Requiescat in park: o Central Park de Nova Iorque sob a ótica do cinema Norte - americano

Taking into account the Environmental Restorative Theory (ERT) , created by Fre derick Law Olmsted in mid XIX ce ntury , according which, urban parks can contribute to solve problems arisen from crowding , particularly urban stress, we analize how the ERT arrived at XXI century, having as approach the evaluation of New York Central Park (CP). Considering that the CP and the cinema were born around at the same, we question if the North American cinema produced between 1960 and 2013 show the ideals, which engendered the CP. By answering this question we defend the hypothesis that, even though has existed adjusts and modificati ons in the CP plan through time, it kept reasonably faithful to the ERT premises, propitiating to the XX and XXI centuries cinema identify and bring forth the presence of the Olmsted’s Ideals in the present days. The thesis main objective was nonetheless u nderstand similarities and/or differences between the XIX century ideals (that gave birth to CP) and the way the cinema represents the present uses of the place, taking into account that the Olmstedian ERT proposal have survived to the context changes (soc ial, economic, political and cultural). Methodologically , we drew upon bibliographical and documental analysis to build the first chapters and to the cinema as analytical lenses to investigate the ERT. The results point that although the CP plan has kept r elatively intact and faithful to the ERT – with the presence of natural elements in the films (notably vegetation and water) – many of contemporary behaviors were not foreseen previously, especially in relation to sports practice, the massive feminine pres ence, as well as criminality.

Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes e a eficácia discursiva de sua intepretação histórica: reflexões sobre história e historiografia do cinema brasileiro

We intend with this research to contribute to the contemporary debate pertinent to the history of Brazilian cinema, its historiography and its writing procedures. Thereunto, we sustain the view that the historical interpretation composed by the essays Panorama do Cinema Brasileiro: 1896/1966 (1966) and Cinema: trajetória no subdesenvolvimento (1973) arranged by the critic and historian Paulo Emilio Salles Gomes, due to their epistemological postulates and narrative strategies, constitutes a version about the history of national cinema of expressive discursive efficacy.

Filming the Post-Fordist Worker: From Industrial Hollywood to Digital Biopolitics

Article co-authored with Dr Halligan on post-fordist work in cinema from Hollywood and 1980s films like Secret of my Success to Boss of it All and The Social Network. This article argues that new approaches to film and post-fordist work are needed and draws upon the post-autonomist thought of Hardt, Negri, Lazzarato and Virno.

Organizaciones regionales y diversidad cultural: la diplomacia de la Unión Europea con el Mercosur entre la sombra de Hollywood y la acción intergubernamental

El objetivo de este artículo es doble: por un lado explorar la habilidad de la Unión Europea para llevar a cabo una política audiovisual dirigida al Mercosur y promover las normas de la Convención sobre la diversidad de las expresiones culturales; por otro, analizar el impacto del modelo de política audiovisual de la UE en el desarrollo de la cooperación audiovisual con el Mercosur y centrarse en los principales vectores que configuran el paisaje audiovisual del Mercosur. El texto pretende destacar cómo y por qué la UE persigue una política audiovisual con esa región, cuáles son los propósitos y los límites de actuación. En este sentido, se preocupa por entender cómo la diplomacia audiovisual de la UE interactúa con otros actores, como las acciones gubernamentales llevadas a cabo desde la propia UE y el Mercosur, así como las prácticas del sector privado (Hollywwod y los grandes conglomerados de medios).

Between representation and figuration. Nouvelle Vague’s cinema: a history revision

50 years after the birth of the Nouvelle Vague, the inheritance that the contemporary cinema receives from it is inevitable. Figures and visual motifs; stories, themes, faces or common places; aesthetic and language devices. The echoes appear in various ways, each affiliation involves a different relationship and therefore a dissimilar approximation to its analysis. And yet, both the academy and the film critics maintain their will to think the Nouvelle Vague as a whole, a universe, a stream or an aesthetic trend. However, does a Nouvelle Vague’s aesthetic exist? And if so: why and how to address their historical revision? Taking Deleuze’s thesis on the time-image and Serge Daney’s assertion according to which 50 years after the birth of the Nouvelle Vague, the inheritance that the contemporary cinema receives from it is inevitable. Figures and visual motifs; stories, themes, faces or common places; aesthetic and language devices. The echoes appear in various ways, each affiliation involves a different relationship and therefore a dissimilar approximation to its analysis. And yet, both the academy and the film critics maintain their will to think the Nouvelle Vague as a whole, a universe, a stream or an aesthetic trend. However, does a Nouvelle Vague’s aesthetic exist? And if so: why and how to address their historical revision? Taking Deleuze’s thesis on the time-image and Serge Daney’s assertion according to which

Pyramus and Thisbe 4 You or a "Wondrous Strange" Tale of Contemporary Romanian Theatre

