Diposting oleh
good reading on Senin, 15 April 2013
You can read Tom Brown's essay on the above video here.
[L]istening back to our conversation, I was worried about how often the two of us [...] said that characters in the film “look at us” – it is absolutely my claim about direct address that the device makes this possible (possible fictionally), though I think one has to be careful and clear about distinguishing between looks “at us” and ones that, though they might be at the camera, don’t quite carry this promise. However, on reflection, I think Catherine’s video essay brings out something that is very clearly in the film and that is how our position as spectators of Los Olvidados is something we are encouraged to reflect on; our “presence” is an active part of the film’s rhetoric. [Tom Brown on his conversation with Catherine Grant in the videos above: Breaking the Fourth Wall Tumblr, April 15, 2013]
As previously announced
here,
Film Studies For Free's author had the very great pleasure of interviewing
Tom Brown, Lecturer in Film Studies at King's College, London, on the subject of direct address in the cinema, a topic he knows a huge amount about as author of one of the very few full length studies completely dedicated to it:
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012).
The conversation, recorded on Friday March 1, 2013, has been animated in video by
FSFF's author and is presented above in two parts which are preceded by a short compilation video of the moments in
Luis Buñuel's 1950 film
Los olvidados when actors/characters look into the camera; these instances are discussed in detail in Part Two of the "Cinematic Direct Address" videos. You can read Tom's essay on the first video at his wonderful
Tumblr on Direct Address
here.
The videos are accompanied below, as is this blog's wont, by a sizeable compendium of links to further online scholarly studies of this (of course not exclusively) cinematic phenomenon.
In the period of time between recording this interview and completing the editing of it for this blog, Leigh Singer's great video 'supercut' on breaking the fourth wall (linked to below) was published, to much merited acclaim, at
PressPlay. If you know of any further videographic studies of cinematic direct address, or indeed any other good resources to add to the below list, please let
FSFF know about them via the comments.
By the way, if there are any east coast of Ireland-based readers of this blog perusing this paragraph,
FSFF's author is gearing up to visit the very fair city of Dublin at the end of this week to give
a public lecture and participate in a panel discussion at a
free event on digital forms of film and moving image studies at
Filmbase in Temple Bar.
Her fellow panel participants will be BF Taylor (Film Studies, Dublin Business School; see his great collection of video essays
here), Matthew Causey (Arts Technology Research Lab, Trinity College Dublin), Kylie Jarrett, Lecturer in Multimedia (Centre for Media Studies, NUI Maynooth) and Steven Benedict, Broadcaster, Writer, Producer (and author of some very fine video essays on film himself - watch them
here).
It would be lovely to break this blog's own fourth wall and see you there!
More about → Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address and Metalepsis in the Cinema and other Media
Diposting oleh
good reading on Selasa, 10 April 2012
- Digital Cinema Essay-Film-Lecture (for Film History and Criticism, University of Roehampton, 29 March 2012) by William Brown
- Films mentioned in William Brown's essay-film-lecture, above: Arabesque (John Whitney, USA, 1975); TRON (Steven Lisberger, USA, 1982); Terminator 2: Judgement Day (James Cameron, USA, 1991); Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, USA, 1993); Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, USA, 1994); The Incredibles (Brad Bird, USA, 2004); A Very Long Engagement (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France/USA, 2004); Sleep Dealer (Alex Rivera, Mexico/USA, 2008); Day Watch (Timur Bekmambetov, Russia, 2006); The Host (Joon-ho Bong, South Korea, 2006); Panic Attack! (Fede Alvarez, Uruguay, 2009); O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen, UK/USA, 2000); Making Of O Brother, Where Art Thou?; 300 (Zack Snyder, USA, 2006); Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis, USA, 2007); Singin' in the Rain Golf GTI Advert (Ne-o, 2005); Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, USA, 2008); Fight Club (David Fincher, USA, 1999); War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, USA, 2006); Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, USA, 2002); Avatar (James Cameron, USA, 2009); The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, USA, 2004); The Matrix (Andy and Larry Wachowski, USA, 1999); Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez, USA, 2007); The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson, USA/New Zealand, 2003)
