Kenneth Chan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622090552
- eISBN:
- 9789882207356
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090552.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book examines the Chinese presence in Hollywood cinema, focusing on the proliferation of Hollywood and Hollywood-inflected films featuring ethnic Chinese stars such as Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, ...
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This book examines the Chinese presence in Hollywood cinema, focusing on the proliferation of Hollywood and Hollywood-inflected films featuring ethnic Chinese stars such as Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, Chow Yun-fat, and Jackie Chan, in works directed by the likes of John Woo, Wayne Wang, Wong Kar-wai, and Zhang Yimou. It analyzes how these Chinese cinemas have ridden the wave of Hollywood appeal, which is part of Chinese cinema's contemporary transnationalization. It also reveals three main streams of cinematic traditions and discourses that intertwine to create the present cultural climate: firstly, Hollywood's adventurism within the Chinese cinematic traditions; secondly, the racist structures of classic and contemporary Hollywood stereotypes of the Chinese; and thirdly, the Asian-American cinematic response of survival and intervention.Less
This book examines the Chinese presence in Hollywood cinema, focusing on the proliferation of Hollywood and Hollywood-inflected films featuring ethnic Chinese stars such as Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, Chow Yun-fat, and Jackie Chan, in works directed by the likes of John Woo, Wayne Wang, Wong Kar-wai, and Zhang Yimou. It analyzes how these Chinese cinemas have ridden the wave of Hollywood appeal, which is part of Chinese cinema's contemporary transnationalization. It also reveals three main streams of cinematic traditions and discourses that intertwine to create the present cultural climate: firstly, Hollywood's adventurism within the Chinese cinematic traditions; secondly, the racist structures of classic and contemporary Hollywood stereotypes of the Chinese; and thirdly, the Asian-American cinematic response of survival and intervention.
Ann Davies
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719073649
- eISBN:
- 9781781702093
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719073649.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has contributed to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude ...
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Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has contributed to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude violence by those critics lamenting a ‘lost golden age’ of Spanish filmmaking, Calparsoro's films reveal in fact a more complex interaction with trends and traditions in both Spanish and Hollywood cinema. This book is a full-length study of the director's work, from his early social realist films set in the Basque Country to his later forays into the genres of the war and horror film. It offers an in-depth film-by-film analysis, while simultaneously exploring the function of the director in the contemporary Spanish context, the tension between directors and critics, and the question of national cinema in an area—the Basque Country—of heightened national and regional sensitivities.Less
Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has contributed to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude violence by those critics lamenting a ‘lost golden age’ of Spanish filmmaking, Calparsoro's films reveal in fact a more complex interaction with trends and traditions in both Spanish and Hollywood cinema. This book is a full-length study of the director's work, from his early social realist films set in the Basque Country to his later forays into the genres of the war and horror film. It offers an in-depth film-by-film analysis, while simultaneously exploring the function of the director in the contemporary Spanish context, the tension between directors and critics, and the question of national cinema in an area—the Basque Country—of heightened national and regional sensitivities.
Veronica Pravadelli
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038778
- eISBN:
- 9780252096730
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038778.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter argues that the existing literature on classical Hollywood could roughly be divided into two sets. On the one hand, there were those scholars who had analyzed the whole ...
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This introductory chapter argues that the existing literature on classical Hollywood could roughly be divided into two sets. On the one hand, there were those scholars who had analyzed the whole period arguing for continuities and similarities in most domains, from production to plot structure, from stylistic procedures to viewing experience, and so forth. On the other hand, critical work on Hollywood cinema had more often approached the topic by selecting a specific genre and period and making a statement about the peculiar relations between aesthetics and ideology. Often focusing on a specific genre, many investigated especially 1940s and 1950s Hollywood cinema in relation to cultural, artistic, and social dynamics. Indeed, for four decades, film noir, the woman's film, and melodrama have been the locus of such innovative research—from the theory of the “progressive text” in the early 1970s to “cinema and modernity studies” during the last twenty years or so.Less
This introductory chapter argues that the existing literature on classical Hollywood could roughly be divided into two sets. On the one hand, there were those scholars who had analyzed the whole period arguing for continuities and similarities in most domains, from production to plot structure, from stylistic procedures to viewing experience, and so forth. On the other hand, critical work on Hollywood cinema had more often approached the topic by selecting a specific genre and period and making a statement about the peculiar relations between aesthetics and ideology. Often focusing on a specific genre, many investigated especially 1940s and 1950s Hollywood cinema in relation to cultural, artistic, and social dynamics. Indeed, for four decades, film noir, the woman's film, and melodrama have been the locus of such innovative research—from the theory of the “progressive text” in the early 1970s to “cinema and modernity studies” during the last twenty years or so.
