New Issue of JUMP CUT!

Frame grab from The Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939). See the Jump Cut dossier on Ford's film, Spielberg's version of the Lincoln story, and the classic Cahiers du Cinéma debate on the earlier film. Also see  Film Studies For Free's earlier entry on On the art (and ideology) of John Ford's films

Film Studies For Free has been away, gadding about and gabbling at a wonderful conference in Frankfurt on The Audiovisual Essay (organised by Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López, with Vinzenz Hediger, for Deutsches Filminstitut and Goethe University), about which you will hear a great deal in the coming weeks and months.

Next, tomorrow, it departs for yet another exciting public event - a panel discussion on 'The Future of Film Criticism" at King's College, London, speaking alongside Jean-Michel Frodon (Editor of Cahiers du Cinéma and film critic for Le Monde) and Nick James (Editor of Sight & Sound).

In between these two magnificent events, it had to bring you news of a huge new issue of the online journal Jump Cut, which is absolutely full of incredibly interesting looking contents - FSFF particularly liked the dossier on Lincoln and ideology, but there's so much more to enjoy here. Thank you, Jump Cut!

Back soon.


Current issue, No. 55, fall 2013: INSTITUTIONS, TECHNOLOGIES, and LABOR

• Digital dreams in a material world: the rise of Netflix and its impact on changing distribution and exhibition patterns by Kevin P. McDonald
• “From, by, for”: Nairobi’s Slum Film Festival, film festival studies, and the practices of development by Lindiwe Dovey, Joshua McNamara, and Federico Olivier
• The normativity of 3D: cinematic journeys, “imperial visuality” and unchained cameras by Bruce Bennett
• Native images: the otherness and affectivity of the digital body by Adam Davis
• Sounds of Hong Kong cinema: Johnnie To, Milkyway Image, and the sound track by Gary Bettinson
• To work or not to work: the dilemma of Hong Kong film labor in the age of mainlandization by Mirana M. Szeto and Yun-chung Chen

THIRD CINEMA/INTERNATIONAL

• Jai Bhim Comrade: tales of oppression and songs of resistance by Catherine Bernier
• “The revolutionary founding moments of a contra-Grierson tradition” by Brian Winston (a review of Joshua Malitsky, Post-Revolution Nonfiction Film: Building the Soviet and Cuban Nations)
• Thauk gya paw hee thwi deh thwi /Blood’s Oath to Beautiful Flower —Blood’s Oath, drama of insurgency in a Burmese Pwo Karen Film by Violet Cho
• Amnesiac memory: Hiroshima/Nagasaki in Japanese film by Inez Hedges
• Body memories, body cinema: the politics of multi-sensual counter-memory in György Pálfi’s Hukkle by György Kalmár
• We lost our way: the time and space of alienation in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together by Caroline Guo
• Hong Kong’s liminal spaces: unveiling nature and identity in Tsang Tsui-shan’s Big Blue Lake by Winnie L. M. Yee
• Capitalist childhood in film: modes of critique by Susan Ferguson
• National identity, cultural institutions, and filmmaking in “Paradise” —the Puerto Rican successes of Talento de barrio and Broche de oro by Naida García-Crespo
• “Behind her laughter…is fear!” Domestic abuse and transnational feminism in Bollywood remakes by Gohar Siddiqui

GENDER

• New queer cinema by Roxanne Samer
• Feminist porn by Erica Rand (a review of The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure, edited by Tristan Taormino, Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and Mireille Miller-Young)
• The gay-for-pay gaze in gay male pornography by Kevin John Bozelka
• Dire straights: the indeterminacy of sexual identity in gay-for-pay pornography by John Paul Stadler
• Sartorial signifiers, masculinity, and the global recession in HBO's Hung by Chris Vanderwees
• The multivalent feminism of The Notorious Bettie Page by Steven S. Kapica
• Descent: “Everything’s okay now”—race, vengeance, and watching the modern rape-revenge narrative by Jenny Lapekas
• Bringing out Baby Jane —camp, sympathy, and the horror-woman’s film of the 1960s by David Greven
• Doing his homework by David Greven (a review of David Halperin’s How to be Gay)

IN AND AGAINST THE MAINSTREAM

• Skyfall: a mother and her twin boys by Robert Alpert
• “Propane is for pussies” —Bellflower’s bromance of retro technology and hip masculinity by David Church
• Take Shelter; Meek’s Cutoff; The Turin Horse — the end of everything by Timothy Kreider
• Workers' confessions and the reality TV series Undercover Boss by Lyell Davies
• From Hoover to Bush Jr. — home and crisis scripts in U.S. social cinema by Antonio Sánchez-Escalonilla
• Ecocinema by Joe Heumann and Robin Murray (a review of Ecocinema Theory and Practice, ed. Stephen Rust, Salma Monani, Sean Cubitt
• The earth bites back: vampires and the ecological roots of home by Robin Murray and Joe Heumann
• Broomhilda Unchained: Tarantino’s Wagner by Adrian Daub and Elisabeth Bronfen

