American Cinema Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

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- Film Studies, Film Theory, Film Genre, American Cinema

Perhaps it is telling that on the day that Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle, 2015) was released in the UK, so too was Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015), which tells the story of transgender sex workers in Los Angeles. For, if the former film charts the rise to success of the entrepreneur behind various of the Apple products that now flood the world market, the latter film was made using one of Jobs’ best known products, the iPhone.

- by William Brown
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- Film Studies, Film Theory, Digital Cinema, American Cinema

Through the nightclub sequence, we analyze how, during ten minutes, the building of suspense is made, which never falls and does not lose its intensity at any time, particularly thanks to a very specific type of editing. Also, this suspense is a tool to convey a discourse on society as well as on technology, through the example of the Terminator.

- by Keyvan Sheikhalishahi
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- Film Studies, Narrative, Film Analysis, Narrative Psychology

This essay examines a particular class of ghost movies: those where the ghost is ultimately refused and relegated to the realm of human imagination and trickery. It focuses on the case of Paul Leni’s 1927 The Cat and the Canary, to show how this film remediates a long tradition of spectacular entertainments based on the rejection of supernaturalism, and how such rejection has important consequences in the narrative frame and in the nature of the gratification invited in their audience. The chapter applies the concept the “spectralization of the mind,” proposed by literature scholar Terry Castle, in order to explain the narrative and conceptual role played by ghosts in this film. Particular attention is also given to the use of superimposition techniques and to the interpretation of noise as a sign of ghostly presence.

- by Simone Natale
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- Silent Film, Ghosts, Cultural History Of Ghosts, Early Cinema

In a passing remark, Slavoj Žižek positions Ernst Lubitsch alongside Hitchcock; he thus defines Lubitsch against psychoanalysis too. Departing from a joke in Ninotchka crucial to Žižek, I propose a discussion of Ninotchka where it occasions a coming together of psychoanalysis and politics, as well as a critique of Žižek’s position. Further, I argue that this is where a comprehensive study of Lubitsch’s cinema finds its rationale, not least because the visuals of Ninotchka are symptomatic of Lubitsch’s own focus on psychoanalysis, in That Uncertain Feeling. Finally, it is at this juncture that Lubitsch calls for a reassessment of psychoanalysis in terms of a peculiar economy, also for a reassessment of the critical models where film is a scene of the coming together of politics, psychoanalysis and philosophy (in Gilles Deleuze or Stanley Cavell). // U jednome usputnom komentaru Slavoj Žižek stavlja Ernsta Lubitscha uz bok Hitchcocku; budući da Hitchcock kod Žižeka dolazi u paru s Lacanom, time Lubitscha pozicionira i za psihoanalizu. Polazeći od vica iz Ninotchke koji Žižek visoko vrednuje, predlažem analizu toga Lubitcheva filma na mjestu gdje on računa na međusobno uvjetovanje političkih i psihoanalitičkih interesa; tu se ujedno nazire i moguća kritika Žižekovih pozicija. Nadalje, tu se nazire i okvir za obuhvatniju raspravu o Lubitschevoj kinematografiji, jer Ninotchka anticipira specifičan kritički režim koji će Lubitsch poslije izrijekom namijeniti psihoanalizi (u Tome neizvjesnom osjećaju). Ako Lubitsch tako provocira na preispitivanje psihoanalize, to je ujedno poziv na intervenciju u različite modele koji kroz film pristupaju konfiguracijama psihoanalize, politike i filozofije (Gilles Deleuze, Stanley Cavell).

- by Tatjana Jukić
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- Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis, Film Studies, Slavoj Žižek

Il paper discute, dopo una contestualizzazione della Nuova Hollywood, la questione del gender all'interno del testo filmico Bonnie and Clyde (1967) di Arthur Penn, mettendo in luce come suddetta questione sia centrale nella decostruzione... more

- by Stefano Tropiano
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- American Cinema, Cinema, New Hollywood Cinema, Bonnie and Clyde
- by Terrance H. McDonald
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- Film Genre, Film History, American Cinema, Classical Hollywood

The definitive guide to the films of the legendary director, screenwriter, and producer. Looking for a comprehensive chronicle of the films of legendary director, screenwriter, and producer John Hughes? Covering the entirety of Hughes's career, from his earliest features through to his mainstream box-office successes, John Hughes FAQ explores the key factors that contributed to his legendary status in the world of cinema. While Hughes has become especially well known for the eight films that he directed between 1984 and 1991-including Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)-he made a considerably greater contribution to cinema through the dozens of high-profile screenplays that he developed for production throughout the '80s and '90s. John Hughes FAQ investigates many different aspects of Hughes's prolific career in film-discussing his distinctive flair for creating entertaining and engaging characters, his enthusiasm for new technology and eventful road trips, and his insightful social commentary on class and culture. Considering the entire sweep of Hughes's work behind the camera, John Hughes FAQ focuses not only on the popular classics of his filmography but also on many of his movies that have achieved a certain cultural prominence over the passing years.

