Elena Caoduro | Queen's University Belfast (original) (raw)
Papers by Elena Caoduro
This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German fil... more This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German films from 2000 to 2010 drawing on postmodernism theory, film genre, memory studies and gender theory. It considers filmic texts and paratexts, historiography and political discourses to offer a comparative analysis of the mnemonic dynamics in new millennial Italy and Germany. This thesis looks at why the experience of revolutionary terrorism in the 1970s reappears at the turn of the new millennium in a cluster of fiction films, which innovate and sometimes challenge previous paradigms. It reads this revival in connection with industrial trends and historical events, such as the end of old ideologies, the early release of former terrorists and 9/11. The memory of left-wing terrorism has found new lifeblood in the new millennium because there are ample resonances with contemporary social issues, such as political activism and global fears of international terrorism. Focusing on eight case studies, I argue that the memory of left-wing terrorism unfolds beyond and across temporal and spatial boundaries, reactivated by present-day occurrences and through contacts with other traumatic memories. The notion of ‘interconnected memory’ is fundamentally conceived as a nexus of multiple meanings, the fruit of past recollections, and movements between different socio-historical dimensions and generational memories. Representational strategies and narrative trends are also explored to shed light on crossnational forms of memorialising political violence and its legacy. The first part analyses how postmillennial films deal with the possibility of forgiveness, here interpreted as an approach to normalise the past through narratives of pacification or exclusion. It highlights the figure of the teenager as a metaphor for the changing memory of terrorism, generational conflicts and the implications of 1970s violence for young generations. Moreover, it discusses the depiction of female terrorists and the containment strategies adopted to mitigate the anxiety for terrorist acts perpetrated by violent women. The second part of this thesis is concerned with the risks of forgetting and more precisely on an aesthetic normalisation of the terrorist discourse through popular genres and a more commercial style. It comments on the hyper-authenticity and retro aesthetics in biopics about notorious terrorist groups, and the spectacularisation of violence via the thriller and heritage film genre. It also investigates how contemporary comedies satirise the phenomenon of anarchist revolts and political kidnappings to reflect on present-day social problems.
View : Journal of European Television History and Culture, Aug 3, 2022
The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television a... more The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television and education in its broadest sense, offering historical studies of television programming, national policies, audience attitudes and evolving socio-political contexts. It includes case studies of different broadcasters, specific educational programming initiatives, government or state education policy delivered through the television medium, the intersections between broadcast programmes and what is retained in television archives. They cover Turkey, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Finland and map the period from the 1960s to the present day. All of this material helps situate educational provision on television within broader histories of both television as a form and education as an overarching idea or objective.
Springer eBooks, 2021
Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century presents provocative analysis of the way terrorism influen... more Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century presents provocative analysis of the way terrorism influences our lives through its depictions in popular culture. Terrorism has become a nearly ubiquitous presence in the way we live our lives."-Philip Seib, University of Southern California, USA Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century offers new interpretations of figures emerging from representations of terrorism and counterterrorism: the male hero, female agent, religious leader, victim/perpetrator, and survivor. This collection of essays by a broad array of international scholars reflects the altered image-making processes that have developed from George W. Bush's "war on terror." Building on current literature on media and terrorism, this volume analyzes the most recent technological developments that have impacted the way we experience terrorism: online videos, social media, cartoons, media feeds, and drones. The authors address different time periods, different terrorist groups, and explore the way filmmakers and television producers from the USA, Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East are documenting modern wars in popular culture.
