Dorota Ostrowska and Graham Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748623082
- eISBN:
- 9780748651122
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623082.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book represents a radical attempt to rethink the post-war history of European cinemas. The chapters approach the subject from the perspective of television's impact on the culture of cinema's ...
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This book represents a radical attempt to rethink the post-war history of European cinemas. The chapters approach the subject from the perspective of television's impact on the culture of cinema's production, distribution, consumption, and reception. Thus, they indicate a new direction for the debate about the future of cinema in Europe. In every European country, television has transformed the economic, technological, and aesthetic terms in which the process of cinema production is conducted. Television's growing popularity has drastically reshaped cinema's audiences, and has forced governments to introduce policies to regulate the interaction between cinema and television in the changing and dynamic audio-visual environment. Cinematic criticism was slowest in coming to terms with the presence of television and therefore most instrumental in perpetuating the view of cinema as an isolated object of aesthetic, critical, and academic inquiry. The recognition of the impact of television upon European cinemas offers a more authentic and richer picture of cinemas in Europe, which are part of the complex audiovisual matrix including television and new media.Less
This book represents a radical attempt to rethink the post-war history of European cinemas. The chapters approach the subject from the perspective of television's impact on the culture of cinema's production, distribution, consumption, and reception. Thus, they indicate a new direction for the debate about the future of cinema in Europe. In every European country, television has transformed the economic, technological, and aesthetic terms in which the process of cinema production is conducted. Television's growing popularity has drastically reshaped cinema's audiences, and has forced governments to introduce policies to regulate the interaction between cinema and television in the changing and dynamic audio-visual environment. Cinematic criticism was slowest in coming to terms with the presence of television and therefore most instrumental in perpetuating the view of cinema as an isolated object of aesthetic, critical, and academic inquiry. The recognition of the impact of television upon European cinemas offers a more authentic and richer picture of cinemas in Europe, which are part of the complex audiovisual matrix including television and new media.
David Martin-Jones
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622443
- eISBN:
- 9780748651085
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622443.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book challenges the traditional use of Deleuze's philosophy to examine European art cinema, exploring how Deleuze can be used to analyse national identity across a range of different cinemas. ...
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This book challenges the traditional use of Deleuze's philosophy to examine European art cinema, exploring how Deleuze can be used to analyse national identity across a range of different cinemas. Focusing on narrative time, it combines a Deleuzean approach with a vast range of non-traditional material. The films discussed are contemporary and popular (either financial or cult successes), and include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Terminator 3, Memento, Saving Private Ryan, Run Lola Run, Sliding Doors, Chaos and Peppermint Candy. Each film is examined in light of a major historical event – including 9/11, German reunification, and the Asian economic crisis – and the impact it has had on individual nations. This cross-cultural approach illustrates how Deleuze's work can enhance our understanding of the construction of national identity. It also enables a critique of Deleuze's conclusions by examining his work in a variety of national contexts. The book significantly broadens the field of work on Deleuze and cinema, placing equal emphasis on understanding mainstream North American genre films, and American independent and European art films. It also examines Asian thrillers, and gangster and art films in the light of Deleuze's work on time. With Asian films increasingly crossing over into Western markets, this is a timely addition to the expanding body of work on Deleuze and film.Less
This book challenges the traditional use of Deleuze's philosophy to examine European art cinema, exploring how Deleuze can be used to analyse national identity across a range of different cinemas. Focusing on narrative time, it combines a Deleuzean approach with a vast range of non-traditional material. The films discussed are contemporary and popular (either financial or cult successes), and include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Terminator 3, Memento, Saving Private Ryan, Run Lola Run, Sliding Doors, Chaos and Peppermint Candy. Each film is examined in light of a major historical event – including 9/11, German reunification, and the Asian economic crisis – and the impact it has had on individual nations. This cross-cultural approach illustrates how Deleuze's work can enhance our understanding of the construction of national identity. It also enables a critique of Deleuze's conclusions by examining his work in a variety of national contexts. The book significantly broadens the field of work on Deleuze and cinema, placing equal emphasis on understanding mainstream North American genre films, and American independent and European art films. It also examines Asian thrillers, and gangster and art films in the light of Deleuze's work on time. With Asian films increasingly crossing over into Western markets, this is a timely addition to the expanding body of work on Deleuze and film.
