This research aims to address the relationship between cinema and political thought in Latin America, in order to question a limited understanding of cinema politics, which has dominated the field... Show moreThis research aims to address the relationship between cinema and political thought in Latin America, in order to question a limited understanding of cinema politics, which has dominated the field of study since the middle of the last century, and to propose a different one that we will call politics of anonymity in Latin American cinema. With the production of this concept, we will seek to take charge of this "extensive and amorphous matter" of Latin American cinema, to demonstrate the existence of a radical cinema politics right there where it has been denied, both by conventional film studies and by the political theories of Latin American militant filmmakers. Show less
This article analyses how innovative narrative techniques operate in the movie 74 (The Reconstitution of a Struggle) by Rania and Raed Rafei (2012). The film is a reenactment of an historical event... Show moreThis article analyses how innovative narrative techniques operate in the movie 74 (The Reconstitution of a Struggle) by Rania and Raed Rafei (2012). The film is a reenactment of an historical event: the student occupation of the American University of Beirut one year before the start of the Lebanese civil war. The use of improvised reenactment, testimonials and the voiceover all strengthen the film’s approach to the event as an embodied transformative experience, even as it descends into its defeat. While a cynical spectator might argue that the focus on “revolutionary becoming” reduces collective action to individual experience, the article argues that it is precisely this affective and embodied approach that allows the film to resonate with other times and places and to evoke a speculative state of agitation beyond closed narratives of defeat.Cet article analyse les techniques narratives innovatrices utilisées dans le film «74 (La reconstitution d’une lutte)» de Rania et Raed Rafei (2012). Le film présente, comme son nom l’indique, une reconstitution d’un événement historique: l’occupation de l’Université Américaine à Beyrouth, par le mouvement étudiant, un an avant le début de la guerre civile libanaise. L’utilisation de reconstitutions improvisées, de témoignages offerts face à la camera, et de voice-over, renforcent la démarche du film envers l’événement en tant qu’expérience incarnée transformatrice, même lorsqu’il dégénère vers sa défaite. S’il est vrai qu’un spectateur cynique pourrait soutenir que « le devenir révolutionnaire » réduit la lutte collective à l’expérience individuelle, cet article soutient que c’est précisément cette approche affective et incarnée qui permet au film de résonner en d’autres temps et lieux, ainsi que d’évoquer un état d’agitation spéculatif au-delà des récits cloisonnés de la défaite. Show less
Fernand Deligny (1913-1996), ‘poet and ethologist’, is mostly known for his work with autistic children and for his influence on the revolutions in French post-war psychiatry. Though neither... Show moreFernand Deligny (1913-1996), ‘poet and ethologist’, is mostly known for his work with autistic children and for his influence on the revolutions in French post-war psychiatry. Though neither director nor a theorist of the image, cinema is constantly called into his social, pedagogical, and clinical experimentations. More interested in the processes of making, he distinguishes ‘camering’ from filming, thus emphasizing not the finished film but a ‘film to come’. This volume provides Deligny’s essential corpus on cinema and the image. It shows both the role of cameras in many of his experimental ‘attempts’ with delinquents and autistic children and his highly speculative reflections on image. Show less
This dissertation advances a new interpretation on the national formation of modern China through the lens of Chinese cinema. Primarily, this project explores how cinema—a modern invention imported... Show moreThis dissertation advances a new interpretation on the national formation of modern China through the lens of Chinese cinema. Primarily, this project explores how cinema—a modern invention imported from the West—has shaped China’s sociopolitical transition from a dynastic empire to a nation-state. It is argued that, the concurrence of motion picture’s arrival and nation-state’s advent in China at the turn of the twentieth century, is not to be considered as isolated events, but rather as a dialectical dynamism in which the imagined community of modern China has largely relied on cinema for its symbolic construction, and yet encountered constant resistance from cinematic representation. Viewing the formation of the Chinese nation-state from a cinematic perspective, this study centers on the conflicts between marginal figures and central categories in Chinese films. In approaching this unresolved dilemma, Jiyu Zhang dedicates his study to mapping out a dialectical relationship between China’s internal and external tensions. Through an extensive investigation of cinematic embodiment, Zhang hones in on four groups of characters that he terms the “central frontiers” of modern China’s cultural imaginary: children, women, ethnic minorities, and diaspora. Show less
