Just the Facts – A New Realist Cinema? New Issue of PHOTOGÉNIE

Frame grab from Che (Steven Soderbergh, 2008). Read about this film in Tom Paulus's essay Historians of the Real? Che and Carlos as Political Cinema in the latest issue of Photogénie

[In the pages of De Filmkrant Adrian Martin] bemoans an ideological naiveté on both the filmmaker and the critic’s part when a return to realism is perceived as a way of breaking new ground, and genre conventions, by implication, are again seen as ideologically suspect. Jones replies that adherence to ‘meandering fact’ is, in these cases, purely functional, depending on the story at hand; as such, ‘realism’ must be seen as no more than a suitable response to ‘meditations on time’ like Fincher’s Zodiac (pictured above) or Assayas’s Carlos, films that are structured around “the lulls and disappointments and setbacks and frustrations instead of the peaks of an actual police investigation or an actual terrorist operation.” Still, Martin is not so far off the mark in identifying a trend (possibly kick-started by Zodiac’s critical reception), although the seeds of that trend lie with the films and culture Jameson was discussing, films like All the President’s Men, certainly an acknowledged influence on Fincher. In their strict adherence to historical fact movies like Zodiac, Carlos, Che – to name the most important disseminators of the trend – and more recently Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty or even Steven Spielberg’s ‘anecdotal’ Lincoln – seem to have been created as if to reprove Jameson’s dictum about docudrama that, “[n]ot even the most concrete visuality in detail and reconstruction, nor the historical accuracy and ‘truth’ of the re-enactment,” can remove these films from the realm of the imaginary. Although most of these films feature a ‘mediating consciousness’, a privileged witness character, who reshapes collective historical drama as personal psychological trauma, their dramaturgy is still largely constructed around the anecdotal, the ‘raw’ material of history. Martin notes that these movies are full of repetitious talk-sessions and ‘nothing-much-happening,’ a temps mort aesthetic that brings to mind both nouvelle vague and talky incarnations of slow cinema, the resemblance to the latter heightened by their lengthy running times.
    The aim of this issue is to look at these movies and the perceived return of realism from a variety of angles [...] [Tom Paulus introduces the new issue of Photogénie on realist cinema]

December is often one of the sweetest months for new issues of ejournals and this year is no exception. So Film Studies For Free is (slowly) catching up with some good ones. One of the very best sets of reading may be found in the new collection of work from Photogénie on realist cinema. FSFF particularly liked Adrian Martin's deconstruction of documentary purism and Tom Paulus on historians of the real, but each of the articles is excellent. The contents are linked to below.

You should subscribe to the wonderful Photogénie blog, too!

a. Just the Facts – A New Realist Cinema?: Edito TOM PAULUS

b. Sixteen Ways to Pronounce Potato, or: The Adventure of Materials /Fragment from 1987 ADRIAN MARTIN

c. Between Documentary, Fiction and Appropriation Art: A Case Report on the “Language-game” Public Hearing (2012) MICHAEL GUARNERI

d. Refusing to Lie Down: Truth, Fiction, and Ken Russell’s Early Television Documentaries CHRISTOPHER VAN EECKE

e. Historians of the Real? Che and Carlos as Political Cinema TOM PAULUS

f. The Unsilent Initial: Monuments, Swamps and Politics Before the Law in Steven Spielberg´s Lincoln DREHLI ROBNIK

g. Realistic, Like in a Movie: On Facts, Procedurals and Memories of Murders DAVID GUNZBURG

h. What Does It Mean to Be a Human Researcher?: Deleuze’s Character of the Forger in the Film L’humanité PIETER-JAN DECOSTER and NANCY VANSIELEGHEM

i. Scripting in the Dataverse STEFAAN DECOSTERE

List of Contributors

Photogénie Issues

1. - Just the Facts – A New Realist Cinema?

0. - Reviving Photogénie

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New issue of SCOPE: Nicole Holofcener, Realism, Self-Transformation Narratives, Károly Makk, the Feature Film as "Short Story" and More

Framegrab from Lovely and Amazing (Nicole Holofcener, 2001). You can read Rachel Lister's article about Holofcener's films here

Life is good, thinks Film Studies For Free: a new issue of Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies has just been published. There's a small but well-edited selection of great articles, and an enormous number of hugely useful book reviews and conference reports. FSFF particularly liked Rachel Lister on Nicole Holofcener's "short story" films and Miklós Kiss on Károly Makk's Szerelem/Love.

