American Film Research Articles

Фонтан Наяд у кінострічці «Римські канікули» (1953, США)

The author develops the process of forming professionally oriented foreign language educational space in the university conditions through the prism of the film "Roman Holiday" (1953, USA), in this way focused attention on studying foreign language in higher school. This paper describes the Fountain of the Naiads located on the Republic Square in Rome. Remembered a movie Roman Holiday (1953) filmed entirely in Rome, becoming one of the first American films to be made in Italy. It is worth visiting the square, Rome, and indeed Italy that just to enjoy the architecture of the fountain. Presented the Naiads in Greek and Roman Mythology, Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, Homer's The Odyssey, the tale of Echo and Narcissus as one of the most famous in all of classical mythology and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Shown Naiads in Art and Music by composer Sibelius.

A Modern Peep at the South Seas: Melville s Presence in some Hollywood Films from 1920s to the 1940s

This paper will argue that alongside Melville’s literary reputation, Hollywood, and its associated industries (advertising, trade and journalistic press), produced a pop-culture image of him. It will analyze two movies, Last of the Pagans (MGM, 1935) and Omoo-Omoo the Shark God (Esla Pictures, 1949), which were publicized as adaptations of Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847) respectively but have on the surface little or nothing to do, thematically or plotwise, with their purported source texts. They can be linked back to the novels through the use of a Melville meme that recreates pre-colonial life in the South Seas, situating viewers within a taxidermic viewing position. Overall, scholars have disregarded these movies as having little to offer Melville studies, but this article will consider them and their many forms of publicity to demonstrate that they can give scholars a glance at Melville’s popular reputation as adventurer and romancer, and it will suggest that, as a national figure, Melville was not the exclusive property of academia but a contested site for the construction of national ideals. The paper will adopt a combination of approaches from film history, fluid text theory, and adaptation studies to analyze Melville’s image across mass media outfits.

Monsters or Victims An Ecocritical Reading of Samson and Sally and Dot and the Whale, Retellings of Moby Dick

The paper aims to explore two animations, Samson and Sally (1984) and Dot and the Whale (1986), through the lens of zoocriticism (Huggan and Tiffin) and ecocinematic analysis to show how the directors have presented the alternative version of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick in order to showcase the crises of cetaceans like whale in the present scenario of the global warming, pollution and various anthropogenic damages. Unlike many popular Hollywood movies, these two animated films do not portray whales as monsters. In many popular Hollywood ventures, we can see the representations of vengeful bloodthirsty sea creatures like sharks and whales causing shipwrecks and killing humans, just like Moby Dick did in Melville. However, Samson and Sally and Dot and the Whale propose a different version of Moby Dick, where Moby Dick is portrayed as a saviour of the whale race under the threats of whaling, oil spills, and rising temperature. Samson and Sally is a bildungsroman as it depicts the journey of a young whale in search of the mythical Moby Dick who can only save his clan from whalers who have killed his mother and other relatives. Dot and the Whale, on the other hand, points such issues like the beaching of whales and their exploitation for oil and other resources. These two animations have presented an accurate picture where animals are not presented as monsters but rather victims of human greed. Although these animations are in the anthropomorphised version, they are created to raise human awareness to protect cetaceans and marine life.

Role of dysphemisms in the English-language film space

The topicality of undertaken research is determined by the constantly changing social norms in modern society, which are reflected in the cinematographic world. Cinematography provides a golden opportunity to consider and analyze a range of unique linguistic phenomena. The major purpose of the present paper is to study the phenomenon of dysphemisation in the English-speaking film space based on the set of the following films in English: Green Book by the American film director, Peter J. Farrelly, the screen adaptation of the autobiography 12 Years a Slave by Terrence S. McQueen, the well-known film The Help by Tate Taylor and the biographical drama Hidden Figures by Theodore Melfi. In the films the main storyline is generally based on the aspect of discrimination against persons of certain racial backgrounds and women, based on the policy of the United States of America during the infamous period of slavery (XVII–XIX centuries) and the historical era of segregation (XIX–XX centuries). During the study theoretical methods (analysis and synthesis) and empirical methods (observation and description) were used. As a result of the conducted study, the classification of dysphemistic lexical units was determined in terms of author’s intentions (dysphemisms with an emphasis on a different skin color; dysphemisms-comparisons with animals, plants and inanimate objects; dysphemisms-designations of social status; dysphemisms expressing gender discrimination), as well as their role and reason for use in the selected set of films – demonstration of a biased, cruel attitude towards recipients and also a reflection of the socio-cultural environment that encompassed US society during the historical time period under study.

