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For three days in early March 2024, the Romanoff Center for Russian Studies at the University of Oklahoma hosted acclaimed Ukrainian film director Sergei Loznitsa for a series of meetings [...]

In this article, we ask if there was a backlash against film feminism in Norway in the 1980s. In Norwegian film history, this decade is known as "the helicopter period" and is associated with a turn towards commercial genre film and classical dramaturgy. This has usually been narrated as a success story for Norwegian cinema. It is, however, also a decade connected to a loss of position for the women directors who had gained a footing in Norwegian cinema in the 1970s. We thus question the idea of progress associated with this decade in film history and propose avenues of investigation. We explore the loss of position of female directors by looking at film reception and film criticism. We further present and discuss a numerical breakdown of women directors and female lead characters in the 1980s and 1990s and point to thematic readings of the on-screen portrayal of women characters in this time span. We find evidence of aggression towards women and a disappearance of women's film and argue that this points to an anti-feminist pushback in Norwegian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ana M. López, a pioneer in Latin American film and cultural studies, made significant contributions to the field by highlighting the importance of classical Mexican melodrama and Latin American telenovelas. Her work broadened the scope of Latin American film studies to include cultural studies perspectives and emphasized the transnational nature of Latin American cinema. López's research challenged previous assumptions and provided new avenues for research in the field. She also mentored and created a community of young scholars, leaving behind a substantial body of work and lasting relationships. [Extracted from the article]

For four decades John Boorman’s “Excalibur” has been either partially analyzed by scholars in Jungian categories or just described as a Jungian-inspired film in more general terms by film critics. The six-stage model of King Arthur’s personal and archetypal development in “Excalibur” was first published by Jungian analyst Al Collins in 1981, but remained unknown in mainstream scholarship. This article describes this significant absence and argues for a shift to significant presence, merging many Jungian approaches to “Excalibur” with Piotr Toczyski’s own depth-psychological vision of Boormanian quasi-Jungian Arthurianism. The scholars globally may get further inspiration to relaunch new interpretations of this classic Arthurian retelling in terms of dynamics of conscious and unconscious, meeting the shadow, coping with anger, underlying projections, withdrawal of projections as the moment of lysis similar to psychotherapy, and the self-awareness of archetypes. The process of projection withdrawal is the hero’s journey on its own, bringing some similarities with well-known Joseph Campbell’s post-Jungian model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Doxa Comunicación is the property of Fundacion Universitaria San Pablo - CEU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lingüística y Literatura is the property of Universidad de Antioquia, Facultad de Comunicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers a fresh look at the Polish critical reception of the New Adventure Cinema movies within the peripherality of the People’s Republic of Poland as an American export market. The author proposes a new perspective on this topic. Instead of focusing on well-known articles and reviews, he chooses texts on particular films of the New Adventure Cinema movement from the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s. The author highlights the potential of these texts and suggests considering a different name for this trend.

Kurmanjan Datka Queen of the Mountains (2014) is a Kyrgyz historical drama film directed by Sadyk Sher-Niyaz tells the story of Kurmanjan Datka from Kyrgyz history. In this article, how the mentioned motion picture is discussed in Central Asian, Russian, Turkish and Western digital media is analyzed comparatively in the context of historical and ideological film criticism. It is tried to be understood how each country interprets the film in their own media, how they look at the history of Kyrgyzstan and its ideological discourse. In the research, critical discourse analysis method was used and conceptual and thematic classifications were made. At the end of the research, while more history and politics were discussed in the Central Asian media, the Russian and Turkish digital media did not show enough attention to the historical flow, while the Western digital media discussed the film in a multifaceted way in the context of economy-political, identity, gender and aesthetics. Another remarkable difference was that some of the Kyrgyz or Kazakh critics (especially statesmen, historians or artists) criticized the film on the economic-political axis. The in-depth and multidimensional criticisms of the film developed by the eastern critics were found in the Western media or Western journalists gave place to these views in their own digital media.

