scholarly journals Stolen glances: heist cinema and the visual production of deception

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Motion Pictures ◽  
Direct Path ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
Direct Cinema ◽  
Technical Production ◽  
Imminent Threat ◽  
Everyday Reality ◽  
Civic Mindedness

The capacity to deceive figures into cinema's history in a number of interesting ways. For Melies, motion pictures allowed the technical production of deception and illusion for his "trick" films, and in popular mythology, frightened spectators fled an exhibition of Auguste and Louis Lumiere's L'Arrivee d'un train en gare de la Ciotat (1895) fearing the imminent arrival of the train at the theatre itself. While this latter story has been roundly discredited, it holds an important place in cinematic lore. In the various efforts of documentary filmmakers to negate the idea of objective truth, whether through direct cinema/cinema verite, the use of reflexive gestures, or subjective positioning, there is a sense of an imminent threat of deception in film's mediation of truth. As Tom Gunning (2004) and Rachel O. Moore (2000) have recently argued, even critical explorations of cinema, quite as much as filmmaking practices themselves, have held the medium in deep suspicion. In the screen theories derived from Lacan and Althusser that dominated 1970s film studies we see film scholars move towards a conception of film that sees deception and trickery - otherwise called "ideological mystification" - as an innate feature of the cinematic apparatus. Despite, or perhaps because of, these ongoing concerns, there seems to be a civic-mindedness among critics, theoreticians, filmmakers, and film-watchers alike which holds that film should be able to present at least some verifiable truths and that filmmaking should still be able to provide a reliable document. However, since film is always a mediation of something else, the direct path to these truths - as the debates about documentary filmmaking and realism have shown - will always be complex, and, indeed, contingent upon the culture in which they find purchase. What is at stake then, is not so much what is real and what is not, but the conditions under which verisimilitude - the experience of reality - can be taken to occur and be produced. This paper is about some of the pleasures to be found in watching a cinematic depiction of theft. Theft is something we do not ordinarily see. In cinematic depictions of theft we are shown something that occurs underneath the surface of our everyday reality. Just as much as cinema is deceptive, therefore, so too can it penetrate and explore deceptive phenomena.

scholarly journals Stolen glances: heist cinema and the visual production of deception

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Motion Pictures ◽  
Direct Path ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
Direct Cinema ◽  
Technical Production ◽  
Imminent Threat ◽  
Everyday Reality ◽  
Civic Mindedness

The capacity to deceive figures into cinema's history in a number of interesting ways. For Melies, motion pictures allowed the technical production of deception and illusion for his "trick" films, and in popular mythology, frightened spectators fled an exhibition of Auguste and Louis Lumiere's L'Arrivee d'un train en gare de la Ciotat (1895) fearing the imminent arrival of the train at the theatre itself. While this latter story has been roundly discredited, it holds an important place in cinematic lore. In the various efforts of documentary filmmakers to negate the idea of objective truth, whether through direct cinema/cinema verite, the use of reflexive gestures, or subjective positioning, there is a sense of an imminent threat of deception in film's mediation of truth. As Tom Gunning (2004) and Rachel O. Moore (2000) have recently argued, even critical explorations of cinema, quite as much as filmmaking practices themselves, have held the medium in deep suspicion. In the screen theories derived from Lacan and Althusser that dominated 1970s film studies we see film scholars move towards a conception of film that sees deception and trickery - otherwise called "ideological mystification" - as an innate feature of the cinematic apparatus. Despite, or perhaps because of, these ongoing concerns, there seems to be a civic-mindedness among critics, theoreticians, filmmakers, and film-watchers alike which holds that film should be able to present at least some verifiable truths and that filmmaking should still be able to provide a reliable document. However, since film is always a mediation of something else, the direct path to these truths - as the debates about documentary filmmaking and realism have shown - will always be complex, and, indeed, contingent upon the culture in which they find purchase. What is at stake then, is not so much what is real and what is not, but the conditions under which verisimilitude - the experience of reality - can be taken to occur and be produced. This paper is about some of the pleasures to be found in watching a cinematic depiction of theft. Theft is something we do not ordinarily see. In cinematic depictions of theft we are shown something that occurs underneath the surface of our everyday reality. Just as much as cinema is deceptive, therefore, so too can it penetrate and explore deceptive phenomena.

scholarly journals Filmstudies in the Netherlands: the migration of cinephilia and the emergence of Spanish cinema