EXPERIMENTAL/INDEPENDENT

• Movies in miniature by Midi Onodera
• Amateurization of the entire media universe by Patricia R. Zimmermann (a review of Amateur Media: Social, Cultural and Legal Perspectives, ed. Dan Hunter, Ramon Lobato, Megan Richardson and Julian Thomas)
• Varient cinematic artistic expression by Greg DeCuir (a review of Pavle Levi, Cinema by other means)

LINCOLN & IDEOLOGY FORUM

• Introduction by Chuck Kleinhans
• Young Mr. Lincoln and ideological analysis: a reconsideration (with many asides) by Chuck Kleinhans
• Lincoln in contemporary U.S. culture and politics by Douglas Kellner
• Equality before the law in Spielberg’s Lincoln by Gary Bettinson and Richard Rushton
• Symptomatic reading in Althusser, Cahiers du cinéma, and Zizek by Warren Buckland
• Lincoln: shared myths in a revisionist age by Frederick Wasser
• The hysteric, the mother, the natural gal:
• male fantasies and male theories in films about Lincoln by Deborah Tudor
• The significance of Steven Spielberg's Old Mr. Lincoln:
• political emotions and intertextual knowledge by Janet Staiger
• Mr. Spielberg's Mr. Lincoln by Chuck Kleinhans

HIV/AIDS ACTIVIST MEDIA

• Introduction: Ghost stories by David Oscar Harvey, Marty Fink, Alexandra Juhasz, Bishnu Gosh
• Ghosts caught in our throat —
• of the lack of contemporary representations of gay/bisexual men and HIV by David Oscar Harvey
• Two ghost stories: disability activism and HIV/AIDS by Marty Fink
• Acts of signification-survival by Alexandra Juhasz
• What time is it here? by Bishnupriya Ghosh

CLASSICS FROM THE PAST
S/Z and Rules of the Game by Julia Lesage
 
THE LAST WORD The war on/in higher education by the Editors

More about → New Issue of JUMP CUT!

Woo, To, Wong Kar-wai, Asian Horror, Anime and More: Twelve Open-Access Film Studies Books from Hong Kong University Press and OAPEN!!

A little interchange on Twitter, this morning, with the fabulous open access book library OAPEN has revealed to Film Studies For Free that TWELVE film studies books published by Hong Kong University Press in the last ten years have recently been made freely accessible via the OAPEN website! The keyword search link to access all OA HKUP books with a film connection is here. Below FSFF has listed links to the twelve e-tomes with the most substantial film studies content. When you arrive at the linked-to page for each item click on the PDF icon there to download the books.

All of these will now be added to FSFF's permanent listing of links to open access film and media studies e-books! Thank you to all the below authors, to Hong Kong University Press and, especially, to OAPEN!

• Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema by Choi, Jinhee & Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo (2009)
• Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time by Dissanayake, Wimal (2003)
• Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together by Tambling, Jeremy (2003)
• Chinese Ecocinema: In the Age of Environmental Challenge by Lu, Sheldon H. & Mi, Jiayan (2009)
• John Woo's A Better Tomorrow by Fang, Karen (2004)
• John Woo's The Killer by Hall, Kenneth E. (2009)
• Johnnie To Kei-Fung's PTU by Ingham, Michael (2009)
• Fruit Chan's Durian Durian by Gan, Wendy (2005)
• Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong by Cheung, Esther M.K. (2009)
• Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building by Hu, Tze-Yue G. (2010)
• Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image by Kam, Louie (2010)
• The Chinese Exotic: Modern Diasporic Femininity by Khoo, Olivia (2007)

More about → Woo, To, Wong Kar-wai, Asian Horror, Anime and More: Twelve Open-Access Film Studies Books from Hong Kong University Press and OAPEN!!

Liquid Atmospherics: On the cinema of Wong Kar-wai

ENVOI (2011) from Elaine Castillo on Vimeo. The above video is a ficto-biographical essay-film taking two looped scenes from two Wong Kar-wai films (HAPPY TOGETHER and DAYS OF BEING WILD) as its point of departure, arrival (also: non-departure, non-arrival). On grief, migration, the romantic, hyper-specificity, sentimental time, queer space, Asian celebrity gossip, fantasies involving Maggie Cheung, covers and translations, the writing body, the filmmaking body, readability, speakability.

