Weekend and Cannibal Holocaust: Art, Ballyhoo and Remediation

2018 ◽  
pp. 63-87
Author(s):  
Simon Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Artificial Eye ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Home Entertainment ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Exploitation Film

This chapter starts with an assessment of Jean-Luc Godard’s auteur status, before focusing on Weekend, a film frequently overlooked in discussions of extreme art cinema. By drawing attention to the film’s depiction of cannibalism, rape and real animal slaughter, the chapter highlights the similarities it shares with other extreme texts, repositioning it within the boarder extreme art film tradition outlined throughout the book. To find out whether this reputation impacts the commercial identity of the film, the chapter moves on to explore the paratextuality of the film. Ultimately concluding that the film’s distributors (Artificial Eye) offer a hybridised object that flirts with extremity, the chapter then examines Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust. Noting similarities between the films, the chapter provides a detailed analysis of Shameless Screen Entertainment collectors’ edition DVD. Showing how the paratextual material re-constructs the film’s history, the analysis argues that Cannibal Holocaust’s remediation moves it away from an exploitation film ghetto by employing traditionally highbrow marketing techniques. By complicating existing ideas regarding the commercial function of extremity, the chapter illustrates the extent to which home entertainment objects obscure long-standing taste distinctions.

Early Extremity on DVD: History, Precursors and Exploitation Auteurs

2018 ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Simon Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Luis Bunuel ◽  
Home Entertainment ◽  
Roman Polanski ◽  
Ingmar Bergman ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Dario Argento

This chapter uses a historically and geographically mobile approach to map a range of films and filmmakers often absent from discussions of extreme cinema. The chapter starts with an exploration of the extreme works of directors like Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman and Roman Polanski, stressing their importance to the creation of an extreme art aesthetic. The chapter focuses on the paratextuality of these filmmakers, and studies DVD and Blu-ray versions of their more extreme texts. Focusing closely on how exploitation marketing traditions co-exist with their art film counterparts on these objects, the chapter highlights the complexity of extremity’s commercial identity. The chapter takes the same approach to its study of European exploitation cinema. Using home entertainment paratexts to highlight influential films, the chapter investigates companies such as Arrow Video, Vipco, Anchor Bay, BFI and Redemption DVD, paying special attention to their handling of a range of directors, including Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, and Jean Rollin. The chapter underscores the crucial role exploitation cinema had in shaping extreme art cinema and highlights the contradictory role extremity performs within the commercial sphere.

Contemporary Extremity on DVD: Trends, Hard-core and Geographic Mobility

2018 ◽  
pp. 114-138
Author(s):  
Simon Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Hard Core ◽  
Geographic Mobility ◽  
Artificial Eye ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
Art Production ◽  
French Films ◽  
The Way

This chapter continues the selective history of extreme art cinema instigated in Chapter 3. Focusing predominantly on the releases of Artificial Eye and Tartan Video, the chapter details the re-emergence of extremity in France during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and looks at the paratextual treatment of Gaspar Noé, Catherine Breillat, and Claire Denis. Thereafter, the chapter expands its geographic lens, and examines extreme art production across Europe, with analysis of The Idiots, Man Bites Dog, Tesis, A Hole in my Heart and Dogtooth. The separation of New French Extremity from other forms of European extremity allows the French films’ impact to be appropriately measured. In essence, the chapter argues that the success of the New French Extremity changed paratextual representations of extremism, making them more popular, common and commercially viable. Thereafter, the chapter considers extreme horror narratives such as Martyrs, Frontier[s], and Switchblade Romance, outlining the way they influence and become influenced by paratextual images of extreme art cinema. By adopting this structure, the chapter again exposes the importance of both highbrow and lowbrow taste within the conceptualisation of extreme art cinema.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Simon Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Geographic Scope ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter outlines the approaches, definitions, and theories used throughout the book, before giving a structural overview of each chapter. Firstly, the chapter directly addresses the accusations of gimmickry that have been directed towards extreme art film, mapping the reception climate and evaluating the most popular and widespread responses. From this, it becomes clear that a lack of attention has been paid to the commercial identity of the film, and the way extremity informs its commercial persona. Thereafter, the chapter historicises extreme art cinema, positioning it as an outcome of taste slippage, and the blurring of boundaries between art cinema and exploitation cinema. By paying particular attention to representations of the body within both highbrow and lowbrow cinema, the chapter argues that convincing similarities exist between the cinematic traditions. Additionally, the chapter challenges the popular Francophile definition of extreme art cinema, broadening the geographic scope of the field by looking at films from Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Italy and Belgium. Finally, the chapter introduces paratextual theory, and details the way the preeminent ideas will be applied to the discussion of extreme art film paratexts.

