Tze-Yue G. Hu
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622090972
- eISBN:
- 9789882207721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090972.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This book offers new insight and perspective of the medium-genre. In contemporary terms, anime is Japanese animation with distinctive recognizable representations and often with close-knit links to ...
More
This book offers new insight and perspective of the medium-genre. In contemporary terms, anime is Japanese animation with distinctive recognizable representations and often with close-knit links to the graphic literary world of manga. From a broader perspective, anime means more and the Western-sounding term speaks of a different Eastern language and culture from which it originates. The “flip-flop” use of the name-terms in the book—“Japanese animation,” “anime,” and “manga-anime”—is driven and guided not only by a specific culture of what this book is about, but also by the different periods in history from which it charts the visual medium's growth and the socio-cultural context of its development.Less
This book offers new insight and perspective of the medium-genre. In contemporary terms, anime is Japanese animation with distinctive recognizable representations and often with close-knit links to the graphic literary world of manga. From a broader perspective, anime means more and the Western-sounding term speaks of a different Eastern language and culture from which it originates. The “flip-flop” use of the name-terms in the book—“Japanese animation,” “anime,” and “manga-anime”—is driven and guided not only by a specific culture of what this book is about, but also by the different periods in history from which it charts the visual medium's growth and the socio-cultural context of its development.
James Bohn
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496812148
- eISBN:
- 9781496812186
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496812148.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Music in Disney’s Animated Features: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Jungle Book investigates how music functions in Disney Animated films. The book identifies several techniques used in a ...
More
Music in Disney’s Animated Features: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Jungle Book investigates how music functions in Disney Animated films. The book identifies several techniques used in a number of Disney animated movies. In addition it also presents a history of music in Disney animated films, as well as biographical information on several of the Studios’ seminal composers. The popularity and critical acclaim of Disney animated features is built as much on music as it is on animation. From Steamboat Willie through Bambi, music is the organizing element of Disney’s animation. Songs that establish character and aid in narrative form the backbone of the Studios’ animated features from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through The Jungle Book and beyond. In the course of their early animated features the Studios’ composers developed a number of techniques and models that have been used throughout their oeuvre. Instrumental instances of a given film’s songs are used to comment on various character’s thoughts, as well as on the plot and action. Songs featured in Disney films are often transitioned into or out of using rhymed, metered dialog, functioning in much the same way as recitative in opera. The book also explores the use of theme and variation technique, leitmotif, theatrical conventions, and song archetypes.Less
Music in Disney’s Animated Features: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Jungle Book investigates how music functions in Disney Animated films. The book identifies several techniques used in a number of Disney animated movies. In addition it also presents a history of music in Disney animated films, as well as biographical information on several of the Studios’ seminal composers. The popularity and critical acclaim of Disney animated features is built as much on music as it is on animation. From Steamboat Willie through Bambi, music is the organizing element of Disney’s animation. Songs that establish character and aid in narrative form the backbone of the Studios’ animated features from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through The Jungle Book and beyond. In the course of their early animated features the Studios’ composers developed a number of techniques and models that have been used throughout their oeuvre. Instrumental instances of a given film’s songs are used to comment on various character’s thoughts, as well as on the plot and action. Songs featured in Disney films are often transitioned into or out of using rhymed, metered dialog, functioning in much the same way as recitative in opera. The book also explores the use of theme and variation technique, leitmotif, theatrical conventions, and song archetypes.
Jonathan Murray and Nea Ehrlich (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780748694112
- eISBN:
- 9781474460071
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694112.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Documentary cinema has always drawn from real life. However, an increasing number of contemporary filmmakers go further still, drawing onscreen images of reality through a range of animated ...
