Film Theory Research Articles

Beyond Stereotypes: The Polysemous and Polymorphous Representation of Women in Moroccan Cinema through Adam (2019)

This paper critically examines the portrayal of women in Moroccan cinema, with a specific focus on Meriem Touzani's film Adam (2019). The film is a substantial case study, challenging traditional gender roles, particularly in cinematically representing the two female protagonists' bodies and voices. By critically re-evaluating the poetics and politics of representing women in Moroccan cinema, this paper features the importance of adopting an intersectional perspective and engaging with feminist film theory. The study employs qualitative methods, including close textual and thematic analysis, to investigate how bodily expressions and vocalizations contribute to constructing gender identity. Within the film, the findings are situated in the broader scholarly discourse on gender representation, drawing on theoretical frameworks from scholars such as Laura Mulvey and Kimberlé Crenshaw. This research is interested in tapping into the present debate on transcending hegemonic patriarchal structures in the Moroccan cinematic apparatus, advocating for more unbiased and empowering narratives that reflect the diverse experiences of women. As active media consumers, the audience plays a crucial role in this advocacy. Eventually, this paper contributes to ongoing discussions about gender representation, cultural identity, and social change in Moroccan cinema, offering new insights into the dynamics of advancing a new image of women on screen.

LINGUOCULTURAL ASPECTS OF FILM TRANSLATION

This article is devoted to the study of linguistic and cultural aspects of film translation. The complexity of translation highlights the careful efforts needed to capture the essence of culturally rich historical novels in the cinematic realm.The translation of movies is more than just the transmission of dialogues. It is the art of displaying cultural contexts, expressing national character through language barriers. From the choice of vocabulary to the adaptation, each translation represents a balance between the original and the audience's understanding. Film translation is based on an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on knowledge of Linguistics, Cultural Studies and Film theory in order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of linguistic and cultural aspects in the field of film translation. Covering various genres, thematic studies effectively demonstrate the practical applicability of the results obtained in various cinematic contexts. Linguistic and cultural accuracy in preservingboth the intended meaning and emotional resonance in various cultural and linguistic contexts is difficult and important for the translation of culturally marked words. The difficult task in film translation, as shown on the analysis of series “Downton Abbey” goes beyond linguistic knowledge, since culturally labeled words and express national peculiarities of British mentality. This requires in-depth knowledge of the linguistic and socio-cultural context and usage of various translation techniques.

Viability of Total Ammoniacal Nitrogen Recovery Using a Polymeric Thin-Film Composite Forward Osmosis Membrane: Determination of Ammonia Permeability Coefficient.

Total ammoniacal nitrogen (TAN) occurs in various wastewaters and its recovery is vital for environmental reasons. Forward osmosis (FO), an energy-efficient technology, extracts water from a feed solution (FS) and into a draw solution (DS). Asymmetric FO membranes consist of an active layer and a support layer, leading to internal concentration polarization (ICP). In this study, we assessed TAN recovery using a polymeric thin-film composite FO membrane by determining the permeability coefficients of NH4+ and NH3. Calculations employed the solution-diffusion model, Nernst-Planck equation, and film theory, applying the acid-base equilibrium for bulk concentration corrections. Initially, model parameters were estimated using sodium salt solutions as the DS and deionized water as the FS. The NH4+ permeability coefficient was 0.45 µm/s for NH4Cl and 0.013 µm/s for (NH4)2SO4 at pH < 7. Meanwhile, the NH3 permeability coefficient was 6.18 µm/s at pH > 9 for both ammonium salts. Polymeric FO membranes can simultaneously recover ammonia and water, achieving 15% and 35% recovery at pH 11.5, respectively.

Thin film theory and boundary layer theory, an approach for analysing heat and mass transfer in spacer-filled Direct Contact Membrane Distillation

Thin film theory and boundary layer theory, an approach for analysing heat and mass transfer in spacer-filled Direct Contact Membrane Distillation

Oppression and Females’ Defending in the Devil Wears Prada

Although the film industry has improved in terms of portraying female characters since the 1960s, there are still issues visible to the public, and one is the hidden objectification of females in supposedly feminist movies. Another popular opinion recently, especially on Chinese social media platforms, is that fashion acts as a tool of the patriarchy to force the male gaze onto women. However, this paper intends to discuss how the fashion industry acts as a non-patriarchal field that provides opportunities for females in terms of improving themselves. The movie, The Devil Wears Prada, will be analyzed as an example to explain how the fashion industry, in this movie, does not consist of the male gaze and propels the main character’s growth. The approaches used in this paper are Laura Mulvey’s gaze theory and analyzing specific scenes in the movie, The Devil Wears Prada. The scenes will be analyzed using the apparatus theory in films, explaining how the different types of shots influence the message conveyed in the movie. In conclusion, this paper reveals that even a feminist film like The Devil Wears Prada contains various circumstances of the male gaze; however, these circumstances of the male gaze influencing women do not appear because of the fashion industry, and consequently, the fashion industry should not be disapproved as a source of the male gaze, as it provides opportunities for women to improve themselves in terms of their career and wellbeing.