Almost devoid of irony, Wong’s films, like classic rock and roll, take seriously all the crushes, the posturing, and the stubborn capriciousness of young angst. They rejoice in manic expenditures of energy. They celebrate the momentary heartbreak of glimpsing a stranger who might be interesting to love. The best comparison is surely not with Godard, whose romantic streak has a bitter edge. In Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong may have its Truffaut, the director who in Tirez sur le pianiste and Jules et Jim concentrated on not-quite-grown- up characters brooding on eternally missed chances. In any case, Wong stands out from his peers by abandoning the kinetics of comedies and action movies in favor of more liquid atmospherics. He dissolves crisp emotions into vaporous moods. For all his sophistication, his unembarrassed effort to capture powerful, pleasantly adolescent feelings confirms his commitment to the Hong Kong popular tradition.
David Bordwell, 'Avant-Pop Cinema Romance on Your Menu: Chungking Express' in Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (Second edition: e-book; Wisconsin: Irvington Way Institute Press Madison, 2011), pp. 178-179

Today, Film Studies For Free massively updates its existing entry on the cinema of Wong Kar-wai. 

There are two compelling reasons for this: the first is there are lots more scholarly resources available, or discoverable, now on this filmmaker's work that are worth listing, including some great items on video. 

The second is that this is the first of two posts in celebration of the online publication, as a PDF, of a full colour, second edition of the peerless David Bordwell's book Planet Hong Kong, an opus well worth its $15 pricetag, in FSFF's humble and, usually, frugal opinion.
 
FSFF doesn't normally celebrate, or promote, pay-to-own resources. But, apart from the fact that this is a highly interesting development in online Film Studies publishing in its own right, no one has given so generously online, either of his already published work or of his ongoing scholarly work, as David Bordwell. 

What is more, Bordwell's PHK chapter entitled 'Avant-Pop Cinema', with its lyrical and beautifully illustrated section on Wong's work: 'Romance on Your Menu: Chungking Express', is worth the download price alone. If you need to save up to purchase Planet Hong Kong first, you can enjoy, in the meantime, several excellent posts at Observations on Film Art on Wong's work, including 'Ashes to Ashes (Redux)' and 'Years of being obscure'.

Video material:

• Brian Hu, 'Pop Music and Wong Kar-wai (visual essay)' Mediascape, Winter 2011
• Soraya Sélène, 'Decoding Wong Kar-wai', Vimeo, March 4, 2011
• Vicky Thai, 'Wing Kar-wai's Notion of Time', Vimeo, December 15, 2010
• Quentin Tarantino on Chungking Express on YouTube 

Written material:

• Acquarello on Wong Kar-wai at Strictly Film School
• Matt Bautch, 'The Cultural Aesthetic of Wong Kar-wai', Latent Image 2003
• Gary Bettinson, 'Wong Kar-wai and the Aesthetics of Disturbance', David C. Lam Working Paper Series, 105, November 2010 
• Giorgio Biancorosso, 'Romance, Insularity and Representation: Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love and Hong Kong Cinema', Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures Volume 1, No. 1, 2007
• Allan Cameron, 'Trajectories of identification: travel and global culture in the films of Wong Kar-wai', Jump Cut, 49, 2007
• Felicia Chan, 'In Search of a Comparative Poetics: Cultural Translatability in Transnational Chinese Cinemas', PhD, Nottingham University 2007, (chapter 3 - p. 147-201 - treats Wong Kar-wai)
• Ethel Chong, 'In the Mood for Love: Urban Alienation in Wong Kar Wai’s Films', Kinema Spring 2003
• Jeremy Cohen, 'Lonely Hearts: Wong Kar-Wai's Obscure Objects of Desire', Eye Candy Winter 2006
• Christopher Doyle and Wong Kar-wai interview for Interview Magazine on Ashes Redux
• Wendy Gan, "0.01cm: Affectivity and Urban Space in Chungking Express." Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies, November 2003
• John Christopher Hamm, 'Review of Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time by Wimal Dissanayake', MCLC Resource Publication, October 2005
• Ian Johnston, 'Unhappy Together: Wong Kar-Wai's 2046', Bright Lights Film Journal, vol. 47, February 2005
• Kent Jones, "Of love and the city." Film Comment, Jan/Feb 2001. Vol. 37, Issue 1; p. 22
• Jo C. Law, 'Time without end: exploring the temporal experience of wong kar-wai's 2046 through Walter Benjamin', In A. Benjamin and C. Rice (Eds.), Walter Benjamin and the architecture of modernity (pp. 159-173). Melbourne: re.press.
• Anthony Leong, 'Meditations on Loss: A Framework for the Films of Wong Kar Wai', Asian Cult Cinema 1999
• Toh Hai Leong, 'Wong Kar-wai: Time, Memory, Identity', Kinema Spring 1995
• Trish Maunder, 'Interview with Tony Leung', Senses of Cinema 2001
• Kathryn Millard, 'Writing for the Screen: Beyond the Gospel of Story', SCAN, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2006
• Martha Nochimson, 'Ashes of Time Redux', Cineaste,Vol.XXXV No.1, 2009
  