All contents are listed and linked to below.

Scope: Issue 24 October 2012

Articles

• Self-Making as Public Spectacle: Bodies, Bodily Training and Reality TV Bree Hadley
• Rationalising the Irrational: Artistic Realism as Cognitive Reality in Károly Makk's Szerelem/Love  Miklós Kiss
• The Feature Film as Short Story: The "Little Disturbances" of Nicole Holofcener Rachel Lister
• Cinderella vs Barbie: The Battle for Postfeminist Performance in Teen Transformation Narratives Kendra Marston

Book Reviews

• All Book Reviews
• Jacques Rivette by Douglas Morrey and Alison Smith ; Alain Robbe-Grillet by John Phillips A Review by Jonathan L. Owen
• Music and Politics by John Street ; Wagner and Cinema edited by Jeongwon Joe and Sander L. Gilman  A Review by Nathan Waddell
• Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films by M. Keith Booker
• Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation by Chris Pallant
• A Review by Noel Brown
• Virtual Voyages: Cinema and Travel edited by Jeffrey Ruoff; Cinematic Journeys: Film and Movement By Dimitris Eleftheriotis A Review by Sofia Sampaio
• Jerry Lewis by Chris Fujiwara ; Atom Egoyan by Emma Wilson ; Andrei Tarkovsky by Sean Martin A review by Adam Jones
• The Comedy of Chaplin: Artistry in Motion by Dan Kamin ; Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century by Matthew Solomon  A review by Bruce Bennett
• Von Sternberg by John Baxter ; Willing Seduction: The Blue Angel, Marlene Dietrich and Mass Culture by Barbara Kosta  A Review by Elaine Lennon
• Soldiers' Stories: Military Women in Cinema and Television Since World War I by Yvonne Tasker ; A ‘Toxic Genre': The Iraq War Films by Martin Barker A Review by Jay Reid
• Lost in Translation: Orientalism, Cinema, and the Enigmatic Signifier by Homay King ; Theorizing Bruce Lee: Film-Fantasy-Fighting-Philosophy by Paul Bowman  A Review by Lin Feng

Film and Television Reviews

• All Film and Television Reviews
• Dust (Polvo) A review by Miharu M. Miyasaka

Conference Reports

• All Conference Reports
• The Distribution and Exhibition of Chinese and Asian Cinema in the UK  A report by Jonathan Wroot
• Deleuze, Guattari and China Symposium A report by Yun-hua Chen
• The Cinema of Sensations: Fourteenth International Film and Media Studies Conference A report by Francesca Hardy
• NECS Conference 2012 - Time Networks: Screen Media and Memory A report by Nessa Johnston

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Realism and reality, intermediality and film space, new waves: three volumes of Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Film and Media Studies

Frame grab from Il gattopardo/The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963). Read Ivo Blom's article on "Frame, Space, Narrative. Doors, Windows and Mobile Framing in the Films of Luchino Visconti"

Film Studies For Free is immensely indebted, as it so often is, to the hawkeye skills of legendary film critic and scholar Adrian Martin. He has discovered an online treasure trove of fabulous film and media studies at the Romanian, English language journal Acta Universitatis Sapientiae. 

Three great volumes have been published to date: on issues of cinematic reality, intermediality and film space, and cinematic new waves. All the contents are linked to below, and ACTA has been added to FSFF's permanent listing of online film and moving image studies journals.

Keep 'em coming, Adrian! And grazie!

