Search

Although the boundaries of inclusivity in film stretch every year, there are still many walls to break through. For nonbinary youth, there is little to no representation in media, whether it be mainstream or queer focused. In recent studies conducted by psychologists around the world on the growing, minoritized gender, they found a prevalent need for media representation to aid in nonbinary youth's mental health and access to resources. While major media industries may be slow to increase the diversity of sexuality and gender representation, the expansion of tropes, plots, and themes helps a more diverse audience resonate with a film and its characters. By conducting a textual analysis of Enola Holmes, I construct a theoretical framework of queer relational ambiguity to demonstrate how new coming-of-age films for a wider audience are more inclusive of queer viewers while not having an overtly queer cast. Although not anywhere close to the representation needed, these shifts in media resonate with queer communities in a way that can provide needed support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on applying psychoanalytic theories to David Cronenberg's films through a clinical methodology. Topics include the challenges and potential of psychoanalytic approaches in film studies, the ethical and theoretical concerns surrounding psychoanalysis without direct consent, and the use of recurring metaphors and patterns in Cronenberg's public expressions to gain deeper insights into his work.

The article discusses a dialogue between Siao Yuong Fong (Rong) and Jian Lin, who are Co-Editors of Cultural Commons and Book Reviews at the European Journal of Cultural Studies. They share their personal journeys with Cultural Studies and their visions for the Cultural Commons section. The editors emphasize inclusivity, Global South perspectives, and the importance of decolonizing knowledge production in cultural studies. They aim to create a space for diverse voices and alternative epistemological paradigms, challenging traditional academic boundaries and fostering global conversations. [Extracted from the article]

The literary adaptation into cinematic terms has become a ubiquitous phenomenon. In such a way, it brings about the intersection of the literary and the cine-text working towards assessing the intertextual resonances between the two. However, narratives can be subjected to several omissions and slippages which the artist intentionally devises. Formulating such gaps in between, the artist attempts to engage the attention of the readers/viewers and invites them to mend the fissures complying with the interpretive scope offered in the text. Venturing in a similar direction, the paper comparatively evaluates Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice-Candy-Man with Deepa Mehta's Earth. In doing so, it analyses the art of gap management as adopted and adapted from the literary precursor to the cinematic successor. To this end, it problematizes the creative approaches of the two artists involved. To put it differently, the perusal determines to what extent the writer and the director converge and diverge in the treatment of narratorial fissures by adopting the methodological tools of inclusion, omission and modification in the management of gaps in their respective renderings. Interestingly, such a perspective complicates the discourse around adaptation studies and offers a new insight into the process of adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, Canadian director Guy Maddin premiered a semi-autobiographical film at TIFF called Brand Upon the Brain!, which featured live Foley sound and orchestral accompaniment. Adopting the aesthetics of silent film, Maddin presents a warped version of his childhood traumas, filtered through the funhouse mirror of Sigmund Freud, Fritz Lang and the Brothers Grimm. Further emphasizing the discordances of recollection and actual event, Maddin's theatrical presentation divorces sound from screen, reimagining the film's soundscape (and by extension, that of his childhood) as an exaggerated live reproduction, mirroring the very process of replaying a memory. Two years after this film premiered, Maddin made a faux-documentary about the original Foley process called Footsteps (2008), which centres upon the sound artists themselves. Employing the same aesthetic conventions, this short film depicts the craft of Foley as a surreal science of the subconscious, an act of symbolic projection carried out by strange figures in lab coats. If watching and listening to these films is to be momentarily trapped inside 'the fevered brain of Guy Maddin', as one critic puts it, then this article sets out to interrogate the role of the sound artist in enabling and enacting such fantasies within the director's singular psychodramas. Maddin's foregrounding of the Foley artist is, I argue, analogous to the exhumation and display of unconscious material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foley sound effects – those sounds that are created in post-production through live performance and then added to the sound mix of films, television, video games and animation – are ubiquitous. But effective Foley should not be heard. It is one of those creative labours in the making of a film that, to be considered successful, must erase itself. While film studies has begun to redress theory and practice's bias towards the visual, film sound studies has yet to sufficiently acknowledge this hidden body in the sound process and fully reckon with the individual contribution made by the Foley artist to cinematic expression and cinema's capacity to represent the world in motion and the exertion of bodies on-screen. To the extent we consider sound cinematic, what does the Foley artist contribute when they supplement images of a rock, a chair, a phone with sound or pay attention to the way paper brushes wood, metal rattles against metal, sand pushes back against a finger? This introduction establishes how refocusing attention to Foley sound extends our understanding of cinema as a medium, as well as addressing the current cultural and scholarly 'visibility' of Foley sound. It outlines the way the issue seeks to open up new theoretical perspectives on Foley sound and explore its interdisciplinary potential for theories of the soundtrack and film theory more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women-led revenge films are often lauded for feminist narratives and cathartic reversals of heteropatriarchal hegemony. However, many texts reify femmephobic systems of gender and power by construing violence and revenge as masculine, thus requiring heroines to adopt masculine tactics and weapons. Promising Young Woman (2020) breaks with genre conventions by constructing a world