Trauma Culture Kaplan, E. Ann
2005, 20050711, 2005-07-11
eBook
It may be said that every trauma is two traumas or ten thousand-depending on the number of people involved. How one experiences and reacts to an event is unique and depends largely on one's direct or ...indirect positioning, personal psychic history, and individual memories. But equally important to the experience of trauma are the broader political and cultural contexts within which a catastrophe takes place and how it is "managed" by institutional forces, including the media.In Trauma Culture, E. Ann Kaplan explores the relationship between the impact of trauma on individuals and on entire cultures and nations. Arguing that humans possess a compelling need to draw meaning from personal experience and to communicate what happens to others, she examines the artistic, literary, and cinematic forms that are often used to bridge the individual and collective experience. A number of case studies, including Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism, Marguerite Duras' La Douleur, Sarah Kofman's Rue Ordener, Rue Labat, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, and Tracey Moffatt's Night Cries, reveal how empathy can be fostered without the sensationalistic element that typifies the media.From World War II to 9/11, this passionate study eloquently navigates the contentious debates surrounding trauma theory and persuasively advocates the responsible sharing and translating of catastrophe.
This book is a study of the contemporary audiences for quality period films, and their responses to these films, with reference to the critical debate which constructs many of these films as ...'heritage films'.
Whether it involves remaking an old Hollywood movie, projecting a quiet 16mm film, or constructing a bombastic multi-screen environment, cinema now takes place not just in the movie theatre and the ...home, but also in the art gallery and the museum. The author of this engaging study takes stock of this development, offering an in-depth inquiry into its genesis, its defining features, and the ramifications it has for art and cinema alike. Through the lens of contemporary art history, she examines cinema studies’ great disciplinary obsession – namely, what cinema was, is, and will become in a digital future.
Beginning in the 1950s, "Euro Horror" movies materialized in astonishing numbers from Italy, Spain, and France and popped up in the US at rural drive-ins and urban grindhouse theaters such as those ...that once dotted New York's Times Square. Gorier, sexier, and stranger than most American horror films of the time, they were embraced by hardcore fans and denounced by critics as the worst kind of cinematic trash. In this volume, Olney explores some of the most popular genres of Euro Horror cinema-including giallo films, named for the yellow covers of Italian pulp fiction, the S&M horror film, and cannibal and zombie films-and develops a theory that explains their renewed appeal to audiences today.
Analyses how independent documentaries are forging a new public sphere in today’s China. There has been an explosion in Chinese independent documentary making since the turn of the twenty-first ...century. How are we to understand this vibrant burst of activity? This timely study is based on detailed interviews with Chinese documentary makers rarely available in English, and insights gained by the author while working as a journalist in Beijing. Through detailed analyses of key contemporary documentary titles, it reveals the ways in which independent films probe, question and challenge the dominant ideas and narratives circulating in China’s state-sanctioned media.Key features: A detailed account of one of the world’s most active, vibrant and challenging contemporary documentary sectors * Draws extensively on first-hand interviews with filmmakers * Offers in-depth, critical analyses of China’s most challenging contemporary independent documentaries * Discusses China’s state-sanctioned film and television sectors to cast new light on how the official public sphere is shaped and guided by the state
This ground-breaking collection, the first sustained examination of the work of female practitioners within American independent cinema, reclaims the difference of female indie filmmaking.
Film is in a state of rapid change, with the transition from analog to digital profoundly affecting not just filmmaking and distribution, but also the theoretical conceptualization of the medium film ...and the practice of film archiving. New forms of digital archives are being developed that make use of participatory media to provide a more open form of access than any traditional archive has offered before. Film archives are thus faced with new questions and challenges. From Grain to Pixel attempts to bridge the fields of film archiving and academic research, by addressing the discourse on film ontology and analysing how it affects the role of film archives. Fossati proposes a new theoretization of film archival practice as the starting point for a renewed dialogue between film scholars and film archivists.
Het bewegende beeld bevindt zich in een overgangsperiode waarin analoge (fotochemische) film geleidelijk vervangen wordt door digitale film. Deze overgang heeft niet alleen diepgaande invloed op filmproductie en -distributie, maar ook op de manier van archiveren van film en de theoretische conceptualisering van dit medium. Van digitale archieven worden steeds nieuwe vormen ontwikkeld. Deze archieven - digitale filmdatabases en YouTube bijvoorbeeld - maken gebruik van media die participatie van vele gebruikers mogelijk maken en worden zo toegankelijker dan ooit. Ondertussen is er nog onvoldoende dialoog tussen archivarissen en filmwetenschappers. From Grain to Pixel slaat een brug tussen archiveringspraktijken en wetenschappelijk onderzoek dat gebaseerd is op relevante debatten in film- en nieuwe mediastudies. Fossati stelt een nieuwe theorie op voor het archiveren en restaureren van film. Dit biedt mogelijkheden voor een hernieuwde dialoog tussen archivarissen en wetenschappers.
Archival Film Curatorship is the first book-length study that investigates film archives at the intersection of institutional histories, early and silent film historiography, and archival ...curatorship. It examines three institutions at the forefront of experimentation with film exhibition and curatorship. The Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam, the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY, and the National Fairground and Circus Archive in Sheffield, UK serve as exemplary sites of historical mediation between early and silent cinema and the digital age. A range of elements, from preservation protocols to technologies of display and from museum architectures to curatorial discourses in blogs, catalogs, and interviews, shape what the author innovatively theorizes as the archive’s hermeneutic dispositif. Archival Film Curatorship offers film and preservation scholars a unique take on the shifting definitions, histories, and uses of the medium of film by those tasked with preserving and presenting it to new digital-age audiences.
What is the nature of the relationship between the Hollywood Western and American frontier mythology? How have Western films helped develop cultural and historical perceptions, attitudes and beliefs ...towards the frontier? Is there still a place for the genre in light of revisionist histories of the American West? Myth of the Western re-invigorates the debate surrounding the relationship between the Western and frontier mythology, arguing for the importance of the genre's socio-cultural, historical and political dimensions. Taking a number of critical-theoretical and philosophical approaches, Matthew Carter applies them to prominent forms of frontier historiography. He also considers the historiographic element of the Western by exploring the different ways in which the genre has responded to the issues raised by the frontier. Carter skilfully argues that the genre has - and continues to reveal - the complexities and contradictions at the heart of US society. With its clear analyses of and intellectual challenges to the film scholarship that has developed around the Western over a 65-year period, this book adds new depth to our understanding of specific film texts and of the genre as a whole - a welcome resource for students and scholars in both Film Studies and American Studies.
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