Cinematic Treatment Research Articles

“Toute la misère du monde”: Eli Lotar’s Aubervilliers and a Sense of Place

Research Article| January 01 2014 “Toute la misère du monde”: Eli Lotar’s Aubervilliers and a Sense of Place Steven Ungar Steven Ungar University of Iowa Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Romanic Review (2014) 105 (1-2): 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1215/26885220-105.1-2.37 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Steven Ungar; “Toute la misère du monde”: Eli Lotar’s Aubervilliers and a Sense of Place. Romanic Review 1 January 2014; 105 (1-2): 37–51. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/26885220-105.1-2.37 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsRomanic Review Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2014 The Trustees of Columbia University2014 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Memoria histórica y lucha de clases en el nuevo cine venezolano

This article examines the role of the Venezuelan State as a film producer and its influence in the selection and cinematic treatment of predominant topics in documentaries and feature films financed by Villa del Cine (a State-owned production company). Most of these films pursue the (re)construction of the historical memory by drawing parallels between the Venezuelan War of Independence and the Bolivarian revolution. This study focuses on the aesthetic and ideological agenda of these cultural practices.

Genetics: Wayward genes and grieving scientists

Alison Abbott weighs up a believable cinematic treatment of genetics research and the personalities at the bench.

Socialism, Synecdoche, and Tadeusz Konwicki’s Palace of Culture

Tadeusz Konwicki’s literary and cinematic treatment of the Palace of Culture and Science has had a significant influence on the perception and meaning of this Stalinist edifice. In his novels, Wniebowstąpienie [Ascension] (1967) and A Minor Apocalypse (1979), Konwicki uses the Palace as a means of critiquing communist ideology by adopting a Christian discourse that, in turn, invokes and questions the Polish Romantic messianic and martyrological tradition. In the 1989 film Lawa: Opowieść o “Dziadach” Adama Mickiewicza, Konwicki’s presentation of the Palace visually explodes into what seems to be the author’s “final” statement on the signification of the Palace. By examining the poetics of the Palace of Culture in Wniebowstąpienie, A Minor Apocalypse, and Lawa, this essay considers how over a period of twenty years Konwicki appropriated the meaning of the Palace by playing on the tension between the intended original signification of the building (as a Stalinist structure) and its function as a dynamic edifice that could be redefined in a localized (Polish), urban (Varsovian), and historical context.

Self-inflicted pain: Japanese cinema on the Pacific War

With a sample of post-war Japanese films, this article explores the cinematic treatment of violence, trauma and memory experienced by Japan during the Pacific War. Avoiding the cardboard villains of Hollywood and Asian cinema, Japanese film-makers have sought to legitimize Japanese people as victims of not just the mechanized violence of the twentieth century, but that of Japanese imperialism and the retributive justice of the victors in suppressing the lived memories of this period. A notable consistency of the films discussed here is a more self-reflexive internationalization of the enemy. Rather than American bombers, the source of violence lies in the culture and policies of Japanese militarism personified in both the recklessly ruthless military planners and the brutish military police. As this article argues, the study of the reconstruction of the Pacific War in Japanese cinema serves as a critical platform in providing a more holistic frame in understanding the politics of war, violence, trauma and memory arising from the Pacific War.

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What kind of film is Cynthia Weber's “I Am an American”? Is it a war film, a war on terror film, or, more appropriately, an anti-war film? Embedded in it are some of the perennial themes of that perennial genre: honor, conscience, resistance, collaboration, death, glory, futility, interior emigration, posthumous commendation, ritual commemoration. Is it a documentary? The war on terror raises in acute form the problems of show and tell (Danchev 2009). What images to show? Whose stories to tell? Which idiom to employ, feature film or documentary, the dramatic or the analytic? It is a moot point; and the distinction can blur. Errol Morris's “Standard Operating Procedure” (2008) on Abu Ghraib may be the most important cinematic treatment of the war on terror yet to appear (Danchev 2008). “Standard Operating Procedure” is a documentary that looks like a feature film. Morris calls it a non-fiction horror movie, a formulation that echoes Truman Capote's famous “non-fiction novel,” In Cold Blood (1966). Alex Gibney, director of “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2008, prefers to speak of “authored non-fiction” rather than documentary film. Framed so, “I Am an American” is perhaps a non-fiction state of the nation movie, a report on another country, a series of vignettes at once ordinary and unfamiliar—defamiliarized—a kind of “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” by other means. “Who are you who will read these words and study these photographs,” wrote James Agee, apostrophically, in the preamble to that unforgettable collaboration with Walker Evans, “and through what cause, and for what purpose, and by what right do you qualify to, and what will you do about it …?” (Agee and Evans 1988[1941]:9)