When ‘atypical’ is the new typical: a critical analysis of the representation of virginity among neurodivergent men characters in TV series

ABSTRACT This article critically reflects on a television trend that remains poorly documented, namely that of representing male virginity as being caused by a form of neurodivergence. As part of an interdisciplinary research project on sexually inexperienced emerging adults (SIEA) in North American films and TV series, a textual analysis has been conducted for four TV series portraying sexually inexperienced men on the spectrum (The Good Doctor, Atypical, The Big Bang Theory, L’Heure bleue). Our research shows that this tendency to associate men’s sexual inexperience with autism is an important issue that reveals the persistence of gender and ableist norms in TV series. For instance, TV series contribute to the reproduction of the stereotype that a man on the spectrum is de facto sexually inexperienced, and then prioritize a “virginity loss” narrative. Characters also acquire maturity after their first sexual encounter, resulting in increased masculine capital. Considering that such series seek to represent neurodiversity, the lack of diversity when it comes to representing sexual inexperience is questioning. The fact that narratives invariably allow neurodivergent men to gain sexual experience seems to reinforce the cultural norm that sexual activity is mandatory, especially for adult men.

Cultural Solidification and Group Marginalization in Hollywood Films

Cultural Solidification and Group Marginalization in Hollywood Films

OVERLOOKING THE TRANSFORMATION OF VALUES THROUGH THE TRANSNATIONAL AMERICAN REMAKES MOVIES

This study explores the transformation of values in transnational remake movies, focusing on their popularity and the incorporation of new elements to suit target audience preferences. An analysis of The Lake House, a remake of the Korean film Il Mare, reveals shifts in values and the integration of American cultural aspects. These changes stem from audience demands, business considerations, and Hollywood's global influence. Remakes require more than simply reproducing original content; they involve capturing cultural nuances from both versions. Utilizing Hall's representation approach and qualitative methods, the study assesses transnational remakes and their conveyed values. The research identifies shifts from South Korean values to those of the American target market, such as the transition from interdependence to self-reliance and a preference for directness, assertion, and rationality. The American film industry should carefully evaluate the suitability of movies for its audiences, recognizing changes in scenes and messages. The establishment of American values in remakes is influenced by the success of original films and their formulas. As transnational products, movies must be repackaged for target audiences. The industry faces complex processes to align the values of popular films with audience tastes while maintaining the essence of original works.

A taxonomy for human social perception: Data-driven modeling with cinematic stimuli.

Every day, humans encounter complex social situations that need to be encoded effectively to allow interaction with others. Yet, principles for organizing the perception of social features from the external world remain poorly characterized. In this large-scale study, we investigated the principles of social perception in dynamic scenes. In the primary data set, we presented 234 movie clips (41 min) containing various social situations to 1,140 participants and asked them to evaluate the presence of 138 social features in each clip. Analyses of the social feature ratings revealed that some features are perceived categorically (present or absent) and others continuously (intensity) and simple social features requiring immediate response are perceived most consistently across participants. To establish the low-dimensional perceptual organization for social features based on movies, we used principal coordinate analysis and consensus clustering for the feature ratings. These dimension reduction analyses revealed that the social perceptual structure can be modeled with eight main dimensions and that behaviorally relevant perceptual categories emerge from these main dimensions. This social perceptual structure generalized from the perception of unrelated Hollywood movie clips to the perception of a full Finnish movie (70 min) and to the perception of static images (n = 468) and across three independent sets of participants (n = 2,254). Based on the results, we propose eight basic dimensions of social perception as a model for rapid social perception where social situations are perceived along eight orthogonal perceptual dimensions (most importantly emotional valence, empathy vs. dominance, and cognitive vs. physical behavior). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Metabolic Cinema: From Hollywood to Socialist China

Drawing on Karl Marx’s ecological concepts of the “metabolic rift” and the “emancipation of senses”, this paper explores an alternative ecocinema that integrates the ecological with the social and the economic. Early Hollywood films, such as Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and The Good Earth (1937), represent the metabolic rift in human relationships as a byproduct of the metabolic rift with nature created in the process of urbanization; hence, they can be regarded as precursors to an alternative ecocinema, which I refer to as “metabolic cinema”. The Story of the Golden Bell (Jinling Zhuan), a comedy film produced during the Chinese Great Leap Forward in 1958, offers an intriguing case for socialist metabolic cinema as a multisensory medianature that participates in and facilitates the metabolic process between humans and nature, as well as the social metabolism among humans, despite the period’s notorious ecological record. The film not only consciously moves away from the visual-centric model associated with capitalist consumerism by using the aural to rectify the once-aberrant visual but also demonstrates how romantic love, as one of the human senses, must be emancipated along with other senses through denouncing utilitarianism and commercialism and, subsequently, returning to need-based labor as the universal condition for the metabolic interaction between humans and nature.

Public History: Infrastructure, Climate Change, and Radical Action.

This essay reviews the 2022 American film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, examining its significance for historians of technology. The film highlights do-it-yourself technologies, the experiences of marginalized technology users, and the environmental consequences of infrastructures. Central to the discussion is the film's dystopian portrayal of infrastructure, which drives the characters to take extreme measures, such as the bombing of an oil pipeline, to raise awareness about climate change. While the film might seem to advocate for radical action, this review suggests that it offers historians an opportunity to engage with broader social issues and reflect on the methodological challenges within the history of technology.

Inne kobiety: lethal lesbians i lesbian chic – oblicza i ewolucje wizerunku homoseksualnych kobiet w hollywoodzkich thrillerach lat dziewięćdziesiątych

The article showcases different images and aspects of lesbian characters in 1990s, with special focus on the media landscapes and Hollywood neo-noir thrillers. Stereotypical themes like lethal lesbians and their impact in American cinema are tied with early 90s trends of media portrayal of lesbian chic. The author also highlights the various restrictions of lesbian characters in mainstream cinema, that allows only the visually attractive images of homosexual body to be shown on the screen. Whole article also depicts evolutions of homosexual’s images in 90s media and cinema, the role of male gaze and society fears after the previous homophobic decade in these cultural constructions.

Reconstruction of Gender Roles and Female Self-Identity: A Case Study of the Film Kill Bill

Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill was released in North America in 2003. The storyline is relatively simple, revolving around Beatrix, a former professional assassin in the underworld, who, upon discovering her pregnancy, decides to abandon her past life of violence and bloodshed and settle down as the owner of a video store. Bill, her former lover and boss, dissatisfied with Beatrix's silent withdrawal from the "Vipers" organization, leads his criminal associates to massacre the wedding rehearsal, leaving no one alive except the protagonist. After miraculously surviving and lying in a hospital for four years, Beatrix embarks on a journey to exact revenge on her enemies. Undoubtedly, Kill Bill is often labeled as a revenge-driven and violent Hollywood film. However, beyond its violent exterior, the film reveals deeper feminist perspectives: it challenges traditional male authority, reflects women's resistance to the constraints on personal and emotional freedom, and highlights the awakening of modern female consciousness.

The Impact of Streaming Platforms on Hollywood Film Financing: A Financial and Data-Driven Analysis of Disruptions and Strategies in the New Media Landscape

The rapid rise of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ has fundamentally disrupted traditional Hollywood film financing models. This paper examines the financial impacts of these platforms on Hollywood's established funding mechanisms, highlighting how they have reshaped revenue streams, investment patterns, and risk management strategies. By leveraging data analytics and financial modelling, this study explores how traditional studios and new media companies have adapted their financing strategies to align with the evolving digital landscape. Additionally, the paper delves into the implications of these shifts for future film production and distribution, offering insights into how data-driven decision-making increasingly influences investment choices in the entertainment industry. Through a comprehensive analysis, this research provides a deeper understanding of the interplay between technology and finance in shaping the future of Hollywood.