scholarly journals Darkness on Screen: Subjectivity-Inducing Mechanisms in Contemporary Estonian Art Film

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-95
Author(s):  
Martin Oja
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
External Information ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Creating Meaning ◽  
Core Problem

Abstract The main purpose of the article is to bring more clarity to the concept of art film, shedding light on the mechanisms of subjective reception and evaluating the presence of subjectivity-inducing segments as the grounds for defining art film. The second aim is to take a fresh look at the littlediscussed Estonian art cinema, drawing on a framework of cognitive film studies in order to analyse its borders and characteristics. I will evaluate the use of darkness as a device for creating meaning, both independently of and combined with other visual or auditory devices. The dark screen, although not always a major factor in the creation of subjectivity, accompanies the core problem both directly and metaphorically: what happens to the viewer when external information is absent? I will look at the subjectivity- inducing devices in the films of two Estonian directors, Sulev Keedus and Veiko Õunpuu. For the theoretical background, I rely mostly on Torben Grodal’s idea about the subjective mode as a main characteristic of art film, and the disruption of character simulation as the basis for the film viewer’s subjectivity.

scholarly journals ‘I didn't think I'd be working on this type of film’: Berberian Sound Studio and British Art Film as Alternative Film History

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-277
Author(s):  
Paul Newland
Keyword(s):  
Film History ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
First Century ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
British Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Twenty First Century

It could be said that the films of the director Peter Strickland are in many ways exemplars of a rich strain of twenty-first-century British art cinema. Like work by Andrea Arnold, Steve McQueen, Jonathan Glazer, Lynne Ramsay, Ben Wheatley and Sam Taylor-Wood, among others, Strickland's three feature-length films to date are thought-provoking, well-crafted, prestigious, quality productions. But in this article I show that while Strickland's second feature-length film, Berberian Sound Studio, conforms to some of the commonly held understandings of the key traits of British art cinema – especially through its specific history of production and exhibition, its characterisation, its narrative structure, and its evidencing of the vision of an auteur – ultimately it does not sit comfortably within most extant histories of British national cinema or film genre, including art cinema. More than this, though, I argue that in its challenge to such extant critical traditions, Berberian Sound Studio effectively operates as ‘art film as alternative film history’. I demonstrate that it does this through the foregrounding of Strickland's cine-literacy, which notices and in turn foregrounds the historically transnational nature of cinema, and, at the same time, playfully and knowingly disrupts well-established cultural categories and coherent, homogenous histories of cinema.

Art and Exploitation: Crossover, Slippage and Fluidity

2018 ◽  
pp. 18-40
Author(s):  
Simon Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Home Entertainment ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Marketing Materials