and protagonist that exemplify femme norms, values, and covert ways of operating. Drawing on queer and femme theoretical frameworks, I situate Promising Young Woman in a femme enclave of psychological thriller, positing it as an example of femme worldbuilding that explores how femme subjects assert power over their narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines both industry-created and viewer-created paratexts of Disney’s new Mulan (2020) to shed light on the localization of industry-created paratexts for Chinese audiences, the reception of the film, and the tensions between industry-created and viewer-created paratexts in China. It reveals that Disney has localized the poster, trailers and promos of Mulan for Chinese audiences by highlighting the film’s all-star cast and creating an illusion of its faithfulness to The Ballad of Mulan, and the extolled virtues of filial piety and patriotism cherished in Chinese culture. The viewer-created paratext, danmu, of Mulan challenges the industry-created paratexts and demonstrates unfavorable reception of the film in China. It criticizes the film for its inauthenticity to The Ballad of Mulan, cultural appropriation, promotion of American values to meet the needs of English-speaking audiences for exoticness and cultural otherness. By investigating danmu as a viewer-created paratext, the present study has enriched paratextual research and reception studies in translation, media and film studies in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study borrows elements of film text in the field of film studies to develop the potential of data analysis using AI algorithms, while aiming to explore the emotional and content relevances between the two narrative mediums in film, bullet screens and subtitles, as well as the narrative effect variations that they bring about. The film sample Forever Young was analyzed by deep learning, data analysis, and knowledge discovery algorithms and tools. The BERT model was used to quantify the intensity of emotions and conduct fine-grained emotional classification of film characters. Emotion curves are plotted based on time series data. Thematic words are extracted by the LDA algorithm, and text similarity is computed using Word2Vec. The study found differences in emotional expression between bullet screens and subtitles, and they also exhibit strong emotional and content relevances. Yet, this correlation is not only influenced by temporal deviation factors but also by specific emotional types, different stages of story development, and the collective emotions of online views. The conclusion suggests that the effective collection of plot metronomes in film narratives helps reveal crucial plot nodes and emotional trends in films that cause obvious emotional changes, and placing them appropriately is fundamental for continuously attracting and retaining viewers' attention. The interaction between bullet comments and subtitles is not only about emotional expression but also enhances the effectiveness of the film narrative. Overall, this study demonstrates the importance of database logic and technology in understanding and expressing film emotions and meanings, and providing new ideas and methods for enhancing film narrative effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 188's "Visceral Economies, Queer Dialectics: Eisenstein Meets Bataille," Elena Vogman argues that there is an "affinity" between Sergei Eisenstein's and Georges Bataille's views, thereby contesting Annette Michelson's verdict that any similarities between them are "superficial." This article contends that Michelson is right, and that Vogman provides no evidence of an affinity between Eisenstein's and Bataille's thinking. In doing so, I defend the important methodological principle, exemplified by Michelson's work, that theory should not be applied, top down and a priori, to art as if it were mere grist for the theory mill. Eisenstein was a deeply original thinker and filmmaker, and while he might have shared some of Bataille's interests, he did so for reasons antithetical to Bataille's. His work should not, therefore, be appropriated by what Michelson called the "veritable Bataille industry ... [that] has proliferated to the point of generating a grille through which the reading of the Eisensteinian text is now proposed." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a review of three books that examine the relationship between race and suburban life in America. The first book, "The Changs Next Door to the Diazes" by Wendy Cheng, focuses on the experiences of diverse residents in California's West San Gabriel Valley, challenging the dominance of whiteness in suburban narratives. The second book, "Citizen Brown" by Colin Gordon, explores the struggles of African Americans for citizenship and equality in St. Louis, particularly in relation to segregation and policing. The third book, "Race and the Suburbs in American Film" edited by Merrill Schleier, delves into the role of race in the construction and representation of suburban neighborhoods through film. These books offer valuable insights into the complexities of race in suburban America. The text also discusses the issue of racial segregation in St. Louis, examining its impact on housing, education, and the justice system. It explores the historical factors that have contributed to segregation, such as zoning policies, white flight, and urban renewal projects. Additionally, the text explores how these issues are reflected in American films, particularly those set in suburban areas, and how cinema can both perpetuate and challenge racial exclusion. The authors argue that understanding the connections between race, suburbia, and neoliberalism is crucial for addressing and dismantling systemic racism. [Extracted from the article]

Ana M. López was a pioneer in Latin American film and cultural studies. Her work focused on the significance of classical Mexican melodrama and Latin American telenovelas, challenging previous dismissals of these forms. López's publications advanced a broader perspective of Latin American cinemas, including the New Latin American Cinemas, and brought cultural studies perspectives into the field of Latin American film studies. She also emphasized the transnational focus of Latin American cinema, highlighting cross-border dynamics and the influence of traveling filmmakers. López was known for her generosity and nurturing nature, creating a community of young scholars and defending their research topics. Her work continues to inspire new avenues of research in the field. [Extracted from the article]