Michael Gott
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748698677
- eISBN:
- 9781474421966
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698677.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter set the stage for an exploration of contemporary French-language European road movies by tracing the interwoven lines of the tradition in its American and European iterations back to the ...
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This chapter set the stage for an exploration of contemporary French-language European road movies by tracing the interwoven lines of the tradition in its American and European iterations back to the 1960s, the period during which the template for contemporary road cinema crystalized. It argues that the contours of the road movie tradition are not strictly the product of a direct lineage from seminal American films from the late 1960s, such as Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969, USA), but the result of complex transnational interactions within European cinemas and between European and American cultures. The films covered are Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi, 1962, Italy), Le corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1965, France/Italy) Les petits matins/Hitch-Hike (Jacqueline Audry, 1962, France), Im Lauf der Zeit/Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders, 1977, West Germany), Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Aki Kaurismäki,1989, Finland/Sweden) and Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders, 1994, Germany/Portugal).Less
This chapter set the stage for an exploration of contemporary French-language European road movies by tracing the interwoven lines of the tradition in its American and European iterations back to the 1960s, the period during which the template for contemporary road cinema crystalized. It argues that the contours of the road movie tradition are not strictly the product of a direct lineage from seminal American films from the late 1960s, such as Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969, USA), but the result of complex transnational interactions within European cinemas and between European and American cultures. The films covered are Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi, 1962, Italy), Le corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1965, France/Italy) Les petits matins/Hitch-Hike (Jacqueline Audry, 1962, France), Im Lauf der Zeit/Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders, 1977, West Germany), Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Aki Kaurismäki,1989, Finland/Sweden) and Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders, 1994, Germany/Portugal).
Daniela Berghahn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748642908
- eISBN:
- 9780748689088
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748642908.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The introduction situates this study in the context of the two principal fields of enquiry with which it intersects, namely scholarship on the representation of the family in (predominantly ...
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The introduction situates this study in the context of the two principal fields of enquiry with which it intersects, namely scholarship on the representation of the family in (predominantly Hollywood) cinema and the rapidly growing body of work on transnational cinema, more generally, and diasporic European cinema, in particular. The overarching argument of the book, which is outlined in the Introduction, is that the diasporic family on screen crystallises the emotionally ambivalent response to growing cultural diversity in Western societies. Constructed as Other on account of their ethnicity, language and religion, diasporic families are perceived as a threat to the social cohesion of Western host societies. At the same time, many diasporic family films reflect a nostalgic longing for the traditional family, imagined in terms of extended kinship ties and superior family values.Less
The introduction situates this study in the context of the two principal fields of enquiry with which it intersects, namely scholarship on the representation of the family in (predominantly Hollywood) cinema and the rapidly growing body of work on transnational cinema, more generally, and diasporic European cinema, in particular. The overarching argument of the book, which is outlined in the Introduction, is that the diasporic family on screen crystallises the emotionally ambivalent response to growing cultural diversity in Western societies. Constructed as Other on account of their ethnicity, language and religion, diasporic families are perceived as a threat to the social cohesion of Western host societies. At the same time, many diasporic family films reflect a nostalgic longing for the traditional family, imagined in terms of extended kinship ties and superior family values.
Michael Gott and Todd Herzog (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780748694150
- eISBN:
- 9781474408592
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694150.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Twenty-five years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Eastern Europe, ten years have passed since the first formerly communist states entered the E.U. and an ...
