CINEJ Cinema Journal
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Holocaust Cinema as Depicted by Film Advisory Boards in Five English Speaking Countries
Get PDFHolocaust cinema is important constituent in conveying the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath within present day culture. Recommendations by film advisory boards can encourage or deject exposure to Holocaust cinema. Age-classifications and their justifications of Holocaust movies produced between 1993 and 2015, by film advisory boards in five English speaking countries, were investigated. Differences in age classifications, and similarity in depicting Holocaust movies as mainly heavy with violence, sex, profanity and mature contents, were noted. In order to capture more fully the complexities marking Holocaust cinema, expansion of the vocabulary used by these boards is needed
Nollywood in Cameroon: Transnationalisation and Reception of a Dynamic Cinematic Culture
Get PDFThe Nigerian film industry (Nollywood) has phenomenally exploded to the extent of affecting audiences and social institutions in various African countries. In Cameroon particularly, various indications suggest that the industry is positively received, despite the persistence of perceptible anti-Nigerian and nationalist feelings among sections of the country’s audiences and communities of cinema ideologues. Using empirical understandings, observations and secondary sources, this paper seeks to explore how the Nollywood phenomenon is manifested and received in the Cameroonian market. It precisely examines the various indexes of Nollywood presence in the country which can be seen in (i) the place Nollywood films have in television broadcast in the country, (ii) the extent to which Nollywood films affect local cinema production in Cameroon and (iii) Cameroonian audiences’ attitudes towards Nollywood films and actors
Ceylan\u27s Winter Sleep: From Ambiguity to Nothingness
Get PDFNuri Bilge Ceylan is a puzzling filmmaker who started his career as a photographer and initially made films with a “photographic” spirit. But from his first films known as the Trilogy of Province to his award winning latest feature Winter Sleep, Ceylan has changed drastically. Once a modest artist refusing to give interviews, Ceylan has become a regular “red carpet” figure. So this essay will analyze Ceylan’s Winter Sleep from a critical theoretical perspective and try to underline the changes in his cinematography as well as philosophical orientations since his Trilogy of Province. The main points of argument will focus on his shift from an affirmative politics of “ambiguity” towards a dark postmodern “nothingness”
Transnational Life: Where’d I Be Happy? A Research on the Films of Immigrant Directors From Turkey Living in Austria
Get PDFThis study aims to analyse the representation of different cultural notions in Turkish-Austrian Migrant Cinema. This study is based on migrant problem, hybrid identities and national values, taking Austria as a sample. Turkish-Austrian migrant films include multiculturalism, Turkish national values and Turkish national cinema narrative by keeping optimism and hope. The sampling of this study consists of films by Umut Dağ and Hüseyin Tabak. The films by both of these directors focus on traditional values of Turkish culture, the reflection of these values on Austria and cover the features of immigration from Turkey to Austria. The films portray Turkish immigrants going back and forth between Turkish and Austrian cultures in their daily lives. The films of these directors show the experiences in during and post-migration processes and emphasize the phenomenon of not belonging either culture.
Aestheticizing the Downfall of Industrial Capitalism: Jim Jarmusch’s Tale of Intellectual Vampires in Zombies’ World
Get PDFThis study aims to read Jim Jarmusch’s movie Only Lovers Left Alive from the perspective of downfall of industrial capitalism and ecosocialist approach. The movie mainly takes place in Detroit Michigan, which is a symbol of the collapse of Fordism and industrialization. Ecosocialist critique of industrial capitalism has common notions with Jarmusch’s tale. Thus, theoretical framework of this study has been established on ecosocialist paradigm. In the movie, Jarmusch represents vampires as intellectuals with a wide accumulation of culture and knowledge and places his critique of industrialization from their point of view. Multimodal Discourse Analysis was applied to the movie to find out how the movie did use visual and literal signifiers to establish its narrative
Presentation of Nuri Bilge Ceylan and his Cinema in the Turkish Media
Get PDFNuri Bilge Ceylan is the most famous Turkish film director with numerous international prizes. However, Ceylan’s presentation by the Turkish media is far from emphasizing his success, talent, creativity, style, technique, and cinematography. He often falls victim to undeserved and superficial criticism of “would be” critics who openly confess they did not watch Ceylan’s movies. He is sometimes portrayed as a political figure and critic of the present day Turkish politics and system. This article focuses on how two mainstream Turkish newspapers, columnists and microbloggers portrayed and reacted to Ceylan and his cinema after his film Winter Sleep won the top prize (the Golden Palm) at Cannes Film Festival in 2014 and the reasons behind this portrayal.
The Orientation of Future Cinema: Technology, Aesthetics, Spectacle
Get PDFBook Review: Bruce Isaacs, The Orientation of Future Cinema: Technology, Aesthetics, Spectacle. Bloomsbury, 2014. 320 pp. ISBN 9781628924312 (paperback
Violence in the Postcolonial Ghetto: Ngozi Onwurah\u27s Welcome II the Terrordome (1994)
Get PDFAs a film-maker who likes to transgress ideas of what is commonly expected from a black female artist to be making, British-Nigerian director Ngozi Onwurah has shown a particular interest in the various expressions of violence throughout her filmography. Her first feature film, Welcome II the Terrordome (1994), specifically grapples with themes of violence, memory, reincarnation and embodiment. The film follows the story of the McBride family : first as slaves, as the filmmaker evokes an ancient Igbo legend, and in their reincarnated life in the ghetto of Transdean, better known as the ‘Terrordome’. More than twenty years after its release, I will question Welcome II the Terrordome’s representations of violence through the ideas of postcolonial theorists Frantz Fanon and Achille Mbembe
Bollywood in the Hollywood Era: Narratives of Ultra-nationalism, Terrorism and Violence
Get PDFThe study examines how some renowned Hollywood and Bollywood movies deal with geopolitical representations of empire and regional politics through the construction of discourses centered on the building of “empire” and “nation”. These movies reflect how government machineries evaluate the political situation and strategic policies of the country in managing geopolitical environments through the construction of security narratives, political rhetoric and geopolitical discourses. The narratives of specific Hollywood movies tend to explain contemporary geopolitics with an emphasis on America’s military power, strategy and world leadership while the genre of Bollywood movies reconnects the ideology of division through the establishment of geographies of ‘us’ and ‘them’ setting aside the so-called “secular face” of the state
Panoptic Pranksters: Power, Space and Visibility in the Information Panopticon in Scare Campaign
Get PDFFoucault, in his seminal work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) discusses Bentham’s architectural design of the Panopticon as a means to exercise power and enforce discipline. He extends this metaphor to speak of Panopticism as a social phenomenon used to discipline work forces through covert strategies. Shoshana Zuboff, in In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (1988) contextualizes Foucault’s discussion in an age where the work culture uses Information Systems extensively for surveillance. She calls such a structure an “Information Panopticon”. This paper aims to bring out the various nuances of the Information Panopticon in Cameron and Colin Cairnes’ film Scare Campaign (2016) and how it facilitates the exercise of power. The paper firstly looks at Zuboff’s Information Panopticon in light of Foucault’s discussion before evaluating the Information Panopticon created in the film and its hierarchal structure. Next it endeavours to demonstrate how the Information Panopticon in the film is not solely reliant on literal visibility. It wraps up with a discussion on the relation between spatiality, visibility and power in the film’s Information Panopticon