Gregory J. Watkins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335989
- eISBN:
- 9780199868940
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335989.003.0018
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter reports on a course that successfully uses film to introduce students to the basic theoretical approaches to the study of religion. In conjunction with primary text selections from some ...
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This chapter reports on a course that successfully uses film to introduce students to the basic theoretical approaches to the study of religion. In conjunction with primary text selections from some of the great theorists of religion, students use the films they see to deepen their appreciation and consideration of the various theoretical orientations while asking about the nature of film itself. The course is guided by an overarching consideration of the proposition that film makes possible a unique articulation of religious thought and experience. The chapter also discusses some of the practical challenges of making film viewing a central part of the work in the course, from the logistics of screenings to the use of film clips on exams.Less
This chapter reports on a course that successfully uses film to introduce students to the basic theoretical approaches to the study of religion. In conjunction with primary text selections from some of the great theorists of religion, students use the films they see to deepen their appreciation and consideration of the various theoretical orientations while asking about the nature of film itself. The course is guided by an overarching consideration of the proposition that film makes possible a unique articulation of religious thought and experience. The chapter also discusses some of the practical challenges of making film viewing a central part of the work in the course, from the logistics of screenings to the use of film clips on exams.
Viola Shafik
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789774160653
- eISBN:
- 9781936190096
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
- DOI:
- 10.5743/cairo/9789774160653.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
Arab film making was only partly able to compete with “First World” cinema. It has remained greatly dependent on Western imports, technical know-how, evaluation, and partly even on Western financial ...
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Arab film making was only partly able to compete with “First World” cinema. It has remained greatly dependent on Western imports, technical know-how, evaluation, and partly even on Western financial support. The so-called Third-Worldist anti-colonial cinema did not succeed in resolving the contradiction between cultural promotion, political commitment, and rentability, and was soon eclipsed either by entirely mainstream-oriented cinema or by the rather anti-authoritarian, deconstructive, and stylistically innovative, yet regionally marginalized, cinéma d'auteur. Nonetheless, mainstream as well as individualist cinema was able to convey elements of native art and culture, and became actively involved in the creation of specific national or cultural identities. Although the medium became part of a mass-mediated culture and functioned as a means of mass entertainment, commercialism, the obligation to rentability, and competition with Western products did not result in a complete imitation of Western cinema, but initiated the reformation of the imported film language according to the needs of local audiences.Less
Arab film making was only partly able to compete with “First World” cinema. It has remained greatly dependent on Western imports, technical know-how, evaluation, and partly even on Western financial support. The so-called Third-Worldist anti-colonial cinema did not succeed in resolving the contradiction between cultural promotion, political commitment, and rentability, and was soon eclipsed either by entirely mainstream-oriented cinema or by the rather anti-authoritarian, deconstructive, and stylistically innovative, yet regionally marginalized, cinéma d'auteur. Nonetheless, mainstream as well as individualist cinema was able to convey elements of native art and culture, and became actively involved in the creation of specific national or cultural identities. Although the medium became part of a mass-mediated culture and functioned as a means of mass entertainment, commercialism, the obligation to rentability, and competition with Western products did not result in a complete imitation of Western cinema, but initiated the reformation of the imported film language according to the needs of local audiences.
Annette Insdorf
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036859
- eISBN:
- 9780252093975
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036859.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
American director Philip Kaufman is hard to pin down: a visual stylist who is truly literate, a San Franciscan who often makes European films, he is an accessible storyteller with a sophisticated ...
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American director Philip Kaufman is hard to pin down: a visual stylist who is truly literate, a San Franciscan who often makes European films, he is an accessible storyteller with a sophisticated touch. Celebrated for his vigorous, sexy, and reflective cinema, Kaufman is best known for his masterpiece The Unbearable Lightness of Being and the astronaut saga The Right Stuff. His latest film, Hemingway & Gellhorn, stars Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen. This book argues that the stylistic and philosophical richness of Kaufman's cinema makes him a versatile auteur. It demonstrates Kaufman's skill at adaptation, how he finds the precise cinematic device for a story drawn from seemingly unadaptable sources, and how his eye translates the authorial voice from books that serve as inspiration for his films. Closely analyzing his movies to date (including Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wanderers, and Quills) the book links them by exploring the recurring and resonant themes of sensuality, artistic creation, codes of honor, and freedom from manipulation. While there is no overarching label or bold signature that can be applied to his oeuvre, the book illustrates the consistency of themes, techniques, images, and concerns that permeates all of Kaufman's works.Less
American director Philip Kaufman is hard to pin down: a visual stylist who is truly literate, a San Franciscan who often makes European films, he is an accessible storyteller with a sophisticated touch. Celebrated for his vigorous, sexy, and reflective cinema, Kaufman is best known for his masterpiece The Unbearable Lightness of Being and the astronaut saga The Right Stuff. His latest film, Hemingway & Gellhorn, stars Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen. This book argues that the stylistic and philosophical richness of Kaufman's cinema makes him a versatile auteur. It demonstrates Kaufman's skill at adaptation, how he finds the precise cinematic device for a story drawn from seemingly unadaptable sources, and how his eye translates the authorial voice from books that serve as inspiration for his films. Closely analyzing his movies to date (including Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wanderers, and Quills) the book links them by exploring the recurring and resonant themes of sensuality, artistic creation, codes of honor, and freedom from manipulation. While there is no overarching label or bold signature that can be applied to his oeuvre, the book illustrates the consistency of themes, techniques, images, and concerns that permeates all of Kaufman's works.
