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/9780748633685.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This main focal point of this chapter is The Spanish Prisoner’s generic status. It introduces the labels ‘con artist film’ and ‘con game film’ and argues that Mamet’s film is an example of the second ...
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This main focal point of this chapter is The Spanish Prisoner’s generic status. It introduces the labels ‘con artist film’ and ‘con game film’ and argues that Mamet’s film is an example of the second category. Although con game films share a number of traits and conventions with crime films and thrillers (almost universally film critics have labelled The Spanish Prisoner a crime film and/or a thriller) they also present fundamental differences. Arguably, the most important difference is that while the disruption of the equilibrium in the narrative of crime films is marked by physical violence, in con artist films it is marked by failure in a character’s cognitive abilities to recognise the truth behind appearances. This failure is also “anticipated” on a spectatorial level as the dense plots of such films and their complicated narration prevent all but the most alert of spectators from grasping the finer details of elaborate confidence tricks that constitute the narratives of such films. After introducing the key characteristics of the con artist and the con game film, the chapter provides a close analysis of The Spanish Prisoner as a representative example of the latter generic label.Less
This main focal point of this chapter is The Spanish Prisoner’s generic status. It introduces the labels ‘con artist film’ and ‘con game film’ and argues that Mamet’s film is an example of the second category. Although con game films share a number of traits and conventions with crime films and thrillers (almost universally film critics have labelled The Spanish Prisoner a crime film and/or a thriller) they also present fundamental differences. Arguably, the most important difference is that while the disruption of the equilibrium in the narrative of crime films is marked by physical violence, in con artist films it is marked by failure in a character’s cognitive abilities to recognise the truth behind appearances. This failure is also “anticipated” on a spectatorial level as the dense plots of such films and their complicated narration prevent all but the most alert of spectators from grasping the finer details of elaborate confidence tricks that constitute the narratives of such films. After introducing the key characteristics of the con artist and the con game film, the chapter provides a close analysis of The Spanish Prisoner as a representative example of the latter generic label.
Paul Newland
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719082252
- eISBN:
- 9781781705049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082252.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the ways in which a range of films shot in New Towns or other suburban locations in Britain during the 1970s offer evidence of shifts in representations of criminal behaviour ...
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This chapter examines the ways in which a range of films shot in New Towns or other suburban locations in Britain during the 1970s offer evidence of shifts in representations of criminal behaviour which can be tied to the apparent modern ‘newness’ of these locations. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the film The Offence employs location shooting and impressively designed interiors (shot in the studio) in order to evoke a rapidly changing nation which is unsure of how to police itself. The chapter develops in order to examine how far crime and gangster films of the period such as The Squeeze and Get Carter often depict cruelty being meted out to young, innocent characters, and places these representations within socio-cultural context.Less
This chapter examines the ways in which a range of films shot in New Towns or other suburban locations in Britain during the 1970s offer evidence of shifts in representations of criminal behaviour which can be tied to the apparent modern ‘newness’ of these locations. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the film The Offence employs location shooting and impressively designed interiors (shot in the studio) in order to evoke a rapidly changing nation which is unsure of how to police itself. The chapter develops in order to examine how far crime and gangster films of the period such as The Squeeze and Get Carter often depict cruelty being meted out to young, innocent characters, and places these representations within socio-cultural context.
Lila Foster
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748656349
- eISBN:
- 9780748684274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748656349.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In 2007, the collection of amateur films from Cinemateca do Capitólio (Porto Alegre, Brazil) won a restoration grant, work that was developed at the laboratories of Cinemateca Brasileira. The films, ...
