"Every Rivette film has its Eisenstein/Lang/Hitchcock side—an impulse to design and plot, dominate and control—and its Renoir/Hawks/Rossellini side: an impulse to 'let things go', open one's self up to the play and power of other personalities, and watch what happens". [Jonathan Rosenbaum]
Film Studies For Free was very sad to hear of the death of Jacques Rivette at the age of 87. In warm memory of and tribute to his work, it has gathered together in one place (below) quite a few links to video- and written essays by others (and by him) on his films, mostly ones that it has shared before.
Excerpts from Claire Denis's 1988 film for television Jacques Rivette, Le veilleur/The Watchman in which of Serge Daney interviews Rivette on his early interest in filmmaking, his days with Cahiers du cinéma, and his first meetings with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer.
Video essays about Rivette's films:
An audiovisual essay by Joel Bocko and Covadonga G. Lahera. Part 5 (the latest) in an ongoing series (more are embedded below). Commissioned by Chris Luscri to mark the ongoing set of screenings, activities and new criticism centred around the new 2K restoration of Rivette's 1971 magnum opus OUT 1 - NOLI ME TANGERE.
Film Studies For Free's latest entry is replete with openly accessible scholarly goodies. So what's new? Lots of things!
First off, two major journals in our field have moved to new (public) houses! Film Criticismcelebrates its fortieth anniversary issue with a move to an open access format, under the expert new editorship of Joseph Tompkins, who, to mark this welcome shift, commissioned lots of scholars to meditate on the ever mutating space of film criticism. Meanwhile, Film-Philosophy, a very long-standing, always fully open access academic journal dedicated to the engagement between film studies and philosophy, is now published by Edinburgh University Press and remains completely open access. A good job by its excellent editor David Sorfa. The new issues of both journals are set out and linked to below, followed by a lovingly compiled list of nine new open access ebooks sourced at Oapen, and a whole host of further delectable items of openly accessible film (and TV) scholarly interest (including three further OA ebooks).
Embedded immediately below, though, are two of the latest instalments in the Fieldnotes series of interviews, with Laura Mulvey and Richard Dyer. Fieldnotes is a Society for Cinema and Media Studies project to conduct, circulate and archive interviews with pioneers of film and media studies. In addition to recognizing the contributions of key scholars, the project also aims to foster knowledge of and interest in the diverse and dynamic developments that have shaped -- and continue to shape -- our expanding field. Fieldnotes is currently led by Haidee Wasson, with the help of a committee comprised of Patrice Petro and Barbara Klinger. It is sponsored both by SCMS and by ARTHEMIS, a Concordia University based research team investigating the history and epistemology of moving image studies.
SERIES Journal, a new open access publication devoted to the study of international TV serials. Two issues are up here: http://series.unibo.it/search/titles
New video essay by Shane Denson: hijab.key (http://wp.me/p1xJM8-O7): "In part, it's about suture and ideology in Michael Bay's Benghazi movie. But it's also a formal experiment: the video is made completely in Keynote -- but completely automated, no clicking on my part."
New Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier at http://TeachingMedia.org! This one is edited by Leah Shafer and Melanie E.S. Kohnen and focuses on Digital Humanities and Media Studies pedagogical crossovers.
Film Studies For Free was shocked and saddened by the sudden news, today, of the death of David Bowie at the age of 69.
Hence, this FSFF tribute entry, prepared largely courtesy of Drew Morton (@thecinemadoctor) who specially wrote a text to accompany his great compilation video (both below) about Bowie as a film actor. Thanks so much to Drew.
A short compilation produced by Drew Morton (Texas A&M University-Texarkana) focusing on David Bowie's filmography. Features clips from THE PRESTIGE, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, LABYRINTH, INTO THE NIGHT, ZOOLANDER, THE HUNGER, and many more.
I have a feeling that many of us are going to be emotionally processing the death of pop star and cultural icon David Bowie for quite some time. Part of this is no doubt because he had turned 69 years old and released his 27th album - BLACKSTAR - just three days ago. However, I would also posit that a great deal of the shock - this unbelievable unreality - lies in Bowie’s persona: an outsider, an alien, an eccentric who could not possibly be from this world.
