Yannis Tzioumakis
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748618668
- eISBN:
- 9780748670802
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748618668.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introduction to American independent cinema offers both a comprehensive industrial and economic history of the sector from the early twentieth century to the present and a study of key ...
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This introduction to American independent cinema offers both a comprehensive industrial and economic history of the sector from the early twentieth century to the present and a study of key individual films and film-makers. Readers will develop an understanding of the complex dynamic relations between independent and mainstream American cinema.The main argument revolves around the idea that American independent cinema has developed alongside mainstream Hollywood cinema with institutional, industrial and economic changes in the latter shaping and informing the former. Consequently, the term ‘independent’ has acquired different meanings at different points in the history of American cinema, evolving according to the impact of changing conditions in the American film industry. These various meanings are examined in the course of the book.The book is ordered chronologically, beginning with independent filmmaking in the studio era (examining both top-rank and low-end independent film production), moving to the 1950s and 1960s (discussing both the adoption of independent filmmaking as the main method of production for the Hollywood majors as well as exploitation filmmaking) and finishing with contemporary American independent cinema (exploring areas such as the New Hollywood, the major independent production and distribution companies and the institutionalisation of independent cinema in the 1990s). Each chapter includes a number of case studies which focus on specific films and/or filmmakers, while a number of independent production and distribution companies are also discussed in detail.Less
This introduction to American independent cinema offers both a comprehensive industrial and economic history of the sector from the early twentieth century to the present and a study of key individual films and film-makers. Readers will develop an understanding of the complex dynamic relations between independent and mainstream American cinema.The main argument revolves around the idea that American independent cinema has developed alongside mainstream Hollywood cinema with institutional, industrial and economic changes in the latter shaping and informing the former. Consequently, the term ‘independent’ has acquired different meanings at different points in the history of American cinema, evolving according to the impact of changing conditions in the American film industry. These various meanings are examined in the course of the book.The book is ordered chronologically, beginning with independent filmmaking in the studio era (examining both top-rank and low-end independent film production), moving to the 1950s and 1960s (discussing both the adoption of independent filmmaking as the main method of production for the Hollywood majors as well as exploitation filmmaking) and finishing with contemporary American independent cinema (exploring areas such as the New Hollywood, the major independent production and distribution companies and the institutionalisation of independent cinema in the 1990s). Each chapter includes a number of case studies which focus on specific films and/or filmmakers, while a number of independent production and distribution companies are also discussed in detail.
Yannis Tzioumakis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633685
- eISBN:
- 9780748671236
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633685.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner is a fine example of American independent cinema in transition. Made by a playwright-turned-filmmaker with a distinctive approach to questions of narrative and ...
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David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner is a fine example of American independent cinema in transition. Made by a playwright-turned-filmmaker with a distinctive approach to questions of narrative and visual style at a time (the late 1990s) when the boundaries between what was considered independent filmmaking and what mainstream cinema had been, arguably, eroding, The Spanish Prisoner achieved critical and commercial success. It also demonstrated that a place still existed for filmmakers with highly unusual takes on the art of cinema, like David Mamet. Nodding to such crowd-pleasing classics as Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, The Spanish Prisoner is a particularly idiosyncratic film that betrays its origin outside the Hollywood mainstream. Featuring a heavily convoluted narrative that is the product of an unreliable narration; an excessive, often anti-classical, visual style that draws attention to itself; and belonging to the generic category of the ‘con game film’, which actively challenges the spectator to comprehend the unfolding of the narrative, The Spanish Prisoner is a film that bridges genre filmmaking with personal visual style, independent film production with niche distribution and mainstream subject matter with unconventional filmic techniques. This book discusses The Spanish Prisoner as an example of contemporary American independent cinema while also using it as a vehicle to explore several key ideas in film studies, especially in terms of aesthetics, narrative, style and genre.Less
David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner is a fine example of American independent cinema in transition. Made by a playwright-turned-filmmaker with a distinctive approach to questions of narrative and visual style at a time (the late 1990s) when the boundaries between what was considered independent filmmaking and what mainstream cinema had been, arguably, eroding, The Spanish Prisoner achieved critical and commercial success. It also demonstrated that a place still existed for filmmakers with highly unusual takes on the art of cinema, like David Mamet. Nodding to such crowd-pleasing classics as Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, The Spanish Prisoner is a particularly idiosyncratic film that betrays its origin outside the Hollywood mainstream. Featuring a heavily convoluted narrative that is the product of an unreliable narration; an excessive, often anti-classical, visual style that draws attention to itself; and belonging to the generic category of the ‘con game film’, which actively challenges the spectator to comprehend the unfolding of the narrative, The Spanish Prisoner is a film that bridges genre filmmaking with personal visual style, independent film production with niche distribution and mainstream subject matter with unconventional filmic techniques. This book discusses The Spanish Prisoner as an example of contemporary American independent cinema while also using it as a vehicle to explore several key ideas in film studies, especially in terms of aesthetics, narrative, style and genre.
