The Motions of Images · Os Movimentos das Imagens

Uma Escolha Minha

2012-01-17T18:32:00.005Z

17.01.2012

Francesco, giullare di Dio.

Integrado no ciclo As Minhas Escolhas, organizado pelo Fila K Cineclube, apresento hoje o filme Francesco, giullare di Dio (1950), realizado por Roberto Rossellini, autor sobre o qual tenho estado a trabalhar. A obra recebeu o infeliz título português O Santo dos Pobrezinhos.
A projecção e apresentação terão lugar no auditório do Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Velha às 21:30. O meu sentido obrigado à direcção do Fila K pelo convite.

Cinema 3 CFP

2012-01-13T08:43:00.009Z

13.01.2012

Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and Moving Image invites submissions for its 3rd issue.
The third issue of Cinema takes up the theme of embodiment and the body, its relationship to cinema’s history (theory and practice), and its reawaken in a recent body of research attentive, not only to film, but also to video and to new media. In the last few years, creative and theoretical work have focused in the body, either as phenomenological encounter immersed in everyday practices, or as a material process made of fluids, energies and forces, arguing, in both cases, that cinema is a “cinema of lived experience” and/or of “sensation” where the intellectual, mental and cognitive processes must be understood as embodied and carnal. At a time when the rhetoric of disembodiment and the virtual is becoming deeply questioned by flourishing issues on the moving image’s sensuous and haptics qualities, cinema as sensation, cinema of the body, etc., all these theorizations are, on the other hand, faced with particularly challenging issues that spring from new media practices, avatars and their prospective future: our changing concept of human body and of its relationship to mind and consciousness which is questioning the traditional mind/body divide.
This issue of Cinema calls for examinations of these issues in all its forms, in contexts including and beyond film. The editor welcomes innovative approaches that might address (but should not be limited to) the following themes:

• Cinema and the senses
• Cinema and the body
• Cinema as sensation
• Cinema as a materially-embodied structure
• Cinema as a physical shock
• Haptic/optic visuality
• Critics to ocularcentrism
• Moving Images and the ‘logics of sensation’
• New media and new cinematic experiences
• The embodied/disembodied debate and the moving images
• New media and the Posthuman body
• Embodied cognition
• Technology, art and body
• The virtual/actual
• Cyborgs, avatars

The submission deadline is 15 February 2012 (for 500-word abstracts). Prospective authors should submit a short CV along with the abstract. A selection of authors will be invited to submit full papers according to the journal guidelines. Acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee publication, since all papers will be subject to double blindpeer-review. Submissions are accepted in Portuguese and English (and in French and Spanish, but only from native speakers of these languages).
Cinema also invites submissions to its special sections: interviews, conference reports, and book reviews. For further details, please consult the journal’s web site.
Feel free to contact the editor for this issue, Patrícia Castello Branco on specific queries, or Sérgio Dias Branco, and Susana Viegas, with general queries at cjpmi@fcsh.unl.pt.

Cinema 2

2011-12-31T10:02:00.003Z

31.12.2011

Rear Window (1954).

The second issue of Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, which I co-edit with Patrícia Silveirinha Castello Branco and Susana Viegas, has been published today. The contents may be consulted, read, and downloaded here:

ARTICLES

“The Philosophy of Film and Film as Philosophy”, Tom McClelland (University of Sussex)

“Layering Images, Thwarting Fables: Deleuze, Rancière and the Allegories of Cinema”, Agustin Zarzosa (Purchase College, SUNY)

“The Twilight of the Index”, Temenuga Trifonova (York University)

“Semiotic Images”, Flore Chevaillier (Central State University)

“‘Biopolitics on Screen’: Aernout Mik’s Moving-Image Installations”, Gabriella Calchi-Novati (Trinity College Dublin)

“Para uma Teoria do Cliché”, Leonor Areal (New University of Lisbon /School of Fine Art and Design, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria)

“Técnicas Cinematográficas e Actos Mentais: ‘The Photoplay” de Hugo Münsterberg”, Teresa Pedro (Berlin Institute of Technology/New University of Lisbon)

TRANSLATION

“Merleau-Ponty e o Pensamento do Cinema”, Mauro Carbone (Jean Moulin University - Lyon 3), trans. Débora Quaresma and Davide Scarso

INTERVIEW

“Questions for Jacques Rancière Around His Book Les écart du cinéma” (eng.) / “Questions à Jacques Rancière autour de son livre Les écart du cinéma” (fr.), conducted by Susana Nascimento Duarte (New University of Lisbon)

CONFERENCE REPORT

“Film-Philosophy Conference (Liverpool John Moores University, 6-8 July 2011)”, William Brown (Roehampton University)

BOOK REVIEWS

“cem mil cigarros: Os Filmes de Pedro Costa”, Iván Villarmea Álvarez (University of Zaragoza)

“Magníficas Obsessões: João Bénard da Costa, um Programador de Cinema”, Paulo Cunha (University of Coimbra)

Au hasard Balthazar: Teologia e a Arte da Presença

2011-12-12T09:46:00.003Z

12.12.2011

Au hasard Balthazar.

O número 14 da revista italiana Fata Morgana: Quadrimestrale di cinema e visioni dedicado à animalidade acabou de ser lançado. Um dos artigos é da minha autoria. Trata-se de uma análise de Au hasard Balthazar (Peregrinação Exemplar, 1966) e da arte de Robert Bresson, que descrevo como arte da presença, a partir da perspectiva teológica franciscana. Em italiano ficou “Au hasard Balthazar: teologia e arte della presenza”. O alinhamento desta edição pode ser consultado aqui.

Film noir, um Género Imaginado

2011-12-07T09:47:00.007Z

07.12.2011

Foi ontem lançado e apresentado o volume 32 da Revista de História das Ideias, dirigida por Fernando Catroga e publicada pelo Instituto de História e Teoria das Ideias da FLUC, para o qual contribuí com o ensaio “Film noir, um Género Imaginado”. Sob o signo das artes, esta publicação reúne artigos que abordam as áreas cobertas pelo curso de Estudos Artísticos da Universidade de Coimbra: cinema, fotografia, música, e teatro. Inclui ainda um texto sobre dança e vários contributos sobre as muitas facetas da actividade artística.

A Cinema Inhabited by the Angel of History

2011-12-06T09:48:00.012Z

06.12.2011

Paisà.

