Study of a Single Film: Forbidden Planet (in memory of Leslie Nielsen)

Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis star in Forbidden Planet (Fred M. Wilcox, 1956)

Film Studies For Free was sad to hear that the king of deadpan movie humour, actor Leslie Nielsen, has died at the age of 84. Of all the films he starred in, the one that has most often been the subject of scholarly studies was the hugely influential science fiction movie Forbidden Planet, a film in which Nielsen played a sincerely serious role.

In (metonymic) memory of Nielsen's wonderful career (the straight part standing for the mostly comic whole), FSFF has assembled a list of links to openly accessible academic studies of this 1956 film. With its groundbreaking electronic music score by Louis and Bebe Barron, its highly personable robot character, its loose adaptation of a high culture text (Shakespeare's The Tempest), and its well elaborated allusions to classical (and post-classical) mythology, as well as to Freud (the Id monster), Forbidden Planet will probably keep film academics in business for quite some time. But, FSFF hopes some will also turn their attention to Nielsen's comic performances, before too long.

Shirley, they merit that, at the very least.

• Martin Stig Andersen, 'Audiovisual Correspondences', CEC: eContact! 12.4 — Perspectives on the Electroacoustic Work / Perspectives sur l'œuvre électroacoustique (August 2010)
• Simone Caroti, "Science Fiction, Forbidden Planet, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest"    page 2 of 12 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 6.1 (2004)
• David Cooper, '[Review of] James Wierzbicki: Louis and Bebe Barron’s Forbidden Planet: A Film Score Guide', The Journal of Film Music, Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 2007
• Ted Friedman, 'Jung and Lost', FlowTV, May 1, 2009
• Robert M. Geraci, 'Robots and the Sacred in Science and Science Fiction: Theological Implications of Artificial Intelligence', Zygon, vol. 42, no. 4 (December 2007)
• Miguel Angel González Campos, 'Shakespeare in Outer Space: Forbidden Planet as Adaptation of The Tempest', Sederi 9 (1998)
• Greg Grewell, 'Colonizing the Universe: Science Fictions Then, Now, and in the (Imagined) Future', Rocky Mountain Review, Fall 2001
• Laurie Johnson, 'Felix and Gilles's tempestuous, monstrous machine', M/C Journal: Journal of Media and Culture, 2 (6) 1999 
• David A. Kirby, 'The Devil in Our DNA: A Brief History of Eugenics in Science Fiction Films', Literature and Medicine 26, no. 1 (Spring 2007)
• T.J. Matheson, 'Marcuse, Ellul, and the Science-Fiction Film: Negative Responses to Technology', Science Fiction Studies, #58, Volume 19, Part 3, November 1992
• Anthony Miller, '"In this last tempest": Modernising Shakespeare’s Tempest on Film', Sydney Studies in English, Vol 23 (1997)
• Roy Schwartzman, '“Engenderneered Machines in Science Fiction Film.” Studies in Popular Culture 22.1 (October 1999): 75-87
• Rachel Weissbrod, 'Inter-Semiotic Translation: Shakespeare on Screen', Journal of Specialised Translation, Issue 5, January 2006

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Some May Must-Reads

Film Studies For Free is back from its travels with some brief but essential recommendations for reading. Consider yourselves compassionately instructed to enjoy the following gems from the brilliant film-blogosphere:

• Michael J Anderson at Tativille has just posted a stunning take on the palimpsestic texture of the tremulously gripping film Cloverfield (an FSFF digi-horror favourite along with Rec). Equally unmissable is Tativille's preceding post: a full-length footnoted essay by Anderson called 'What is Cinema? More than Cinema: The Ontological Discourse of Abbas Kiarostami's Through the Olive Trees (1994)'
• Dan North at Spectacular Attractions continues his wonderful experiments with scholarly film blogging with an insightful and almost live critical analysis of Don't Look Now. Also see his great recent post on She... North concludes each of his posts with rich links lists on the films, to boot.
• Fascinating and highly informed discussion over at Jonathan Rosenbaum's site about the new edition of André Bazin's What is Cinema? (translated by Timothy Barnard) - 'What is Cinema? (and, if you know what that is, What is Film Study?)'. Also see Girish's compelling thread on this edition.
  
• Thanks to Chris Cagle's (in itself) thought-provoking post 'Theory-Praxis Divide', FSFF got to read Tim Burke's amusing and highly lucid enquiry into why (sometimes/most times) those who teach (theory) can't do (creative practice), 'Why Can’t You?'
• A (customarily) beautifully written and illustrated post from Luke McKernan at The Bioscope : 'An excellent dumb discourse' treats Shakespeare in early cinema.
• Finally (for today), Benjamin Wright's site Aspect Ratio has moved bloghost: the move is accompanied by a lovely post on approaches to music in film, 'Hearing Beyond Words'. There seem to FSFF to be a few teething problems with the new server but you can access the post still at the Wordpress site.

P.S. Let's actually finish with a Call For Papers for an annual conference hosted by an Open Access film and visual studies periodical much loved by FSFF: World Picture Journal.

The 2009 World Picture Conference

October 23-24, 2009
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma

Style

Keynote Speakers

Edward Branigan
(University of California, Santa Barbara)

&

Alexander García Düttman
(Goldsmiths College)

We believe the question of style is in need of new thinking, across media, disciplines and modes of thought. We hope, therefore, to receive abstracts that reflect or extend out of any number of approaches to the question of style (theoretical, philosophical, historical, formal, generic, etc.). Our conference (like our journal) is inflected by a strong interest in the intersection of political and aesthetic questions concerning cinema, visual art, and visual theory, but we encourage the submission of abstracts that do not necessarily occupy themselves with the cinema and/or the visual.

Proposals (250 words), including a brief bio, should be sent to Brian Price at brian.price@okstate.edu by June 1

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