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- Volume 15, Issue 2, 2017
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film - Volume 15, Issue 2, 2017
Volume 15, Issue 2, 2017
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The poet as screenwriter: Landscape and protagonism in Papu Curotto’s Esteros
By Ben BolligAbstractGerardo ‘Papu’ Curotto’s debut feature Esteros (Estuaries, Argentina, 2016) tells a story of young love and second chances in Argentina’s northern Corrientes province. With its lush settings, endearing performances and positive denouement, it echoes recent LGBTQ+-themed Argentine successes on the international festival circuit. But Esteros can also be viewed from another angle, that of adaptation studies. A focus on the screenwriter Andi Nachon’s contribution reveals the subtle politics of a film that touches on land ownership, farming methods and environmentalism. By highlighting the screenwriter’s role, alongside that of the director, a number of apparently otiose leitmotifs and passing comments come to make sense as part of a broader comment on environmental politics in Argentina. Thus a study of Esteros that assesses the links between the film and Nachon’s poetry opens up the movie as a work of political critique and enriches our understanding of the screenwriter’s role in adaptations.
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An unfinished mourning: Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea (2016)
More LessAbstractThis article considers the notions of grief and mourning in Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea (2016). The analysis centres on three moments characterized by the coexistence of two opposite states: numbness and an abundance of feelings; immobility and mobility; infidelity and fidelity. To understand each moment, I draw on three philosophical approaches to mourning elaborated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida. In the first moment, I posit an analogy between the grief experienced by the film’s protagonist Lee and the grief described by Emerson in his essay ‘Experience’. In both cases, grief takes the form of numbness that only masks an abundance of feelings. In the second moment, I apply Barthes’s account of psychic immobility after his mother’s death to the film protagonist’s experience. In the third moment, I analyse Lee’s mourning in relation to Derrida’s concept of ‘possible’ (or ‘successful’) and unsuccessful mourning. Finally, this analysis turns to the question of the bereaved’s loyalty (to the departed, to those who survived and to one’s own grief). Together, these three perspectives reveal a complex, nuanced portrayal of mourning in Manchester by the Sea, which departs from the widespread Freudian understanding of grief and mourning.
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Industrial transformation in Chinese animation cinema (1995–2015)
More LessAbstractThis article focuses on Chinese cinema animation works between 1995 and 2015 in terms of industrial transformation, thus providing an up-to-date view of cinema animation as an important subsector of Chinese cultural creative industries. The findings of this study can be divided into three parts. First, Chinese cinema animation shows a child-oriented trend over the last two decades. That is to say, Chinese animators always, consciously or unconsciously, find opportunities to cater to children’s pleasure while ignoring the entertainment appeal for other age groups. Second, the serialized and broad-based cinema animations, which have the possible advantage of the audience’s pre-existing familiarity with the characters and stories, can be regarded as an important link of animation value chain. Meanwhile, the above works have exerted mixed effects on its parent brand. Finally, the majority of completely original animated films in China have fallen into a paradox between sound reputation and poor box office performance.
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Fandry and Sairat: Marginal narratives and subjectivities in the new Marathi cinema
More LessAbstractNew Marathi cinema has witnessed a remarkable moment recently when Sairat (The Wild, Manjule, 2016) broke box-office records, with collections touching the 100 Cr. (INR, one Billion). Sairat and Fandry (Pig, Manjule, 2014) are films that present narratives cantered on caste marginalization in rural Maharashtra. In depicting the realities of marginal existence Manjule has mobilized the industrial tendencies of mainstream filmmaking, thus opening up the films for a wider public circulation, and the consequent social discourses arising from it. The route to this, however, is through the evocative portrayal of marginal subjectivities that has largely remained stereotypical in the history of Marathi cinema. This article argues that marginal narratives and subjectivity in Sairat and Fandry are a reification of serious themes that, in the context of multiplex-centric, neo-liberal film culture, seem to posit moments of resistance. The article deliberates with two questions that the films have thrown up: first is the notion of marginal subjectivities. The subjective experience of being socially marginal, which gets highlighted through the story of the lead characters, is of significance here. The narrative articulation of the marginal experience is identified by reading of certain poignant moments in the films. Second, the extratextual, public discourses and events after the films were released are situated to highlight how Fandry and Sairat emerge from a certain social entanglement, and are in turn instrumental in affirming their own commoditized versions. The interviews of the director, various reality-TV events and some indicative discourses on the social media are discussed to consider how the cinema becomes relevant as the site for a critique of the Marathi social realm.