Mechanical properties and bonding mechanism on interfaces containing work-hardening surface layer of roll-bonded 6061 Al/Q235 steel composite plates

The film theory is widely accepted as a bonding mechanism of metallic laminate composites (MLCs). It states that the fresh metal contact after the rupture of the surface film is an important condition for the bonding of MLCs. However, the bonding performance and mechanisms at the interfaces containing surface films have not been sufficiently investigated. In this study, steel–aluminium composite plates were used to study the bonding state, elemental diffusion behaviour, and mechanical properties of the bonding interface between the steel-side work-hardened surface layer (WHSL) and the aluminium matrix. The results indicate that the Al and Mg atoms inside the Al matrix can diffuse to about 100–150 nm into the WHSL (Fe3O4) and undergo selective oxidation, thus generating Fe0.1MgAl2O4 particles during annealing. However, the Fe atoms in the WHSL cannot diffuse into the aluminium matrix, thereby preventing the WHSL–Al interface from generating intermetallic compounds and maintaining beneficial bonding properties after long-term annealing. Additionally, compared to the steel–aluminium composite plate without a WHSL, the steel–aluminium composite plate with a WHSL exhibited a superior bonding performance. It also demonstrated an elongation increase of 28.67%, the mechanism of this increased elongation was also studied. Under the same degree of bending, the composite plates with WHSL maintained a stable bonding state and formed a unique interface deformation mode around the WHSL–Al interface after bending, which are highly desirable bending properties.

Explicit expression for water permeation flux in forward osmosis desalination process

Forward osmosis (FO) is a membrane process of water separation and purification. FO uses the osmotic pressure difference across a semipermeable membrane. The effective osmotic pressure at the membrane–solution interface on both the feed and permeate sides of the membrane is the main driving force for the generation of the water flux. The major hindrance to the permeation of the water flux is the prevalence of concentration polarization on both sides of the membrane. Concentration polarization inhibits permeate flux by increasing the osmotic pressure at the membrane active layer interface on the feed side of the membrane. This work focused on the development of a mathematical model for water flux in the FO process. Combined film theory model and diffusion transport through the membrane were utilized. The effect of internal concentration polarization and external concentration polarization on the flux was studied. Both internal and external concentration polarization were taken into consideration in both membrane orientations, i.e., active layer facing the feed solution and active layer facing the draw solution. The obtained explicit expression for water permeation flux in forward osmosis desalination process shows excellent agreement with the literature data.

Every Wholly Other: Postsecular Pluralism in Isabel Rocamora's Faith

In this article, I undertake a close reading of Isabel Rocamora's 2015 film installation Faith, which shows, on three separate screens, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim men simultaneously performing their morning prayers in three distinct, historically significant sites in the Judean desert. Setting the cinematic and installation properties of the work into dialogue with a number of philosophers (Levinas, Derrida, Cavell), film theorists (Bazin, Deleuze, Chion), and art theorists (Fried, Elkins), I argue that it adopts a postsecular approach to religious pluralism. That is, without being a religious artwork, Faith nevertheless deconstructs the conventional liberal secular approach of universalist neutrality towards inter-religious relations and instead configures the relations between the human figures in the work according to an alterity that requires not cognitive certainty but inter-human faith. The work is thereby consistent with Derrida's notion that tout autre est tout autre (every other is wholly other).

Experimental and model investigation of spreading characteristics of the liquid sheet formed by jet impinging on a circular plane

The focus of this paper is on the spreading characteristics of the liquid sheet formed by jet impinging on a circular plane. The liquid sheet is studied in two parts: the liquid film that spreads radially on the circular plane, and the free liquid sheet after leaving the circular plane, the former determines the initial thickness and velocity of the latter. Experimental results show that, for the liquid film on the circular plane part, as the jet velocity increases, the liquid film thickness increases due to the film velocity loss caused by the inelastic collision. The liquid film thickness is positively correlated with the jet radius and negatively correlated with the circular plane radius. Liquid viscosity slows the spreading of liquid film, forms the boundary layer, and thickens the liquid film. The surface tension inhibits the velocity loss due to the inelastic collision. For the free liquid sheet part, surface tension and gravity promote the bending of the liquid sheet. The larger the initial momentum of the liquid sheet leaving the circular plane, the larger the maximum spreading range of free liquid sheet reaching the equator. As for the theoretical model, a film velocity correction coefficient reflecting collision loss is introduced to improve the radial spreading theory of the liquid film on a solid surface, and a streamline function is assumed to solve the momentum integral equation of free liquid sheet. The predicted streamline agrees well with the experimental data.