September Dawn. Dir. by Christopher Cain. Prod. by Christopher Cain and Scott Duthie. September Dawn/Voice Pictures, 2007. 110 mins. (Sony Home Entertainment, http://www.sonypictures.com/)

The western is back. Maybe. After a long dry spell interrupted only by Brokeback Mountain (2005), the fall of 2007 saw the release of three westerns in quick succession, marking a revival of sorts. September Dawn offers a retelling of the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre, which, together with No Country for Old Men (2007) and a remake of the classic 3:10 to Yuma (2007), have ratcheted up the genre's violence to new levels of computer-enhanced intensity. September Dawn tackles an important chapter in American history that would seem a natural for compelling cinematic treatment. An overland party of emigrants traveling from Arkansas to California under the command of Alexander Fancher encamped near Parowan, Utah, in September 1857. At the same time, federal troops were on their way to Salt Lake City to quell perceived treason; tensions throughout Utah were running high. A local band comprised of Mormon militia and Paiute...

A Hard Day’s Knights: Movie Time Travel, the Middle Ages, and a New Millenium : Gil Junger's Black Knight and Richard Donner's Timeline

This article addresses the cinematic treatment of the Middle Ages through an analysis of two recent mass-audience American films, Black Knight and Timeline, both of which feature time travel as a leading plot element. Providing context for this discussion is a brief analysis of other similar films, as well as remarks regarding Twain's Connecticut Yankee, Ruskin's The Stones of Venice, and The Idylls of the King by Tennyson. As in these other works, the films in question use certain popular stereotypes of the Middle Ages—endemic violence, rigid class distinctions, religious fanaticism, spiritual cohesion, etc.—as lens through which to view the contemporary world. In addition to their roles as comic or action entertainment vehicles, Black Knight indirectly addresses American individualism and a cutthroat modern corporate culture, whereas Timeline touches upon millennial anxiety, '90's ethnic cleansing, and the American misadventure in Iraq.

Epilepsy myths: Alive and foaming in the 21st century

Many myths are perpetuated and reinforced in the portrayal of fictional characters with epilepsy in films and on television. Common cinematic treatment myths include the necessity for immediate medical intervention in the form of an ambulance crew to stop a seizure and the placing of an object in the seizing person’s mouth to prevent the person from choking on her or his tongue. Other misrepresentations include excessive “foaming” at the mouth during a seizure and frequent violence. We conducted an Internet-based survey to examine the prevalence of belief in these myths in the United Kingdom. We received 4605 valid responses. People who knew someone with epilepsy were significantly less likely to subscribe to all the myths than were those who had no personal knowledge of epilepsy. Seeing seizures in public appears to improve knowledge regarding appropriate first aid procedures, but does not have an impact on myths surrounding the presentation of a seizure. These results are discussed in relation to the “we see what we expect to see” phenomenon in relation to stereotypes surrounding epilepsy.

Moral education at the movies: on the cinematic treatment of morally significant story and narrative

Much contemporary social theory has emphasised the key role that cultural and other narrative plays in any human understanding of moral self and agency. However, in those modern social contexts in which literacy has been widespread, such access to narrative has also been largely via the written word: those significantly educated in cultural heritage have been the primarily well‐read. Still, in an age in which communication is most commonly prosecuted through the electronic media of radio, cinema, television and computer, it may be asked whether or to what extent traditional literary access to cultural narrative has been overtaken by more modern technological events. This paper sets out to explore the potential and prospects of the technological art of cinema for enhanced understanding of morally and spiritually significant narrative.

