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Spike Jonze Shorts Stories

Cynthia Felando

in ReFocus: The Films of Spike Jonze

Cynthia Felando demonstrates the relevance and significance of Jonze’s narrative shorts in his larger filmography. Felando argues that these short films both reflect and enrich our understanding of ... More

Cynthia Felando demonstrates the relevance and significance of Jonze’s narrative shorts in his larger filmography. Felando argues that these short films both reflect and enrich our understanding of Jonze’s auteurist preoccupations. The short film is treated as its own genre with important specificities, including several related to storytelling, narrative, character, and genre conventions that differentiate it from the feature-length film. The chapter’s aim is to establish the viability of contextualizing Jonze’s narrative shorts as shorts, and to demonstrate the value of an analytical approach that addresses their continuities with and differences from his feature-length films. Felando considers his narrative shorts in relation to discourses in the emergent area of short form media studies. The primary analytical focus is on Jonze’s fiction shorts, although his other shorts-related titles are cited to demonstrate the persistence of several of his recurring storytelling, character, and thematic strategies.Less

Opera Cut Short

Jennifer Fleeger

in Sounding American: Hollywood, Opera, and Jazz

Chapter Two explores the visual and musical changes in the opera short as it evolved throughout the conversion era primarily by looking at the prolific output of Warner Bros. and its intensified ... More

Chapter Two explores the visual and musical changes in the opera short as it evolved throughout the conversion era primarily by looking at the prolific output of Warner Bros. and its intensified attention to the tenor. Although Warners’ “high-culture” experiment was primarily conducted on sound-on-disc technology, it nevertheless had an enormous impact on how Hollywood envisioned the purpose of both film music and the body on screen. By attending to the gendered representation of the operatic singing body, the chapter argues that the legacy of the castrato influenced the promotion of the tenor at the expense of the soprano. Thanks to the stardom of Metropolitan Opera singer Giovanni Martinelli, “opera” on film was increasingly defined by what the tenor could sing.Less

Stars Appearing in the Sky: Unconventional Propaganda Films

Nina Schneider

in Brazilian Propaganda: Legitimizing an Authoritarian Regime

Compulsorily broadcast in cinemas and on television, short films constituted the most important form of official propaganda. Chapter 2 provides the first systematic analysis of 106 AERP/ARP filmetes ... More

Compulsorily broadcast in cinemas and on television, short films constituted the most important form of official propaganda. Chapter 2 provides the first systematic analysis of 106 AERP/ARP filmetes held by the National Archives in Rio, concentrating on production volume, content, aesthetics, and audience. Brazilian Propaganda demonstrates how these films revolutionized the formerly elitist propaganda style by portraying seemingly apolitical everyday topics. It introduces a subcategory for this kind of propaganda (subliminal propaganda) in contrast to other forms (blunt, indirect, and economic propaganda). The chapter identifies the most common film topics, highlighting in particular the themes of nationalism and rapid economic development.Less

Digital Film and Audiences

Pawel Frelik

in The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film

The chapter discusses the manifold influences that the advent of digital technologies has had on science fiction filmmaking. Among them are the unprecedented globalization of science fiction cinema, ... More

The chapter discusses the manifold influences that the advent of digital technologies has had on science fiction filmmaking. Among them are the unprecedented globalization of science fiction cinema, the emergence of short film as a major visual form in science fiction, the appearance of digital aesthetics, and numerous audience-side practices, such as vidding, fan edits, and the mockbuster. Many of these phenomena not only provide new contexts for the production and circulation of science fiction film, but also force a reassessment of the traditional conceptions of the genre and the ways in which it performs its cultural work.Less

Selling Jazz Short

Jennifer Fleeger

in Sounding American: Hollywood, Opera, and Jazz

Chapter Three examines the representation of jazz music by three major studios during the conversion era. It argues that Warner Bros., Paramount, and MGM each appropriated jazz in its own way to ... More

