Suchergebnisse

This dissertation is about cinema culture, modern femininity, and Mexico City between 1917 and 1931. It is a story about movie makers, movie spectators, and the movie texts that mediated between them. It is a study of on-screen divas, pelonas, and indigenas. It is also an account of an era that began with end of revolutionary bloodshed and ended with the beginning of Mexican sound cinema. The confluence of Mexican cultural nationalism and transnational modernity during this period prompted robust discourse around the categories "woman," "women," and "feminine," which meant that these terms were under constant revision at the same time that Mexican silent cinema culture was developing a foundation for the subsequent Golden Age (1940-1950). Accordingly, the discursive history that follows aims to elucidate the reciprocal relationship between women and silent cinema culture in Mexico City during the immediate postrevolution era. While scholars of North American cinema have revealed that women played a more powerful role in film culture during the silent era than any other time since, and though studies of Latin American cinema have recently begun to interrogate the specific characteristics of silent cinema in the region, the assumption that Mexican gender ideologies barred women from participation in silent film culture persists. Moreover, Mexican silent film culture is often dismissed or bracketed from discussions of later cinematic developments in that country on the assumption that, because few silent films were made in Mexico, the influence of the era was similarly constrained. How, then, did women engage with the movies as spectators, filmmakers, and characters on screen? How did this engagement interface with Mexican gender ideals, and how did it help guide the development of Mexican cinema? The discourses that articulated postrevolution cinema culture spoke also to the gendered balance of social and political power in modern Mexico, so my project joins a growing body of work that appraises the role of women ...

This study deals with Indonesian cinema. Perspectives of politics and culture employed to provide understanding of how Indonesian cinema from the early period of its development untill the recent times. This study demonstrates that Indonesian cinema could be associated significantly with politics primarily in the 1950s and 1960s when Indonesian cinema had really started to grow. In the period of New Order cinema becomes a manifestation of kitsch pursuing for capital gain. Yet after the fall of the regime significant shifts occur namely no longer have Indonesian cinemas strongly related to politics in their content of messages but the cinemas promote much moore various discoursive contents.

Die Dissertation von Annika Requardt untersucht Visualisierungs- und Narrativierungsstrategien im US-amerikanischen Kriegsfilm der Stummfilmzeit, indem sie die Theorie des kollektiven Gedächtnisses mit Bildanalyseverfahren kombiniert. Ob fiction oder non-fiction: Die Arbeit schlägt einen weiten Bogen vom Spanisch-Amerikanischen Krieg, über den Ersten Weltkrieg bis hin zum amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg, um zu zeigen, wie durch Verdichtung und Wiederholung standardisierte und schematisierte Bildtraditionen entstehen, die Kriege potentiell mit Sinn versehen und als nationale Identifikationsangebote fungieren können. Allerdings schließt die Autorin, ohne einen entsprechenden empirischen Nachweis zu führen, in einem rezeptionstheoretischen Kurzschluss von den Filmbildern direkt auf die Erinnerung des Krieges. Während sie das erklärende Potential des erinnerungskulturellen Ansatzes so leider nicht ausschöpfen kann, wissen die Filmanalysen zu überzeugen. ; Annika Requardt's dissertation analyses strategies of visualization and narrativization in American war films of the silent era, employing theories of collective memory and visual culture. It covers a wide range of fictional and non-fictional films that depict the Spanish-American War, World War I, and the Civil War. Requardt shows how, by concretion and repetition, there emerges a standardized and schematic tradition of filmic images that provides war with meaning, and offers a way for the nation to identify itself. However, lacking empirical evidence, the author deduces the remembrance of war simply from the existence of films and their images without taking the particular reception into account. While she therefore cannot utilize the full potential of the memory culture approach, the analyses of the films are very convincing in their own right.