This essay brings psychoanalytic theory on trauma together with film and television criticism on rape narrative in an analysis of Michael Coel's 2020 series I May Destroy You. Beyond the limited carceral framework of the police procedural, which dislocates the act of violence from the survivor's history and context, Coel's polyvalent, looping narrative metabolizes rape television's forms and genres in order to stage and restage both trauma and genre again and anew. Contesting common conceptions of vulnerability and susceptibility that prefigure a violent breach of autonomy, Coel's series and her interviews about it invite an ethics of looking that embraces a curiosity in the unknowable and untreatable kernel of subjective experience and defies and resists a policing of the survivor's thoughts and emotions. By emphasizing and exploring what psychoanalysis calls the "afterwardness" of trauma, Coel foregrounds her main character's subjectivity prior to her victimization, widens the sphere of consequence beyond the victim and criminal justice system to the survivor's larger community, and entreats that community to preserve a space for her to look and look again at everything, without judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the content analysis (in the context of the historical, socio-cultural and political situation, etc.) of the texts published during the "perestroika" period of the Soviet Screen magazine (1986--1991), the authors came to the conclusion that materials on the subject of Western cinema on this stage can be divided into the following genres: -- ideologized articles emphasizing criticism of bourgeois cinema and its harmful influence on the audience (1986-1987); -- articles on the history of Western cinema; -- biographies and creative portraits of Western actors and directors (as a rule, with positive ratings); -- interviews with Western filmmakers (as a rule, with those who came to Moscow film festivals); -- reviews of Western films (here we can note a violation of the old tradition: if in 1986-1987 the magazine still often negatively evaluated some "politically harmful bourgeois" films, then later Western film production was evaluated without regard to ideological stereotypes, moreover, even received a positive interpretation films that were previously rejected for ideological reasons); -- articles about international film festivals and weeks of foreign cinema in the USSR, reviews of the current repertoire of Western national cinematographies (no longer divided into "progressive" and "bourgeois" cinematography); -- short informational materials about events in Western cinema (from neutral reports to "yellow" gossip). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on content analysis (in the context of the historical, socio-cultural and political situation, etc.) of texts published during the "stagnant" period of the Soviet Screen magazine (1969--1985), the authors came to the conclusion that the principle of choosing cinematic personalities to paint portraits of Western actors and directors in 1969-1985 remained stable in the Soviet Screen. This magazine readily wrote about "progressive filmmakers" who went unnoticed in negative statements against the USSR and participation in anti-Soviet films. Especially if these filmmakers came to the Moscow International Festival and spoke positively about the Soviet Union. One of the favorite subjects of the Soviet Screen within the framework of foreign themes is Western actors as "victims of Hollywood", evidence of the "tragedy of the artist in the bourgeois world." But if any of the famous Western actors was involved in the creation of anti-Soviet films and/or films "glorifying the American military," the magazine could strike him with "heavy artillery" on its pages. However, there were many less politicized articles about Western actors on the pages of the magazine. As for interviews with Western filmmakers, as in previous years, the Soviet Screen magazine selected interlocutors from among the most "progressive artists." For example, among American filmmakers, the first place was given to Stanley Kramer. The progressive political position was also emphasized in interviews with Sydney Pollack, Norman Jewison, Ellen Burstyn, Jessica Lange and other Western directors and actors. In general, during the period 1969-1985, the ideological positions of the Soviet Screen magazine remained unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In honor of the 35th anniversary of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, this retrospective addresses the numerous criticisms levied at the film and argues that, while many have argued it is one of the worst slasher movies of all time, it is actually the best of the Friday the 13th franchise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically examines how Gemini Man (2019) incorporates director Ang Lee's cinematic aesthetics and Will Smith's star persona to present a nuanced representation of empowered crossover Blackness. In this film, Smith's commanding status as a Black lead exceeds the typical constraints of social and spatial mobility (a relative rarity in Hollywood production). However, Gemini Man's adoption of sf generic conventions and prevalent ideological narratives ironically neutralizes this momentum and, instead, reveals the precariousness that Asian and Black American filmmakers experience navigating the entertainment industry's unequal decision-making, especially as it seeks maximized crossover appeal to attract wider audiences worldwide. This article explores how the film's artistic expression not only illustrates ongoing ideological and identity negotiations within the racialized sf genre, especially concerning the representation of Black experiences, but also illuminates filmmakers' challenges when collaborating with major studios in Hollywood's profit-driven, racially-determined global marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comprehensive overview of various topics related to the film industry in the early 20th century. It explores the work of Gabriel Navarro, a Mexican immigrant and film critic, who analyzed the relationship between mass culture and Mexican audiences in the US. The article also discusses the diverse and exotic atmosphere of Hollywood, the struggles faced by aspiring actors, and the portrayal of Mexican history and society in films. Additionally, it includes an interview with Dolores del Rio, a film star who expresses her commitment to speaking Spanish in her films. The article concludes by discussing the issue of dubbing in Spanish-language films and the perceived lack of understanding of Latin American culture in Hollywood productions. [Extracted from the article]