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In 2007, the collection of amateur films from Cinemateca do Capitólio (Porto Alegre, Brazil) won a restoration grant, work that was developed at the laboratories of Cinemateca Brasileira. The films, produced between 1932 and 1962, were shot by five different filmmakers: Sioma Breiman, an Ukrainian immigrant that established a solid career as a professional photographer; Fernando Moreira Machado, a doctor and amateur filmmaker, and João Carlos Caldasso, Nelson Furtado and Moacyr Flores, active members of the Foto-Cine Clube Gaúcho. This chapter undertakes a brief investigation of the amateur filmmaking scene in Porto Alegre taking as a starting point the fiction films from the collection of the Cinemateca do Capitólio and their production context. Most of the titles were collectively produced either by the members of the Foto-Cine Clube Gaúcho, founded in 1951 and still active today, or the group of friends that surrounded Doctor Fernando Moreira Machado. After this historical contextualisation, the analysis will turn to the crime films Dawn Steps and The Jewelry Store Robbery; silent films that bring a close resemblance in their narrative structure-usage of flashbacks, different points of views, female characters in search of revenge-creating an intricate narrative structure that expresses the efforts in dialoguing with established movie genres.Less
In 2007, the collection of amateur films from Cinemateca do Capitólio (Porto Alegre, Brazil) won a restoration grant, work that was developed at the laboratories of Cinemateca Brasileira. The films, produced between 1932 and 1962, were shot by five different filmmakers: Sioma Breiman, an Ukrainian immigrant that established a solid career as a professional photographer; Fernando Moreira Machado, a doctor and amateur filmmaker, and João Carlos Caldasso, Nelson Furtado and Moacyr Flores, active members of the Foto-Cine Clube Gaúcho. This chapter undertakes a brief investigation of the amateur filmmaking scene in Porto Alegre taking as a starting point the fiction films from the collection of the Cinemateca do Capitólio and their production context. Most of the titles were collectively produced either by the members of the Foto-Cine Clube Gaúcho, founded in 1951 and still active today, or the group of friends that surrounded Doctor Fernando Moreira Machado. After this historical contextualisation, the analysis will turn to the crime films Dawn Steps and The Jewelry Store Robbery; silent films that bring a close resemblance in their narrative structure-usage of flashbacks, different points of views, female characters in search of revenge-creating an intricate narrative structure that expresses the efforts in dialoguing with established movie genres.
Siegfried Mattl and Vrääth Öhner
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748656349
- eISBN:
- 9780748684274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748656349.003.0012
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In the late 1920s, a group of Viennese craftsmen under the direction of the chimney sweep (and passionate piano player, wrestler and drama student) Franz Hohenberger, shot a feature-length crime ...
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In the late 1920s, a group of Viennese craftsmen under the direction of the chimney sweep (and passionate piano player, wrestler and drama student) Franz Hohenberger, shot a feature-length crime movie modelled on then current French and American examples of this popular genre. The resulting film, The Green Cockatoo (1929) tells the melodramatic story of two vagabonds, who rescue a virtuous girl from the clutches of Chinese hoodlums, whilst offering a series of other ‘attractions’ that demonstrate affiliation with a range of other amateur genres; from the slapstick comedy to the ‘chaser’ film and the travelogue. Recognising a range of such suggestive commercial inter-texts, the study explores the conditions that shaped the ‘bricolage’ characterising The Green Cockatoo, and asks whether these are attributable to local cultural traditions, sourced in perverse amateur impulses, or whether they are simply modellings of influential international examples? Do they address a particular context of amateur exhibition, or are they the result of an obstinate cultural practice to be associated with amateurism, equally determined by technological developments, socio-historical factors and intermediate references?Less
In the late 1920s, a group of Viennese craftsmen under the direction of the chimney sweep (and passionate piano player, wrestler and drama student) Franz Hohenberger, shot a feature-length crime movie modelled on then current French and American examples of this popular genre. The resulting film, The Green Cockatoo (1929) tells the melodramatic story of two vagabonds, who rescue a virtuous girl from the clutches of Chinese hoodlums, whilst offering a series of other ‘attractions’ that demonstrate affiliation with a range of other amateur genres; from the slapstick comedy to the ‘chaser’ film and the travelogue. Recognising a range of such suggestive commercial inter-texts, the study explores the conditions that shaped the ‘bricolage’ characterising The Green Cockatoo, and asks whether these are attributable to local cultural traditions, sourced in perverse amateur impulses, or whether they are simply modellings of influential international examples? Do they address a particular context of amateur exhibition, or are they the result of an obstinate cultural practice to be associated with amateurism, equally determined by technological developments, socio-historical factors and intermediate references?