More
Documentary cinema has always drawn from real life. However, an increasing number of contemporary filmmakers go further still, drawing onscreen images of reality through a range of animated filmmaking techniques and aesthetics. This book is the first of its kind, exploring the field of animated documentary film from a diverse range of scholarly and practice-based perspectives. The book’s chapters explore and propose answers to a range of questions that preoccupy twenty-first-century film artists and audiences alike: What are the historical roots of animated documentary? What kinds of reasons inspire practitioners to employ animation within documentary contexts? How do animated documentary images reflect and influence our understanding and experience of multiple forms of reality – public and private, psychological and political? From early cinema to present-day scientific research, military uses, digital art and gaming, this book casts new light on the capacity of the moving image to act as a record of the world around us, challenging many orthodox definitions of both animated and documentary cinema.Less
Documentary cinema has always drawn from real life. However, an increasing number of contemporary filmmakers go further still, drawing onscreen images of reality through a range of animated filmmaking techniques and aesthetics. This book is the first of its kind, exploring the field of animated documentary film from a diverse range of scholarly and practice-based perspectives. The book’s chapters explore and propose answers to a range of questions that preoccupy twenty-first-century film artists and audiences alike: What are the historical roots of animated documentary? What kinds of reasons inspire practitioners to employ animation within documentary contexts? How do animated documentary images reflect and influence our understanding and experience of multiple forms of reality – public and private, psychological and political? From early cinema to present-day scientific research, military uses, digital art and gaming, this book casts new light on the capacity of the moving image to act as a record of the world around us, challenging many orthodox definitions of both animated and documentary cinema.
Anthony Harkins
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195189506
- eISBN:
- 9780199788835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189506.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter focuses on hillbilly depictions in motion pictures, the dominant media of the mid-century. The continual resignification of the mountaineer/hillbilly dual image from the end of World War ...
More
This chapter focuses on hillbilly depictions in motion pictures, the dominant media of the mid-century. The continual resignification of the mountaineer/hillbilly dual image from the end of World War One through the mid-1950s is traced through full-length features, animated shorts, government documentaries, and the long running Ma and Pa Kettle series. The initial focus on violence and social threat was steadily replaced by a growing emphasis on farcical comedy, particularly in the “B” level films produced by Republic Pictures. With the advent of an era of postwar prosperity, however, the vogue of mountain films faded and the hillbilly image primarily lived on only in the domesticated version the Kettles embodied. But as later films such as Deliverance (1972) would show, the early-20th-century characterization of mountain folk as depraved savages remained just under the surface of this supposedly light-hearted fare.Less
This chapter focuses on hillbilly depictions in motion pictures, the dominant media of the mid-century. The continual resignification of the mountaineer/hillbilly dual image from the end of World War One through the mid-1950s is traced through full-length features, animated shorts, government documentaries, and the long running Ma and Pa Kettle series. The initial focus on violence and social threat was steadily replaced by a growing emphasis on farcical comedy, particularly in the “B” level films produced by Republic Pictures. With the advent of an era of postwar prosperity, however, the vogue of mountain films faded and the hillbilly image primarily lived on only in the domesticated version the Kettles embodied. But as later films such as Deliverance (1972) would show, the early-20th-century characterization of mountain folk as depraved savages remained just under the surface of this supposedly light-hearted fare.
Hikari Hori
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501714542
- eISBN:
- 9781501709524
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501714542.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The early Showa Era (1926-45), which roughly coincides with the Nazi years (1920-45) and Mussolini’s ‘venti anni’ (1921-43), is generally assumed to be a dogmatically and fanatically nationalist ...
More
The early Showa Era (1926-45), which roughly coincides with the Nazi years (1920-45) and Mussolini’s ‘venti anni’ (1921-43), is generally assumed to be a dogmatically and fanatically nationalist period, and due this putative monomania is often seen as a straightforward subject to study. To the contrary, this book reveals a very different picture of the Japanese popular media of this time period. The book examines the ways in which Japanese film and visual culture responded to the issues of the day, producing adaptations of Hollywood genre films; admiring pioneering film theories from Russia and Britain; and examining the techniques of German animation and Disney films. Importantly, the veneration of the emperor’s portrait photograph is a key to understand and contextualize the era’s media-scape. It is crucial to note that domestic film manifested the inherent promiscuity and transnationality of its medium. Japanese films did play a familiar role as propaganda, but because of their heterotopic aspects, the medium also negated, opposed, and undermined the ideologically and nationalistically defined demands of the wartime state. For other visual cultural media, too, careful examination reveals they were a site of contradictions of the dominant totalitarian discourse. (192 words)Less
The early Showa Era (1926-45), which roughly coincides with the Nazi years (1920-45) and Mussolini’s ‘venti anni’ (1921-43), is generally assumed to be a dogmatically and fanatically nationalist period, and due this putative monomania is often seen as a straightforward subject to study. To the contrary, this book reveals a very different picture of the Japanese popular media of this time period. The book examines the ways in which Japanese film and visual culture responded to the issues of the day, producing adaptations of Hollywood genre films; admiring pioneering film theories from Russia and Britain; and examining the techniques of German animation and Disney films. Importantly, the veneration of the emperor’s portrait photograph is a key to understand and contextualize the era’s media-scape. It is crucial to note that domestic film manifested the inherent promiscuity and transnationality of its medium. Japanese films did play a familiar role as propaganda, but because of their heterotopic aspects, the medium also negated, opposed, and undermined the ideologically and nationalistically defined demands of the wartime state. For other visual cultural media, too, careful examination reveals they were a site of contradictions of the dominant totalitarian discourse. (192 words)
Richard Neupert
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040153
- eISBN:
- 9780252098352
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040153.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Celebrated as Pixar's “Chief Creative Officer,” John Lasseter is a revolutionary figure in animation history and one of today's most important filmmakers. Lasseter films from Luxo Jr. to Toy Story ...