Hollywood's D-Day From the Perspective of the 1960s and the 1990s: The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan

Cinematic history from Hollywood is intriguing not only for its perspectives on the past but, also, for what it says about the times in which the films went into production. Often the creators of motion pictures address concerns of the present when they fashion stories about the past. This characteristic is certainly evident in the case of movies depicting events and problems associated with World War II. For instance, Bataan(1943) shows United States forces fighting bravely in the face of an overwhelming enemy. The movie's tragic conclusion, in which all of the Americans die, symbolizes the difficult position of American soldiers in the Pacific during the early period of the war (Basinger 45-46). In another example of conditions of the present weighing heavily on a cinematic treatment of the past, the creators of Patton (1970) planned to tell the story of a heroic general when they moved their project toward production in the 1960s. By the time they were ready for major photography, however, controversies over the Vietnam conflict made the intended gung-ho portrait of General Patton problematic. Consequently, the filmmakers shaped their story and advertising in ways that suggested a complex and sometimes critical portrait of their subject's militarism (Toplin, History By Hollywood, 163-164). It is useful, then, to consider the messages and appeal of two films that are among the most influential American movies about the Second World War, The Longest Day (1962) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Both deal with the invasion of France's beaches on June 6, 1944, and each became a blockbuster, drawing large audiences in the United States and abroad; each proved a surprising success because, in 1962 and 1998, the traditional war film seemed to have run its course; and each film was the project of a leading Hollywood mogul who had racked up a long list of movie successes. Darryl Zanuck was the major force behind The Longest Day (he produced the movie and directed more than half of its scenes). Saving Private Ryan owed its success largely to Steven Spielberg. Why did these movies resonate with audiences in 1962 and 1998? In which ways did Zanuck's and Spielberg's films address different or similar concerns of the American people in 1962 and 1998? How did critics' reactions differ, and in which ways do these distinctions throw some light on changing attitudes toward war? Above all, did these films contribute to the public's appreciation of history, even though each communicated very different impressions of warfare and history? The Longest Day Darryl Zanuck look a substantial risk when he made The Longest Day. After years of splendid successes (including many Academy Awards) as a producer and head of production at Twentieth Century Fox, he seemed to be losing his magic in the early sixties. Zanuck's work on Cleopatra turned out to be a fiasco (the long-delayed picture eventually appeared in theaters in 1963). That expensive historical epic left Fox stretched financially. Yet, while Cleopatra was in production, Zanuck proposed to make the most expensive black-and-white war epic in Hollywood's history. His $10 million gamble succeeded magnificently. The Longest Day grossed seventeen million dollars in the United States and reaped millions more abroad, and it is still shown on network TV at least once annually. Zanuck's movie carried a symbolic message regarding the Cold War. It showed that American, British, and French troops could cooperate to defeat a common enemy. In 1944 the Allies successfully challenged Nazi Germany; and in the sixties, the movie seemed to suggest, those very Allies could successfully confront the communists (Ambrose in Carnes). Zanuck made this message more workable by depicting the German leadership with a modicum of empathy. German military commanders in The Longest Day seem confused, fumbling, and sometimes comic. They are not enthusiastic about Nazi policies, and, in one telling moment in the story, a general complains about Hitler's foolish leadership, blaming the Fuhrer, especially, for the failure of the German counteroffensive (Custen 362). …

An Olympic Omnibus: International Competition, Cooperation, and Politics in Visions of Eight