Cyborg Skin

We are pleased to present an excellent collection of articles that represent the newest directions in what Barbara Stafford called “body criticism.” The authors in this issue of Screen Bodies work in diverse fields and employ a wide range of methods, but all share a concern with spectatorship and the ways that the effects of screen-based technology are mediated by the body. This research centers women and offers advancements in feminist film theory, posthumanism, and studies of the horror genre.

The Intimate Other: Screening North Korean Defectors in Multicultural South Korea

ABSTRACT This article considers two South Korean films, Wedding Campaign (Hwang, 2005) and Secret Reunion (Jang, 2010), to better understand the evolution of cinematic representations of North Koreans within the context of the multicultural South’s approaches to North Korean arrivals. I focus on how the two films construct North Korean defectors in relation to other ethnic groups. After considering governmental approaches to North Korean defectors and other foreign migrants, I examine how the films are distinguished from both Cold War tropes that present North Koreans as the dangerous Other and the narratives of the Sunshine era that embrace North Koreans based on shared ethnicity. I argue that these films’ depiction of North Koreans in relation to multiculturalism manifests neoliberal nationalism within a highly transnational, multiethnic South Korea, as well as the paradoxical nature of South Korean multiculturalism, which emphasises assimilation rather than cultural difference. Ultimately, these films demonstrate changing narratives of South Korea as a multicultural and globalising nation with an increasing emphasis on the latter.

Gaze, movement and gender in Ovid’s story of Atalanta and Hippomenes (Met. 10.560-707)

In his Metamorphoses, Ovid created a world of alternating images that reflect both the significance of visual communication and the importance of movement. In these stories, vision and movement are closely related to the characters’ genders, the plot, and the final transformations. The relationship between Ovid’s literary text and a movie as a narrative, wherein the medium of storytelling differs, allows for the application of feminist film theory, especially that of Laura Mulvey. This approach can be applied to the Metamorphoses, Ovid’s piece of art that combines both text and image in an exemplary manner. Atalanta’s story, which will be discussed, is chosen precisely because it highlights the multidimensional function of vision and movement, combined with the gender of the observer and the object of the gaze, as well as the transformation process.

Intersecting Aesthetics: Literary Adaptations and Cinematic Representations of Blackness

Intersecting Aesthetics: Literary Adaptations and Cinematic Representations of Blackness

Exploring representations of human resource management as moral dirty work: A film study

AbstractIt has been claimed that the HR “profession” suffers from a chronic shortage of social legitimacy. In this article, we advance the idea that HR is also to some extent subject to public stigmatization for being immoral. In other words, we maintain that certain aspects of contemporary HR work can be conceptualized as morally dirty work. We provide empirical support for this contention by analyzing a set of 28 films portraying HR practitioners at work. The research results comprise both task‐related and method‐related filmic representations of HR work as immoral, thus furnishing a comprehensive and nuanced picture of the moral issues that can affect the HR profession. Furthermore, the results show that some of the HR characters analyzed—typically those who hold a role as (co‐)protagonists in the story—realize the immorality affecting their work and decide to distance themselves from it by either exiting the role, trying to reform it, or openly raising resistance against their employer. These research results suggest the need to integrate dirty work scholarship into study of the HR profession, while they provide important indications in terms of future HR research, practice and education.

A TEXTBOOK ON CINEMATOGRAPHY WAS PUBLISHED AT CHELYABINSK STATE UNIVERSITY

The reviewed textbook has recently come out at Chelyabinsk State University publishing house. Impressum: Kiuru KV, Linkov SV. Kinematograf: yazyk, istoriya, zhanry, proizvodstvo i prodvizheniye = Cinema: language, history, genres, production and promotion. Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinsk State University Publishing House; 2024. 168 p. ISBN 978-5-7271-1939-6. The textbook examines issues of theory, history and genres of cinema, film production technology and film promotion.

The Biafra Story in Film: An Appraisal of Biyi Bandele’s &lt;i&gt;Half of a Yellow Sun&lt;/i&gt;

Diverse scholarly and artistic expressions in book form and documentary films have been employed to document the story of the Nigerian Civil War by persons who were actively or peripherally involved in the events surrounding it. Attempts at telling the story have been coloured by different factors like military, political, ethno religious and egocentric considerations. This study examined the war's account through Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun, a filmic adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s novel with the same title. Using qualitative content analysis method and grounded on the Trauma and Cinema Theory, the study examined the film’s representation of historical facts and how such perspectives may have been received. The film's reception by the Nigerian cinema audience and government through the cinema regulatory authority were examined. The study concluded that the suppression of critical historical facts in the film through censorship represents the unwillingness of the government to allow for citizen conversation, which the film could provoke and which may lead to proper closure and possibly lay to rest, the ghost of the fratricidal war that almost ripped the country apart between July 1967 and January 1970.