More
Celebrated as Pixar's “Chief Creative Officer,” John Lasseter is a revolutionary figure in animation history and one of today's most important filmmakers. Lasseter films from Luxo Jr. to Toy Story and Cars 2 highlighted his gift for creating emotionally engaging characters. At the same time, they helped launch computer animation as a viable commercial medium and serve as blueprints for the genre's still-expanding commercial and artistic development. This book explores Lasseter's signature aesthetic and storytelling strategies and details how he became the architect of Pixar's studio style. The book contends that Lasseter's accomplishments emerged from a unique blend of technical skill and artistic vision, as well as a passion for working with collaborators. In addition, the book traces the director's career arc from the time Lasseter joined Pixar in 1984. As it shows, Lasseter's ability to keep a foot in both animation and computer-generated imagery allowed him to thrive in an unconventional corporate culture that valued creative interaction between colleagues. The ideas that emerged built an animation studio that updated and refined classical Hollywood storytelling practices—and changed commercial animation forever.Less
Celebrated as Pixar's “Chief Creative Officer,” John Lasseter is a revolutionary figure in animation history and one of today's most important filmmakers. Lasseter films from Luxo Jr. to Toy Story and Cars 2 highlighted his gift for creating emotionally engaging characters. At the same time, they helped launch computer animation as a viable commercial medium and serve as blueprints for the genre's still-expanding commercial and artistic development. This book explores Lasseter's signature aesthetic and storytelling strategies and details how he became the architect of Pixar's studio style. The book contends that Lasseter's accomplishments emerged from a unique blend of technical skill and artistic vision, as well as a passion for working with collaborators. In addition, the book traces the director's career arc from the time Lasseter joined Pixar in 1984. As it shows, Lasseter's ability to keep a foot in both animation and computer-generated imagery allowed him to thrive in an unconventional corporate culture that valued creative interaction between colleagues. The ideas that emerged built an animation studio that updated and refined classical Hollywood storytelling practices—and changed commercial animation forever.
Daniel Goldmark
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520236172
- eISBN:
- 9780520941205
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520236172.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
With the demise of the animation units run by or for major Hollywood companies, the power shifted to independent animation studios that could supply the seemingly insatiable demand for children's ...
More
With the demise of the animation units run by or for major Hollywood companies, the power shifted to independent animation studios that could supply the seemingly insatiable demand for children's television programming. In the 1970s and 1980s, Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, DIC, Ruby-Spears, and other film studios paid little attention to (or money for) such luxuries as unique sound effects or original music. At the same time, there was an explosion of cartoons featuring rock bands, including Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, Josie and the Pussycats, and Jabberjaw. A renaissance in cartoon production occurred in the late 1980s. Reawakened interest in the now-classic Warner Bros. cartoons led Steven Spielberg to produce Tiny Toon Adventures, based on Warner stars and cartoons. At the same time, networks and cable channels commissioned entirely novel series, including Rugrats, Animaniacs, Batman, and Doug. Moreover, contemporary popular music has become a fundamental element in contemporary cartoons. And, of course, we cannot overlook the road map for cartoon music drawn by Carl Stalling and Scott Bradley some seventy-five years ago.Less
With the demise of the animation units run by or for major Hollywood companies, the power shifted to independent animation studios that could supply the seemingly insatiable demand for children's television programming. In the 1970s and 1980s, Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, DIC, Ruby-Spears, and other film studios paid little attention to (or money for) such luxuries as unique sound effects or original music. At the same time, there was an explosion of cartoons featuring rock bands, including Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, Josie and the Pussycats, and Jabberjaw. A renaissance in cartoon production occurred in the late 1980s. Reawakened interest in the now-classic Warner Bros. cartoons led Steven Spielberg to produce Tiny Toon Adventures, based on Warner stars and cartoons. At the same time, networks and cable channels commissioned entirely novel series, including Rugrats, Animaniacs, Batman, and Doug. Moreover, contemporary popular music has become a fundamental element in contemporary cartoons. And, of course, we cannot overlook the road map for cartoon music drawn by Carl Stalling and Scott Bradley some seventy-five years ago.