Because the inauguration of the modern Olympic games—founded by social theorist and rénovateur Baron Pierre de Coubertin and held in Athens in 1896—roughly coincides with the birth of cinema, it should come as no surprise that the two served as mutually enriching sources of dramatic material throughout the twentieth century. From Leni Riefenstahl's poetic (some would say fascistic) record of the 1936 Berlin games, Olympia (Olympische Spiele; 1938), to such cinematic and televisual biopics as Jim Thorpe: All-American (1951) and The Jesse Owens Story (1984), the Olympics have inspired numerous documentary and fiction films around the world. Such works have in their own way contributed to the popularity of the quadrennial event as well as to the global proliferation of its governing ideals, thus promoting international camaraderie, the physical health of iconic hero-figures, and the solidarity of humankind. Although Riefenstahl's two-part Olympia is often singled out as a sensual celebration of the human form in flight and—despite its links to the Nazi Party—is generally thought to be "the definitive cinematic treatment of the Games,"1 it nevertheless falls short of the pyrotechnics on display in what is perhaps the most unusual of Olympic documentaries: Visions of Eight (München 1972—8 berühmte Regisseure sehen die Spiele der XX Olympiade; 1973). Click for larger view Figure 1 Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On the surface, this multi-episode, feature-length film produced by legendary documentarian David L. Wolper and Stan Margulies (then-vice-president of Wolper Productions) appears to be curiously "empty," at both the diegetic and extradiegetic levels, insofar as it captures only fleeting, impressionistic glimpses of the festival held in Munich (from August 26 to September 11, 1972) and furthermore only begrudgingly alludes to the deadly act of terrorism which capped the Olympics that year. Nevertheless, as an omnibus film comprised of eight discrete yet connected sections, each averaging ten minutes in length, Visions of Eight is in fact a very "full" evocation of the Olympic experience; for it manages to convey both the personal and collective aspirations of the participants involved (athletes as well as filmmakers) through a narrative form naturally amenable to political allegory and the interrelated themes of competition and cooperation. Because this multinational, multi-director film foregrounds the spirit of competition and cooperation so intrinsic to the Olympic ideal, it provides an illuminating case study for charting out the ways in which the narratological genre of the omnibus film not only problematizes conventional paradigms of authorship and nationhood, but also supplies a textual correlative to the sometimes contradictory modes of participation inscribed in sporting events. Before examining the film and its historical context, it will be helpful to underline the importance of Wolper to the project, not only as a producer overseeing the day-to-day details of this logistical nightmare, but also as someone whose diverse filmography attests to a consciousness of major world events. [End Page 19] A Producer's Package Visions of Eight should be situated not only within the historical context of documentaries about the Olympics, but also within the narratological context of the episode film, which had come into vogue in the years immediately preceding its 1973 theatrical release. Although there had been dozens of such works produced throughout the world during the first five decades of the twentieth century (multi-director omnibus films such as La Vie est à nous [1936], an agitprop joint effort by members of the Popular Front group Ciné Liberté; as well as single-director anthologies like Roberto Rossellini's Paisà [1946]), it was not until the 1960s that the episode film became a marked component of national cinemas in Europe and Asia. For it was during that decade that such famous and diverse...

Dead Man Walking : On the Cinematic Treatment Of Licensed Public Killing

Dead Man Walking : On the Cinematic Treatment Of Licensed Public Killing

What the Bible and Old Movies Have in Common

AbstractThis essay explores some shared philosophical territory between the Hebrew Bible and great American film of the classical era (1930s and 1940s). It raises the question not of shared literary techniques, nor of cinematic allusions to the Bible or cinematic treatment of biblical tales, but rather of the position of a traditionist/ storyteller vis-à-vis the crisis points in his or her country's history. Focusing on two films of Frank Capra, on the Book of Job, and on Genesis 47 (Jacob's meeting with Pharaoh, and its aftermath), the essay examines the way themes of crucial cultural importance register in the perceptions of a story's reader or spectator, and the way that both biblical and cinematic story grapple simultaneously with the loss of personal and national innocence. These processes are then situated in the context of twentieth-century world history, where certain connections between Bible, cinema, and the destruction of European Jewry are drawn.

The Cinematic Treatment of Age, Ethnicity, Gender, Region, Religion, and Sexuality

The Cinematic Treatment of Age, Ethnicity, Gender, Region, Religion, and Sexuality

The Films of Carlos Saura. The Practice of Seeing

Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, who began his career under the censorship of Franco's regime, has forged an international reputation for his unique cinematic treatment of emotional and spiritual responses to repressive political conditions. In films such as Carmen and El Dorado, where reality and fantasy are deliberately fused together, Saura reveals the illusions of Franco's mythologized Spain--a chaste, Catholic, and heroic Spain of the Golden Age--that tend to isolate Spaniards from the rest of Europe, from each other, and from their own individuality. In this first English-language book on Saura, Marvin D'Lugo looks at the social and artistic forces behind this film auteur's highly personal cinema. Tracing Saura's career over three decades, D'Lugo discusses each work from Hooligans (1959), a realist film about a Madrid street-gang member trying to become a bullfighter, to The Dark Night (1989), a film dealing with the persecution of the religious reformer St. John of the Cross in the late sixteenth century. Throughout he argues that Saura's cinematic style results from a highly original response to the political and historical constraints of Spanish culture. D'Lugo shows how in order to explore the complex cultural politics of Spanishness as it was institutionalized under Franco, Saura frames his narrations through the eyes of characters who question the forces that shape personal and collective identity. Moving beyond the limits of traditional auteur studies, this book addresses the relationship between the filmmaker and the cultural ideology that historically has thwarted and manipulated the expressions of individuality in Spanish society.