I participate in the fourth annual international conference organised by the Research Centre for Communication and Culture today. The centre is based at the School of Human Sciences of the Catholic University of Portugal. This year’s event is called (Post-)Conflict Cinema: Remembering Out-breaks and In-tensions and includes the Israeli filmmaker Samuel Maoz and Thomas Elsaesser (University of Amsterdam/Yale University) as keynote speakers. Further information here.
My paper is called “A Cinema Inhabited by the Angel of History: On Rossellini’s Paisà”:

In her poetry book, The Angel of History, Carolyn Forché shares a vision of the poet’s work as resembling that of the angel of history. This figure is presented in Walter Benjamin’s essay “On the Concept of History”. Inspired by Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus (1920), Benjamin talks about this angel as a contemplative creature whose face is turned toward the past and whose back is turned to the future. Propelled into the future by progress, its eyes are fixed on the wreckage that piles in front of its feet.
Following Forché’s idea, this paper looks at the work of a filmmaker as resembling that of the angel that Benjamin describes. Robert Rossellini’s films, and his war trilogy in particular — Roma, città aperta (Rome Open City, 1945), Paisà (Paisan, 1946), Germania anno zero (Germany Year Zero, 1948) — are structured around ruins, the remains of what was (and that, because of its sheer presence, still is). These films look directly at the physical and mental disintegration that World War II has generated and, like Benjamin, they reject a set perspective on the past instead of a variable one. My focus will be on Paisà, a film in episodes whose structure intensifies the fragmentary feeling (or incompleteness) and the sense of indetermination (or openness) of the other two. As André Bazin suggests, by filming on location, within the debris and the life of devastated cities, this film turns history into something actual, present — a present made of many characters, languages, and stories. This is a cinema inhabited by a kind of angel of history, Rossellini, who sees cinema as an anthropological activity, as a way of understanding reality, and for whom the future cannot be quite anticipated, because it does not yet exist.

Notes for a Stylistic Analysis of Heroes

2011-12-05T22:40:00.001Z

05.12.2011

I received an email from David Simmons (University of Northhampton) informing me that Investigating “Heroes”: Essays on Truth, Justice and Quality TV is now out in the USA. It will be available in the UK in January 2012. I have contributed with a chapter called “Super Style: Notes for a Stylistic Analysis”, which is based on a paper that I presented in 2009 at a conference on superheroes held at Yale University.

Cinema e Espaço Público

2011-11-29T11:52:00.004Z

29.11.2011

Ontem participei num debate com António Costa (Clap Filmes), Paulo Fonseca (Fila K Cineclube), e Tiago Santos (Caminhos do Cinema Português) sobre cinema e espaço público no TAGV, em Coimbra. No texto de apresentação lia-se: “O gosto pelo cinema é um pretexto para uma conversa sobre a programação e exibição cinematográfica. Os públicos, a sua fidelização ou os novos públicos. Os filmes que se podem ver e os que gostaríamos de ver em Coimbra. Como ver e onde ver.” Escrevi estas linhas para arrancar a conversa:

Diz muito bem o texto de apresentação: públicos em vez de público. Mesmo assim penso que preferia espectadores. O que alimenta a programação é o desejo de um novo espectador, seja este um membro da audiência habitual ou ocasional. Isto é, aquele ou aquela que permanece, que fixa os olhos no ecrã e apura os ouvidos, que dedica a sua atenção ao filme que corre à sua frente. A programação é um convite. Vem. Queremos mostrar-te isto. Achamos que vale a pena dispores parte do teu tempo para estares aqui. E este é um convite dirigido a uma pessoa, não a um consumidor de cultura. Quem consome é também consumido, exactamente no mesmo gesto. Por isso, é importante passar a ideia de que programar filmes não é programar espectadores. E isto é especialmente verdade em relação aos espectadores que regressam. A fidelidade deve ser vista como uma aventura que exige uma certa audácia.
Neste sentido, falar de espaço público é falar de um lugar de partilha. É claro que o cinema pode ser visto num espaço privado, mas como toda a arte convida à partilha, à conversa, à diferença (e não à indiferença). No outro dia, um conhecido blogue português dedicado ao cinema e à música, lançava a pergunta: “Como consumir cultura em tempo de crise?” Volto à questão do consumo cultural. Consumir cultura remete para uma acção indiferente, sem verdadeiro interesse ou envolvimento, que se alimenta até ao fim do que consome e depois procura outra coisa para satisfazer o apetite. A fome fica intacta. Que fome é essa? É a de que as criações culturais nos marquem, nos transformem, deixem marca em nós, nos façam parar, nos atirem para fora do acto automático de procurar incessantemente outra e outra coisa. O espaço público leva-nos ao confronto com os outros e a ver esse tipo de resposta nos outros. Em todo o caso, e estou aqui para trazer o ponto de vista de um professor, aquilo que se deve incentivar é que os jovens (mas também os espectadores em geral) tenham esta disponibilidade para a singularidade de cada filme — isto é, para se dedicarem ao que olham e ouvem, para se maravilharem, para serem livres.
Tem sido essa ideia que tem dirigido o ciclo Cinema às Segundas que mostra alguns filmes recentes, importantes, que não passaram em Coimbra. E no futuro teremos outras iniciativas com filmes mais antigos, ou até obras contemporâneas que não tenham sido exibidas em Portugal, nomeadamente como apoio às cadeiras de cinema do curso de Estudos Artísticos. Programas de filmes como estes têm uma função pedagógica, mas tal como os estudantes devem encontrar o seu caminho, também o essencial é que os filmes falem por eles próprios. Penso que, no essencial, a nossa tarefa é criar um espaço no qual o cinema possa falar e possa ser escutado.

Research Seminars in Film and Television Aesthetics at Herts

2011-11-21T11:49:00.006Z

21.11.2011

Encontros Cinematográficos 2011

2011-11-15T08:55:00.001Z

15.11.2011

Time Networks

2011-11-14T09:49:00.005Z

14.11.2011

I am one of the organisers of the next NECS conference, along with António Marques and Susana Viegas (both from the New University of Lisbon), that is taking place in Lisbon in 2012. The conference already has a web site and, of course, the NECS site has useful information, not only about the event, but also about the organisation. Here is the call for papers:

Time Networks: Screen Media and Memory
The NECS 2012 Conference
Lisbon, 21st-23th June 2012
hosted by the New University of Lisbon and the University of Coimbra
Submissions deadline: 31st January 2012
Please address all inquiries to conference@necs-initiative.org
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Elizabeth Cowie (University of Kent)
Andreas Fickers (Universiteit Maastricht)
Lúcia Nagib (University of Leeds)
Our memories of the 20th and the 21st centuries are informed by the images and sounds that have recorded and/or fictionalized events during this period of time. And yet, images and sounds are elements that are in, and not simply of, the world. They affect us and create new effects simultaneously, shaping, inviting, and proposing new ways of seeing, hearing and knowing.
       From the first actualités through to contemporary 3D cinema and television, our technological and media culture, so spectral in nature, has begun to be disseminated so far and so wide, and has penetrated so deeply into our culture, that it has changed our experience of time.
       In part this is because the globalized nature of electronic networks and the transnational nature of information exchange, which allows for an unparalleled flux of images and sounds. So widespread and fundamental have these changes been that it is urgent to reflect on the aesthetic, cultural, and political consequences of our media in general, not least in terms of how they shape our understanding of time and history.
       Given the new regimes of time and space that our screen-saturated and media-dominated culture has encouraged, and perhaps even created, a simple question is therefore raised: how have the diverse media practices affected our individual and collective lives?
       The 2012 NECS conference “Time Networks: Screen Media and Memory”, which will take place in Lisbon, aims to address this general question, and to tackle the different issues connected with time in relation to our screen-dominated media culture. In this way, the conference will draw upon and add to the rich and scholarly discussion of diverse media practices and their connection with the concepts of memory, history, and the temporalities of everyday life.
Topics may include, but will not be limited to, the following:
Screens and memory
• Cultural and economic development
• National cinematelevision
• Film festivals, industry and cultural identity
• Collective memory and History
• Arts and new media
• Genre theory
DIY, new media and social networks
• Internet and new media
• Internet and social networks
• Society and public sphere
• Popular uprising and new media
• Democracy and screen studies/new media
• Copyright
• Archive and the digital shift
Time, theory and philosophy
• Philosophy and cinema/television/new media
• Politics and aesthetics
• Pedagogy and literacy of media
• Philosophers’ legacy: Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, Bergson, Deleuze, Cavell…
• Phenomenology and psychology of time and memory
Scholars from all areas of cinema and media studies (radio, television, new media etc.), whether previously attached to NECS or new to the network, are invited to submit proposals for contributions.
       We especially encourage pre-constituted panels in order to strengthen the thematic coherence of individual panels.
       There are two ways of participating in the Lisbon conference: (1) by individually organizing a pre-constituted panel within an already existing network such as a NECS work group (see member section of the NECS website - www.necs.org) or a research project. The members of the NECS work groups are especially encouraged to put together a pre- constituted panel; (2) by proposing an open call paper outside a pre-constituted panel.
       Please note that individuals may submit only one paper proposal, either to the open call or as a part of a pre-constituted panel.
       Panels may consist of 3 to 4 speakers with a maximum of 20 minutes speaking time each. All presenters are obliged to provide us with a title, an abstract of max 150 words, 3-5 key bibliographical references, name, institutional affiliation and a short bio of the presenter.
       Panel organizers are asked to submit panel proposals including a panel title, a short description (up to 100 words) of the panel and information on all the papers as listed above.
       Please submit all proposals before January 31 2012 through the submission forms at this site. Notification will follow shortly thereafter (around February 29, 2012).
       The conference language is English.
       Participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. Travel information as well as a list of affordable hotels and other accommodations will be posted on this site and the NECS website in Spring of 2012.
       Conference attendance is free, but valid NECS-membership is required to participate. Participants must register with NECS at www.necs-initiative.org and pay their fee by april 1st. For the terms of NECS membership, please also refer to the NECS website).
Founded in February of 2006, NECS, the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies, brings together scholars and researchers in the field of cinema, film and media studies with archivists and film and media professionals. A first NECS workshop was held in Berlin on the occasion of the network’s founding in 2006, followed by large international conferences in Vienna 2007, Budapest 2008, Lund 2009, Istanbul 2010, and London 2011. Over the last five years, NECS has attracted close to 1.000 members worldwide.
THE NECS CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
Melis Behlil, Sofia Bull, Aurore Fossard, Paulo Granja, Olof Hedling, Petr Szczepanik
THE NECS STEERING COMMITTEE
Melis Behlil, Jaap Kooijman, Tarja Laine, Trond Lundemo, Patricia Pisters, Astrid Söderbergh Widding, Malin Wahlberg
THE LOCAL ORGANIZATION
António Marques, Sérgio Dias Branco, Susana Viegas, Irene Aparício, Patrícia Castello Branco, André Dias, Susana Nascimento Duarte, Paulo Granja, Liliana Navarra, Barbara Vallera

About the Art of Filmmaking

2011-11-09T13:43:00.001Z

09.11.2011

Elitism

2011-11-08T01:08:00.005Z

08.11.2011

Film socialisme.

In June 2010, Jean-Luc Godard presented Film socialisme (Socialism, 2010) in Paris. According to Elena’s description in her blog Woman with a Movie Camera:

An audience member, a man in his early 20s, takes the microphone and, in true French fashion, starts rambling on for five minutes, saying that he found the film somewhat hermetic and elitist – but “it is sometimes the job of the artist to do that.” And then he asks Godard, “Did you want to capture on film moral regression?”
Stung by the accusation of “elitism,” Godard snaps back: “If you look at a painting by Rembrandt, you don’t think it’s elitist. But he worked for the kings. Moliere worked for Louis XIV. Did they think of themselves as elitist? I was trying to affirm a point of view. You see the sea. What’s hermetic about the sea? Why do you look at the sea and think, ‘I don’t understand?’ Who’s the elitist here? I think it’s actually you, more than me.”

Godard’s straightforward remarks touch the heart of his cinema — exactly as when he says that cinema is not a reflection of reality, but the reality of that reflection. His films turn existing things (images, music, ideas, objects, landscapes, gestures, sentences) into elements of film, into things that can be experienced cinematically. Any reflection on them has to spring from, and to happen within, the realm of experience. That is why, as I have written elsewhere, the key word here is attention — or care.

The Lost Distance

2011-11-07T00:41:00.006Z

07.11.2011

Fig. 1a.
Fig. 1b.
Fig. 1c.
Fig. 1d.
The Lost Weekend.

In the first scene of The Lost Weekend (1945), directed by Billy Wilder, Helen (Jane Wyman) arrives at Don’s (Ray Milland) apartment. He seems to be going away for the weekend (which will not happen). He appears to have stayed away from alcohol for a few days (which is not true). He hides the truth and keeps his distance from her and his brother Wick (Phillip Terry). Yet Helen approaches Don and tells him to bend down. He closes his eyes (fig. 1a), bends down (fig. 1b), turns his face to her (fig. 1c), and they kiss (fig. 1d). His closed eyes signal the mechanised nature of a succession of gestures that he probably has done many times and that he does not refuse to repeat. She utters a command not a request. He gives the impression of being reluctant, but he follows the order. The distance between them is lost.

Fig. 2a.
Fig. 2b.
The Lost Weekend.

