Some May Must-Reads

Film Studies For Free is back from its travels with some brief but essential recommendations for reading. Consider yourselves compassionately instructed to enjoy the following gems from the brilliant film-blogosphere:

• Michael J Anderson at Tativille has just posted a stunning take on the palimpsestic texture of the tremulously gripping film Cloverfield (an FSFF digi-horror favourite along with Rec). Equally unmissable is Tativille's preceding post: a full-length footnoted essay by Anderson called 'What is Cinema? More than Cinema: The Ontological Discourse of Abbas Kiarostami's Through the Olive Trees (1994)'
• Dan North at Spectacular Attractions continues his wonderful experiments with scholarly film blogging with an insightful and almost live critical analysis of Don't Look Now. Also see his great recent post on She... North concludes each of his posts with rich links lists on the films, to boot.
• Fascinating and highly informed discussion over at Jonathan Rosenbaum's site about the new edition of André Bazin's What is Cinema? (translated by Timothy Barnard) - 'What is Cinema? (and, if you know what that is, What is Film Study?)'. Also see Girish's compelling thread on this edition.
  
• Thanks to Chris Cagle's (in itself) thought-provoking post 'Theory-Praxis Divide', FSFF got to read Tim Burke's amusing and highly lucid enquiry into why (sometimes/most times) those who teach (theory) can't do (creative practice), 'Why Can’t You?'
• A (customarily) beautifully written and illustrated post from Luke McKernan at The Bioscope : 'An excellent dumb discourse' treats Shakespeare in early cinema.
• Finally (for today), Benjamin Wright's site Aspect Ratio has moved bloghost: the move is accompanied by a lovely post on approaches to music in film, 'Hearing Beyond Words'. There seem to FSFF to be a few teething problems with the new server but you can access the post still at the Wordpress site.

P.S. Let's actually finish with a Call For Papers for an annual conference hosted by an Open Access film and visual studies periodical much loved by FSFF: World Picture Journal.

The 2009 World Picture Conference

October 23-24, 2009
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma

Style

Keynote Speakers

Edward Branigan
(University of California, Santa Barbara)

&

Alexander García Düttman
(Goldsmiths College)

We believe the question of style is in need of new thinking, across media, disciplines and modes of thought. We hope, therefore, to receive abstracts that reflect or extend out of any number of approaches to the question of style (theoretical, philosophical, historical, formal, generic, etc.). Our conference (like our journal) is inflected by a strong interest in the intersection of political and aesthetic questions concerning cinema, visual art, and visual theory, but we encourage the submission of abstracts that do not necessarily occupy themselves with the cinema and/or the visual.

Proposals (250 words), including a brief bio, should be sent to Brian Price at brian.price@okstate.edu by June 1