedies from 1880 to 1912 reaching a larger audience through a burgeoning press, horrors and disillusionment caused by the First World War, a growing belief in a dystopian future, and changes in …

“It’S Not A Fucking Book, It’S A Weapon!”: Authority, Power, And Mediation In The Book Of Eli, Seth M. Walker

Journal of Religion & Film

The mediation of religious narratives through sacred texts is intimately bound to the power relations involved in their transmission and maintenance. Those who possess such mediated messages and control their access and interpretation have historically held privileged positions of authority, especially when those positions are not easily contested. The 2010 film The Book of Eli uniquely engages these elements by placing the alleged last copy of the King James Version of the Christian Bible at the forefront of a clash between different individuals in a post-nuclear wasteland. This paper, drawing on Max Weber’s notion of “charisma,” and scholars addressing religion, …

Zen Noir Vis-À-Vis Myers-Briggs Personality Typology: Semiotic Multivalency As Grounds For Dialog, Edward J. Godfrey

Journal of Religion & Film

Marc Rosenbush’s film, Zen Noir (2004) is at first glance a Buddhist film wherein a troubled detective finds himself at a Zen temple with a murder to solve. But upon further investigation, it becomes evident that the film can also be understood in terms of Myers-Briggs personality typology, which is an extension of the personology and depth psychology of C.G. Jung. This suggests a multivalency which allows the imagery of the film to be interpreted in two different ways; as both suggesting Zen enlightenment and Jungian individuation. To assist with this comparison, this paper introduces the Ten Ox-Herding Paintings of …

The Crimes Of Love. The (Un)Censored Version Of The Flood Story In Noah (2014), Wojciech Kosior

Journal of Religion & Film

A swift survey of Noah reviews clearly shows that the audience’s sensitivity was challenged in several regards; Noah was portrayed as a “religious extremist” and “borderline psychopath”, the Creator proved to be a “distant—unaware or uncaring—overseer”, while Aronofsky himself was said to have a “sinister purpose of leading people to believe that Christianity and Judaism are something they are not.” On closer examination, however, the above summarized pleas are not entirely relevant for two basic reasons. First, the movie consists of ideas that have been in use since antiquity, rearranged and composed into a new-old story and all the arguments …

Bearing Witness: The Sight Of A Sacrifice In Cristian Mungiu's Beyond The Hills, Megan Girdwood

Journal of Religion & Film

Drawing on the theories of sacrifice advanced by Sigmund Freud (1913) and René Girard (1972; 1982), this article interprets the exorcism depicted by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu in Beyond the Hills (2012) as a sacrifice. Explicating Girard’s defence of Freud, I use his framing of sacrifice as a function of religion to reassess scholarship addressing the parallels between liturgical and cinematic forms of representation. If, as some scholars propose, the practices of the cinema-goer and the worshipper mirror each other, then the sacrificial witness portrayed by Mungiu constitutes a third pillar in this discourse. I argue that Mungiu dramatizes the …

Risen, Katie Turner

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Risen (2016), directed by Kevin Reynolds.

Songs My Brother Taught Me, Brady Desanti

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Songs My Brother Taught Me (2016), directed by Chloe Zhao.

Almost Holy, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Almost Holy (2015), directed by Steve Hoover.

The Patriarch (Mahana), Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Patriarch (2016), directed by Lee Tamahori.

Arrival, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Arrival (2015), directed by Denis Villeneuve .

Between Documentary And Fiction: The Films Of Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Marc Yamada

Journal of Religion & Film

This article investigates the representation of Buddhist values through the interplay between drama and documentary in two of Kore-eda’s films—After Life (Wandafuru Raifu, 1998) and I Wish (Kiseki, 2011). It will argue that the spiritual aspirations of these two films is a product of their nondualistic treatment of a documentary and dramatic style of filmmaking.

Six Ways Of Looking At Anomalisa, David L. Smith

Journal of Religion & Film

Anomalisa is a parable about the nature of human fulfilment that explores the tension between other-worldly desire (the conviction that real life must be “elsewhere”) and the kind of fulfilment that comes from a more transparent relationship to things as they are. The film explores this religious theme not only through its story, but through the way the story comments on its own embodiment as a puppet show—a work of stop-motion animation. In this paper, I try to tease out the film’s complex reflections on the real and the artificial (in particular, on the ways that a desire for “the …

Not Alone: "Ironic Faith," The Comic Worldview, And Process Theology In Monty Python's Life Of Brian, Kathleen J. Cassity

Journal of Religion & Film

Steven Benko points out that far from being anti-religious, Monty Python’s Life of Brian posits a type of belief he calls “ironic faith,” though he believes that the version evoked by this film falls short of calling for social transformation. If, however, we consider the resonance between process theology's "becoming-over-being" and the open-ended “humorous outlook” as articulated by philosopher of comedy John Morreall, we can interpret Life of Brian as suggesting the possibility of social transformation through its concluding evocation of a shared humanity that surmounts isolation, hierarchy, and socially constructed barriers by promoting what sociologist Robert Putnam calls "bridging …

Art And Rebellion In Medea And Pleasantville, Annika Phillips

CIE Essay Writing Contest

No abstract provided.

Framing The Future: Imagining The City Through The Lens Of Film, Sofia Zavala Ferreira

Architecture Thesis Prep

With a great interest in the relationship between film and architecture, this project establishes its subject matter on the possibilities presented in science fiction cinema and speculative design. By extracting attributes from these that would influence design and architectural concerns, a bridge between the disconnected imagined and real, current and future, can be created through the creation of a speculative scenario and a narrative. It seeks to utilize cinematic design and storytelling conventions to successfully convey the desired atmosphere, architectural realities, and life conditions of a fictional city. By utilizing advanced digital techniques often used in cinema itself, including but …

Providence College Department Of Theatre, Dance & Film 2016-2017 Season Poster, Department Of Theatre, Dance & Film

Promotional Materials

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film

2016-2017 Season

Providence College Department Of Theatre, Dance & Film 2016-2017 Season Program, Department Of Theatre, Dance & Film

Promotional Materials

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film

2016-2017 Season