Tze-Yue G. Hu
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622090972
- eISBN:
- 9789882207721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090972.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter primarily focuses on the post-Second World War industrial development of Japanese animation and the medium's expressive symbolic role in postwar nation-building. It examines the ...
More
This chapter primarily focuses on the post-Second World War industrial development of Japanese animation and the medium's expressive symbolic role in postwar nation-building. It examines the production background of Hakujaden (White Snake Tale, 1958) and examines the circumstances of its making, especially in light of a post-Second World War era and Japan's conviction to rebuild a new image of itself. It also utilizes the “concept of performativity” in discussing the “collective stagy operations” of Toei Animation Studio which promoted itself as “Asia's largest animation studio.”Less
This chapter primarily focuses on the post-Second World War industrial development of Japanese animation and the medium's expressive symbolic role in postwar nation-building. It examines the production background of Hakujaden (White Snake Tale, 1958) and examines the circumstances of its making, especially in light of a post-Second World War era and Japan's conviction to rebuild a new image of itself. It also utilizes the “concept of performativity” in discussing the “collective stagy operations” of Toei Animation Studio which promoted itself as “Asia's largest animation studio.”
Tze-Yue G. Hu
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622090972
- eISBN:
- 9789882207721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090972.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter analyzes the development of the animation medium in various parts of Asia. It asks fundamentally why animated works (including film and television projects) made in South Korea, Taiwan, ...
More
This chapter analyzes the development of the animation medium in various parts of Asia. It asks fundamentally why animated works (including film and television projects) made in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, India, China, and so on, do not seem to create a lasting impression, nor do they gain high popularity among international audiences. It also discusses the discourses of cultural imperialism in relation to anime and its popularity in Asia, including commercial animation produced in the West, with particular emphasis on those from the United States. It then argues that the factors affecting the growth of animation in Asia are multidimensional and not simply a case of cultural imperialism.Less
This chapter analyzes the development of the animation medium in various parts of Asia. It asks fundamentally why animated works (including film and television projects) made in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, India, China, and so on, do not seem to create a lasting impression, nor do they gain high popularity among international audiences. It also discusses the discourses of cultural imperialism in relation to anime and its popularity in Asia, including commercial animation produced in the West, with particular emphasis on those from the United States. It then argues that the factors affecting the growth of animation in Asia are multidimensional and not simply a case of cultural imperialism.
Keith Leslie Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041471
- eISBN:
- 9780252050077
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041471.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This synoptic study of Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934) presents his career in terms of a Surrealist outlook informed by an idiosyncratic animism. More than any other recent filmmaker, ...
More
This synoptic study of Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934) presents his career in terms of a Surrealist outlook informed by an idiosyncratic animism. More than any other recent filmmaker, Švankmajer provides access to a “flat ontology”—a vision of the world with a single, uncanny order of being, where all things are, as it were, at once animated and inert, puppet-like. The screen of animist cinema is not therefore an abstract “field” in which human actors disport themselves against a backdrop of neutral, unresponsive objects, but more akin to an alchemist’s lab, where the proper incantation and ritual unlocks the potential for life hidden in all things. Švankmajer draws on the language and imagery of the occult so as to liberate the mind, less from rationality itself as from a certain straitened conception of it, decoupled from intuition and the creative imagination. The occult provides “technologies” for accessing these (e.g., Tarot, magic squares, alternative alphabets, symbol systems, etc.) and leaping thereby over the palings of stale, orthodox thought. This book examines Švankmajer’s animist cinema as it emerges in five conceptual “habitats”: that of the object; that of the animal; that of the creature (located between object and animal); that of the polis; and that of the ecosphere as a whole.Less
This synoptic study of Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934) presents his career in terms of a Surrealist outlook informed by an idiosyncratic animism. More than any other recent filmmaker, Švankmajer provides access to a “flat ontology”—a vision of the world with a single, uncanny order of being, where all things are, as it were, at once animated and inert, puppet-like. The screen of animist cinema is not therefore an abstract “field” in which human actors disport themselves against a backdrop of neutral, unresponsive objects, but more akin to an alchemist’s lab, where the proper incantation and ritual unlocks the potential for life hidden in all things. Švankmajer draws on the language and imagery of the occult so as to liberate the mind, less from rationality itself as from a certain straitened conception of it, decoupled from intuition and the creative imagination. The occult provides “technologies” for accessing these (e.g., Tarot, magic squares, alternative alphabets, symbol systems, etc.) and leaping thereby over the palings of stale, orthodox thought. This book examines Švankmajer’s animist cinema as it emerges in five conceptual “habitats”: that of the object; that of the animal; that of the creature (located between object and animal); that of the polis; and that of the ecosphere as a whole.