- by Thomas A Christie
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- Film Studies, Popular Culture, Film Analysis, Film History
- by Henry K Miller
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- Film Studies, Film Analysis, American Cinema, Cinema
- by Deirdre Barrett
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- History, Neuroscience, Media Sociology, Psychology

"In the following article, some films produced with the support of Bord Scannán na hÉireann (The Irish Film Board) since its reconstitution in 1993 are examined in light of the work of global anthropologist Arjun Appadurai and his theory of global cultural flows. The article suggests that cinema, primarily of Hollywood origin, has had a notable influence on the development of Irish society and Irish film. Contemporary Irish film itself also reflects the failure of Irish history to excite the imagination of Ireland's youth as effectively as the seductive depictions of America's past as mediated through the Western and gangster films. Indeed, films made in Ireland today reflect the influence of both these genres. However, as the key to the Hollywood continuity style of film-making is its own self-effacement, this has sometimes been reflected in the effacement of people, politics and place in contemporary Irish film as film-makers endeavor to attract a global audience for their work. Films considered include The Boy From Mercury (Martin Duffy, 1996), Nora (Pat Murphy, 1999), Circle of Friends (Pat O'Connor, 1993), Dancing at Lughnasa (Pat O'Connor, 1998), Saltwater (Conor McPherson, 1999), Ailsa (Paddy Breathnach, 1993), I Went Down (Paddy Breathnach, 1997), The Disappearance of Finbar (Sue Clayton, 1994/95), When Brendan Met Trudy (Kieron Walsh, 2000), High Boot Benny (Joe Comerford, 1993), Broken Harvest (Maurice O’Callaghan, 1993), The Boxer (Jim Sheridan, 1998), Some Mother’s Son (Terry George, 1996), Nothing Personal (Thaddeus
O’Sullivan, 1994/95), and Sweety Barrett (Stephen Bradley, 1998)."

- by Seán Crosson
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- Cultural Studies, Irish Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Globalization

The documentary sports film has evolved considerably since it first appeared in the 1930s. As was a feature of early documentary in the 1920s and 1930s, its first manifestations adopted a poetic approach to the subject, revelling in the possibilities that sport offered to exploit the growing range of capabilities of film in both cinematography and editing. Eventually an expository approach would come to dominate under the influence of the British school of documentary but also as the preferred televisual mode for documentary film, and it is in this mode that most television sport documentaries currently employ. In response to perceived weaknesses of the expository mode, and the advent of new technologies in the 1960s, filmmakers exploited an increasingly observational mode in their depictions, and this would also feature to a limited degree in depictions of sport. Directors of sport films have tended to prefer a participative (or interactive) mode in their approaches to the topic, exemplified in the use of the interview method as a means of exploring the subjects considered. However, increasingly, as with documentary films in general, the cinematic sport documentary employs aspects of several modes, particularly the participatory and expositional. While initially priding itself on its distinctness as a form that captured with integrity aspects of social reality, the documentary film has more and more in its cinematic form come to adopt aesthetics associated with popular fiction film. Though documentary has long being viewed as the form best placed to provide complex engagements and understandings of the social and political contexts of the subjects featured, this is increasingly no longer the case in its contemporary cinematic manifestations. Rather, the focus has moved to exploiting the dramatic possibilities of found footage or renderings of social reality rather than providing a means of understanding or engaging critically with such footage. The cinematic sport documentary film has instead focused, as in fiction film, on individualist tales of overcoming and achievement often configured within the familiar three-act-structure of popular cinema. As such, in the post 9/11 moment, the cinematic sport documentary film has provided, in common with its fictional counterpart, a further affirmation of the American Dream ideology in individualist tales of overcoming and achievement often against the most extraordinary odds.

- by Seán Crosson
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- Film Studies, European Cinema, Film Analysis, Documentary (Film Studies)

At a time when debates about social inequality are in the spotlight, it is worth examining how the two most popular media of the 20th and 21st centuries—film and television—have shaped the representation of social classes. How do generic conventions determine the representation of social stereotypes? How do filmmakers challenge social class identification? How do factors such as national history, geography and gender affect the representation of social classes? This collection of new essays explores these and other questions through an analysis of a wide range of American and British productions—from sitcoms and reality TV to documentaries and auteur cinema—from the 1950s to the present.

