New Fall 2013 Issue of MEDIASCAPE on "Urban Centers, Media Centers"

Frame grab from The Impossible (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012). Read José Gallegos' article about this film in the new issue of Mediascape

This issue of Mediascape then is designed to raise pointed questions about the role of the city as a center of both media and cultural production, especially in relation to our experience of mediated reality. The ultimate goal is to ground this larger discourse in a more specific discussion of cinematic space and its transformation in the ever-expanding era of digital media. How do films represent the city in a time of technological change and aesthetic evolution? How has the wholesale implementation of digital technologies impacted the use of space in cinema? And how does the digital era affect the relationship between the off-screen and on-screen spatial environment? Looking at the distinctive aesthetics of urban space, it is our belief, allows for an examination of how we perceive and engage with the iconography of our world. Our intent is to problematize what we understand as the urban, and how strongly it relates to our relationship with contemporary media.

[Matthias Stork and Andrew Young, Mediascape Co-Editors-in-Chief, Introduction to the Fall 2013 issue]

Film Studies For Free would like its readers to head straight on over to the new issue of Mediascape which considers matters of space and mediation. 

FSFF would particularly recommend Matthias Stork's marvellous (and marvellously illustrated) study of the 'Aesthetics of Post-Cinematic City Space in Action Films and Video Games', James Gilmore's fascinating essay on The Dark Knight Rises, urban space and the cultural experience of terrorism as mediation, as well as José Gallegos' essay on the Tsunami disaster film The Impossible. The issue also boasts unmissable items in the area of game studies.

Readers may also be interested to know that the excellent Mediascape blog is seeking new contributors on a wide variety of topics. If you are interested in becoming a contributor, or if you would like more information about the blog, please write to Editor-in-Chief Matthias Stork at mstork[at]ucla[dot]edu.

• Moving Through Videogame Cities Bobby Schweizer
• The Impossible – Or How I Learned Thailand Was Filled with European Tourists Jose Gallegos
• Absolute Anxiety Test: Urban Wreckage in The Dark Knight Rises James Gilmore
• Dimensions of the Digital City Oscar Moralde
• Space-Wars: Mapping the Aesthetics of Post-Cinematic City Space in Action Films and Video Games Matthias Stork
• Negotiating Transitional Spaces in Classic Games Harrison Gish
• Invisible Walls: Narrativizing Spatial Limitation in Ico and Assassin’s Creed II Bryan Wuest
• Perpetual Game Space in Crime City: Game Design in the Age of Social Network Gaming Andrew Young

More about → New Fall 2013 Issue of MEDIASCAPE on "Urban Centers, Media Centers"

Latest issues of KINEMA: von Trier, Czech cinema, Romanian cinema, Woody Allen, cult cinema, de Mille, Schnabel, Practice vs. Theory

So bad it's good? Framegrab from The Room (Tommy Wiseau, 2003). Read Rod Stoneman's study of cult cinema "Inside The Room and Beyond"

Film Studies For Free continues to catch up with (fairly) recently published issues of online Film Studies journals. Below are links to the articles from the Spring and Fall 2011 issues of Canadian journal Kinema.

Lots of good stuff here, and even some good stuff on bad stuff, but FSFF especially recommends Mette Hjort's wonderful article on Lars von Trier.

Fall 2011

• "On Lars von Trier, Enfant Terrible of Danish Art Film: by Mette Hjort
• "Inside The Room and Beyond" by Rod Stoneman
• "Czech Surrealism and Czech New Wave Realism" by Alison Frank
• "Remarks on the Actual Status of Romanian Cinema" Christina Stojanova
• "Moral Luck in the Films of Woody Allen" by Ewa Mazierska

Spring 2011

• "Gerald Arthur Pratley, OC (1923-2011)" by The Editor   
• "Themes in the Cinema of Darrell James Roodt" by Martin P. Botha   
• "The Primacy of Practice?" by Desmond Bell   
• "Cecil B. DeMille and the Art of Applied Suggestibility" by Anton Karl Kozlovic    
• "The Films of Julian Schnabel" by Alex Britton   

More about → Latest issues of KINEMA: von Trier, Czech cinema, Romanian cinema, Woody Allen, cult cinema, de Mille, Schnabel, Practice vs. Theory

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

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