Daniel Martin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781628462340
- eISBN:
- 9781626746787
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628462340.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This chapter considers the superhero in transnational Japanese-Korean animation, focusing on the feature film Blade of the Phantom Master (2004). A Japanese-South Korean co-production, this animated ...
More
This chapter considers the superhero in transnational Japanese-Korean animation, focusing on the feature film Blade of the Phantom Master (2004). A Japanese-South Korean co-production, this animated film offers a fantasy-action retelling of the iconic Korean folktale Chunhyang. Thus, this film is a revealing case of the cultural translation and transnational re-imagining of Korean literature and myth. This chapter covers the adaptation process, and examines the ways in which the specifically Korean aspects of the narrative and characters have been modified and adapted to reach a wider international audience. In particular, the recasting of the virtuous maiden Chunhyang as a fetishized super-ninja is shown to be particularly problematic. Rather than representing a step forward for Korean animation abroad, the film rewrites a Korean folktale for an international audience, drawing on the conventions of Japanese anime to create a new hybrid media for a global market.Less
This chapter considers the superhero in transnational Japanese-Korean animation, focusing on the feature film Blade of the Phantom Master (2004). A Japanese-South Korean co-production, this animated film offers a fantasy-action retelling of the iconic Korean folktale Chunhyang. Thus, this film is a revealing case of the cultural translation and transnational re-imagining of Korean literature and myth. This chapter covers the adaptation process, and examines the ways in which the specifically Korean aspects of the narrative and characters have been modified and adapted to reach a wider international audience. In particular, the recasting of the virtuous maiden Chunhyang as a fetishized super-ninja is shown to be particularly problematic. Rather than representing a step forward for Korean animation abroad, the film rewrites a Korean folktale for an international audience, drawing on the conventions of Japanese anime to create a new hybrid media for a global market.
Rae Langton
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199247066
- eISBN:
- 9780191594823
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247066.003.0015
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
If solipsism is false but believed, the agent treats people as things (objectification). If solipsism is true but not believed, the agent treats things as people (projective animation). These two ...
More
If solipsism is false but believed, the agent treats people as things (objectification). If solipsism is true but not believed, the agent treats things as people (projective animation). These two global solipsisms have two local, sexual counterparts. In pornography ‘the human becomes thing’ (MacKinnon's ambiguous phrase): women are treated as things, and things are treated as women. This chapter discusses objectification, objective attitudes, and sadism (Kant, Herman, Strawson, Scruton, Sartre); then asks how the two solipsisms connect. Is it chance that in pornography, things are treated as women, and women as things? Is there a causal connection? Or a constitutive one (Vadas)?Less
If solipsism is false but believed, the agent treats people as things (objectification). If solipsism is true but not believed, the agent treats things as people (projective animation). These two global solipsisms have two local, sexual counterparts. In pornography ‘the human becomes thing’ (MacKinnon's ambiguous phrase): women are treated as things, and things are treated as women. This chapter discusses objectification, objective attitudes, and sadism (Kant, Herman, Strawson, Scruton, Sartre); then asks how the two solipsisms connect. Is it chance that in pornography, things are treated as women, and women as things? Is there a causal connection? Or a constitutive one (Vadas)?
J. P. Telotte
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813125862
- eISBN:
- 9780813135540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813125862.003.0012
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter describes how animation has become big business and an increasingly fashionable field for study due to the growth of CGI effects in feature films, the proliferation of digital animation ...