Don and Helen’s kiss is too precise, almost clinical. They mouths touch — but nothing else. He does not want to acknowledge their intimacy. So her apparent coercion is a way to counter his apparent resistance. The film plays with the distance that Don imposes on those around him. Later, in the bar, the insinuating Gloria (Doris Dowling) moves behind him when he is seated and uses a single finger to briefly touch his neck (fig. 2a). He interrupts the movement by grasping her hand (fig. 2b). Don avoids contact and closeness, whatever dissolves his isolation and makes him feel vulnerable and connected (vulnerable because connected).

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4a.
Fig. 4b.
Fig. 4c.
Fig. 4d.

Fig. 5.
The Lost Weekend.

The first flashback of the movie shows how Don and Helen first met at the theatre. That night, he throws an umbrella in her direction instead of politely giving it to her. This is not just a rude gesture, but an action that exposes the distance between them that Don wants to maintain, but that she conquers little by little. The end of the second flashback reveals the first time when she asked him to bend down with the same hand movement (fig. 3). This moment makes clear the link between the space that he tries to preserve around him and his alcoholism. It is split into shots and reverse-shots in contrast with the moment in the opening scene. His refusal is therefore underlined. He stares at her, defiant (fig. 4a), and drinks one last time (fig. 4b) before looking at her, immobile (fig. 4c). He is waiting for her response. It is all in her hands. She then puts her right hand on his face and cleans his lips with her thumb (fig. 4d). Next, she grabs his head and lifts herself up to kiss him (fig. 5). The distance that separates them disappears — for a little while. He does not offer resistance when she grabs him and kisses him. Their union is the result of her determination and will that, as the initial scene demonstrates, can substitute the determination and the will that he lacks.

(Post-)Conflict Cinema

2011-11-05T00:04:00.002Z

05.11.2011

I am participating in this momentous conference with a paper on Roberto Rossellini’s Paisá (Paisan, 1946) — more on that when the time comes. Further information about the event may be found here.

In and Out of Character

2011-11-03T09:29:00.012Z

04.11.2011

Do the Right Thing.

O meu orientador de doutoramento, Murray Smith, Professor Catedrático de Estudos Fílmicos da Universidade de Kent, apresenta a conferência “In and Out of Character” no dia 14 de Novembro, às 18:30, no Auditório IV da FLUC. É uma grande honra recebê-lo na Universidade de Coimbra.
De modo a preparar o evento, serão projectados previamente dois filmes dirigidos por Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing (Não Dês Bronca, 1989) e Clockers (Passadores, 1995), nos dias 4 e 11 de Novembro, às 17:00, na Sala 13 da FLUC. Aqui fica o resumo da conferência, em inglês:

In the preface to Philosophy, Black Film, Film Noir, Dan Flory writes of the “rat’s nest of beliefs” that underpin our viewing and experience of any film – and especially those films that engage with the history and politics of race. This is an apt image for a domain which is indeed enormously complex, messy, and not a little uncomfortable to confront. In this paper I focus on three questions, of increasing generality, posed by Philosophy, Black Film, Film Noir. The first and most particular of these questions: is Flory right to say that Sal (in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing) a racist? My second question kicks the debate up one level and asks: how does the figure of the “sympathetic racist” — exemplified by Sal and by Rocco in Lee’s Clockers, and on Flory’s account, a central device in these films — work rhetorically? Finally I turn to the first of the three terms in the title of Flory’s book, by asking: can we regard these films as engaging in a kind of philosophy?

Delivery, Not Philosophy

2011-11-03T08:36:00.006Z

03.11.2011

Letter from an Unknown Woman.

Clara Rowland (Universidade de Lisboa) leccionará o primeiro seminário transversal do programa de doutoramento Materialidades da Literatura, intitulado «Delivery, Not Philosophy: A Carta no Cinema», no próximo dia 11 de Novembro. A sessão tem início às 14h, na Sala Ferreira Lima da FLUC. As inscrições para a sessão serão limitadas, podendo os interessados inscrever-se por correio electrónico através do endereço materialidades.da.literatura@gmail.com. Eis o resumo do seminário:

Este seminário parte de uma dupla hipótese: por um lado, assenta na convicção de que a partir das relações e tensões entre escrita e cinema é possível pensar relacionalmente ideias de literatura e ideias de cinema; por outro, apoia-se na ideia de que as representações materiais da escrita (livros, cartas, diários) podem fazer-se eixo desse confronto, apresentando-se ao mesmo tempo como figuras da literatura e da materialidade da escrita. A carta, circulando insistentemente pela história do cinema, parece solicitar como resposta uma interrogação das implicações teóricas do confronto entre voz, palavra e imagem no cinema. O trajecto proposto considerará estas hipóteses a partir de dois casos contemporâneos e paradigmáticos — Letter from an Unknown Woman (Carta de Uma Desconhecida, 1948) de Max Ophüls e A Letter to Three Wives (Carta a Três Mulheres, 1949) de Joseph Mankiewicz —, articulando-os com os problemas da representação da carta do cinema mudo ao cinema contemporâneo.

The Johnny Cash Project

2011-10-18T10:02:00.006+01:00

18.10.2011

O Johnny Cash Project é uma fascinante iniciativa de arte colectiva com contribuições de pessoas de todos os continentes. O sítio electrónico www.thejohnnycashproject.com permite o acesso e o trabalho de uma das imagens de um dos vídeos musicais de Johnny Cash. As imagens são depois combinadas como esta versão de “Ain’t No Grave” demonstra. Eis um caso eloquente de autoria partilhada facilitada pelos meios electrónicos contemporâneos. O projecto conjuga diferentes visões sobre a canção e sobre o cantor que o vídeo final põe em diálogo através da montagem. (Obrigado à Ana pela dica.)

A Vida Virtual do Filme

2011-10-12T10:42:00.003+01:00

12.10.2011

Em 2010, preparei um seminário de discussão sobre o livro de D. N. Rodowick, The Virtual LIfe of Film (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). O resumo que escrevi com os pontos fundamentais do ensaio está agora disponível para consulta ou descarga aqui.

Cinema às Segundas

2011-10-10T10:55:00.000+01:00

10.10.2011

O Cinema Vai ao Teatro

2011-09-26T02:06:00.008+01:00

26.09.2011

Les Enfants du paradis.

Inicia-se hoje o ciclo de cinema O Cinema Vai ao Teatro que ajudei a programar no TAGV. Este evento insere-se nas comemorações dos 50 anos do teatro e conta com o apoio do cineclube Fila K.