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Cinema of compassion: Andrea Segre and Emmanuel Levinas
By Ilaria SerraAbstractThis article discusses filmmaker and sociologist Andrea Segre’s film productions, documentaries and fiction films by applying the theoretical filter of Emmanuel Levinas’s Other-centred philosophy. Segre’s filmmaking may exemplify an Italian ‘cinema of compassion’ that responds to and reflects on the cultural shock of seeing the mass approach of the Other – the immigrant. This cinema reflects the unsettling uneasiness of the encounter, while orienting it towards the necessary effect of compassion. Segre was not trained as a filmmaker – a professional in ‘seeing’ the Other – but as a sociologist – a professional in ‘feeling’ and ‘listening to’ the Other. French, Lithuanian-born Jew, Emmanuel Levinas, proposed a philosophy that centres on the ‘constitutive Other’. This concept can convincingly apply to Segre’s films (and much documentary filmmaking) for four main reasons. First, Segre’s movies place the Other at the centre (in the documentary films) or stress it as a dialectic term, a co-protagonist/antagonist (in the fiction films). Second, his movies reject, at the same time as they invite, the identification of Same–Other by respecting the otherness of the Other. Third, they elicit or enact the sentiment of compassion. Finally, these films leave the ‘infinite’ weight of responsibility on the viewers.
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Beyond the page: Crowdsourcing as a case study for digital screenwriting techniques
More LessAbstractResearch has shown how the practice of screenwriting has always been affected by technological shifts. These moments in history both mirror the current state of digital screen production and provide a rationale for debating the twenty-first-century changes in screenwriting practices. The origin of the screenplay form is linked to the evolution of the cinema apparatus and though many sectors of cinema have benefited from a migration into the digital realm, the field of screenwriting practice has been slow to follow. In Screenwriting in a Digital Era (2014), Kathryn Millard draws parallels between the screenplay and other forms of visual storytelling and describes screenwriting as a multimodal craft. Changing production practices combined with recent shifts in independent film production demonstrated how screenwriters incorporate new and unconventional methods of communicating what Ian W. MacDonald refers to as the ‘screen idea’ into their work. Kickstarter fundraising campaigns, as one example, is one such method of communicating the screen idea through multi modal methods. An analysis of these campaigns reveals a surprising lack of attention given to the screenplay, instead relying on social media blurbs, visual pitch trailers, conceptual artwork and a multitude of other media. This paper will present a case study based on a short film, Still Life (Mac Coille, 2014), that used a crowdfunding campaign in its production, which included a combination of the screenplay and visual aids, such as conceptual artwork and a pitch trailer. The thesis of this article will be further bolstered by other examples that support the hypothesis that future screenwriting practices will include these new technologies and methods as a mainstay.
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Review
More LessAbstractParallel Lines: Post-9/11 American Cinema, Guy Westwell (2014) and The ‘War on Terror’ and American Film: 9/11 Frames Per Second, Terence McSweeney (2014) London: Wallflower Press, 208pp., ISBN: 9780231172035, p/bk, £22.00 Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 242pp., ISBN: 9780748693092, h/bk, £70
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 20 (2022)
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Volume 19 (2021)
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Volume 18 (2020)
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Volume 17 (2020)
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Volume 16 (2018)
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Volume 15 (2017)
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Volume 14 (2016)
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Volume 13 (2015)
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Volume 12 (2014)
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Volume 11 (2013)
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Volume 10 (2012)
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Volume 9 (2011 - 2012)
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Volume 8 (2010 - 2011)
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Volume 7 (2009)
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Volume 6 (2008 - 2009)
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Volume 5 (2007)
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Volume 4 (2006 - 2007)
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Volume 3 (2005)
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Volume 2 (2004)
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Volume 1 (2002 - 2003)