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Twenty-five years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Eastern Europe, ten years have passed since the first formerly communist states entered the E.U. and an entire post-Wall generation has now entered adulthood. Yet scholarship on European cinema still tends to divide the continent along the old Cold War lines. This collection is the first to consider the ways in which notions such as East and West, national and transnational, central and marginal are being rethought and reframed in contemporary European cinema. The world's leading scholars in the field assemble in this volume to assess the state of post-1989 European cinema, from (co)production and reception trends to filmic depictions of migration patterns, economic transformations, and socio-political debates over the past and the present. The volume focuses on three geographic or linguistic clusters whilst suggesting that the lines are often blurred between them: French- and German-language cinemas as well as more ‘marginal’ and overlooked players in European cinema. Contributions address recent films from or about Armenia, Austria, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Switzerland and the complex and often contradictory notions of East, West and ‘Centre’ that they employ. The volume is grouped around three sections: (1) ‘Redrawing the Lines: De/Re-centring Europe’, (2) ‘Belonging and the “Road to/from Europe”: Border Spaces, Eastern Margins and Eastern Markets’ and (3) Spectres of the East. It is the most comprehensive investigation of East/West European cinema in the early 21st century.Less
Twenty-five years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Eastern Europe, ten years have passed since the first formerly communist states entered the E.U. and an entire post-Wall generation has now entered adulthood. Yet scholarship on European cinema still tends to divide the continent along the old Cold War lines. This collection is the first to consider the ways in which notions such as East and West, national and transnational, central and marginal are being rethought and reframed in contemporary European cinema. The world's leading scholars in the field assemble in this volume to assess the state of post-1989 European cinema, from (co)production and reception trends to filmic depictions of migration patterns, economic transformations, and socio-political debates over the past and the present. The volume focuses on three geographic or linguistic clusters whilst suggesting that the lines are often blurred between them: French- and German-language cinemas as well as more ‘marginal’ and overlooked players in European cinema. Contributions address recent films from or about Armenia, Austria, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Switzerland and the complex and often contradictory notions of East, West and ‘Centre’ that they employ. The volume is grouped around three sections: (1) ‘Redrawing the Lines: De/Re-centring Europe’, (2) ‘Belonging and the “Road to/from Europe”: Border Spaces, Eastern Margins and Eastern Markets’ and (3) Spectres of the East. It is the most comprehensive investigation of East/West European cinema in the early 21st century.
Michael Gott and Todd Herzog
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780748694150
- eISBN:
- 9781474408592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694150.003.0019
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, it is both possible and necessary to remap our conceptions of Europe, European citizenship and European cinema(s). Political, social, ...
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Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, it is both possible and necessary to remap our conceptions of Europe, European citizenship and European cinema(s). Political, social, and cultural concepts of what is “East” and what is “West” are in constant revision. The introduction examines some of the ways by which Contemporary European cinema actively works to reframe notions of East, West and centre. The introduction gives an overview of trends in national and transnational cinemas, including migrant films, ‘return’ films, multilingual films, and poses crucial questions and topics that will be dealt with in detail by in the chapters of this volume.Less
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, it is both possible and necessary to remap our conceptions of Europe, European citizenship and European cinema(s). Political, social, and cultural concepts of what is “East” and what is “West” are in constant revision. The introduction examines some of the ways by which Contemporary European cinema actively works to reframe notions of East, West and centre. The introduction gives an overview of trends in national and transnational cinemas, including migrant films, ‘return’ films, multilingual films, and poses crucial questions and topics that will be dealt with in detail by in the chapters of this volume.
Daniela Berghahn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748642908
- eISBN:
- 9780748689088
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748642908.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Why have films with diasporic family narratives increased in popularity in recent years? How do representations of the diasporic family differ from those of more dominant social groups? How does ...