SEGUNDA, 26 SET.
21:30 Les Enfants du paradis (Os Rapazes da Geral, 1945), real. Marcel Carné

TERÇA, 27 SET.
21:30 Le Carrosse d’or (A Comédia e a Vida, 1952), real. Jean Renoir

QUARTA, 28 SET.
18:30 Opening Night (Noite de Estreia, 1977), real. John Cassavetes
21:30 Efter repetitionen (Depois do Ensaio, 1984), real. Ingmar Bergman

QUINTA, 29 SET.
18:30 Topsy-Turvy (1999), real. Mike Leigh
21:30 Dogville (2003), real. Lars Von Trier

Índia: Cinema e Sociedade

2011-09-24T17:12:00.009+01:00

24.09.2011

A partir de 8 de Outubro, e durante os sábados desse mês, o Museu do Oriente em Lisboa disponibiliza o curso “Índia: Cinema e Sociedade”. Cito o texto que nos convida a participar nesta iniciativa educativa:

A Índia constitui um dos mais diversificados painéis sociais e culturais do mundo contemporâneo. Efectivamente, ser indiano comporta a possibilidade de falar uma das 22 línguas classificadas ou um dos seus muitos dialectos e de praticar algumas das principais religiões da Ásia e do globo. Esta complexidade tem coexistido politicamente naquela que é, sem dúvida, a maior democracia do mundo, com cerca de um sexto da população do globo e a mais jovem e que, com a política de liberalização económica iniciada em 1991, passou de uma nação extremamente carenciada a uma das maiores economias do globo.
       Por isso, independentemente das suas divisões internas em língua, religião, região e casta, segundo o historiador inglês E. P. Thomson, a Índia é “o país mais importante para o futuro do mundo”, estatuto confirmado pelo seu lugar de liderança no domínio da ciência e da tecnologia, com uma população correspondente a um sexto da população mundial e, demograficamente falando, a mais jovem, uma classe média de mais de 300 milhões de indivíduos — equivalente à população dos Estados Unidos da América — educada, profissionalizada em diferentes sectores e tendo o inglês como língua dominante.
       Nos últimos 20 anos, assistiu-se à entrada da Índia na economia transnacional, graças ao desenvolvimento de tecnologias de comunicação e de informação, à entrada no mercado de televisão por satélite e a uma escala de produção cinematográfica a nível internacional que levaram Shekhar Kapur, realizador de Elizabeth e de Bandit Queen, a afirmar que a Índia definirá e dominará o entretenimento global no século XXI.
       O curso tem como objectivo apresentar a Índia contemporânea na sua diversidade e complexidade, articulando a apresentação de cada tema com o seu cinema, dos realizadores clássicos como Satyajit Ray ao moderníssimo e cosmopolita Bollywood.

Audi Alteram Partem

2011-09-22T16:50:00.005+01:00

22.09.2011

“Audi alteram partem”, escreve Sto. Agostinho em Duabyus Animabus. Foi a expressão que abriu a cine-conferência que Edgar Pêra apresentou ontem no TAGV. Excluímos o outro quando optamos por oposições binárias, quando toleramos a diferença em vez de a convidarmos. É preciso, não apenas deixar falar, mas “ouvir a outra parte” — o que só acontece se estivermos atentos à sua irredutível singularidade.

In Coimbra

2011-09-21T14:25:00.008+01:00

21.09.2011

Classes began last week.
Last year, I was invited by the direction of the Art Studies Course, which is offered by the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Coimbra, to be an Auxiliary Professor of Cinema Studies. I accepted it. I am also coordinating the whole area of cinema studies of the course that involves other teachers. It was tough to leave Lisbon and the New University of Lisbon, where I taught for a year — even though I am still affiliated with the Institute for the Philosophy of Language (and participating in its ongoing research project on film and philosophy). I am still adapting, but it is my conviction that it was the right choice to take on this challenge, both personally and professionally. Here is a list of the modules that I am teaching this year:

UNDERGRADUATE
Cinema History and Aesthetics I
Cinema History and Aesthetics II
Cinema History and Aesthetics III
Cinema Seminar
Film Criticism

GRADUATE
Cinema and Other Arts

Cinema 16mm II

2011-09-08T15:01:00.004+01:00

08.09.2011

LOLA

2011-08-25T13:06:00.004+01:00

25.08.2011

Adrian Martin and Girish Shambu are the editors of a new online journal of film criticism called LOLA. The first issue may be found here and it includes articles by Nicole Brenez, Andrew Klevan, Adrian Martin, Luc Moullet, and other authors. Good news for those of us who write (and are looking for) film criticism that is not journalistic — one year after the resurrection of Movie, in a joint venture between the Universities of Warwick, Reading, and Oxford.

Raoul Ruiz (1941-2011)

2011-08-21T09:58:00.011+01:00

21.08.2011

L’Hypothèse du tableau volé (The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, 1979).

The cinema is a mechanical mirror that has a memory.
— RAOUL RUIZ

Delight

2011-08-16T10:24:00.018+01:00

16.08.2011

One of the ways that the topic of pleasure has entered academic research on film and television is, as John Corner points out, “an appreciation of popular culture (at times, a celebration) for its expressive qualities and its relation to ordinary living and ordinary pleasures”.[1] Pleasure is a reaction or effect, which may be connected with knowledge and expectation, genre and reception, and that “is, for instance, very clearly the product of the use of images and talk, it is often generated from forms of narrative”.[2]
John Fiske draws on the distinction made by Roland Barthes between plaisir and jouissance.[3] As Corner explains, plaisir is a confirmatory pleasure that results from an engagement with aesthetic elements, requiring a specific type of attention and disposition that is communal. Jouissance has been translated as bliss.[4] It is a sensual pleasure that is individual instead of social, it becomes “a kind of utopian category, a category of escape, its experience providing opportunity for a temporary, personal transcendence of everyday necessity which gestures toward a better way of living and being”.[5]
Perhaps there is a third type of pleasure: delight. It is a pleasure that is individual as much as communal (that is, it is personal), illuminating the relationship between me and you, your and my pleasure. It is the pleasure of being charmed and enlightened as one takes in the shared and magnetic mystery of moving images.

______________________
          [1] John Corner, Critical Ideas in Television Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 94.
          [2] Ibid., p. 93.
          [3] John Fiske, Television Culture: Popular Pleasures and Politics (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 230.
          [4] See Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text [1973], trans. Richard MIller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1975).
          [5] Corner, Critical Ideas in Television Studies, p. 101.

Cut to Black

2011-08-11T10:37:00.027+01:00

11.08.2011

The Sopranos, “Made in America”.

