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There were periods when, in film schools and among film devotees, this book was cast aside as hopelessly outstripped by the progress of film art. If this is no longer the case, it is because the book has changed its character. Its relation to the films of the twenties, from which it took most of its examples, was that of a handbook of physiology to an actual human body moving in the light of day. At the same time, however, it was also a survey of these early productions, of their experimentation in the medium of silent imagery. This, of course, cannot be the book's relation to the films that were made after its publication during the subsequent fifty years. What, then, justifies its persistent presence?
Journal of African Theatre, Film and Media Discourse, 2020
Films are important sites to access materials about a community's history and heritage. This paper, from an Afrocentric point of view and guided by post-colonial literary criticism, interrogates the two films; Nairobi Half Life and The Kitchen Toto with a view to establish the extent to which filmic representations can reflect the society. It looks at how the forces that were /are present in colonial and post-colonial Kenya have been developed in the two films. The paper, specifically looks at the issues of governance and identity in the Kenyan society and focuses on how the forces present in the colonial and post-colonial Kenyan government divided people in terms of 'us' and the 'other' (colonizer-colonized in The Kitchen Toto and haves and have-nots in Nairobi Half Life) with the process of 'othering' resulting into alienation and loss of identity. It traces the protagonists' conscious struggle and move to relocate themselves from the strictures and imprisoning experiences of 'othering', appraising the protagonist's denial of this alienation in his acceptance of homecoming. Thus the issue the study tackles is that of Kenyans loss, the subsequent alienation from their culture and their own selves and the struggle to reclaim these selves once the realization of that loss is made. The paper lays bare social issues such as how socioeconomic issues can contribute to one becoming a criminal; in Nairobi Half Life, and how a specific class/group of people in the society can be 'criminalized' in The Kitchen Toto. The conclusion reveals that the protagonists find their identity and fulfilment in the totality of their religions, culture ancestral heritage and a sense of belonging. The paper is based on the argument that films mirror the society.
Necsus #Futures, 2021
Film scholars in the new millennium have to live with an existential dilemma. Their very raison d’être, i.e. ‘film’, has become a chaotic constellation of audiovisual artefacts, mostly in digital form, bearing little or no relation to the endearing perforated film strip that continues to illustrate so many of our activities. Whether as synonymous to ‘film’ or as the name of film theatres, ‘cinema’ is equally undergoing an identity crisis in an environment dominated by giant Video-on-Demand (VoD) streamers, cashing in on the easy pleasure of home-viewing, which in pandemic times has become impossible to resist. For decades now we have been juggling with alternative appellations to account for the elusive object we study and teach, two of our favourites being ‘screen’ and ‘lens-based’ media. However, modes of audiovisual production and exhibition have evolved beyond these descriptors, some of them dispensing with lenses for their creation (as in CGI, or Computer-Generated Imagery) or the traditional screen for their fruition (as in VR or Virtual Reality productions). Even the adjective ‘audiovisual’ reveals its limits, when it comes to works addressing our haptic and olfactory senses, as well as our vision and hearing, examples including AR (Augmented Reality) and expanded-cinema experiments.
Cantoni, Lorenzo & James A. Danowski (eds.), Communication and Technology (Handbooks of Communication Science, vol. 5), Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2015
The relationship between cinema and technology has been present since the very inception of motion pictures, looking to offer a more immersive and believable experience. This chapter presents a comprehensive compilation of key scholarly literature – mainly in the English language – while identifying some of the theoretical issues, emerging concepts, current and further research, as well as lists of references with regard to this topic. In order to accomplish this task, it is divided into three main sections. The first one focuses on the relationship between the arts and technology, and specifically between cinema and the arts, and between cinema and technology. The middle section draws a brief historical sum- mary on the technological development of the (audio)visual media, moving from the primitive canvas to the first photographic plates and from the birth of cinema to the digital image. Finally, the third part is a synthesis of some of the most relevant theoretical and critical issues regarding the imbrication of art, technology and cinema, all of it in the words of well-known experts and scholars. An epilogue with some final thoughts closes this chapter
There were periods when, in film schools and among film devotees, this book was cast aside as hopelessly outstripped by the progress of film art. If this is no longer the case, it is because the book has changed its character. Its relation to the films of the twenties, from which it took most of its examples, was that of a handbook of physiology to an actual human body moving in the light of day. At the same time, however, it was also a survey of these early productions, of their experimentation in the medium of silent imagery. This, of course, cannot be the book's relation to the films that were made after its publication during the subsequent fifty years. What, then, justifies its persistent presence?
Between Canvas and Celluloid: Painted Films and Filmed Paintings
Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ), 3.2, 2015
This article investigates how artists’ attempts to inject a time element to painting through cinematic means expanded the aesthetic and affective possibilities of both mediums. These approaches include ‘painted films’ wherein the artist applies paint directly onto the celluloid in an exploration of an alternative material support for painting, as well as ‘filmed paintings’, films that display the act of a painting being made. The article surveys the historical development of these intermedial concepts and methods before offering close readings of films by José Antonio Sistiaga, Francis Lee, David Haxton, in order to demonstrate how these works simultaneously complicate the notion of medium specific- ity as they present new modes of, and encounters with, painting.