This collection of essays explores the ways in which Iberian cultural production has constructed kings and queens since 1975. Our focus is the royal figure who inherits their status and power through 'blood' and justifies their power invoking the transcendental mystique of monarchic sovereignty. In one way or another, the figures of Juan Carlos I and his son Felipe VI permeate all cultural representations of monarchical rule produced during the democratic period; and these representations shape our political understanding of the two kings and become a site to contest hegemonic understandings of Spanishness, post-Francoist Spain and Iberian political communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish process of addressing Euskadi Ta Askatasuna's (ETA) violent past has not followed a single transitional justice model or established a truth commission akin to those in South Africa, Latin America or Eastern and Central Europe. Instead, the case of Spain is marked by diverse legal, political and civic endeavours, sparking distinct discussions and artistic depictions regarding the dialectic between justice, forgiveness and reconciliation when addressing past crimes. By drawing on Hannah Arendt's influential perspective on reconciliation and its critiques (in particular, by Jacques Derrida), this article combines philosophy and film studies to contribute to the interpretation of Icíar Bollaín's recent film, Maixabel (2021). The film explores real-life instances of reconciliatory transformation that were part of the short-lived 'reparatory encounters' between ETA criminals and their victims. Bollaín's realist directorial intent notwithstanding, the significance of the encounters and reparatory justice leading to personal healing and social reconciliation is not self-evident but a matter of debate and legitimately different standpoints and experiences. This article sheds light on the hidden cracks of the cinematic mirror of the reparatory encounters by analysing the directorial intent, Maixabel, and Maixabel Lasa's testimony, the key inspiration for the movie. Bollaín's understanding of her film and the reparatory encounters echoes the Arendtian vision in that it separates reconciliation from forgiveness. In contrast, the film, and the real-life Maixabel Lasa's self-understanding, construct alternative views of reparatory reconciliation that embrace both public and personal acts of forgiveness. This leads to a phenomenologically richer depiction of reconciliation, forgiveness and transitional justice, one that does not conform to the rigid constraints of philosophical prescriptivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document provides brief biographical information about several contributors to the journal KronoScope. Andrew Edmund Goble is a professor of Japanese History and Religious Studies, specializing in medieval Japan and medical history. Javier Cristiano is a professor of Sociology, focusing on the relationships between capitalism and the social organization of time. Gonzalo Iparraguirre is a doctor in Anthropology, specializing in time, and works as a consultant in time policies and cultural change management. Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard is an Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Film Studies, with a current focus on silent cinema. Steve Ostovich is an emeritus professor of philosophy, with research interests in critical theory, political theology, and film studies. Kerstin Cuhls is a scientific project manager and professor of Japanology, specializing in Foresight/Futures Research and time research. Irmtraud Huber is a professor of English Literature and Literary Theory, with a recent focus on Victorian poetry. David Fries is an interdisciplinary Research Scientist and CEO of Guided Particle Systems. [Extracted from the article]

The Covid-19 pandemic posed fundamental challenges for the cinema industry, encouraging potentially lasting changes in the ways films were delivered to and consumed by audiences. In light of this, this article evaluates the impact of an earlier pandemic, the waves of influenza that affected the United Kingdom in 1918–1919. The flu struck as cinema was establishing itself as a distinct entertainment form, although still subject to criticism for its perceived effects on the moral and physical health of those attending. Consequently, the exhibition of film became a prime focus of ameliorative action, many health professionals and local councillors seeing it as a prime vehicle for the transmission of disease. For all that, the impact of any regulations proved to be uneven: attention centred primarily on the threat to children and servicemen in uniform, and what restrictions were imposed proved highly localised, reflecting systems of health administration inherited from the previous century. Finally, compared to experiences elsewhere, the duration of controls proved brief. An assessment of the flu's impact is offered for both the short term, reflected in the finances of individual businesses and aggregated tax returns, and the longer term, in challenging or reinforcing perceptions of cinema's social worth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay begins with a brief account of the French linguistic structuralism and very briefly some aspects of the post-structuralist critique of it, here represented by Lacan and, Deleuze, and Guattari as a response to it. Against this backdrop, the purpose of the essay is to show a critique of structuralism that came earlier than the post-structuralist one, namely that of the Russian philosopher of the dialogic speech and literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin in the 1920s. The concept of the dialogical word has had a major influence in cultural semiotics, literary – and film studies and existential psychotherapy. A second purpose of this essay is to briefly show in what way the ethics of the dialogical word is important in the latter, in existential psychotherapeutic work. Translations from Swedish and French are mine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Hong Kong filmmakers, co-productions with mainland China are transborder assemblages characterized by increasing territorialization and coding that impart to them a palpable crisis of losing locality. However, this crisis does not necessarily mean the loss of a critical perspective. Johnnie To's three co-produced action films demonstrate his struggles to evade or even take advantage of the disadvantageous status of dislocality and work under restricted creative conditions to carve out a space for critical expressions. Drug War not only brings to the screen the arbitrary nature of state sovereignty by telling the story of a cross-border crime—one in which narrative doubling plays a key role—but also offers reflections on Chinese urbanization in its visual composition, which takes the style of a kind of suburban realism. Three and Chasing Dream represent To's latest