Cinema and society interact. This given becomes fascinating when socio-politically sensitive issues are adapted in films that confront spectators with the frames of reference they use to make sense... Show moreCinema and society interact. This given becomes fascinating when socio-politically sensitive issues are adapted in films that confront spectators with the frames of reference they use to make sense of society. This thesis studies how North-American and European films depict political torture in the context of the ‘War on Terror’. It starts from the debate that was held in the political and public domain concerning the actual torture of suspects of terrorist activities, and analyses political torture in film as a fictionalised, stylised form of such violence. In this way, it shows how public debates, politics, and art convene in cinema to engage with contemporary realities we, as societies, find difficult to witness and process. The analyses focus on War on Terror films made between 2004 and 2012. They incorporate ethical, political, and moral questions about the use of political torture, while addressing the West’s share in the geopolitics of the War on Terror. Ultimately, contributions are made to the fields of film narratology and cultural theory, as well as to current debates about the role of cinema in society: cinema as art object, as commercial artifice, and as commentary on socio- politically sensitive issues. Show less
Mapping Moving Media is an inquiry into the specificity of film and video. In this study, I argue that mapping the specificity of these two media is indispensable in analyzing and understanding... Show moreMapping Moving Media is an inquiry into the specificity of film and video. In this study, I argue that mapping the specificity of these two media is indispensable in analyzing and understanding contemporary intermedial objects in which film and video are mixed or combined. Our understanding of the meanings and effects of moving images in contemporary society will increase when combinations of film- and video elements within moving image objects are taken into account. Contemporary (new) media theory offers a wide range of terms by which interrelations between media can be defined and conceptualized. However, although I take the wide variety of notions such as remediation and hypermediacy as helpful tools in analyzing the relationships between media, I argue that the starting point of an investigation into intermedial interactions should be the concept of medium specificity instead of the many notions which define forms of intermediality. This does not mean that we should return to some of essentialist ideas on medium specificity which have been attached to the concept. However, the rightful conclusion that essentialist ideas on medium specificity are rendered untenable by today’s mixed, multi-, and intermedia, too often overshadows the question of what is being mixed, expanded, remediated, refashioned, converged or combined. In this study I ask the questions “what is meant by video?” and “what is meant by film?” How are these two media (to be) understood? Can film and video be defined as distinct, specific media, and if so, how? I hold that in this era of mixed moving media, it is vital to ask these questions precisely and especially on the media of video and film. Show less
Tamil movie fans typically manifest themselves in public space during movie releases and other special occasions. All over Tamil Nadu their fan club organizations put up billboards and posters,... Show moreTamil movie fans typically manifest themselves in public space during movie releases and other special occasions. All over Tamil Nadu their fan club organizations put up billboards and posters, paint murals, and generate a plethora of images in different media. With this ‘fandom on display’ fans pursue aspirations of power that seem to go beyond the fan clubs’ cinematic roots. This ethnography explores these diverse ambitions by looking at the images that fans produce, disseminate and consume. Images, Roos Gerritsen argues, are crucial for fans in engaging with their star, but they also assist in putting forward their own personas and hence they underpin individual needs, personal career aspirations, and desires for power. A second important focus of this dissertation is organized around fan images in Tamil Nadu’s wider mediascape and public sphere. It concentrates on the role of urban space in the dissemination of political imaginations and aspirations that are embedded in neoliberal, global imaginaries of “world class”. The dissertation shows how such imaginations are slowly changing the ways in which fans use public spaces, watch films and engage in socio-political networks. In this last part of her dissertation, Gerritsen shows how public space and the images it contains become the canvas on which these clashing and shifting discourses are played out. Show less
Women, taken as cinematographic figures, evoke multiple images of a cultural and social discourse and draw attention to gender and family relations in a broader sense in a specific society, in this... Show moreWomen, taken as cinematographic figures, evoke multiple images of a cultural and social discourse and draw attention to gender and family relations in a broader sense in a specific society, in this case, Tunisia and Algeria. The process of research and analysis of the films goes beyond a simple collection of female figures. Rather, it focuses on the representation of female identity in the films and how this identity (as a mirror of society) has changed and continues to change. Show less
