Belinda Smaill
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474428729
- eISBN:
- 9781474449595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474428729.003.0011
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Chapter 11 employs a feminist lens to situate women filmmakers within a wider global context in which all women’s cinema can be considered to be “world cinema,” set apart from local contexts that ...
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Chapter 11 employs a feminist lens to situate women filmmakers within a wider global context in which all women’s cinema can be considered to be “world cinema,” set apart from local contexts that fail to encompass women’s film practices in terms of resources, space, and mobility. Advocating a perspective advanced by Patricia White in Women’s Cinema, World Cinema, Belinda Smaill proposes that women filmmakers should be viewed within “whole world approaches” that comprehensively address the context of production, circulation, representation, and image of each director. While tracking the mobility of female directors, Smaill points out that while it is difficult for women to achieve employment as feature directors in the U.S., it is even more difficult to gain access to the industry from outside the U.S. Hollywood is an exclusive domain, making Bier’s transnational American work a critical site for investigation. With Serena, Smaill contends, Bier cements her place as a director who takes on the world by lending her authorial signature to a complex manifestation of world cinema.Less
Chapter 11 employs a feminist lens to situate women filmmakers within a wider global context in which all women’s cinema can be considered to be “world cinema,” set apart from local contexts that fail to encompass women’s film practices in terms of resources, space, and mobility. Advocating a perspective advanced by Patricia White in Women’s Cinema, World Cinema, Belinda Smaill proposes that women filmmakers should be viewed within “whole world approaches” that comprehensively address the context of production, circulation, representation, and image of each director. While tracking the mobility of female directors, Smaill points out that while it is difficult for women to achieve employment as feature directors in the U.S., it is even more difficult to gain access to the industry from outside the U.S. Hollywood is an exclusive domain, making Bier’s transnational American work a critical site for investigation. With Serena, Smaill contends, Bier cements her place as a director who takes on the world by lending her authorial signature to a complex manifestation of world cinema.
Stefanie Van de Peer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748696062
- eISBN:
- 9781474434836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748696062.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The introduction to the book identifies the female pioneers of documentary in the Arab area. It paints the historical context in which these women have been making documentaries, looking across ...
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The introduction to the book identifies the female pioneers of documentary in the Arab area. It paints the historical context in which these women have been making documentaries, looking across borders within the Arab World and across transnational regions, within the form, in the seventies and eighties, nineties and two thousands.
The theoretical approach is rooted in feminist film studies and Third Cinema theory. Using Ella Shohat’s writings on women making films in a post-Third Worldist and feminist reality, the chapter specifies those aspects of Third Cinema that have been neglected. Painting a socio-political and historical context for the films under discussion, it looks at the cultural history of documentary as well as thematic and stylistic tendencies in the Arab world. From an examination of Third Cinema and its focus on documentary the chapter moves on to New Arab Cinema (or ‘Cinema Chabab’) and its attitude towards melodrama and realism.
This ‘new’ approach to the transnational documentary includes a clearer, perhaps more practical look at developing ideas of production, distribution and spectatorship.Less
The introduction to the book identifies the female pioneers of documentary in the Arab area. It paints the historical context in which these women have been making documentaries, looking across borders within the Arab World and across transnational regions, within the form, in the seventies and eighties, nineties and two thousands.
The theoretical approach is rooted in feminist film studies and Third Cinema theory. Using Ella Shohat’s writings on women making films in a post-Third Worldist and feminist reality, the chapter specifies those aspects of Third Cinema that have been neglected. Painting a socio-political and historical context for the films under discussion, it looks at the cultural history of documentary as well as thematic and stylistic tendencies in the Arab world. From an examination of Third Cinema and its focus on documentary the chapter moves on to New Arab Cinema (or ‘Cinema Chabab’) and its attitude towards melodrama and realism.
This ‘new’ approach to the transnational documentary includes a clearer, perhaps more practical look at developing ideas of production, distribution and spectatorship.
Vrasidas Karalis
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748697953
- eISBN:
- 9781474416160
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748697953.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the ways that Theo Angelopoulos forged a cinema of demystification, whose individual films ‘contested history as the justifying discourse of power and authority’. Angelopoulos' ...
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This chapter examines the ways that Theo Angelopoulos forged a cinema of demystification, whose individual films ‘contested history as the justifying discourse of power and authority’. Angelopoulos' trilogy of History includes Days of '36, The Travelling Players, and The Hunters. This trilogy is one of the most radical ‘political’ interventions attempted within the established visual poetics of World Cinema. Both historically and culturally, these films were produced at the beginning and the end of a period of extreme experimentation with visual representation, becoming in their own distinct ways meditations on the limits of representability, on the function of cinematic images, and on the visualisation of collective memory. The chapter offers a reading of Angelopoulos' historical trilogy and shows that all three films articulated an integrated vision of how structures and institutions work together to deprive contemporary citizens of their agency and self-determination.Less
This chapter examines the ways that Theo Angelopoulos forged a cinema of demystification, whose individual films ‘contested history as the justifying discourse of power and authority’. Angelopoulos' trilogy of History includes Days of '36, The Travelling Players, and The Hunters. This trilogy is one of the most radical ‘political’ interventions attempted within the established visual poetics of World Cinema. Both historically and culturally, these films were produced at the beginning and the end of a period of extreme experimentation with visual representation, becoming in their own distinct ways meditations on the limits of representability, on the function of cinematic images, and on the visualisation of collective memory. The chapter offers a reading of Angelopoulos' historical trilogy and shows that all three films articulated an integrated vision of how structures and institutions work together to deprive contemporary citizens of their agency and self-determination.
Gary Bettinson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9789888139293
- eISBN:
- 9789888313082
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888139293.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking techniques uses a poetics approach to examine how ...
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The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking techniques uses a poetics approach to examine how form, music, narration, characterization, genre, and other artistic elements work together to produce certain effects on audiences. Bettinson argues that Wong’s films are permeated by an aesthetic of sensuousness and “disturbance” achieved through techniques such as narrative interruptions, facial masking, opaque cuts, and other complex strategies. The effect is to jolt the viewer out of complete aesthetic absorption. Each of the chapters focuses on a single aspect of Wong’s filmmaking. The book also discusses Wong’s influence on other filmmakers in Hong Kong and around the world. The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai will appeal to all who are interested in authorship and aesthetics in film studies, to scholars in Asian studies, media and cultural studies, and to anyone with an interest in Hong Kong cinema in general, and Wong’s films in particular.Less
The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking techniques uses a poetics approach to examine how form, music, narration, characterization, genre, and other artistic elements work together to produce certain effects on audiences. Bettinson argues that Wong’s films are permeated by an aesthetic of sensuousness and “disturbance” achieved through techniques such as narrative interruptions, facial masking, opaque cuts, and other complex strategies. The effect is to jolt the viewer out of complete aesthetic absorption. Each of the chapters focuses on a single aspect of Wong’s filmmaking. The book also discusses Wong’s influence on other filmmakers in Hong Kong and around the world. The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai will appeal to all who are interested in authorship and aesthetics in film studies, to scholars in Asian studies, media and cultural studies, and to anyone with an interest in Hong Kong cinema in general, and Wong’s films in particular.