Condee Nancy
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195366761
- eISBN:
- 9780199867394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366761.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Sokurov’s cinematic “ark,” to cite his best-known work, is hardly an inclusive, biblical congeries of all earthly animals. It is a gathering of elite gentility adrift in a catastrophe largely of its ...
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Sokurov’s cinematic “ark,” to cite his best-known work, is hardly an inclusive, biblical congeries of all earthly animals. It is a gathering of elite gentility adrift in a catastrophe largely of its own making, dancing to the exquisite music of its isolated culture, oblivious to the impending historical “accident.” Here, for Sokurov, the imperial imagination is a robust, sense-making instrument. And while Russian Ark is neither typical nor representative, such distant films as Days of the Eclipse or Second Circle nevertheless reveal contrastive features of a shared, imaginative topography. It is not in a literal sense that Turkmenistan (Days of the Eclipse), the frozen north (Second Circle) or the Tajik border (Spiritual Voices) belong to the same cinematic empire. Indeed, the African colonialist footage (Mournful Indifference), the Nazi mountain-retreat (Moloch) and Japanese palace (Sun), or Sokurov’s Anglophile, seafaring preoccupations (Confession) are hardly the historical residue of Russia’s overland imperium, but function as loan-fantasies, something beyond, as Said has suggested, “mere” positive knowledge. Tropes speculatively associated with empire’s legacy, like an elite, insular center and distant periphery and a preference for grand, oracular eschatology, provide productive environments for inquiry.Less
Sokurov’s cinematic “ark,” to cite his best-known work, is hardly an inclusive, biblical congeries of all earthly animals. It is a gathering of elite gentility adrift in a catastrophe largely of its own making, dancing to the exquisite music of its isolated culture, oblivious to the impending historical “accident.” Here, for Sokurov, the imperial imagination is a robust, sense-making instrument. And while Russian Ark is neither typical nor representative, such distant films as Days of the Eclipse or Second Circle nevertheless reveal contrastive features of a shared, imaginative topography. It is not in a literal sense that Turkmenistan (Days of the Eclipse), the frozen north (Second Circle) or the Tajik border (Spiritual Voices) belong to the same cinematic empire. Indeed, the African colonialist footage (Mournful Indifference), the Nazi mountain-retreat (Moloch) and Japanese palace (Sun), or Sokurov’s Anglophile, seafaring preoccupations (Confession) are hardly the historical residue of Russia’s overland imperium, but function as loan-fantasies, something beyond, as Said has suggested, “mere” positive knowledge. Tropes speculatively associated with empire’s legacy, like an elite, insular center and distant periphery and a preference for grand, oracular eschatology, provide productive environments for inquiry.
Condee Nancy
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195366761
- eISBN:
- 9780199867394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366761.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
In German’s Lapshin and Khrustalev, the child-protagonist witnesses events the meaning of which becomes evident only over decades. A similar ignorance, the filmmaker has suggested, could be found in ...
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In German’s Lapshin and Khrustalev, the child-protagonist witnesses events the meaning of which becomes evident only over decades. A similar ignorance, the filmmaker has suggested, could be found in his earlier Trial on the Road: “one could say that the protagonist’s ignorance is primary for us.” With his meticulous, even forensic reconstitution of the mid-century’s mise-en-scène, German is concerned with how the historical moment is perpetually in excess of our immediate capacity to grasp its content. German’s own work has undergone an oddly analogous accumulation of meaning. As the screening exodus at Cannes (1998) painfully suggested, his audience saw Khrustalev in a naïve, ignorant manner unavailable to us as we watch the film today. German typically takes stories from the older, metropolitan elite who became the Soviet intelligentsia, and tells them to an art-house audience who, however unintentionally, ceased to be the Soviet intelligentsia. For the educated, metropolitan children of that first Soviet generation, the future as conceived by their fathers gradually became a weakened operative concept. That Soviet future, recaptured by German at the historical moment of most ambitious construction, is screened as an homage to the verdancy, ignorance, and naiveté of the fathers.Less
In German’s Lapshin and Khrustalev, the child-protagonist witnesses events the meaning of which becomes evident only over decades. A similar ignorance, the filmmaker has suggested, could be found in his earlier Trial on the Road: “one could say that the protagonist’s ignorance is primary for us.” With his meticulous, even forensic reconstitution of the mid-century’s mise-en-scène, German is concerned with how the historical moment is perpetually in excess of our immediate capacity to grasp its content. German’s own work has undergone an oddly analogous accumulation of meaning. As the screening exodus at Cannes (1998) painfully suggested, his audience saw Khrustalev in a naïve, ignorant manner unavailable to us as we watch the film today. German typically takes stories from the older, metropolitan elite who became the Soviet intelligentsia, and tells them to an art-house audience who, however unintentionally, ceased to be the Soviet intelligentsia. For the educated, metropolitan children of that first Soviet generation, the future as conceived by their fathers gradually became a weakened operative concept. That Soviet future, recaptured by German at the historical moment of most ambitious construction, is screened as an homage to the verdancy, ignorance, and naiveté of the fathers.
