Monday 29 July 2013

On Documentary Film Styles: Historical and Sociological Perspectives

Frame grab from Человек с киноаппаратом / Chelovek s kinoapparatom/ Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929), a film mentioned in Carsten Heinze's introduction to the Documentary Film Styles. Historical and Sociological Perspectives issue of InterDisciplines - Journal of History and Sociology (Vol 4, No 1 [2013])
One of Film Studies For Free's regular automated web searches discovered the following, just published volume of essays of great interest to documentary specialists: an issue of InterDisciplines - Journal of History and Sociology (Vol 4, No 1 [2013]) on Documentary Film Styles. Historical and Sociological Perspectives.
 
Each essay has much to recommend it, but FSFF particularly enjoyed Tanja Seider's discussion of the essay film in a postcolonial context, along with Bernt Schnettler's comprehensive study of visual research methods
 
The Table of Contents is pasted in below with all the links.

Thursday 25 July 2013

Comic Book INTENSITIES

Screenshot of the new issue header for INTENSITIES


Way back in the dim mists of online time (on January 23, 2013, to be precise), Film Studies For Free publicised its discovery of the new online incarnation of Intensities, the wonderful journal of cult media studies.

Not only are four existing issues of the journal freely available at its website, but a new issue has recently been published there, with lots of items of film studies related interest. The table of contents is pasted in below with links to these excellent items.

Of related interest: FSFF's entry on Studies of the Remediation of Films, Comics and Video Games.



INTENSITIES, Issue 5: Comic Book Intensities (Spring/Summer 2013) 

Articles

Thursday 4 July 2013

Expanded Cinema Studies? Free eBook on Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art


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. (blurb for Erika Balsom,  Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art [Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013])
Thanks to the legend that is Girish Shambu, Film Studies For Free heard of the latest, wonderful, freely accessible book from Amsterdam University Press: Erika Balsom's Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art. The table of contents is below. It's a valuable addition to the burgeoning field of Expanded Cinema Studies. Read it for free but please order it for your libraries! It has been added to FSFF's permanent and regularly updated listing of online Open Access Film Studies e-Books

Another related resource: six video recordings have been uploaded online of all the sessions from the recent Mediamorphosis Symposium and Exhibition at the University of Sussex at which researchers, practitioners, artists (including filmmakers), designers, scientists were invited to submit, discuss, exchange and engage with analogue and digital practices as mediamorphosis. You can find links to the videos here

It's been so quiet around here that FSFF's readers probably won't even notice that it is going on holiday for two weeks (it will be taking Erika's book!). It promises to return refreshed, reinvigorated and possibly even sun-tanned after that, with LOTS of new Open Access items to link to. But, in the meantime, please check out this little video on a different kind of "expanded cinema studies" - it has one or two useful resources that you may find interesting.


Erika Balsom,  Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013)

Table of Contents
Introduction The Othered Cinema 

Chapter 1 Architectures of Exhibition
The Passages of Cinema  Projection and Patrimony Black Box/White Cube The New Blockbusters  The Myth of Activity  Media at MoMA 

Chapter 2 Filmic Ruins  
Post-medium Post-mortem Indexing the Past A Little History of 35mm  Ruinophilia  Analogue Aura

Chapter 3 The Remake: Old Movies, New Narratives  Ambivalent Appropriations  The Four Operations Precursors  The False Promises of the Utopia of Use”  Remaking Fandom Room-for-Play”  VCR Memories 

Chapter 4 The Fiction of Truth and the Truth of Fiction  Anti-anti-illusionism  Hybrid Forms Rehabilitating Narrative  A Return of the Real  Two Images of Death 
Conclusion – “Cinema and...” 

Tuesday 2 July 2013

VIEW, the Journal of European Television History and Culture: European Television Memories

Screenshot from The Paradox of the Monarchy, an archive-film video collage (by Catherine Grant) exploring some of the psychological and mediatized components of the public's relationship with the UK monarchy. Read Hazel Collie's discussion of significant, gendered, televisual memories, such as those of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, in "It's Just So Hard to Bring It to Mind": The Significance of ‘Wallpaper’ in the Gendering of Television Memory Work

Film Studies For Free is delighted to announce that EUscreen has presented issue 03 of VIEW, the Journal of European Television History and Culture.

The new issue treats the subject of 'European Television Memories', and it's full of wonderful discussions of 'dynamic memory practices that take place in the contemporary media landscape as an ongoing, active and performative engagement with the past', as the issue's editorial puts it. Such discussions are highly relevant to film scholars, too.

The full table of contents is given below, with FSFF's congratulations to VIEW on an excellent issue.


Editorial
Discoveries
Explorations
VIEW is published by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in collaboration with Utrecht University, Maastricht University and Royal Holloway University of London. It is supported by the EUscreenXL project, the European Television History Network and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
VIEW, the Journal of European Television History and Culture is the first peer-reviewed, multi-media and open access e-journal in the field of European television history and culture. It offers an international platform for outstanding academic research and archival reflection on television as an important part of our European cultural heritage. The journal is proud to present its third issue: European Television Memories. It has been guest-edited by Jérôme Bourdon and Berber Hagedoorn and is freely available at: http://www.viewjournal.eu
In the context of the fast development of media studies, the third issue of VIEW highlights debates around the moving borders of national memories, fostered by television in the context of European history. The articles in this issue focus on the contribution of European television researchers, covering all three areas of media studies: production, text and reception. We wish you a pleasant and inspiring journey through European Television Memories!
www.viewjournal.eu - Twitter: @ViewjournalEU