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2023
This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German fil... more This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German films from 2000 to 2010 drawing on postmodernism theory, film genre, memory studies and gender theory. It considers filmic texts and paratexts, historiography and political discourses to offer a comparative analysis of the mnemonic dynamics in new millennial Italy and Germany. This thesis looks at why the experience of revolutionary terrorism in the 1970s reappears at the turn of the new millennium in a cluster of fiction films, which innovate and sometimes challenge previous paradigms. It reads this revival in connection with industrial trends and historical events, such as the end of old ideologies, the early release of former terrorists and 9/11. The memory of left-wing terrorism has found new lifeblood in the new millennium because there are ample resonances with contemporary social issues, such as political activism and global fears of international terrorism. Focusing on eight case studies, I argue that the memory of left-wing terrorism unfolds beyond and across temporal and spatial boundaries, reactivated by present-day occurrences and through contacts with other traumatic memories. The notion of ‘interconnected memory’ is fundamentally conceived as a nexus of multiple meanings, the fruit of past recollections, and movements between different socio-historical dimensions and generational memories. Representational strategies and narrative trends are also explored to shed light on crossnational forms of memorialising political violence and its legacy. The first part analyses how postmillennial films deal with the possibility of forgiveness, here interpreted as an approach to normalise the past through narratives of pacification or exclusion. It highlights the figure of the teenager as a metaphor for the changing memory of terrorism, generational conflicts and the implications of 1970s violence for young generations. Moreover, it discusses the depiction of female terrorists and the containment strategies adopted to mitigate the anxiety for terrorist acts perpetrated by violent women. The second part of this thesis is concerned with the risks of forgetting and more precisely on an aesthetic normalisation of the terrorist discourse through popular genres and a more commercial style. It comments on the hyper-authenticity and retro aesthetics in biopics about notorious terrorist groups, and the spectacularisation of violence via the thriller and heritage film genre. It also investigates how contemporary comedies satirise the phenomenon of anarchist revolts and political kidnappings to reflect on present-day social problems.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2017
Education & TV. Histories of a Vision
The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television a... more The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television and education in its broadest sense, offering historical studies of television programming, national policies, audience attitudes and evolving socio-political contexts. It includes case studies of different broadcasters, specific educational programming initiatives, government or state education policy delivered through the television medium, the intersections between broadcast programmes and what is retained in television archives. They cover Turkey, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Finland and map the period from the 1960s to the present day. All of this material helps situate educational provision on television within broader histories of both television as a form and education as an overarching idea or objective.
ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron
New Perspectives on the War Film, 2019
Elena Caoduro discusses two films on the 1970s revolutionary terrorism in Japan and West Germany,... more Elena Caoduro discusses two films on the 1970s revolutionary terrorism in Japan and West Germany, Jitsuroku rengo sekin/ United Red Army (2007) and Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex/The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008). Caoduro argues these films host tensions as well as anxieties between nostalgia for the spirit of revolution of the past as well as anguish over history. Caoduro is interested in the portrayal of the female terrorist figure and finds that the women in these films challenge stereotypical understandings of the female as passive and prone to nurturing, even though these combatants are depicted as the worst kind of transgressor in a patriarchal structure. Caoduro concludes that the female violence that falls outside traditional social expectations within these films is domesticated.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2017
Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in... more Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in a variety of edited collections and journals including
Cinémas, 2021
This article aims to engage with the ways in which contemporary global cinema looks back at the I... more This article aims to engage with the ways in which contemporary global cinema looks back at the Italian giallo production of the 1970s through a series of remakes, homages and pastiches. What we define as retrogiallo differs from other examples of “retroexploitation,” where films such as Grindhouse (Rodriguez and Tarantino, 2007) and Hobo with a Shotgun (Eisener, 2011) address nostalgia for a specific kind of spectatorship, the grindhouse circuit, through conscious visual archaisms. Retrogialli present a more complex approach: instead of mimicking the imperfections of analogue indexicality, they fetishize the artisanal quality of filmmaking, displacing the stylistic features of the giallo in a highbrow context. Films such as Amer (Cattet and Forzani, 2009), The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (Cattet and Forzani, 2013) and Berberian Sound Studio (Strickland, 2012) ultimately present a new opportunity to address the critical understanding of the giallo.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2011
The bombings on March 11, 2004 in Madrid and on July 7, 2005 in London brought terror to the hear... more The bombings on March 11, 2004 in Madrid and on July 7, 2005 in London brought terror to the heart of Europe and amplified the feelings of fear, disbelief and suspicion developed as a consequence of 9/11 trauma. This article departs from Hollywood discourses on international terrorism to investigate how European cinema reflected upon these tragedies. Focusing on the films Fremder Freund (The Friend, Elmar Fischer, 2003)and London River (Rachid Bouchareb, 2009), it outlines the peculiarities of European cinema in dealing with international terrorism and thus analyses the representation of Islamic fundamentalism and more generally, Muslim communities. The films stimulate the public debate about contemporary society and the role of British and German institutions in developing “home-grown” terrorists. The article argues that these films avoid any explicit attempts of commemorating and memorialising these tragic events, but they contextualise the attacks engaging with issues of multicul...