While this 'impossible' quality no doubt stems from his ever evolving musical persona - from the gender bending rockstar of ZIGGY STARDUST and DIAMOND DOGS to the Aryan Thin White Duke of STATION TO STATION - it was also underscored and amplified by Bowie’s screen presence. While he tells us in the lyrics to his new single “Blackstar” that he’s “not a film star,” the influential rocker appeared in nearly twenty films and brought his unique brand of abnormal to such notable historical figures as Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s THE PRESTIGE and Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s BASQUIAT. Bowie’s performance as both characters is incredibly quiet, as if his presence on screen is so large that he needs to compensate for it. Yet, when the worlds of the films veered towards fantasy or surreal horror, Bowie was there to give it his all.
His performance as Jareth the Goblin King in LABYRINTH has become a cult favorite, partially thanks to the iconic tights that showoff his physique (and everything you can include under that umbrella - and I do mean everything) but also thanks to his especially chilling performance in a children’s film. LABYRINTH is also unique because it is one of the few Bowie films in which he performs musically at length (the musical ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS would be another example). Thus, the bulk of Bowie’s appearances rely on the strangeness of his presence rather than the talents he was typically famous for.
Take, for instance, his performances as Philip Jeffries in David Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and John Blaylock in Tony Scott’s THE HUNGER. In the former, Bowie is featured in one scene in which he plays an FBI agent displaced in time and space. When he returns to warn his fellow colleagues that “we live inside a dream,” Lynch amplifies his disconnect with cross-fades to loud television static and shots of Bowie desperately trying to explain himself before he disappears again. In the latter, Bowie begins the film with a persona not terribly far removed from his early 80s rocker as he frequents a punk dance club with his girlfriend (played by Catherine Deneuve - which makes this probably the most attractive on screen couple ever). It soon becomes apparent that they are both vampires and have been together for centuries. Yet, Bowie’s character is aging at an accelerated rate, which means the film asks him to play a character in his thirties that ages into his seventies over the course of an afternoon. Because it’s Bowie, this unreality feels all the more real.
Of course, there are many other Bowie performances to distill. His starring role in MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE to his role as a hit man in John Landis’s INTO THE NIGHT are two others that come to mind. Yet, his first role, that of the alien Thomas Jerome Newton in Nicolas Roeg’s THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, took his star persona literally and made great use of it through his calculated gestures and androgynous features. It also serves as a partial prequel to the second single on Bowie’s latest - and now final album - “Lazarus,” which are as fitting last words for Bowie himself: “This way or no way/You know, I’ll be free/Just like that bluebird/Now ain’t that just like me.”
An obvious side-by-side comparison by Catherine Grant, using images from BRIEF ENCOUNTER (David Lean, 1945) and CAROL (Todd Haynes, 2015), and the sound from the official trailer for CAROL, featuring the song ‘My Foolish Heart’ (music by Victor Young/lyrics by Ned Washington, sung by Margaret Whiting, 1950). For another recent video essay on BRIEF ENCOUNTER please visit https://www.caboosebooks.net/node/150. For further video essays on films by Todd Haynes, see (on SAFE): vimeo.com/67203493; and on FAR FROM HEAVEN: vimeo.com/78526414.
Film Studies For Free wishes its readers a very happy new year! It celebrates the beginning of the year with an auspicious round up of publications that went online either in the last few days of 2015, or in the first days of 2016. NEW JOURNAL ISSUES
This issue of LOLA will be rolled out in two stages. Soon to come: articles on The Smell of Us, Eden, Youth (Shoval), recent Spanish cinema, film criticism, and Alexandre Astruc/Bernard Stiegler …
Fembot in a Red Dress [on the cultural trope of the “lady in red” as it evolved from the genre of film noir to science fiction and from the human to the artificial female] by Allison de Fren with reviews by Kevin B. Lee and Elana Levine.
Also at MOVIE, new entries in its series of open access ebooks - monographs which originally appeared in the series Close-Up (Wallflower Press, 2006-09). These are free to download, and are available in epub and mobi formats.