The Chinese opera film criticism of the late 1950s coincided with the introduction of cybernetics to China. Echoing cybernetics' emphasis on the homeostasis of an artificial or living machine archived by filtering noise from information in the environment, film critics aimed no less at maintaining the steady states of Chinese culture (epitomized by traditional opera) when taking on the treacherous milieu called modernization (in the form of cinema). The whole problematic of opera films—in which one is forced to choose filtering out formulaic operatic gestures or realistic cinematic mise-en-scène as noise to maintain a self-cohesive cultural system—follows from the mistake of essentializing media specificities as prior to the contingent encounter among different mediums. However, an alternative approach lies in treating noise not as interference that must be eliminated but as surplus information that introduces system errors, triggers phase shifts, and brings about random changes for genuine self-organization, allowing us to confront control with the noise in its own channels. A revamping of cybernetics in this regard opens up new possibilities of understanding opera films through the peculiar prism of Guo Baochang's 2005 opera film Chungui meng 春閨夢 (Dream of the Bridal Chamber). And that prism particularly takes the form of a series of moon gates (yueliang men 月亮門), an architectural trope invoked throughout the film signifying the cybernetic circuit of gateways that at once exerts control over and yet is disturbed and reshaped by the noisy signals arising from the mutual interferences among opera, film, and, ultimately, television. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abstract analyzes the content of the Soviet Screen magazine from 1969 to 1985, focusing on its portrayal of Western cinema during the Soviet Union's "stagnation" period. The study finds that articles on Western cinema were heavily ideologized, emphasizing criticism of bourgeois cinema and its negative influence on audiences. This trend was less prominent than in the late 1960s due to significant political shifts, particularly after the 1968 events in Czechoslovakia. A crucial decree issued on January 7, 1969, by the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party mandated a more stringent opposition to bourgeois ideology and a vigorous promotion of communist ideals. This decree criticized media personnel for deviating from class criteria and sometimes promoting views contrary to socialist ideology. Additional resolutions in 1972 reinforced these directives, stressing the harmfulness of bourgeois ideology and the necessity for a rigorous ideological struggle against non-Marxist views and revisionist trends in literature and art. Consequently, Soviet Screen's management aligned closely with these resolutions, resulting in a marked decrease in content about Western cinema and an increase in critical coverage. Unlike during the 1960s Thaw, featuring Western movie stars on the magazine's cover became unthinkable. This period reflects the Soviet Union's broader efforts to control cultural narratives and suppress influences contrary to socialist values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the construction of a dominant discourse criticized by parody in film. The construction of Javanese cultural discourse has been the dominant discourse since the beginning of the Indonesian state; even the meanings born from the construction of the discourse remain to this day. Javanese cultural discourse refers to all forms of discussion related to cultural aspects in Java, including values, norms, traditions, art, language, and local wisdom of the Javanese people. Nagabonar's film deconstructs Javanese discourse with historical parody in its story. This research is expected to open up another way of thinking from the dominance of Javacentric thinking. Two approaches are used to recite and criticize Nagabonar's film as text: cinematographic theory and deconstruction. First is the mise-en-scene approach and staging in cinematographic theory, while the second is the theory of deconstruction to see what history hides or forbids and recasts a discourse construction of thinking that was previously marginalized or even alienated. This study aims to show the meaning of criticism in Nagabonar films against Javacentric dominant discourse through the deconstruction of film texts. Critics of this film tend to open questions about the concept of Indonesian nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the two packages of archival documents — the 1955 resolutions on the establishment of the popular illustrated magazine Sovetsky Ekran (The Soviet Screen) and the transcript of the discussion of the magazine’s work in the Union of Cinematography Workers in 1958. The author of the article considers the general style of the issues of The Soviet Screen of 1957 and 1958 and the individual materials, in particular, the wishes for the new magazine and the retellings of readers’ letters on the pages of the magazine; analyses and compares the initial goals of the magazine, its real format in 1957, its gradual transformation in 1958, and the evolution of tasks and strategies declared in various documents, published texts, and oral presentations at discussion. Certain contradictions are observed between the stated purpose of advertising Soviet films in order to increase distribution and cinema rental profits, and the ideological requirements emanating from the state cultural management. The author highlights an ambiguous attitude towards mass demands and the creative interests of the intelligentsia. There was a lack of consensus on film journalism, the preferred genres, and themes of the magazine articles both among the ‘ordinary readers’ and the professionals of the film industry — writers, critics, and journalists. The absence of a common vision on almost all the issues raised in the discussion allows us to see the complexity and versatility of tastes and mores among the intelligentsia of the Thaw, to recognise the contradictions between the perception of art and culture by the intelligentsia, on the one hand, and the mass perception, on the other hand. The article also sheds light on attitudes towards commerce, profit, and the social, financial and media success in the late 1950s.