efforts to develop an aesthetics of the studio defined by a tendency toward abstraction such that he uses his dislocality as a basis for a critical perspective on Hong Kong society and, especially, contemporary Chinese neoliberalism. Intertextual allusions, whether large-scale plot structures and visual styles or small-scale features of characterization and dialogue, are pervasive in To's co-productions. These allusions can and should, I argue, be drawn into the new context of To's transborder assemblages for a better understanding of his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Steven Spielberg's 1997 film Amistad, which depicts a slave rebellion and mutiny on a Cuban slave ship in 1839, as a lens through which to view the origins of the Black Legend. The Black Legend emerged in 1830s in the U.S. to depict Latin American instability as the result of Spanish oppression, violence, cultural inferiority and Catholicism. The narrative served to benefit the ideology of white supremacy and the myth of American (read U.S.) "exceptionalism" by drawing global attention away from the maintenance of slavery in the U.S. and highlighting Spanish and Cuban involvement in the clandestine slave trade in the nineteenth century. The article analyzes a variety of secondary and primary sources that place blackness at the center of the construction of the Black Legend, from contemporary accounts of the Amistad revolt to subsequent references to blackness in histories of U.S.-Latin American relations in the 1830s and 1840s. The article shows how Spielberg inserts Christianity as a force for racial equality and holds up the judicial branch of the U.S. government as a model for Latin America to follow, echoing the inherent contradictions of the Black Legend in the late twentieth century. Ultimately, the article argues that U.S. history must be examined in relation to the history of Latin America, and narratives of blackness in the Atlantic world shaped national mythos and identities in similar ways. Examining the African Diaspora in the Americas, as well as the subsequent national narratives of race and national identities, helps to deconstruct narratives of exceptionalism and reveal political motivations and contradictions in the Black Legend narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines some of the social contexts underlying the Supreme Court's decision in the seminal case of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923). Since the Court's decision in that case established that whiteness in the U.S. was based on 'common' sense, this essay examines how this 'common' sense was created in the public sphere. This essay presents arguments on how film, and in particular, the 1915 film Birth of a Nation, helped cement popular understandings of whiteness. Through these arguments, this essay provides further context to some of the social and political underpinnings of the Thind case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the efforts to promote the serious study of Arab cinema and film scholarship at the Insaniyyat Forum 2022 in Tunisia. The forum included eight panels on various topics related to Arab cinema, such as critiques of orientalism, refugee and migration cinema, and queer Arab film theory. The article also highlights five papers from the forum that challenge prevailing understandings of Arab cinema, including discussions on language, US cultural hegemony, cultural diplomacy, queer theory, and displacement in Tunisian film. The authors hope that these articles will contribute to a more vibrant and inclusive discussion of Arab cinema and its dilemmas. [Extracted from the article]

This article presents the findings of an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project, Objects of the Mind: engaging publics in the material cultures of media and mental health (AH/W002140/1), which was co-investigated by academics at the University of East Anglia and the University of Manchester and curators from across the Science Museum Group (SMG). Through this coinvestigation we sought to tap into public interest in the SMG object collections and the accessibility of popular films (supplied by partners StudioCanal) to engage new audiences for our research on the interactions of psychiatry and cinema. From the museum perspective, we sought to use this research to ask new questions and tell new stories about the SMG objects, and to foster crosscollection dialogue between medicine (Science Museum) and media (National Science and Media Museum) collections. We discuss a range of events, activities and outputs we delivered towards these aims, but focus particularly on three new films we produced that (re)combined museum objects, feature film clips and expert interviews to tell new, enhanced or entangled stories about and across the collections. We will use these three short films to demonstrate three dialogues the project fostered: between museum collections; between histories; and between academic disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Fate in Film: A Deterministic Approach to Cinema" by Thomas M. Puhr is a book that explores the connections between philosophy and film, specifically focusing on the philosophical concept of determinism and its portrayal in horror films. The book is part of the Short Cuts series, which covers a wide range of topics in film studies. Puhr analyzes various films, including those by Jonathan Glazer, Joel and Ethan Coen, Ari Aster, Jordan Peele, and Alfred Hitchcock, to examine themes of identity, family ties, and the limitations of free will. The book offers new perspectives on familiar cinematic texts and is recommended for scholarly readers interested in film and philosophy. [Extracted from the article]

This article places Toni Cade Bambara at the center of a history of Black feminist culture and its radical politics of repair through a close reading of Bambara's and Louis Massiah's film treatment Come as You Are. In its depiction of a group of poor, unhoused Philadelphians taking over a luxury apartment building for a live-in, Come as You Are posits taking over and living-in as practices of refusal of the state care offered through social workers, the housing authority, welfare agencies, and the police. Bambara's cinematic work points to Black feminist representations of state violence and contra-state forms of repair that complicate how feminist theory encounters the problem of reparative appeal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the material culture of Urdu action heroine films released in the era of Pakistan's Islamization (late 1970s through 1980s) by a woman-led company called Shamim Ara Productions, which was headed by the illustrious female star, director, and producer of the Urdu screen Shamim Ara. With titles such as Miss