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Why have films with diasporic family narratives increased in popularity in recent years? How do representations of the diasporic family differ from those of more dominant social groups? How does diasporic cinema negotiate the conventions of film genres commonly associated with the representation of the family? In the age of globalisation, diasporic and other types of transnational family are increasingly represented in films such as East is East, The Grand Tour (Le Grand Voyage), Almanya - Welcome to Germany (Almanya - Willkommen in Deutschland), Immigrant Memories (Mémoires d'immigrés: l'héritage maghrébin), Couscous (La graine et le mulet), When We Leave (Die Fremde), Monsoon Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. While there is a significant body of scholarship on the family in Hollywood cinema, this is the first book to analyse the representation of families with an immigration background from a comparative transnational perspective. It focuses on Europe's most established transnational film cultures, Black and Asian British, Maghrebi French (or ‘beur’) and Turkish German cinema, and analyses key trends from the mid-1980s to the present. Drawing on critical concepts from diaspora studies, cultural anthropology, socio-historical research on diasporic families and the burgeoning field of transnational film studies, this book offers original critical perspectives to scholars and students who are researching families and issues of race and ethnicity in cinema, the media and visual culture.Less
Why have films with diasporic family narratives increased in popularity in recent years? How do representations of the diasporic family differ from those of more dominant social groups? How does diasporic cinema negotiate the conventions of film genres commonly associated with the representation of the family? In the age of globalisation, diasporic and other types of transnational family are increasingly represented in films such as East is East, The Grand Tour (Le Grand Voyage), Almanya - Welcome to Germany (Almanya - Willkommen in Deutschland), Immigrant Memories (Mémoires d'immigrés: l'héritage maghrébin), Couscous (La graine et le mulet), When We Leave (Die Fremde), Monsoon Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. While there is a significant body of scholarship on the family in Hollywood cinema, this is the first book to analyse the representation of families with an immigration background from a comparative transnational perspective. It focuses on Europe's most established transnational film cultures, Black and Asian British, Maghrebi French (or ‘beur’) and Turkish German cinema, and analyses key trends from the mid-1980s to the present. Drawing on critical concepts from diaspora studies, cultural anthropology, socio-historical research on diasporic families and the burgeoning field of transnational film studies, this book offers original critical perspectives to scholars and students who are researching families and issues of race and ethnicity in cinema, the media and visual culture.
Walter Armbrust (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520219250
- eISBN:
- 9780520923096
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520219250.003.0012
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter discusses the politics and economics of the Egyptian film industry before its nationalization in the 1960s. It shows that the economic crisis experienced by Egyptian filmmakers during ...
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This chapter discusses the politics and economics of the Egyptian film industry before its nationalization in the 1960s. It shows that the economic crisis experienced by Egyptian filmmakers during the mid-1950s was not entirely or predominantly caused by the hegemony of American and European cinemas. The chapter stresses that Egyptian cinema should be understood as segmented, and that the implications of this segmentation have been hidden by a systematic attention to the most accessible segments of the market.Less
This chapter discusses the politics and economics of the Egyptian film industry before its nationalization in the 1960s. It shows that the economic crisis experienced by Egyptian filmmakers during the mid-1950s was not entirely or predominantly caused by the hegemony of American and European cinemas. The chapter stresses that Egyptian cinema should be understood as segmented, and that the implications of this segmentation have been hidden by a systematic attention to the most accessible segments of the market.
Alex Marlow-Mann
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748640669
- eISBN:
- 9780748651214
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640669.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Vito and the Others (1991), Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician (1992) and Libera (1993), the debuts of three young Neapolitan filmmakers, stood out dramatically from the landscape of Italian cinema ...
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Vito and the Others (1991), Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician (1992) and Libera (1993), the debuts of three young Neapolitan filmmakers, stood out dramatically from the landscape of Italian cinema in the early 1990s. On the back of their critical success, over the next decade and a half, Naples became a thriving centre for film production. This study of one of the most vital and stimulating currents in contemporary European cinema provides a detailed study of this distinct regional tradition. In tracing the movement's relationship with the popular musical melodramas previously produced in Naples, the book reveals how contemporary Neapolitan filmmakers have interrogated, subverted and reconfigured cinematic convention as part of a through-going re-examination of Neapolitan identity. The book analyses more than 45 contemporary Italian films, including Paolo Sorrentino's The Consequences of Love, Mario Martone's L'amore molesto, Antonio Capuano's Pianese Nunzio: 14 in May, and Vincenzo Marra's Sailing Home.Less
Vito and the Others (1991), Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician (1992) and Libera (1993), the debuts of three young Neapolitan filmmakers, stood out dramatically from the landscape of Italian cinema in the early 1990s. On the back of their critical success, over the next decade and a half, Naples became a thriving centre for film production. This study of one of the most vital and stimulating currents in contemporary European cinema provides a detailed study of this distinct regional tradition. In tracing the movement's relationship with the popular musical melodramas previously produced in Naples, the book reveals how contemporary Neapolitan filmmakers have interrogated, subverted and reconfigured cinematic convention as part of a through-going re-examination of Neapolitan identity. The book analyses more than 45 contemporary Italian films, including Paolo Sorrentino's The Consequences of Love, Mario Martone's L'amore molesto, Antonio Capuano's Pianese Nunzio: 14 in May, and Vincenzo Marra's Sailing Home.
