European Cinema Research Articles

Introduction: Film and / as Ethics

IntroductionFilm and / as Ethics Robert Sinnerbrink (bio) and Lisa Trahair (bio) The relationship between film and philosophy, along with the idea of film as philosophy, has attracted widespread interest over the last decade. Film theorists and philosophers of film have explored not only the philosophical questions raised by cinema as an artform, but also the possibility that cinema might contribute to philosophical understanding or even engage in varieties of “cinematic thinking” that intersect with, without being reducible to, philosophical inquiry. Inspired by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell, many theorists are now engaged in what has come to be known as “film-philosophy,” developing philosophical insight out of their close engagement with film, and bringing philosophical concepts to bear on the aesthetic experience cinema affords. Despite the flourishing of this encounter between film and philosophy, there has been as yet comparatively little attention given to the relationship between ethics and cinema (see Choi and Frey, Cine-Ethics; Sinnerbrink, Cinematic Ethics; Terman, “Ethics”). Prior to the emergence of film-philosophy, questions about cinematic ethics came to the fore in relation to the photographic basis of the medium. André Bazin’s statement that the photograph has an irrational power to “bear away our faith” undoubtedly indicates some qualms about the ethics of the artform (14). And it is unsurprising that the first point of focus on cinematic ethics was the documentary film. The direct cinema and cinéma verité movements emerged in the wake of concerns about the ethics of the medium and its purported objectivity in representing “others,” and such movements were explicitly oriented toward developing more assuredly ethical and political means of telling stories. And there have always been filmmakers whose interest in cinema lay in its capacity to show us realities that were ethically complex. We only need to think of the cinema of Orson Welles or Stanley Kubrick to remind ourselves that ethical work has always been among cinema’s enterprises. The ascendancy of Hollywood cinema was made possible in the 1920s and 1930s by illegal and immoral monopolistic and exploitative practices that put national cinemas around the globe out of business, but such practices were actually buttressed by the implementation of the Production Code and a lot of loud talk about [End Page 3] the need for films to be moral. The assurances repeatedly given for Hollywood’s moral rectitude, even while its international ambitions meant that it avidly sought to colonize the cultural spheres of other nations, provide an obvious reason for why film studies has been more interested in unpacking the moral and political dimensions of the industry than in contemplating the ethical inquiry of some of its most revered directors. It is worth remembering that Cavell’s book on the remarriage cycle is a study of a popular film genre’s forays into finding a means to articulate the ethics of relations between men and women. Deleuze identifies ethical concerns in the European films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Roberto Rossellini, and in the work of the Japanese filmmakers Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi; but these by no means delimit the field of the filmmakers of the twentieth century who took up ethical inquiry in the cinematic medium. In the fields of film criticism and film theory, the study of documentary is the most overtly ethical treatment of film but it would be remiss not to point to feminist film theory, psychoanalytic film theory, queer film theory and the study of third cinema as raising questions of ethical importance. That film has an ethical potential—for exploring moral issues, ethically ambiguous situations, or moral “thought experiments”—is clear from the way in which film theorists have explored cinema from a variety of philosophical perspectives (Mulhall, On Film; Shaw, Morality at the Movies; Wartenberg, Thinking on Screen). More recently, scholars have begun to explore the ways in which cinema can be read alongside philosophical approaches to ethics, or how certain filmmakers can be understood as engaging in ethics through film (Cooper, Selfless Cinema?; Downing and Saxton, Film and Ethics; Stadler, Pulling Focus; Wheatley, Michael Haneke’s Cinema). Philosophical film theory has now not only begun to...