More
This chapter describes how animation has become big business and an increasingly fashionable field for study due to the growth of CGI effects in feature films, the proliferation of digital animation production companies, the appearance of an international array of broadcast and cable-delivered animation programs, and the full growth of the computer game industry. This is based on the fact that animation is not only essential to the realms of visual entertainment, advertising, and instruction, but also because it suggests the very real possibility of a paradigm shift in visually based media, as it promises to replace or radically alter components of these realms that people have come to take for granted.Less
This chapter describes how animation has become big business and an increasingly fashionable field for study due to the growth of CGI effects in feature films, the proliferation of digital animation production companies, the appearance of an international array of broadcast and cable-delivered animation programs, and the full growth of the computer game industry. This is based on the fact that animation is not only essential to the realms of visual entertainment, advertising, and instruction, but also because it suggests the very real possibility of a paradigm shift in visually based media, as it promises to replace or radically alter components of these realms that people have come to take for granted.
Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781628461190
- eISBN:
- 9781626740662
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628461190.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Boys Love (or simply BL) has emerged as a mainstream genre in manga, anime, and games for girls and young women. This genre was first developed in Japan in the early 1970s by a group of female ...
More
Boys Love (or simply BL) has emerged as a mainstream genre in manga, anime, and games for girls and young women. This genre was first developed in Japan in the early 1970s by a group of female artists. By the late 1970s, many amateur women fans were getting involved and creating and self-publishing homoerotic parodies of established male manga characters and popular media figures. The popularity of these encouraged a surge in the number of commercial titles. Today, a wide range of products, produced both by professionals and amateurs, is rapidly gaining a global audience. This book provides an overview of the BL phenomenon in Japan, its history and various subgenres and introduces translations of some key Japanese scholarship not otherwise available. The book looks at a range of literary, artistic, and other cultural products that celebrate the beauty of adolescent boys and young men. In Japan, depiction of the “beautiful boy” has long been a romantic and sexualized trope for both sexes and commands a high degree of cultural visibility today across a range of genres from pop music to animation. Drawing from diverse disciplinary homes, the chapters unite in their attention to historical context, analytical precision, and close readings of diverse boys love texts.Less
Boys Love (or simply BL) has emerged as a mainstream genre in manga, anime, and games for girls and young women. This genre was first developed in Japan in the early 1970s by a group of female artists. By the late 1970s, many amateur women fans were getting involved and creating and self-publishing homoerotic parodies of established male manga characters and popular media figures. The popularity of these encouraged a surge in the number of commercial titles. Today, a wide range of products, produced both by professionals and amateurs, is rapidly gaining a global audience. This book provides an overview of the BL phenomenon in Japan, its history and various subgenres and introduces translations of some key Japanese scholarship not otherwise available. The book looks at a range of literary, artistic, and other cultural products that celebrate the beauty of adolescent boys and young men. In Japan, depiction of the “beautiful boy” has long been a romantic and sexualized trope for both sexes and commands a high degree of cultural visibility today across a range of genres from pop music to animation. Drawing from diverse disciplinary homes, the chapters unite in their attention to historical context, analytical precision, and close readings of diverse boys love texts.
Andrew Warstat
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780748694112
- eISBN:
- 9781474460071
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694112.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter considers animation’s relationship to the document and documentary form from a broadly Marxist perspective. It uses Marxist aesthetic theory to demonstrate how analysing an animated ...
More
This chapter considers animation’s relationship to the document and documentary form from a broadly Marxist perspective. It uses Marxist aesthetic theory to demonstrate how analysing an animated film’s ‘constructedness’ can allow for critical examination of the construction of reality as lived under capitalism. Specifically, the chapter analyses the stop-frame and cut-out animated films of Lewis Klahr. Klahr’s films show capitalist reality not as an unmediated realm, but as a reality enmeshed in American and European image cultures. His films are literally built from the material residue of the recent past, creating dense psycho-social narratives out of re-animated ‘dead’ images. This chapter views Klahr’s films as realist documents in relation to two arguments. Firstly, Siegfried Kracauer’s suggestion that film engages reality through its constructed “material dimension”. Secondly, Theodor Adorno’s proposal that the shuddering (animated) image is encoded with a hidden, social content that provokes unease in the viewer.Less
This chapter considers animation’s relationship to the document and documentary form from a broadly Marxist perspective. It uses Marxist aesthetic theory to demonstrate how analysing an animated film’s ‘constructedness’ can allow for critical examination of the construction of reality as lived under capitalism. Specifically, the chapter analyses the stop-frame and cut-out animated films of Lewis Klahr. Klahr’s films show capitalist reality not as an unmediated realm, but as a reality enmeshed in American and European image cultures. His films are literally built from the material residue of the recent past, creating dense psycho-social narratives out of re-animated ‘dead’ images. This chapter views Klahr’s films as realist documents in relation to two arguments. Firstly, Siegfried Kracauer’s suggestion that film engages reality through its constructed “material dimension”. Secondly, Theodor Adorno’s proposal that the shuddering (animated) image is encoded with a hidden, social content that provokes unease in the viewer.