Michael Gott
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748698677
- eISBN:
- 9781474421966
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698677.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Over the past two decades road cinema has become an increasingly popular form of expression for European directors. Focusing on a corpus of films from France, Belgium and Switzerland, including works ...
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Over the past two decades road cinema has become an increasingly popular form of expression for European directors. Focusing on a corpus of films from France, Belgium and Switzerland, including works by Ismaël Ferroukhi, Bouli Lanners, Aki Kaurismäki and Jacqueline Audry amongst many others, French-language Road Cinema contends that nowhere is the impulse to remap the spaces and identities of ‘New Europe’ more evident than in French-language cinema. Drawing on mobility studies, cultural geography and film theory, this innovative work sketches out the flexible yet distinctive parameters of contemporary French-language road cinema, and argues for an understanding of the ‘road movie’ not as a genre but as a thematic and formal template that crosses cinematic categories to bring together a wide array of films that narrate the movements of migrants, tourists and business executives.Less
Over the past two decades road cinema has become an increasingly popular form of expression for European directors. Focusing on a corpus of films from France, Belgium and Switzerland, including works by Ismaël Ferroukhi, Bouli Lanners, Aki Kaurismäki and Jacqueline Audry amongst many others, French-language Road Cinema contends that nowhere is the impulse to remap the spaces and identities of ‘New Europe’ more evident than in French-language cinema. Drawing on mobility studies, cultural geography and film theory, this innovative work sketches out the flexible yet distinctive parameters of contemporary French-language road cinema, and argues for an understanding of the ‘road movie’ not as a genre but as a thematic and formal template that crosses cinematic categories to bring together a wide array of films that narrate the movements of migrants, tourists and business executives.
Anca Parvulescu
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226118246
- eISBN:
- 9780226118413
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226118413.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
“Welcome to the European Family!” is the banner under which East European countries joined the European Union following the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. This book offers an analysis of the ...
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“Welcome to the European Family!” is the banner under which East European countries joined the European Union following the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. This book offers an analysis of the imbrication of the ensuing imagined European kinship with its corollary: the traffic in women. The book revisits Claude Lévi-Strauss concept of kinship, as well as its re-articulation by second-wave feminists, Gayle Rubin most prominently, in order to remind the reader that kinship has been traditionally anchored in the traffic in women. This is not the traffic in women invoked by the media to refer to sex trafficking per se, but a broad anthropological concept that describes the circulation of women between kinship groups, traditionally through marriage. Reading recent cinematic texts that critically frame the European traffic in women, the book shows that, in today’s Europe, racialized East European migrant women are “exchanged” so they can engage in labor traditionally performed by wives within the institution of marriage. Following a pattern of what the book calls Americanization, East European migrant women, alongside women from the global South, become responsible for the biopolitical labor of reproduction, whether they work as domestics, nannies, nurses, sex workers, or wives. A feminist intervention in the heated debate on the making and unmaking of Europe, the book argues that the critical project of pluralizing post-1989 Europe needs to account for the Europe brought together through the traffic in East European women.Less
“Welcome to the European Family!” is the banner under which East European countries joined the European Union following the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. This book offers an analysis of the imbrication of the ensuing imagined European kinship with its corollary: the traffic in women. The book revisits Claude Lévi-Strauss concept of kinship, as well as its re-articulation by second-wave feminists, Gayle Rubin most prominently, in order to remind the reader that kinship has been traditionally anchored in the traffic in women. This is not the traffic in women invoked by the media to refer to sex trafficking per se, but a broad anthropological concept that describes the circulation of women between kinship groups, traditionally through marriage. Reading recent cinematic texts that critically frame the European traffic in women, the book shows that, in today’s Europe, racialized East European migrant women are “exchanged” so they can engage in labor traditionally performed by wives within the institution of marriage. Following a pattern of what the book calls Americanization, East European migrant women, alongside women from the global South, become responsible for the biopolitical labor of reproduction, whether they work as domestics, nannies, nurses, sex workers, or wives. A feminist intervention in the heated debate on the making and unmaking of Europe, the book argues that the critical project of pluralizing post-1989 Europe needs to account for the Europe brought together through the traffic in East European women.