Comunicacion Y Sociedad, 2017
This article examines the project ‘Women’s Tales’, an on-going series of short films that fashion... more This article examines the project ‘Women’s Tales’, an on-going series of short films that fashion designer Miuccia Prada commissioned from international female directors, among them Lucrecia Martel, Ava DuVernay and Agnes Varda. By situating this endeavour in relation to female agency, authorial expressivity, and consumerism, it is argued that the project conforms to postfeminist media culture for its celebration of feminine bonds, makeover strategies and the use of luxury as a tool for pleasure and empowerment. As a series of fashion films at the interstices of different systems – advertisement and art, film and online media, experimental and mainstream practices – ‘Women’s Tales’ occasionally contains critical potential, but it nevertheless struggles to challenge existing fashion paradigms. This article questions the postfeminist ethos that the project espouses, claiming that through its in-between, interstitial status, ‘Women’s Tales’ destabilise representational conventions with...
Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century, 2021
In her chapter Elena Caoduro explores far-right terrorism in Fatih Akin’s film, In the Fade (2017... more In her chapter Elena Caoduro explores far-right terrorism in Fatih Akin’s film, In the Fade (2017), focusing on the representation of a grieving mother and the blurring of the conventions of the action film and melodrama. Differently from other contemporary films about terrorism which take the perspective of the perpetrators, or those fighting terrorism, Akin shifts the attention to the victims and survivors of terrorist violence proposing a visceral portrayal of bereavement and revenge. Following the tripartite subdivision of the film in chapters, Caoduro argues that space (the domestic space, the institutional space of the courthouse, and the natural landscape of Greece) becomes a social environment where motherhood, grief and violence are intertwined because power and gender relations are often negotiated and embedded through setting.
Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in... more Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in a variety of edited collections and journals including
This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German fil... more This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German films from 2000 to 2010 drawing on postmodernism theory, film genre, memory studies and gender theory. It considers filmic texts and paratexts, historiography and political discourses to offer a comparative analysis of the mnemonic dynamics in new millennial Italy and Germany. This thesis looks at why the experience of revolutionary terrorism in the 1970s reappears at the turn of the new millennium in a cluster of fiction films, which innovate and sometimes challenge previous paradigms. It reads this revival in connection with industrial trends and historical events, such as the end of old ideologies, the early release of former terrorists and 9/11. The memory of left-wing terrorism has found new lifeblood in the new millennium because there are ample resonances with contemporary social issues, such as political activism and global fears of international terrorism. Focusing on eight case studies, I argue that the memory of left-wing terrorism unfolds beyond and across temporal and spatial boundaries, reactivated by present-day occurrences and through contacts with other traumatic memories. The notion of ‘interconnected memory’ is fundamentally conceived as a nexus of multiple meanings, the fruit of past recollections, and movements between different socio-historical dimensions and generational memories. Representational strategies and narrative trends are also explored to shed light on crossnational forms of memorialising political violence and its legacy. The first part analyses how postmillennial films deal with the possibility of forgiveness, here interpreted as an approach to normalise the past through narratives of pacification or exclusion. It highlights the figure of the teenager as a metaphor for the changing memory of terrorism, generational conflicts and the implications of 1970s violence for young generations. Moreover, it discusses the depiction of female terrorists and the containment strategies adopted to mitigate the anxiety for terrorist acts perpetrated by violent women. The second part of this thesis is concerned with the risks of forgetting and more precisely on an aesthetic normalisation of the terrorist discourse through popular genres and a more commercial style. It comments on the hyper-authenticity and retro aesthetics in biopics about notorious terrorist groups, and the spectacularisation of violence via the thriller and heritage film genre. It also investigates how contemporary comedies satirise the phenomenon of anarchist revolts and political kidnappings to reflect on present-day social problems.