Directing treatment of the chase scenes in the American film

مثلت مشاهد الحركة احد المصادر الاساسية في صناعة الفيلم السينمائي لما تتضمنه من خصوصية في بناء اللقطات وطبيعة الانتقالات والربط المونتاجي وغيرها من مصادر الحركة داخل بنية اللقطة السينمائية، وهذا ما لفت انتباه الباحث في تحديد موضوعة البحث التي حملت عنوان: (المعالجة الاخراجية لمشاهد الحركة في الفيلم الروائي) ، الذي استند على مهاد تنظيري من خمسة فصول ، جأت بالنحو الاتي:تناول الفصل الاول (الاطار المنهجي للبحث) وقد اشتمل على عرض لموضوع مشكلة البحث المتمثلة بالسؤال الأتي : ما هي المعالجة الاخراجية لمشاهد الحركة في الفيلم الروائي؟ ووضعت اهمية الموضوع و الهدف الذي يسعى الى تحقيقه مع سعة الحدود التي يتحرك فيها و من ثم قام الباحث بتحديد المصطلحات.اما الفصل الثاني (الاطار النظري والدراسات السابقة) فتكون من مبحثين: المبحث الاول: مشاهد الحركة في الفيلم الروائي، اما المبحث الثاني: اشتغال العناصر الصورية و الصوتية في مشاهد الحركة، ثم استخراج نتائج ما اسفر عنه الاطار النظري من مؤشرات.الفصل الثالث: (اجراءات البحث): تعامل فيه الباحث مع العناصر الاتية: منهج البحث، أداة البحث، مجتمع البحث، وحدة التحليل، صدق الاداة، عينة البحث، ومن ثم خطوات تحليلها . ثم تحليل العينة.اما الفصل الرابع (النتائج والاستنتاجات): وقد قام الباحث فيه بكتابة النتائج والاستنتاجات اخيرا قائمة المصادر .

RACISM IN THE FREEDOM WRITERS MOVIE BY RICHARD LAGRAVENESE: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS PERSPECTIVE

Abstract Racism is not the strange topic anymore for the people worldwide. The idea of racism is the exclusion of a group of individuals according to their race or ethnicity. One of the movies that raised this theme is The Freedom Writers. This movie is an American biographical drama movie written and directed by Richard LaGravenese in 2007. This study will identify racism using Van Dijk's Critical Discourse Analysis theory in the text dimension as reflected in The Freedom Writers movie. This study is a descriptive qualitative approach using Teun A. Van Dijk's Critical Discourse Analysis and only focus on text dimension (Macro Structure, Superstructure, and Microstructure). The main theme in the movie is the struggle against racism through education with the sub-theme of education as a tool of social change, highlighting Erin Gruwell's efforts to overcome racial divisions in her classroom through innovative teaching methods. The movie's structure begins with exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution that illustrate the challenges and successes in changing attitudes and promoting inclusivity in Erin's classroom. In this study, 11 texts in the scenes were found to contain elements of racism such as racial discrimination and systemic injustice, structural racism, negative stereotyping, and ignorance of context. Racism can cause traumatizing, violent effects on individuals, anger and irritation, and others. Keywords: Racism, Education, The Freedom Writers Movie, Van Dijk’s CDA

A psychosocial reading of teacher agency

ABSTRACT The concept of teacher agency has become increasingly prominent in academic, policy and media debates. In rethinking the concept, we are particularly interested in the tension between discourses presenting teachers as heroic agents of individual emancipation and social transformation, such as those found in recruitment campaigns and Hollywood films, and the erosion of spaces for agency brought about by the dominance of discourses and practices of standards and accountability. In this conceptual paper we explore these tensions, building on previous work advocating ecological perspectives on teacher agency. We draw on the conceptual resources of psychosocial theory, including Lacanian discourse theory and recent work in this field articulating agency as manifesting in multiple modalities. Our psychosocial reading of teacher agency makes a number of contributions. First, it provides a more expansive conceptual vocabulary, allowing us to talk about agency in broader, more nuanced ways. Second, it recognises that teacher agency is not always necessarily in pursuit of social good. Third, and perhaps most importantly, it enables us to see the ways in which some modes of teacher agency, rather than manifesting as scenes of heroic possibility, are in fact subordinated forms of agency illustrating the cruel optimism of contemporary neoliberalised education.