Jonathan Brant
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199639342
- eISBN:
- 9780191738098
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199639342.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society, Theology
This chapter considers the results of the questionnaire surveys and attempts to map out the general features of filmgoers’ experiences, and to draw attention to key questions that are raised and will ...
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This chapter considers the results of the questionnaire surveys and attempts to map out the general features of filmgoers’ experiences, and to draw attention to key questions that are raised and will be revisited in the qualitative interviews. The chapter also introduces three important features of the research location in order to contextualise the empirical research, providing a background against which the data generated by the respondent interviews may more clearly be seen. First, the nation of Uruguay is introduced. Second, there is an overview of the development and contemporary reality of Latin American cinema. Finally, there is a section about the Cinemateca Uruguaya, the cinema-club of which all the interview respondents were members. As the project develops it becomes clear that this institution is more central to this grounded account of revelation through film than might have been expected.Less
This chapter considers the results of the questionnaire surveys and attempts to map out the general features of filmgoers’ experiences, and to draw attention to key questions that are raised and will be revisited in the qualitative interviews. The chapter also introduces three important features of the research location in order to contextualise the empirical research, providing a background against which the data generated by the respondent interviews may more clearly be seen. First, the nation of Uruguay is introduced. Second, there is an overview of the development and contemporary reality of Latin American cinema. Finally, there is a section about the Cinemateca Uruguaya, the cinema-club of which all the interview respondents were members. As the project develops it becomes clear that this institution is more central to this grounded account of revelation through film than might have been expected.
Paul Grainge, Mark Jancovich, and Sharon Monteith
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619061
- eISBN:
- 9780748670888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619061.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses films in the 1950s — a decade of contradictions in society as well as cinema, a decade in which ideals such as a middle-class lifestyle, the model home, and marriage and ...
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This chapter discusses films in the 1950s — a decade of contradictions in society as well as cinema, a decade in which ideals such as a middle-class lifestyle, the model home, and marriage and parenthood were complicated and undermined by anxieties over gender roles and cross-generational tensions. The nuclear family ideal was of particular importance in the postwar period as a site of hope and regeneration. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Popular Films and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia’ by Charles Ambler, which focuses on the ‘Copperbelt’ mining district of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia following independence in 1964), in order to assess the circumstances in which American cinema, and by extension Western culture as constructed by the Hollywood dream factory, was consumed by a specific African audience.Less
This chapter discusses films in the 1950s — a decade of contradictions in society as well as cinema, a decade in which ideals such as a middle-class lifestyle, the model home, and marriage and parenthood were complicated and undermined by anxieties over gender roles and cross-generational tensions. The nuclear family ideal was of particular importance in the postwar period as a site of hope and regeneration. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Popular Films and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia’ by Charles Ambler, which focuses on the ‘Copperbelt’ mining district of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia following independence in 1964), in order to assess the circumstances in which American cinema, and by extension Western culture as constructed by the Hollywood dream factory, was consumed by a specific African audience.
Yannis Tzioumakis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633685
- eISBN:
- 9780748671236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633685.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The chapter reviews a number of debates and arguments about contemporary American independent cinema. One of these arguments involves an examination of independent cinema as an institutional ...
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The chapter reviews a number of debates and arguments about contemporary American independent cinema. One of these arguments involves an examination of independent cinema as an institutional apparatus exemplified by the huge number of film festivals (with the massively popular Sundance Film Festival at the forefront), specialized theatre circuits, distributors’ associations, and even an Independent Spirit Award body, which have created a significant marketplace for low-budget films that differ from the blockbuster films and star vehicles of the major studios. Furthermore, it presents arguments about American independent cinema from an industrial-economic perspective focusing in particular on the ‘problem’ of the studios’ classics divisions and specialty film labels. As these companies traded heavily in the American independent film market, especially since the 1990s, it became extremely difficult to distinguish between ‘truly’ independent films (i.e. made by companies without affiliations with the majors) and films made with an ‘independent style’ by companies with corporate links with the majors. For those reasons, the chapter argues, critics, industry and audiences started using the label ‘indie’ instead of ‘independent’, which suggests a qualitative difference between the two.Less
The chapter reviews a number of debates and arguments about contemporary American independent cinema. One of these arguments involves an examination of independent cinema as an institutional apparatus exemplified by the huge number of film festivals (with the massively popular Sundance Film Festival at the forefront), specialized theatre circuits, distributors’ associations, and even an Independent Spirit Award body, which have created a significant marketplace for low-budget films that differ from the blockbuster films and star vehicles of the major studios. Furthermore, it presents arguments about American independent cinema from an industrial-economic perspective focusing in particular on the ‘problem’ of the studios’ classics divisions and specialty film labels. As these companies traded heavily in the American independent film market, especially since the 1990s, it became extremely difficult to distinguish between ‘truly’ independent films (i.e. made by companies without affiliations with the majors) and films made with an ‘independent style’ by companies with corporate links with the majors. For those reasons, the chapter argues, critics, industry and audiences started using the label ‘indie’ instead of ‘independent’, which suggests a qualitative difference between the two.