Tanya C Horeck and Tina Kendall
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748641604
- eISBN:
- 9780748651221
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641604.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Explosive images of sex and violence in films by directors such as Catherine Breillat, Gaspar Noé, Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier have attracted media attention for the ways in which they seek to ...
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Explosive images of sex and violence in films by directors such as Catherine Breillat, Gaspar Noé, Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier have attracted media attention for the ways in which they seek to shock and provoke the spectator into powerful affective and visceral responses. This book, devoted to the new extremism in contemporary European cinema, critically interrogates this highly contentious body of work and demonstrates that these films and the controversies they engender are indispensable to the critical task of rethinking the terms of spectatorship. Through critical discussions of key films and directors, it sheds new light on cutting-edge debates in film studies regarding sexuality, violence and spectatorship; affect and ethic; and the political dimensions of extreme cinema.Less
Explosive images of sex and violence in films by directors such as Catherine Breillat, Gaspar Noé, Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier have attracted media attention for the ways in which they seek to shock and provoke the spectator into powerful affective and visceral responses. This book, devoted to the new extremism in contemporary European cinema, critically interrogates this highly contentious body of work and demonstrates that these films and the controversies they engender are indispensable to the critical task of rethinking the terms of spectatorship. Through critical discussions of key films and directors, it sheds new light on cutting-edge debates in film studies regarding sexuality, violence and spectatorship; affect and ethic; and the political dimensions of extreme cinema.
Alison Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474415224
- eISBN:
- 9781474434829
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415224.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Extreme violence in contemporary European art cinema is generally interpreted for its affective potential, but what about the significance of the everyday that so often frames and forms the majority ...
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Extreme violence in contemporary European art cinema is generally interpreted for its affective potential, but what about the significance of the everyday that so often frames and forms the majority of these films? Why do the sudden moments of violence that punctuate films like Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001), Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002) and Markus Schleinzer’s Michael (2011) seem so reliant on everyday routines and settings for their impact? Addressing these questions through a series of case studies, and considering notorious films in their historical and philosophical context, Troubled Everyday offers the first detailed examination of the relationship between violence and the everyday in European art cinema. It calls for a re-evaluation of what gives these films such affective force and such a prolonged grip on our imagination.Less
Extreme violence in contemporary European art cinema is generally interpreted for its affective potential, but what about the significance of the everyday that so often frames and forms the majority of these films? Why do the sudden moments of violence that punctuate films like Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001), Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002) and Markus Schleinzer’s Michael (2011) seem so reliant on everyday routines and settings for their impact? Addressing these questions through a series of case studies, and considering notorious films in their historical and philosophical context, Troubled Everyday offers the first detailed examination of the relationship between violence and the everyday in European art cinema. It calls for a re-evaluation of what gives these films such affective force and such a prolonged grip on our imagination.
Randall Halle
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038457
- eISBN:
- 9780252096334
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038457.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This innovative study advances the concept of “interzones”—geographical and ideational spaces of transit, interaction, transformation, and contested diversity—as a mechanism for analyzing European ...