- by Nicole Cloarec and +2
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- Gender Studies, Film Studies, Stereotypes, American Cinema
- by Gary Bettinson
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- Film Theory, Film Analysis, Film Adaptation, American Cinema

accesible: https://ojs.bibl.u-szeged.hu/index.php/americanaejournal/article/view/45415
published in: Americana. E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary. Vol. 14. No. 2. 2018.
Cultural policy, including film policy, has played a crucial role in strengthening a country's domestic and foreign policy. The United States of America's attitude towards Latin America has been changed several times throughout the 20th century, depending on the current international situation. The aim of my article is to present the cinematographic aspects of this policy in the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s, within the framework of the Good Neighbor Policy, formulated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this mission special offices, departments and directors had a key role, with the support of several famous filmmakers.

- by András Lénárt
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- Latin American History, American Cinema, Latin American Cinema

This article provides a stylistic examination of Sidney Lumet's thriller Deathtrap (1982), analyzing how its strategies of staging and performance generate narrational effects of suspense and surprise. It argues that Lumet anchors these performative strategies to a broad authorial program grounded in expressive subtlety; as such, Lumet's film reminds us of a waning tradition of US filmmaking in which stylistic ingenuity resides at the denotative and expressive (rather than the decorative or parametric) levels of stylistic discourse. The article treats Lumet's stylistic choices as creative solutions to a distinctive set of aesthetic problems. It canvasses-and identifies the functions of-the motivic staging schemas patterned throughout Deathtrap; and it illuminates how these schemas, actuated by star players, shape the viewer's cognitive uptake in substantive ways.

- by Gary Bettinson
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- Theatre Studies, Directing, Cognitive Narratology, Narratology
- by Omar Siddiqui
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- Film Studies, Film Analysis, Silent Film, Film History
- by deborah shaw
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- Latin-American Film, Spanish Cinema, American Cinema, Transnational Cinema

After World War Two, in a world disrupted by conflict and its dire consequences on the social and economic fabric, the road became expression of an entire generation, presenting itself as the promise of endless possibilities offered by a newfound freedom. In both Italian and American culture the road represents an ambivalent symbol of both perdition and self-recognition, one that goes beyond the dimensions of time and space: it is a place for research, but also a metaphor, a unique chronotope where time and space tend to disappear. My paper analyzes the road as a myth, born in the American literature during the great Depression as a possibility of escape from poverty (Steinbeck) and then developed in a literary genre by the novelist Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), who portrayed the road as an image of anti-conformism and rebellion. I also analyze the influence American literature exerted on the Italian writer Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), in particular on his novel La luna e i Falò (1950), as well as other protagonists of the Italian literature and film.
The American road genre portrays an existential search of solitary characters, as they seek to cross an imaginary frontier. This idea was re-elaborated by Italian filmmakers Luchino Visconti in his pre-neorealist film Ossessione (1943), then Federico Fellini in La strada (1954), and by Dino Risi in Il sorpasso (1960), glamorous yet problematic commentary on the Italian economic boom of the 1950s. In these works, the road is treated as a place out of time and space, where damaged characters seek themselves and get lost, or found themselves when wandering aimlessly. My analysis confirms the road as a central focus of the Twentieth Century artistic imagination, both in Italy and in the United States. In the examples I provide in my research, the road becomes a mythical symbol for any human --physical or spiritual, yet individual pursuit, that goes beyond time and space, in a dimension that is always present, when in search of crossing an imaginary frontier.

- by Laura Gagliardi
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- Literature and cinema, Italian Cinema, American Cinema
- by Martin Fradley
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- Film Studies, Critical Race Studies, Critical Race Theory, Race and Ethnicity

Program note for 2014 Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

- by James Layton
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- Silent Film, Film History, American Cinema, Cinematography
- by Delphine Letort
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- Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Film Studies, Celebrity Culture
- by Martin Fradley
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- Film Studies, Video Games, Media Industries, Neoliberalism

The chapter focuses on the ways in which Hollywood films have represented the material and emotional dimensions of nuclear risk and on how these representations engage viewers. James Bridges’s The China Syndrome and Mike Nichols’s Silkwood both frame their representation of risk as suspense-driven political thrillers and in both cases the fictional drama is heightened by the films’ relationships to real-world risks and events. While the invisibility of radiation raises representational problems, both films use their viewers’ preexisting risk perceptions to engage them in plotlines that are driven by the anticipation of catastrophes rather than by the catastrophes themselves. By telling melodramatic stories about courageous individuals who struggle to uncover the truth about nuclear risk, argues Weik von Mossner, the films not only illustrate Ulrich Beck’s claim that the determination of risk is a form of ethics; they also demonstrate that emotional processes such as fear are vital components of ethical decision making in the face of unpredictable material agencies and the environmental risks they pose.