Wendy Su
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813167060
- eISBN:
- 9780813167077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167060.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the debate over the validity of the Chinese government’s Hollywood import policy and the symbolic meaning of Hollywood movies. It investigates the main discourses and arguments ...
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This chapter examines the debate over the validity of the Chinese government’s Hollywood import policy and the symbolic meaning of Hollywood movies. It investigates the main discourses and arguments of the three major interpretive communities and discusses how the debate involves theoretical arguments about cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity. The chapter teases out China’s unique yet ambivalent perspective on globalization, contributing new insights into the role of the postsocialist state in the global-local interplay. The author contends that China’s debate over Hollywood cinema actually serves as a reference for the Chinese people to make sense of their own modernization process and national identity. The entire debate, in fact, reflects China’s quest for a new, modern national identity and how the Chinese can draw on the American experience to build a modern China.Less
This chapter examines the debate over the validity of the Chinese government’s Hollywood import policy and the symbolic meaning of Hollywood movies. It investigates the main discourses and arguments of the three major interpretive communities and discusses how the debate involves theoretical arguments about cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity. The chapter teases out China’s unique yet ambivalent perspective on globalization, contributing new insights into the role of the postsocialist state in the global-local interplay. The author contends that China’s debate over Hollywood cinema actually serves as a reference for the Chinese people to make sense of their own modernization process and national identity. The entire debate, in fact, reflects China’s quest for a new, modern national identity and how the Chinese can draw on the American experience to build a modern China.
Paul N. Reinsch
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781496807045
- eISBN:
- 9781496807083
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496807045.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
Incomparing and contrasting Perry’s media influence with that of another famous director, Paul Reinsch concludes the collection by reframing the media discourse around Tyler Perry’s work and career ...
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Incomparing and contrasting Perry’s media influence with that of another famous director, Paul Reinsch concludes the collection by reframing the media discourse around Tyler Perry’s work and career to consider him alongside a comparable media mogul: George Lucas. What might the creator of Star Wars and the creator of Madea possibly have in common (aside from a possible penchant for high fantasy)? In closely analyzing the critical reception, aesthetics, and ideologies of Perry’s For Colored Girls(2010) and Lucas’s Red Tails(2012), Reinsch exposes how each filmmaker ultimately negotiates a particular nostalgia for Classical Hollywood Cinema while also maintaining a particular intrusiveness.Less
Incomparing and contrasting Perry’s media influence with that of another famous director, Paul Reinsch concludes the collection by reframing the media discourse around Tyler Perry’s work and career to consider him alongside a comparable media mogul: George Lucas. What might the creator of Star Wars and the creator of Madea possibly have in common (aside from a possible penchant for high fantasy)? In closely analyzing the critical reception, aesthetics, and ideologies of Perry’s For Colored Girls(2010) and Lucas’s Red Tails(2012), Reinsch exposes how each filmmaker ultimately negotiates a particular nostalgia for Classical Hollywood Cinema while also maintaining a particular intrusiveness.
Laura Heins
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037740
- eISBN:
- 9780252095023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037740.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter attempts to delineate the generic and aesthetic differences between film melodrama in Third Reich and classical Hollywood cinema, and to a lesser extent, between German and Italian ...
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This chapter attempts to delineate the generic and aesthetic differences between film melodrama in Third Reich and classical Hollywood cinema, and to a lesser extent, between German and Italian Fascist film. Hollywood cinema's greater emphasis on the communicative codes of mise-en-scène, dynamic editing, and camera movement was countered in Nazi cinema with a greater stress on bodily displays and a theatrical acting style that subordinated the intimacy of the face in close-up to the authority of the actor's voice and scripted dialogue. Subtle formal and narrative differences in the Nazi melodrama also encouraged a more aggressive form of voyeurism than was common in the Hollywood melodrama. Instead of the masochistic aesthetic of many Hollywood melodramas, therefore, the Nazi melodrama distinguished itself by its formally encoded appeals to spectatorial sadism and by the masculinity of its pathos.Less
This chapter attempts to delineate the generic and aesthetic differences between film melodrama in Third Reich and classical Hollywood cinema, and to a lesser extent, between German and Italian Fascist film. Hollywood cinema's greater emphasis on the communicative codes of mise-en-scène, dynamic editing, and camera movement was countered in Nazi cinema with a greater stress on bodily displays and a theatrical acting style that subordinated the intimacy of the face in close-up to the authority of the actor's voice and scripted dialogue. Subtle formal and narrative differences in the Nazi melodrama also encouraged a more aggressive form of voyeurism than was common in the Hollywood melodrama. Instead of the masochistic aesthetic of many Hollywood melodramas, therefore, the Nazi melodrama distinguished itself by its formally encoded appeals to spectatorial sadism and by the masculinity of its pathos.
