CINEJ Cinema Journal
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Minik Serçe as a Contrary Example Among the Singer Films in Turkish Cinema
Get PDFThis article is about the Turkish film Minik Serçe (Little Sparrow, 1978), starring Sezen Aksu, one of Turkey’s most legendary female singer-songwriters. The film belongs to the category of musical “singer films” of Turkish cinema, which were popular between the 1940s and late 1980s. It is also a remake of A Star is Born (1976). The article examines the similarities and differences between the original film and the Turkish remake and compares it with another singer film from the same era Yansın Bu Dünya (1977), which falls into the category of an Arabesk singer film. Both films have similar plotlines but very different portrayals of female characters. The focus of the article is on what makes Minik Serçe stand out from the other films of its time. In doing so, it also examines the role of its auteur director Atıf Yılmaz, and the cliches of Turkish cinema from the Yeşilçam era
Thirteen Days: A Political Reading
Get PDFThirteen Days is a historical political thriller, reflecting John F. Kennedy\u27s leadership characteristics and the decision-making process during the Cuban Missile Crisis, close to reality. The study explains the connection between fictional and real and the decision-making process through the similarities and differences between film scenes and real images. In this sense, it examines John F. Kennedy\u27s decision-making process and leadership structure using both international relations theories and film review methods. The film has been created with a historical perspective, the character traits, crisis and resolution processes of the American president and his small group members, as well as the actors in the Soviet bloc. In addition, evaluating the attitudes and approaches of the Kennedy government and Kennedy\u27s leadership structure are clearly reflected to the audience in the film. This study contributes to the understanding of international relations by explaining Small Thinking Decision and Rational Actor Model theories with the cooperation of the field of international relations and cinema. The sum up, to compare of film scenes and real elements is also important in terms of editing the parts that appear as black-boxes during the crisis and interpreting them close to reality
Exploring Modes of Surveillance in Films
Get PDFThis article frames a theoretical discussion of cinematic gestures in their opposing forms, illusionism and reflexivity, exploring different modes connecting surveillance and film. One observes cinema as an illusionistic surveilling machine that records reality. In this respect, surveillance can be an “element of movie plots.” Then, given the simultaneously entrapped and swaying nature of cinematic gestures, the investigation of film reflexivity associated with surveillance reveals a dual character. The dominant one (auto-mediacy), although guided by a subversive thrust, ultimately reinforces the dynamics of the internal panopticon, the regulation, and the marketization of the self. Conversely, another form of emancipative self-reflexivity (autoscopia) operates a set of enunciations exalting the filmmaking process’ materiality. The film Grizzly Man is an example of autoscopia generating a form of technology-mediated subversive self examination.
The Acoustic Mirror and Subversive Visual Strategies in Park Chan Wook’s The Handmaiden
Get PDFThis essay analyzes the narrative and visual tools that the Korean director, Park Chan-Wook deploys in his film that aim to dismantle this hegemonic gaze and its associated discourse by using Lacan’s visual theory, Laura Mulvey’s concept of visual pleasure and Kaja Silverman’s approach of voice as element of masculine domination. On the other hand, it will analyze how the female subject is able to challenge the traditional phonic space in which they have been limited to a mere body element that anchors them to a passive positioning, resisting the normative relationship between female voice / body through which the woman is excluded from the ability to narrate her own story.