Chapter Three examines the representation of jazz music by three major studios during the conversion era. It argues that Warner Bros., Paramount, and MGM each appropriated jazz in its own way to promote particular qualities of its film style while suggesting that its own sound technologies might be a means of controlling the reception of the music. The chapter focuses particularly on those moments where the voice fails to signify, discussing the relationship between vocal techniques like scatting, groaning, and humming, and jazz images, pictorial fragments that will not assimilate to the narratives of conversion-era jazz shorts and that acknowledge the music’s racial history. How these images appear in the studios’ output exposes their unique commercialization of the music and the differences in how they expected spectators to react to it.Less

We are a Little Land: Informational Film and Small-nation Cinema

C. Claire Thomson

in Short Films from a Small Nation: Danish Informational Cinema 1935-1965

Et lille land’ - a little land - is a trope of Danish identity which recurs in many of the short informational films about Denmark made from the 1930s to the 1960s. This chapter outlines why the ... More

Et lille land’ - a little land - is a trope of Danish identity which recurs in many of the short informational films about Denmark made from the 1930s to the 1960s. This chapter outlines why the notion of Denmark as a small country has historically been fundamental to the nation’s self-understanding as an imagined community, and how and why it has been employed in informational films made for domestic and foreign consumption. The chapter discusses the role of film in the national imagination, and the importance of medium-specific qualities in that process of imagining: for the purposes of this book, such qualities include the films’ shortness, which impacts on narrative as well as distribution and exhibition. The chapter then discusses recent scholarship on ‘small-nation’ cinema, especially in the Nordic region, and the place of informational filmmaking within the small-nation context. A final chapter section outlines a further body of scholarship on cultural diplomacy, soft power, and nation-branding in the Nordic region as a framework for understanding how images (including informational films) move across borders and re-negotiate auto- and xenostereotypes.Less

First-Generation Women in Short Films: Crossing Barriers and Communicating Experiences through Objects

Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp

in Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France

This chapter examines key short films featuring Maghrebi migrant women in France through an analysis of objects such as letters, a play script, food, photographs, and clothing items. It highlights ... More

This chapter examines key short films featuring Maghrebi migrant women in France through an analysis of objects such as letters, a play script, food, photographs, and clothing items. It highlights the extent to which such objects are crucial to giving expression to the experiences of Maghrebi women through this particular medium, where meaning must necessarily be communicated in a short period of time. These objects have multi-layered meanings and serve as potential channels for communication and understanding between first-generation women and people who are different from them, most notably because they have not shared the women’s experience of migration and exile and in many cases do not speak the women’s mother tongue. This analysis highlights the ways in which the women negotiate, navigate, and cross various cultural, linguistic, psychological, and spatial boundaries or barriers that exist in their lives. The cultural productions discussed in this chapter include films directed by Fejria Deliba, Ismaël Ferroukhi, Faïza Guène, and Catherine Bernstein.Less

Structure and Agency: Shane Meadows and the New Regional Production Sectors

Jack Newsinger

in Shane Meadows: Critical Essays

This chapter takes a political economy approach to understand Shane Meadows' development as a filmmaker. By focussing on the institutional-industrial contexts of regional production, it is argued ... More

This chapter takes a political economy approach to understand Shane Meadows' development as a filmmaker. By focussing on the institutional-industrial contexts of regional production, it is argued that Meadows and his collaborators benefitted from a complex regional filmmaking infrastructure that has its roots in the 1970s film workshop movement and the cultural industries approach to regional development in the 1980s. The chapter explores a number of different production strategies utilised by Meadows, from larger-budget attempts to reach broad and even international audiences, to more innovative low-budget, niche approaches which suggest a workable strategy for the future of regional film. It is noted, however, that these fragile regional media ecologies are dependent on public funding which makes them particularly vulnerable to austerity.Less

Audiences

Chris Perriam

in Spanish Queer Cinema

The chapter presents the network of different audiences for the films discussed in the preceding chapters. It sets out the context of the wider cultural activities of film-watchers -- bookshop and ... More