Carolyn Jess-Cooke
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748626038
- eISBN:
- 9780748670895
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748626038.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The film sequel has been much maligned in popular culture as a vampirish corporative exercise in profit-making and narrative regurgitation. Drawing upon a wide range of filmic examples from early ...
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The film sequel has been much maligned in popular culture as a vampirish corporative exercise in profit-making and narrative regurgitation. Drawing upon a wide range of filmic examples from early cinema to the twenty-first century, this book reveals the increasing popularity of, and experimentation with, film sequels as a central dynamic of Hollywood cinema. Now creeping into world cinemas and independent film festivals, the sequel is persistently employed as a vehicle for cross-cultural dialogue and as a structure by which memories and cultural narratives can be circulated across geographical and historical locations. This book aims to account for some of the major critical contexts within which sequelisation operates by exploring sequel production beyond box office figures. Its account ranges across sequels in recent mainstream cinema, art-house and ‘indie’ sequels, non-Hollywood sequels, the effects of the domestic market on sequelisation and the impact of the video game industry on Hollywood.Less
The film sequel has been much maligned in popular culture as a vampirish corporative exercise in profit-making and narrative regurgitation. Drawing upon a wide range of filmic examples from early cinema to the twenty-first century, this book reveals the increasing popularity of, and experimentation with, film sequels as a central dynamic of Hollywood cinema. Now creeping into world cinemas and independent film festivals, the sequel is persistently employed as a vehicle for cross-cultural dialogue and as a structure by which memories and cultural narratives can be circulated across geographical and historical locations. This book aims to account for some of the major critical contexts within which sequelisation operates by exploring sequel production beyond box office figures. Its account ranges across sequels in recent mainstream cinema, art-house and ‘indie’ sequels, non-Hollywood sequels, the effects of the domestic market on sequelisation and the impact of the video game industry on Hollywood.
Ben McCann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719091148
- eISBN:
- 9781526124111
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091148.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter will analyse Duvivier’s career in Hollywood. He was first invited to Hollywood by MGM in 1938 to direct The Great Waltz, and then moved to America shortly after the German occupation of ...
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This chapter will analyse Duvivier’s career in Hollywood. He was first invited to Hollywood by MGM in 1938 to direct The Great Waltz, and then moved to America shortly after the German occupation of France in 1940. He directed four films there during this period, including Lydia (1941) and The Impostor (1944), a loose remake of La Bandera (1935). The chapter explores the various techniques and themes that Duvivier developed during this period, and looks at the critical reception of his films in both French and American trade journals.
The chapter also poses the question of whether a distinctively French cinematic sensibility can be recalibrated within the confines of the Classic Hollywood Cinema (CHC) tradition. Duvivier adapted to a different set of professional and commercial imperatives that enabled him to transcend infrastructural barriers and impose a distinctly French style on the American film industry.Less
This chapter will analyse Duvivier’s career in Hollywood. He was first invited to Hollywood by MGM in 1938 to direct The Great Waltz, and then moved to America shortly after the German occupation of France in 1940. He directed four films there during this period, including Lydia (1941) and The Impostor (1944), a loose remake of La Bandera (1935). The chapter explores the various techniques and themes that Duvivier developed during this period, and looks at the critical reception of his films in both French and American trade journals.
The chapter also poses the question of whether a distinctively French cinematic sensibility can be recalibrated within the confines of the Classic Hollywood Cinema (CHC) tradition. Duvivier adapted to a different set of professional and commercial imperatives that enabled him to transcend infrastructural barriers and impose a distinctly French style on the American film industry.
Jerod Ra'Del Hollyfield
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474429948
- eISBN:
- 9781474453561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474429948.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Serious scholarly attention to Gunga Din(1939) has largely been neglected as allegations of condescending and one-dimensional depictions of its Indian characters have disrupted its reputation as one ...