• Robert M Payne, 'Ways of seeing wild: the cinema of Wong Kar-Wai', Jump Cut 44, 2001, text version HERE
• Mark Peranson, 'The Numbers Game: Wong Kar-wai finally finishes 2046', Cinemascope, 19
• Effie Rassos, 'Everyday Narratives: Reconsidering Filmic Temporality and Spectatorial Affect Through the Quotidian,' PhD, University of New South Wales, 2005
• Tony Rayns, 'The Innovators 1990-2000: Charisma Express', Sight and Sound January 2000
• Mina Shin, 'Review of Planet Hong Kong', Framework, 42, 2000
• Stephen Teo, 'Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in Transfigured Time', Senses of Cinema 2001
• Stephen Teo, '2046: A Matter of Time, a Labour of Love', Senses of Cinema 2005
• Stephen Teo, 'Local and Global identity: Whither Hong Kong Cinema?' Senses of Cinema 2007
• Donato Totaro, 'My Blueberry Nights: Love Drives Full Circle', Offscreen Journal, July 31, 2008
  
• Fiona A. Villella (symposium ed.), 'The Cinema of Wong Kar-wai - A 'Writing Game', Senses of Cinema 2001 (entries on Backside; Blue; Creation; Dali-esque Time' Desire; Emotion; Look; Love; Possibility; Repetition; Space; Third-World; Time; Wrongheaded) 
• Flannery Wilson,'Viewing Sinophone Cinema Through a French Theoretical Lens: Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love, 2046, and Deleuze's Cinema', Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Volume 21, Number 1 (Spring 2009)
• Elizabeth Wright, 'Profile of director Wong Kar-wai', Senses of Cinema 2002
• Laurel Wypkema, 'Corridor Romance: Wong Kar-wai's Intimate City, Synoptique, August 1, 2005 
• Xuelin Zhou, 'On the Rooftop: A Study of Marginalized Youth Films in Hong Kong Cinema', Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol. 8, No. 2, 2008
• Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, 'Transcultural Sounds: Music, Identity and the Cinema of Wong Kar-wai', David C. Lam Working Paper Series, 69, November 2007 

More about → Liquid Atmospherics: On the cinema of Wong Kar-wai

Wide Screen Journal on Film Production Studies

Javier Casanova in Vainilla Chip (Erik Knudsen, 2009) Watch this film here (or here) and read Knudsen's article on his work

Set in the small Cuban town of San Antonio de los Baños, just outside Havana, Vainilla Chip tells the story of an ordinary day for an elderly ice cream maker, Javier Rodriguez Casanova. An ordinary day which, like all the other ordinary days, has become painfully pierced by an acute sense of longing for his deceased wife.
     This film is an intimate portrait of a hard working man in a contemporary Cuba far removed from clichés of The Revolution and romanticised memories of Cuban music. Vainilla Chip brings the musicality of one ordinary man’s life to the fore to reveal a universal struggle affecting many people across cultural and political divides. [Erik Knudsen]

We often hear that the power of films lays in their emotional impact. In recent years, some corners of film studies have been preoccupied with the investigation of the senses and the body, which could be related to the view of films in terms of emotions and affect. Much of the filmmaking process rests on creating and communicating this emotional power of the films. Instead of thinking, like Powdermaker did, that the film workers are collectively involved in story-telling, or like Bordwell, Thompson and Staiger, that they are preoccupied with the generation of a particular style of filmmaking, we would like to argue that films are collectively involved in generating, assembling and crafting the emotion of the film. [Graham Roberts and Dorota Ostrowska]

Film Studies For Free is very happy to pass on news that a special issue of the online, Open Access film journal Wide Screen has just been published on "Production Studies". The issue was edited by Graham Roberts and Dorota Ostrowska. The Table of Contents is given below.


Essays

• 'Magic, Emotions And Film Producers: Unlocking The “Black-Box” Of Film Production' by Dorota Ostrowska Abstract PDF HTML

• 'The Film Producer as a Creative Force' by Alejandro Pardo Abstract PDF HTML

• 'Housekeeper of Hong Kong cinema: The role of producer in the system of Hong Kong film industry' by Cindy Chan Abstract PDF HTML

• 'Close Encounters?: Contemporary Turkish Television And Cinema' by Melis Behlil Abstract PDF HTML

• 'Anthology Film. The Future Is Now: Film Producer As Creative Director' by Shekhar Deshpande Abstract PDF HTML

• 'Cinema Of Poverty: Independence And Simplicity In An Age Of Abundance And Complexity' by Erik Knudsen Abstract PDF HTML

• 'Understanding Orlova: Youtube producers, Hot for Words, and some pitfalls of production studies' by Patrick Vonderau Abstract PDF HTML

More about → Wide Screen Journal on Film Production Studies