Eric S. Jenkins
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748695478
- eISBN:
- 9781474406413
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748695478.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Special Affects retells the history of the emergence of classical Hollywood cinema and Disney animation from the perspective of affect theory. It argues that these media enabled new modes of ...
More
Special Affects retells the history of the emergence of classical Hollywood cinema and Disney animation from the perspective of affect theory. It argues that these media enabled new modes of perception that sparked special affects such as the astonishment of early cinema, the marvel of early animation, the fantastic in classical cinema, and wonder in classical Disney. These special affects become mined by culture industries and translated into modes of consumerism and consumer ideology, as represented here by different versions of the American Dream narrative. This retelling of media history concludes that there is an inherent connection between media and consumerism, since media enable new modes of perception that can spark special affections that both attract and train consumers. The book also concludes that, from the perspective of affect, Disney animation constitutes a unique contribution to consumer culture, one distinct from the contributions of classical Hollywood with which Disney is so often conflated. The book ends by considering how this retelling of media history might inform current changes to animation, cinema and consumer culture due to the emergence of digital animation.Less
Special Affects retells the history of the emergence of classical Hollywood cinema and Disney animation from the perspective of affect theory. It argues that these media enabled new modes of perception that sparked special affects such as the astonishment of early cinema, the marvel of early animation, the fantastic in classical cinema, and wonder in classical Disney. These special affects become mined by culture industries and translated into modes of consumerism and consumer ideology, as represented here by different versions of the American Dream narrative. This retelling of media history concludes that there is an inherent connection between media and consumerism, since media enable new modes of perception that can spark special affections that both attract and train consumers. The book also concludes that, from the perspective of affect, Disney animation constitutes a unique contribution to consumer culture, one distinct from the contributions of classical Hollywood with which Disney is so often conflated. The book ends by considering how this retelling of media history might inform current changes to animation, cinema and consumer culture due to the emergence of digital animation.
Stella Bolaki
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781474402422
- eISBN:
- 9781474418591
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402422.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world but their analysis continues to be framed by the context of biomedicine, the doctor-patient encounter and the demands of ...
More
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world but their analysis continues to be framed by the context of biomedicine, the doctor-patient encounter and the demands of medical training. This reductive attitude prevents the inclusion of more formally experimental genres, different themes and interdisciplinary methods within the field. It also perpetuates the view of the medical humanities as a narrow area of study largely serving the needs of medicine. Exploring the aesthetic, ethical and cultural importance of contemporary representations of illness across different arts and media, this book intervenes in current debates in medical humanities/medical education by emphasising more critical as opposed to instrumental approaches. Opening up the category of illness narrative to consider forms beyond literature, Illness as Many Narratives includes chapters on photography, artists’ books, performance art, film, theatre, animation and online narratives. The book examines different physical and mental illness experiences in both autobiographical and collaborative/relational narratives and offers new close readings of diverse works by Jo Spence, Sam Taylor-Wood, Martha A. Hall, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Wim Wenders, Lisa Kron and others. Approaching illness and its treatments as a multiplicity and situating them in relation to aesthetics, theory, radical pedagogy, politics and contemporary cultural concerns, Illness as Many Narratives demonstrates how bringing in diverse materials and engaging with multiple perspectives can help the arts, cultural studies and the medical humanities to establish critical conversations and amplify the goals and scope of their respective work.Less
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world but their analysis continues to be framed by the context of biomedicine, the doctor-patient encounter and the demands of medical training. This reductive attitude prevents the inclusion of more formally experimental genres, different themes and interdisciplinary methods within the field. It also perpetuates the view of the medical humanities as a narrow area of study largely serving the needs of medicine. Exploring the aesthetic, ethical and cultural importance of contemporary representations of illness across different arts and media, this book intervenes in current debates in medical humanities/medical education by emphasising more critical as opposed to instrumental approaches. Opening up the category of illness narrative to consider forms beyond literature, Illness as Many Narratives includes chapters on photography, artists’ books, performance art, film, theatre, animation and online narratives. The book examines different physical and mental illness experiences in both autobiographical and collaborative/relational narratives and offers new close readings of diverse works by Jo Spence, Sam Taylor-Wood, Martha A. Hall, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Wim Wenders, Lisa Kron and others. Approaching illness and its treatments as a multiplicity and situating them in relation to aesthetics, theory, radical pedagogy, politics and contemporary cultural concerns, Illness as Many Narratives demonstrates how bringing in diverse materials and engaging with multiple perspectives can help the arts, cultural studies and the medical humanities to establish critical conversations and amplify the goals and scope of their respective work.