This dissertation examines how melodrama in early twentieth century Argentina and Colombia shaped sites of intelligibility to record multiple processes of modernization—including but not limited to massive immigration, the import of new technologies, and the (gendered) reshuffling of social orders. This dissertation also analyzes the ways in which melodrama recast different senses of community. With an archival perspective, it traces how diverse social actors appropriated melodrama for individual and group agendas, as they entered the modern political pact, the pact of representation. More specifically, and by bridging Latin American and Euro-American theories of melodrama, this dissertation traces key narrative conventions and argues that, across the social spectrum, actors recast the dynamics of representation during the period by visualizing classed, raced, and gendered anxieties vis-à-vis change through the interrelated media of literature, illustrated periodicals, and film.The first chapter addresses how the national imagination and state formations in Latin America were shaped through melodrama, correlatively determining dominant narrative tropes across media. I focus on José Mármol's Amalia (1851-1855) and Jorge Isaacs' María (1867) and the cross-media iterations of both works engendered around the Argentine and Colombian centennial celebrations. The second chapter turns to 1920s tabloid newspapers and weekly novels. These served as platforms for emergent writers, many of them immigrants, who harnessed melodramatic narratives in periodicals to denounce social problems and inequity, particularly regarding destitute subjects who were marginalized in rapid urbanization processes. Turning the focus to early cinema, the third chapter examines the tense relations between material progress, tradition, and social change/immobility visualized in three filmic genres—the Argentine cine de ambiente campero, the porteño cinedrama, and the Colombian patriarchal family melodrama. These genres told contrasting tales of modernization: Argentine cinema capitalized on modernity's changes, its thrills and anxieties, while Colombian cinema depicted tradition and religiosity as compulsory conditions for material progress. This dissertation ultimately proposes that melodrama was not an escapist form, as it is commonly defamed. Rather, it visualized the present moment, unbarred the public sphere, and pointed to an inclusive future.

Because mainstream cinema is largely driven by major industries as opposed to individuals, the experience of film has often been tied to Marxist notions of production and hegemony. During the Korean silent film era, a time of rapid modernization, social hierarchies were arguably much more complex than they are today, due in part to rapid industrialization, the growing presence of the Japanese colonizers, and the traditional class distinctions Koreans continued to uphold. As part of an extensive and stringent cultural policy, the Japanese government-general controlled the selection of movies, their content, and the conditions under which they were shown; and yet the majority of the movies showed that Europe and the US comprised modern, "high" cultures worthy of emulation. With reference to the applicability of Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony in the context of the Korean silent film era, it is important, therefore, to consider the various notions of hierarchy and cultural supremacy. Although this study considers the applicability of Gramsci's concept in this particular context, its primary aim-and as such another step towards a better understanding of the positions of power in Korea under colonial rule-is to understand how the Korean working-class experience of cinema differed from that of other classes.

For Freud, famously, the feminine was a dark continent, or a riddle without an answer. This understanding concerns man's relationship to the question of 'woman' but femininity is also a matter of sexuality and gender and therefore of identity and experience. Drawing together leading academics, including film and literary scholars, clinicians and artists from diverse backgrounds, Femininity and Psychoanalysis: Cinema, Culture, Theory speaks to the continued relevance of psychoanalytic understanding in a social and political landscape where ideas of gender and sexuality are undergoing profound changes. This transdisciplinary collection crosses boundaries between clinical and psychological discourse and arts and humanities fields to approach the topic of femininity from a variety of psychoanalytic perspectives. From object relations, to Lacan, to queer theory, the essays here revisit and rethink the debates over what the feminine might be. The volume presents a major new work by leading feminist film scholar, Elizabeth Cowie, in which she presents a first intervention on the topic of film and the feminine for over 20 years, as well as a key essay by the prominent artist and psychoanalyst, Bracha Ettinger. Written by an international selection of contributors, this collection is an indispensable tool for film and literary scholars engaged with psychoanalysts and anybody interested in different approaches to the question of the feminine.