Ben McCann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719091148
- eISBN:
- 9781526124111
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091148.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book is the first ever English-language study of Julien Duvivier (1896-1967), once considered one of the world’s great film filmmakers. It provides new contextual and analytical readings of his ...
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This book is the first ever English-language study of Julien Duvivier (1896-1967), once considered one of the world’s great film filmmakers. It provides new contextual and analytical readings of his films that identify his key themes and techniques, trace patterns of continuity and change, and explore critical assessments of his work over time. Throughout a five-decade career, Duvivier zigzagged between multiple genres – film noir, comedy, literary adaptation – and made over sixty films. His career intersects with important historical moments in French cinema, like the arrival of sound film, the development of the ‘poetic realism’, the exodus to America during the German Occupation, the working within the Hollywood studio system in the 1940s, and the return to France and to a much-changed film landscape in the 1950s.
Often dismissed as a marginal figure in French film history, this groundbreaking book illustrates Duvivier’s eclecticism, technical efficiency and visual fluency in films such as Panique (1946) and Voici le temps des assassins (1956) alongside more familiar works like La Belle Equipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937). It will particularly appeal to scholars and students of French cinema looking for examples of a director who could comfortably straddle the realms of the popular and the auteur.Less
This book is the first ever English-language study of Julien Duvivier (1896-1967), once considered one of the world’s great film filmmakers. It provides new contextual and analytical readings of his films that identify his key themes and techniques, trace patterns of continuity and change, and explore critical assessments of his work over time. Throughout a five-decade career, Duvivier zigzagged between multiple genres – film noir, comedy, literary adaptation – and made over sixty films. His career intersects with important historical moments in French cinema, like the arrival of sound film, the development of the ‘poetic realism’, the exodus to America during the German Occupation, the working within the Hollywood studio system in the 1940s, and the return to France and to a much-changed film landscape in the 1950s.
Often dismissed as a marginal figure in French film history, this groundbreaking book illustrates Duvivier’s eclecticism, technical efficiency and visual fluency in films such as Panique (1946) and Voici le temps des assassins (1956) alongside more familiar works like La Belle Equipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937). It will particularly appeal to scholars and students of French cinema looking for examples of a director who could comfortably straddle the realms of the popular and the auteur.
Joseph Mai
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719096471
- eISBN:
- 9781526124104
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096471.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book provides a comprehensive account of Robert Guédiguian’s numerous films since 1980, combining stylistic analyses with historical, political, and generic context. More importantly, it makes ...
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This book provides a comprehensive account of Robert Guédiguian’s numerous films since 1980, combining stylistic analyses with historical, political, and generic context. More importantly, it makes the case that Guédiguian’s work represents one of the most discretely original but radical projects of contemporary French cinema: to make politically committed films with friends, predominately in a local space, over a long period of time. The book starts with a consideration of the philosophy of friendship and its relation to politics, relation, difference, time, and space. It concentrates on Guédiguian’s early life in the Estaque neighbourhood of Marseilles, where he became politically active and developed the friendships that would continue in his filmmaking, as well as Guédiguian’s disillusionment with the Communist Party. It then examines the political pessimism of the 1980s through Guédiguian’s four early films. The book examines the turn toward local activism and utopianism in the 1990s, and follows Guédiguian’s work as it spreads into diverse experimentation with genres and registers in more recent work. It emphasises Guédiguian’s political assessments and his frequent meditations on history, violence, and utopia. But it returns consistently to the underlying themes of friendship, and thus intervenes at the crossroads of affect, politics, philosophy, and art.Less
This book provides a comprehensive account of Robert Guédiguian’s numerous films since 1980, combining stylistic analyses with historical, political, and generic context. More importantly, it makes the case that Guédiguian’s work represents one of the most discretely original but radical projects of contemporary French cinema: to make politically committed films with friends, predominately in a local space, over a long period of time. The book starts with a consideration of the philosophy of friendship and its relation to politics, relation, difference, time, and space. It concentrates on Guédiguian’s early life in the Estaque neighbourhood of Marseilles, where he became politically active and developed the friendships that would continue in his filmmaking, as well as Guédiguian’s disillusionment with the Communist Party. It then examines the political pessimism of the 1980s through Guédiguian’s four early films. The book examines the turn toward local activism and utopianism in the 1990s, and follows Guédiguian’s work as it spreads into diverse experimentation with genres and registers in more recent work. It emphasises Guédiguian’s political assessments and his frequent meditations on history, violence, and utopia. But it returns consistently to the underlying themes of friendship, and thus intervenes at the crossroads of affect, politics, philosophy, and art.