Anna Backman Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748693603
- eISBN:
- 9781474412216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693603.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
American independent cinema is certainly a cinema in crisis, but it is also a cinema of crisis. A great deal of useful scholarship has been carried out on the notion of independence and the ...
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American independent cinema is certainly a cinema in crisis, but it is also a cinema of crisis. A great deal of useful scholarship has been carried out on the notion of independence and the definition of indie cinema as a hybrid industry (‘indiewood’). This study partakes of that conversation, but from the perspective of the aesthetics and poetics of crisis that figure or visualise notions of ambiguity and the in-between. The cinema of crisis delineated here is one that explores the difficulty or impossibility of progression through extended moments of liminality and threshold. In a cinema of crisis, the concept of a plot is subservient to the investigation of what it means to exist in a moment of threshold within the context of a rite of passage; this moment may usher in transformation, or it may lead to stasis and not offer any form of resolution. What the viewer sees on screen are bodies that may halt, falter, freeze and become-surface, or evolve, mutate, dissolve and merge: these are bodies in crisis because they are either atrophying or becoming-other.Less
American independent cinema is certainly a cinema in crisis, but it is also a cinema of crisis. A great deal of useful scholarship has been carried out on the notion of independence and the definition of indie cinema as a hybrid industry (‘indiewood’). This study partakes of that conversation, but from the perspective of the aesthetics and poetics of crisis that figure or visualise notions of ambiguity and the in-between. The cinema of crisis delineated here is one that explores the difficulty or impossibility of progression through extended moments of liminality and threshold. In a cinema of crisis, the concept of a plot is subservient to the investigation of what it means to exist in a moment of threshold within the context of a rite of passage; this moment may usher in transformation, or it may lead to stasis and not offer any form of resolution. What the viewer sees on screen are bodies that may halt, falter, freeze and become-surface, or evolve, mutate, dissolve and merge: these are bodies in crisis because they are either atrophying or becoming-other.
Yannis Tzioumakis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633685
- eISBN:
- 9780748671236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633685.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Chapter examines David Mamet’s position within the independent and indie cinema landscapes. It starts with an overview of Mamet’s work in American cinema and points to the problem that despite ...
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The Chapter examines David Mamet’s position within the independent and indie cinema landscapes. It starts with an overview of Mamet’s work in American cinema and points to the problem that despite the fact that the majority of his work has been for independent companies and studio specialty film divisions, he rarely has been examined as an independent filmmaker. This is despite the fact that as a filmmaker he has produced aesthetically distinctive films that differ considerably from mainstream Hollywood productions. Furthermore, the independent and indie film companies that have financed and distributed his films have increasingly utilised his name as an auteur brand name for the independent sector, which begs further the question of why David Mamet has rarely been discussed as an independent filmmaker. Through an examination of the trailers and other promotional material that surrounded the release of his films, the chapter explores the ways in which Mamet has been associated with American independent cinema.Less
The Chapter examines David Mamet’s position within the independent and indie cinema landscapes. It starts with an overview of Mamet’s work in American cinema and points to the problem that despite the fact that the majority of his work has been for independent companies and studio specialty film divisions, he rarely has been examined as an independent filmmaker. This is despite the fact that as a filmmaker he has produced aesthetically distinctive films that differ considerably from mainstream Hollywood productions. Furthermore, the independent and indie film companies that have financed and distributed his films have increasingly utilised his name as an auteur brand name for the independent sector, which begs further the question of why David Mamet has rarely been discussed as an independent filmmaker. Through an examination of the trailers and other promotional material that surrounded the release of his films, the chapter explores the ways in which Mamet has been associated with American independent cinema.