Austin Fisher
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474411721
- eISBN:
- 9781474464727
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411721.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter places Italy's 1970s within a broad continuum in post-war Western Europe, in which wartime schisms were silenced and shelved, only to reappear decades later into a transformed cultural ...
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This chapter places Italy's 1970s within a broad continuum in post-war Western Europe, in which wartime schisms were silenced and shelved, only to reappear decades later into a transformed cultural landscape. An attendant sense of national 'taking stock' manifested itself in an acute awareness of the weight of the past, and of the present moment's significance as a turning point in Italian history. The chapter analyses this point in detail by looking at the influence of the USA in the post-war years, with a particular focus on Italy's film industry. As a barometer for the intimate economic and cultural relationship between the two nations, Italian cinema embodied wider tensions between the local and the global, and the 'crime film' is taken as a case in point.Less
This chapter places Italy's 1970s within a broad continuum in post-war Western Europe, in which wartime schisms were silenced and shelved, only to reappear decades later into a transformed cultural landscape. An attendant sense of national 'taking stock' manifested itself in an acute awareness of the weight of the past, and of the present moment's significance as a turning point in Italian history. The chapter analyses this point in detail by looking at the influence of the USA in the post-war years, with a particular focus on Italy's film industry. As a barometer for the intimate economic and cultural relationship between the two nations, Italian cinema embodied wider tensions between the local and the global, and the 'crime film' is taken as a case in point.
Todd Berliner
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190658748
- eISBN:
- 9780190658786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190658748.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 8 demonstrates the ways in which ideological constraints in studio-era Hollywood shaped the aesthetic properties of an entire body of crime films, now commonly known as film noir. The ...
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Chapter 8 demonstrates the ways in which ideological constraints in studio-era Hollywood shaped the aesthetic properties of an entire body of crime films, now commonly known as film noir. The ideological restrictions of the Production Code Administration posed creative problems that noir filmmakers solved through visual and narrative contortion. The contortions created challenges for audiences, who had to decode and make sense of films that may not show complete clarity or coherence in their storytelling. Film noir remains aesthetically engaging because it operates near the boundaries of classicism without sacrificing classical Hollywood’s accessibility and formal unity.Less
Chapter 8 demonstrates the ways in which ideological constraints in studio-era Hollywood shaped the aesthetic properties of an entire body of crime films, now commonly known as film noir. The ideological restrictions of the Production Code Administration posed creative problems that noir filmmakers solved through visual and narrative contortion. The contortions created challenges for audiences, who had to decode and make sense of films that may not show complete clarity or coherence in their storytelling. Film noir remains aesthetically engaging because it operates near the boundaries of classicism without sacrificing classical Hollywood’s accessibility and formal unity.
Austin Fisher
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474411721
- eISBN:
- 9781474464727
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411721.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Blood in the Streets investigates the various ways in which 1970s Italian crime films were embedded in their immediate cultural and political contexts. The book analyses the emergence, proliferation ...