“Made in America” (6.21), the final episode of The Sopranos (1999-2007), aired on 10 June 2007. Its closing scene immediately generated controversy due to its alleged ambiguity and lack of closure. The decision to abruptly cut to black and to silence, and sustain it for ten seconds before the credits, left many viewers puzzled.
It is urgent to revisit this closing scene and the debate that surrounded it, focusing on its reception and interpretation. Television series raise a particular type of expectation regarding their conclusion — not just a different kind of anticipation, built over the years, but also one that is made more intense. Such expectation explains the frustration of some spectators. Other audience members were instead intrigued by the ending and wrote articles about its possible meanings — for example, arguing that the black screen symbolises Tony’s (James Gandolfini) death. Yet David Chase, the creator of the programme, said: “There are no esoteric clues in there. No Da Vinci Code. Everything that pertains to that episode was in that episode.” We must ponder on these words. Not because Chase’s view should be granted privilege, but because much of the discussion about “Made in America” remained pointless given that it concentrated on what is deliberately not shown.
As such, the discussion often blacked out precise aesthetic patterns — for instance, the importance of silence in the expressive realism of The Sopranos — and their connections with the narrative structure — for example, the significance of moments within the incomplete threads of the series. The sudden cut to silent black is peremptory, but this formal punctuation does not have to stand for the death of the protagonist or any other thing. The scene reinforces the central tension between the hazards of criminal life and the joys of family life. The ending of many episodes is elliptical, this last one is just more unsettling, heightening the strain that the waiting for Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) prolongs and that the song that Tony chooses, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”, punctuates. It is a full stop.

Na Desordem

2011-07-09T11:36:00.004+01:00

09.07.2011

Foi recentemente publicado o volume Literatura, Espaço, Cartografias, coordenado por António Apolinário Lourenço e Osvaldo Manuel Silvestre, e editado pelo Centro de Literatura Portuguesa da Universidade de Coimbra. Escrevi um dos capítulos, intitulado “Na Desordem: Balagan, Mapa Intersticial de Histórias e Identidades”. Informações detalhadas sobre o conteúdo do livro podem ser encontradas aqui.

The Mystery of (Photographic) Images

2011-06-19T18:14:00.008+01:00

19.06.2011

It may be felt that I make too great a mystery of these objects. My feeling is rather that we have forgotten how mysterious these things are, and in general how different different things are from one another, as though we had forgotten how to value them. This is in fact something that movies teach us.
— STANLEY CAVELL, The World Viewed

Errata

2011-06-08T12:32:00.009+01:00

08.06.2011

Por lapso da publicação, as minhas classificações publicadas na Premiere de Junho estão erradas. Aqui ficam as classificações correctas (e muito obrigado ao Jorge por ter divulgado uma errata idêntica via Facebook):

Lincoln Lawyer, The (Cliente de Risco, 2011) ★★★
Lourdes (2009) ★★★★
Monsters (Monsters - Zona Interdita, 2010) ★★★
Pina (2011) ★★★★
Rien à déclarer (Nada a Declarar, 2010) ★★

References to the Mosaic-Screen

2011-05-31T17:37:00.013+01:00

31.05.2011

Philippe Mathieu quotes my essay on the mosaic-screen in his MA dissertation in Film Studies (University of Montreal, 2010), “Pour une histoire et une esthétique de l‘écran fragmenté au cinéma”.
Peter Matthew Ingrassia mentions the same article in his MFA thesis in Science and Natural History Filmmaking (Montana State University, 2009), “The Split-Screen Aesthetic: Connecting Meaning Between Fragmented Frames”.
Thanks for engaging with my concept — and in a serious manner.

A Fotografia Contemporânea no Brasil

2011-05-26T18:10:00.003+01:00

26.05.2011

Espetacular e Real

2011-05-25T18:02:00.008+01:00

25.05.2011

Depois das quatro primeiras sessões, em que se discutiu o papel dos teatros municipais e das companhias independentes, dos dramaturgos e dos encenadores, dos festivais diários e das performances quotidianas, este ciclo organizado por O Teatrão sobre o lugar do teatro num contexto de espetacularização do eu e das comunidades apresenta mais uma sessão. Desta vez, estarei presente na Casa das Caldeiras com Francisco Beja, diretor da ESMAE, com moderação da conversa a cargo de Fernando Matos Oliveira (Universidade de Coimbra).

Music Videos and Non-Musical Sounds

2011-05-21T22:48:00.015+01:00

21.05.2011

“Thursday’s Child”.

Tomorrow I shall present a paper on music videos and non-musical sounds at the sixth edition of the Music and the Moving Image conference organised by New York University. The complete paper will be available for online reading or download in my writings archive. Here is the abstract:

Continuing a research project on unconventional elements of music videos,[1] which complements the existent scholarly investigation on these works,[2] this paper analyses the use of non-musical sounds in this form. Sounds that are not instrumental or vocal music may have different functions in a video, that is, they may be put in relation with the music track in various ways. Such aural elements may have a narrative or expressive function, for example, helping to define a fictional world or conveying the interiority of a character. They may also be used to contextualise the song in a recognisable place or to decontextualise it, projecting the song into an unreal universe. Music videos like David Bowie’s “Thursday’s Child” (1999) and Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For” (2004) ask us to hear the songs afresh. Through their salient non-musical sounds, these videos also remind us that, as Michel Chion has argued,[3] music videos combine images and sounds instead of simply adding one to the other. Therefore, examining the usage of non-musical sounds in particular music videos involves considering each one of them as a whole — in other words, as audiovisual works.

______________________
          [1] See Sérgio Dias Branco, “Music Videos and Reused Footage”, Scope: An Online Journal of Film & TV Studies, no. 15, “Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation”, ed. Iain Robert Smith (2009), pp. 111-21, http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/cultborr/chapter.php?id=10.
          [2] See, e.g., Carol Vernallis, Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003) that focuses on the conventions of music video.
          [3] Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen [1990], ed. and trans. Claudia Borbman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. xxvi.

8.º MIFEC

2011-05-18T16:18:00.002+01:00

18.05.2011

Regresso à Premiere

2011-04-12T10:00:00.013+01:00

12.04.2011

Film socialisme.

Já está à venda o novo número da Premiere, com o meu amigo Jorge Pinto como chefe de redacção. Fui convidado por ele a regressar à revista para escrever uma crítica por mês. É com agrado que o faço. A crítica cinematográfica, na reflexão sobre o cinema que pode gerar e no contributo para a uma cultura cinematográfica que pode dar, continua a ser uma parte importante do meu trabalho.
Para esta edição, escrevi a crítica a Film socialisme (Filme Socialismo, 2010). O texto pode ser lido aqui.

Motto

2011-03-24T19:53:00.005Z

24.03.2011

Never a “specialist”, always a student.