The Dialectics of Cruelty: Rethinking Artaudian Cinema

Antonin Artaud’s concept of a theater of cruelty and his scarce writings on cinema have profoundly influenced film scholarship, especially in view of the large number of contemporary European films that employ images of extreme violence and utilize an aesthetics of visual unpleasure. But is the politics of the Artaudian aesthetic to be reduced to the reproduction of gory images of revolting violence? This article explores the politics of Artaudian cinema by going back to Artaud’s writings on the medium and comparing them to Brecht’s writings on film. The focus of this article is twofold: the first part goes back to Artaud’s writings and investigates the politics of the cinema of cruelty, while the second uses as case studies Jonas Mekas’s The Brig (1964) and Costas Zapas’s The Rebellion of Red Maria (2011). The first film is a screen adaptation of a performance renowned for reconciling the theater of cruelty with a political context, while the second is a contemporary paradigm of a film that draws on the Artaudian and Brechtian traditions with a view to responding to the political concerns of the present.

THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION TO CREATIVE INDUSTRIES: THE ANALYSIS OF FILM INDUSTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

This paper explores changes of the political, legal, taxation and other circumstances in film industries of Central and Eastern Europe that kick-started qualitative changes over the last decade. Research conducted by European Union (EU) on European film industry suggests that in terms of film industry Central and Eastern Europe region at this stage is generally non-competitive and not commercially orientated. We argue that the region filmmakers systematic believe in concept that film art and film business is a combination of polar opposites is a key reason that holds back industry’s potential to make a considerable economical and cultural contribution to national prosperity.

Female stardom in contemporary Romanian new wave cinema

This article analyses film roles, red-carpet appearances and nonfilmic performances of three of the most well-known and admired actresses of the Romanian New Wave (Luminița Gheorghiu, Maria Popistașu and Anamaria Marinca). Their unglamorous female stardom is paradoxical if considered from the standpoint of mainstream/dominant cinema and the tradition described by Jackie Stacey as “[t]he ‘visual pleasure’ offered by the glamour and sexual appeal of Hollywood stars” (159). Aspects such as the major contradiction between screen role and screen persona, or the lack of ideal(istic) images offered to the audience are theorised on the basis of Christine Gledhill’s and Richard Dyer’s models, Anne Morey’s term of “the elegiac female grotesque” and Ana Salzberg’s concept of narcissistic Hollywood female stardom and embodied experience (107). The coherence of unglamorous female stardom as a real-life discursive construct emerges in the article through the consideration of Romanian New Wave cinema–similarly to 1970s-1980s New Indian Cinema in which unglamorous female stars existed (Gandhy-Thomas)–as a peripheral cinematic formation defined by a specific relation to glamour and consumption (Dyer, Gundle). Furthermore, the article suggests that this coherence is dependent on considering the production context of the Romanian New Wave in the framework of small national European cinemas (Hjort and Petrie, Soila), while emphasising the lack of integrated studio background (Haskell) and the fact that its female stars have been conditioned by postcommunist possibilities to articulate female public identities (Pasca Harsanyi, Roman).

Cine iraní en España

This study is an effort to analyse how Spanish cinephilia have received Iranian movies, which reached the commercial screens of Spain since their success on International film festivals. The interest in the Iranian Cinema in Spain arose not only out of their formal differences from the mainstream cinema but also from their status as Iranian cultural products, for being considered as culturally “other.” The visual style of directors like Kiarostami has been observed by the western coordinates in order to shed light on, and in some occasions to force, the influences by European film styles like Neorealism. As the resources of research and in order to approach to the cinephilia reactions, the points of view of critics and academics as well as opinions and news, which were reflected on press and on specialized magazines have been studied.