- Academic texts mentioned in the above lecture: Bordwell, David (2002). ‘Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film’, Film Quarterly, 55:3 (Spring), pp. 16-28; Brown, William (2009). ‘Man Without a Movie Camera – Movies Without Men: Towards a Posthumanist Cinema?’ in Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies (ed. Warren Buckland), Abingdon/New York: Routledge/AFI, pp. 66-85; Buckland, Warren (2006). Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster, London: Continuum; Elsaesser, Thomas, and Warren Buckland (2002). Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis, London: Arnold; Gunning, Tom (1986). ‘The Cinema of Attraction, Early Film, Its Spectators and the Avant-Garde’, Wide Angle, 8:3-4, pp. 63-70; Manovich, Lev (2001). The Language of New Media, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; Minnis, Stuart (1998). ‘Digitalisation and the Instrumentalist Approach to the Photographic Image,’ Iris, 25, pp. 49-59; Prince, Stephen (1996). ‘True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory,’ Film Quarterly, 49:3 (Spring), pp. 27-37; Wood, Aylish (2002). ‘Timespaces in spectacular cinema: crossing the great divide between spectacle versus narrative,’ Screen, 43:4, pp. 370-386
Film is in a state of rapid change, with the transition from analog to digital profoundly affecting not just filmmaking and distribution, but also the theoretical conceptualization of the medium of film and the practice of film archiving. New forms of digital archives are being developed that make use of participatory media to provide a more open form of access than any traditional archive has offered before. Film archives are thus faced with new questions and challenges. From Grain to Pixel attempts to bridge the fields of film archiving and academic research, by addressing the discourse on film ontology and analysing how it affects the role of film archives. Fossati proposes a new theoretization of film archival practice as the starting point for a renewed dialogue between film scholars and film archivists.
- Acknowledgements 9
- Framing Film (in Transition): an Introduction 13
- part one practice and theory of (archival) film
- 1 Film Practice in Transition 33
- 2 Theorizing Archival Film 103
- part two theorizing (archival) practice
- 3 Film Archival Field in Transition 149
- 4 Restoration Case Studies: Theorizing Archival Practice 211
- A New Mindset for (Archival) Film in Transition: a Conclusion 255
- Notes 261 Glossary of Technical Terms 285 List of Illustrations 291 Filmography 293 Bibliography 297 Index 311
"Nanna Verhoeff’s new book is a must for anybody interested in visual culture and media theory. It offers a rich and stimulating theoretical account of the central dimension of our contemporary existence – interfacing and navigating both data and physical world through a variety of screens (game consoles, mobile phones, car interfaces, GPS devices, etc.) In the process of exploring these new screen practices, Verhoeff offers fresh perspectives on many of the key questions in media and new media studies as well as a number of new original theoretical concepts. As the first theoretical manual for the society of mobile screens, this book will become an essential reference for all future investigations of our mobile screen condition". – Lev Manovich
- Acknowledgements 9
- List of Illustrations 11
Introduction 13
- 1. Panoramic Complex 27 Building Visions 28 Panoramic Desire 32 Movement in the Panorama 39 Modes of Viewing 42 The Gaze in Motion 44 A Panoramic Complex 46 The Windshield as Screen 48
- 2. Self-Reflection 51 The Point of Self-Reflection 51 Meanings of the Screen 56 Spatial Attractions and Visual Deixis 57 Navigating the Screen 65 Navigation as Narration 68 Boundary-Crossings 70
- 3. Theoretical Consoles 73 The Status of the Gadget: The Case of Nintendo DS 73 Portrait of the Gadget as a Theoretical Console 77 Touch Screen: Dirty Windows 82 Mobile Screen: Carrying, Sharing, Transporting 89 Double Screen: Split, Insert, Map 92 Gadgetivity 95
- 4. Urban Screens 99 Places of Transit 99 Screenspace 104 Urban Transformation 107 Screen Practices 114 Installation 116 Programming Hybridity 124 Responsive Presence 129
- 5. Performative Cartography Mobile Dispositif Contesting Cartography Performative Cartography Cartographic Interface Tagging, Plotting, Stitching Layering in Augmented Reality Haptic Engagement
- Notes Bibliography Index of Names and Titles Index of Terms