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Serious scholarly attention to Gunga Din(1939) has largely been neglected as allegations of condescending and one-dimensional depictions of its Indian characters have disrupted its reputation as one of the greatest epics of the studio era.However, George Stevens’ adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s poem extends its source text’s colonial ambivalence to American anxieties stemming from the death rattle of Manifest Destiny and the traumas of the Great Depression. Seizing upon the popularity of late Victorian Empire narratives, Hollywood integrated its own ideology into a final product that was a hybrid of imperial narrative and American western. This chapter argues that the film’s loose resemblance to its source material demonstrates a fissure in the American valorization of British culture. Gunga Din completely dismantles Kipling’s poem, recreating it as an example of a uniquely American form: the seamless studio system product that led to Hollywood’s international dominance in cultural production. While the politics of the adaptation resemble textual strategies of resistance common in postcolonial texts, the film’s retention of colonial literature’s representations of its native characters addresses an America beginning to assert a distinct national culture while positioning itself as a future imperial power in the tradition of the faltering British Empire.Less
Serious scholarly attention to Gunga Din(1939) has largely been neglected as allegations of condescending and one-dimensional depictions of its Indian characters have disrupted its reputation as one of the greatest epics of the studio era.However, George Stevens’ adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s poem extends its source text’s colonial ambivalence to American anxieties stemming from the death rattle of Manifest Destiny and the traumas of the Great Depression. Seizing upon the popularity of late Victorian Empire narratives, Hollywood integrated its own ideology into a final product that was a hybrid of imperial narrative and American western. This chapter argues that the film’s loose resemblance to its source material demonstrates a fissure in the American valorization of British culture. Gunga Din completely dismantles Kipling’s poem, recreating it as an example of a uniquely American form: the seamless studio system product that led to Hollywood’s international dominance in cultural production. While the politics of the adaptation resemble textual strategies of resistance common in postcolonial texts, the film’s retention of colonial literature’s representations of its native characters addresses an America beginning to assert a distinct national culture while positioning itself as a future imperial power in the tradition of the faltering British Empire.
Todd Berliner
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199862139
- eISBN:
- 9780199332755
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862139.003.0010
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
Storytelling creates aesthetic pleasure by cuing viewers to resolve separate narrative elements. Hollywood generally makes the resolution process fairly easy by following time-tested storytelling ...
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Storytelling creates aesthetic pleasure by cuing viewers to resolve separate narrative elements. Hollywood generally makes the resolution process fairly easy by following time-tested storytelling principles, especially principles of clarity and causality, that increase the viewer’s processing fluency and result in calm pleasure. Some Hollywood movies, however, exhilarate our aesthetic experience by straining our ability to resolve their stories. Pleasure is most exhilarated when cognitive activity is athletic and resolution distant but still tangible. Using abductive reasoning processes—or what cognitive psychologists term “insight”—viewers are able to resolve disunities in Hollywood narratives and even repair incongruities in story logic. As long as a movie does not put so much strain on our cognitive resources, reasoning capacity, or imagination that we are unable or unwilling to resolve a movie’s separate narrative elements, then pleasure is liable to intensify with the degree of difficulty at resolution.Less
Storytelling creates aesthetic pleasure by cuing viewers to resolve separate narrative elements. Hollywood generally makes the resolution process fairly easy by following time-tested storytelling principles, especially principles of clarity and causality, that increase the viewer’s processing fluency and result in calm pleasure. Some Hollywood movies, however, exhilarate our aesthetic experience by straining our ability to resolve their stories. Pleasure is most exhilarated when cognitive activity is athletic and resolution distant but still tangible. Using abductive reasoning processes—or what cognitive psychologists term “insight”—viewers are able to resolve disunities in Hollywood narratives and even repair incongruities in story logic. As long as a movie does not put so much strain on our cognitive resources, reasoning capacity, or imagination that we are unable or unwilling to resolve a movie’s separate narrative elements, then pleasure is liable to intensify with the degree of difficulty at resolution.
Robert Brent Toplin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824851514
- eISBN:
- 9780824869045
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824851514.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
In “Continuity and Change in Hollywood’s Representations of American-Asian Relations in War and Peace” Toplin examines Japanese, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Korean characters in American films ...