The chapter presents the network of different audiences for the films discussed in the preceding chapters. It sets out the context of the wider cultural activities of film-watchers -- bookshop and web browsing, DVD buying, going to festivals. It looks in detail at short films and filmmakers, and at the role of videoart. A section on key LGBTQ film festivals in Spain links this more independent cultural production directly to its audiences. Overall it maps the range of images available to the LGBTQ cultural subject as part of audience or community.Less

Asquith and the British cinema

Tom Ryall

in Anthony Asquith

This chapter shows Asquith's contribution to the British film industry. In a career lasting from the 1920s to the 1960s, Asquith directed thirty-five feature films and also worked in a variety of ... More

This chapter shows Asquith's contribution to the British film industry. In a career lasting from the 1920s to the 1960s, Asquith directed thirty-five feature films and also worked in a variety of capacities on other films: foreign-version direction, screenwriting, and second unit work. He made a number of short films; some were documentary drama films made for the Ministry of Information during the Second World War, others were made for charities such as the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and St Dunstan's, a centre for the blind. During Asquith's career, the industry went through numerous changes, responding to the challenge of Hollywood, to the example of European cinema and to major events such as the Second World War, constructing a body of films that prompted both despair and enthusiastic endorsement by critics at various times. The twenty or so titles chosen from the thirty-five features that Asquith directed reflect a number of things, not least of which is ease of availability. However, the selection represents a diverse career in which art cinema, middlebrow culture and popular art are reflected, although the films chosen are not intended to indicate any particular ranking in Asquith's career as a whole.Less

Short Films on the Crest of the New Wave

Dominique Nasta

in Contemporary Romanian Cinema: The History of an Unexpected Miracle

This chapter discusses the emergence of Romanian short films onto the world stage. Starting in 2001, Romanian cinema became increasingly visible to critics and audiences in the festival circuit ... More

This chapter discusses the emergence of Romanian short films onto the world stage. Starting in 2001, Romanian cinema became increasingly visible to critics and audiences in the festival circuit thanks to a previously neglected sub-genre, that of short films. Romanian shorts, mostly fictions presented by newcomers as part of the final phase of their university training or as totally independent projects, were recognized in high-profile competitions in Berlin, Cannes, and Venice, as well as in most European and US festivals showcasing this specific film category. Notable short films include Constantin Popescu's Apartamentul (The Apartment, 2003), which won the Great Prize at the Venice Festival Short Film contest in 2004, the Jury Prize at the Transylvania International Film Festival in 2005, and the Best Screenplay prize at the newly created Danube Delta venue, Anonimul in 2004.Less

Introduction: Shane's World

Martin Fradley, Sarah Godfrey, and Melanie Williams

in Shane Meadows: Critical Essays

The introductory chapter opens the book by positioning Shane Meadows in the landscape of contemporary British filmmaking before moving on to provide a brief career overview which emphasises the ... More

The introductory chapter opens the book by positioning Shane Meadows in the landscape of contemporary British filmmaking before moving on to provide a brief career overview which emphasises the continuity in certain practices and themes throughout Meadows' development from DIY local filmmaker to BAFTA-winning director. The importance of memory and nostalgia to Meadows' work is also examined in detail, as is his engagement with issues of class representation. The introduction concludes by outlining the content of the chapters to follow.Less

Ateyyat El Abnoudy: Poetic Realism in Egyptian Documentaries

Stefanie Van de Peer

in Negotiating Dissidence: The Pioneering Women of Arab Documentary

The first case study deals with the ‘mother’ of Egyptian documentary making Ateyyat el Abnoudy, and traces her career as a lawyer, journalist and filmmaker. As a pioneer of politically engaged and ... More

