Papers by Peter A Yacavone
Negative, Nonsensical, and Non-Conformist: The Films of Suzuki Seijun, 2023
In the late 1950s, Suzuki Seijun was an unknown, anxious low-ranking film director churning out s... more In the late 1950s, Suzuki Seijun was an unknown, anxious low-ranking film director churning out so-called program pictures for Japan's most successful movie studio, Nikkatsu. In the early 1960s, he met with modest success in directing popular movies about yakuza gangsters and mild exploitation films featuring prostitutes and teenage rebels. In this book, Peter A. Yacavone argues that Suzuki became an unlikely cinematic rebel and, with hindsight, one of the most important voices in the global cinema of the 1960s. Working from within the studio system, Suzuki almost single-handedly rejected the restrictive filmmaking norms of the postwar period and expanded the form and language of popular cinema. This artistic rebellion proved costly when Suzuki was fired in 1967 and virtually blacklisted by the studios, but Suzuki returned triumphantly to the scene of world cinema in the 1980s and 1990s with a series of critically celebrated, avant-garde tales of the supernatural and the uncanny. This book provides a well-informed, philosophically oriented analysis of Suzuki's 49 feature films.
Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2022
The aim of this article is to reread Ford’s My Darling Clementine, produced for Fox in 1946, with... more The aim of this article is to reread Ford’s My Darling Clementine, produced for Fox in 1946, with a focus on its cultural representations and ideologies. (I specify this as ‘Ford’s’ film, not Darryl F. Zanuck’s, for reasons explained in situ). The article concerns itself with the constellation of topics mentioned in the title above and centers on an analysis of the central characters of Wyatt Earp (as played by Henry Fonda) and the saloon girl Chihuahua (Linda Darnell) as Ford chose to represent them. The purpose of advancing this ‘reinterpretation’, apart from the perennial interest of the film itself, which was once widely hailed as the epitome of Hollywood Westerns, is to break what I view as an academic ‘path dependency’ (to use a phrase from Robert D. Ray) that has dogged the interpretation of the film in nearly every critical and scholarly publication on it. What can justifiably be called an existing ‘critical consensus’ about My Darling Clementine emanates, ultimately, from a much-reprinted 1971 essay by Robin Wood, and has remained essentially unchallenged, and utterly conservative in its intellectual economy, ever since. The two intertwined poles of this consensus are, briefly, the symbolic ‘overvaluation’ of the character of Boston schoolmarm Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs) at the expense of Chihuahua, the picture’s female lead; and, secondly, the belief that the film is an unambiguous celebration of the ‘civilizing of the West’ viewed in racially exclusive and, indeed, white-supremacist terms.
Film & History 52.1 (Summer), 2022
The aim of this article is to reread Ford’s My Darling Clementine, produced for Fox in 1946, with... more The aim of this article is to reread Ford’s My Darling Clementine, produced for Fox in 1946, with a focus on its cultural representations and ideologies. (I specify this as ‘Ford’s’ film, not Darryl F. Zanuck’s, for reasons explained in situ). The article concerns itself with the constellation of topics mentioned in the title above and centers on an analysis of the central characters of Wyatt Earp (as played by Henry Fonda) and the saloon girl Chihuahua (Linda Darnell) as Ford chose to represent them. The purpose of advancing this ‘reinterpretation’, apart from the perennial interest of the film itself, which was once widely hailed as the epitome of Hollywood Westerns, is to break what I view as an academic ‘path dependency’ (to use a phrase from Robert D. Ray) that has dogged the interpretation of the film in nearly every critical and scholarly publication on it. What can justifiably be called an existing ‘critical consensus’ about My Darling Clementine emanates, ultimately, from a much-reprinted 1971 essay by Robin Wood, and has remained essentially unchallenged, and utterly conservative in its intellectual economy, ever since. The two intertwined poles of this consensus are, briefly, the symbolic ‘overvaluation’ of the character of Boston schoolmarm Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs) at the expense of Chihuahua, the picture’s female lead; and, secondly, the belief that the film is an unambiguous celebration of the ‘civilizing of the West’ viewed in racially exclusive and, indeed, white-supremacist terms.
he past two decades have seen a welcome exposure of the colonialist and frankly racist representa... more he past two decades have seen a welcome exposure of the colonialist and frankly racist representations of Native Americans in classical cinema, and in many ways John Ford has appeared to present an easy target, particularly with John Wayne in the starring role. Frequently, however, this perspective is grounded less in detailed analyses of films like Stagecoach and The Searchers as audio-visual and ideological wholes than in relatively isolated responses to images and sequences. There is still a clear need for a more accurate examination of Ford’s treatment of Native American peoples throughout the entire body of his Western films, and this article attempts to outline some key aspects of such an approach. At the outset, we must ask why it is Ford who has been so regularly the subject of criticism in this context, rather than other prominent directors of Westerns such as Anthony Mann or John Sturges? Why Ford, rather than his creative predecessors Owen Wister, Frederic Remington, D. W...