Filmmakers' Choices - John Gibbs
Filmmakers’ Choicesexplores different areas of decision-making within filmmaking, focusing on each in the analysis of a film. The discussion ofTalk to Her(Pedro Almodóvar, 2002) examines the detailed construction of point of view; the account ofLured(Douglas Sirk, 1947) reflects on narrative structure and the creative possibilities of coincidence. Other films under investigation includeCandyman(Bernard Rose, 1992),The Reckless Moment(Max Ophuls, 1949) andUnforgiven(Clint Eastwood, 1992).
Movies and Tone - Douglas Pye
The concept of tone gestures towards some of the most crucial issues for film analysis – the relationships of a movie to its material, its traditions and its spectator – and yet tone has had a very limited place in film theory and criticism. This study asks how tonal qualities within a film can be identified, exploring the decisions which lead to our grasp of tone as a dimension of meaning that is both informing and subject to moment-by-moment modulation. Discussion centres onThe Deer Hunter,Desperately Seeking Susan,Strangers on a Train,Distant Voices, Still LivesandSome Came Running.
The Police Series - Jonathan Bignell
This study focuses on television style in the US police series. Chapters closely analyse the mise-en-scène of programmes in the 1980-2003 period includingHill Street Blues,Miami Vice,NYPD Blue,Homicide: Life on the StreetandCSI.Through the detailed investigation of changing aesthetics in the police series, Bignell addresses critical issues around style and ideology, ‘quality’, genre, programme brands and authorship in US television.
Reading Buffy - Deborah Thomas
In this book Joss Whedon’s acclaimed television series,Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is seen not just to create a richly detailed and satisfying fictional world, but to be an abundant source of complex meanings. Several aspects ofBuffyare examined: its visual intelligence, the playful sophistication of its narrative strategies, and the interest the series takes in its relationship with its many fans.
In Artforum, a wonderfully informative articles by Babette Mangolte, Chantal Akerman's cinematographer and collaborator, and by Kathy Halbreich, associate director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
RIP Vilmos Zsigmond, legendarily brilliant cinematographer (including for McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, Deliverance, The Sugarland Express and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He also worked on Obsession, Blow Out, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Black Dahlia, The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and many more films besides). Here is a 70 minute long masterclass with Zsigmond at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival:
David Hudson's brilliant round up of the highlights of 2015 for Keyframe Daily, Fandor.
Focusing
on a number of videographic explorations of matters of film editing,
including her study of the dissolves in David Lean’s 1945 Brief Encounter,
Grant explores what such practical and audiovisual modes of research
and presentation—ones which themselves evidently turn on editing—can add
to the study of a feature that (with a number of key exceptions) has
not received much sustained attention to date in written film
scholarship. [Dissolves of Passion]
Well, 'tis the season to be jolly, and Film Studies For Free is indeed quite jolly as the holidays approach. It hasn't been an especially busy year, entry-wise, at this here blog. But it has certainly been a lucky, busy and bountiful one for its author's film-studies-related activities away from it (including at FSFF's Twitter and Facebook versions).
What customarily follows, to celebrate and give thanks for that fortune, are some links (including some choice ones not shared very much on any platform before) to openly accessible items of scholarly and critical interest.
FSFF hopes (as ever) to be back here with an update very, very soon. But in the meantime, it would like to wish its faithful, patient and much appreciated readers very happy holidays if they are having them, and to send its warmest seasonal greetings to all!
A panel discussion on late late Godard with Miriam Ross from Wellington’s Victoria University, Julian Murphet, director for the centre for Modernism Studies at the University of New South Wales, filmmaker and Deakin University film scholar Dirk de Bruyn and Alex Gawronski, artist and scholar from the Sydney College of the Arts. Online at: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/finalcut/a-panel-discussion-on-late,-late-godard/7018070
Daniel Reynolds (Emory University) presents: Execute Minute 47: on Star Wars Wars
Joseph Moss (Georgia State University) presents: Wait, Where is the New Star Wars Trailer Premiering?