Hong Kong (1979), Miss Colombo (1984), Miss Singapore (1985), Lady Smuggler (1987), and Lady Commando (1989), the action films released by Shamim Ara Productions bear the imprint of a traveling culture of production roving through urban South and Southeast Asia. Not only do we find here a mobile industry, headquartered in Lahore, fostering collaborations between smallscale film and tourism entrepreneurs strewn across South and Southeast Asian cities (Colombo, Dhaka, Manila, Hong Kong), but we also encounter a hybrid cinema led largely by women and cross-fertilized by global images of female action and public mobility flowing into Pakistani cities with the video trade and its piracy, and satellite television (video and VCR having come to the country in the late 1970s). In this article, I situate the gender politics of the ensemble heroine narrative Lady Smuggler (1987) in its material culture of production and reception, with attention to the diverse locations of that culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, the notion of "the people behind the scenes" is used to build a bridge between the cognitive framework of film studies and migration research to describe those who are discursively categorized as "illegal" or "irregular" migrants and whose lives are exploited in the workforce and at risk in "Fortress Europe". As a natural southern border of the Schengen area, the Mediterranean region sometimes offers fleeting encounters between "illegal" migrants excluded by this border regime and foreign travellers courted by the tourism industry. These ephemeral juxtapositions of people with contrasting political and economic stakes create what we call "visual clashes", gathering in one frame antithetical human lived experiences of this maritime area. Drawing on Nicholas Mirzoeff's concept of the "right to look", which the visual culture theorist and activist uses as a bulwark against a dominant Western regime of visuality, this essay analyses a series of visual texts that bear witness to unwanted encounters by this dominant regime's visual system of classification and separation. The essay examines two press photographs and television images alongside Elleke Boehmer's short story "Synthetic Orange", and analyses a cartographic experiment and a film; each case opposes the authority of Western visuality and makes a claim for the autonomy of the right to look. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new approach for understanding the sense of place in film, based on the findings of a practice-based case study. With a background in both television production and heritage interpretation, I approached the production of a short film for a heritage site as an opportunity to investigate filmic approaches to interpreting and analysing a sense place by using the location-linked theories of space and place from philosophy and human geography and the understanding of setting and landscape from film studies. The article contributes to the ongoing discussion around the place at a time when digital technologies are increasingly altering definitions of spatiality and one’s sense of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chris Vanderwees provides a brief review of Richard C. Ledes's film, Adieu Lacan, the story of a young woman's struggle to understand and come to terms with her origins through psychoanalysis. Following this review, Vanderwees interviews Ledes about the making of the film, the depiction of Lacan's clinical practice, and some of the decisions regarding representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobilizing Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concept of "becoming-revolutionary," this article aims to address the relative absence of film studies scholarship on Iranian diasporic women's cinema and transnational Iranian poetics of resistance. More specifically, it examines the role of female agency during Iran's 2009 Green Movement in Sepideh Farsi's, arguing that Farsi's portrayal of a young Iranian woman's progressive politics and sexual emancipation foregrounds connections between Iranian national and diasporic politics and poetics of female resistance. Formally, the film interweaves videos of the Green Movement made by anonymous protesters with intimate fictional narrative, allowing the two modes of storytelling to coalesce in their use of politicized bodies resisting the hegemonic ideological discourses of the state. I argue that the film's textual hybridity emphasizes the role of "raw" protesters' footage as an example of "minor" video, in the Deleuzian-Guattarian sense, in an effort to encompass and preserve the fragmented yet assertive voices of the Iranian civil rights movement and struggle for democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I explore the pasts and futures of teaching and researching classical Hollywood cinema in feminist media studies. After outlining some of the problems associated with Laura Mulvey’s influential work on the male gaze, I consider subsequent feminist responses to Mulvey’s work. In particular, I focus on the attempts by post-Mulvey feminist film scholars to reject in their critical practice Mulvey’s conclusion that classical Hollywood cinema is anathema to feminist progress vis-à-vis media representations of women while accepting the theoretical premise that classical Hollywood cinema is inherently misogynistic and patriarchally corrupt at its core. On this point, I discuss the controversial clashes between male and female scholars over this disjunction between theory and criticism. With reference to the films of Otto Preminger, I demonstrate the probative value of an inclusive feminist media studies praxis in which, on the one hand, theory informs rather than distorts criticism, and, on the other hand, male and female scholars are able to assess the contributions—past, present, and future—of men to the project of feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on methods by which editors shape character in editing. Given that editors' choices of shot, take, and timing augment and vary actors' performances and directors' instructions, and that these choices shape the audience perception of film characters, we ask: what components of editors' expertise are activated in shaping material to create characters that viewers can invest in emotionally? Editors' expertise is generally referred to as 'intuitive', which is a shorthand for knowledge and experience that informs decision making at a pre-conscious level. This article argues that 'intuitive' is not incorrect, however, drawing on the authors' extensive editing practice and building on existing editing theory as well as ideas from science and film studies, we seek more specific identification and articulation of editors' expertise. This article offers