In today’s ever-expanding landscape of online cultural criticism, the aphorism “Everybody is a critic now” is a timely and succinct description of our era. Matt Singer, editor of ScreenCrush and current chair of the New York Film Critics Circle, offers his historically aware perspective on the contemporary boom of film reviewing in Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever, recounting the life and career of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Their onscreen collaboration, which lasted for nearly twenty-five years (1975–99), dictated the future developments in the field of film criticism while setting the standards and assessment criteria for the subsequent wave of television film reviewers. Siskel and Ebert, who worked as film critics in two of the most prominent Chicago newspapers at the time they began their collaboration (the Tribune and Sun-Times, respectively), locked horns in countless heated debates while deliberating the latest box office releases in their immensely popular television show, originally dubbed Opening Soon… at a Theater Near You.

In recent years, Iranian 'quality cinema' has presented itself as a significant branch of the world's cinematic practices and discourses. Similarly, the scholarship on cinematic aspects and approaches as well as the evolution of this cinema has attracted universal attention. The field of studies on the evolution of Iranian contemporary cinema covers a relatively broad spectrum of insights, themes, genres and approaches, which requires a systematic form of categorisation and critical evaluation. Underpinning the research strategy of the existing literary works on Iranian cinema, I have assorted them into eight thematic categories: Film directories, film auteurology, descriptive-pictorial history of Iranian cinema, analytical history of Iranian cinema, film criticism, themeology, stylistics, representation of women in Iranian cinema. Providing a practical description on each of these literary resources and sorting them according to their research strategy will help researchers to gain an explicit sense of the relevant data regarding the research scope. Moreover, critical evaluation of the existing literature will facilitate identifying the research gap in this context. Another advantage of this thematic categorisation is the ease of searching for information in the range of published scholarship on Iranian cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava, 1936) begins with a critique of Depression-era public relief efforts but then focuses for the remainder of the film on the attempts of one 'forgotten man' to restore patriarchal authority to a female-dominated household. In the substitution of disciplined women for politically resistant homeless men, the film maps the consent of the subject to sovereign rule onto the screwball comedy's plot convention of female submission, thus naturalizing sovereignty, and feminizing the disciplined subject of the welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper aims to present a multimodal critique of the visual language in the short film Ismail. It analyses the social semiotics represented in the film's composition of image and language, which portrays a day story from the Palestinian visual artist Ismail Shammout (1930-2006) in the diaspora. From an aesthetic perspective, the research focuses on the social construction of an artist's identity through visual language. Such film transforms the artist's narrative into a communicational oeuvre in Arabic to represent an individual description of the Palestinian diaspora, which constructed one of the prominent grand narratives in the modern history of Arab Art. The main character in the film is Ismail, a Palestinian painter who performs his daily job as a candy seller in the streets. The argumentation in this critique depends on the aesthetic manifestations of the social semiotics of Arab Art in the film. Throughout the film's visual language, Ismail keeps representing his thoughts about the characteristics of Arab Art. He is a travelling aesthetician who walks through the desert and sells candy to strangers while talking to a younger kid escorting him through the film. The research's problem corresponds to the need for more investigation into language study, which this research advances to render. The methodology dedicated the aesthetic critique to produce aesthetic research on the film's visual language. Introducing an aesthetic review of visual language and connecting it with sociopolitical semiotics is significant. This research raises awareness of the importance of visual language knowledge in education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reinvestigation of Iris Barry's work for the Daily Mail in the period 1925–30. Barry is celebrated as a critic and curator. As a founder of the Film Society in London in the 1920s and first curator of film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1930s she is a heroine of minority film culture. This article argues that her role in mass film culture has been overlooked. While it has been acknowledged that Barry wrote for the Daily Mail, one of Britain's most popular newspapers, this article demonstrates that the number of articles she wrote for the paper has been underestimated by a factor of ten. Beyond the case of Barry, this article argues that elite institutions like the Film Society have been given undue credit for the phenomenon of 'taking film seriously.