Garret Castleberry (Oklahoma City University) presents: Prophetic Revisionist Paratextual Ontologies: Preparing the Way for The Force Awakens
William Proctor (Bournemouth University) presents: Star Wars Detectives
NewNECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Autumn 2015_‘Vintage’. The below contents are all accessible here: http://www.necsus-ejms.org/portfolio/autumn-2015_vintage/ Editorial Necsus; Articles: Temps mort: Speaking about Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) by Eric de Kuyper and Annie van den Oever; Agamben’s cinema: Psychology versus an ethical form of life by Janet Harbord; Richard Serra: Sculpture, television, and the status quo by Francesco Spampinato; Dredging, drilling, and mapping television’s swamps: An interview with John Caldwell on the 20th anniversary of Televisuality by Markus Stauff; Special section: Vintage, guest edited by Kim Knowles; Locating vintage by Kim Knowles; A theoretical approach to vintage: From oenology to media by Katharina Niemeyer; Technostalgia of the present: From technologies of memory to a memory of technologies by Tim van der Heijden; The way we watched: Vintage television programmes, memories, and memorabilia by Helen Piper; Retro, faux-vintage, and anachronism: When cinema looks back by Stefano Baschiera and Elena Caoduro; No time like the past?: On the new role of vintage and retro in the magazines Scandinavian Retro and Retro Gamer by Kristian Handberg; Death, beauty, and iconoclastic nostalgia: Precarious aesthetics and Lana Del Rey by Arild Fetveit; Audiovisual essays: edited by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin; Learning from popular genres – with help from the audiovisual essay by C. Álvarez López and A. Martin; Construction of a Heist by Henrike Lindenberger; Comedy Vitti Style by Pasquale Iannone; Book reviews: edited by Lavinia Brydon and Alena Strohmaier (NECS Publication Committee); The Lumière Galaxy by Francesco Pitassio; Beautiful Data / The Democratic Surround by Malte Hagener; Cinema of the Swimming Pool / Cinema as Weather by Adam O’Brien; Festival reviews: edited by Marijke de Valck and Skadi Loist (Film Festival Research Network); Selling film in the summer of 2015: Midnight Sun, Il Cinema Ritrovato, and Karlovy Vary by Maria San Filippo; Made in Peru: Lima Film Festival comes of age by Sarah Barrow; Strong positioning on the international festival circuit: An interview with Diana Iljine of Filmfest München by Tanja C. Krainhöfer; Exhibition reviews: edited by Miriam De Rosa and Malin Wahlberg (NECS Publication Committee); Hollis Frampton’s ‘other work’ by Michael Zryd; Theaters: Cinematic vintage magnified by Miriam De Rosa; Arab Pop: Whose Gaze is it Anyway? by James Harvey-Davitt; Artists’ Film Biennial, ICA 2014 by Sophia Satchell-Baeza.
NewSENSES OF CINEMA!! Issue 77, 2015 - including tributes to and studies of Chantal Akerman: La Passion de L’Intime/An Intimate
Passion, the Legacy of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Australian film history, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Quentin Tarantino and more...