an original editing taxonomy in relation to editing character. The taxonomy includes explicit articulations of kinaesthetic empathy and implicit knowledge such as laws of physics, reflex reactions, and cultural conditioning. Awareness of these pervasive but often unrecognised forms of knowledge, we argue, can enhance editors' ability to develop multifaceted characters through editing, clarify discussions between collaborators, and even enhance understanding of the art of editing more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Framed by Guillermo del Toro as "a love letter to the cinema," the academy award-winning feature The Shape of Water (2017) speaks to one of the core debates in film studies: film's status as a "universal language." Paradoxically both propagating and critiquing this idea of universality, a vast knowledge of film history, cinematic techniques, and a desire to create what the director calls a "cinematic Esperanto"—or a globally legible film tradition—informs a film that celebrates the multiplicity of "languages" possible in film as a medium. Reading The Shape of Water as a series of films-within-films—fantasy within realism, black-and-white within color, and a silent film within a "talkie"—I reveal the myriad communicative forms accessible within cinema as a visual, temporal, and mobile medium. The foregrounding of "a speaking silence" in the interactions between the mute Elisa and the Amphibian Man, a pre-linguistic, but communicative, sea creature, acts as a set piece—a silent film within the larger film proper—that celebrates the universal language of gesture, while the situation of this nested narrative within a larger film tradition of "talkies" speaks to the ultimate displacement of the fantasy of universality by the adoption of the voice in film. Through a close attention to film stills, the formal composition of scenes, and the sparse, multilingual dialogue, I examine The Shape of Water's critique of a monolingual "universal" filmic language and celebration of the radical multilingualism possible in the cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenomenology has enriched film studies through the work of Christian Metz, Gilles Deleuze and Vivian Sobchack among others, but its descriptive methodology can also contribute with animation research. In this text we analyze phenomenologically the experience of watching an animated narrative in order to bring to light the a priori structures and dynamics in which animation makes sense. We will delve into the particular attitude of the subject that allows immersion in the animated narrative world, which assumes an intersubjective dimension that articulates a personal growth process with cultural practices oriented by expectations of encounter and recognition typical of contemporary communication. This phenomenological description allows us to understand the value that the audience find in animated stories. The essay also exposes the assumptions that underlie animation studies from their own theoretical frameworks and methodologies. It therefore offers a primary guidance for systematizing and strengthening interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a cultural analysis of Diane Keaton's later career that teases out the age/gender interactions of the roles she has played past her mid-fifties. Drawing on both age and gender theories, our analysis of Keaton's late-life characterizations explains the actor's transformation into an icon of a positive and desirable form of female aging. At the same time, it observes the normative aspects of gendered old age that are also perpetuated through Keaton's late-life representations of aging femininity, and which troublingly reiterate Hollywood's normative white heterosexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work, we have demonstrated a highly sensitive H2 gas sensor using a lanthanum doped ZnO (La_ZnO) thin film operated at 300 °C. Also, a p-type to n-type carrier reversal activity is revealed in the presence of H2 gas species, which predominantly depends on the operating temperature and doping concentration of lanthanum. Pure and La_ZnO (1–10 at. %) thin films were successfully synthesized using a sol-gel route, where a 5 at. % lanthanum doped ZnO thin film shows an outstanding H2 gas sensitivity (400%) among all other samples with an optimized temperature of 300 °C. Moreover, this sensor actively responds to a wide H2 gas concentration (10–500 ppm) with a sensitivity of 0.9 (∼n). Additionally, H2 gas sensing selectivity and mixed gas sensing performance were investigated in the presence of CO and CO2 gas species at optimized temperature (300 °C). Results show that the pure and 1–3 at. % La_ZnO thin films exhibited n-type H2 gas sensing, while p-type sensing behavior was observed for 5% and 10% La_ZnO thin films at 300 °C. It is further observed that O− species are extremely active to CO gas species operating at a high operating temperature (>250 °C). Therefore, despite the emerging p-type behavior of the sensor, the ejected electrons are expected to dominantly reduce the sensor resistance in the presence of CO gas species at 350 °C. The improvement of H2 sensing is further interrelated with the defect levels using Raman spectroscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field- and fluence-dependent spin-wave dynamics in full-Heusler Co2FeAl0.5Si0.5 films are studied by using time-resolved magneto-optical polar Kerr spectroscopy. Volume magnetostatic spin-wave (VMSW) and perpendicular standing spin-wave (PSSW) modes are excited in the films with thicknesses of 60 and 100 nm, while only the Kittel mode is observed in the films with thicknesses of 150 and 200 nm. The amplitudes of all three spin-wave modes increase with increasing field and fluence, and the frequencies slightly decrease with increasing fluence as expected. The lifetimes and effective damping are found to be modulated by both the external field and excitation fluence. The effective damping of VMSW and Kittel modes presents strong field dependences that are significantly different from each other and can be attributed to the field-dependent group velocity and magnetic inhomogeneity, respectively. In addition, the effective damping of VMSW and PSSW modes increases with increasing fluence, showing a dominant mechanism of electron–phonon scattering enhancement. However, that of the Kittel mode decreases with increasing fluence and further demonstrates the dominant contribution from magnetic inhomogeneity in this case, which is inferred to suppress the excitation of the VMSW mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an in-depth study of Ge(Si), Ge with a potential for some Si, films grown laterally on Si using plan-view transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Earlier, we