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis focuses on the film review column Cine en Bogotá: Estrenos de la semana, written by García Márquez and published in El Espectador (1954-1955). The column, written during the author's early training, reflects his growing interest in cinema as art, industry and entertainment. Although it presents aesthetic limitations and faces problems with businessmen, the column seeks to strengthen the public's criteria, by contributing to the emergence of a film culture in Colombia. This period marks the basis of García Márquez's later literature, revealing his evolution and connection with the cinematographic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from a question about the "diasporic" position of certain authors of cultural criticism in Latin America, always halfway between academic affiliation and a kind of fractious position regarding their increasingly bureaucratized practices of knowledge administration, this paper proposes a reading of three representative texts by the Brazilian-Argentine critic Raul Antelo: Crítica acéfala, Archifilologías latinoamericanas. Lecturas tras el agotamiento and A ruinologia. These strange and problematic texts seem to be articulated from a position that not only (post)critically revises the foundations of more conventional criticism, but also moves toward the behavior of the most radical bids of artistic conceptualism; in other words, in them criticism becomes an act: intervention. And therein lies its forceful emergence in the framework of contemporary literary and cultural studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Iluminace is the property of Narodni Filmovy Archiv and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Freud's "unconscious," a lauded seminal psychological contribution, has transitioned into an efficacious narrative device in cinema, evolving into a paradigmatic relationship. This article scrutinizes Inception (2010), a quintessential psychoanalytical film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It explicates the director's linkage to psychoanalysis and reveals how he demystifies the unconscious through its utilization both as a cinematic form and thematic device, manifested in discernible dream layers. It is ascertained that these layers perform a bifunctional role as cinematic and narrative elements. Intriguingly, this multifaceted structure extends to character development as well, exploiting the complexities of the characters' pathologies. Since the filmic structure leverages the pathologies exhibited by the characters, they constitute secondary data for the analysis. The pathologies are aligned with the mental disorder classifications the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TRTM) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Pertinent character data are analysed in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings, subsequently subjected to psychoanalytic film analysis, enrich a deeper understanding and fuller appreciation of the representation of the unconscious in the cinematic domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on content analysis (in the context of the historical, socio-cultural and political situation, etc.) of texts published during the “stagnant” period of the Soviet Screen magazine (1969–1985), the authors came to the following conclusions. Of the wide range of Hollywood and British films, Soviet film distribution in the period we analyzed included mainly films with an acute social message, critically showing Western realities. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that these films received maximum support in the Soviet Screen; articles by Soviet film critics emphasized the “progressive anti-bourgeois significance” of these films. It is very significant that, even when reviewing American films, which seemed to be completely far from politics, the reviewers of Soviet Screen demonstrated ideological approaches. Of course, among the reviews of American and British films in Soviet Screen, there also appeared texts that were devoid of a direct appeal to politics. “Apoliticalism” was especially evident in reviews devoted to film adaptations of classical works, which often took place in the 19th century and earlier. Frankly entertaining Hollywood and British films were released into Soviet distribution in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s quite rarely. And here, Soviet Screen reviewers often sought to distance themselves from edifying political and ideological assessments, concentrating on a professional analysis of the artistic quality of this or that entertaining film. In Italian and French cinema, the Soviet Screen consistently gave preference to political films that “expose capitalist reality.” Of course, Soviet Screen, as before, could not ignore the works of Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Francois Truffaut and other outstanding masters of cinema. But here, too, the magazine’s reviewers assessed their work mainly within the framework of Marxist ideological principles, on the basis of which even the films of such recognized masters as Federico Fellini were criticized. The sharp rejection of Soviet Screen reviewers was often caused by entertainment films with the participation of Jean-Paul Belmondo, which were reproached for promoting “supermanhood” and violence. The Soviet Screen's reviews of famous French and Italian comedies were more benevolent, but overall rather skeptical. Of course, the range of Western films, for one reason or another, did not reach the Soviet mass audience, was much wider than film distribution. And year after year, the editors of the magazine selected examples for criticism of bourgeois society and imperialism: films of an anti-communist and anti-Soviet orientation, as well as films “glorifying the American military” and “whitewashing the Nazis.” The openly entertaining part of Western film production has traditionally been viewed by the magazine mainly in a sharply negative light. Soviet Screen did not ignore the topic of film sex, popular in the West in the 1970s. Of course, articles were published about films of this kind, condemning the “decomposition