Film and Media Studies Commons^™

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

Pathos, Fall 2016, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Jessica Moore

Volume 11 No. 1

Analysis Of Media In Rwanda: Internship With The New Times, Rhiannon Snide

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This report examines the effects and expectations of media in Rwanda today, specifically in reference to the New Times daily newspaper. I spent one month interning with the New Times as a news writer, spending approximately 45 to 50 hours a week with the institution. Within this month, I was able to use both primary research and secondary research to analyze the role of media in Rwanda’s society today. Interviews with head editors of the New Times and conversations with paid journalists from the New Times provided me with much of the information specific to the news outlet, while desk …

Reframing The Archive: Vietnamese Refugee Narratives In The Post-9/11 Period, Mai-Linh Hong

Faculty Journal Articles

This article considers how recent narratives about Vietnamese refugees engage with the Vietnam War’s visual archive, particularly iconic photographs from the war and ensuing “boat people” crisis, and contribute to present-day discourses on American militarism and immigration. The article focuses on two texts, a National Public Radio special series about a US naval ship (2010) and Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again (2011), which recounts a Vietnamese child’s refugee passage. By refiguring famous photojournalistic images from the war, the radio series advances a familiar rescue-and-gratitude narrative in which the US military operates as a care apparatus, exemplifying a cultural …

Preservation First? Re-Viewing Film Digitization, Lauren Tilton

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This article addresses the politics of film digitization by arguing that we should reconsider archival and preservation "best practices" that require film restoration. Instead, it advocates for digitizing films "as is," which, in turn, captures the film's current materiality (i.e., fading, scratches, and other facets that reveal age, wear, and use). Using the work of Luis Vale, one of the youth filmmakers from New York City's Lower East Side's Young Filmmaker Foundation's Film Club, as a case study, the article points to the importance of archiving and saving these youth films as part of a growing movement to look beyond …

The Invisibles: Becoming And Being A Reader In A Fan-Dominated Community, Lucia Cedeira Serantes

Publications and Research

The study of comics consumption has regularly focused on the study of teens and young people. However, the association between the fan experience and comics has colonized the experience of reading comics, especially in mainstream culture, leaving almost no room for the possibility of other recognizable experiences: if you are committed to reading comics, inevitably you are, will become, or are expected to be, a fan. However, Gabilliet (2010), Pustz (1999), Parsons (1991), and Barker (1989) point at the presence and need for more research about what they labelled as “casual readers,” or the bulk of the comics readership.

This …

In Plain Sight: Changing Representations Of "Biracial" People In Film 1903-2015, Charles Lawrence Gray

Dissertations (1934 -)

Rooted in slavery, the United States in both law and custom has a long history of adhering to the one drop rule–the stipulation that any amount of African ancestry constitutes an individual as black. Given this history, decidedly mixed race people have been subjected to a number of degrading stereotypes. In examining the three broad themes of the tragic mulatto, racial passing, and racelessness in cinema, this dissertation asks to what extent film representations of mixed race characters have had the capacity to educate audiences beyond stereotypes. Although a number of film scholars and critics have analyzed mixed race characters …

Masculinidades En Crisis Y Prácticas De Resistencia Feminista En La Literatura Y El Cine Españoles De Autoría Femenina, Carmen Sanchis-Sinisterra

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the representation of masculinity in crisis in films and novels by contemporary female authors of Spain. The films are El último viaje de Robert Rylands by Gracia Querejeta, Te doy mis ojos by Iciar Bollaín and La vida sin mí by Isabel Coixet. The novels are Amado amo by Rosa Montero, Los aires difíciles by Almudena Grandes and La conquista del aire by Belén Gopegui. The question this dissertation asks is if by introducing male characters that lack power, control and success the works promote practices of feminist resistance. The answer is that they do but, as …

Screening Male Crisis: A Comparative Analysis Of The Alternative Coming-Of-Age Motion Picture, Matthew J. Tesoro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will identify how the principle male character in select film narratives transforms from childhood through his adolescence in multiple locations and historical eras. The primary film narratives include Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and Apur Sansar (1959), François Truffaut’s "Antoine Doinel" cycle: Les Quatre cents coups (1959), Antoine et Colette (1962), Baisers volés (1968), Domicile conjugal (1970), and L’Amour en fuite (1979), and Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014). These images of experience/maturation in motion are all intended to exemplify how the boy physically and psychologically changes over an extended period of time. The concept of …

“Straight” Acting: Changing Image Of Queer-Masculinity In Media Representation, Zheng Zhu

Publications and Research

In this essay, I critically examine media representation of Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas, with a specific focus on the construction of his masculinity as an outing gay celebrity. The existing critical scholarship has studied various forms of media representation of queer images. But they did not examine how unconventional queer representation interacts with the normative gender performance. This paper investigates mainstream media’s discursive construction of masculine gay male. The findings call our attention to the emergence of macho gay characterization, which supports the hegemonic domination of heterosexual normativity. The stigmatization of gay-ness as the deviated other is rationalized through …

Differentiating The Transnational From The National In A Multicultural Setting: Identity In Persepolis And Rush Hour, Laura A. Kasper

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay explores the differences between transnational identities and national identities in a multicultural setting by juxtaposing the films Persepolis and Rush Hour. Furthermore, it examines the characteristics of both transnational and national identities and how they are represented in film. In an increasingly globalized world, it is important to distinguish these two types of identity and consider how these individuals interact with today’s society; thus, this essay asks readers to think about the influence that the commingling of transnational and national identities has on the modern world.

Televisual Subjectivities In Pepe Rojo’S Speculative Fiction From Mexico: 1996-2003, Stephen C. Tobin

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

Pepe Rojo, a key author often tied to the Mexican cyberpunk movement of the 1990s, has been most effective in articulating a kind of visual dystopia in the country that focuses upon television as a key site for constructing dislocated subjectivities. His writing reacts to larger shifts occurring in the country’s field of vision that have been catalyzed by the neoliberal political-economic policy changes and have altered the way in which the mass media culture industry in Mexico functioned in the 1990s. This brought a multitude of changes in how the media industry functioned both internally and externally, ultimately becoming …