John Orr (2014) The Demons of Modernity: Ingmar Bergman and European Cinema

John Orr (2014) The Demons of Modernity: Ingmar Bergman and European Cinema

Cine policíaco del tardofranquismo: El thriller en el “Período Oscuro” del cine español (1969-1975)

Definición de la etapa de crisis del aparato cinematográfico franquista, llamada aquí “Período Oscuro” (1969-1975), discusión de la etiqueta de subgéneros aplicada al cinema bis de la época, y caracterización histórica del thriller español y de sus corrientes estéticas y conceptuales internas en dicho período. La acotación del período 1969-1975 es clarificada previamente ante el vacío historiográfico al respecto. Se caracteriza la crisis que tiene lugar en el “Período Oscuro”, desde su comienzo oficial en 1969, que supuso el definitivo cierre de las políticas proteccionistas emprendidas por el Director General de Cinematografía García Escudero en 1962. Después se define y discute la etiqueta de subgéneros aplicada tradicionalmente al cine español de género de bajo presupuesto. Luego, se especifican, definen y analizan las diversas categorías dentro del thriller español de 1969-1975: se trata de categorías temáticas y argumentales, estéticas, o bien relacionadas con corrientes internacionales del policíaco europeo. Por último, se extraen las conclusiones pertinentes.

Welcome to Europe! Linking the EU Parliament LUX Film Prize and the impact of migration films to the emergence of a European public sphere

Abstract Migration films represent an emerging genre of film-making that is increasingly influencing European citizens and policy-makers alike. Through them, we are able to deconstruct negative attitudes about migrants and how they fit into an increasingly cosmopolitan and diverse Europe. In 2008, the EU Parliament created the LUX Film Prize, an award that recognizes European films that embody European traditions, values and integration. In 2009, the prize was awarded to French Director Philippe Lioret’s film Welcome, the story of a Kurdish migrant in France hoping to reach Britain by swimming the English Channel. Despite its fictional scope, it was highly politicized and controversial due to its critical approach of French refugee policies, specifically the L622-1 law prohibiting citizens from offering assistance to undocumented migrants. Following the EU Commission’s acknowledgement of the need to further involve citizens in debates on European issues, this article argues that the LUX Prize is an innovative medium to foster debate and discussion on matters of migration within a wider European public sphere. It has also provided a platform for those outside the political landscape to help shape the discourse on migration, thus reinforcing a more inclusive European civic participation on matters directly affecting them as citizens.

Queer European Cinema: queering cinematic time and space

‘Queer European Cinema’, the theme of this Studies in European Cinema special issue, combines two complex constructs: Europe and Queer. Attempts to define ‘Europe’ are fraught with complexity, part...

Crossing borders and queering identities in French-language European road cinema

The controversies surrounding the adoption of the pacte civil de solidarité and similar European debates in the late 1990s coincide with a revival of the road movie format in the cinema of France and its neighbours. The border-crossing inclinations of road movies generate an often polyglot battery of films that tackle questions of identity, kinship and citizenship from a transnational perspective. This article focuses on three French-language, queer-themed, border-crossing road movies: Plein sud/Going South (Sébastien Lifshitz, dir., 2009a), Origine contrôlée/Made in France (Ahmed Bouchaala and Zakia Tahri, dir., 2001) and Comme des voleurs (à l’est)/Stealth (Lionel Baier, dir., 2006). These films, and the recent vogue in French and European road movies in general, correspond to a period marked by identity debates and the decreasing relevance of the traditional fabric of citizenship. Beyond the evident questioning of the patriarchal system and the staging of quests of individual agency and self-discovery, these films offer unique twists on the return to ‘origins’ narrative. While each journey takes a different direction (towards Spain, Algeria/Switzerland and Poland, respectively), it is the road itself that enables the fluid construction of selfhood. We examine in particular how the queering of each protagonist informs the relationships that these narratives entertain with wider identity debates, whether racial, national, ethnic or religious.

Tag

This video tracks the influence of the French New Wave of the early ‘60s on the so-called New Hollywood or American New Wave of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, of this on the rise of the American indie films of the ‘90s and of these on low-budget contemporary European cinema reveals a specific recurring shot or sequence in common. This is the seemingly loose, drifting, often single-take mid-shot of a couple engaged in banter as they walk together, teasing and probing, attempting to impress each other and enjoying a burgeoning sense of mutual attraction and increasingly simmering sensuality.

