Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Picturing Argentina: Myths, Movies, And The Peronist Vision, Currie K. Thompson

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

No individual has had greater impact on Argentine history than Juan Domingo Perón. The years 1943–1945, when he was an influential member in his nation’s governing junta, and 1946–1955, when he was its president, were tumultuous ones that transformed Argentina. Perón was a highly controversial figure, and his memory continues to provoke intense and often acrimonious debate. Moreover, the nature of his legacy resists neat classification. Many of his achievements were positive. He oversaw the passage of progressive social legislation, including women’s suffrage and prison reform, and he implemented programs that aided the nation’s poor and working classes. On the …

Exploring Time And Space In Frame By Frame Animation, Daniel L. Ketchum

Cinesthesia

No abstract provided.

The Cinematic Power Of Night And Fog, James M. Christie

Cinesthesia

A contemplative camera glides fluidly through a vacant field, one that appears like any other. As it glides, somber images of barbed wire, dilapidated barracks, and rusted railroad tracks beckon the audience to witness the ruins of the Aushwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. “Going slowly along the tracks, seeking what?” asks narrator Michel Bouquet. These questions are more rhetorical than anything, allowing the audience to question their own moral and social obligations to the unfathomable. For the sake of humanity, it is crucial to remember the events of the Holocaust and deny them from happening again. Released only ten years after the …

In Particularity We Trust:Richard Dutcher's Mormon Quartet And A Latter-Day Saint Spiritual Film Style, Mark Sheffield Brown

Wayne State University Dissertations

Between 2000 and 2008, writer/director Richard Dutcher made four films with narratives focused primarily on members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The films are explicitly Mormon-related in their content, but I argue they are also inherently Mormon in their style. Critic and filmmaker Paul Schrader argues there is a particular style of filmmaking, a dialect of the cinematic language if you will, that enables viewers to experience an encounter with a Transcendent Divinity. The contention of this dissertation is that Schrader's views were simultaneously too general and too narrow. I draw on Clive Marsh's call for …

A Brief Historical Account Of Trends In Contemporary Peruvian Cinema, Sebastián Pimentel

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This essay is an overview of the thematic and stylistic tendencies in Peruvian cinema starting with the work of Armando Robles Godoy. It also focuses on the effect of the Law 19327 of 1973 , which was responsible for the formation of a group of influential filmmakers led by Francisco Lombardi. At the beginning of the 21st century, female directors like Claudia Llosa and Rosario Garcia Montero achieved recognition for their cinematic visions of a traumatic Peruvian past. The Vega brothers and Gianfranco Quatrinni also contribute with their styles to an existential sntdy of the Peruvian identity. From the provinces …

Organic Interfaces; Or, How Human Beings Augment Their Digital Devices, John Hunter

Faculty Journal Articles

It is a central premise of the advertising campaigns for nearly all digital communication devices that buying them augments the user: they give us a larger, better memory; make us more “creative” and “productive”; and/or empower us to access whatever information we desire from wherever we happen to be. This study is about how recent popular cinema represents the failure of these technological devices to inspire the enchantment that they once did and opens the question of what is causing this failure.

Using examples from the James Bond films, the essay analyzes the ways in which human users are frequently …

‘There’S A Lot More To Ogres Than People Think’: Shrek As Ethical Fairy Tale, Eugene O'Brien

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

No abstract provided.

On The Origins Of The Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this article, the Author explains the origins of The Robert Beck Memorial Cinema (RBMC), a microcinema located in New York City. The idea was to show movies that no one else could or would.

Satanic But Not Satan: Signs Of The Devilish In Contemporary Cinema, Adam L. Porter

Journal of Religion & Film

Scholars have paid much attention to identifying and analyzing Jesus and Christ-type characters in film. The parallel cases for Satan and satanic characters have been less studied. Some attention has been paid to examining Satan/Lucifer/the Devil as a character (akin to movies about Jesus), but I could find no systematic typology of satanic traits, that would parallel the well-developed Christ-typologies. This article examines six films to begin the process of describing what makes a character "satanic" without being Satan.