Yannis Tzioumakis
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748618668
- eISBN:
- 9780748670802
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748618668.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
As the majors became one by one parts of multinational conglomerates in the late 1960s and 1970s, they gradually turned their attention to the production of fewer but considerably more expensive ...
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As the majors became one by one parts of multinational conglomerates in the late 1960s and 1970s, they gradually turned their attention to the production of fewer but considerably more expensive films with the potential to do spectacularly well at the box office. However, this trend created gaps in the film market which were exploited by independent distributors such as American International Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company, which managed to carve a small niche, mainly for sensational /exploitation films and art-house films, respectively. The first part of the chapter discusses the effects of conglomeration on the independent film sector and cites a number of examples of exploitation and art film companies that benefited from these effects. The chapter then focuses on the development of new distribution outlets (cable television and home video in particular) and examines how they created a new demand for films in the late 1970s and early 1980s that created the conditions for the beginning of what has become known as contemporary American independent cinema. Case studies: Foxy Brown (Hill, 1974), Return of the Secaucus Seven (Sayles, 1980).Less
As the majors became one by one parts of multinational conglomerates in the late 1960s and 1970s, they gradually turned their attention to the production of fewer but considerably more expensive films with the potential to do spectacularly well at the box office. However, this trend created gaps in the film market which were exploited by independent distributors such as American International Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company, which managed to carve a small niche, mainly for sensational /exploitation films and art-house films, respectively. The first part of the chapter discusses the effects of conglomeration on the independent film sector and cites a number of examples of exploitation and art film companies that benefited from these effects. The chapter then focuses on the development of new distribution outlets (cable television and home video in particular) and examines how they created a new demand for films in the late 1970s and early 1980s that created the conditions for the beginning of what has become known as contemporary American independent cinema. Case studies: Foxy Brown (Hill, 1974), Return of the Secaucus Seven (Sayles, 1980).
Mariano Mestman
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031229
- eISBN:
- 9781617031236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031229.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the influence of Italian postwar neorealist films on the so-called New Latin American Cinema (NLAC) of the 1960s, and narrates a story that goes from the 1950s cinema of ...
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This chapter examines the influence of Italian postwar neorealist films on the so-called New Latin American Cinema (NLAC) of the 1960s, and narrates a story that goes from the 1950s cinema of Fernando Birri to the 1970s films of Glauber Rocha. It suggests that the neorealist “influence” on the NLAC was mediated by an intricate, complex network of cultural and political processes that developed throughout the years between the immediate postwar period and the 1960s.Less
This chapter examines the influence of Italian postwar neorealist films on the so-called New Latin American Cinema (NLAC) of the 1960s, and narrates a story that goes from the 1950s cinema of Fernando Birri to the 1970s films of Glauber Rocha. It suggests that the neorealist “influence” on the NLAC was mediated by an intricate, complex network of cultural and political processes that developed throughout the years between the immediate postwar period and the 1960s.
Anna Backman Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748693603
- eISBN:
- 9781474412216
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693603.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Anna Backman Rogers argues that American independent cinema is a cinema not merely in crisis, but also of crisis. As a cinema which often explores the rite of passage by explicitly drawing on ...
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Anna Backman Rogers argues that American independent cinema is a cinema not merely in crisis, but also of crisis. As a cinema which often explores the rite of passage by explicitly drawing on American cinematic heritage, from the teen movie to the western, American independent films deal in images of crisis, transition and metamorphosis, offering a subversive engagement with more traditional modes of representation. Examining films by Gus Van Sant, Jim Jarmusch and Sofia Coppola, this study sets forth that American indie films offer the viewer an ‘art experience’ within the confines of commercial, narrative cinema by engaging with cinematic time (as a mode of philosophical thought) and foregrounding the inherent ‘crisis’ of the cinematic image (as the mode of being as change). The subject of this book is how certain American independent films appropriate ritual as a kind of power of the false in order to throw into crisis images – such as the cliché – that pertain to truth via collective comprehension. In his study of genre, Steve Neale (2000) has outlined how certain images and sound tracks can function ritualistically and ideologically; cinema, according to Neale, both creates a horizon of expectations for an audience and also draws upon existing stratifications and categories in order to shore up established identities and modes of thought.Less
Anna Backman Rogers argues that American independent cinema is a cinema not merely in crisis, but also of crisis. As a cinema which often explores the rite of passage by explicitly drawing on American cinematic heritage, from the teen movie to the western, American independent films deal in images of crisis, transition and metamorphosis, offering a subversive engagement with more traditional modes of representation. Examining films by Gus Van Sant, Jim Jarmusch and Sofia Coppola, this study sets forth that American indie films offer the viewer an ‘art experience’ within the confines of commercial, narrative cinema by engaging with cinematic time (as a mode of philosophical thought) and foregrounding the inherent ‘crisis’ of the cinematic image (as the mode of being as change). The subject of this book is how certain American independent films appropriate ritual as a kind of power of the false in order to throw into crisis images – such as the cliché – that pertain to truth via collective comprehension. In his study of genre, Steve Neale (2000) has outlined how certain images and sound tracks can function ritualistically and ideologically; cinema, according to Neale, both creates a horizon of expectations for an audience and also draws upon existing stratifications and categories in order to shore up established identities and modes of thought.