Comunicar ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (29) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Pietsie Feenstra
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
New Media ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
European Research ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Spanish Cinema ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
Traditional Manner ◽  
Dutch Universities

Even if film studies have occupied an important place in Dutch universities since the 1990s, research and education are strongly dominated by television and new media. Within the context of the Netherlands and rather than discussing cinephilia in a traditional manner, I will develop in this article the concept of «migrating cinephilia» in Dutch or European research and education. I will also describe the increasing attention now being paid to Spanish films in programmes concerning European cinema. Aunque dentro de las universidades holandesas la enseñanza del cine ha encontrado un lugar importante al menos desde los años noventa, son la televisión y el análisis de los Nuevos Medios quienes dominan el panorama de la investigación. En relación a un país como Holanda, en lugar de hablar de cinefilia en su sentido tradicional, queremos desarrollar dentro de este artículo una idea sobre la «cinefilia-migratoria». Además, queremos ilustrar la nueva atención hacia el cine español en Holanda, formando parte de programas sobre el cine europeo.

scholarly journals Post-Communist Romanian cinema: context and the turn to realism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Iliescu
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
Romanian Cinema ◽  
Everyday Reality ◽  
History Of Analysis ◽  
Film Critic

"Romanian cinema needs to start again from scratch. It has to regain a sense of everyday reality and it has to render truthfully an important slice of recent history which has been horribly falsified. A blast of Neorealism is practically a moral obligation for our cinema at this time in its history." - Eugenia Voda, film critic, 1995. Romanian film critic Eugenia Voda has made this nearly prophetic statement only five years after the end of Romania's communist regime. Yet more than prophetic, her remark was an appeal to filmmakers, and their conscious as well as conscientious sense of truth. Although more than ten years have passed since, her words often resonate in close association with recent Romanian films and their honest representation of social reality, unique in the history of Romanian cinema. But to what extent is recent Romanian cinema a national cinema? Given the Western history of analysis of foreign cinematic productions, any current examination of non-Western films within a Western theoretical context must be carried out in relation to the prior theoretical developments, debates, and conclusions within the national cinema framework. Benedict Anderson's concept of the "imagined community' resides as foundation in the process of defining what is national (Anderson, 1983). When speaking of nationalist media, Anderson claims that while a nation is portrayed as a community, it is only an imagined one. Members of a nation do not all know each other, "yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion" (Anderson, 1983, p.6). From this perspective, cinema's popularity and ease of distribution has led to films becoming part of mass communications, and thus it can easily play a role in disseminating both national and nationalist ideals. persisted as a theoretical framework during the development and establishment of film studies as a Western academic discipline.

A STORY OF SHANGHAI THROUGH THE CINEMA / PASAKOJIMAI APIE ŠANCHAJŲ KINE

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieška Juzefovič
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Front Face ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
Urban City ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Shanghai City ◽  
Urban Issues ◽  
The Relationship

This article analyzes the relationship between one of the most important cultural forms – cinema – and one of the most important forms of social organization – the city. Therefore, various thematic, formal and industrial relationships between city and cinema provide a great opportunity for research and discussion of key issues which are of common interest in the study of both – society (city) and culture (cinema) study. The author discusses various ways in which urban city (Shanghai) and cinema intersect, and while doing so, rely on different resources, methods and approaches from both film studies and urban studies. The article discusses various films, mostly those of contemporary Chinese, but also some of those created in Hollywood, the action of which takes place in Shanghai, and this city takes an important place. Analyzed films reflect and comment on urban issues of the dynamic Shanghai city. There will be analyzed both those films which show daily, front face of Shanghai, ant those which show these darksome faces of Shanghai which are beyond the usual everyday experience. Santrauka Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos sąsajos tarp kinematografijos, kuri yra viena iš svarbiausių kultūros raiškos formų, ir vieno iš pagrindinių socialinių darinių – miesto. Įvairūs teminiai, formalūs ir industriniai miesto bei kinematografijos santykiai suteikia galimybę tyrinėti ir svarstyti esmines problemas, bendras tiek visuomenės, tiek kultūros studijoms. Analizės objektu pasirinktas Šanchajaus miestas, kuris yra iš esmės fotogeniškas ir neatsiejamas nuo savo šalies kinematografijos, ten klestinčios nuo pat savo pirmų žingsnių. Straipsnyje analizuojami daugiausia kinų, tačiau taip pat ir holivudinės produkcijos filmai, kuriuose veiksmas vyksta Šanchajaus mieste, o pats miestas atlieka reikšmingą vaidmenį. Parodoma, kaip šiuose filmuose skirtingais aspektais perteikiamas šio dinamiško, unikalią istoriją ir perspektyvas turinčio miesto vaizdas. Nagrinėjant tiek filmus, kuriuose atsiveria įprastas, fasadinis Šanchajaus veidas, tiek ir tuos, kuriuose rodomas niūrus, under-groundinis, kasdienybėje neregimas miesto veidas, parodoma, kaip panaši erdvės samprata kinematografams leidžia įtikinamai parodyti ir netgi atgaivinti skirtingas miesto erdves, o patį miestą paverčia gyvenamuoju pasauliu, kuriame urbanistinės ir kūniškos plotmės tampa neatsiejamos vienos nuo kitų.