Because mainstream cinema is largely driven by major industries as opposed to individuals, the experience of film has often been tied to Marxist notions of production and hegemony. During the Korean silent film era, a time of rapid modernization, social hierarchies were arguably much more complex than they are today, due in part to rapid industrialization, the growing presence of the Japanese colonizers, and the traditional class distinctions Koreans continued to uphold. As part of an extensive and stringent cultural policy, the Japanese government-general controlled the selection of movies, their content, and the conditions under which they were shown; and yet the majority of the movies showed that Europe and the US comprised modern, "high" cultures worthy of emulation. With reference to the applicability of Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony in the context of the Korean silent film era, it is important, therefore, to consider the various notions of hierarchy and cultural supremacy. Although this study considers the applicability of Gramsci's concept in this particular context, its primary aim-and as such another step towards a better understanding of the positions of power in Korea under colonial rule-is to understand how the Korean working-class experience of cinema differed from that of other classes.

Women in Ireland came into focus and onto the political stage during and as a result of nationalist and socialist movements that began in the mid-1700s and continued through the 1920s. Women like Anna Parnell, Constance Markievicz, and Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington participated in the land wars, struggles for independence from Britain and the suffragist movement. Indigenous silent feature filmmaking in Ireland was born out of this critical period of political and social change. From 1916 to 1935, Irish filmmakers produced over forty silent feature films only six of which have survived. A close study of these films, fragments of three others, and contemporary film reviews and archival synopses of the non-surviving films reveals how early Irish silent films tackled nationalist issues, but did little to represent the active participation of women. Women in these films are passive sisters, lovers, and mothers, impacted by rather than impacting historical events. This is not surprising. Irish silent cinema was a male-dominated industry with a nationalist agenda that perpetuated gender stereotypes. This study links nationalism and women in Irish silent cinema by looking at how female representation in these early films reflected a gendered ideology that existed in Irish culture alongside other narratives of the nation.

Foreign policy and defence policy should be complementary. Recent reports suggest not only that foreign and defence policy are not always complementary but also that there is a lack of understanding between the foreign and defence policy communities. Different foreign and defence policy cultures could account for the inconsistencies in policy. As a result, this thesis examines the extent that culture plays a role in the apparent gap between foreign and defence policy. Authorial interpretations present in published works on foreign and defence policy will be used to examine culture. Within these writings there are identifiable differences within the beliefs and assumptions surrounding the notion of a Canadian military tradition. Because tradition is a key element for an understanding of culture, the differences in recognition of a military tradition will be used to examine the differences in culture. Through this examination it is apparent that writers who predominantly focus on foreign policy believe that Canada has a non-military tradition while writers who focus on defence adhere to a belief in a Canadian military tradition. Although these writers hold differing beliefs and assumptions which lead to different cultural emphasis, there is room for reconciliation due to the consistent value of peace and stability. Recognition of the different notions surrounding tradition can help lead to greater cultural coherency and therefore more complementary policy formation.

This book presents the bold and original proposal to replace the general appellation of 'world cinema' with the more substantive concept of 'realist cinema'. Veering away from the usual focus on modes of reception and spectatorship, it locates instead cinematic realism in the way films are made. The volume is structured across three innovative categories of realist modes of production: 'non-cinema', or a cinema that aspires to be life itself; 'intermedial passages', or films that incorporate other artforms as a channel to historical and political reality; and 'total cinema', or films moved by a totalising impulse, be it towards the total artwork, total history or universalising landscapes. Though mostly devoted to recent productions, each part starts with the analysis of foundational classics, which have paved the way for future realist endeavours, proving that realism is timeless and inherent in cinema from its origin.

This book proposes to replace the general appellation of 'world cinema' with the more substantive concept of 'realist cinema', all the while valorising world cinema as an invaluable reservoir of diversity and inclusion. Arguing that an ethics of the real has bound world films together across history and geography at cinema's most creative peaks, the book veers away from the usual focus on modes of reception and spectatorship, locating instead cinematic realism in the way films are made. The volume is structured across three innovative categories of realist modes of production: 'non-cinema', or a cinema that questions the film medium, aspiring to be life itself, in constant, and often self-defeating, competition with the medium's inevitable manipulation of world phenomena; 'intermedial passages', or films that incorporate other artworks in progress as a channel to historical and political reality; and 'total cinema', or films relying on long duration and monumental landscapes with a totalising historical and geographical impetus akin to what Bazin had defined as the human desire for 'integral realism'. Though mostly devoted to recent productions, each part starts with the analysis of foundational classics, which have paved the way for future realist endeavours, thereby reasserting the point that realism is timeless and inherent in cinema from its origin.