Claire Molloy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637713
- eISBN:
- 9780748671007
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637713.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Ambiguous, complex and innovative, Christopher Nolan's Memento has intrigued audiences and critics since the day of its release. Memento is the archetypal ‘puzzle film’, a noir thriller about a man ...
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Ambiguous, complex and innovative, Christopher Nolan's Memento has intrigued audiences and critics since the day of its release. Memento is the archetypal ‘puzzle film’, a noir thriller about a man with short-term memory loss seemingly seeking revenge for the death of his wife but finding it increasingly difficult to navigate through the facts. Truth, memory and identity are all questioned in a film that refuses to give easy answers or to adhere to some of the fundamental rules of classical filmmaking as the film makes use of some audacious stylistic and narrative choices, including a unique (for American cinema) editing pattern that produces a dizzying and highly disorienting effect for the spectator. The book introduces Memento as an important independent film and uses it to explore relationships between ‘indie’, arthouse and commercial mainstream cinema while also examining independent film marketing practices, especially those associated with Newmarket, the film's producer and distributor. Finally, the book also locates Memento within debates around key film studies concepts such as genre, narrative and reception.Less
Ambiguous, complex and innovative, Christopher Nolan's Memento has intrigued audiences and critics since the day of its release. Memento is the archetypal ‘puzzle film’, a noir thriller about a man with short-term memory loss seemingly seeking revenge for the death of his wife but finding it increasingly difficult to navigate through the facts. Truth, memory and identity are all questioned in a film that refuses to give easy answers or to adhere to some of the fundamental rules of classical filmmaking as the film makes use of some audacious stylistic and narrative choices, including a unique (for American cinema) editing pattern that produces a dizzying and highly disorienting effect for the spectator. The book introduces Memento as an important independent film and uses it to explore relationships between ‘indie’, arthouse and commercial mainstream cinema while also examining independent film marketing practices, especially those associated with Newmarket, the film's producer and distributor. Finally, the book also locates Memento within debates around key film studies concepts such as genre, narrative and reception.
Michael Goddard
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231167314
- eISBN:
- 9780231850506
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231167314.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter studies Raúl Ruiz's cinema in the period leading up to and during the Allende socialist government in Chile, in context of the new Latin American cinema. Concerning the magical or social ...
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This chapter studies Raúl Ruiz's cinema in the period leading up to and during the Allende socialist government in Chile, in context of the new Latin American cinema. Concerning the magical or social realism, Ruiz's films of this period can be seen as a micropolitical cartography of social gestures and behaviors, in relation to but critical of surrounding political and cinematic movements. After the Pinochet coup, Ruiz, like most of those working in Chilean cinema, was forced into exile—a condition that was treated in his first major film project, Diálogos de exiliados (Dialogues of Exiles, 1974). However, Ruiz soon embarked on an exploration of different styles, genres, and formats, producing both films of varying lengths and experimental television work. This enabled experimentation with visual and narrative rhetorics, increasingly distant from and critical of normative conceptions of political cinema.Less
This chapter studies Raúl Ruiz's cinema in the period leading up to and during the Allende socialist government in Chile, in context of the new Latin American cinema. Concerning the magical or social realism, Ruiz's films of this period can be seen as a micropolitical cartography of social gestures and behaviors, in relation to but critical of surrounding political and cinematic movements. After the Pinochet coup, Ruiz, like most of those working in Chilean cinema, was forced into exile—a condition that was treated in his first major film project, Diálogos de exiliados (Dialogues of Exiles, 1974). However, Ruiz soon embarked on an exploration of different styles, genres, and formats, producing both films of varying lengths and experimental television work. This enabled experimentation with visual and narrative rhetorics, increasingly distant from and critical of normative conceptions of political cinema.
Mette Hjort and Duncan Petrie
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748625369
- eISBN:
- 9780748671151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748625369.003.0011
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
For a small nation Cuba has been a major player in the context of the Caribbean region. Following the 1959 revolution Cuban cinema emerged at the forefront of cultural production, facilitated by the ...