Emanuel Levy
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231152761
- eISBN:
- 9780231526531
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231152761.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of ...
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Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view. For most of the twentieth century, gay characters and gay themes were both underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream cinema. Since the 1970s, however, a new generation of openly gay directors has turned the closet inside out, bringing a poignant immediacy to modern cinema and popular culture. Combining his experienced critique with in-depth interviews, Emanuel Levy draws a clear timeline of gay filmmaking over the past four decades and its particular influences and innovations. While recognizing the “queering” of American culture that resulted from these films, Levy also takes stock of the ensuing conservative backlash and its impact on cinematic art, a trend that continues alongside a growing acceptance of homosexuality. He compares the similarities and differences between the “North American” attitudes of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and John Waters and the “European” perspectives of Pedro Almodóvar and Terence Davies, developing a truly expansive approach to gay filmmaking and auteur cinema.Less
Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view. For most of the twentieth century, gay characters and gay themes were both underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream cinema. Since the 1970s, however, a new generation of openly gay directors has turned the closet inside out, bringing a poignant immediacy to modern cinema and popular culture. Combining his experienced critique with in-depth interviews, Emanuel Levy draws a clear timeline of gay filmmaking over the past four decades and its particular influences and innovations. While recognizing the “queering” of American culture that resulted from these films, Levy also takes stock of the ensuing conservative backlash and its impact on cinematic art, a trend that continues alongside a growing acceptance of homosexuality. He compares the similarities and differences between the “North American” attitudes of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and John Waters and the “European” perspectives of Pedro Almodóvar and Terence Davies, developing a truly expansive approach to gay filmmaking and auteur cinema.
Matthew Carter and Andrew Nelson (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474403016
- eISBN:
- 9781474422031
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474403016.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
New essays on the life and work of veteran Hollywood filmmaker Delmer Daves. From Destination Tokyo (1943) to The Battle of Villa Fiorita (1965), among many other titles, few filmmakers created as ...
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New essays on the life and work of veteran Hollywood filmmaker Delmer Daves. From Destination Tokyo (1943) to The Battle of Villa Fiorita (1965), among many other titles, few filmmakers created as unique a body of work in the United States as Delmer Daves (1904-1977), but few filmmakers have been as critically overlooked in existing scholarly literature. Daves is often regarded as an embodiment of the self-effacing craftsmanship of classical and post-War Hollywood, which helps explain his relative neglect by film critics and scholars. As the first study of Daves’s career, this collection in the ReFocus series on neglected American filmmakers seeks to deepen our understanding of the filmmaker and problematize existing conceptions of him as a competent but conventional, even naïve, studio man.Less
New essays on the life and work of veteran Hollywood filmmaker Delmer Daves. From Destination Tokyo (1943) to The Battle of Villa Fiorita (1965), among many other titles, few filmmakers created as unique a body of work in the United States as Delmer Daves (1904-1977), but few filmmakers have been as critically overlooked in existing scholarly literature. Daves is often regarded as an embodiment of the self-effacing craftsmanship of classical and post-War Hollywood, which helps explain his relative neglect by film critics and scholars. As the first study of Daves’s career, this collection in the ReFocus series on neglected American filmmakers seeks to deepen our understanding of the filmmaker and problematize existing conceptions of him as a competent but conventional, even naïve, studio man.
Gina Marchetti
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888028566
- eISBN:
- 9789882206991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888028566.003.0013
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The redefinition of “Hong Kong” occasioned by the Handover coincided with the re-imagination of the city in other ways as well. Produced within this charged political context, Stanley Kwan's Hold You ...
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The redefinition of “Hong Kong” occasioned by the Handover coincided with the re-imagination of the city in other ways as well. Produced within this charged political context, Stanley Kwan's Hold You Tight mediates various local and global currents in queer cinema within Hong Kong screenscapes. Kwan redraws the line, yet again, between popular schlock and New Wave aesthetic experimentation. The film's New Wave auteur credentials are certainly hard to challenge. Hold You Tight won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin Film Festival as well as the Teddy award for best gay/lesbian film at the festival. Set in Hong Kong and Taipei, Kwan solidifies an important regional link between Taiwan New Cinema and Hong Kong's “Second” Wave. The film offers the distinct vision of a cinematic auteur in addition to the common aesthetic and discursive currency needed to function in the international art film circuit as well as the regional market for Chinese-language cinema.Less
The redefinition of “Hong Kong” occasioned by the Handover coincided with the re-imagination of the city in other ways as well. Produced within this charged political context, Stanley Kwan's Hold You Tight mediates various local and global currents in queer cinema within Hong Kong screenscapes. Kwan redraws the line, yet again, between popular schlock and New Wave aesthetic experimentation. The film's New Wave auteur credentials are certainly hard to challenge. Hold You Tight won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin Film Festival as well as the Teddy award for best gay/lesbian film at the festival. Set in Hong Kong and Taipei, Kwan solidifies an important regional link between Taiwan New Cinema and Hong Kong's “Second” Wave. The film offers the distinct vision of a cinematic auteur in addition to the common aesthetic and discursive currency needed to function in the international art film circuit as well as the regional market for Chinese-language cinema.