Contents of Volume 1 , 2009

• M. Szalóky
  The Reality of Illusion. A Transcendental Reevaluation of the Problem of Cinematic Reality
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 7-22     Full text in PDF
  
• M. Sághy
  Subborn realism. What Kind of Fiction is Reality?
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 23-33     Full text in PDF
  
• I. Füzi
  "Where is Reality?" Photographic Trace and Infinite Image in Gábor Bódy's Film Theory
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 34-46     Full text in PDF
  
• Á. Pethő
  (Re)Mediating the Real. Paradoxes of an Intermedial Cinema of Immediacy
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 47-66     Full text in PDF
  
• Zs. Gyenge
  Illusions of reality and Fiction on the Desired Reality of Fiction: Dogme 95 and the Representation of reality
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 69-79     Full text in PDF
  
• A. Virginás
  Between "Facts" of Genre and "Fictions" of Love. Happy Together (1997) and In The Mood for Love (2000)
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 80-91     Full text in PDF
  
• A. É. Tóth
  Appearance, Presence and Movement in Benedek Fliegauf's Milky Way
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 92-105     Full text in PDF
  
• E. Buslowska
  Cinema as Art and Philosophy in Béla Tarr's Creative Exploration of Reality
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 106-116     Full text in PDF
  
• Z. Gregus
  Images of Strangeness in András Jeles's Films
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 117-135     Full text in PDF
  
• A. Szekfü
  Reality and Fiction in Classical Hungarian Documentaries
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 136-148     Full text in PDF
  
• M. Blos-Jáni
  In and Out of Context. On the Reality Effect and Evidentiary Status of Home Videos
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 149-166     Full text in PDF
  
• E. Szabó
  The Official and Hidden Scenarios of Role-Playing in István Dárday's The Prize Trap (1974)
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 167-180     Full text in PDF

Contents of Volume 2 , 2010

• Ginette Verstraete
  Introduction. Intermedialities: A Brief Survey of Conceptual Key Issues
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 7−14     Full text in PDF
  
• Jürgen E. Müller
  Intermediality and Media Historiography in the Digital Era
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 15−38     Full text in PDF
  
• Ágnes Pethő
  Intermediality in Film: A Historiography of Methodologies
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 39−72     Full text in PDF
  
• Annika Wik
  Experiences. The Transmedial Expansion of the Matrix Universe
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 73−90     Full text in PDF
  
• Ivo Blom
  Frame, Space, Narrative. Doors, Windows and Mobile Framing in the Films of Luchino Visconti
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 91−106     Full text in PDF
  
• Jens Schröter
  The Politics of Intermediality
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 107−124     Full text in PDF
  
• Klemens Gruber
  An Early Staging of Media. Gustav Klutsis's Loudspeaker Stands
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 125−132     Full text in PDF
  
• Jens Schröter
  Volumetric Imaging as Technology to Control Space
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 133−144     Full text in PDF
  
• Antonio Somaini
  Visual Surveillance. Transmedial Migrations of a Scopic Form
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 145−159     Full text in PDF
  
• Maaike Lauwaert
  Intermedialities in Policy Making & Funding
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 2 (2010) 161−166     Full text in PDF

Contents of Volume 3, 2010

• Yvonne Spielmann
  New and Novelty in Contemporary Media Cultures
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 7−18     Full text in PDF
  
• Doru Pop
  The Grammar of the New Romanian Cinema
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 19−40     Full text in PDF
  
• Marco Grosoli
  Hélas pour Nouvelle Vague
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 41−54     Full text in PDF
  
• Daniel Fairfax
  Birth (of the Image) of a Nation: Jean-Luc Godard in Mozambique
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 55−67     Full text in PDF
  
• Ágnes Pethő
  Intermediality as Metalepsis in the "Cinécriture" of Agnes Varda
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 69−94     Full text in PDF
  
• Marco Grosoli
  Moral Tales from Korea. Hong Sang-Soo and Eric Rohmer
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 95−108     Full text in PDF
  
• Jacqui Miller
  The French New Wave and the New Hollywood: Le Samourai and its American legacy
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 109−120     Full text in PDF
  
• André Crous
  True and False. New Realities in the Films of Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 121−131     Full text in PDF
  
• Hajnal Király
  Abbas Kiarostami and a New Wave of the Spectator
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 133−142     Full text in PDF
  
• Thomas Schick
  A "Nouvelle Vague Allemande"? Thomas Arslan's films in the context of the Berlin School
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 143−155     Full text in PDF
  
• Maria Vinogradova
  The Berliner Schule as a Recent New Wave in German Cinema
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 157−168     Full text in PDF
  
• Zsolt Győri
  Waves of Memory: Cinema, Trauerarbeit and the Third Reich
  Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 3 (2010) 169− 181     Full text in PDF

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