of the morals of bourgeois society.” In articles in Soviet Screen about international film festivals and the current repertoire of Western national cinemas and weeks of foreign cinema in the USSR, there was also a clear division of Western cinema into “progressive” and “bourgeois”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Millars: Espai i Història is the property of Millars: Espai i Historia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study provides a broad overview of literary criticism in advertising and discusses its relevance in understanding advertisements as textual narratives while also suggesting some avenues for future research. We do so by framing it through the work of Barbara Stern, who helped introduce literary criticism into the marketing discipline. We then explain our thoughts concerning why renewed interest in a literary approach to advertising is essential. Our approach integrates Stern's work with other emerging theories in English and consumer literature, synthesizing a variety of insights into an overview of what has been done within the discipline, offering a brief glimpse into the dynamic theoretical approaches wielded by others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International reconsideration of Mexican film noir is a recent phenomenon. For decades, Mexican film criticism tended to dismiss the importance of this tradition and even to deny its existence, often citing the presence of melodramatic elements in would-be noir films and the lack of a crime novel tradition for screen adaptations. By comparing two Mexican films to similar American productions and examining the local political and economic conditions of the former, this article argues that Mexican film noir had its own pessimistic viewpoints, which were borrowed from journalism and the illustrated press. These viewpoints were based on existing social ailments and delivered relevant criticism of the institutions, classism, and sexual norms of the postrevolutionary Mexican state of the 1940s and 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the film and musical adaptations of Tom of Finland, a Finnish artist known for his homoerotic art. It discusses how these cultural artifacts expand the idea of Finnishness by incorporating the history of sexual minorities into the national narrative. The representations of Finnishness in these works both reinforce and challenge traditional ideas, and queer/gay sexualities negotiate with mainstream notions of Finnishness. The adaptations present a balanced and non-stereotypical depiction of a gay character in a leading role, challenging previous media portrayals of homosexuality in Finland. The works also challenge traditional narratives of Finnish heroism and masculinity, offering a more nuanced perspective. The film and musical portray the unwelcoming nature of Finnish mainstream culture for homosexuals in the 1950s, highlighting the homophobia prevalent at that time. The music in both adaptations plays a significant role in conveying emotions and themes. The works aim to offer a more inclusive and condemning perspective on Finland's homophobic past, although interpretations may vary and there is political backlash against LGBT rights in Finland. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines current trends in the changing concept of the hero in recent Ukrainian cinema and the related tendency to neglect authentic Ukrainian culture on account of the pervasive influence of Western traditions in cinema. The article employs various, academic methods of art criticism: literary and film analysis, comparison, synthesis, analogy and typologisation. Analysing several films from the period of independent Ukraine, Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die (2017, dir. Akhtem Seitablayev), Sniper. The White Raven (2022, dir. Marian Bushan) and Klondike (2022, dir. Maryna Er Gorbach), the authors show that the depiction of Ukrainian film heroes depends on contemporary local events. The contemporary hero of Ukrainian cinema emerges as an ambiguous figure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the most important element of a film is the story, how the story is told puts the film in a position that we can call good or successful. How the story is told is determined by the harmony and balance between the mise-en-scene elements that make up the form of the film. Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds (Karpuz Kabuğundan Gemiler Yapmak) is Ahmet Uluçay's only feature-length film, based on his own childhood, and a story about realizing his dreams despite all impossibilities. The film, which is also a reflection of the struggle between a village and a town, has gained an important place in the history of Turkish cinema with its love for cinema. This study aims to reveal the effect of the use of mise-en-scene elements on the narrative by making mise-en-scene criticism in Ahmet Uluçay's film Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds. For this purpose, the film was analyzed using the mise-en-scene criticism method. The analysis is based on the basic elements of mise-enscene such as space, decor, lighting, costume, make-up, and acting. As a result of the study, it was seen that the director succeeded in presenting the story of the film in an original style by using the elements of mise-en-scene in a balanced and harmonious way. It is possible to say that the director's success in the film is a reflection of his preferences for mise-en-scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The film of the destruction of the Russian monument in 1914 is not only the history of Turkish cinema, but also of a country. The aim of this study is to reveal the representation of teachers in Turkish cinema, which is one of the professions that shape a nation, in films that reflect