Articles: PR and Politics at Hollywood’s Biggest Night: The Academy Awards and Unionization (1929-1939) by Monica Roxanne Sandler; The Impact of Working Conditions and Personality Traits on the Job Satisfaction of Media Professionals by M. Bjørn von Rimscha; The Sony Hack: Data and Decision in the Contemporary Studio by J.D. Connor; Hacking Radio History’s Data: Station Call Signs, Digitized Magazines, and Scaled Entity Search by Kit Hughes, Eric Hoyt, Derek Long, Kevin Ponto, Tony Tran; Cultural Diversity as Brand Management in Cable Television by Melanie Kohnen; TV Got Better: Netflix’s Original Programming Strategies and the On-Demand Television Transition by Chuck Tryon
PROJECT ARCLIGHT! Charles Acland and Eric Hoyt have launched Arclight(http://search.projectarclight.org), a data mining and visualization tool for film and media history. Arclight graphs how terms and entities trend across the nearly 2 million page collection of the Media History Digital Library (MHDL, http://mediahistoryproject.org), which includes lengthy runs of Variety (1905-1948), Broadcasting (1932-1963), Sponsor (1946-1964) Motion Picture News (1913-1930), Motion Picture Herald (1930-1948), Motion Picture Daily (1931-1964), and Photoplay (1915-1943), among many, many other publications. Arclight is integrated with the MHDL's search platform, Lantern, to allow for toggling between distant and close reading. You can find suggestions about how to use Arclight for research and teaching on our blog: http://projectarclight.org/arguments/
The Open Library of Humanities, a major new open access journal platform, launched in 2015 and immediately published excellent film and media studies content:
1. Oshima in Retrospect(ives): The Question of Corporeality in Daitōa Sensō (1968) by Shota OGAWA 2. Ideology and Subjection in Ōshima Nagisa’s Kōshikei (1968) by Max WARD 3. Oshima is Dead: Proxy Wars, Security, and Cinematic Love by Phil KAFFEN 4. Ōshima Nagisa on Responsibility and Premonition: Shiiku (1961) and Amakusa Shirō Tokisada (1962) by M. Downing ROBERTS 5. The Voice of the Dead: The Image of the State and Postwar Democracy in Oshima Nagisa’s The Ceremony (1971) by Ryoko MISONO
Articles: The Maltese Falcon and the Case of the Mystery Square and other things lurking in the background by Donato Totaro; Nanarophelia and the danger of praising the mediocre by Simon Laperrière; London Made Me: Personal History, Film History and My Home Town by Paul W. Salmon; The Subject Was Rose Joseph Cornell and Rose Hobart by Elaine Lennon; Beautiful Light, Vibrant Things, Speaking Minds: Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder by Daniel Garrett
Guest Presenter in Residence Catherine Grant's video essay Dissolves of Passion on Brief Encounter, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this winter.
Below, Corey Creekmur's great video essay on 'intensified continuity' How to Read a File (How to Read a Film) [The 39 Steps]. Watch Corey's other videos here: https://vimeo.com/user41519424
Film Theory Ch 3 The Face and the MirrorThe below video essay, drawn from chapter 3 ('Cinema as Mirror: The Face and Close-Up'') of Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener's Film Theory: an Introduction Through the Senses (Routledge, 2nd edition, 2015), investigates elements of film theory that highlight the close-up and the face in the films of Ingmar Bergman. Premissed as the book is on the assumption that great films 'think' their own conditions of possibility, the video essay gives a meta-cinematic dimension to a filmmaker's apparently personal themes and private obsessions. For related video essays and texts, visit the book's companion website: http://www.routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138824300/
A video essay on Lindsay's Anderson's film If, by Ella Finch, Dilyana Atanasova, Alex Brace, Yang Jiang
PhD thesis by Anna Hurina (2015) Representations of Urban Spaces and Their Transformations in Soviet Cinema of the 1920s and 1960s, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11340/
SERIAL PODCASTS! In addition to Cinema Journal's great Aca Media podcast offering and Peter Labuza's marvellous The Cinephiliacs (check out Peter's recent interview with David Bordwell), there is a great new podcast of film and media scholarly interest on the block: The Cinematologists (Dario Llinares and Neil Fox)
List of
Cinematologists episodes Season 1 & 2
Episode 1: Repo Man (with Director Lucien
Busse) http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/3/23/episode-1-repo-manDario
and Neil introduce, screen and discuss Alex Cox’s 1984 cult classic Repo Manin the context of independent v mainstream filmmaking. Neil's visit to the Berlinale
is reviewed plus we have an interview he conducted while in Berlin
with filmmaker Lucian Busse. Episode 2: Bande À part (with Actors
Gillian Harker, Robert Dukes, Aisling M De’Ath & Adam Lannon) http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/3/23/episode-2-bande-partNeil
and Dario discuss perhaps Godard's most accessible film and contextualise the
filmmaker’s legacy covering topics of filmic influence, homage and pastiche. We
also talk to four London based actors - Gillian Harker, Robert Dukes,
Aislinn M De'Ath & Adam Lannon - about their process of working with
directors and their own influences as actors.Episode 3: Whip it (with Prof. Linda Ruth
Williams & Dr. Shelley Cobb)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/3/23/episode-3-whip-itIntroduction
and audience discussion of Drew Barrymore’s Whip It(2009) with guest speaker Dr Laura
Canning. The episode also analyses issues of gender with regards to the
film industry and academia and Dario interviews Prof. Linda Ruth Williams and
Dr Shelley Cobb about their AHRC funded research project investigating the
status and role of women filmmakers. Episode 4: Yojimbo (with Director Mark
Herman)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/4/9/episode-4-yojimboNeil
and Dario discuss the cinematic influence of Kurosawa particularly on American
New Wave filmmakers and explore the gaps in their own cinematic canons arguing
whether there can be any real, definitive criteria for judging a 'great' film.