Synthesis of National and Transnational in A. Konchalovsky's American Movies

In September 2014 Andrey Konchalovskiy's White Nights of Postman Alexey Tryapitsyn won Silver Lion for the Best Director at the Venice Film Festival. European critics and advanced public have regularly marked endowments of the Soviet and Russian film director. Throughout his career he has received numerous awards at prestigious European film festivals. There are Crystal Globe in Karlovy Vary for the Romance for Lovers (1974), Grand Prix at Cannes for Sibiriada (1979), the main prizes of San Sebastian for Uncle Vanya (1971) and Homer and Eddie (1989). Meanwhile, Konchalovsky's success among American mass audience and critics has been much more modest, though Andrey Konchalovsky was the first in the early 1980s, since the time of the first wave of Russian 1910-20's emigration, who attempted to connect deeply national, Russian spirit with Hollywood production technology-oriented international strategy in his works. Being established in the Soviet Union as an esteemed author, Konchalovskiy decided to change the film industry to start over his career. Nowadays, in the context of the festival success in the European and Soviet/Russian cinema circles and the lack of attention in the United States, a question arises, if one can consider this attempt as successful one. In this article the author tries identify Russian national motives, which the filmmaker has introduced into Hollywood culture through his creative method, and those originally Hollywood themes and topics that have appeared for the first time in the works of the recognized Soviet director. Basing on Konchalovskys American works the author tries to elicit creative value in their national and transnational synthesis and expose the extent of their productivity and sensemaking.

Making Movies into Art: Picture Craft from the Magic Lantern to Early Hollywood by Kaveh Askari

Book Review| June 01 2015 Making Movies into Art: Picture Craft from the Magic Lantern to Early Hollywood by Kaveh Askari BOOK DATA Kaveh Askari, Making Movies into Art: Picture Craft from the Magic Lantern to Early Hollywood. London: British Film Institute, 2015. $32.00 paper. 182 pages. VITO ADRIAENSENS VITO ADRIAENSENS VITO ADRIAENSENS is a film historian working at the University of Antwerp and the VU University in Amsterdam. He is currently finishing two books: Sculpture in Cinema (with Steven Jacobs, Susan Felleman, and Lisa Colpaert) and Velvet Curtains and Gilded Frames: The Art of Early European Cinema. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (2015) 68 (4): 99–101. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2015.68.4.99 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation VITO ADRIAENSENS; Making Movies into Art: Picture Craft from the Magic Lantern to Early Hollywood by Kaveh Askari. Film Quarterly 1 June 2015; 68 (4): 99–101. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2015.68.4.99 Download citation file: Ris (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 All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2015 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp.2015 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Far-Flung Families in Film: the Diasporic Family in Contemporary European Film

Transnational mobility is nothing new; its exponential increase in the last fifty years or so, however, has rendered it a key – probably the key – dimension of contemporary life for both the receiving and the supplying cultures. Daniela Berghahn's monograph explores the representations of such mobility and its implications as expressed in films made in receiving cultures – almost exclusively in (western) Europe – by filmmakers originating, for the most part, outside Europe. The diaspora, therefore, defines not only the subject matter of the films under examination but also the subject position of their makers, thus further authenticating the films discussed as representative of a new set of sensibilities. In addition, by focusing on the representations of the diasporic family rather than the isolated individual, the book foregrounds the complexity of the tensions and frictions experienced by the various agents/characters in the films as a result of this displacement, and the new spaces opened up in the context of their (successful) negotiation.

