CINEJ Cinema Journal
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The Social Implications of Metaphor in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite
Get PDFThe purpose of the present article is to study the social implications of repetitive metaphors in the film and of the word Parasite (2019) and to observe what makes the life of a lower-class family parasitic within a typical capitalistic society. In the mainstream discussion, the metaphorical functions of such words as ‘smell,’ ‘insects,’ ‘the rock,’ and ‘the party’ are assessed within the context of the film. The central questions of the article, therefore, are: What are the recurrent and metaphorical motifs in the plotline and how can their implications be related to the overall theme of the film? How does Parasite exhibit the clash of classes in a capitalist society? To answer the questions, the present study offers a comprehensive analysis of its recurring metaphors as well as its treatment of the characters who visibly belong to two completely different classes. Through a complex story of two families whose fate gets intermingled, Bong Joon-ho masterfully presents a metaphoric picture of a society where inequality is rampant and the poor can only experience temporary happiness in the shadow of the rich (represented by the Park family)
Formation Of The Ambiguous Heroic Archetype: Three Jewish-American Film Actors And The United States’ Film System, 1929-1948
Get PDFAs Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell note, archetypes, or general ideas of human types, strongly influence societies, particularly the heroic archetype. Since the 1890s mainstream cinema has facilitated the heroic archetype for worldwide audiences. This article argues that Paul Muni (1895-1967), Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973), and John Garfield (1913-1952) became the first important Jewish-American film actors to help develop the ambiguous heroic archetype in the United States’ studio system from 1929 through 1948 in two ways: Muni’s and Robinson’s critical performances in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly in gangster and film noir films, and Garfield’s films from 1946 through 1948
Review of Theorizing Film Through Contemporary Art: Expanding Cinema
Get PDFJ. Murphy and L. Rascaroli (Eds.). Theorizing Film Through Contemporary Art Expanding Cinema. 302 pp. ISBN: 978946298946
Changes in Women’s Representations in Turkish Cinema from the 1980s to the Early 1990s
Get PDFThis article focuses on the representations of women alongside the social and historical background of Turkish cinema from the 1980s through the early 1990s. In the following section, I articulate the political events in the 1980s - the early1990s and its impacts on Turkish society and cinema. I delve into the modernist representations of women in the 1980s cinema to analyze women’s gender codes (based on social/cultural and cinematic codes). Finally, in the last section, I examine Atıf Yılmaz’s cinematic images of women in his films and analyze two of his films A Sip of Love (1984) and The Night, Angel and Our Gang (1994) in terms of gender codes
Portrayal of Women in Contemporary Nollywood Films: Isoken and King of Boys in Focus
Get PDFThis study investigates the portrayal of women in contemporary Nollywood films, using Isoken (2017) and King of Boys (2018) as case studies. The objective was to highlight the various ways in which women in the films are portrayed to viewers and ascertain whether contemporary Nollywood movies are an improvement on the issues of gender stereotypes and sexism which are hitherto prevalent in the industry. Anchored on the cultivation theory, the study adopted the qualitative content analysis method. Findings showed that women in the studied films are negatively portrayed in various ways and that these portrayals are, at best, parallel to the stereotypical ways in which women were portrayed in previous Nollywood movies. Taking cognizance of the fact that both films are directed by women, the researcher recommends that Nollywood female directors should look beyond the lenses of financial gains and set a pace with regards to changing the narrative and portraying Nigerian women in a positive light
Disgraced of the West, Deserted of the East: Men in the Films Shame and Issız Adam (Alone)
Get PDFApart from being shot in almost the same decades, Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011) and Issız Adam (Çağan Irmak, 2008) have other analogies that require to study on. Even though both men live in different cultures and have different relationship models, they struggle in life concurrently. While Steve McQueen’s Shame focuses on uncompromising sex addiction that overthrows a man’s life, Çağan Irmak’s Issız Adam takes it on a romantic level and presents a lonely man who cannot attach women. Though it seems an ordinary attachment problem on the surface, both men have deep social, sexual, familial problems that force them to be left alone. In consideration of adult romantic attachment theory of Hazan and Shaver (1987), both male characters will be examined under the topics of adult loneliness and love, romantic incest and sex addiction to analyze the reasons and the results of the bond that both male characters cannot have built.
The Impulse-Image of Vampiric Capital and the Politics of Vision and Disability: Evil and Horror in Don’t Breathe
Get PDFThis article examines affective and semiotic aspects of Don’t Breathe’s construction of evil and horror. To work towards a post-genre approach to horror, evil and horror are re-examined and differentiated on a discursive level in a first theoretic step. The following film analysis takes Fede Álvarez’ 2016 horror film Don’t Breathe as its case. In a first part, it draws from the Marxian metaphor of vampiric capital and employs a Deleuzian approach to film in focusing on the impulse-image of Don’t Breathe. In a second part, the analysis of evil and monstrous horror then takes into account political notions of the film’s themes of blindness and (dis)ability, thereby moving from a (primarily) affective perspective to a rather semiotic discussion
Review of Towards A Political Aesthetics of Cinema: The Outside of Film
Get PDFLie, S. (2020). Towards a Political Aesthetics of Cinema: The Outside of Film. Amsterdam University Press
Real, Reel and the Anthropocene: Eco-trauma Testimonies in the Film Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal
Get PDFThe paper attempts to read the Endosulfan disaster in Kerala as an instance of the Anthropocene wherein the unscientific use of a pesticide resulted in the persistent misery of a population and the ecology in which they struggle to survive. The suffering is further presented to a larger audience through the film Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal (2015, Dir. Dr Biju) by assimilating the reel and the real to bear testimony to their struggles amidst the toxicity of the chemical. The film, as the paper argues, becomes a representative text in the eco-trauma genre that on the one hand displays the disaster while on the other offers a cultural resistance against the unchecked use of chemicals around us. The film situates the Endosulfan disaster amongst the global movements against the pesticides and emphasises the need of a healthy environment
Reading the Simultaneous Motion and Reality Bending Concepts through Doctor Strange
Get PDFIn order to exemplify the interaction between architecture and science fiction films, Doctor Strange (2016), one of today\u27s cinema examples, was chosen because of that the special effects created in computer environment by transferring the dreams to the film have a surrealist effect on the film; of the fantastic spaces that arise with the deformation of real places become the main character of the film; of foreseeing a different future in terms of architecture. Within the scope of the study, the film was read through the changes of time and space of the concepts of “reality bending” and “simultaneous motion”. As a result of the readings on these concepts, the relationship of cinema with architecture has gained a different dimension, and it has been seen that this film can create a fantastic perspective and inspiration to the designers about the future deconstructivist buildings.