Cinema Panopticum: Wax, Work, Waxworks

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Erik Born
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Frame Narrative ◽  
Narrative Cinema ◽  
Wax Figures ◽  
Historical Periods

“Cinema Panopticum” explores the central conceit of Waxworks—wax figures that come to life and threaten their creator—in the context of popular wax displays in the Weimar Republic. Commonly credited as a cult classic horror film, Waxworks is better understood in the period’s terminology as an “Episodenfilm,” a popular form of early narrative cinema that presented distinct episodes within a unifying frame narrative. Like other early German anthology films, Waxworks participates in the Weimar critique of historicism, foregoing the particularities of historical periods in favour of universal drives and philosophical themes. In this case, the framing narrative updates the classical Pygmalion myth for film-obsessed German modernity. The film is a testament to early cinema’s so-called “encyclopaedic ambition” and a cautionary tale about the potential fetishisation of the filmic image during the transitional period when cinema was establishing itself in opposition to older forms of representation such as wax figure displays.

I’M SCREEEEEEEEAMING!!!!

2019 ◽  
pp. 59-88
Author(s):  
Adam Charles Hart
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Self Control ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Narrative Cinema ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Film Viewing

Chapter 2 looks at jump scares and the fad of “screamers” found across the internet: brief videos or gifs designed to cause an unsuspecting browser to scream and jump. They appeared when jump scares were ascendant within the horror genre thanks to video games; screamers’ online popularity led to importation into the cinema through films such as the Paranormal Activity series. The chapter develops the importance of shock to the horror genre and the similarities between engagement across mediums. Shock is a challenge to viewer/browser/gamer mastery and self-control. Screamers offer the opportunity to reassert one’s own self through repetition and sharing, showing how similar processes are central to the experience of horror film viewing and gameplay. It discusses “elevated horror” and the tendency to disparage sensation in opposition to traditional virtues of narrative cinema. The chapter’s counterpoint for this assumption is with close readings of “elevated” horror films, The Witch (2015) and The Babadook (2014).

WHEN THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE BECAME VOGUE: PERIODIZATION AND THE ORGANIZATION OF POSTWAR AMERICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW M. FEARNLEY
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Harlem Renaissance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Western Historiography ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Historical Practice

In the years around mid-century a number of periodizing terms entered Western historiography. These included the “Weimar Republic” andFrühneuzeitin Germany, “the age of Wilberforce” in Britain, and “the age of Jackson” in the United States, to name just a few. The appearance of these terms attested to the popularity that periodization, or the deliberate creation of historical periods, had within historical practice, and they were embraced variously as heuristics, as means of organizing the historical record, and as the root of synthesis. In this essay I trace the coinage of one term, “Harlem Renaissance,” from its emergence in the 1940s, through to the sharper profile it earned in the postwar years, and its institutionalization in the late twentieth century. In doing so I argue that Harlem Renaissance was neither a term nor a concept used by those who lived during the years it is now said to describe, and illuminate the alternative ways in which contemporaries apprehended their historical position. The context for the coinage and popularization of this term was the displacement of these earlier modes of interpretation by temporal ones, and the emergence of a mode of historical practice that stressed synthetic interpretation. By tracing the fluctuating ways in which a core analytical concept like periodization was handled between the mid- and the late twentieth century we might better grasp how historiographical orientations changed in these years.

Black Swan, White Nose

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Schwadron
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Black Swan ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Narrative Cinema ◽  
Professional Dance ◽  
And Performance ◽  
A Site

This chapter analyzes Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010) as a Jewish horror film with fake lesbian monsters. The Swan Lake remake offers a site of racial and sexual containment for Jewish actresses in ballet roles. Against damaging pressures of professional dance on the female psyche, the film recasts White and Black Swan roles as monstrous representations of the Ethnic Other, the Woman, and the Sexual Deviant. Analysis of select plot and performance components challenge fatal disfigurements of the film’s female characters: In what ways does Black Swan use ballet to appropriate social and political identities with tenuous relationships to the mainstream? How might these appropriations amount to an ultimate domestication of the very identities the film puts forward for thrilling appeal? This linkage of dance and politics intersects critical race theory, queer theory, and horror film theory as revealing dimensions of classical dance in narrative cinema.

Police Work Addiction: A Cautionary Tale.

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard J. Solan ◽  
Jean M. Casey
Keyword(s):  
Police Work ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Work Addiction

Cervical Myelopathy as a Complication of Untreated Motor Tics: A Cautionary Tale

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariam Hull ◽  
Mered Parnes
Keyword(s):  
Cervical Myelopathy ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Vertebral Artery Dissection ◽  
Tic Disorders ◽  
Artery Dissection ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Eye Injuries ◽  
Tic Disorder ◽  
Aggressive Management ◽  
Motor Tics

AbstractTic disorders are common, affecting approximately 0.5 to 1% of children and adolescents. Treatment is required only when symptoms are bothersome or impairing to the patient, so many do not require intervention. However, on occasion tics may cause significant morbidity and are referred to as “malignant.” These malignant tics have resulted in cervical myelopathy, subdural hematoma secondary to head banging, biting of lips leading to infection of oral muscles, self-inflicted eye injuries leading to blindness, skeletal fractures, compressive neuropathies, and vertebral artery dissection. We describe a case of malignant tic disorder, with accompanying video segment, resulting in cervical myelopathy and quadriparesis in a child. We also discuss aggressive management strategies for neurologists to prevent potential lifelong disability. This case emphasizes that these malignant tics must be treated with all due haste to prevent such complications.

Budgeting in Socio-economic Development Strategies (Raising a Problem)

2008 ◽  
pp. 134-151
Author(s):  
A. Shastitko ◽  
M. Ovchinnikov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Economic Development Strategies

The article proposes an approach to the analysis of social change and contributes to the clarification of concepts of economic policy. It deals in particular with the notion of "change of system". The author considers positive and normative aspects of the analysis of capitalist and socialist systems. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the system to be changed are introduced, their fulfillment is discussed drawing upon the historical and statistical data. The article describes both economic and political peculiarities of the transitional period in different countries, especially in Eastern Europe.

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