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For a small nation Cuba has been a major player in the context of the Caribbean region. Following the 1959 revolution Cuban cinema emerged at the forefront of cultural production, facilitated by the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), the first organisation of its kind in Latin America. For thirty years it played a key role, both nationally where it provided the resources for Cuban film-makers, and in relation to the pan-continental New Latin American cinema movement. Beyond the institute alternative Cuban cinemas also emerged, some funded by bodies such as the Radio and Television Institute and even the armed forces. Amateur production, linked to regional cultural centres, also became significant in the 1980s. Even more important has been the Cuban International Film and Television School (EICTV), inaugurated in 1986 as part of they New Latin American Cinema Movement, which became an important laboratory for innovation and experiment. The cultural field in Cuba changed in the 1990s following the end of the cold war, leading to a reduction in local production. But it has also generated new kinds of cinematic engagement through allegories of disconnectedness, and low and no-budget film-making utilising new technologies, leading to a more porous national cinema in Cuba.Less
For a small nation Cuba has been a major player in the context of the Caribbean region. Following the 1959 revolution Cuban cinema emerged at the forefront of cultural production, facilitated by the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), the first organisation of its kind in Latin America. For thirty years it played a key role, both nationally where it provided the resources for Cuban film-makers, and in relation to the pan-continental New Latin American cinema movement. Beyond the institute alternative Cuban cinemas also emerged, some funded by bodies such as the Radio and Television Institute and even the armed forces. Amateur production, linked to regional cultural centres, also became significant in the 1980s. Even more important has been the Cuban International Film and Television School (EICTV), inaugurated in 1986 as part of they New Latin American Cinema Movement, which became an important laboratory for innovation and experiment. The cultural field in Cuba changed in the 1990s following the end of the cold war, leading to a reduction in local production. But it has also generated new kinds of cinematic engagement through allegories of disconnectedness, and low and no-budget film-making utilising new technologies, leading to a more porous national cinema in Cuba.
Jennifer O'Meara
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474420624
- eISBN:
- 9781474449564
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420624.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book examines the centrality of dialogue to American independent cinema, arguing that it is impossible to separate small budgets from the old adage that ‘talk is cheap’. Focusing on the 1980s ...
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This book examines the centrality of dialogue to American independent cinema, arguing that it is impossible to separate small budgets from the old adage that ‘talk is cheap’. Focusing on the 1980s until the present, particularly on films by writer-directors like Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach and Richard Linklater, the book demonstrates dialogue’s ability to engage audiences and bind together the narrative, aesthetic and performative elements of selected cinema. When compared to the dialogue norms of more mainstream cinema, the verbal styles of these independent writer-directors are found to be marked by alternations between various extremes, particularly those of naturalism and hyper-stylization, and between the poles of efficiency and excess. More broadly, these writer-directors are used as case studies that allow for an understanding of how dialogue functions in verbally experimental cinema, which, this book contends, is more often found in ‘independent’ or ‘art’ cinema. In questioning the association of dialogue-centred films with the ‘literary’ and the ‘un-cinematic’, the book highlights how speech in independent cinema can instead hinge on what is termed ‘cinematic verbalism’: when dialogue is designed and executed in complex, medium-specific ways. More broadly, the book provides a framework for analysing dialogue design and execution that can be readily applied to other films and filmmakers. It also highlights how speech can be central to cinema without overshadowing its medium-specific components. In so doing, the book develops new connections between film dialogue, reception studies, independent cinema and auteur studies.Less
This book examines the centrality of dialogue to American independent cinema, arguing that it is impossible to separate small budgets from the old adage that ‘talk is cheap’. Focusing on the 1980s until the present, particularly on films by writer-directors like Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach and Richard Linklater, the book demonstrates dialogue’s ability to engage audiences and bind together the narrative, aesthetic and performative elements of selected cinema. When compared to the dialogue norms of more mainstream cinema, the verbal styles of these independent writer-directors are found to be marked by alternations between various extremes, particularly those of naturalism and hyper-stylization, and between the poles of efficiency and excess. More broadly, these writer-directors are used as case studies that allow for an understanding of how dialogue functions in verbally experimental cinema, which, this book contends, is more often found in ‘independent’ or ‘art’ cinema. In questioning the association of dialogue-centred films with the ‘literary’ and the ‘un-cinematic’, the book highlights how speech in independent cinema can instead hinge on what is termed ‘cinematic verbalism’: when dialogue is designed and executed in complex, medium-specific ways. More broadly, the book provides a framework for analysing dialogue design and execution that can be readily applied to other films and filmmakers. It also highlights how speech can be central to cinema without overshadowing its medium-specific components. In so doing, the book develops new connections between film dialogue, reception studies, independent cinema and auteur studies.