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In “Continuity and Change in Hollywood’s Representations of American-Asian Relations in War and Peace” Toplin examines Japanese, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Korean characters in American films from the 1930s to the 2000s to reveal a “pattern of flexibility and quick adjustments” corresponding primarily but not exclusively to geopolitical shifts. The chapter explores how depictions of Japanese characters radically shifted after Pearl Harbor and again after the American Occupation of Japan. Toplin also traces shifting characterizations of Chinese characters. During much of the 1930s and 1940s Hollywood portrayed them as hearty hard-working peoples who eked out a living from an unforgiving land; after the “Loss of China” and the outbreak of the Korean War, they suddenly became tyrannical Communists who heartlessly massacred their enemies and were hell-bent on destroying the Free World.Less
In “Continuity and Change in Hollywood’s Representations of American-Asian Relations in War and Peace” Toplin examines Japanese, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Korean characters in American films from the 1930s to the 2000s to reveal a “pattern of flexibility and quick adjustments” corresponding primarily but not exclusively to geopolitical shifts. The chapter explores how depictions of Japanese characters radically shifted after Pearl Harbor and again after the American Occupation of Japan. Toplin also traces shifting characterizations of Chinese characters. During much of the 1930s and 1940s Hollywood portrayed them as hearty hard-working peoples who eked out a living from an unforgiving land; after the “Loss of China” and the outbreak of the Korean War, they suddenly became tyrannical Communists who heartlessly massacred their enemies and were hell-bent on destroying the Free World.
Robin Blyn
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816678167
- eISBN:
- 9781452947853
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816678167.003.0002
- Subject:
- Art, Visual Culture
This chapter examines the freak show silent films of Lon Chaney, the so-called Man of a Thousand Faces. It argues that the revival of the freak-garde in film occurs amid revolutionary changes in the ...
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This chapter examines the freak show silent films of Lon Chaney, the so-called Man of a Thousand Faces. It argues that the revival of the freak-garde in film occurs amid revolutionary changes in the medium of cinema and the opportunities they presented for new models of subjectivity. It outlines the landscape of Hollywood cinema during the 1920s when the film industry erupted in experimentation due to technological innovations. It argues that these experiments unhinged sound and image from one another in the cinematic spectacle, which resulted to radical instability. It highlights films featuring Chaney such as The Unholy Three and The Unknown and analyzes their disintegration of the senses which leads to the liberation of repressed desires and rogue subjectivities.Less
This chapter examines the freak show silent films of Lon Chaney, the so-called Man of a Thousand Faces. It argues that the revival of the freak-garde in film occurs amid revolutionary changes in the medium of cinema and the opportunities they presented for new models of subjectivity. It outlines the landscape of Hollywood cinema during the 1920s when the film industry erupted in experimentation due to technological innovations. It argues that these experiments unhinged sound and image from one another in the cinematic spectacle, which resulted to radical instability. It highlights films featuring Chaney such as The Unholy Three and The Unknown and analyzes their disintegration of the senses which leads to the liberation of repressed desires and rogue subjectivities.
James MacDowell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748680177
- eISBN:
- 9780748693825
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748680177.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introduction traces the negative reputation of the ‘happy ending’ in film studies’ discourses on Hollywood cinema, analyses the distinction between a cliché and a convention, establishes some of ...
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This introduction traces the negative reputation of the ‘happy ending’ in film studies’ discourses on Hollywood cinema, analyses the distinction between a cliché and a convention, establishes some of the concepts most frequently associated with this convention (e.g.: homogeneity, closure, ideological conservatism, ‘unrealism’), and lays out the ways in which the book will interrogate its subject's critical reputation.Less
This introduction traces the negative reputation of the ‘happy ending’ in film studies’ discourses on Hollywood cinema, analyses the distinction between a cliché and a convention, establishes some of the concepts most frequently associated with this convention (e.g.: homogeneity, closure, ideological conservatism, ‘unrealism’), and lays out the ways in which the book will interrogate its subject's critical reputation.
Kendra Marston
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474430296
- eISBN:
- 9781474453608
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474430296.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book is the first extended study into the politics of whiteness inherent within postfeminist popular cinema. It analyses a selection of Hollywood films dating from the turn of the millennium, ...