Language and Semiotic Studies, 2015
This article offers a preliminary analysis of the language of certain varieties of American
come... more This article offers a preliminary analysis of the language of certain varieties of American
comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater (from roughly 90 – 930) and, later, out of
the culture of popular magazine from (roughly) the 920s to the 950s. The focus is on the
exemplary and highly original comic language of S. J. Perelman (904 – 979), the Jewish
prose humorist, and Perelman’s quasi-mentor, the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho
Marx (890 – 979), who was renowned for his improvisational wit. The article’s purpose is to
explicate, with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics,
some aspects of these highly original, self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices. It
also tentatively explores the significance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards
to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and, thus, the links
between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context. The theoretical
perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature
and Austin’s Speech Act Theory—both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics—as well as
Deleuze’s concept of a ‘minor literature,’ a theory of modernist literary practice substantially
determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism
Language and Semiotic Studies, 2017
This article is intended as a differential contribution to the study of Melville, still the centr... more This article is intended as a differential contribution to the study of Melville, still the central
novelist of American literature in his complex, meditative negotiations of the various and
often contradictory strands of the history of ideas that have impacted the United States since
its founding generations: Calvinism, democratic ethics, Emersonian self-reliance, and even the
skeptical mode of vision of American modernism (as characterized by writers of immigrant
or Southern provenance such as O’Neill, or Faulkner), which Melville tellingly associates
with Shakespeare and Hawthorne. Indeed, I take as a starting point Deleuze’s assertion that
Melville stands as the precursor to a crucial line of nihilistic thinking continuing in Nietzsche
and culminating in literary modernism, and I explore the ramifications of this claim with
reference to Melville’s disastrous and often derided novel Pierre (1852), a bitter and digressive
rumination on American life and letters following the critical and commercial failure of Moby-
Dick. A still controversial semi-narrative account of disavowed incest and class intolerance
in the privileged, Northeastern milieu of Melville’s early years, Pierre is also his most
philosophical work up to that point, abundant in stylistic and structural experiment, most
particularly in regard to what might connect fiction and literary language to contemporary
philosophical discourses of idealism, metaphysics, and democratic ethics. Melville ultimately
finds the crux of this connection in metaphor as that which links sensual, aesthetic, and
cognitive experience to the abstract ideological commitments that govern our moral choices.
Crucially, that link is neither simplistically causal nor necessarily positive.
I argue that Melville slyly associates the incongruent literary styles that he deploys in
Pierre with the differing, contesting philosophical world-views that the novel explicitly evokes
(most notably the so-called “Transcendentalism” of Emerson). The vehicle for this experiment
appears to be a rather surface-oriented view of literary style characterized by an extravagance
of metaphoric density. It is this quality that, I argue, seems to divide Pierre into two distinct
conceptual and stylistic parts: the first is characterized by an exalted, ecstatic literary rhetoric...
Language and Semiotic Studies, Dec 1, 2015
This article offers a preliminary analysis of the language of certain varieties of American
come... more This article offers a preliminary analysis of the language of certain varieties of American
comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater (from roughly 90 – 930) and, later, out of
the culture of popular magazine from (roughly) the 920s to the 950s. The focus is on the
exemplary and highly original comic language of S. J. Perelman (904 – 979), the Jewish
prose humorist, and Perelman’s quasi-mentor, the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho
Marx (890 – 979), who was renowned for his improvisational wit. The article’s purpose is to
explicate, with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics,
some aspects of these highly original, self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices. It
also tentatively explores the significance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards
to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and, thus, the links
between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context. The theoretical
perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature
and Austin’s Speech Act Theory—both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics—as well as
Deleuze’s concept of a ‘minor literature,’ a theory of modernist literary practice substantially
determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism
Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 2012
Shinoda Masahiro’s Kawaita hana/Pale Flower, a key film of the Japanese ‘New Wave’ of the 1960s, ... more Shinoda Masahiro’s Kawaita hana/Pale Flower, a key film of the Japanese ‘New Wave’ of the 1960s, is poised between the conventional ‘genre’ cinema of the Japanese studios and two prominent strains of international narrative cinema: the European art film and the American film noir. Released in 1964, Shinoda’s film is at once a contribution to, and a unique hybridization of, these several distinct, and culturally specific, traditions. This article addresses the multivalent influences of European art cinema and film noir on Pale Flower, addressing, in particular, on what grounds we might convincingly speak of this film as a Japanese ‘film noir’. Through formal analysis, and discussion of the film’s representation of character and subjectivity, Pale Flower is shown to be a recognizable and self-conscious exercise in noir stylization as a translation of the American model, while also incorporating formal innovations of the European art cinema.