Dario interviews British film Director Mark Herman about his career including
the films Brassed off (1996), Little Voice (1998) and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008). Episode 5:
Bronson (with Dr. Johnny Walker)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/5/2/episode-5-bronsonNeil
questions Dario about his article on Nicolas Winding Refn’s powerful Bronson
(2008) - entitled Punishing
Bodies: British Prison Film and the Spectacle of Masculinity - which analyses the prison as an
aesthetic space and suggests the (de)constructions of masculinity made possible
by the prison genre. Neil also interviews Dr Johnny Walker about his work on
the contemporary British Horror film.Episode 6: Goodbye Dragon Inn (Dr Sarah
Atkinson)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/5/13/episode-6-goodbye-dragon-innNeil
and Dario discuss Tsai Ming-Liang’s 2003 ode to the cinema auditorium Goodbye Dragon Inn and discuss the
concept of the cinema experience and how this has been affected by the arrival
of the digital age. This theme also frames Dario's interview with Dr. Sarah
Atkinson on her recently published book Beyond the Screen: Emerging Cinema and
Engaging Audiences Episode 7: Sci-fi Special (part 1)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/6/4/episode-7-sci-fi-special-part-1In
the first of a sci-fi podcast double bill Neil and Dario discuss their
introductions to four films screened at the Poly, Falmouth as part of the BFI
season Days of Fear Wonder. The Fly (1986),
Demon Seed (1977), The Thing (1982) and Rollerball (1975)are all explored in the context of what
science fiction offers as a key cinema genre. Neil and Dario touch upon
the tropes of hard v soft sci-fi, artificial intelligence, the fear of
technology, metaphors of alien invasion and control of reproduction, along with
many other of the fundamental elements of the genre. Episode 8: Sci-fi Special Part 2 (Pacific Rim)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/6/26/episode-8-sci-fi-special-part-2-pacific-rimIn
what promises to be a no-holes-barred, apocalyptic battle of the ages Neil and
Dario face off in a cerebral clash of wills over a film that represents the
most overt disagreement: Pacific Rim (2013). Don't miss episode 2 of the sci-fi
double bill. Episode 9a: Point Blank (Port Eliot
Special)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/8/21/episode-9aDario
is on Holiday so Neil is joined by filmmaker and academic Mark Jenkin to
present and discuss John Boorman's 1967 classic Point Blank starring Lee Marvin. Point Blank was released in a zeitgeist year for crime cinema that
also included Arthur Penn's Bonnie &
Clyde, Jean-Pierre Melville's Le
Samourai and Seijun Suzuki's Branded
To Kill and it stands equal to those illustrious peers. This episode also
features an interview with writer Tom Shone about his latest book Woody
Allen: A Retrospective. Episode 9b: Interviews from Port Eliothttp://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/9/9/episode-9b-port-eliot-specialThis
episode collects the diverse interviews collected by Neil across the weekend of
the festival. The conversations cover film costume with Oscar winner Sandy
Powell, music documentaries with television actress Caroline Catz, poetry
with Simon Armitage, extinct birds with Ceri
Levy and clouds
with Gavin Pretor-Pinney of the Cloud Apprecation Society. Yes. Clouds. Neil also spent time with
one of his heroes, Ralph Steadman, and Neil and Dario discuss the place of
cinema at modern multi-arts festivals. Port Eliot Festival websiteNextinction by Ralph Steadman and Ceri
LevyWalking Away by Simon Armitage Episode 10: 12 Angry Menhttp://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/9/26/episode-10-12-angry-menSeason
2 of the podcast kicks off with a bumper freshers edition featuring a screening
of Sydney Lumet's 1957 social drama 12 Angry Men. A heavyweight cast of character actors
led by Henry Fonda argue over the evidence of what appears to be
straightforward guilty verdict. Neil and guest presenter Kingsley Marshall
introduce what is a canonical film studies text. Dario and Neil also discuss
their experiences of studying film and hopefully offer some helpful guidelines