Literature And The Study Of Intermediality: A Book Review Article On New Work By Grishakova And Ryan And Carvalho Homem, Ioan-Flaviu Patrunjel, Asunción López-Varela

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Cinematic Jewish Women In Rural Argentina And The Representation Of Argentinidad, Mirna Vohnsen

Articles

From the outset, Argentine cinema has played a significant role in the question of argentinidad. The historical account of how Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe settled in the Argentine interior and became Argentines rooted in the land has not escaped Argentine film. Although period films portray Jewish female characters as nation builders alongside their male counterparts, the study of Jewish women in Argentine cinema has received little scholarly attention. In an attempt to remedy that, this article shows that the examination of the Jewish female onscreen can shed light on the controversial question of argentinidad. It examines the representation of …

Pembroke Circle: A Portrayal Of Social Themes Using Micro-Budget Cinema, Max Rousseau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pembroke Circle is a feature-length, micro-budget, digital motion picture, written, produced and directed by Max Rousseau as a part of the University of Central Florida’s Masters in Fine Arts program in Digital Entrepreneurial Cinema. The filmmaker engaged some very difficult material in the micro-budget paradigm and grew personally and professionally in the process. This thesis documents the writing process, pre-production, fund-raising, production and post-production; all leading to the completion of a festival-ready feature film. It is the hope that this thesis will create an understanding of what it takes to make a micro-budget film and offer some help to future …

Notes On The Politics Of The Auteur: Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, And The Spectator, Michael Perreault

Honors Theses

What is an author, and what does it matter? Questions about authority in the cinema have been the subject of debate since the late 1940s, when Alexandre Astruc posited the notion of the camera-stylo in France. A slightly reductive understanding of the term “auteur”—a term that Cahiers du Cinéma would later adopt—states that, with the shadow of the World War II era of censorship still looming in the 1950s, the many individual voices of the cinema needed to be both heard and promoted. Namely, the director should be regarded as (and should consider his or her primary objective to …

Less Lost: No Touchdown Dance, William Conner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Less Lost is a feature-length film by William Chase Conner, made as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Digital Media from the University of Central Florida.

Scott, Ian. American Politics In Hollywood Film (Book Review), James Castonguay

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Book review by James Castonguay.

Scott, Ian. American Politics in Hollywood Film. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780748640249, ISBN 9780748640232 (pbk.)

The Foundational Structures Behind Star Wars., Aaron Nusz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Star Wars franchise is one of the most successful film series of all time. The original three movies, along with the more recent three prequels, serve as the foundation to a vast empire of Star Wars television shows, action figures, comic books, and novels. Millions of people have already been exposed to these films, and millions more will be exposed to it in the future. With such a vast amount of people which continue to view these movies, it is easy to understand the impact Star Wars has had on our culture. But how did creator George Lucas sculpt …

Translation And Distortion Of Linguistic Identities In Sinophone Cinema: Diverging Images Of The ‘Other, Henry Leperlier

Books/Book Chapters

In today’s globalized market, Asian films are being increasingly exported; often,

multilingual movies deal with more complex societal issues and catch the interest of

a foreign audience interested in having an open door, one might say multiple doors,

into another society. The nearly complete lack of a system enabling such an audience

to be made aware of the complex multilingual and multilingual characters in such

movies ends up providing a distorted and simplified view of Chinese, Taiwanese,

Hong Kong and Singaporean societies as reflected in its cinemas.

This chapter examines all the resulting issues and cultural misunderstandings that can occur …

A Blue Flower: The Development Of A Personal Documentary, Nils Taranger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A Blue Flower is a feature-length documentary film by Nils Taranger, made as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. The film focuses on the director’s journey to find healing, both physically and emotionally. Following the guidelines of UCF’s program, Nils produced the film on a microbudget (under $50,000) level. The majority of filming took place in Florida with only a one or two person crew. This thesis is a record of the film’s progression from development to picture lock, in preparation for distribution

Accelerated Culture: Exploring Time And Space In Cinema, Television And New Media In The Digital Age, Thomas J. Connelly

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to understand the impact of speed on the interrelation and the overlapping of the production and consumption of cinematic and televisual texts. It explores the immediacy of digital media and new economic processes, and how they are informing structures of perception, as well as lending themselves to new and different ways of seeing the moving image in the digital age. These visual expressions are evident in the changing perception of the long take; the increasing use of video gaming aesthetics and database narratives; new and variant forms of narrative and visual styles in television; and the speed …

Neo-Raconteur: Allocating Southern-Gothic Symbolism Into Design Media., Mark Daniel Compton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I created the term Neo-Raconteur to convey my interest in medium theory to support the artistic custom of revealing cultural conventions for allocation into artistic genres. The term evolved from the French word "Raconteur," meaning: somebody who tells stories or anecdotes in an interesting or entertaining way. In the past a Raconteur's anecdotes were verbally volleyed, ever voluble, yet quip. Neo-Raconteurs may decide not to speak at all choosing their anecdotal expression to manifest itself through singular or multiple means, manners, or methods of design and technology as well as or involving more traditional techniques of extraction to convey the …

The Gray Lady's Guide To Avant-Garde Cinema, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Who is the most important avant-garde filmmaker? It depends who you ask. Different people value different things at different times. Fortunately, citation analysis can provide an objective answer. This article uses a citation study of The New York Times to measure the relative importance of avant-garde filmmakers. It concludes that, according to The New York Times, the most important avant-garde filmmaker is Andy Warhol.