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This book is the first extended study into the politics of whiteness inherent within postfeminist popular cinema. It analyses a selection of Hollywood films dating from the turn of the millennium, arguing that the character of the ‘melancholic white woman’ operates as a trope through which to explore the excesses of late capitalism and a crisis of faith in the American dream. Melancholia can function as a form of social capital for these characters yet betrays its proximity to a gendered history of emotion and psychopathology. This figure is alternately idealised or scapegoated depending on how well she navigates the perils of postfeminist ideology. Furthermore, the book considers how performances of melancholia and mental distress can confer benefits for Hollywood actresses and female auteurs on the labour market, which in turn has contributed to the maintenance of white hegemony within the mainstream US film industry. Case studies in the book include Black Swan (Darren Aronofksy 2010), Gone Girl (David Fincher 2014) and Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton 2010).Less
This book is the first extended study into the politics of whiteness inherent within postfeminist popular cinema. It analyses a selection of Hollywood films dating from the turn of the millennium, arguing that the character of the ‘melancholic white woman’ operates as a trope through which to explore the excesses of late capitalism and a crisis of faith in the American dream. Melancholia can function as a form of social capital for these characters yet betrays its proximity to a gendered history of emotion and psychopathology. This figure is alternately idealised or scapegoated depending on how well she navigates the perils of postfeminist ideology. Furthermore, the book considers how performances of melancholia and mental distress can confer benefits for Hollywood actresses and female auteurs on the labour market, which in turn has contributed to the maintenance of white hegemony within the mainstream US film industry. Case studies in the book include Black Swan (Darren Aronofksy 2010), Gone Girl (David Fincher 2014) and Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton 2010).
Scott MacKenzie and Anna Westerstahl Stenport (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748694174
- eISBN:
- 9781474408561
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694174.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The first book to address the vast diversity of Northern circumpolar cinemas from a transnational perspective, Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic presents the region as one of great and previously ...
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The first book to address the vast diversity of Northern circumpolar cinemas from a transnational perspective, Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic presents the region as one of great and previously overlooked cinematic diversity. With chapters on polar explorer films, silent cinema, documentaries, ethnographic and indigenous film, gender and ecology, as well as Hollywood and the USSR’s uses and abuses of the Arctic, this book provides a groundbreaking account of Arctic cinemas from 1898 to the present. Challenging dominant notions of the region in popular and political culture, it demonstrates how moving images (cinema, television, activist and art video, and digital media) have been central to the very definition of the Arctic since the end of the nineteenth century. Bringing together an international array of European, Russian, Nordic, and North American scholars, Films on Ice radically alters stereotypical views of the Arctic region, and therefore of film history itself. Areas covered in the book include: 1) Global Indigeneity; 2) Hollywood hegemony; 3) Ethnography and documentary Dilemmas; and 4) Myths and Modes of Exploration. Key Arctic films from the history of cinema are addressed (from Nanook of the North to Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner), along with little-known works that re-shape our understanding of moving images in the global circumpolar Arctic.Less
The first book to address the vast diversity of Northern circumpolar cinemas from a transnational perspective, Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic presents the region as one of great and previously overlooked cinematic diversity. With chapters on polar explorer films, silent cinema, documentaries, ethnographic and indigenous film, gender and ecology, as well as Hollywood and the USSR’s uses and abuses of the Arctic, this book provides a groundbreaking account of Arctic cinemas from 1898 to the present. Challenging dominant notions of the region in popular and political culture, it demonstrates how moving images (cinema, television, activist and art video, and digital media) have been central to the very definition of the Arctic since the end of the nineteenth century. Bringing together an international array of European, Russian, Nordic, and North American scholars, Films on Ice radically alters stereotypical views of the Arctic region, and therefore of film history itself. Areas covered in the book include: 1) Global Indigeneity; 2) Hollywood hegemony; 3) Ethnography and documentary Dilemmas; and 4) Myths and Modes of Exploration. Key Arctic films from the history of cinema are addressed (from Nanook of the North to Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner), along with little-known works that re-shape our understanding of moving images in the global circumpolar Arctic.
James MacDowell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748680177
- eISBN:
- 9780748693825
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748680177.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Hollywood ‘happy ending’ is almost universally taken to be inherently ideological conservative, in part because of traditions in literary and film theory that portray narrative closure itself as ...