Breaking the Cult of Masculinity –The Other Lamb, Midsommarand Empowerment on Screen

It is not only cult cinema but also the representation of the ‘cult’ on screen that can provide vital opportunities to de-centre destructive masculinity and ask questions about wider gender power struggles. Female characters that are at the centre of cult cinema, driving the narrative and breaking the rules of masculine control are not a new phenomenon. From Pam Grier’s ferocity in films such as Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown(1974) to Kurt Russell’s brutal takedown in Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007), cult film has long been a platform for destabilising the notion of traditional gender hierarchies. The notion of the ‘cult’ itself, however, has long been thought of and (represented on screen) as an all-male power trip with disastrous consequences for those that believe. As far back as The Seventh Victim (1943) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968), there have been many manifestations of cult violence towards woman on screen but there is also a cannon of films that use cinematic representations of the cult to change the narrative and bring wider gender politics to the surface. Two such contemporary examples of this are Małgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb (2020) and Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019). Both films offer nightmarish manifestations of cult mechanisms and control that at first seem to once again place men and masculinity in pole position. This paper will examine how the narrative, character and cinematic language of both films offer a more complex and subversive discourse linked to female empowerment. They use the medium to offer cautionary, and often shocking, on-screen representations that attempt to disrupt traditional, male led power structures and can also be read as a commentary on wider society and not simply the cults that they portray.

Online Streaming: A Paradigm Shift for Nollywood Movie Distribution

The Nigerian movie distribution and exhibition business has undergone major transformation in the last few years due to technological innovation. The study is about Nollywood paradigm shift from hard copy movie distribution to online streaming services. The aim is to ascertain why producers are moving to soft screening through online pay-to-view platforms. The objectives were to find out if this new trend is financially beneficial to the producers and whether it will likely continue in the future. The study adopted qualitative methods to interrogate existing data on some of the most popular Nollywood films released online by Netflix. This is based on a snap-shot of Netflix’s popularity chart in the month of October, 2020 and news of cinema theatre films release around the same period. The findings are that the online distribution deals must have been profitable for the producers, judging by repeated use by some of them and others enlisting in the business. The expanding scope of Nollywood producers using these online streaming platforms for distributions of their work suggests the likelihood of a continuing process. The study concludes that this is a mutually beneficial relationship between local producers and online business global entities. It, therefore, recommends that Nollywood producers avoid signing exclusive deals with online distributors only. This will allow home-grown cinema theatres to be financially rewarding to prevent the nation’s cinema theatre chains from collapsing due to redundancy.

Effect of equilibrium contact angle on water equilibrium film thickness for the carbon dioxide–brine–mineral system based on surface force theory

The thickness of the thin wetting film depends on disjoining pressure forces, and it evolves with pH evolution due to brine acidification at the physical and chemical conditions of geological carbon dioxide storage becoming thinner in response to dewetting. In the literature, molecular dynamic simulation (MDS) studies have been employed to understand the effect of pressure/capillary pressure on the thin wetting film evolution. In this paper, a theoretical approach based on the Frumkin–Derjaguin Equation (FDE), models of electric double layer repulsion, and van der Waals forces have been used for the calculation of the wetting film thickness. The approach excluded hydration forces contribution to disjoining pressure forces due partly to its poorly understood nature, and partly to the high salinity conditions encountered in geological carbon storage. Due to its promising global storage capacity compared to other lithologies, the carbon dioxide–brine–silica systems was chosen to simulate sandstone saline aquifers. The validation of the model benefited much from literature resources on data and a universal model of carbon dioxide–brine interfacial tension. Calculated results confirm pH-induced dewetting and they follow trends controlled by pH and pressure as found in the literature. The novelty of the paper can be seen from the fact that it has demonstrated a theoretical supplement to MDS studies in addition to justifying the fundamental utility and versatility of the FDE. Moreover, the paper links for the first time, a transcendental equation to the thin wetting film theory encountered in the carbon dioxide–solid–brine system found in geological carbon storage.

The intersecting aesthetics: Literary adaptations and cinematic representations of blackness By CharleneRegester, CynthiaBaron, Ellen C.Scott, Terri SimoneFrancis, and Robin G.Vander (Eds.), Jackson, MS: Mississippi University Press. 2023. pp. 278. $30.00 (paperback).

The intersecting aesthetics: Literary adaptations and cinematic representations of blackness By CharleneRegester, CynthiaBaron, Ellen C.Scott, Terri SimoneFrancis, and Robin G.Vander (Eds.), Jackson, MS: Mississippi University Press. 2023. pp. 278. $30.00 (paperback).