New SCREENING THE PAST: Special Issue on KNOCKNAGOW (1918)

Knocknagow; or, The Homes of Tipperary (1918)

Silent film based on 1873 novel of the same name by Charles J. Kickham. Production company: Film Company of Ireland. Director: Fred O'Donovan. Screenplay: Ellen Sullivan. Released in Ireland, the United States, and Britain in 1918. This film is in the public domain.

Film Studies For Free happily tips its readers the wink that there's a new special issue up of the high quality open access film studies journal Screening the Past. 

Issue 33 is devoted to the study of one of Ireland's first feature films, Knocknagow, an incredibly popular historical drama set during the land-clearances of the 1840s. Six articles by specialists examine this cinematic landmark in relation to Irish history, politics, sport, literature, and cinema in Ireland and the United States.

Appendices include a plot summary, contemporary press reviews and publicity materials, and a copy of the screenplay.

The issue contains a link to the film itself (embedded above), which was shot on location in Tipperary in summer 1917.

Screening the Past, Issue 33, 2012: "Featuring the Nation: Knocknagow (1918) and the Film Company of Ireland"

• Introduction: Ireland’s Own Film  by Stephen Donovan
• Knocknagow, the Film Company of Ireland, and Other Irish Historical Films, 1911–1920 by Kevin Rockett
• The Making of an Irish Nationalist: James Mark Sullivan and the Film Company of Ireland in America by Dan Schultz & Maryanne Felter
• “Pointing a Topical Moral at the Present”: Watching Knocknagow in 1918 by Denis Condon
• The Film Company of Ireland and the Irish-American Press by Gary D. Rhodes
• “For the honour of old Knock-na-gow I must win”: Representing Sport in Knocknagow (1918) by Seán Crosson
• Irish National Discourse in the Poems and Songs in Knocknagow (1918) by Christopher Natzén

AppendicesAppendix A. – Plot Summary
Appendix B. Cast of Knocknagow (1918)
Appendix C. Intertitles
Appendix D. Press cuttings
Appendix E. Publicity Materials
Appendix F. Film Company of Ireland filmography
Appendix G. Typescript of Knock-na-gow, or The Homes of Tipperary with manuscript annotations
Appendix H. Intertitle Artwork

Acknowledgments

Articles from the New Review of Film and Television Studies

Images from The Story of Adèle H. (François Truffaut, 1975) and The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) - two films referred to in Agustín Zarzosa's article 'Jane Campion's The Piano: melodrama as mode of exchange'

Film Studies For Free was very happy to hear that the excellent journal New Review of Film and Television Studies is now offering free access to a great selection of essays, including a recent offering by Thomas Elsaesser on Avatar, and translations from Christian Metz's book Impersonal Enunciation.

As well as the marvellous aforementioned items, FSFF also highly recommends the articles by Mette Kramer and Agustín Zarzosa.

All freely accessible material is linked to below. 

• Cinema and the two cultures: Robert Lepage's La face cachée de la lune by Sylvie Bissonnette

• Introduction to Christian Metz's Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film by Cormac Deane

• James Cameron's Avatar: access for all by Thomas Elsaesser

• The embrace of Mother Nature: appraisal processes and the regulation of affect in attachment genres by Mette Kramer

• Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film (extracts) by Christian Metz and Translated by Cormac Deane

• A lightning-image of the kaleidoscope: a review of Päsi Valiaho's Mapping the Moving Image by Imola Mikó

• The narrative structuring and interactive narrative logic of televised professional wrestling by Aaron J. Petten

• Review of Jeremy G. Butler, Television Style by Barry Salt

• Jane Campion's The Piano: melodrama as mode of exchange by Agustin Zarzosa