Film and Media Studies Commons^™

The Hobbit, Media Audiences, And The Question Of Genre, Lars Schmeink

Journal of Tolkien Research

The Hobbit (1937) by J. R. R. Tolkien is one of Britain’s, if not one of the world’s, most beloved children’s books, whereas his The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) is today considered the keystone text of the modern fantasy genre. Similarly Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings has become the defining fantasy film, setting new standards for fantasy to become a mainstream cinematic genre. Based on data collected by the largest audience study to date, the World Hobbit Project, this article argues that the success of Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy is thus linked to its …

Undiagnosing Iphis: How The Lack Of Trauma In John Gower’S “Iphis And Iante” Reinforces A Subversive Trans Narrative, C Janecek

Accessus

Trauma has long played a role in queer narratives, including Ovid’s “Iphis and Ianthe”, which many scholars have interpreted as reinforcing heteronormativity through Iphis’s transformation into a man in order to marry Ianthe. However, I argue that John Gower’s rendition of this tale reframes Iphis as a trans man and allows us to understand the poem as a subversive trans narrative that revolts against cisnormative conceptions of gender. Utilizing Judith Butler’s writing on the medicalization of gender, I explore the relationship between trauma, performance, and gender within the Ovidian and Gowerian versions of Iphis.

Foreword, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

This is the Foreword to Accessus 5.1

Here And There, Now And Then: Portrayals Of The Third Crusade In Film And How Their Inaccuracies Encompass Contemporary Movements, Steven Anthony

History in the Making

This paper examines the relationship between films dealing with historical events and how they encompass events of the time the film was made. This work uses two film representations of the Third Crusade, from 1187 – 1192; the first is Youssef Chahines’ 1963 film Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din and the second is Ridley Scotts’ 2005 film, Kingdom of Heaven. Between the films’ narrations of events and the actual history, parallels are created between past and present, dealing with ideas such as tolerance and peaceful dialogue, as well as movements such as national, ethnic, or religious unity and inclusiveness.

La Naissance De L’Autofiction Silencieuse Dans Le Cinéma D’Elia Suleiman : « Hommage Par Assassinat » (1992), Sandra Fatté

Regards

This article questions the link between the aesthetics of silence shaped by Suleiman and his quest for identity. Through the analysis of the second short film by this Palestinian director, Homage by Assassination (1992), we underline this aesthetic and its stakes. In this film, Elia Suleiman incarnates ES, the silent character who appears for the first time on screen; he will be present in his three subsequent feature films. The story takes place one night during the Gulf War in a New York apartment where ES investigates the notion of identity. We introduce the notion of silent autofiction before analysing …

Mythology In Children's Animation, David L. Emerson

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

In recent years, there have been several animated films, ostensibly for children yet appreciable by adults as well, which have made attempts to incorporate various mythologies of the world into their settings and plots. There is considerable variation in the amounts of mythology included, from offhand mentions to integral components of the story. There is also a wide range of the degree of faithfulness to the mythologies being depicted. This note gives an overview of some of the most well-known and readily available animations from 1992 to 2017, and show how the mythologies of many different cultures are represented. Some …

Marvelous Geometry: Narrative And Metafiction In Modern Fairy Tale By Jessica Tiffin, Felicia Jean Steele

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Book review of Marvelous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale by Jessica Tiffin.

Film Review: 10 Days In A Madhouse, Lauren Adams, Brent Bellah

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Comparative Film Review: The Birth Of A Nation, Hector Lopez, Brittany Kelley

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Film Review: 1948 Creation And Catastrophe, Melissa Sanford

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Film Review: Alfred Hitchcock—The Films That Reflected American Society From 1940–1944, Amy Stewart

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Strive To Survive: The Redbox Example, Jake N. Conlin

Marriott Student Review

As technology continues to progress, companies can either adapt with technology or die. Advancements in technology should be used to better satisfy consumers. Companies that refuse to update their technology will not be able to survive in the future. Each company must make the most of its current technology, utilize new technology, and notify its customers of changes in its use of technology. Redbox finds itself at the crossroads of adapting or dying. Redbox can apply these three steps by milking its existing disc rental market, making the move to streaming, and marketing the new streaming service to consumers.

Ethics And Methods Of Human Rights Work: Exploring Both Theoretical And Practical Approaches, Shayna Plaut, Maritza Felices Luna, Christina Clark Kazak, Neil Bilotta, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore both theoretical and practical approaches to methodologies and ethics as it relates to human rights work.

The goal of the workshop is to create a dynamic space that encourages participants to share and learn from our own experiences navigating the messiness of human rights ethics and methods. We specifically address formal education and systems and structures so that we may all design, do and teach research and practice related to human rights in a more critical and sustainable manner. We recognize the tensions of creating research, programs and advocacy that is seen as “legitimate” to educational …

Grassroots Activism In Resolving Intractable Human Rights Problems: Theory And Case Studies From Ghana And Barcelona, Mette Brogden, Phyllis Taoua, Rashid Abubakar Iddrisu, Durado Brooks Jr, Francis M. Abugbilla

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Five presentations comprise this panel discussing grassroots activism in resolving intractable human rights problems. Presenters will provide case studies, theoretical framings, and practical steps to create salutogenic trajectories toward healthy societies and communities where marginalized people can realize human rights and freedoms to attain lives "they have reason to value" (cf. Amartya Sen). The Ghanaian and U.S. presenters include academic researchers, human rights practitioners, and independent artist/filmmakers.