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The Hollywood ‘happy ending’ is almost universally taken to be inherently ideological conservative, in part because of traditions in literary and film theory that portray narrative closure itself as ideologically pernicious. This chapter approaches the issue of ideology from three angles. Firstly addressing the broad question of popular art's ideological influence itself, it discusses (with particular reference to Before Sunrise [1995]) what potential the concept of the final couple might be said to have for structuring viewers’ real-life romantic relationships. Secondly, it takes up the question of the ideological effects of closure, particularly as they relate to the model of the self-consciously artificial ‘happy ending’ made especially famous by much critical work on the films of Douglas Sirk. The chapter concludes by addressing several historically-distinct endings taken from what is often considered an innately ‘conservative’ genre, the romantic comedy. The chapter concludes by arguing that the ideological significance of the final couple will tend to rest less on the convention's mere presence than in the particulars of its presentation.Less
The Hollywood ‘happy ending’ is almost universally taken to be inherently ideological conservative, in part because of traditions in literary and film theory that portray narrative closure itself as ideologically pernicious. This chapter approaches the issue of ideology from three angles. Firstly addressing the broad question of popular art's ideological influence itself, it discusses (with particular reference to Before Sunrise [1995]) what potential the concept of the final couple might be said to have for structuring viewers’ real-life romantic relationships. Secondly, it takes up the question of the ideological effects of closure, particularly as they relate to the model of the self-consciously artificial ‘happy ending’ made especially famous by much critical work on the films of Douglas Sirk. The chapter concludes by addressing several historically-distinct endings taken from what is often considered an innately ‘conservative’ genre, the romantic comedy. The chapter concludes by arguing that the ideological significance of the final couple will tend to rest less on the convention's mere presence than in the particulars of its presentation.
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/9780748619061.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal ...
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This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal techniques that were purposely disruptive or jarring to the audience. While it is sometimes implied that classical norms emerged simultaneously with the studio system, it is important to note that the aesthetic principles of classical Hollywood cinema preceded the studio system. The development of film style in this sense (classical norms) did not emerge in the very same historical instant as the mode of production that gave it institutional shape (the studio system). Instead, the relation between the two would develop a gradual symbiosis, such that classical norms would become synonymous with the studio system as it emerged more fully after the First World War. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Mass-produced Photoplays: Economic and Signifying Practices in the First Years of Hollywood’ by Janet Staiger, which examines how production practices in the early 1910s influenced the way that films were developed and made.Less
This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal techniques that were purposely disruptive or jarring to the audience. While it is sometimes implied that classical norms emerged simultaneously with the studio system, it is important to note that the aesthetic principles of classical Hollywood cinema preceded the studio system. The development of film style in this sense (classical norms) did not emerge in the very same historical instant as the mode of production that gave it institutional shape (the studio system). Instead, the relation between the two would develop a gradual symbiosis, such that classical norms would become synonymous with the studio system as it emerged more fully after the First World War. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Mass-produced Photoplays: Economic and Signifying Practices in the First Years of Hollywood’ by Janet Staiger, which examines how production practices in the early 1910s influenced the way that films were developed and made.
James MacDowell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748680177
- eISBN:
- 9780748693825
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748680177.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The assumption that the Hollywood ‘happy ending’ is inherently ‘unrealistic’ is extremely prevalent. Chapter 3 examines the association of happy endings with ‘unrealism’ in two main ways. Firstly, it ...
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The assumption that the Hollywood ‘happy ending’ is inherently ‘unrealistic’ is extremely prevalent. Chapter 3 examines the association of happy endings with ‘unrealism’ in two main ways. Firstly, it treats ‘unrealism’ as an effect of an artistic convention's excessive familiarity, and considers the traditionally close conceptual relationship between the final couple happy ending and fictional narrative in general, suggesting that this persistent association has often motivated films (such as Pretty Woman [1990]) to cast doubt upon the authenticity of their own happy endings. Secondly, partly via a discussion of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the chapter asks whether there is something innately ‘unrealistic’ in the convention of the romantic happy ending itself, probing the issue of the relationship between the disordered, ‘open’ nature of life and the necessarily finite and ‘closed’ nature of narrative – particularly as this matter informs the basic tension between ending and beginning that lies at the heart of the final couple.Less
The assumption that the Hollywood ‘happy ending’ is inherently ‘unrealistic’ is extremely prevalent. Chapter 3 examines the association of happy endings with ‘unrealism’ in two main ways. Firstly, it treats ‘unrealism’ as an effect of an artistic convention's excessive familiarity, and considers the traditionally close conceptual relationship between the final couple happy ending and fictional narrative in general, suggesting that this persistent association has often motivated films (such as Pretty Woman [1990]) to cast doubt upon the authenticity of their own happy endings. Secondly, partly via a discussion of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the chapter asks whether there is something innately ‘unrealistic’ in the convention of the romantic happy ending itself, probing the issue of the relationship between the disordered, ‘open’ nature of life and the necessarily finite and ‘closed’ nature of narrative – particularly as this matter informs the basic tension between ending and beginning that lies at the heart of the final couple.