Conference Presentations by Peter A Yacavone
Conference Paper (Jesus College Celtic Seminar), 2002
Literature 7/11/02 The 'Awkwardness' of Táin Bó Fraích Although the tradition of scholarship rega... more Literature 7/11/02 The 'Awkwardness' of Táin Bó Fraích Although the tradition of scholarship regarding Táin Bó Fraích (TBF) is marked by deep controversy, there is one major point upon which many scholars agree: TBF (or the extant text handed down to us under that name) is 'awkward' or 'clumsy' in its construction. Sometimes it is referred to by the same scholars as 'badly' constructed. I intend to examine each statement of this kind made by Carney, Murphy, Meid, and Donald Meek, who have been the most important investigators of TBF.
Thesis Chapters by Peter A Yacavone
A carefully negotiated rejoinder to and critique of the academic and critical consensus (c. 2003)... more A carefully negotiated rejoinder to and critique of the academic and critical consensus (c. 2003) relating to the the nature, composition, and indeed value of Recension I of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, including a qualified defense of its relative compositional and semantic integrity. This dissertation successfully submitted in partial fulfillment of the Degree of Masters of Philosophy at Oxford University (2003). Citation (MLA): Yacavone, Peter. The Táin, Recension I: Its Compositional and Artistic Unity. 2003. Oxford University, M. Phil. Dissertation.
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Papers by Peter A Yacavone
comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater (from roughly 90 – 930) and, later, out of
the culture of popular magazine from (roughly) the 920s to the 950s. The focus is on the
exemplary and highly original comic language of S. J. Perelman (904 – 979), the Jewish
prose humorist, and Perelman’s quasi-mentor, the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho
Marx (890 – 979), who was renowned for his improvisational wit. The article’s purpose is to
explicate, with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics,
some aspects of these highly original, self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices. It
also tentatively explores the significance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards
to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and, thus, the links
between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context. The theoretical
perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature
and Austin’s Speech Act Theory—both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics—as well as
Deleuze’s concept of a ‘minor literature,’ a theory of modernist literary practice substantially
determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism
novelist of American literature in his complex, meditative negotiations of the various and
often contradictory strands of the history of ideas that have impacted the United States since
its founding generations: Calvinism, democratic ethics, Emersonian self-reliance, and even the
skeptical mode of vision of American modernism (as characterized by writers of immigrant
or Southern provenance such as O’Neill, or Faulkner), which Melville tellingly associates
with Shakespeare and Hawthorne. Indeed, I take as a starting point Deleuze’s assertion that
Melville stands as the precursor to a crucial line of nihilistic thinking continuing in Nietzsche
and culminating in literary modernism, and I explore the ramifications of this claim with
reference to Melville’s disastrous and often derided novel Pierre (1852), a bitter and digressive
rumination on American life and letters following the critical and commercial failure of Moby-
Dick. A still controversial semi-narrative account of disavowed incest and class intolerance
in the privileged, Northeastern milieu of Melville’s early years, Pierre is also his most
philosophical work up to that point, abundant in stylistic and structural experiment, most
particularly in regard to what might connect fiction and literary language to contemporary
philosophical discourses of idealism, metaphysics, and democratic ethics. Melville ultimately
finds the crux of this connection in metaphor as that which links sensual, aesthetic, and
cognitive experience to the abstract ideological commitments that govern our moral choices.
Crucially, that link is neither simplistically causal nor necessarily positive.