Jennifer O'Meara
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474420624
- eISBN:
- 9781474449564
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420624.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book examines the centrality of dialogue to American independent cinema, arguing that it is impossible to separate small budgets from the old adage that ‘talk is cheap’. Focusing on the 1980s ...
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This book examines the centrality of dialogue to American independent cinema, arguing that it is impossible to separate small budgets from the old adage that ‘talk is cheap’. Focusing on the 1980s until the present, particularly on films by writer-directors like Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach and Richard Linklater, the book demonstrates dialogue’s ability to engage audiences and bind together the narrative, aesthetic and performative elements of selected cinema. When compared to the dialogue norms of more mainstream cinema, the verbal styles of these independent writer-directors are found to be marked by alternations between various extremes, particularly those of naturalism and hyper-stylization, and between the poles of efficiency and excess. More broadly, these writer-directors are used as case studies that allow for an understanding of how dialogue functions in verbally experimental cinema, which, this book contends, is more often found in ‘independent’ or ‘art’ cinema. In questioning the association of dialogue-centred films with the ‘literary’ and the ‘un-cinematic’, the book highlights how speech in independent cinema can instead hinge on what is termed ‘cinematic verbalism’: when dialogue is designed and executed in complex, medium-specific ways. More broadly, the book provides a framework for analysing dialogue design and execution that can be readily applied to other films and filmmakers. It also highlights how speech can be central to cinema without overshadowing its medium-specific components. In so doing, the book develops new connections between film dialogue, reception studies, independent cinema and auteur studies.Less
This book examines the centrality of dialogue to American independent cinema, arguing that it is impossible to separate small budgets from the old adage that ‘talk is cheap’. Focusing on the 1980s until the present, particularly on films by writer-directors like Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach and Richard Linklater, the book demonstrates dialogue’s ability to engage audiences and bind together the narrative, aesthetic and performative elements of selected cinema. When compared to the dialogue norms of more mainstream cinema, the verbal styles of these independent writer-directors are found to be marked by alternations between various extremes, particularly those of naturalism and hyper-stylization, and between the poles of efficiency and excess. More broadly, these writer-directors are used as case studies that allow for an understanding of how dialogue functions in verbally experimental cinema, which, this book contends, is more often found in ‘independent’ or ‘art’ cinema. In questioning the association of dialogue-centred films with the ‘literary’ and the ‘un-cinematic’, the book highlights how speech in independent cinema can instead hinge on what is termed ‘cinematic verbalism’: when dialogue is designed and executed in complex, medium-specific ways. More broadly, the book provides a framework for analysing dialogue design and execution that can be readily applied to other films and filmmakers. It also highlights how speech can be central to cinema without overshadowing its medium-specific components. In so doing, the book develops new connections between film dialogue, reception studies, independent cinema and auteur studies.
Hye Seung Chung
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036699
- eISBN:
- 9780252093791
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036699.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This study investigates the controversial motion pictures written and directed by the independent filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, one of the most acclaimed Korean auteurs in the English-speaking world. ...
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This study investigates the controversial motion pictures written and directed by the independent filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, one of the most acclaimed Korean auteurs in the English-speaking world. Propelled by underdog protagonists who can only communicate through shared corporeal pain and extreme violence, Kim's graphic films have been classified by Western audiences as belonging to sensationalist East Asian “extreme” cinema, and Kim has been labeled a “psychopath” and “misogynist” in South Korea. Drawing upon both Korean-language and English-language sources, the book challenges these misunderstandings, recuperating Kim's oeuvre as a therapeutic, yet brutal cinema of Nietzschean ressentiment (political anger and resentment deriving from subordination and oppression). The book argues that the power of Kim's cinema lies precisely in its ability to capture, channel, and convey the raw emotions of protagonists who live on the bottom rungs of Korean society. It provides historical and postcolonial readings of victimization and violence in Kim's cinema, which tackles such socially relevant topics as national division in Wild Animals and The Coast Guard and U.S. military occupation in Address Unknown. The book also explores the religious and spiritual themes in Kim's most recent works, which suggest possibilities of reconciliation and transcendence.Less
This study investigates the controversial motion pictures written and directed by the independent filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, one of the most acclaimed Korean auteurs in the English-speaking world. Propelled by underdog protagonists who can only communicate through shared corporeal pain and extreme violence, Kim's graphic films have been classified by Western audiences as belonging to sensationalist East Asian “extreme” cinema, and Kim has been labeled a “psychopath” and “misogynist” in South Korea. Drawing upon both Korean-language and English-language sources, the book challenges these misunderstandings, recuperating Kim's oeuvre as a therapeutic, yet brutal cinema of Nietzschean ressentiment (political anger and resentment deriving from subordination and oppression). The book argues that the power of Kim's cinema lies precisely in its ability to capture, channel, and convey the raw emotions of protagonists who live on the bottom rungs of Korean society. It provides historical and postcolonial readings of victimization and violence in Kim's cinema, which tackles such socially relevant topics as national division in Wild Animals and The Coast Guard and U.S. military occupation in Address Unknown. The book also explores the religious and spiritual themes in Kim's most recent works, which suggest possibilities of reconciliation and transcendence.
