Thursday, 3 September 2009

Screening the Past Issue 25 Out Now

Film Studies For Free rushes you the hot-off-the-press news that there's new issue out today of one of its favourite open access online film journals, Screening the Past. It's a hugely valuable special issue devoted to the subject of 'Colonial Africa on the Silent Screen'. The website describes the issue thus:

The Rose of Rhodesia (1918) by Harold M. Shaw is one of the earliest remaining feature films shot in Africa. Issue #25 of Screening the Past offers the first critical assessment of the film that until recently was thought lost. Essays by specialists in an array of fields situate the film in the context of South African cinema history, silent film conventions, performance styles, popular literature, imperialism, and political struggle in Zimbabwe today. Guest-edited by Stephen Donovan and Vreni Hockenjos, and in collaboration with the Nederlands Filmmuseum, this special issue includes a streamed version of the restored print of The Rose of Rhodesia.

FSFF would also like to flag up Robert Burgoyne's brilliant essay on The New World, Sam Rohdie's four essays (on Painlevé, Jennings, Vigo, and Ford), and Bill Routt's great feature review Ford At Fox: Part Two (b).

Below is the full table of contents:


Foreword: Terence Ranger

Introduction: Stephen Donovan and Vreni Hockenjos

The Rose of Rhodesia—click here to view the film

Acknowledgements

Film Information

Part I: Production and Reception

Neil Parsons: Investigating the Origins of The Rose of Rhodesia, Part I: African Film Productions

Neil Parsons: Investigating the Origins of The Rose of Rhodesia, Part II: Harold Shaw Film Productions Ltd.

James Burns: Cape Town Bioscope Culture and The Rose of Rhodesia

Part II: Cinematic Perspectives

Vreni Hockenjos: Featured Attractions: The Rose of Rhodesia and Silent Cinema

Ylva Habel: Hollywood Histrionics: Performing “Africa” in The Rose of Rhodesia

Jacqueline Maingard: The Rose of Rhodesia: Colonial Cinema as Narrative Fiction and Ethnographic Spectacle

Part III: Political Perspectives

Bernard Porter: Race, Empire, and The Rose of Rhodesia

Nhamo Anthony Mhiripiri: Blood Diamonds and State Repression: From The Rose of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa Diamond Fields

Ashleigh Harris: “Until time make him white”: Race, Land, and Insurrection in The Rose of Rhodesia

Part IV: Literary Perspectives

Stefan Helgesson: The Rose of Rhodesia as Colonial Romance

Stephen Donovan: Guns and Roses: Reading for Gender in The Rose of Rhodesia

Commentary

Peter Davis: In Africa, Diamonds Are Forever: From The Great Kimberley Diamond Robbery to Blood Diamond

Scoring The Rose of Rhodesia: An Interview with Matti Bye

Appendices

A. Plot summary
B. Intertitles with English translation
C. Press cuttings
D. Cast and crew biographies
E. Harold Shaw filmography
F. Maps of Rhodesia and Southern Africa
G. Early Rhodesian ephemera

Contributors


First release

Sam Rohdie, Four Essays: Painlevé; Jennings; Vigo; Ford.

Robert Burgoyne, The Columbian Exchange: Pocahontas and The New World.


Reviews

Feature Review: Bill Routt reviews Ford At Fox: Part Two (b).


Ina Bertrand reviews Catherine Lumby, Alvin Purple, and Henry Reynolds, The chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.

Yvette Biro reviews Lorraine Mortimer, “Terror and Joy”. The Films of Dusan Makavejev.

Dean Brandum reviews Michael Deeley and Matthew Field, Blade Runner, Deer Hunters & Blowing The Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies.

Wheeler Winston Dixon reviews Peter Gidal, Andy Warhol’s Blow Job.

Charles Drazin reviews Brian McFarlane, Screen Adaptations: Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations: The Relationship Between Text and Film.

Seyda Aylin Gurses reviews Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma and Memory.

Jan-Christopher Horak reviews Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson (eds), Inventing Film Studies.

D.B. Jones reviews Wheeler Winston Dixon, Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia.

Lorraine Mortimer reviews Esther Romeyn, Street Scenes: Staging the Self in Immigrant New York 1880-1924.

Geoffrey Nowell-Smith reviews Christopher Wagstaff, Italian Neorealist Cinema: an aesthetic approach.

Daniel Ross reviews Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity and Irving Singer, Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film.

Thomas Salek reviews James Walters, Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema: Resonance Between Realms.

Brian Shoesmith reviews Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti (eds), Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance.

Matt Wanat reviews Nitzan Ben-Shaul, Film: The Key Concepts.

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