Panting In The Dark: The Ambivalence Of Air In Cinema, Kevin L. Ferguson

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Cinema Of Control: On Diabetic Excess And Illness In Film, Kevin L. Ferguson

Publications and Research

While not rare, films that do represent diabetes must work around the disease’s banal invisibility,and images of diabetics in film are thus especially susceptible to metaphor and exaggeration.This essay is the first to outline a diabetic filmography, discussing medical and cinematic strategies for visualizing the disease as well as how the illness informs family plots and heroic characters in horror films. Doing so, it participates in a larger discussion of the manner in which film images of ill or disabled groups sustain notions of “normalcy” by both representing and denying otherness.

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents; `Propaganda'": A Rhetorical Study Of Alfred Hitchcock's World War Ii Propaganda Films, Jennifer Renee Brown

Masters Theses

Alfred Hitchcock is a well known filmmaker whose work has been often studied by English, communication, and film scholars. However, those examining Hitchcock seem to have pet favorites of films they deem worthy of study. This thesis examines the lesser-known propaganda films of Alfred Hitchcock made for the British Ministry of Information in 1944. Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache each tell a story of intrigue and adventure in French territory during the German occupation and Vichy government of World War II. However, after the MOI waited almost the entire war to have propaganda made by Alfred Hitchcock, the films were …

"Life Is Beautiful, Or Is It?" Asked Jakob The Liar, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

In 1999 the 71st Academy Awards ceremony awarded to the film The Last Days the prize for Best Documentary Feature. Underwritten by Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, this documentary depicts in a compelling, historically objective fashion what the Nazi regime called the "Endlösung" ["Final Solution"]: the effort to annihilate all of European Jewry. In the film, five Hungarian survivors are interviews with honesty and compassion. Their answers record history as it unwound. Clearly, the intent of the interviews is to assure that historical facts are not falsified, nor taken for granted. Documentaries of this kind can …

Red Tide: A Feature Length Motion Picture, Dino Gallina

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following document provides insight into the uncharted process of producing a micro-budget feature length film. This paper aims to document my growth as an artist in terms of storytelling and filmmaking as well as the development and production process. Red Tide: A Feature Length Motion Picture includes elements from each phase of the production process, from story and script development to marketing and distribution. This document reflects on the obstacles we faced and the solutions we implemented during the process of creating a feature length motion picture on an undersized budget.

Ecos Góticos En La Novela Y El Cine Del Cono Sur, Nadina Estefania Olmedo

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Latin American literary criticism has traditionally underestimated the significance of the Gothic aesthetic, in spite of the rich Gothic literary tradition of Latin America. Specifically in the Southern Cone - the focus of my research - there is a particular recurrence and consumption of this genre, not only in literature but also in cinema, which has not been deeply analyzed. I argue that a close examination of the Gothic and Fantastic elements in these novels and films unveils anxieties, repressions and manifestations of social decay that underlie common codes of social decency and the conventions of maintaining an oppressive social …

Is Disney Surfing The Third Wave? A Study Of The Pervasiveness Of The Third Wave Of Feminism In Disney's Female Protagonists, Emily S. Ellington

Senior Honors Theses

It is important to understand factors that have influenced Generation Y’s view of womanhood. One way to do this is to analyze third wave feminist messages portrayed by Disney, the media powerhouse. In order to determine if Disney reflects feminist values, the third wave themes portrayed in The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Pocahontas (1995), and Mulan (1999) are examined. It is concluded that Disney portrays the feminist values of independence and multiculturalism; however, the films are set within patriarchal societies and portray women to be domestic. Ultimately, Disney portrays four messages about womanhood: Women are equal …

Child Of The Long Take: Alfonso Cuaron's Film Aesthetics In The Shadow Of Globalization, James N. Udden

Interdisciplinary Studies Faculty Publications

Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film, Children of Men, not only suggests that the economic pressures on contemporary Hollywood directors differ little from those in the studio era, it also suggests that film style in the age of globalization is not as homogenized as many fear. The long take is the most prominent feature in Children of Men, including many which are digitally contrived. Lofty reasons by the filmmakers are given for these long lakes, but there are more pedestrian reasons behind this. Other examples past and present suggest that often the tong take serves the needs of both filmmakers and …

No Man An Island: The Cinema Of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, James N. Udden

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Hou Hsiao-hsien is arguably the most celebrated Chinese-language film director in the international film festival realm. However, this is not due to an inert cultural tradition so much as to numerous historical/contextual factors – most of all his being from Taiwan -- which together explain the accomplishments of Hou.