- by Alexa Weik von Mossner
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- American History, Cultural Studies, Emotion, American Studies

An examination of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and Rear Window.

- by Milo Flahavan
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- Film Studies, American Cinema, Classical Hollywood, Alfred Hitchcock
- by Veronica Pravadelli
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- American Cinema, American independent cinema, Women's cinema, Film Festivals
- by Davide Magnisi
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- Film Studies, American Cinema, Cinema, Stanley Kubrick
- by Arianna Salatino
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- American Cinema
- by martina martausova
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- Disability Studies, American Cinema, Film Production
- by Kirill Yudin
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- Intellectual History, French Cinema, Cold War, American Cinema
- by C.M. Griffiths
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- British Literature, Gender Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Horror Film

The American wilderness has been loaded with an ambivalent religious symbolism since the first puritan settlers. In the Xixth century, the idea of an Alliance between God and men in the wilderness of the New World was translated into a nationalist discourse of territorial expansion. Until the 1960s, Western films supported this imperialistic Protestantism. But the Vietnam War both discredited America’s godly mission in the world and the ability of its heroes to hear God’s voice in the wilderness. This paper focuses on the reactions of American cinema to this crisis of faith. It first analyzes the transcendentalist temptation of road movies after Easy Rider, films trying to revive the lost connection to America’s original and sacred land, before moving to mapping the shift of the Western genre from a Protestant to an Indian sacred wilderness after Little Big Man. The post-Vietnam American wilderness is an indigenous God and modern Frontier characters need to share in Indian spirituality if they want to achieve both American and heroic status.

- by Hervé Mayer
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- Native American Studies, Religion and Politics, Cowboys, Westerns

Si el cine clásico se ocupó y se ocupa de contar grandes historias, las hazañas de los pueblos reales o ficticios ?el cine épico y el fantasy?, los grandes logros de los individuos ?el cine de acción? y las grandes pasiones de los sujetos privados ?el melodrama?, las películas de Andrew Bujalski parecen concentrarse en los pequeños dramas de la vida diaria. El foco de sus historias se ubica en los pequeños conflictos amorosos o laborales de personajes sin atributos extraordinarios, en su transición a la adultez. Este interés por los conflictos menores puede vincularse con un rasgo característico de los comienzos del cine moderno: gran parte de los personajes de las tres primeras películas de Bujalski ?Funny Ha Ha (2002), Mutual appreciation (2005) y Beeswax (2009)? tienen un comportamiento más bien problemático dentro del ámbito de la acción. Si el cowboy es el personaje que por antonomasia representa la eficacia en la articulación entre la percepción ?el ojo? y la acción ?el revólver, que es casi una continuación de la mano?, y es en este sentido el epítome del cine clásico, los personajes de Bujalski presentan dificultades tanto en el ámbito de la acción como en el de la percepción. Y sus películas son, en este sentido, una puesta en escena de esas dificultades. En ellas se exploran los problemas y los dramas cotidianos de chicos universitarios blancos de clase media, algunos de cuyos miembros han aprendido a hacer de las propias dificultades en el ámbito de la interacción social algún tipo de virtud ?tal como sucede también, por ejemplo, en las películas de Woody Allen?. Pero a diferencia del regodeo celebratorio en la narración de esas dificultades ?propio de las películas de Allen?, en el cine de Bujalski ese regodeo puede ser propio de los personajes, pero no es compartido por la perspectiva del film. Concentradas en gestos, pronunciaciones, tics, miradas y expresiones, en frases a medio formar, en pequeñas complicaciones que el cine ha tendido a despreciar y que solamente el insider suele registrar, las películas de Bujalski se definen por la conjunción entre un realismo minucioso y una fuerte autoconciencia de las peculiaridades del grupo de pertenencia. A diferencia del viejo realismo orientado al tratamiento de problemas sociales (desde el neorrealismo italiano hasta el cine de los hermanos Dardenne ?pasando por una importante cantidad de películas del Nuevo Cine Argentino?), la estética despojada de la veracidad suele ir acompañada de un regusto de denuncia. Este realismo nuevo reconstruye, en cambio, un mundo muy similar al de quienes se encuentran detrás de las cámaras. Si es un cine de observación, el objeto no es el otro (social o cultural), sino los propios sujetos que crean estas películas. Y en las películas de Bujalski ?a diferencia de lo que sucede con otros directores del mumblecore?, esto no debe identificarse rápidamente como un narcisismo snob: examinar críticamente el propio medio tiene algo de humildad, que suele estar ausente en el cine de pobres filmado por ricos. Es precisamente por ello que la cámara puede volverse un microscopio sin invadir ni ofender. Los simulados fragmentos de vida que aparecen en estos films pueden parecer faltos de brillo al espectador acostumbrado a las imágenes del cine, la televisión o internet. Pero en comparación con el cine de Bujalski, casi todo el cine independiente norteamericano precedente parece afectado, artificioso y sensacionalista. Sin historias ni personajes extraordinarios, con un meticuloso trabajo sobre la autoconciencia del propio grupo, Bujalski aborda con máxima seriedad los problemas ordinarios y cotidianos de los personajes / protagonistas de sus films. Y gran parte del encanto de estas películas proviene de la honestidad y la seriedad investigativa de este abordaje de lo real.