the effects of the periods spent in all its positive and negative aspects. The reflections of the political and social changes experienced in the historical process on the cinema, the emphasis in the representation of the teacher and the quality of the added value created in the society were analyzed in comparison with the periodical conjuncture. With the purposeful sampling management, the films in which the teacher was represented from 1940 to 1980 were compared with the conditions of the period in which they were shot, and their reflections on the society and the teacher were examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The “Information for All” editorial house published new monograph “Evolution of theoretical film studies concepts in the Cinema Art journal (1931-2021)”. This book is one from a series of articles and books on cinema published in recent years as part of the same research collective. New research “Evolution of theoretical film studies concepts in the Cinema Art journal (1931–2021)” supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant No. 22-28-00317), and devoted to the analysis of transformations of theoretical concepts and is based on a review of materials presented on the pages of the Cinema Art journal. This analysis is very extensive and covers the period from the 1930s (when this journal first began to appear) to the present. The material of this book might be of interest for higher-school teachers, students, graduate students, researchers, film critics, cinema scholars, journalists, as well as for the wide range of readers who are interested in the history of cinema art, problems of cinema, film criticism and film sociology. In connection with the publication of the monograph Alexander Fedorov gave an interview to Professor Marina Tselykh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LGBTQ media discourses in contemporary Russia have been extensively researched from the perspectives of media and queer studies. Scholars have theorised whether 'queerness' can be appropriated from the West and localised in Russia for the benefit of local LGBTQ communities. Building on existing scholarship, this article examines media discourses on queer film as initiated and maintained by representatives of Russian LGBTQ film audiences. I investigate how LGBTQ opinion leaders appropriate the term kvir (queer) in the context of viewing and interpreting contemporary, post-Soviet, and Soviet Russian cinema. I analyse how 'queering' is used as the optics for discerning obvious or ciphered visual and verbal expressions of non-heteronormative gender and sexuality on screen, at the same time reclaiming narratives of the recent and remote past, as both shared and individual LGBTQ histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines filmic (mis)use of monstrous sharks as metaphors for exploring prey and predation, and how these films have incorporated postfeminist discourses around a symbolic overcoming of gendered violence. Research methods deployed include framing analysis of film narratives, dialogue and visual elements, including the key phrases and images used in the theatrical release posters and other promotional materials of shark attack horror films. The evolving shark horror film subgenre relies on common carefully constructed metaphors, narrative parallels, genre conventions and stylistic processes which not only convey gendered ideologies but build an entire contrived nightmare universe around human‐shark interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I bring Terrence Malick's 2019 film, A Hidden Life, into conversation with two of philosopher Paul Ricoeur's concepts: (1) the "social imaginary" as the interplay of ideals, images, ideologies and utopias, and (2) Ricoeur's description of the genre of "parable" as a narrative-metaphor which provokes a "re-orientation by disorientation" within an audience's imagination. Drawing from Ricoeur's thought, I apply a theological film criticism I call "theocinematics" to A Hidden Life in order to call attention to the ways in which the cinematic form itself engenders sociopolitical and theological thought. Through emphasizing film aesthetics in my analysis, I am ultimately suggesting that A Hidden Life as a cinematic parable has the potential power to affect and inform our social imaginaries for the good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This essay compares the professional experiences of Suzanne Chantal and Paola Ojetti in 1930s France and in 1930s and early-1940s Italy, respectively. Beyond their very different political, national, and cultural contexts, these women both occupied central positions within some of the most influential film periodicals of the era: Suzanne Chantal for Cinémonde and Paola Ojetti for Film. This study is mainly based on sources which enable us to take a closer look at their activities, their working conditions, and their feelings regarding the treatment they received while working for these periodicals. Sources include Suzanne Chantal’s memoirs and her personal diaries from the late 1930s, kept by her family, and Paola Ojetti’s extensive working correspondence, preserved in the Fondo Mino Doletti of the Biblioteca Renzo Renzi at the Cineteca di Bologna, as well as other correspondence documents preserved in Italian archives. This paper explores the working trajectories and social positioning made by these two largely forgotten but powerfully significant figures in order to establish themselves in a predominantly male professional and cultural environment, while at the same time questioning the limits of their integration. By shedding light on microhistory and questioning gender issues, this article turns its attention primarily to working practices, women’s paths, and social networks of film press and film criticism history.

Throughout the twentieth century, Italian film criticism ran into various moments of crisis; three of these triggered the foundation of a union organization, a political instrument with little affinity for the intellectual elites and yet cyclically present in the history of our criticism. The years in question are 1916, 1925 and 1971, to which we owe, respectively, the Syndicate of the Film Press, the Syndicate of Intellectuals of Cinematography and the National Syndicate of Italian Film Critics. They are profoundly different moments and in any case in dialogue with each other, as phases of an identity repositioning in which the professional and ideological, political and social levels intersect. The aim of this essay is therefore to recover the studies that interpret the discursive practice of criticism as an entity ontologically connected to a state of crisis (de Man, Frey) to place them in a more accentuated historical framework. To do so, the three quoted periods will be reconstructed and analysed, using an archival corpus of period press as sources, and the cultural industry as an additional theoretical framework in the context of Italian literary theory of the sixties (Ferretti, Fortini), in order to restore facets and complexities of crisis that would otherwise not be resolved in purely endemic and ontological terms.

Novelist, screenwriter, dramaturgist, lyricist and journalist, from the late Twenties, Giuseppe Marotta also worked as a film critic for many magazines. However, he definitively established himself as a critic in 1954, when he started his collaboration with the column of the news magazine L'Europeo. Mixing analysis, autobiographical account and narration, the film review acquired, with Marotta, an original and unconventional nature. The hyperbolically ironic style, the recourse to digression as well as to a richly elaborated phrasing characterized his reflection on cinema, which combined the desire to affirm the autonomy of cinematographic language, to oppose the narrative strategies of neorealism and to promote a cinema freed both from the features of popular film production and from the more mannered forms of authorship.

Padua, 30s. A young Antonio Covi contributed to making the city’s Film Club possible by playing a crucial role as a cinephile militant amongst public debates, filmmaking experiences, and film critics mainly published in local journals. In less than a decade, he obtained his Literature degree with a dissertation on film aesthetic in 1940, attended then film courses at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, and, finally, he joined the Jesuits Society in August 1945. The Ignatian confreres immediately acknowledge his aptitude for film and arts, enough for obtaining pivotal roles in Jesuit cultural policies over the years. This step from “militancy” toward “institution” allowed him to embrace national perspectives, establishing him as a reference point for Catholics in film knowledge widespread both in the Fifties and Sixties. During these two decades, father Covi published several articles and essays on film criticism and aesthetics, led the Antonianum Cineforum in Padua and film courses throughout Italy, and ran a local film production company. Film criticism as a form of cultural diplomacy and education represents the thread for all these activities. The paper aims to point out Antonio Covi’s contribution to Italy’s film culture from the 1930s to the 1960s. Firstly, by questioning the shift from “militancy” to “institution” and his role as a film critic during those years. Secondly, by underlying his discourses on film knowledge spread over national and local journals, books, public statements, and film courses as well, proposing, therefore, a diagnostic analysis of terms and themes he dealt with.