‘In Holland staat een huis’

Abstract ‘In Holland there is a house’. The representation of Polish immigrants in recent Dutch feature filmsThis article looks into the representation of Polish immigrants in recent Dutch feature films (1997-2012), with a particular focus on the prominent role of domestic settings and familial dysfunctions in the pictures involved. As the analysis reveals, many of the films under discussion bring into view troubled Dutch protagonists (especially men) who suffer from degradation in the familial and social sphere. The Polish characters in turn tend to be instrumentalized as (potential) agents of change (or rather ‘restoration’), taking up traditional familial and domestic roles that are no longer fulfilled by Dutch characters.While the narrative function granted to Polish immigrants in Dutch film can be closely linked to the widespread perception of Poland (and East Central Europe at large) as less ‘modern’ (than the West) as well as to the physical, strongly gender-typed labor usually performed by these jobseekers, the Dutch treatment of Polish characters remains largely in line with the screen portrait of expatriate Poles in other European cinemas (i.e., ‘noble’ rather than ‘savage’). In the meanwhile, however, with its particular focus on (declining) ‘domesticity’ in Dutch private and public spaces, the corpus of films under discussion points to the contradictory feelings of nostalgia underlying the treatment of migration in Dutch representational practices: while some films expose the longing for the preservation of a monolithic Dutch ‘home’ unaffected by immigrants, other productions instrumentalize the influx of foreigners as a means to reinstall a sense of (female) domesticity into the center of the Dutch family.

Greek European Film Co-Productions in the Three Major European Film Festivals from 2001 to 2013

Film co-0production is a complex phenomenon that involves different countries and cultures and therefore closely linked to their social and economic situation during the specific time periods that takes place. Given the economic changes that Greece and Europe in general has undergone during the years from 2001 to 2013, the purpose of this study is first to present the number of Greek productions and co-productions in three major European Film Festivals during the years 2001-2013 and secondly to compare Greece and European countries with similar Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2007 and 2011, before and during the economical crisis and with similar amount of population, in terms of their co-productions in the three above mentioned film festivals. Our findings show that although there was a decline in film production and co-production in Greece during the years from 2004 to 2009, Greek cinema in general witnesses a revival from 2009 onwards. In addition, the number of co-productions is closely linked to the fame of a director. The comparison of European countries with similar GDP and similar or equal amount of population to Greece has shown that the number of co-productions is probably dependent on their geographical position, the more centrally in Europe are located the more co-productions they present, as well as their multicultural environment and the proximity of languages spoken in the countries involved. However, given that Greece is not a centrally located country in Europe, some recommendations are made in terms of legal framework and tax incentives which will facilitate Greek European co-productions with subsequent benefits for Greek society.

Turkish German Cinema in the New Millennium: Sites, Sounds, and Screens ed. by Sabine Hake and Barbara Mennel (review)