The Mortality Narratives in Cultural Representations: Themes and Tropes in Malayalam Cinema
Get PDFMalayalam cinema is a vibrant creative space that post 1990s, underwent a transformation, leading to a proliferation of films, uniquely experimental in nature. An interesting perspective explored in detail was that of mortality, analysis of death from a microcosmic perspective. Evaluating death as an event in Deleuzian framework enables us to gain interesting insights and the film used for study here is Ee. Ma. Yau. (2018) which has a funeral foregrounded in the narrative. The paper traces the encounter with death in popular films, over time, to comprehend social discourses built around mortality in India, specifically in the southern state of Kerala in India. Death and the social interventions in this context emerge as aspects significant for this study
The Black magic: An aesthetic analysis of its illustration in the sociohorteur film: Dachra
Get PDFThroughout the history of the humanity, and not withstanding of the humankind; the black magic has always been, and is still, an ugly and frightening human folklore in many cultures, whatever would be their religions and beliefs ; and from which, they are still suffering until nowadays, due to its distinction with mysterious and suspicious practices that have been imprinted in the identity of mankind, as a point of contention that transcends different sects and races. Discussing such issue is deeply hated by most of the populations, due to the huge rate of horror and frightens it may push the interlocutors to feel: what if such an internationally suffering from problematic is treated through a motion picture? Would its receiving and comprehension be better and easier? And how would a horror movie be a film d’auteur, horror and social one at the same time? Will there be a difference in the way of receiving it by the audience? And would the fact of being predecessor and identificatory at the same time, positively influence its distribution? We will try to answer all those questions through our article that we baptise: The Black magic: an intangible cultural heritage in defiance of the human will-An aesthetic and analytical lecture of its illustration in the sociohorteur movie: Dachra made by Abdelhamid Bouchna
Zombie-Themes Outbreak Films and World War Z (2013)
Get PDFThere are many subgenres and a diverse range of creatures in horror cinema. One of these creatures is the Zombie. The Zombie character in cinema has evolved through eras. The Zombie which, in the past, was presented as a creature resurrected after death in horror cinema began to be associated with virii and the apocalypse afterwards. Nowadays, the Zombie in the cinema are beyond the figure of a horror. As a matter of fact, many zombie-themed movies are presented as allegories of apocalypse or as outbreak-themed movies. What is the meaning of the zombies which are the subject of outbreak films? What cultural codes do zombies represent in outbreak-themed films? What does the changes in different adaptations of this myth mean in outbreak-themed movies? Zombies in epidemic films can be likened to slaves that are reprogrammed after a resurrection process. From this point of view, we are to evaluate the movie World War Z, and the data obtained is to be interpreted in our conclusion section
Deterritorializing The Self: Becoming-Child in the Characters of Reha Erdem’s What’s A Human Anyway? (2004)
Get PDFReha Erdem’s third feature-length movie, What’s a Human, Anyway? (2004) deals with the problems of male characters towards gender roles. This movie also connotes that these problems occur from the views of female characters and parents. Although Erdem’s films mostly concentrates on the toxic masculinity, What’s a Human, Anyway? is the mere film in Erdem’s ouvre, that of which represents women in a negative manner. This research mainly focuses on the young male characters of movie and their attitude against gender-oriented expectations and parental pressure by analyzing it through Deleuze-Guattarian concepts, including deterritorialization, Oedipalization and particularly, becomings, including becoming-minoritarian, -woman, and -child
Politicizing the superhero genre: The case of Watchmen (HBO, 2019)
Get PDFThe HBO limited television series Watchmen (2019) represents a politically engaged superhero television show, marking a shift in recent efforts to render the genre more inclusive in terms of gender and race. Specifically, in mixing fictional and real events surrounding racial violence, such as the 1921 Tulsa massacre, Watchmen inscribes the potential of the superhero genre to tackle prescient political issues and social anxieties, that became even more poignant in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests. The present paper explores Watchmen’s deep resonances with contemporary social and political issues, not only at the level of representations, but also at the series’ production context, and argues that the show marks a key moment in the politicization of the superhero genre
Othering New Women: A Multimodal Approach to The Hymn of Death
Get PDFThis paper takes a multimodal approach to analyze both linguistic and non-linguistic resources represented in a Korean program, The Hymn of Death (2018), with an aim to discover how a multimodal discourse reshapes the way we perceive our society, especially women. The backdrop of this series is set in the 1920s in Korea. This period represents a transition toward modernity in which women were given the opportunity to study and work. This small group of young women were called \u27new women.\u27 With male-centered thumbnails and descriptions which are interlaced together in each episode, The Hymn of Death exhibits the patriarchal culture at the time when a new woman remains absent or invisible as an other