reported that high-quality Ge films can be grown on Si by using a metal-catalyzed, lateral epitaxial growth technique. In particular, the lateral overgrowth areas of the films demonstrated a much lower dislocation density compared to the first-to-nucleate areas in cross-sectional TEM. Here, we further studied both the film and dislocation morphologies in plan-view TEM to understand more about the growth process and relaxation mechanism. For a film closely studied in plan-view TEM, the center of the film was thicker and contained much more dislocations and there were some thickness variations near the edges. For the central thicker region, the composition was analyzed and three areas within the film were found to be relatively Si-rich and are, therefore, likely to be one of the first-to-nucleate parts of the film. We investigated the dislocation morphology in depth in this film, counting dislocation numbers in both the Si-rich/first-to-nucleate and lateral overgrowth areas of the film. This study indicates that the Si-rich areas contained high dislocation densities (108 or 109 #/cm2), at least one or two magnitudes higher than that of the lateral overgrowth areas, and many dislocations were found to originate from them and extend toward the edge of the film. The observations in this study provide more evidence to support the idea that a new relaxation is present to enable high-quality, lateral Ge growth on Si. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, first principles calculations combined with advanced surface diagnostics are used to unravel the mechanisms of plasma oxygen interaction with organic films of interest for advanced patterning in semiconductor device manufacturing. Results from a combination of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) diagnosed oxygen plasma exposed polystyrene films and first principles modeling of organic films (polystyrene, polyethylene, and derivatives) provide insights into how organic films are oxidized by oxygen atoms. XPS measurements show the rapid formation of C-O structures and their saturation after oxygen exposure on both pristine and argon bombarded polystyrene samples. Quantum mechanics calculations confirm that C-OH formation can be immediate without recourse to previously formed dangling bonds. Multiple oxygen impacts are required for scission of pristine ethylene carbon strands. Therefore, ethylene films can be converted to polyols that are stable, whereas more likely strands are broken before polyol formation through the formation of water and C=O. On the contrary, intermediate compounds with adjacent C=O bonds are not likely to form stable structures. The combination of XPS measurements and modeling implies that the oxidation of polystyrene and polyethylene is self-limiting on both hydrogen saturated and dehydrogenated (after argon ion plasma bombardment) surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italian Film in the Present Tense is a collection of essays by Millicent Marcus, a prominent scholar of Italian cinema studies. The book builds on Marcus's previous works and explores the contemporary state of Italian cinema. Divided into six parts, the book covers topics such as mafias, neoregionalism, migrants, leadership, women, and a category of its own. While the book offers insightful analysis, some areas could benefit from further development, and certain aspects of Italian cinema, such as animation and experimental cinema, are not covered. Overall, Italian Film in the Present Tense showcases Marcus's extensive knowledge and dedication to the study of Italian cinema. [Extracted from the article]

"Onscreen/Offscreen" by Constantine V. Nakassis is a monograph that provides an in-depth exploration of the politics within the Tamil film industry in India. The book examines the gendered politics in Tamil commercial cinema, highlighting the discrimination faced by actresses and the cultural norms that discourage them from playing the role of the heroine. It also delves into the ontological politics that occur in theaters, film sets, and everyday sociocultural lives in the region. Nakassis's analysis of the Tamil film industry contributes to fields such as linguistic anthropology, film studies, and South Asian studies, making it a valuable resource for researchers and students in these areas. [Extracted from the article]

Objective: Lacan is often deemed an obscure theorist with little clinical application. However, in film studies his psychoanalytic theory has been highly influential. This paper is part of a series of articles published in this journal accompanying a psychiatry registrar teaching programme on film and psychodynamic concepts. It introduces the Lacanian ideas of the Symbolic, Imaginary and Real as they appear in Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, and discusses their societal and clinical significance. Conclusions: A Lacanian reading of Power of the Dog offers insights into 'toxic masculinity'. Furthermore, it demonstrates how clinical symptoms can represent an escape from socially mediated toxicities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analogies have been drawn between therapeutic recovery and decolonization. This will mean that one can interrogate psychological effects of trauma on cultures or nations that undergo or have undergone colonization. If decolonization is perceived a form of therapy, colonialism is adjudged potential trauma. This paper is interested in understanding how colonialism could potentially traumatize a nation or given culture. It equally explores decolonization as a form of therapy. It thus analyses the trauma of colonialism in Kunle Afolayan's October 1 (2014). No scholarly work has been done on the analysis of colonial trauma in Nollywood film texts. This might be as a result of the paucity of film texts that speak to the theme. This paper is therefore interested in understanding how Nollywood ace filmmaker, Kunle Afolayan, uses his October 1 as a metaphor to mirror the traumatic effect of colonialism on Nigeria as a nation. It explores how the film's major characters' relations to their traumatic pasts provide insight to Nigeria's social history. This study attempts to visualize in Afolayan's characters, a Nigeria traumatized by colonialism. It further envisions the possible paths to Nigeria's survival of colonial trauma in these characters' chosen paths to recovery. Using psychoanalysis as framework, this qualitative analysis explores decolonization as therapeutic and contributes to decolonization discourses in African film studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Javier Fuentes-León's 2009 film, Contracorriente/Undertow, received international recognition, accolades, and awards. While the film attempts to be revolutionary--and perhaps at