Cognitive Science and the Moving Image

2011-03-21T13:08:00.006Z

21.03.2011

The Magnifying Class #8

2011-02-10T20:29:00.013Z

10.02.2010

Ordet.

Another “Magnifying Class” is taking place today at the University of Oxford. Our group turns its attention to Ordet (1954), directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. It is a moving film about living faith, about the life of faith, the life that faith gives. It speaks volumes to me and it leaves me speechless every time I watch it — or perhaps it makes me acutely aware of the limitations of verbal expression.

_______________________
“The Magnifying Class”: #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7

American and British Sitcoms

2011-02-03T07:20:00.021Z

03.02.2011

Brett Mills draws a sharp distinction between the production of British and American sitcoms:

In Britain, the writer usually creates a programme, seeks a producer, retains much of the control over the programme’s development and the series usually ends once the writer no longer wishes to write it. In America, producers usually create and control programmes and employ writers to write them, retaining the artistic control which, in Britain, is much more firmly in the hands of the writer.[1]

This description is only partially correct because Mills does not acknowledge the fact that the producers who create and develop American sitcoms are usually writers. Mills does however make some important points — for example, about the industrialised nature of American television production. The time gap between production and broadcast is very short and makes it easier for sitcoms to be topical, reflecting current social issues. There are therefore cultural differences between the sitcoms produced in America and in Britain. Popular social analysis is common in American programmes of this genre, but not in their British counterparts. The latter inevitably reflect general concerns. Yet there are other genres where the channelling of social commentary is more usual in the British context such as the soap-opera.

______________________
[1] Brett Mills, Television Sitcom (London: BFI, 2005), p. 55.

Cinema 2 CFP

2011-01-31T09:40:00.012Z

31.01.2011

Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and Moving Image is now accepting submissions for its 2nd issue. Editors welcome articles that fall under the broad rubric of the relations between cinema and philosophy. Areas include, but are not limited to:

• philosophy of cinema today;
• epistemology and ontology of cinema and of the moving image;
• the relationship between film studies and philosophy of cinema;
• the analytic/continental divide within philosophy of cinema;
• new approaches and trends within the philosophy of cinema;
• historical approaches to philosophy of cinema and film theory;
• cinema as philosophy

The submission deadlines are 1 Mar. 2011 (for 500-word abstracts) and 1 Jun. 2011 (for completed papers). Prospective authors should submit a short CV along with the abstract. A selection of authors will be invited to submit full papers according to the journal guidelines. Acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee publication, since all papers will be subject to double blind peer-review. Submissions are accepted in Portuguese and English (and in French and Spanish, but only from native speakers of these languages).
Cinema also invites submissions to its special sections: interviews, conference reports, and book reviews. For further details, please consult the web site.
Feel free to contact the editors, Patrícia Castello Branco, Sérgio Dias Branco, and Susana Viegas, with queries at cjpmi@fcsh.unl.pt.

Escolhas 2010

2011-01-28T19:04:00.028Z

28.01.2011

Vincere.

Gostava de ter visto outros filmes — Mistérios de Lisboa (2010), por exemplo. No entanto, bastou-me ver os que vi para perceber que 2010 foi um ano de excepção. Às obras da lista em baixo, podia acrescentar Drag Me to Hell (Até ao Inferno, 2009), Brothers (Entre Irmãos, 2009), Les herbes folles (As Ervas Daninhas, 2009), Ruínas (2009), e Shirin (2008), entre outras. Ainda assim, convém relembrar que a distribuição portuguesa continua a ser marcada por desequilíbrios e decisões difíceis de explicar. O lançamento de uma obra-prima como Fantastic Mr. Fox (O Fantástico Senhor Raposo, 2009), com grandes potencialidades comerciais, directamente em DVD, demonstra-o bem.
No ano passado, o discurso em volta do cinema continuou a centrar-se no 3D, vendido como novidade espectacular. A tecnologia pode fazer brotar a originalidade artística, isto é, uma visão do mundo e da existência distinta, disponível, aberta ao mistério e à complexidade das coisas. Mas a celebração mecânica das proezas tecnológicas tem repetidas vezes envolvido uma rejeição do processo de pensar e sentir verdadeiramente o cinema que cada filme nos propõe, a nível estético e ético. É claro que é preciso filmes que procurem este tipo de resposta dos espectadores. É por isso que os filmes que se seguem merecem atenção, pelo modo como se interessam pelas matérias que convocam, pelo trabalho detalhado das suas formas, e pelo seu sentido de risco.

Bright Star (Bright Star - Estrela Cintilante, 2000), real. Jane Campion
Copie conforme (Cópia Certificada, 2010), real. Abbas Kiarostami
La danse: Le ballet de l’Opéra de Paris (2009), real. Frederick Wiseman
Des hommes et des dieux (Dos Homens e dos Deuses, 2010), real. Xavier Beauvois
L’Illusionniste (O Mágico, 2010), real. Sylvain Chomet
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Scott Pilgrim Contra o Mundo, 2010), real. Edgar Wright
A Serious Man (Um Homem Sério, 2009), real. Ethan e Joel Coen
Shutter Island (2010), real. Martin Scorsese
The Social Network (A Rede Social, 2010), real. David Fincher
Vincere (Vencer, 2009), real. Marco Bellocchio
[sem ordem de preferência][1]

______________________
[1] Publicado simultaneamente em “Cinema2000: Balanço 2010 - As Nossas Escolhas”.

Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image

2010-12-14T09:37:00.018Z

14.12.2010

I am one of the editors of a new on-line journal on philosophy and the moving image, along with Patrícia Castello Branco and Susana Viegas. It may be found at http://www.fcsh.unl.pt/revistas/cjpmi.
Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image is a refereed international publication published by the Philosophy of Language Institute (Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon) and it has emerged in articulation with the research project “Film and Philosophy: Mapping an Encounter”. The journal publishes original essays and critical articles, reviews, conference reports and interviews, and releases original art work in the field of philosophical enquiry into cinema. The term “cinema” is here taken in its broadest sense as moving image (and image that moves). Historically, cinema studies have centred on film, but with the digitisation and proliferation of new means of production and distribution have also studied video, television, and new media. This deep engagement with cinematic culture, so understood, can provide tools for a better understanding of contemporary visual culture. Cinema is particularly interested in philosophical approaches to the aesthetics of the moving image as well as in philosophical investigations on particular works and about the contexts in which these works are seen and produced. It accepts submissions in Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish and it offers free access to its content.
Cinema aims at:

• disseminating philosophical investigations into cinema in the broadest sense, that is, including video, television, and new media;

• promoting the link between Portuguese and international scientific communities that develop work simultaneously within the fields of cinema studies and philosophy;

• providing a platform for a fruitful dialogue between various approaches, particular methodologies, topics and interdisciplinary contributions, within the scope of the journal.

