Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Michael Guarneri
Keyword(s):  
Film History ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Cultural Specificity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Horror Fiction ◽  
Italian Film

The aim of the introductory chapter is threefold. Firstly, the chapter points out the monograph’s originality by contextualising the book in relation to ongoing scholarly debates about vampire fiction and Italian film history. Secondly, the chapter presents the corpus of thirty-three films to be studied, outlining the thematic and industrial criteria behind the selection. The corpus goes from vampiric/Frankensteinian monster-mash I vampiri / Lust of the Vampire (Riccardo Freda, 1957), which is generally considered the first Italian horror film, to horror parody Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza / Dracula in the Provinces (Lucio Fulci, 1975). Thirdly, in order to introduce some key elements of Italian cultural specificity, the chapter provides a brief history of literary and cinematic horror fiction in Italy prior to 1956, with particular attention to vampire-themed works.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Jessica Gildersleeve
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Trauma ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Slasher Film ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

This introductory chapter situates Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973) within the landscape of 1970s cinema in general, and 1970s horror cinema in particular. It also establishes the significance of specific kinds of cultural trauma in Don't Look Now as a horror film of that decade. Don't Look Now might be understood in the context of the history of Gothic narratives, exposing and satirising the tropes of that genre and the ways in which the film's characters read or misread those signs. Rather than fear deriving purely from the chase, the threat of a psychotic killer, an unfamiliar environment, or a betrayal of innocence, Don't Look Now's horror finds its source in being wrong, in making mistakes, in seeing or knowing too late. Indeed, whereas the slasher film of the 1970s creates the pleasure of horror in its repetition, in the audience's knowledge that death is to come but remains ‘in the dark’, as it were, only as to when and how it will arrive, Don't Look Now's horror is precisely the horror of not knowing, of not recognising a threat as such, but seeing it as familiar, domestic, and safe.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Bryan Turnock
Keyword(s):  
Degree Of Freedom ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Dead End ◽  
History Of ◽  
Film Genres ◽  
Over Time

This introductory chapter provides an overview of horror cinema. Since its inception, horror has been one of the most universally derided and dismissed of film genres. Yet at the same time it has consistently been one of the most enduring and commercially popular. While there have been periods where it seemed to have reached a dead end, it has always managed to re-invent itself and rise again. Today, horror cinema is experiencing something of a renaissance, enjoying box-office success and even critical acclaim. The chapter discusses the concept of film genre and traces the history of horror. As with other genres, over time horror developed codes and conventions that became typically associated with what one would now term a traditional horror film. Since the arrival of the 'modern' horror film in the early 1960s, the genre has displayed a degree of freedom from many of its more traditional conventions.

Cinema Expanded

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Walley
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Film History ◽  
Video Art ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
Art World ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Expanded Cinema ◽  
History Of

Cinema Expanded: Avant-Garde Film in the Age of Intermedia is a comprehensive historical survey of expanded cinema from the mid-1960s to the present. It offers an historical and theoretical revision of the concept of expanded cinema, placing it in the context of avant-garde/experimental film history rather than the history of new media, intermedia, or multimedia. The book argues that while expanded cinema has taken an incredible variety of forms (including moving image installation, multi-screen films, live cinematic performance, light shows, shadow plays, computer-generated images, video art, sculptural objects, and texts), it is nonetheless best understood as an ongoing meditation by filmmakers on the nature of cinema, specifically, and on its relationship to the other arts. Cinema Expanded also extends its historical and theoretical scope to avant-garde film culture more generally, placing expanded cinema in that context while also considering what it has to tell us about the moving image in the art world and new media environment.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Television Film ◽  
Popular Image

The introductory chapter discusses the popular image of the ‘Romantic mad poet’ in television, film, theatre, fiction, the history of literary criticism, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century and its countercultures, including anti-psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Existing literary-historical work on related topics is assessed, before the introduction goes on to suggest why some problems or difficulties in writing about this subject might be productive for further cultural history. The introduction also considers at length the legacy of Michel Foucault’s Folie et Déraison (1961), and the continued viability of Foucauldian methods and concepts for examining literary-cultural representations of madness after the half-century of critiques and controversies following that book’s publication. Methodological discussion both draws on and critiques the models of historical sociology used by George Becker and Sander L. Gilman to discuss genius, madness, deviance, and stereotype in the nineteenth century. A note on terminology concludes the introduction.

scholarly journals A Few Issues Surrounding Research into the General History of Chinese Film

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
Yaping Ding
Keyword(s):  
Film History ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Comprehensive View ◽  
Broad Scope ◽  
History Of