Linda Badley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252035913
- eISBN:
- 9780252095429
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252035913.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Scandinavia's foremost living auteur and the catalyst of the Dogme 95 movement, Lars von Trier is arguably world cinema's most confrontational and polarizing figure. Willfully devastating audiences, ...
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Scandinavia's foremost living auteur and the catalyst of the Dogme 95 movement, Lars von Trier is arguably world cinema's most confrontational and polarizing figure. Willfully devastating audiences, he takes risks few filmmakers would conceive, mounting projects that somehow transcend the grand follies they narrowly miss becoming. Challenging conventional limitations and imposing his own rules, he restlessly reinvents the film language. He has cultivated an insistently transnational cinema, taking inspiration from sources that range from the European avant-garde to American genre films. This book provides a stimulating overview of Trier's career while focusing on his more recent work, including the controversial Gold Heart Trilogy (Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, and Dancer in the Dark), the as-yet unfinished USA Trilogy (Dogville and Manderlay), and individual projects such as the comedy The Boss of It All and the incendiary horror psychodrama Antichrist.Closely analyzing the films and their contexts, the book draws on a range of cultural references and critical approaches, including genre, gender, and cultural studies, performance theory, and trauma culture. Two revealing interviews that Trier granted during crucial stages of Antichrist's development are also included.Less
Scandinavia's foremost living auteur and the catalyst of the Dogme 95 movement, Lars von Trier is arguably world cinema's most confrontational and polarizing figure. Willfully devastating audiences, he takes risks few filmmakers would conceive, mounting projects that somehow transcend the grand follies they narrowly miss becoming. Challenging conventional limitations and imposing his own rules, he restlessly reinvents the film language. He has cultivated an insistently transnational cinema, taking inspiration from sources that range from the European avant-garde to American genre films. This book provides a stimulating overview of Trier's career while focusing on his more recent work, including the controversial Gold Heart Trilogy (Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, and Dancer in the Dark), the as-yet unfinished USA Trilogy (Dogville and Manderlay), and individual projects such as the comedy The Boss of It All and the incendiary horror psychodrama Antichrist.Closely analyzing the films and their contexts, the book draws on a range of cultural references and critical approaches, including genre, gender, and cultural studies, performance theory, and trauma culture. Two revealing interviews that Trier granted during crucial stages of Antichrist's development are also included.
Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195099362
- eISBN:
- 9780199864737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195099362.003.0021
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter discusses certain forms of music theater, particularly in the United States and in France dominated by stage directors or choreographers acting as auteurs (rather than composers). It ...
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This chapter discusses certain forms of music theater, particularly in the United States and in France dominated by stage directors or choreographers acting as auteurs (rather than composers). It considers how much experimental theater has evolved towards the condition of music theater over the years; the term melodrama — originally a spoken or declaimed theater accompanied by continuous music — and many modern examples found in the work of Schoenberg, Cage and others; and other forms of in-between art involving jazz, percussion, and noise.Less
This chapter discusses certain forms of music theater, particularly in the United States and in France dominated by stage directors or choreographers acting as auteurs (rather than composers). It considers how much experimental theater has evolved towards the condition of music theater over the years; the term melodrama — originally a spoken or declaimed theater accompanied by continuous music — and many modern examples found in the work of Schoenberg, Cage and others; and other forms of in-between art involving jazz, percussion, and noise.
Jeff Jaeckle and Sarah Kozloff (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474406550
- eISBN:
- 9781474416146
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474406550.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Building on existing biographies and published screenplays, this book assesses Preston Sturges’s entire career, paying particular attention to four areas: contexts (genre, studio, authorship), ...