Biafra And The Politics Of Humanitarian Consumption, Chi-Chi Ayalogu

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-70) is overwhelmingly represented by photographs of malnourished, sickly looking and often protein-deficient children, iconic and complex images that encapsulate the narrative of an impoverished black Africa in the western imagination. While these photographs reveal the grievous, inhuman atrocities that took place in Biafra, they have come to be negatively associated with the entirety of black Africa, as they tend to validate inaccurate ideas of homogeneity on the continent. Yet despite their homogenizing effect, Biafran leaders re-appropriated images of suffering for propaganda use, specifically to elicit a humanitarian response and thereby procure aid and resources from denizens …

The Lighthouse, Kyle Derkson

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Lighthouse (2019), directed by Robert Eggers.

Parasite, Sarina Annis

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Parasite (2019), directed by Bong Joon Ho.

Kuessipan, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Kuessipan (2019), directed by Myriam Verreault.

A Hidden Life, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of A Hidden Life (2019), directed by Terrence Malick.

Corpus Christi, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Corpus Christi (2019), directed by Jan Komasa.

Finding Fīlmfārsī: Reevaluations Of Pre-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema, William E. B. Sherman

Journal of Religion & Film

This article reviews two books: Pedram Partovi's Popular Iranian Cinema before the Revolution: Family and Nation in Filmfārsī, and Golbar Rekabtalaei, Iranian Cosmopolitanism: A Cinematic History.

Fatih Akin's Cinema And The New Sound Of Europe, Seda Öz

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Berna Gueneli's Fatih Akin's Cinema and the New Sound of Europe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019).

Muslim Women In French Cinema: Voices Of Maghrebi Migrants In France, Shreya Parikh

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp's Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015).

Reel Pleasures: Cinema Audiences And Entrepreneurs In Twentieth Century Urban Tanzania, Katie Young

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Laura Fair's Reel Pleasures: Cinema Audiences and Entrepreneurs in Twentieth Century Urban Tanzania.

Martin Scorsese’S Divine Comedy: Movies And Religion, Michael Gibson

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Catherine O'Brien, Martin Scorsese’s Divine Comedy: Movies and Religion, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Religion And Film: Cinema And The Re-Creation Of The World (2nd Edition), Joel Mayward

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of S. Brent Plate's Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-creation of the World, 2^nd Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).

Teaching Hierophany Through Film And Film Through Hierophany, Marc Yamada

Journal of Religion & Film

Courses that deal with cinematic representations of the sacred often focus on the experiences of characters in the film, relegating the viewer to the position of a passive witness to the reorienting effects of cinematic hierophanies. These types of courses do not take full advantage of the power of the cinematic medium to transform the way viewers understand the ontological and temporal structures they use to anchor themselves in the “profane” world. Based on my undergraduate course Cinema and the Sacred, this article outlines ways to allow students to experience the full transformative effects of cinema. As is the case …

Temporal And Topological: Two Ways Of Living Israel/Palestine, Rocco Giansante

Journal of Religion & Film

Elia Suleiman and Amos Gitai are two Israeli filmmakers, Palestinian and Jewish respectively. Gitai’s first film, House (1980), was censored by Israeli Television—the producers of the film—due to its sympathetic portrayal of Palestinians. Elia Suleiman’s debut film, Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996), was criticized at the Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia for a sequence showing an Israeli flag and Suleiman himself was accused of being a Zionist collaborator. By comparing the ways in which these two films deal with the political and social implications of the Israel-Palestine conflict, this article highlights two distinct methods of relating to facts on the …

Biblical Coens: Can We Laugh Now?, Richard G. Walsh

Journal of Religion & Film

A review of Coen criticism, specifically attending to Elijah Siegler’s recent, significant collection of essays, indicates that Coen brothers’ films frame characters in harsh, amoral worlds. This aesthetic “framing” is similar not only to Camus’ analysis of the absurd, but also to the “feel” of some biblical narratives. Where Camus urges one to move beyond the absurd to absurd creation and biblical narratives press on to faith—at least, in most religious readings of them—the Coens laugh. A selective overview of the use of bibles in Coen brothers’ films demonstrates that the Coens’ biblical hermeneutic is risible. Their films frame bibles …

Between Idealization Of A Martyr And Critic Of A Society: Analysis Of Axel Corti’S "Der Fall Jägerstätter", Jakub Gortat

Journal of Religion & Film

The new film approach to the figure of Franz Jägerstätter by Terrence Mallick in 2019 is an occasion to take a critical look at the first movie about the Catholic martyr that was made by the Austrian director Axel Corti in 1971. Although the movie turned out be to a huge success and until now is viewed as one of the turning points in coming to terms with the Nazi past in the Austrian film history, it idealizes, against the director’s intentions, the protagonist and preserves some of the characteristic elements of the history discourse of the times it was …