The first case study deals with the ‘mother’ of Egyptian documentary making Ateyyat el Abnoudy, and traces her career as a lawyer, journalist and filmmaker. As a pioneer of politically engaged and socially preoccupied documentary, she has influenced many young female filmmakers. Since the early seventies, her films, both short and feature length, have been celebrated throughout the world at festivals and retrospectives, but remain controversial in Egypt itself. This case study looks in detail at her early short films, Horse of Mud (1971), Sad Song of Touha (1972) and The Sandwich (1975), as well as feature length documentaries Permissible Dreams (1982), Responsible Women (1994) and Days of Democracy (1996). Dealing with the lower classes, women’s issues, education and illiteracy among women, their personal status and their political situation in Egypt, the films reflect a concern with the subaltern woman. The filmmaker’s concern with the subaltern woman stems from an intellectual preoccupation with inequality and a professional insight into the unwillingness of the state to deal with women’s problems.Less

Conclusion

Jennifer Fleeger

in Sounding American: Hollywood, Opera, and Jazz

This book has argued that opera and jazz played a crucial role in selling the cultural importance of sound cinema and molding classical Hollywood film music. This Conclusion summarizes what this book ... More

This book has argued that opera and jazz played a crucial role in selling the cultural importance of sound cinema and molding classical Hollywood film music. This Conclusion summarizes what this book has shown in terms of the role of producers in the last 1920s and early 1930s in solidifying American attitudes towards performance and power. The representational practices of the conversion era established the ideological lens through which classical Hollywood used opera and jazz thereafter. The story of the relationship between opera, jazz, and Hollywood cinema has been written here as a progression from the short to the feature film. The Conclusions discusses the reasons for this.Less

Queer

Chris Perriam

in Spanish Queer Cinema

The chapter establishes the connections between LGBTQ filmmaking and the everyday experience of its audiences in Spain over the past 25 years. It links a discussion of the term ‘queer’, relating both ... More

The chapter establishes the connections between LGBTQ filmmaking and the everyday experience of its audiences in Spain over the past 25 years. It links a discussion of the term ‘queer’, relating both to film and Spain, to the phenomenon of liberalization represented by changes to the Spanish Civil Code in July 2005 on same-sex married couples. It traces the developments of a queer Spanish film culture and of post-identity politics through documentaries, feature films and shorts.Less

Primitive Diversity

Alexander Kluge

Richard Langston (ed.)

in Difference and Orientation: An Alexander Kluge Reader

This chapter looks at the dialogue between Christian Schulte and Alexander Kluge wherein they talked about primitive diversity. “Primitive diversity” is an expression from the American East Coast for ... More

This chapter looks at the dialogue between Christian Schulte and Alexander Kluge wherein they talked about primitive diversity. “Primitive diversity” is an expression from the American East Coast for early film. The one- to two-minute films demonstrate the early form of cinema. Meanwhile, pre-Hollywood cinema is closely tied to the inventors of the film camera, who were also scientists. Primitive diversity encompasses the entire spectrum ranging from sensationalism, curiosity, and old greed to the abilities cameras themselves possess. Ultimately, this early cinema responds to the needs of migrant workers in the United States who come from many countries, are in need, and create their own public sphere themselves in the silent movies. Kluge claims that “astonishment as means of knowledge—that is primitive diversity.” The dialogue between Schulte and Kluge also ruminates on Kluge's indebtedness to the cinema of attraction.Less

In His Element: Three Short Films and an Epilogue

James Naremore

in Charles Burnett: A Cinema of Symbolic Knowledge

Some of Burnett’s most characteristic and impressive work has taken the form of completely independent, very low budget short films that he has written, directed, photographed, and edited. These ... More

Some of Burnett’s most characteristic and impressive work has taken the form of completely independent, very low budget short films that he has written, directed, photographed, and edited. These films return him to his beginnings as a sort of guerilla filmmaker who works in the streets. This chapter gives three examples: When It Rains (1995), a jazz fable about a neighborhood griot who tries to keep a mother and daughter from being evicted; The Final Insult (1997), an experimental mixture of documentary and fiction concerning homelessness in Los Angeles; and Quiet As Kept, a darkly comic film about a black family that has been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The chapter ends with a comment on Burnett’s work in progress and his continuing importance for us today. Less