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Building on existing biographies and published screenplays, this book assesses Preston Sturges’s entire career, paying particular attention to four areas: contexts (genre, studio, authorship), cultural commentaries (race, gender, class, satire), technique (dialogue, performance, music), and impacts (critical reception and ongoing influence). Each chapter blends close analyses of the films with insights drawn from film history and cultural studies to demonstrate that Sturges revolutionized film comedy in the 1940s and that his films continue to influence Hollywood cinema. The contributors assess Sturges’s main strengths as a filmmaker—dialogue, plotting, collaborations with actors, and uses of satire—as well as his creative shortcomings, such as his stereotyping of characters based on race and ethnicity. As such, the book provides thorough accounts of the highs and lows of Sturges’s career, including why he initially proved so successful before falling into relative obscurity.Less
Building on existing biographies and published screenplays, this book assesses Preston Sturges’s entire career, paying particular attention to four areas: contexts (genre, studio, authorship), cultural commentaries (race, gender, class, satire), technique (dialogue, performance, music), and impacts (critical reception and ongoing influence). Each chapter blends close analyses of the films with insights drawn from film history and cultural studies to demonstrate that Sturges revolutionized film comedy in the 1940s and that his films continue to influence Hollywood cinema. The contributors assess Sturges’s main strengths as a filmmaker—dialogue, plotting, collaborations with actors, and uses of satire—as well as his creative shortcomings, such as his stereotyping of characters based on race and ethnicity. As such, the book provides thorough accounts of the highs and lows of Sturges’s career, including why he initially proved so successful before falling into relative obscurity.
E. Dawn Hall
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474411127
- eISBN:
- 9781474444620
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411127.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Over her multi-film career, the American independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has established a highly individual perspectives on questions of gender, feminism, socioeconomics and sexual ...
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Over her multi-film career, the American independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has established a highly individual perspectives on questions of gender, feminism, socioeconomics and sexual orientation, set within an aesthetic framework that is guided by the low-budget techniques of ‘slow cinema,’ minimalism and neorealism. ReFocus: The Films of Kelly Reichardt argues that Reichardt’s films have a distinctive look due to stylistic and aesthetic choices prompted by production limitations; Reichardt has embraced the intensive labor involved with low budget filmmaking, establishing signature auteur characteristics. In this close reading of her feature films and experimental shorts, including production methods, E. Dawn Hall defines Reichardt’s auteur characteristics, arguing that she offers a contemporary and sustainable model for independent filmmakers in America. By chronicling Reichardt’s career, ReFocus: The Films of Kelly Reichardt attempts to draw conclusions about women’s career longevity in the independent sector. Through a comprehensive study of production methodology, this book positions Reichardt’s filmmaking as a choice to remain independent and low-budget, highlighting the gendered dimensions of labor, creativity, and challenges contextualized within contemporary industry practices.Less
Over her multi-film career, the American independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has established a highly individual perspectives on questions of gender, feminism, socioeconomics and sexual orientation, set within an aesthetic framework that is guided by the low-budget techniques of ‘slow cinema,’ minimalism and neorealism. ReFocus: The Films of Kelly Reichardt argues that Reichardt’s films have a distinctive look due to stylistic and aesthetic choices prompted by production limitations; Reichardt has embraced the intensive labor involved with low budget filmmaking, establishing signature auteur characteristics. In this close reading of her feature films and experimental shorts, including production methods, E. Dawn Hall defines Reichardt’s auteur characteristics, arguing that she offers a contemporary and sustainable model for independent filmmakers in America. By chronicling Reichardt’s career, ReFocus: The Films of Kelly Reichardt attempts to draw conclusions about women’s career longevity in the independent sector. Through a comprehensive study of production methodology, this book positions Reichardt’s filmmaking as a choice to remain independent and low-budget, highlighting the gendered dimensions of labor, creativity, and challenges contextualized within contemporary industry practices.
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/9789622090972.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter discusses the creative worlds of master animator Miyazaki Hayao and his colleague, animation director Takahata Isao, focusing on the collective yet individualistic components of their ...
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This chapter discusses the creative worlds of master animator Miyazaki Hayao and his colleague, animation director Takahata Isao, focusing on the collective yet individualistic components of their animated works. Miyazaki and Takahata founded Studio Ghibli in 1985, aimed primarily to produce animated feature films. Since the mid-1980s, Studio Ghibli's films have become well-known in Japan and abroad. Using the auteur model, the chapter also seeks to provide a theoretical framework for analyzing the anime cinema of Miyazaki and Takahata. It attempts to show how Miyazaki and Takahata have utilized the expressive medium of animation in responding to the changing socio-cultural environment of post-Second World War Japan.Less
This chapter discusses the creative worlds of master animator Miyazaki Hayao and his colleague, animation director Takahata Isao, focusing on the collective yet individualistic components of their animated works. Miyazaki and Takahata founded Studio Ghibli in 1985, aimed primarily to produce animated feature films. Since the mid-1980s, Studio Ghibli's films have become well-known in Japan and abroad. Using the auteur model, the chapter also seeks to provide a theoretical framework for analyzing the anime cinema of Miyazaki and Takahata. It attempts to show how Miyazaki and Takahata have utilized the expressive medium of animation in responding to the changing socio-cultural environment of post-Second World War Japan.
Stephen Teo
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098398
- eISBN:
- 9789882206823
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098398.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter reviews Johnnie To's enunciating role as an auteur of genre film through the convention of the happy ending, as a method of drawing certain conclusions about To's achievements to date. ...