scholarly journals Post-Communist Romanian cinema: context and the turn to realism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Iliescu
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
Romanian Cinema ◽  
Everyday Reality ◽  
History Of Analysis ◽  
Film Critic

"Romanian cinema needs to start again from scratch. It has to regain a sense of everyday reality and it has to render truthfully an important slice of recent history which has been horribly falsified. A blast of Neorealism is practically a moral obligation for our cinema at this time in its history." - Eugenia Voda, film critic, 1995. Romanian film critic Eugenia Voda has made this nearly prophetic statement only five years after the end of Romania's communist regime. Yet more than prophetic, her remark was an appeal to filmmakers, and their conscious as well as conscientious sense of truth. Although more than ten years have passed since, her words often resonate in close association with recent Romanian films and their honest representation of social reality, unique in the history of Romanian cinema. But to what extent is recent Romanian cinema a national cinema? Given the Western history of analysis of foreign cinematic productions, any current examination of non-Western films within a Western theoretical context must be carried out in relation to the prior theoretical developments, debates, and conclusions within the national cinema framework. Benedict Anderson's concept of the "imagined community' resides as foundation in the process of defining what is national (Anderson, 1983). When speaking of nationalist media, Anderson claims that while a nation is portrayed as a community, it is only an imagined one. Members of a nation do not all know each other, "yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion" (Anderson, 1983, p.6). From this perspective, cinema's popularity and ease of distribution has led to films becoming part of mass communications, and thus it can easily play a role in disseminating both national and nationalist ideals. persisted as a theoretical framework during the development and establishment of film studies as a Western academic discipline.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Hornby
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Art History ◽  
Assembly Line ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Motion Pictures ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Critical Intervention

The introduction provides an overview of the book and sets out the photographic stakes of stillness in the historical context of the early twentieth century and the invention of motion pictures. These two technologies—photography and motion pictures—provide the ground for reframing the modernist debate around stasis-kinesis, which has typically played out unevenly on the side of discourses of speed and acceleration, focusing on the creation and impact of ever newer and ever faster technologies of motion, such as the railway, the motor car, the modern assembly line, and motion pictures. However, stillness remains an obdurate stopping point and necessary critical intervention in such kinetic economies. Charting the book’s interdisciplinary terrain, the introduction brings art history and film studies to bear upon each other to determine the critical purchase of stillness, how it accrued a negative meaning, and how modernist writers, filmmakers, and artists negotiated its limits.

Distortion in lattice-resolution scanned-probe microscope images

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 522-523
Author(s):  
L. Fei
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Lattice Structure ◽  
Substrate Material ◽  
Repulsive Force ◽  
Instrument Calibration ◽  
Microscope Images ◽  
Probe Microscope ◽  
Electron Microscopes ◽  
Diffraction Patterns ◽  
Lattice Resolution

Scanned probe microscopes (SPM) have been widely used for studying the structure of a variety material surfaces and thin films. Interpretation of SPM images, however, remains a debatable subject at best. Unlike electron microscopes (EMs) where diffraction patterns and images regularly provide data on lattice spacings and angles within 1-2% and ∽1° accuracy, our experience indicates that lattice distances and angles in raw SPM images can be off by as much as 10% and ∽6°, respectively. Because SPM images can be affected by processes like the coupling between fast and slow scan direction, hysteresis of piezoelectric scanner, thermal drift, anisotropic tip and sample interaction, etc., the causes for such a large discrepancy maybe complex even though manufacturers suggest that the correction can be done through only instrument calibration.We show here that scanning repulsive force microscope (SFM or AFM) images of freshly cleaved mica, a substrate material used for thin film studies as well as for SFM instrument calibration, are distorted compared with the lattice structure expected for mica.

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