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Blood in the Streets investigates the various ways in which 1970s Italian crime films were embedded in their immediate cultural and political contexts. The book analyses the emergence, proliferation and distribution of a range of popular film cycles (or filoni) - from conspiracy thrillers and vigilante films, to mafia and serial killer narratives - and examines what these reveal about their time and place. The engagement in these films with both the contemporary political turmoil of 1970s Italy and the traumas of the nation's recent past offer fascinating insights into wider anxieties of this decade around the Second World War and its on-going political aftermath. Ultimately, these cycles' industrial conditions of rapid production schedules and concentrated release patterns are seen to be the key to understanding their significance, since these conditions allowed for swift responsiveness to political events, cinematic trends and attendant economic opportunities, while demanding the simplified construction of believable contemporary backdrops. The book thus reveals a repetitive accumulation of assumptions around historically constituted corruption, the impact of rapid socio-economic change and the lingering vestiges of wartime conflict.Less
Blood in the Streets investigates the various ways in which 1970s Italian crime films were embedded in their immediate cultural and political contexts. The book analyses the emergence, proliferation and distribution of a range of popular film cycles (or filoni) - from conspiracy thrillers and vigilante films, to mafia and serial killer narratives - and examines what these reveal about their time and place. The engagement in these films with both the contemporary political turmoil of 1970s Italy and the traumas of the nation's recent past offer fascinating insights into wider anxieties of this decade around the Second World War and its on-going political aftermath. Ultimately, these cycles' industrial conditions of rapid production schedules and concentrated release patterns are seen to be the key to understanding their significance, since these conditions allowed for swift responsiveness to political events, cinematic trends and attendant economic opportunities, while demanding the simplified construction of believable contemporary backdrops. The book thus reveals a repetitive accumulation of assumptions around historically constituted corruption, the impact of rapid socio-economic change and the lingering vestiges of wartime conflict.
Tom Gunning
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748676118
- eISBN:
- 9780748695096
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676118.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter, written by Tom Gunning, pursues the relentless immersion, at street level, of the urbanite in a city doubly composed of the seen and unseen, image and shadow. Making evident what the ...
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This chapter, written by Tom Gunning, pursues the relentless immersion, at street level, of the urbanite in a city doubly composed of the seen and unseen, image and shadow. Making evident what the city shares with the uneasy world-view of film noir, Gunning’s essay casts light on the ways in which experiences of urban culture, modernity, and the cinema are inextricably linked. This brings into play another aspect of cinematicity, namely that the city from the nineteenth century onwards had become what Gunning calls a ‘hyper-visual zone’ whose inhabitants were bombarded by an array of visual stimuli and partial impressions, as if preparing them for the onslaught of the moving pictures themselves. Beneath the visible facade of the city, as the detective figure that emerged in the literature of the period makes abundantly clear, also however lurk dark corners, dangerous places, and invisible threats. It is here, Gunning argues, that the police’s bull’s eye lantern and the flash of the journalist’s camera make visible what was invisible.Less
This chapter, written by Tom Gunning, pursues the relentless immersion, at street level, of the urbanite in a city doubly composed of the seen and unseen, image and shadow. Making evident what the city shares with the uneasy world-view of film noir, Gunning’s essay casts light on the ways in which experiences of urban culture, modernity, and the cinema are inextricably linked. This brings into play another aspect of cinematicity, namely that the city from the nineteenth century onwards had become what Gunning calls a ‘hyper-visual zone’ whose inhabitants were bombarded by an array of visual stimuli and partial impressions, as if preparing them for the onslaught of the moving pictures themselves. Beneath the visible facade of the city, as the detective figure that emerged in the literature of the period makes abundantly clear, also however lurk dark corners, dangerous places, and invisible threats. It is here, Gunning argues, that the police’s bull’s eye lantern and the flash of the journalist’s camera make visible what was invisible.
Todd Berliner
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190658748
- eISBN:
- 9780190658786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190658748.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 2 illustrates an aesthetically productive balance between easy understanding and cognitive challenge in classical Hollywood cinema with extended analyses of His Girl Friday and Double ...
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Chapter 2 illustrates an aesthetically productive balance between easy understanding and cognitive challenge in classical Hollywood cinema with extended analyses of His Girl Friday and Double Indemnity. These films combine classical narrative, stylistic, ideological, and genre properties with artistic devices that complicate formal patterning and thwart audience expectations.Less
Chapter 2 illustrates an aesthetically productive balance between easy understanding and cognitive challenge in classical Hollywood cinema with extended analyses of His Girl Friday and Double Indemnity. These films combine classical narrative, stylistic, ideological, and genre properties with artistic devices that complicate formal patterning and thwart audience expectations.