The research project uses still life as a means of exploring current events of violence and oppression. These events are represented through juxtaposing plastic toys with organic objects. The toys include a range of popular generic toys such as army men, cowboys and Indians and toy soldiers. The organic objects were selected for their relationship to the specific event being represented. The toys and organic objects were positioned to create interesting and logical compositions. Themes of the series include opposing objects and ideas pitched against each other such as plastic/organic, perpetrator/victim, violence/peacefulness and destruction/sustenance. Within each work the plastic toys take on the demeanor of the tyrant(s), whereas the organic objects adopt the role of the victim(s). The research project uses these themes to convey the message that violence is both a barbaric way of dealing with conflict and a senseless form of self-expression. I have used symbols and metaphors to build a visual language. For the language to be translated accurately a great deal of research has taken place into the appropriate still life objects for each work. Each work incorporates metaphors and or symbols for both the oppressor and victim within the event being represented. The studio outcome of this research project, Silent Bang, includes a series of highly detailed finished paintings of various scales. Silent Bang as a body of work is colourful and aims to be aesthetically pleasing in addition to conveying a powerful message that incites interpretation.

The new peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies have impacted the film industry, which advocates sanctions against the downloading and sharing of products found on the Internet. But the economic effect of file sharing on the film industry remains difficult to determine. In this article, we ask whether file sharing networks will affect the survival or potential growth of European cinema. The steady decline in traditional film distribution channels for European productions—cinema theatres and direct sales or renting—is leading to the emergence of new distribution channels. And yet the results of the movie industry's calls—including those voiced by its European players—for stronger legislation against these same distribution channels are making their way through Europe by means of enforcement tools like HADOPI and other graduated response programs. Our hypothesis is that this offensive runs the risk of condemning a potential open distribution network and commons business model at its birth. For this, we start by clarifying the emerging global P2P phenomenon; we then stipulate what we mean by European cinema, outline its peculiar traits, and contrast it with North American cinema. Finally, we compare the consumption of European film in theatres with the availability of seeds and leechers for European cinema in P2P networks.

In this article, I describe my public history project seeking to transform a street in Connaught Place, New Delhi, into a militarised Srinagar marketplace. Through this phenomenological project, I aim to make Hindu, middle- class, upper-middle-caste Indians realise that the Indian presence in the Kashmir Valley is a colonial, military occupation. Through this, I want them to reconsider India's claims of being a secular, liberal-democracy. To contextualise my intervention, I briefly represent the mainstream Indian narrative on Kashmir, both in academia and the wider public space, in the first section of this article. Thus, by highlighting the 'silences' in the general understanding of Kashmir, I will demonstrate my project's contribution to Kashmir's historiography. KEYWORDScolonialism; exhibit; phenomenology; India-Occupied Kashmir; historiography; Museum

Over 39 chapters The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History offers a comprehensive and revisionist overview of British cinema as, on the one hand, a commercial entertainment industry and, on the other, a series of institutions centred on economics, funding and relations to government. Whereas most histories of British cinema focus on directors, stars, genres and themes, this Companion explores the forces enabling and constraining the films' production, distribution, exhibition, and reception contexts from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The contributors provide a wealth of empirical and archive-based scholarship that draws on insider perspectives of key film institutions and illuminates aspects of British film culture that have been neglected or marginalized, such as the watch committee system, the Eady Levy, the rise of the multiplex and film festivals. It also places emphasis on areas where scholarship has either been especially productive and influential, such as in early and silent cinema, or promoted new approaches, such as audience and memory studies.