Reviewed by: Turkish German Cinema in the New Millennium: Sites, Sounds, and Screens ed. by Sabine Hake and Barbara Mennel Barbara Kosta Turkish German Cinema in the New Millennium: Sites, Sounds, and Screens. Edited by Sabine Hake and Barbara Mennel. New York: Berghahn, 2012. Pp. 251. ISBN: 978-0857457684. What is striking in the title Turkish German Cinema in the New Millennium: Sites, Sounds, and Screens is the deliberate omission of the hyphen that has been commonplace when marking (and marketing) Turkish German cultural productions in the context of German Studies. Reconsidering the relationship between these historically loaded markers of identity is in keeping with the volume’s overall goal, which, as the editors Sabine Hake and Barbara Mennel state, is “to move beyond the traditional focus of representation and signification to approach German Turkish cinema as part of a long history of film professionals in German and European cinema with a migration background” (10). Indeed, the fifteen essays contained in [End Page 463] this volume, each provocative in its own approach and intervention, represent the rich prismatic approaches to a relationship that, on the one hand, continues to vex notions of identity, integration, and complex definitions of belonging, and on the other hand, strives to resist the more essentialist, binary definitions of ethnic and affective affiliations. The thematic shifts evidenced in Turkish German filmmaking since the 1970s are mapped onto a changing historical context that, as the editors show, has called for various epistemological and methodological approaches. The editors also provide an overview of the diverse theoretical discourses that scholars have used to unpack visual representations of ethnicized subjects and transnational sensibilities and spaces in Turkish German films. A sampling of the impressive range of topics explored here are: mainstream genre cinema, popular culture, experimental media, issues of production, reception and spectatorship, and the tension between transnational and local identifications. The volume is divided into four sections. The first section, “Configurations of Stereotypes and Identities: New Methodologies,” looks at “the objects of study that have haunted [Turkish German cinema’s] theorization from the outset: ethnic stereotypes” (13). Daniela Berghahn persuasively charts the trajectory of wedding films ending with the marital “ethnic romantic comedy” that allows for the domestication and benign celebration of difference. David Gramling eloquently reveals the myth-making structures that Feo Aladağ’s film Die Fremde sets in motion only to perpetuate an essentializing myth of gender and violence. Marco Abel unhinges Thomas Arslan’s films from prescriptive narratives of bifurcated identities to look at the labor of image production. All three essays skillfully reveal the strategies of meaning production as it engages, reinforces, and resists ethnic stereotypes. The second section, “Multiple Screens and Platforms: From Documentary and Television to Installation Art,” offers a look at various media and shows the immense range of Turkish German contributions to cultural production from documentary filmmaking to television to installations. Exploring notions of bicultural subjectivities, Angelica Fenner turns to Fatih Akın’s autobiographical documentary We Forgot to Go Back, which negotiates between his private and public persona and dwells on spaces, infused with nostalgia, that express “the desire for belonging [that] powerfully informs both Akın’s approach to his project, and the testimonials of his wider circle of relatives” (71). Ingeborg Majer-O’Sickey explores Buket Alakuş’s and Aysun Bademsoy’s female soccer films as a vehicle to promote women’s presence in the public sphere. Nilgün Bayraktar looks at performance, spectatorship, and migration in Kutluğ Ataman’s video installation Küba. Brent Peterson’s essay on the television sitcom Turkish for Beginners and Brad Prager’s essay on Züli Aladağ’s film for television Rage conclude this section with a focus on representations of ethnicity and gender that neatly tie in with the first section on stereotypes, though without offering less in the way of new approaches. [End Page 464] In section three, “Institutional Contexts: Stars, Theaters and Reception,” the primary focus is on “how institutional contexts and practices shape German Turkish cinema” (14). The spectrum of topics includes the analysis of movie theater programming, of Turkish German stars, of the German reception and marketing of Akın, and the reception of Turkish German...

European Film Avant-Garde: Poetics of Objectiveness

The article focuses on the phenomenological description of poetical nature of film image associated with such elements as water and air (fog) in European film avant-garde. The author explores the origin of artistic imagination in connection with the problem of perception and representation of reality in a director's method

History and Symbols: Lithuanian and Central European Cinema of the 1960s

History and Symbols: Lithuanian and Central European Cinema of the 1960s The text discusses the most creative period in Lithuanian cinema, the 1960s. This analysis is an attempt to frame the artistic and thematic changes in Lithuanian cinema within the context of the changes that occurred in Central Europe cinema during the 1960s. Showing that the cinematic influence of the neighbouring countries of Central Europe was sufficiently strong allows us to show the exceptional nature of Lithuanian cinema in the context of the policies towards the arts in the Soviet Union.

How the love was tempered: labour, romance and gender asymmetry in the classical Yugoslav film

This article tackles the relationship between gender and work as screened by classical Yugoslav cinema. It focuses on a string of films produced from 1948 to 1958, set in the context of the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country and socialist society. Relying on the thesis concerning the dwindling of revolutionary morale in the 1950s, the analysis explores the ways in which the devaluation of work in the name of consumption, and the re-domestification and objectification of women correlated with a telling divide between the male and female protagonists in the ‘construction cycle’. While the films privileged the man as a natural born worker, they designated the woman first and foremost in terms of her love for the man. In this respect, the gender politics of the classical Yugoslav cinema were more indebted to Hollywood melodramas than to the socialist-realist celebration of gender equality, as manifested in Eastern European cinemas.