Glyn Davis
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637782
- eISBN:
- 9780748670864
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637782.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Nominated for four Oscars, Far from Heaven earned rave reviews and won widespread cultural and critical recognition. A knowing and emotionally involving homage to the films of Douglas Sirk, this film ...
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Nominated for four Oscars, Far from Heaven earned rave reviews and won widespread cultural and critical recognition. A knowing and emotionally involving homage to the films of Douglas Sirk, this film is a key text in the canon of American independent cinema. This book offers a detailed and perceptive study of Haynes' film, with each chapter centred on a topic crucial for understanding Far from Heaven's richness and seductive pleasures (authorship, melodrama, queerness). The film is also positioned in relation to the rest of Todd Haynes' work, the New Queer Cinema movement, and the history of US independent cinema.Less
Nominated for four Oscars, Far from Heaven earned rave reviews and won widespread cultural and critical recognition. A knowing and emotionally involving homage to the films of Douglas Sirk, this film is a key text in the canon of American independent cinema. This book offers a detailed and perceptive study of Haynes' film, with each chapter centred on a topic crucial for understanding Far from Heaven's richness and seductive pleasures (authorship, melodrama, queerness). The film is also positioned in relation to the rest of Todd Haynes' work, the New Queer Cinema movement, and the history of US independent cinema.
Nitin Govil
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814785874
- eISBN:
- 9780814764732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814785874.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book explores the connections between Hollywood and Bombay cinema from 1913 to 2013. Drawing on the humanities and social sciences, it analyzes the contact between American and Bombay cinema by ...
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This book explores the connections between Hollywood and Bombay cinema from 1913 to 2013. Drawing on the humanities and social sciences, it analyzes the contact between American and Bombay cinema by highlighting India and the United States as both real and imagined stages of encounter. By focusing on how “Hollywood” and “Bombay cinema” have been produced in the history of encounter, the book reveals the ways that media industries are created, conceptualized, and sustained over time. It also examines the multiple dimensions of the relationship between Hollywood and Bombay cinema, and especially how American cinema and the Indian film industry have come into contact.Less
This book explores the connections between Hollywood and Bombay cinema from 1913 to 2013. Drawing on the humanities and social sciences, it analyzes the contact between American and Bombay cinema by highlighting India and the United States as both real and imagined stages of encounter. By focusing on how “Hollywood” and “Bombay cinema” have been produced in the history of encounter, the book reveals the ways that media industries are created, conceptualized, and sustained over time. It also examines the multiple dimensions of the relationship between Hollywood and Bombay cinema, and especially how American cinema and the Indian film industry have come into contact.
RAYMOND J. HABERSKI
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813124292
- eISBN:
- 9780813134918
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813124292.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses two developments in the movie culture of New York that seemed to signal the dawning of a new era in American cinema. These developments were the regime of censorship that had ...
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This chapter discusses two developments in the movie culture of New York that seemed to signal the dawning of a new era in American cinema. These developments were the regime of censorship that had controlled movies since their inception had almost completely unraveled and an underground sensibility became popular. It is noted here that during this time, a number of films that earned the designation “for mature audiences only” rose from six to forty-four. The discussion looks at how movies began evolving into brazen art, and the public began to expect a measure of controversy, even obscenity, among the popular arts.Less
This chapter discusses two developments in the movie culture of New York that seemed to signal the dawning of a new era in American cinema. These developments were the regime of censorship that had controlled movies since their inception had almost completely unraveled and an underground sensibility became popular. It is noted here that during this time, a number of films that earned the designation “for mature audiences only” rose from six to forty-four. The discussion looks at how movies began evolving into brazen art, and the public began to expect a measure of controversy, even obscenity, among the popular arts.
Nitin Govil
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814785874
- eISBN:
- 9780814764732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814785874.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter examines the rise of the multiplex theater in India over the past fifteen years and how it transformed the economies of scale in film production and distribution in the country. In ...