The American Dream of Family in Film: From Decline to a Comeback

The family and family-related values have always been a component of dominant culture and the American Way of Life. This article deals with the portrayal of the family in the New American Cinema, from the late 1960s to the present. It shows that film (and media) images are not necessarily up-todate: a culture lag may prevail between society’s material conditions (marital statuses, divorce rates, size of families, patriarchal or matriarchal structures) and its cultural representations (symbols, values and myths about the family). More specifically, it discerns six film cycles, each of which presented different images of the American family. They are in chronological order: the decline of the nuclear family; an attempt to substitute the nuclear family with alternative family structures (communes and professional groups); a cycle of films devoted to white suburban families; a cycle depicting troubled and tormented families; a cycle of youth-oriented films; and the most current trend, a return to traditional family values and structures. Over the last twenty years, the American family has seen many fluctuations in its cinematic treatment, going from severe decline in the late 1960s to a major comeback in the late 1980s. The study analyzes variations and consistencies in the narrative ideological and cinematic conventions of family films, and their interplay with the social and political contexts in which they are made and viewed.

The Delusion of Hollywood's "Women's Films"

The Hollywood season of 1977-1978 was ballyhooed as the year of the woman. At one extreme the phrase reflected a press agent's misguided optimism; at another extreme it represented capitalist exploitation of both current social issues and an oppressed class of people. Regardless, three films which demonstrate American commercial cinema's reaction to women's issues-Julia, The Turning Point, and An Unmarried Woman-tend to be superficial, reductive, and (at times) reactionary. Because these films, for the most part, rely upon standard Hollywood patterns and modes of depiction, they ultimately demean and make trivial the issues they claim to champion. Julia, The Turning Point, and An Unmarried Woman have in common a purported interest in strong female characters with close woman friends. Julia is the story of Lillian Hellman and her friend Julia. The Turning Point concerns the relationship between Emma and Deedee, two women friends whose dancing careers diverged some years before we see them meet again. In An Unmarried Woman, Erica shares the experience of her divorce with a group of friends who meet regularly as a kind of consciousness-raising group. The friendships formed by the women characters are intended to be the focus of each of these movies. In fact, press releases and advertisements urged us to see them on this account, and sought to persuade us that we would see extraordinarily profound relationships among the female characters. Unfortunately, such relationships do not develop in these movies. To create a sense of profound friendship in film, the film makers must commit themselves to substance. Friendship is not simply a label; the mere statement of friendship cannot convince or affect an audience. The notion of friendship describes a relationship between people within the context of their shared experience. Therefore, for us to accept the friendship posited on screen, the shared experience of the characters must be significant. Whatever issues may surround the characters, the film scripts and the cinematic treatment must respect those issues by giving them full and honest treatment. Simplistic cinematic creation of an idea or issue-the mere flashing of an image upon the screen-reduces the films' concerns to the level of commercial advertising. Television and billboard advertising, for example, use a kind of catchword imagery more conducive to mindless reaction than to thought and understanding. The image of the woman on the Black Velvet billboards tells men that if we drink the product we will get sex with a beautiful and submissive partner. The ad, obviously, does not want us to consider whether we like this partner or not, whether we like whiskey better than vodka, or whether we like using alcohol to promote human relationships. It only wants us to link its whiskey with the extremely powerful idea, sex. The ad provides no context or social environment for the woman and her bottle of whiskey because it is really a device for limiting our perceptions and understanding, instead of expanding them. The ad encourages us to buy, not to think. Television creates ideas in similar ways. It may introduce a black character into Archie Bunker's life, or it may-briefly-show two women dancing together in an adult-time movie, but in the former case it does not want us to consider the black experience in a racist world, nor in the latter case does it want us to consider homosexuality. The idea is not to consider anything at all beyond the limited reaction of black or lesbian.