to those who are coming into university to study what is a changing discipline. Episode 11: Tony Manero (with Prof. Will
Brooker)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/10/4/episode-10-tony-maneroOur
intense desire for, and identification, with film characters and stars comes under
the spotlight in this weeks' podcast. Neil is joined by filmmaker James Dean to introduce Pablo Larraín's unique and
brutal Tony Manero (2008)
about Chilean criminal who is obsessed with John Travolta's character from
Saturday Night Fever. It is simultaneously bleak, shocking and unsettling with
allusions to the darkest parts of human identity. Also on the podcast Dario
interviews Professor Will Brooker from Kingston University about the year
he is spending embodying the iconic David Bowie. Episode 12: Planes, Trains and Automobiles
(with Jeanie Finlay)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/10/25/episode-12-planes-trains-and-automobilesNeil
is joined on stage at Falmouth by Kingsley Marshall to introduce John Hughes'
comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles
(1987). The influence and persona of John Candy and Steve Martin is discussed
along with the career of John Hughes as one the quintessential American 80s
directors. The podcast also features an interview with Jeanie Finlay on her
surprising and offbeat musical documentary Orion:
The Man Who Would Be King (2015). Episode 13: Dead of Night (with Jez
Connolly)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/10/29/episode-13-dead-of-nightThe
Cinematologists go on the road again, this time to the University of Bristol,
to screen the Ealing produced British anthology horror Dead of Night (1945). Dario and Neil discuss the film with Jez
Conolly who has co-authored a book on the film with David Owain Bates as part
of Auteur’s ‘Devil’s Advocates’ series. Also discussed on the podcast is the
new book by friend of The Cinematologists, Dr. Johnny Walker. Contemporary
British Horror Cinema is
out now from Edinburgh
University Press. Episode 14: Seconds (with journalist
Andy Bass)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/11/1/18p6jz74rsjn3od3azafzzkznn0fvoIn
our first podcast from the University of Brighton's Hastings campus we screen the
strangely superb sci-fi thriller Seconds (1966). John Frankenheimer's key themes revolve
around paranoia and conspiracy with titles to his credit including The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964). This film
takes a faustian theme and links it to social contexts of mistrust in
government, consumerism and the increasing loss of identity in the modern age.
The episode also features an interview with writer and historian Andy Bass who
has recently written an article on the shooting of the film in his home town of
Scarsdale: http://scarsdalenews.com/Scarsdale_Inquirer/8-21-15_NEWS__Rock_Hudson.html Episode 15: The Hitch-Hiker (with writer
Jack Thorne)http://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/12/2/episode-15-the-hitch-hiker-with-writer-jack-thorneNeil
is joined onstage at Falmouth by Kingsley Marshall to discuss Ida Lupino's 1953
film noir The Hitch-Hiker. Neil also
interviews writer Jack Thorne about, amongst other things, his up-coming
theatre adaptation of Harry Potter.Link to the Film Programme episode discussed
on the podcast Link to the Senses of Cinema Ida Lupino
piece mentioned by Kingsley on the podcastEpisode 16: In The Mood For Lovehttp://www.cinematologists.com/podcastarchive/2015/12/2/episode-16-in-the-mood-for-love In
one of the highlights of the year The Cinematologists screen Wong Kar-Wai's
stylish masterpiece as part of the BFI 'love' season in association with The
Poly, Falmouth. A veritable modern masterpiece In the Mood for Love stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in iconic
roles as lovers seeking refuge from disappointment, loneliness and the harsh
realities of their surroundings. Dario and Neil also discuss their cinematic
highlights of the year. The Guardian article by Peter Walker referred to in the
podcast can be found here:http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/dec/19/in-the-mood-for-love