the time of its release, it was--it perpetuates many of the stereotypes that it seemingly attempts to undermine. This essays seeks to challenge homonormative depictions of male homosexuality by analyzing how the film's male protagonists, Miguel and Santiago, satisfy the common trope of the hyper-masculinized and hyper-feminized gay male that permeates the socio-cultural fabric of Latin America and beyond. The film's plot presents a narrative of Miguel, a fisherman with a pregnant wife, who has a secret love affair with the painter and community outsider, Santiago. Fuentes-León creates a complex narrative fueled by rumors, stereotypes, and heterosexism, framing a taboo human story as a parable about authenticity. This paper blends visual and textual analysis with feminist and queer theoretical discourses to interrogate contemporary understandings of Contracorriente as well as depictions of gay male figures throughout the visual landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hanna Pitkin explains that Arendt's defense of collective political action tends to reify and mystify an opposing concept Arendt calls 'the Social'. Was Arendt actually right about the rise of 'the Social'? Does the deep-set global mass entertainment culture tend to sap action even when it purportedly celebrates it? And what can viewing publics and counter-publics tell us about the meaning and reception of 'the Social', especially in this massively online era? This article surveys different ways of thinking about the basic problem presented by American popular action cinema, and especially big-budget Hollywood action films, through an Arendtian lens. In presenting this overview, the article looks to reorient traditional philosophical concerns about screen violence and its censorship, and to offer a holistic reappraisal of 'the Social' and 'action' by placing democratic theory in closer dialogue with film studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article questions the becoming of the concept of the "male gaze" theorized by Laura Mulvey, through the study of its reception among French and Francophone thinkers. Written in close dialogue with Freudian psychoanalysis, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975) indicates that the ideological stakes of representation go beyond the content of what is shown to reveal how the unshown is inserted between the form and the unconscious. The question that arises is whether there are viable conceptual alternatives to the critique of male gaze, such as the notion of "female gaze." My hypothesis is that, given certain resistances encountered about the male gaze in critical literature, it is important to question the conditions of the exclusion of the female gaze, both as a concept and as a phenomenon that can be identified within artistic forms. Since Mulvey's intellectual trajectory was deeply marked by her encounter with French film critics, the article examines more broadly the reception of her theoretical proposals in the French-speaking area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the masculinities shown throughout Steven Spielberg's Hook, following Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim's four sites of masculinities in film. Robin Williams's character (Peter Banning/Pan) evolves from belonging to the business man prototype (Peter Banning) to becoming an adult-although-rejuvenated Peter Pan. His body is shown in action when BanninG/Pan attempts to behave in a more juvenile way. Banning/Pan's external world is defined by his fatherhood, which involves both quality and quantity time spent with his children. The internal world is related to Banning/Pan's fear of flying and death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Jeff Barnaby's film "Blood Quantum" and its exploration of Indigenous storytelling and the intersection of Film Studies and Indigenous Studies. It examines the concepts of postcolonial and paracolonial zombie films, highlighting the film's critique of colonialism and its envisioning of an Indigenous futurity beyond blood quantum. It also discusses the use of the zombie genre to interrogate colonialism and the unique perspective of Indigenous cinema as Fourth Cinema.

For humans, Artificial Intelligence operates more like a Rorschach test, as it is expected that intelligent machines will reflect humans' cognitive and physical behaviours. The concept of intelligence, however, is often confused with consciousness, and it is believed that the progress of intelligent machines will eventually result in them becoming conscious in the future. Nevertheless, what is overlooked is how the exploration of Artificial Intelligence also pertains to the development of human consciousness. An excellent example of this can be seen in the film Being John Malkovich (1999). In the film, different characters have their perceptions altered as a result of hacking into the mind of John Malkovich, which produces sensations that may have remained hidden to their consciousness due to their dis-abilities. This article engages with the research question: Can the symbiotic relationship between humans and machines trigger an artificial consciousness for humans? An artificially created consciousness is the premise that a machine can generate knowledge about an individual that is not already present in the person. For the same purpose, the article takes the cinematic text Being John Malkovich by Spike Jonze for exploring concepts such as human/robot rights, virtual sex, virtual rape, and bodily disability, which are essential topics in the midst of increasing human- Artificial Intelligence interaction. The purpose of this article is to contribute towards the creation of a better understanding of Artificial Intelligence, particularly from the perspective of film studies and philosophy, by highlighting the potential of Artificial Intelligence as a vessel for exploring human consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Lucrecia Martel's Zama (2017) and her transposition from Antonio Di Benedetto's book (1956) of the same name. I argue that Martel's film is able to "de-visualise" the mobility and visuality of Di Benedetto's text by pushing his elusive images towards higher levels of cinematic abstraction. More broadly, I claim that the film Zama is exemplary of what Martel calls "contamination" – that is, a term the ancient Romans employed to incorporate and transform previous Greek materials into their own cultural texts, which stands here as the filmmaker's method in rearranging the novel. In this way, the process of de-visualisation which I borrow from Jacques Rancière's work will be played out in relation to Martel's politics of script adaptation and her re-imagination of the literary Zama. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]