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This innovative study advances the concept of “interzones”—geographical and ideational spaces of transit, interaction, transformation, and contested diversity—as a mechanism for analyzing European cinema. The book focuses especially on films about borders, borderlands, and cultural zones as it traces the development of interzones from the inception of central European cinema to the avant-garde films of today. Throughout, it shows how cinema both reflects and engenders interzones that explore the important questions of Europe's social order: imperialism and nation-building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; “first contact” between former adversaries (such as East and West Germany) following World War II and the Cold War; and migration, neo-colonialism, and cultural imperialism in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, the book argues that today's cinema both produces and reflects imaginative communities. It demonstrates how, rather than simply erasing boundaries, the European Union instead fosters a network of cultural interzones that encourage cinematic exploration of the new Europe's processes and limits of connectivity, tolerance, and cooperation.Less
This innovative study advances the concept of “interzones”—geographical and ideational spaces of transit, interaction, transformation, and contested diversity—as a mechanism for analyzing European cinema. The book focuses especially on films about borders, borderlands, and cultural zones as it traces the development of interzones from the inception of central European cinema to the avant-garde films of today. Throughout, it shows how cinema both reflects and engenders interzones that explore the important questions of Europe's social order: imperialism and nation-building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; “first contact” between former adversaries (such as East and West Germany) following World War II and the Cold War; and migration, neo-colonialism, and cultural imperialism in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, the book argues that today's cinema both produces and reflects imaginative communities. It demonstrates how, rather than simply erasing boundaries, the European Union instead fosters a network of cultural interzones that encourage cinematic exploration of the new Europe's processes and limits of connectivity, tolerance, and cooperation.
Thomas Elsaesser
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190600181
- eISBN:
- 9780190600211
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190600181.003.0015
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, Comparative Politics
This chapter uses Melancholia as a case study for two related issues. First, it aligns a typically European “sense of an ending”—about the sustainability of a certain way of life—with epochal shifts ...
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This chapter uses Melancholia as a case study for two related issues. First, it aligns a typically European “sense of an ending”—about the sustainability of a certain way of life—with epochal shifts in the cinema’s self-understanding as a realist medium, now “in collision” with the cold and lunar images of digital cinema. Second, the chapter tries to show how this crisis nonetheless gives rise to a sense of hope, insofar as an altered status is proposed for European cinema, namely that of a “thought experiment.” At once speculative and self-reflexive, von Trier’s cinema as thought experiment invites and accommodates a variety of hermeneutic approaches. It permits one to “think the unthinkable” while adhering to systemic constraints and sets up rules that redefine what we understand by “realism” and “reference.”Less
This chapter uses Melancholia as a case study for two related issues. First, it aligns a typically European “sense of an ending”—about the sustainability of a certain way of life—with epochal shifts in the cinema’s self-understanding as a realist medium, now “in collision” with the cold and lunar images of digital cinema. Second, the chapter tries to show how this crisis nonetheless gives rise to a sense of hope, insofar as an altered status is proposed for European cinema, namely that of a “thought experiment.” At once speculative and self-reflexive, von Trier’s cinema as thought experiment invites and accommodates a variety of hermeneutic approaches. It permits one to “think the unthinkable” while adhering to systemic constraints and sets up rules that redefine what we understand by “realism” and “reference.”
Hamish Ford
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748697953
- eISBN:
- 9781474416160
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748697953.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter situates Theo Angelopoulos within the compositional context of European post-war cinematic modernism, and more specifically in relation to fellow filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. ...
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This chapter situates Theo Angelopoulos within the compositional context of European post-war cinematic modernism, and more specifically in relation to fellow filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. Antonioni's early 1960s cinema has long been recognised as one of the key influences on Angelopoulos' filmmaking. Angelopoulos himself has described Antonioni's L'avventura (1960) as a seminal moment in his development, reportedly watching it thirteen times while a student in Paris during the early 1960s. The chapter examines the complex development of European modernist cinema in the postwar period through the work of Angelopoulos and Antonioni. The chapter shows that Angelopoulos' films present time and history in the form of a co-present or multi-layered textuality. It also considers reflexivity, composition and the gaze in the films of Angelopoulos and Antonioni before concluding with a discussion of Angelopoulos' films in relation to modernity.Less
This chapter situates Theo Angelopoulos within the compositional context of European post-war cinematic modernism, and more specifically in relation to fellow filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. Antonioni's early 1960s cinema has long been recognised as one of the key influences on Angelopoulos' filmmaking. Angelopoulos himself has described Antonioni's L'avventura (1960) as a seminal moment in his development, reportedly watching it thirteen times while a student in Paris during the early 1960s. The chapter examines the complex development of European modernist cinema in the postwar period through the work of Angelopoulos and Antonioni. The chapter shows that Angelopoulos' films present time and history in the form of a co-present or multi-layered textuality. It also considers reflexivity, composition and the gaze in the films of Angelopoulos and Antonioni before concluding with a discussion of Angelopoulos' films in relation to modernity.