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This chapter examines the rise of the multiplex theater in India over the past fifteen years and how it transformed the economies of scale in film production and distribution in the country. In particular, it explores the cultural politics of the new Indian movie theater and its iconic display of modular forms of consumer mobility, along with the role of Hollywood in the emergence of multiplex as a manifestation of theatrical innovation in India. The chapter begins by providing a historical background on how America influenced India's exhibition infrastructure, paying special attention to Hollywood's establishment of Indian theater chains as a way to enhance the distribution of American cinema. It then places the Indian multiplex within a network of public amusements that produces forms of elite urban sociability and concludes with a discussion of the role played by Delhi's Chanakya movie hall in the city's foreign film culture and as a key exhibition site for Hollywood in India.Less
This chapter examines the rise of the multiplex theater in India over the past fifteen years and how it transformed the economies of scale in film production and distribution in the country. In particular, it explores the cultural politics of the new Indian movie theater and its iconic display of modular forms of consumer mobility, along with the role of Hollywood in the emergence of multiplex as a manifestation of theatrical innovation in India. The chapter begins by providing a historical background on how America influenced India's exhibition infrastructure, paying special attention to Hollywood's establishment of Indian theater chains as a way to enhance the distribution of American cinema. It then places the Indian multiplex within a network of public amusements that produces forms of elite urban sociability and concludes with a discussion of the role played by Delhi's Chanakya movie hall in the city's foreign film culture and as a key exhibition site for Hollywood in India.
Jonathan Rayner
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719070983
- eISBN:
- 9781781701157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719070983.003.0022
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Since the 1980s, the preponderance of military representation in American cinema speaks to a (re)militarisation of the state and populace, correcting the defeat and defeatism of Vietnam. The ...
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Since the 1980s, the preponderance of military representation in American cinema speaks to a (re)militarisation of the state and populace, correcting the defeat and defeatism of Vietnam. The pervasiveness of war films, war toys and popular images of conflict is noted as a prerequisite for the heightening of patriotism, the identification of enemies and the propagation of ideological norms. The fabrication of an adversarial relationship can be seen in the title of Behind Enemy Lines, and implies factors non-existent in the Balkan War, which are necessary to narrativise and rationalise an otherwise indecipherable, recalcitrant war. Reintroduction of such features presents a scenario in which American forces can intervene clearly and decisively, and reconfirm their superiority in the process. In this regard, the recreation of World War II serves a supplementary purpose. The repetitious history of Pearl Harbor, the rewritten history of U-571, the redeemed history of Flight of the Intruder and the revalued recent history of Behind Enemy Lines all evince such contemporaneous values and encodings.Less
Since the 1980s, the preponderance of military representation in American cinema speaks to a (re)militarisation of the state and populace, correcting the defeat and defeatism of Vietnam. The pervasiveness of war films, war toys and popular images of conflict is noted as a prerequisite for the heightening of patriotism, the identification of enemies and the propagation of ideological norms. The fabrication of an adversarial relationship can be seen in the title of Behind Enemy Lines, and implies factors non-existent in the Balkan War, which are necessary to narrativise and rationalise an otherwise indecipherable, recalcitrant war. Reintroduction of such features presents a scenario in which American forces can intervene clearly and decisively, and reconfirm their superiority in the process. In this regard, the recreation of World War II serves a supplementary purpose. The repetitious history of Pearl Harbor, the rewritten history of U-571, the redeemed history of Flight of the Intruder and the revalued recent history of Behind Enemy Lines all evince such contemporaneous values and encodings.
Rob Stone
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165532
- eISBN:
- 9780231850407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165532.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the role of the city of Austin in Richard Linklater's cinema. Locating Linklater in Austin is vital, for his films not only emerged from the slacker culture of the mid-1980s, ...
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This chapter examines the role of the city of Austin in Richard Linklater's cinema. Locating Linklater in Austin is vital, for his films not only emerged from the slacker culture of the mid-1980s, but enunciate the undermining of the ideologies of late capitalist materialism through the form, content, style, and themes of his filmmaking. Through this city, Linklater applied the techniques associated with representations of alienation in post-war European cinema to a specifically regional concept of American cinema that was also informed by existentialist and Marxist undercurrents. Consequently, his films associated slacker culture with the deliberate wider critical project of communal estrangement from political and national hegemonies, and reterritorialised a part of America that would find common identity and cause in the development of independent cinema.Less
This chapter examines the role of the city of Austin in Richard Linklater's cinema. Locating Linklater in Austin is vital, for his films not only emerged from the slacker culture of the mid-1980s, but enunciate the undermining of the ideologies of late capitalist materialism through the form, content, style, and themes of his filmmaking. Through this city, Linklater applied the techniques associated with representations of alienation in post-war European cinema to a specifically regional concept of American cinema that was also informed by existentialist and Marxist undercurrents. Consequently, his films associated slacker culture with the deliberate wider critical project of communal estrangement from political and national hegemonies, and reterritorialised a part of America that would find common identity and cause in the development of independent cinema.