James MacDowell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748680177
- eISBN:
- 9780748693825
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748680177.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Hollywood ‘happy ending’ has long been considered among the most famous and standardised features in the whole of narrative filmmaking. Yet, while ceaselessly invoked, this notorious device has ...
More
The Hollywood ‘happy ending’ has long been considered among the most famous and standardised features in the whole of narrative filmmaking. Yet, while ceaselessly invoked, this notorious device has received barely any detailed attention from the field of film studies. This book is the first in-depth examination of one of the most overused and under-analysed concepts in discussions of popular cinema. What exactly is the ‘happy ending’? Is it simply a cliché, as commonly supposed? Why has it earned such an unenviable reputation? What does it, or can it, mean? Concentrating especially on conclusions featuring an ultimate romantic union – the final couple – this wide-ranging investigation probes traditional associations between the ‘happy ending’ and homogeneity, closure, ‘unrealism’, and ideological conservatism, testing widespread assumptions against the evidence offered by a range of classical and contemporary films.Less
The Hollywood ‘happy ending’ has long been considered among the most famous and standardised features in the whole of narrative filmmaking. Yet, while ceaselessly invoked, this notorious device has received barely any detailed attention from the field of film studies. This book is the first in-depth examination of one of the most overused and under-analysed concepts in discussions of popular cinema. What exactly is the ‘happy ending’? Is it simply a cliché, as commonly supposed? Why has it earned such an unenviable reputation? What does it, or can it, mean? Concentrating especially on conclusions featuring an ultimate romantic union – the final couple – this wide-ranging investigation probes traditional associations between the ‘happy ending’ and homogeneity, closure, ‘unrealism’, and ideological conservatism, testing widespread assumptions against the evidence offered by a range of classical and contemporary films.
James Zborowski
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719083341
- eISBN:
- 9781526104090
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719083341.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book explores the theoretical and critical concept of filmic point of view. Its case studies are six acclaimed and accomplished instances of ‘classical Hollywood cinema’: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ...
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This book explores the theoretical and critical concept of filmic point of view. Its case studies are six acclaimed and accomplished instances of ‘classical Hollywood cinema’: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Capra, 1936), Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939), Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophuls, 1948), Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger, 1959), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 1962). The book’s particular contributions to the study of filmic point of view are to use ‘communication’ as an idea which permits new ways of approaching this topic, and to offer detailed explorations of the filmic representation of character experience (including character ‘consciousness’ and interaction), and of the relationship of film to other media of communication (especially print media and the novel). With respect to character experience, it argues that the often-held distinction between an inner realm of thought and feeling and an outer realm of behaviour and objects fails to do justice to the human experience of ‘being-in-the-world’ and film’s ability to represent it. With respect to film’s relationship to other media, it explores the narrative fiction film’s traversing of the public, the private and the social, in a way that aligns the medium with the novel. Overall, the book is offered as a demonstration and defence of the value of a ‘conversational’ critical method, which scrutinises in detail our film-viewing experiences and the language we use to describe those experiences, and which eschews the construction of a taxonomy designed for general applicability. Less
This book explores the theoretical and critical concept of filmic point of view. Its case studies are six acclaimed and accomplished instances of ‘classical Hollywood cinema’: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Capra, 1936), Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939), Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophuls, 1948), Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger, 1959), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 1962). The book’s particular contributions to the study of filmic point of view are to use ‘communication’ as an idea which permits new ways of approaching this topic, and to offer detailed explorations of the filmic representation of character experience (including character ‘consciousness’ and interaction), and of the relationship of film to other media of communication (especially print media and the novel). With respect to character experience, it argues that the often-held distinction between an inner realm of thought and feeling and an outer realm of behaviour and objects fails to do justice to the human experience of ‘being-in-the-world’ and film’s ability to represent it. With respect to film’s relationship to other media, it explores the narrative fiction film’s traversing of the public, the private and the social, in a way that aligns the medium with the novel. Overall, the book is offered as a demonstration and defence of the value of a ‘conversational’ critical method, which scrutinises in detail our film-viewing experiences and the language we use to describe those experiences, and which eschews the construction of a taxonomy designed for general applicability.