Like its title, Pyramus and Thisbe 4 You, Alexandru Dabija’s production at the Odeon Theatre, Bucharest, was a tongue-in-cheek invitation to the audience that at once aimed to tease past and recent Romanian endeavours and to tease out the stage potential a Shakespeare play holds today. My examination of the production re-constructs the local cultural contexts the production plays with and against, referring to the Romanian ways of making Shakespeare this production enters into dialogue with. Take 1, an all-female version casting the mature stars of the Odeon, I read against both Elizabethan all-male stage practice and Andrei Serban’s all-female Lear at the Bulandra (2008). Take 2, “an old device” (V.1.50): a teacher-student “devising” session at the Academy of Theatre and Cinema, I read against critics’ “more strange than true” (V.1.2) parlance on “theories of perception and reception” and against hi-tech Shakespeare dominating the Romanian stages in the first decade of the third millennium. Take 3, local political banter on ethnic discrimination, I read as “satire keen and critical” (V.1.54) on both communist censorship and the recent rise of nationalism in Romania. Take 4, a “cold” reading-cum-improvisation performed by the technical crew – this production’s mechanicals – I read as “palpable-gross play” (V.1.376) on both acting and spectating practices. What I argue in this article is that Dabija’s production goes beyond its local context and mores, and proposes a re-assessment of Shakespeare’s cultural currency in (European) Romania and Europe at large by exposing current tyrannies in Shakespeare studies: from translation and adaptation, through directing and acting, to viewing and reviewing.

The Careers of Two Ritas: Latinas, Hollywood, and the Dilemmas of Anglicization

Senior capstone project for AMST 450.

Orson Welles y el cine de Hollywood en la década de 1940

Tratando-se de uma publicação espanhola, o título e o resumo são apresentados em espanhol mas o artigo está em português.

Elvis Presley y la tradicion del cine musical de Hollywood

Por ter sido publicado numa revista espanhola, o artigo apresenta o título e o resumo em castelhano, mas o texto está em português.

O western entre a história e o mito: a arte do oeste americano no western de Hollywood

Surgida no início do séc. XIX, a arte sobre o Oeste americano, constitui parte de um folclore que transformou o cowboy no mais influente símbolo da América nos séculos XIX e XX. A influência de artistas como Frederic Remington e Charles Russell, na cultura popular dos EUA, é particularmente visível no western clássico de Hollywood. Ao assimilar os valores formais e ideológicos que caracterizam a obra destes artistas, cineastas como John Ford, Raoul Walsh e John Sturges, realizaram uma verdadeira simbiose entre o cinema e o primeiro movimento artístico americano. No entanto, o western de Hollywood nunca foi um mero exercício estético, constituindo uma expressão das profundas transformações que a sociedade americana sofreu ao longo do século XX.

Wrong side of the road

On its release in 1981, Ned Lander's 'Wrong Side of the Road' won that year's Jury Prize at the Australian Film Institute Awards. Emphasising the film's status as a pre-eminent Australian production, the theorist and critic Sylvia Lawson, writing in 2013, called Wrong Side of the Road 'the best Australian film of 1981 and indeed of many other years'. Progressing at a restrained pace, it breaks 'Hollywood conventions (which most Australian films obediently copy) about what constitutes a proper narrative focus', with the result that the film stands as 'something of an event in Australian cinema'. In this way, Wrong Side of the Road is the 'first narrative feature to take the experience of a contemporary Aboriginal group [of characters] as its theme instead of using them as contrasts or complements to the main action'.

Visualising data in digital cinema studies: more than just going through the motions?

This article examines the critical role visualisation plays for digital cinema studies and proposes that cinema studies has an equally critical role to play in evaluating and developing visualisation methods. The article reflects on work undertaken in the Kinomatics Project, a multidisciplinary study that explores, analyses and visualises the industrial geometry of motion pictures and which is one of the first “big data” studies of contemporary cultural diffusion. Its examination of global film flow rests on a large dataset of showtime information comprising more than 330 million records that describe every film screening in forty-eight countries over a thirty-month period as well as additional aggregated box-office data.

Interpreting independence in Latin American cinema today: the digital option

Globalisation has transformed “independence” into, at best, “inter-dependence”. In Latin American film, this process has been experienced as a decline in the national productions, now usually co-productions, and a tendency towards the self-exoticising as films cater for a festival-circuit global audience; similarly, theatrical exhibition takes place in one of a handful of the global multiplex complexes. Moreover, narrative film itself has long been regarded as inherently “dependent”, on the conservative sectors that have provided its finance, with the word “independent” referring to authorial features only. However, the very same processes that have allowed for such an unprecedented corporate control of these film industries have also spawned a parallel network of local, regional and national filmmaking, distribution and exhibition through digital media. From the “Mi Cine” project in Mexico to the “Cine Piquetero” in Argentina, digital filmmaking is empowering viewers and restoring agency to local filmmakers. In this paper I argue for this understanding of “independence” in the contemporary cinematic spheres of Latin America: the re-appropriation, amidst the transnationalism of the day, of the democratising potential of cinema that Walter Benjamin once thought was inherent to the medium.