Alistair Fox
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474429443
- eISBN:
- 9781474438438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474429443.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter outlines the generic characteristics, categories, and dominant tropes of the coming-of-age film, relating it to the Bildungsroman in literature, and showing the influence on its ...
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This chapter outlines the generic characteristics, categories, and dominant tropes of the coming-of-age film, relating it to the Bildungsroman in literature, and showing the influence on its evolution of the French New Wave and European art cinema. The chapter concludes by speculating on why coming-of-age films are such a prominent feature in national cinemas, arguing that they play an important role in the development of collective memory and the transmission and reshaping of cultural values.Less
This chapter outlines the generic characteristics, categories, and dominant tropes of the coming-of-age film, relating it to the Bildungsroman in literature, and showing the influence on its evolution of the French New Wave and European art cinema. The chapter concludes by speculating on why coming-of-age films are such a prominent feature in national cinemas, arguing that they play an important role in the development of collective memory and the transmission and reshaping of cultural values.
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.
Randall Halle
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038457
- eISBN:
- 9780252096334
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038457.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores German–Polish film relations. World War II created a caesura between Germany and Poland. For years, the complex connectivity that existed in the region was broken and instead ...
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This chapter explores German–Polish film relations. World War II created a caesura between Germany and Poland. For years, the complex connectivity that existed in the region was broken and instead dissociation characterized relations. The chapter examines the tentative conciliation of the two regions, focusing on documentary film. It begins with the work of a few documentarists who headed east at the time of the Wende, the moment of the collapse of the East Block. In bucking trends and heading east they captured images that ultimately speak more to the future of Europe. They not only documented important moments of “first contact,” they literally envisioned relationships that are still developing today.Less
This chapter explores German–Polish film relations. World War II created a caesura between Germany and Poland. For years, the complex connectivity that existed in the region was broken and instead dissociation characterized relations. The chapter examines the tentative conciliation of the two regions, focusing on documentary film. It begins with the work of a few documentarists who headed east at the time of the Wende, the moment of the collapse of the East Block. In bucking trends and heading east they captured images that ultimately speak more to the future of Europe. They not only documented important moments of “first contact,” they literally envisioned relationships that are still developing today.
Johnny Walker
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748689736
- eISBN:
- 9781474416009
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748689736.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Combining industrial research and primary interview material with detailed textual analysis, Contemporary British Horror Cinema looks beyond the dominant paradigms which have explained away British ...
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Combining industrial research and primary interview material with detailed textual analysis, Contemporary British Horror Cinema looks beyond the dominant paradigms which have explained away British horror in the past, and sheds light on one of the most dynamic and distinctive – yet scarcely talked about – areas of contemporary British film production. Considering high-profile theatrical releases, including The Descent, Shaun of the Dead and The Woman in Black, as well as more obscure films such as The Devil’s Chair, Resurrecting the Street Walker and Cherry Tree Lane, Contemporary British Horror Cinema provides a thorough examination of British horror film production in the twenty-first century.Less
Combining industrial research and primary interview material with detailed textual analysis, Contemporary British Horror Cinema looks beyond the dominant paradigms which have explained away British horror in the past, and sheds light on one of the most dynamic and distinctive – yet scarcely talked about – areas of contemporary British film production. Considering high-profile theatrical releases, including The Descent, Shaun of the Dead and The Woman in Black, as well as more obscure films such as The Devil’s Chair, Resurrecting the Street Walker and Cherry Tree Lane, Contemporary British Horror Cinema provides a thorough examination of British horror film production in the twenty-first century.