View : Journal of European Television History and Culture, Aug 3, 2022
The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television a... more The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television and education in its broadest sense, offering historical studies of television programming, national policies, audience attitudes and evolving socio-political contexts. It includes case studies of different broadcasters, specific educational programming initiatives, government or state education policy delivered through the television medium, the intersections between broadcast programmes and what is retained in television archives. They cover Turkey, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Finland and map the period from the 1960s to the present day. All of this material helps situate educational provision on television within broader histories of both television as a form and education as an overarching idea or objective.
Springer eBooks, 2021
Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century presents provocative analysis of the way terrorism influen... more Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century presents provocative analysis of the way terrorism influences our lives through its depictions in popular culture. Terrorism has become a nearly ubiquitous presence in the way we live our lives."-Philip Seib, University of Southern California, USA Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century offers new interpretations of figures emerging from representations of terrorism and counterterrorism: the male hero, female agent, religious leader, victim/perpetrator, and survivor. This collection of essays by a broad array of international scholars reflects the altered image-making processes that have developed from George W. Bush's "war on terror." Building on current literature on media and terrorism, this volume analyzes the most recent technological developments that have impacted the way we experience terrorism: online videos, social media, cartoons, media feeds, and drones. The authors address different time periods, different terrorist groups, and explore the way filmmakers and television producers from the USA, Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East are documenting modern wars in popular culture.
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2023
This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German fil... more This thesis examines the representation of left-wing political violence in Italian and German films from 2000 to 2010 drawing on postmodernism theory, film genre, memory studies and gender theory. It considers filmic texts and paratexts, historiography and political discourses to offer a comparative analysis of the mnemonic dynamics in new millennial Italy and Germany. This thesis looks at why the experience of revolutionary terrorism in the 1970s reappears at the turn of the new millennium in a cluster of fiction films, which innovate and sometimes challenge previous paradigms. It reads this revival in connection with industrial trends and historical events, such as the end of old ideologies, the early release of former terrorists and 9/11. The memory of left-wing terrorism has found new lifeblood in the new millennium because there are ample resonances with contemporary social issues, such as political activism and global fears of international terrorism. Focusing on eight case studies, I argue that the memory of left-wing terrorism unfolds beyond and across temporal and spatial boundaries, reactivated by present-day occurrences and through contacts with other traumatic memories. The notion of ‘interconnected memory’ is fundamentally conceived as a nexus of multiple meanings, the fruit of past recollections, and movements between different socio-historical dimensions and generational memories. Representational strategies and narrative trends are also explored to shed light on crossnational forms of memorialising political violence and its legacy. The first part analyses how postmillennial films deal with the possibility of forgiveness, here interpreted as an approach to normalise the past through narratives of pacification or exclusion. It highlights the figure of the teenager as a metaphor for the changing memory of terrorism, generational conflicts and the implications of 1970s violence for young generations. Moreover, it discusses the depiction of female terrorists and the containment strategies adopted to mitigate the anxiety for terrorist acts perpetrated by violent women. The second part of this thesis is concerned with the risks of forgetting and more precisely on an aesthetic normalisation of the terrorist discourse through popular genres and a more commercial style. It comments on the hyper-authenticity and retro aesthetics in biopics about notorious terrorist groups, and the spectacularisation of violence via the thriller and heritage film genre. It also investigates how contemporary comedies satirise the phenomenon of anarchist revolts and political kidnappings to reflect on present-day social problems.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2017
Education & TV. Histories of a Vision
The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television a... more The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television and education in its broadest sense, offering historical studies of television programming, national policies, audience attitudes and evolving socio-political contexts. It includes case studies of different broadcasters, specific educational programming initiatives, government or state education policy delivered through the television medium, the intersections between broadcast programmes and what is retained in television archives. They cover Turkey, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Finland and map the period from the 1960s to the present day. All of this material helps situate educational provision on television within broader histories of both television as a form and education as an overarching idea or objective.
ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron
New Perspectives on the War Film, 2019
Elena Caoduro discusses two films on the 1970s revolutionary terrorism in Japan and West Germany,... more Elena Caoduro discusses two films on the 1970s revolutionary terrorism in Japan and West Germany, Jitsuroku rengo sekin/ United Red Army (2007) and Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex/The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008). Caoduro argues these films host tensions as well as anxieties between nostalgia for the spirit of revolution of the past as well as anguish over history. Caoduro is interested in the portrayal of the female terrorist figure and finds that the women in these films challenge stereotypical understandings of the female as passive and prone to nurturing, even though these combatants are depicted as the worst kind of transgressor in a patriarchal structure. Caoduro concludes that the female violence that falls outside traditional social expectations within these films is domesticated.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2017
Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in... more Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in a variety of edited collections and journals including
Cinémas, 2021
This article aims to engage with the ways in which contemporary global cinema looks back at the I... more This article aims to engage with the ways in which contemporary global cinema looks back at the Italian giallo production of the 1970s through a series of remakes, homages and pastiches. What we define as retrogiallo differs from other examples of “retroexploitation,” where films such as Grindhouse (Rodriguez and Tarantino, 2007) and Hobo with a Shotgun (Eisener, 2011) address nostalgia for a specific kind of spectatorship, the grindhouse circuit, through conscious visual archaisms. Retrogialli present a more complex approach: instead of mimicking the imperfections of analogue indexicality, they fetishize the artisanal quality of filmmaking, displacing the stylistic features of the giallo in a highbrow context. Films such as Amer (Cattet and Forzani, 2009), The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (Cattet and Forzani, 2013) and Berberian Sound Studio (Strickland, 2012) ultimately present a new opportunity to address the critical understanding of the giallo.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2011
The bombings on March 11, 2004 in Madrid and on July 7, 2005 in London brought terror to the hear... more The bombings on March 11, 2004 in Madrid and on July 7, 2005 in London brought terror to the heart of Europe and amplified the feelings of fear, disbelief and suspicion developed as a consequence of 9/11 trauma. This article departs from Hollywood discourses on international terrorism to investigate how European cinema reflected upon these tragedies. Focusing on the films Fremder Freund (The Friend, Elmar Fischer, 2003)and London River (Rachid Bouchareb, 2009), it outlines the peculiarities of European cinema in dealing with international terrorism and thus analyses the representation of Islamic fundamentalism and more generally, Muslim communities. The films stimulate the public debate about contemporary society and the role of British and German institutions in developing “home-grown” terrorists. The article argues that these films avoid any explicit attempts of commemorating and memorialising these tragic events, but they contextualise the attacks engaging with issues of multicul...
Comunicacion Y Sociedad, 2017
This article examines the project ‘Women’s Tales’, an on-going series of short films that fashion... more This article examines the project ‘Women’s Tales’, an on-going series of short films that fashion designer Miuccia Prada commissioned from international female directors, among them Lucrecia Martel, Ava DuVernay and Agnes Varda. By situating this endeavour in relation to female agency, authorial expressivity, and consumerism, it is argued that the project conforms to postfeminist media culture for its celebration of feminine bonds, makeover strategies and the use of luxury as a tool for pleasure and empowerment. As a series of fashion films at the interstices of different systems – advertisement and art, film and online media, experimental and mainstream practices – ‘Women’s Tales’ occasionally contains critical potential, but it nevertheless struggles to challenge existing fashion paradigms. This article questions the postfeminist ethos that the project espouses, claiming that through its in-between, interstitial status, ‘Women’s Tales’ destabilise representational conventions with...
Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century, 2021
In her chapter Elena Caoduro explores far-right terrorism in Fatih Akin’s film, In the Fade (2017... more In her chapter Elena Caoduro explores far-right terrorism in Fatih Akin’s film, In the Fade (2017), focusing on the representation of a grieving mother and the blurring of the conventions of the action film and melodrama. Differently from other contemporary films about terrorism which take the perspective of the perpetrators, or those fighting terrorism, Akin shifts the attention to the victims and survivors of terrorist violence proposing a visceral portrayal of bereavement and revenge. Following the tripartite subdivision of the film in chapters, Caoduro argues that space (the domestic space, the institutional space of the courthouse, and the natural landscape of Greece) becomes a social environment where motherhood, grief and violence are intertwined because power and gender relations are often negotiated and embedded through setting.
Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in... more Belfast. His work on European cinema, material culture, and film industries has been published in a variety of edited collections and journals including