Heroes on the home front : heroism and virtue in post-9/11 American cinema /

This thesis is intended to contribute to critical discussion of the American male hero in mainstream American war and action films post September 11, 2001 . The thesis investigates how these heroes' behaviour echoes a patriotic, conservative construction of the modern American as created through speeches given by George W. Bush in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001 . The thesis examines the hero in six primary sources: the war films We Were Soldiers, Behind Enemy Lines and The Great Raid and the action films Collateral Damage, Man on Fire and The Punisher. By analyzing the ideological subtext, political content, visual strategies and generic implications of the films, as well as the binary constructions of a selection of Bush speeches, and by reviewing historical representations of American male heroes on film produced in the wake of political events, the thesis concludes that the six films mobilize the USA's conservative viewpoint towards war and military action, and in concert with the speeches, contribute to an ongoing militarization of visual culture. Both systems echo a dangerous ideological fantasy of American history, life and patriotism.

Sonic Movie Memories: Sound, Childhood, and American Cinema

Though the trend rarely receives attention, since the 1970s many American filmmakers have been taking sound and music tropes from children’s films, television shows, and other forms of media and incorporating those sounds into films intended for adult audiences. Initially, these references might seem like regressive attempts at targeting some nostalgic desire to relive childhood. However, this dissertation asserts that these children’s sounds are instead designed to reconnect audience members with the multi-faceted fantasies and coping mechanisms that once, through children’s media, helped these audience members manage life’s anxieties. Because sound is the sense that Western audiences most associate with emotion and memory, it offers audiences immediate connection with these barely conscious longings. The first chapter turns to children’s media itself and analyzes Disney’s 1950s forays into television. The chapter argues that by selectively repurposing the gentlest sonic devices from the studio’s films, television shows like Disneyland created the studio’s signature sentimental “Disney sound.” As a result, a generation of baby boomers like Steven Spielberg comes of age and longs to recreate that comforting sound world. The second chapter thus focuses on Spielberg, who incorporates Disney music in films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Rather than recreate Disney’s sound world, Spielberg uses this music as a springboard into a new realm I refer to as “sublime refuge” - an acoustic haven that combines overpowering sublimity and soothing comfort into one fantastical experience. The second half of the dissertation pivots into more experimental children’s cartoons like Gerald McBoing-Boing (1951) - cartoons that embrace audio-visual dissonance in ways that soothe even as they create tension through a phenomenon I call “comfortable discord.” In the final chapter, director Wes Anderson reveals that these sonic tensions have just as much appeal to adults. In films like The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Anderson demonstrates that comfortable discord can simultaneously provide a balm for anxiety and create an open-ended space that makes empathetic connections between characters possible. The dissertation closes with a call to rethink nostalgia, not as a romanticization of the past, but rather as a reconnection with forgotten affective channels.

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.

Like branches in a river : viagens estrada afora e cidade adentro no cinema americano

Tese de doutoramento, Estudos de Literatura e de Cultura (Estudos Americanos), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras

Cultura, política e representações do México no cinema norte-americano: Viva Zapata! de Elia Kazan

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

A cidade cartão-postal no cinema de Woody Allen

Este trabalho examina a representação das cidades na obra de Woody Allen. No intuito de compreender a saída do cineasta patrimônio da cidade de Nova York para a Europa, retoma-se criticamente a questão da Era da Lista Negra, das runaway productions e dos blockbusters. Para analisar os filmes de Allen na Europa considera-se importante entender como a cidade de Nova York configura-se no início da carreira do diretor, notadamente, em filmes que estabelecem um contraponto entre o Brooklyn e Manhattan. Em seguida, examina-se a questão crítica fundamental do trabalho: o cartão-postal corporativo na Europa. Nesse sentido, propõe-se a análise dos cartões-postais de Barcelona, Paris e Roma. O filme Vicky Cristina Barcelona adquire centralidade nesta pesquisa por apresentar de maneira exemplar a paisagem postiça da cidade encarcerada sob intervenção corporativa.

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.

Democratic corporealities of love : the architectural cinema and eroticized publics of Pauline Kael

The American film critic Pauline Kael’s career interestingly parallels the Cold War period but nobody has explored this yet. Filling that gap, this essay constructs Kael’s writings and critic’s persona as a contribution to a discourse of international democracy. Kael was part of a generation of American critics who took seriously the importance of art to politics. However, she goes further than her contemporaries by energizing this relationship through her emphasis on corporeality—both on screen and off screen—and on the eroticized body. A discernible philosophical lineage runs from Plato’s version of love as described by Socrates in The Symposium to Kael’s writings and bodily habits. In this lineage, love is figured as relational and desiring. A second line of relationship between Plato and Kael is in the way they each connected erotic discourses to the very similar architectures of the andrôn (men’s quarters), for Plato, and the modern American cinema or screening room, for Kael. Plato and Kael draw out the inherent spatial energy of these places (which is most evident at the borders of andrôn and cinema) through the interactions they construct of images and talk with the erotic, love-based relationality of bodies. They thereby maximize the bodily powers of these architectures as places where a public of differences and (inevitably) “loose” democracy might form. Kael’s advocacy doesn’t suggest a formal political program so much as a more feminine democracy of erotic discourses allied to an energizing architecture suitable to the accumulation of plural, participatory corporealities.

Dark city

A synopsis and critique of an Australian/American film, Dark City, directed by Alex Proyas in the science fiction genre.

Daybreakers

It is 2019, ten years after a plague turns most humans into vampires. Human blood is in short supply. The shortage of causing panic in vampire population Charles Bromley, CEO of pharmaceutic company Bromley Marks - the largest supplier of human blood in the United States- is intent on developing a viable blood substitute. When a cure that can transform vampires back into human...

Super-villains of the "real world": the political use of the characterization of villains in Chistopher Nolan's "Dark Knight Trilogy"

It is almost a tradition that celluloid (or digital) villains are represented with some characteristics that remind us the real political enemies of the producer country of the film, or even enemies within the country according to the particular ideology that sustains the film. The case of Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight trilogy, analyzed here, is representative of this trend for two reasons. First, because it gets marked by political radicalization conducted by the US government after the attack of September 11, 2001. Secondly, because it offers a profuse gallery of villains who are outside the circle of friends as the new doctrine “either with us or against us” opened by George Bush for the XXI century. This gallery includes from the very terrorists who justify the War on Terror (Ra's al Ghul, the Joker), to the “radical left” (Bane, Talia al Ghul) including liberal politicians (Harvey Dent), and corrupt that take advantage of the softness of the law to commit crimes with impunity (Dr. Crane, the Scarecrow).

Vulgaire! Pervers! Dégradant! : le film d'exploitation et le cinéma québécois

Dans l’historiographie du cinéma québécois, un certain manque est notable concernant le cinéma populaire du début des années 1970 (1968-1975). Historiens et chercheurs accordèrent peu d’importance à cette section de notre cinématographie par déni d’un type de cinéma populaire exploitant la sexualité. Ce qui fut péjorativement appelé la vague de « films de fesses » n’eut droit à aucune étude académique sérieuse et nous proposons, donc, de la revisiter afin de mieux comprendre son apparition et son existence. Dans ce dessein, nous suggérons de l’aborder sous l’angle du cinéma d’exploitation, cinéma populaire méconnu et controversé. Pour cela, nous devrons expliquer les contours de ce cinéma puisque, lui aussi, souffre d’un léger manque d’études sérieuses et approfondies. Nous ferons au premier chapitre un panorama de la norme cinématographique qu’est le cinéma hollywoodien, afin de bien cerner, au deuxième chapitre, le cinéma d’exploitation qui selon nous s’efforce d’être en constante opposition avec le cinéma mainstream. Par la suite, nous mettrons en place le contexte socio-historique et cinématographique qui permit l’apparition d’un cinéma d’exploitation québécois et nous ferons l’énumération des différents titres qui se retrouvent dans ce corpus filmique. Les chapitres IV et V présenteront les analyses de différentes œuvres qui, selon nous, récupèrent de façon partielle ou totale des éléments du cinéma d’exploitation afin de créer une résistance culturelle quant au cinéma dominant américain.