Using Paul McDonald’s, Barbara Klinger’s, and Jonathan Gray’s work on the home entertainment industries, this chapter positions the DVD and Blu-ray as a fundamental paratextual form. Establishing it as a bearer of meaning capable of changing the commercial identity of the film, the chapter stresses the role these objects play in shaping the cultural persona of a film. The chapter then outlines the marketing practices that have historically defined art and exploitation cinema. The chapter highlights the consistency in which art film distributors have promoted the figure of the auteur and the country of origin on marketing materials, while foregrounding existing critical acclaim and any film festival success (such as awards, nominations or appearances). The chapter then explores exploitation marketing, charting the frequency with which distributors opt to use ballyhoo dares and promises in blurbs or taglines, the regularity with which they knowingly select images that disgust and provoke, how they will act quickly to milk cinematic trends, and effectively turn critical condemnation into hyperbole. Finally, the chapter places the book’s discussion of the home entertainment product alongside other studies of taste slippage, extending the histories established by the likes of Mark Betz, Joan Hawkins and Kevin Heffernan.

scholarly journals Realism as a third film practice

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (51) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birger Langkjær
Keyword(s):  
Social Realism ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Psychological Realism ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Genre Films

<p>The concept of realism may owe much of its success to its vague definition. This article suggests that it can be useful as a term that covers a central, mainstream film practice in European and other national cinemas, located somewhere in between genre films and art films. The concept refers to a serious kind of film that does not obey classical genre rules, but nevertheless tells its stories in an accessible and often engaging form that, generally speaking, creates a more popular (yet serious) film than the art film. As a film practice, it cuts across well known but often vaguely defined sub-categories, such as social realism and psychological realism. Finally, it is argued that the dichotomy between Hollywood genre films and European art cinema ignores both national variants of basic genres and a tradition of realism as a mainstream film practice.</p>

Prosodic Impairment Associated With Traumatic Brain Injury

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-102
Author(s):  
Billy Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Brain Injury ◽  
Brain Injury ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Individual Variations

Abstract Purpose: This article discusses impaired prosody production subsequent to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Prosody may affect naturalness and intelligibility of speech significantly, often for the long term, and TBI may result in a variety of impairments. Method: Intonation, rate, and stress production are discussed in terms of the perceptual, physiological, and acoustic characteristics associated with TBI. Results and Conclusions: All aspects of prosodic production are susceptible to the effects of damage resulting from TBI. There are commonly associated prosodic impairments; however, individual variations in specific aspects of prosody require detailed analysis.

Assessment of the state and level of development of public-private partnership projects in the subjects of the Russian Federation

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. N. Savrukov ◽  
N. T. Savrukov ◽  
E. A. Kozlovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Transport Sector ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
Current State ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Project Data ◽  
Municipal Level

The article analyzes the current state and level of development of publicprivate partnership (PPP) projects in the subjects of the Russian Federation. The authors conclude that a significant proportion of projects is implemented on a concession basis at the municipal level in the communal sphere. A detailed analysis of the project data showed that the structure of the projects is deformed in favor of the central regions of the Russian Federation, and a significant share in the total amount of financing falls on the transport sector. At the stage of assessing the level of development by the subjects of the Russian Federation, criteria were proposed, and index and integral indicators were used, which ensured comparability of the estimates obtained. At the end of the analysis, the regions were ranked and clustered according to the level of PPP development, which allowed to reveal the number and structure of leaders and outsiders.

To Understand the Informal (on the Book BY V. L. Tambovtsev “Economics of Informal Institutions”)

2015 ◽  
pp. 151-158
Author(s):  
A. Zaostrovtsev
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Informal Institutions ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Original Classification

The review considers the first attempt in the history of Russian economic thought to give a detailed analysis of informal institutions (IF). It recognizes that in general it was successful: the reader gets acquainted with the original classification of institutions (including informal ones) and their genesis. According to the reviewer the best achievement of the author is his interdisciplinary approach to the study of problems and, moreover, his bias on the achievements of social psychology because the model of human behavior in the economic mainstream is rather primitive. The book makes evident that namely this model limits the ability of economists to analyze IF. The reviewer also shares the author’s position that in the analysis of the IF genesis the economists should highlight the uncertainty and reject economic determinism. Further discussion of IF is hardly possible without referring to this book.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document