Noel Brown
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474410564
- eISBN:
- 9781474495172
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474410564.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Until the 1990s, animation occupied a relatively marginal presence in Hollywood. Today, it is at the very heart of both the film industry and contemporary popular culture. Charting the major changes ...
More
Until the 1990s, animation occupied a relatively marginal presence in Hollywood. Today, it is at the very heart of both the film industry and contemporary popular culture. Charting the major changes and continuities in Hollywood animation over the past thirty years, this groundbreaking book offers an authoritative history of Hollywood animation since the 1990s. Analysing dozens of key films, including The Lion King, Toy Story, Shrek, Despicable Me, Frozen and Moana, it examines the emergence of new genres and stylistic approaches, as well as the ongoing blurring of boundaries between animation and live-action. Identifying narrative and thematic patterns, and developments in industry and style, the book explores how animation in the United States both responds to and recapitulates the values, beliefs, hopes and fears of the nation.Less
Until the 1990s, animation occupied a relatively marginal presence in Hollywood. Today, it is at the very heart of both the film industry and contemporary popular culture. Charting the major changes and continuities in Hollywood animation over the past thirty years, this groundbreaking book offers an authoritative history of Hollywood animation since the 1990s. Analysing dozens of key films, including The Lion King, Toy Story, Shrek, Despicable Me, Frozen and Moana, it examines the emergence of new genres and stylistic approaches, as well as the ongoing blurring of boundaries between animation and live-action. Identifying narrative and thematic patterns, and developments in industry and style, the book explores how animation in the United States both responds to and recapitulates the values, beliefs, hopes and fears of the nation.
Feldman Fred
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195089288
- eISBN:
- 9780199852963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195089288.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter discusses the reasons and explanations why death cannot simply be defined as a cessation of life. A number of problems are associated with this definition of death, including suspended ...
More
This chapter discusses the reasons and explanations why death cannot simply be defined as a cessation of life. A number of problems are associated with this definition of death, including suspended animation and how humans can find other ways of getting out of life without having to die. It is concluded in this chapter that death is truly a double enigma.Less
This chapter discusses the reasons and explanations why death cannot simply be defined as a cessation of life. A number of problems are associated with this definition of death, including suspended animation and how humans can find other ways of getting out of life without having to die. It is concluded in this chapter that death is truly a double enigma.
Vigen Guroian
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195152647
- eISBN:
- 9780199849192
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195152647.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses issues related to growing up and childrearing. All children want to grow up. In the Disney animation, real boyhood is bestowed on Pinocchio, the protagonist, as a reward for ...
More
This chapter discusses issues related to growing up and childrearing. All children want to grow up. In the Disney animation, real boyhood is bestowed on Pinocchio, the protagonist, as a reward for being good by the Blue Fairy with a touch of her magic wand; or because Pinocchio has proven himself brave, truthful, and unselfish. In Disney's imagination this is magic. In theological terms this is righteousness. Children who love their parents, and help them when they are sick and poor, are worthy of praise and love, even if they are not necessarily models of obedience and good behavior.Less
This chapter discusses issues related to growing up and childrearing. All children want to grow up. In the Disney animation, real boyhood is bestowed on Pinocchio, the protagonist, as a reward for being good by the Blue Fairy with a touch of her magic wand; or because Pinocchio has proven himself brave, truthful, and unselfish. In Disney's imagination this is magic. In theological terms this is righteousness. Children who love their parents, and help them when they are sick and poor, are worthy of praise and love, even if they are not necessarily models of obedience and good behavior.