I argue that Melville slyly associates the incongruent literary styles that he deploys in
Pierre with the differing, contesting philosophical world-views that the novel explicitly evokes
(most notably the so-called “Transcendentalism” of Emerson). The vehicle for this experiment
appears to be a rather surface-oriented view of literary style characterized by an extravagance
of metaphoric density. It is this quality that, I argue, seems to divide Pierre into two distinct
conceptual and stylistic parts: the first is characterized by an exalted, ecstatic literary rhetoric...
comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater (from roughly 90 – 930) and, later, out of
the culture of popular magazine from (roughly) the 920s to the 950s. The focus is on the
exemplary and highly original comic language of S. J. Perelman (904 – 979), the Jewish
prose humorist, and Perelman’s quasi-mentor, the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho
Marx (890 – 979), who was renowned for his improvisational wit. The article’s purpose is to
explicate, with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics,
some aspects of these highly original, self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices. It
also tentatively explores the significance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards
to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and, thus, the links
between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context. The theoretical
perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature
and Austin’s Speech Act Theory—both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics—as well as
Deleuze’s concept of a ‘minor literature,’ a theory of modernist literary practice substantially
determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism
Conference Presentations by Peter A Yacavone
Thesis Chapters by Peter A Yacavone
comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater (from roughly 90 – 930) and, later, out of
the culture of popular magazine from (roughly) the 920s to the 950s. The focus is on the
exemplary and highly original comic language of S. J. Perelman (904 – 979), the Jewish
prose humorist, and Perelman’s quasi-mentor, the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho
Marx (890 – 979), who was renowned for his improvisational wit. The article’s purpose is to
explicate, with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics,
some aspects of these highly original, self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices. It
also tentatively explores the significance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards
to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and, thus, the links
between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context. The theoretical
perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature
and Austin’s Speech Act Theory—both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics—as well as
Deleuze’s concept of a ‘minor literature,’ a theory of modernist literary practice substantially
determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism
novelist of American literature in his complex, meditative negotiations of the various and
often contradictory strands of the history of ideas that have impacted the United States since
its founding generations: Calvinism, democratic ethics, Emersonian self-reliance, and even the
skeptical mode of vision of American modernism (as characterized by writers of immigrant
or Southern provenance such as O’Neill, or Faulkner), which Melville tellingly associates
with Shakespeare and Hawthorne. Indeed, I take as a starting point Deleuze’s assertion that
Melville stands as the precursor to a crucial line of nihilistic thinking continuing in Nietzsche
and culminating in literary modernism, and I explore the ramifications of this claim with
reference to Melville’s disastrous and often derided novel Pierre (1852), a bitter and digressive
rumination on American life and letters following the critical and commercial failure of Moby-
Dick. A still controversial semi-narrative account of disavowed incest and class intolerance
in the privileged, Northeastern milieu of Melville’s early years, Pierre is also his most
philosophical work up to that point, abundant in stylistic and structural experiment, most
particularly in regard to what might connect fiction and literary language to contemporary
philosophical discourses of idealism, metaphysics, and democratic ethics. Melville ultimately
finds the crux of this connection in metaphor as that which links sensual, aesthetic, and
cognitive experience to the abstract ideological commitments that govern our moral choices.
Crucially, that link is neither simplistically causal nor necessarily positive.
I argue that Melville slyly associates the incongruent literary styles that he deploys in
Pierre with the differing, contesting philosophical world-views that the novel explicitly evokes
(most notably the so-called “Transcendentalism” of Emerson). The vehicle for this experiment
appears to be a rather surface-oriented view of literary style characterized by an extravagance
of metaphoric density. It is this quality that, I argue, seems to divide Pierre into two distinct
conceptual and stylistic parts: the first is characterized by an exalted, ecstatic literary rhetoric...
comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater (from roughly 90 – 930) and, later, out of
the culture of popular magazine from (roughly) the 920s to the 950s. The focus is on the
exemplary and highly original comic language of S. J. Perelman (904 – 979), the Jewish
prose humorist, and Perelman’s quasi-mentor, the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho
Marx (890 – 979), who was renowned for his improvisational wit. The article’s purpose is to
explicate, with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics,
some aspects of these highly original, self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices. It
also tentatively explores the significance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards
to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and, thus, the links
between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context. The theoretical
perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature
and Austin’s Speech Act Theory—both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics—as well as
Deleuze’s concept of a ‘minor literature,’ a theory of modernist literary practice substantially
determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism