... Teaser with Patty and Mrs. Will-iams. bath powder (harried mother) decaffeinated coffee dog f... more ... Teaser with Patty and Mrs. Will-iams. bath powder (harried mother) decaffeinated coffee dog food network advertisements Continuation of sequence with Patty and Mrs. Williams, re: Jack. Victor and Servant, re: Nikki. Teaser with Nikki (Cash enters). cold medicine toothbrushes ...
Sometimes the left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or in our case... more Sometimes the left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or in our case, one left didn't know what the other leftist was doing. In the semesters following the attacks of September 11, 2001, in sepa rate disciplines (Media Studies and English), two teachers at the same ...
This article argues that the conventional talking witness documentary, by relying on memory of ex... more This article argues that the conventional talking witness documentary, by relying on memory of experience as evidence, employs an inherently conservative politics of truth. Using a recent Kurdish video, 5 No.lu Cezaevi/Prison No. 5 (Çayan Demirel, 2009), as a case study, it considers the opportunities and limitations of the talking witness form, as well as its appeals. The essay pays special attention to the documentary's use of ‘mimetic’ affective engagement to break into the moral and conceptual space of trauma, and the harrowing experiences of men and women who were incarcerated in the notorious Diyarbakır prison in eastern Turkey in the aftermath of the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, thus endeavoring to, at once, fix and disseminate memories of a violent past that run counter to state-authored versions of that history.
Page 1. COLONIALISM, RACISM AND REPRESENTATION ... RACISM AND COLONIALISM in the cinema have been... more Page 1. COLONIALISM, RACISM AND REPRESENTATION ... RACISM AND COLONIALISM in the cinema have been the subject of many books and essays. ...
Conventional wisdom states that soap operas are escapist fantasies for lonely, passive women. Thi... more Conventional wisdom states that soap operas are escapist fantasies for lonely, passive women. This book goes far beneath the skin of this myth and succeeds not only in dispelling it, but also in showing the unique characteristics of this hugely popular media genre.
This article argues that Su Friedrich's 1984 film The Ties That Bind employs what were at the tim... more This article argues that Su Friedrich's 1984 film The Ties That Bind employs what were at the time atypical forms and techniques to push the limits of the traditional historical documentary. Its aesthetic experimentation helps to redefine the idea of historical representation in film, and does so mainly by treating evidence as both partial (in both senses of the word) and contingent, offering a radical challenge to normative history and destabilizing the notion of history as authority. Unlike conventional documentaries, the film marks its own limitations: its inability to provide stable answers or eternal certainties. Questioning her mother's spoken memories, and commenting on them, Friedrich forces a rupture in the 'evidence' of history and establishes a place in which to 'speak' herself. By including the past that her mother is talking about on the sound track, as well as the present on the image track (such as images of her mother's life in the early 1980s, images of intertitles etched into the film emulsion revealing the questions Friedrich asked her mother and her reactions to the things her mother said, as well as images of the filmmaker's visits to historical sites), Friedrich brings the present into the past, and demonstrates how history is, to quote Walter Benjamin, 'time filled with the presence of the now'.
... The “News on the March” sequence in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), for ... more ... The “News on the March” sequence in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), for example, appears indistinguishable from legitimate newsreel footage, except that Charles Foster Kane, the subject featured in the report, never really existed. ...
Offers information on Reading Seminar in Media and Cultural Theory, a course which tackles advanc... more Offers information on Reading Seminar in Media and Cultural Theory, a course which tackles advanced work in the theoretical and critical context of the mass media as a social phenomenon. Issues about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. covered in the course; Psychological implications of the terrorist attacks; Social relevance of the course and the instructor\u27s reasons for ending the course
This essay discusses the 1925 silent motion picture \u27Body and Soul,\u27 directed by Oscar Mich... more This essay discusses the 1925 silent motion picture \u27Body and Soul,\u27 directed by Oscar Micheaux. It also explores the politics of racial identity of the time
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull\u27s History Lesson was Robert Altman\u27s bicenten... more Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull\u27s History Lesson was Robert Altman\u27s bicentennial film. Released for the Fourth of July weekend in 1976, the film examines the western both as a national myth and as a commercial entertainment form; indeed, one might see the film\u27s project as an expos? of the ideological functioning of the western, its white male hero, and the Native American in nearly 100 years of American popular culture
Many intellectuals are angry and saddened by the simplistic and self-righteous moral absolutes ex... more Many intellectuals are angry and saddened by the simplistic and self-righteous moral absolutes expressed by the Bush administration; the shameless use of the events of September 11, 2001, to justify an assault on civil liberties; the unprecedented buildup of the American ...
Soon after 9/11, I noticed a similarity between images of Hiroshima after the drop-ping of the at... more Soon after 9/11, I noticed a similarity between images of Hiroshima after the drop-ping of the atomic bomb and the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Yet the popular discourses on the tragedy compared the attacks on the twin towers not with the devastation of a civilian ...
... Teaser with Patty and Mrs. Will-iams. bath powder (harried mother) decaffeinated coffee dog f... more ... Teaser with Patty and Mrs. Will-iams. bath powder (harried mother) decaffeinated coffee dog food network advertisements Continuation of sequence with Patty and Mrs. Williams, re: Jack. Victor and Servant, re: Nikki. Teaser with Nikki (Cash enters). cold medicine toothbrushes ...
Sometimes the left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or in our case... more Sometimes the left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or in our case, one left didn't know what the other leftist was doing. In the semesters following the attacks of September 11, 2001, in sepa rate disciplines (Media Studies and English), two teachers at the same ...
This article argues that the conventional talking witness documentary, by relying on memory of ex... more This article argues that the conventional talking witness documentary, by relying on memory of experience as evidence, employs an inherently conservative politics of truth. Using a recent Kurdish video, 5 No.lu Cezaevi/Prison No. 5 (Çayan Demirel, 2009), as a case study, it considers the opportunities and limitations of the talking witness form, as well as its appeals. The essay pays special attention to the documentary's use of ‘mimetic’ affective engagement to break into the moral and conceptual space of trauma, and the harrowing experiences of men and women who were incarcerated in the notorious Diyarbakır prison in eastern Turkey in the aftermath of the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, thus endeavoring to, at once, fix and disseminate memories of a violent past that run counter to state-authored versions of that history.
Page 1. COLONIALISM, RACISM AND REPRESENTATION ... RACISM AND COLONIALISM in the cinema have been... more Page 1. COLONIALISM, RACISM AND REPRESENTATION ... RACISM AND COLONIALISM in the cinema have been the subject of many books and essays. ...
Conventional wisdom states that soap operas are escapist fantasies for lonely, passive women. Thi... more Conventional wisdom states that soap operas are escapist fantasies for lonely, passive women. This book goes far beneath the skin of this myth and succeeds not only in dispelling it, but also in showing the unique characteristics of this hugely popular media genre.
This article argues that Su Friedrich's 1984 film The Ties That Bind employs what were at the tim... more This article argues that Su Friedrich's 1984 film The Ties That Bind employs what were at the time atypical forms and techniques to push the limits of the traditional historical documentary. Its aesthetic experimentation helps to redefine the idea of historical representation in film, and does so mainly by treating evidence as both partial (in both senses of the word) and contingent, offering a radical challenge to normative history and destabilizing the notion of history as authority. Unlike conventional documentaries, the film marks its own limitations: its inability to provide stable answers or eternal certainties. Questioning her mother's spoken memories, and commenting on them, Friedrich forces a rupture in the 'evidence' of history and establishes a place in which to 'speak' herself. By including the past that her mother is talking about on the sound track, as well as the present on the image track (such as images of her mother's life in the early 1980s, images of intertitles etched into the film emulsion revealing the questions Friedrich asked her mother and her reactions to the things her mother said, as well as images of the filmmaker's visits to historical sites), Friedrich brings the present into the past, and demonstrates how history is, to quote Walter Benjamin, 'time filled with the presence of the now'.
... The “News on the March” sequence in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), for ... more ... The “News on the March” sequence in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), for example, appears indistinguishable from legitimate newsreel footage, except that Charles Foster Kane, the subject featured in the report, never really existed. ...
Offers information on Reading Seminar in Media and Cultural Theory, a course which tackles advanc... more Offers information on Reading Seminar in Media and Cultural Theory, a course which tackles advanced work in the theoretical and critical context of the mass media as a social phenomenon. Issues about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. covered in the course; Psychological implications of the terrorist attacks; Social relevance of the course and the instructor\u27s reasons for ending the course
This essay discusses the 1925 silent motion picture \u27Body and Soul,\u27 directed by Oscar Mich... more This essay discusses the 1925 silent motion picture \u27Body and Soul,\u27 directed by Oscar Micheaux. It also explores the politics of racial identity of the time
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull\u27s History Lesson was Robert Altman\u27s bicenten... more Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull\u27s History Lesson was Robert Altman\u27s bicentennial film. Released for the Fourth of July weekend in 1976, the film examines the western both as a national myth and as a commercial entertainment form; indeed, one might see the film\u27s project as an expos? of the ideological functioning of the western, its white male hero, and the Native American in nearly 100 years of American popular culture
Many intellectuals are angry and saddened by the simplistic and self-righteous moral absolutes ex... more Many intellectuals are angry and saddened by the simplistic and self-righteous moral absolutes expressed by the Bush administration; the shameless use of the events of September 11, 2001, to justify an assault on civil liberties; the unprecedented buildup of the American ...
Soon after 9/11, I noticed a similarity between images of Hiroshima after the drop-ping of the at... more Soon after 9/11, I noticed a similarity between images of Hiroshima after the drop-ping of the atomic bomb and the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Yet the popular discourses on the tragedy compared the attacks on the twin towers not with the devastation of a civilian ...
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