- by Román Setton and +1
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- Contemporary Art, American Cinema, Contemporary American Cinema, Art and Independent Cinema
- by Amandine Bourse
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- Sexuality, Gender Equality, American Cinema, Feminist film theory

¿Qué es un film? Sino un documento animado… un guion, un formato de una obra o una película; una forma escrita que luego ejecuta una acción en el presente, para perpetuar imagines en el futuro digitalizado o simplemente el pasado repetido en el futuro cuantas veces queramos. O no somos capaces los profesores y/o maestros de la historiografía o historia descifrar este acertijo antropológico; sin entrar en restricciones y reglas anal-retentivas de lo que debe ser una reseña historiográfica, perdiendo por completo de perspectiva la utilidad educativa de un documental o film que no necesita complementación bibliográfica. Es esta mecanización de la historia la que queremos ofrecer a nuestros estudiantes o alumnos. Que formas recalcitrantes y de educación bancaria promovemos como educadores al reseñar o criticar documentales o películas con formatos pre hechos y/o predeterminados.

- by Ricardo J Blanco, Ph D
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- European Cinema, Literature and cinema, Historiography, Digital Cinema
- by Danielle Rico
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- Moral Psychology, American Cinema, Moral Philosophy, British Cinema (Film Studies)
- by Pablo Echart
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- American Cinema, American independent cinema, Alexander Payne

Only jokes that have a purpose run the risk of meeting with people who do not want to listen to them.-Sigmund Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the U~zconscious (London, lW), p. 90. Chaplin's comedy was unique. His wide-ranging jabs at institutions and authority as well as his propensity for crude, even dirty jokes were allowed no other comedian of his time. His humor was so effective that it vanquished its opposition. When audiences were under the spell of his comedy, almost anything became permissible. And yet this shattering of respect was not without risks, particularly once Chaplin's humor waned-as it did later in his career. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as Chaplin came under attack for his politics as well as his personal life, sympathetic American critics tried to rescue his reputation and his films. After briefly surveying the already substantial writings on Chaplin, Theodore Huff concluded that the screen character he created was a little man buffeted by life. The comedian "worked out a common denominator of fun and feeling that accords with something in every age, class, and race of people the world over. Chaplin is universal and timeless." This strain of criticism was prominently and adeptly amplified, though in a more ironic mode, by Walter Kerr. For him, The secret of Chaplin as a character is that he can be anyone. That is hi pmblem. The secret is a devastating one. For the man who can, w i t h a flick of a finger or the blink of an eyelash, instantly transform himself into absolutely anyone is a man w h o must, i n his heart, remain no one2 These efforts to defend Chaplin's integrity as an artist severed him not only from the very social, economic and cultural context in which he worked, but also from the context in which his films were initially seen. While intended as a defense, or at least a sympathetic reading of Chaplin's comedies, these writings might more aptly be seen as efforts to bowdlerize them, to make his humor safe for that universal audience. In contrast, this article seeks to resituate RADICAL HISTORY REVIEW 41 1988

- by Charles Musser
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- American Cinema, Silent Cinema, Charles Chaplin, Comedy Films
- by Zeynep Gönen
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- Feminism, Neoliberalism, American Cinema, Movies Review