Components of Creolized Texts and their Functions (A Case Study of American Movie Posters)

Components of Creolized Texts and their Functions (A Case Study of American Movie Posters)

The Image of the US Army in American movies: The Soft Power of American Cinema

The formation of the army's image has acquired newfound significance in our time. Paradoxically, alongside the spread of humanist ideology, the number of violent conflicts worldwide is increasing. These stimulates the need for propaganda aimed at shaping the image of the army and enhancing the attractiveness of service. As one of the world's largest military forces, the US army has engaged in a diverse array of conflicts with over 750 military bases in approximately 80 countries (Kohli 2020). A diverse range of tools is employed to shape the image of the US army, including media, recruitment campaigns, social media, public events, etc. Among these tools, movies have their specific role. While traditionally intended for entertainment, movies have been used for over a century as a means to shape public opinion. This article delves into the main attributes of the US Army as a social institution, analyzing its four fundamental characteristics: the Militia Tradition, Mobilization Miracles, Man-Mindedness, Maritime Influence, the weapon and the enemy as distinctive attributes. Additionally, it features the seven core values of the US Army: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. The article provides a detailed analysis of how various components of movie production tools communicate the attributes and core values of the US Army and contribute to shaping its image, examining a high-viewership movie “Interceptor” (2022). The goal of the study was to find out the image of the US Army that “Interceptor” projects and to identify the verbal and visual communicative means it uses for this purpose. The content analysis made it possible to distinguish verbal and visual elements of the movie, encompassing human voice, mise-en-scène, as well as film editing techniques, to identify and highlight the messages and ideas conveyed about the attributes of the US Army.

Unveiling Violence and Masculinity through a Psychoanalytic Study of Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class (1977), Sarah Kane' Blasted (1995) and The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in Bosnian War (1996) by Matei Visniec

The examination of violence and its association with masculinity is depicted in three distinct plays: Blasted, written by Sarah Kane in 1995; Curse of the Starving Class, authored by Sam Shepard in 1977 (it was made into a Hollywood film in 1994); and Matei Vişniec’ The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War (1996). Utilizing a qualitative approach, this study employs close textual analysis and an extensive review of relevant literature to examine the representation of violence and masculinity in theatrical framework while also exploring the wider societal implications of such portrayals. The chosen plays present a wide range of viewpoints regarding violence, encompassing both highly intense manifestations of violence and the repercussions of warfare on the individuals. This analysis utilizes Judith Butler's theory of gender construction and Antonio Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty in order to examine the ways in which these plays either challenge or uphold conventional gender. Furthermore, it investigates the intricate correlation between trauma and aggressive conduct as depicted in the plays. By going deeply into the text and exploring its underlying concepts, it reveals the crucial function of theater in tackling and evaluating complex social problems. The plays act as a mirror for society viewpoints, forcing readers and the audiences to face uncomfortable truths about aggression, masculinity, and emotional anguish. The impacts of trauma on individuals and communities are brought to light. These plays demonstrate how war trauma can induce rage and promote violent behavior. It also highlights the power of theater to challenge harmful social conventions and catalyze positive social change by challenging traditional gender roles and power dynamics. Improving the audiences understanding of cultural attitudes and potential paths for societal change, this study contributes significantly to the assessment of violence and masculinity as depicted in theatrical performances.

О киносериале «Трудно быть мужчиной», его герое и некоторых особенностях японской культурной традиции (новая редакция)

This article is an attempt to analyze the content of the longest Japanese movie series “It’s Tough Being a Man”. The fifty-episode film, spanning over 50 years, was directed by the distinguished Japanese filmmaker Yoji Yamada, who also wrote the screenplay for the series. The article examines the circumstances of the film creation, its compositional, genre, and conceptual features, as well as its connection to Japan’s social history and the development of Japanese cinema. Characteristics of the main characters of the film are provided, the reasons for the popularity of the movie series are explored, along with its cinematic language and style, and its relationship with American cinema and Japanese artistic tradition. The image of Kuruma Torajiro (the main character of the film) is compared with the image of Superman in American movies, as well as with the images of the Russian fool (including fairy-tale characters), and with the character of Prince Myshkin from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”. The author of this article concludes that Yoji Yamada’s work has become a significant cultural event of Japan in the last third of the 20th century and is still of great importance.