Abstract The practice of film history highlights the value and significance of the researcher. A more comprehensive view of the situation of film history raises several issues. General research into the history of film is directly related to the production of film history. The question of how to reinvent general film history research is necessarily connected to ideologies, cultures, systems and concepts, as well as the broad scope and complexity of film history. Writing a general history of Chinese film demands a combination of innovation and continuing tradition, with an emphasis on the construction of a rational and scientific discipline of film history and historical empiricism. The aim should be a more rational history. The paper expresses my own thoughts and efforts with respect to relevant issues and attempts to deepen and open up general research into the history of Chinese film.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
John B. Nann ◽  
Morris L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Legal History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The U.S

This introductory chapter provides an overview of legal history research. An attorney might conduct legal history research if the law at question in a legal dispute is very old: the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are well over two hundred years old. Historical research also comes into play when the question at issue is what the law was at a certain time in the past. Ultimately, law plays an important part in the political and social history of the United States. As such, researchers interested in almost every aspect of American life will have occasion to use legal materials. The chapter then describes the U.S. legal system and legal authority, and offers six points to consider in approaching a historical legal research project.

scholarly journals Austrian-Italian Encounters: Notes on Some Films Produced Between Rome and Vienna in the 1930s

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Francesco Bono
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
Italian Film ◽  
Stylistic Influences ◽  
Corporate State ◽  
Shed Light

This essay deals with a number of Italian and Austrian films produced around the mid-1930s as a result of the cinematic cooperation that developed between Rome and Vienna at the time. The essay’s goal is to investigate a complex chapter in the history of Italian and Austrian film which has yet received little attention. The Austro-Italian cooperation in the field of film, which developed against the backdrop of the political alliance between Fascist Italy and Austria’s so-called Corporate State, involved some of the biggest names in Italian and Austrian cinema of the time, including Italian directors Carmine Gallone, Augusto Genina and Goffredo Alessandrini, Viennese screenwriter Walter Reisch, and Italian novelist Corrado Alvaro. In particular, the essay will consider the Italian film Casta Diva (1935) and its debt to one of the most famous Austrian productions of the 1930s, Willi Forst’s film Leise flehen meine Lieder (1933). Further films to be discussed include Tagebuch der Geliebten (1935), Una donna tra due mondi (1936), Opernring (1936), and Blumen aus Nizza (1936). Tagebuch der Geliebten was based on the diary of Russian painter Marie Bashkirtseff, who lived in Paris in the late 19th century. Una donna tra due mondi starred Italian diva Isa Miranda, Opernring Polish tenor Jan Kiepura, Blumen aus Nizza German singer Erna Sack.These films should be truly regarded as transnational productions, in which various cultural traditions and stylistic influences coalesced. By investigating them, this essay aims to shed light on a crucial period in the history of European cinema.

Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in American Film

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Carr
Keyword(s):  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Film History ◽  
Future Research ◽  
American Film ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Film Texts

The rise of the American motion picture corresponds to the influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Just as many of these immigrants initially settled in East Coast and Midwest cities, both movies and movie audiences emerged there as an urban phenomenon. Rather than view this phenomenon only in terms of the images that films of this era offered, this chapter proposes to move beyond a “reflection paradigm” of film history. Of course, film texts reflected immigrant, ethnic, and racial identities. But these identities also existed beyond the text, across movies and movie-going, and embedded within diffuse, multiple, and overlapping networks of imagined relationships. Using Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, this chapter recounts some preliminary case studies involving race, ethnicity, and immigration to explore how future research in this area might probe the cultural practices of movie-going among diverse audiences during the first half of the twentieth century.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Rose
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Economic Hardship ◽  
Film Criticism ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Functional Family ◽  
The Uk

No-one who has ever seen the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is ever likely to forget the experience. An intense fever dream (or nightmare), it is remarkable for its sense of sustained threat and depiction of an insane but nonetheless (dys)functional family on the furthest reaches of society who have regressed to cannibalism in the face of economic hardship. As well as providing a summary of the making of the film, this book discusses the extraordinary censorship history of the film in the UK (essentially banned for two decades) and provides a detailed textual analysis of the film with particular reference to the concept of ‘the Uncanny’. The book also situates the film in the context of horror film criticism (the ‘Final Girl’ character) and discusses its influence and subsequent sequels and remakes.

Introduction

Manhunts ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grégoire Chamayou ◽  
Steven Rendall
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book focuses on manhunts—the concrete historical phenomena in which human beings were tracked down, captured, or killed in accord with the forms of the hunt. These were regular and sometimes large-scale practices whose forms were first theorized in ancient Greece, long before their enormous expansion in the modern period in conjunction with the development of transatlantic capitalism. The main problem has to do with the fact that the hunter and the hunted do not belong to different species. Since the distinction between the predator and his prey is not inscribed in nature, the hunting relationship is always susceptible to a reversal of positions. Prey sometimes band together to become hunters in their turn. The history of a power is also the history of the struggles to overthrow it.

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