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This chapter reviews Johnnie To's enunciating role as an auteur of genre film through the convention of the happy ending, as a method of drawing certain conclusions about To's achievements to date. The happy ending is an ironic way of ending this epilogue, as will be made clear, but since To's career is ongoing and likely to contain more revelations and surprises, this chapter cannot make conclusions about his career as such, but about the way his films have ended — as a means to indicate To's contributions to genre and the art of cinema. To's ability to unsettle our perception of genre as a world of pleasure and closure is all part of his vision of Hong Kong on the road to Avici, but his action cinema carries a dialectical weight — fatalism carries meaning and redemption, thus the destiny of his films is something else entirely. The final action in the action films of Johnnie To is the act of inducing thought.Less
This chapter reviews Johnnie To's enunciating role as an auteur of genre film through the convention of the happy ending, as a method of drawing certain conclusions about To's achievements to date. The happy ending is an ironic way of ending this epilogue, as will be made clear, but since To's career is ongoing and likely to contain more revelations and surprises, this chapter cannot make conclusions about his career as such, but about the way his films have ended — as a means to indicate To's contributions to genre and the art of cinema. To's ability to unsettle our perception of genre as a world of pleasure and closure is all part of his vision of Hong Kong on the road to Avici, but his action cinema carries a dialectical weight — fatalism carries meaning and redemption, thus the destiny of his films is something else entirely. The final action in the action films of Johnnie To is the act of inducing thought.
Dean Keith Simonton
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199752034
- eISBN:
- 9780199894857
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199752034.003.0006
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
According to “auteur theory,” certain filmmakers—most often directors—can be viewed as artistic creators in the same vein as notable creators in literature, music, and the visual arts. This viewpoint ...
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According to “auteur theory,” certain filmmakers—most often directors—can be viewed as artistic creators in the same vein as notable creators in literature, music, and the visual arts. This viewpoint is juxtaposed to the contrary notion that directors are technicians who apply their accumulated expertise to each successive film. These rival points of view have contrary predictions regarding expected career trajectories. Data from film polls, movie awards, and critical evaluations provide support for the auteur view. However, because directors do not all peak at identical ages, we also have to distinguish conceptual and experimental directors. A theoretical model of creative productivity suggests that conceptual directors may be more like poets, the experimental directors more like novelists.Less
According to “auteur theory,” certain filmmakers—most often directors—can be viewed as artistic creators in the same vein as notable creators in literature, music, and the visual arts. This viewpoint is juxtaposed to the contrary notion that directors are technicians who apply their accumulated expertise to each successive film. These rival points of view have contrary predictions regarding expected career trajectories. Data from film polls, movie awards, and critical evaluations provide support for the auteur view. However, because directors do not all peak at identical ages, we also have to distinguish conceptual and experimental directors. A theoretical model of creative productivity suggests that conceptual directors may be more like poets, the experimental directors more like novelists.
Stephen Teo
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098398
- eISBN:
- 9789882206823
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098398.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
One of the most prominent directors in Hong Kong at the moment, Johnnie To Kei-fung, has over the past few years been receiving more attention at film festivals globally with films such as Breaking ...
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One of the most prominent directors in Hong Kong at the moment, Johnnie To Kei-fung, has over the past few years been receiving more attention at film festivals globally with films such as Breaking News (2004), Election I & II (2005–2006), Exiled (2006), The Mad Detective (2007), and most recently, Sparrow (2008). Sometimes referred to as the post-1997 poet of Hong Kong, To has a career that actually goes back as far as the 1980s, and as one of the few directors to keep up a high output even after the local film industry started to decline, his CV now boasts close to 50 films. Writing a monograph on To is therefore no easy task, but this book provides an overview of Johnnie To's career, concentrating on his action films, the genre in which To has excelled. The author discusses the symbiotic relationship between directory and genre, why To is regarded as an auteur, and the influence he has on the trajectory of the action genre in the Hong Kong cinema. The author's view is that To's idiosyncratic auteurist style transforms the generic conventions under which he is compelled to work.Less
One of the most prominent directors in Hong Kong at the moment, Johnnie To Kei-fung, has over the past few years been receiving more attention at film festivals globally with films such as Breaking News (2004), Election I & II (2005–2006), Exiled (2006), The Mad Detective (2007), and most recently, Sparrow (2008). Sometimes referred to as the post-1997 poet of Hong Kong, To has a career that actually goes back as far as the 1980s, and as one of the few directors to keep up a high output even after the local film industry started to decline, his CV now boasts close to 50 films. Writing a monograph on To is therefore no easy task, but this book provides an overview of Johnnie To's career, concentrating on his action films, the genre in which To has excelled. The author discusses the symbiotic relationship between directory and genre, why To is regarded as an auteur, and the influence he has on the trajectory of the action genre in the Hong Kong cinema. The author's view is that To's idiosyncratic auteurist style transforms the generic conventions under which he is compelled to work.