PhD in Film Studies

2010-12-09T09:42:00.009Z

09.12.2010

My PhD viva took place yesterday at the University of Kent. The thesis, “ Strung Pieces: On the Aesthetics of Television Fiction Series”, was accepted with no corrections by the internal examiner, Dr. Jinhee Choi, and by the external examiner, Dr. Jason Jacobs (University of Queensland), who were generous and attentive in their commentaries and questions.
       I am deeply grateful to the School of Arts of the University of Kent for its financial support. This research would have remained a wishful and unrealised project without it. Kent, a wonderful place to study film and related topics, is my birthplace as a scholar and teacher. It will always be part of my life because it is part of my history.
       I am also thankful to Dr. Sarah Cardwell, Dr. Catherine Grant (University of Sussex), and Dr. Peter Stanfield, and especially to Prof. Murray Smith and Dr. Steven Peacock (University of Hertfordshire) for their marvellous and dedicated guidance — and essentially for seeing this through. Dr. Andrew Klevan (University of Oxford) and Dr. Su Holmes (University of East Anglia), who were once affiliated with the department of Film Studies at Kent, also contributed in many ways to my thesis. The work of Prof. Jerrold Levinson (University of Maryland), who was Visiting Leverhulme Professor at Kent in 2008-2009, was and has been a source of inspiration and reflection.
       Parts of my doctoral research were presented in conferences and sessions at De Montfort University, the University of Glasgow, the University of Kent, and Yale University. It was a pleasure to speak at these events. They were paramount to the development of this investigation. I am indebted to the hosting institutions, to the organisers, and to those who engaged with my work publicly and privately.
       My friendly thanks to Helder Alcaparra, Rui Brazuna, and Jorge Pinto for their help on this venture. All the others will remain unnamed, but not unmentioned — a reminder, by absence, that I have thanked them in private and that I shall continue to do so. Still, I have to mention Filipa, my wife, to whom I dedicate the thesis. She has assisted me and heartened me in this lengthy process, like she has done on many occasions.

Sci-Fi Ghettos

2010-07-12T20:19:00.005+01:00

12.07.2010

The essay collection “Battlestar Galactica”: Investigating Flesh, Spirit, and Steel is published today in the UK. I have contributed with a chapter entitled “Sci-Fi Ghettos: Battlestar Galactica and Genre Aesthetics”, which analyses in detail the motifs of the production design and the handheld camerawork of the series. The editors, Roz Kaveney and Jennifer Stoy, have put together an engaging and wide-ranging collection. My heartfelt thanks to them (and to I. B. Tauris) for giving me the opportunity to be part of this project on a remarkable television series. Roz was especially supportive throughout the editing process, even mentioning my paper in her concluding text.

On Essentialism

2010-07-10T17:52:00.026+01:00

10.07.2010

Next week, I shall be in England to participate in the third Film-Philosophy conference. The event will be held at the University of Warwick from 15 to 17 July. This is abstract of my paper, “On Essentialism: Thoughts Between Nöel Carroll and Stanley Cavell”:

Nöel Carroll has been one of the most eloquent proponents of an anti-essentialist view of art, in particular, of cinema. He seems to think that Stanley Cavell holds an essentialist view of film, put forward in his foundational work, The World Viewed,[1] and developed in later essays and books. While Carroll admires Cavell’s philosophical readings of particular films, he also criticises his conception of film as essentially connected with photography. The aim of this paper is to provide some thoughts on this exchange between Carroll and Cavell, or more precisely, to compose a conversation between them based on their positions and what they entail. Perhaps their views are ultimately reconcilable.
Carroll rejects the photographic basis of film and instead proposes a definition of the works of the moving image (not moving pictures), an over-arching category that includes films. He avoids essentialism, but we may argue that so does Cavell in his characterisation of film as a succession of automatic world projections. As D. N. Rodowick rightly points out, this ontology of film does not assume an essentialism or teleology [2] insofar as it also claims that the possibilities of the medium cannot be determined in advance — that is, that they cannot be deduced from the medium because the medium is not a given. Cavell is then anti-essentialist in a Wittgensteinian sense, one that does not reject categories so much as defines them from similarities, family resemblances.[3] Therefore, this categorisation does not obscure salient differences between works. It instead invites us to notice them.
This is not to deny the differences between Carroll’s and Cavell’s ideas. They must be acknowledged, but their contributions can be thought of as complementary when all is said and done. They have different conceptions of medium, from simply materials to instruments, forms, and uses, as well. Carroll’s general definition comes from a narrow concept of medium, while Cavell’s restricted definition broadens what counts as media. The former tackles film from a theoretical approach, what we may call movies, the latter from an ordinary perspective, what we usually call movies.

______________________
          [1] Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, enlarged edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979).
          [2] D. N. Rodowick, The Virtual Life of Film (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 42.
          [3] See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [1953], 50th Anniversary edn., trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), sect. 67.

Coraline’s Soul

2010-07-06T18:52:00.043+01:00

06.07.2010

Coraline.

I sent a proposal in May for the international conference, Cinema: Art, Technology, Communication, that will take place in Avanca, Portugal, this month. The energetic Avanca Cinema Club is organising this promising event for the first time. You can find more information here.
This is the abstract of my accepted paper, “Coraline’s Soul: Performance in Stop-motion Animation” that unfortunately I am not presenting because of some previous commitments:

This paper takes Coraline (2009), adapted from Neil Gaiman’s novella, as a case study of performance in stop-motion animation. Recent scholarly work on film performance by Andrew Klevan [1] urges us to pay close attention to films, moment by moment, and to understand postures, gestures, and intonations, not as merely conveying meanings, but as embodying personality. In stop-motion animations we usually do not see the animators; we see moving dolls — and so we have to posit an animating force that instils them with life. It is not by chance that “anima”, the Latin word for soul, is the root of “animation”. Stop-motion employs the technique of shooting successive altered figures to give them the impression of movement. The use of this technique in conjunction with 3D cinematography in Coraline is expressive because of its personal character: the visual depth and attention cues evoke the marvelled and fearful gaze of a child. In this sense, Coraline’s soul is not a spectral entity that commands the actions that she performs. Following Thomas Aquinas,[2] we can say that the soul is the principle of life — it is life, it is how a creature is alive, how it interacts with its surroundings. The soul therefore does not have to do with inwardness or the displacement of the spiritual world, but with outwardness and the inhabitation of the material world. Analysing Caroline’s performance, a performance with Dakota Fanning’s voice but without her body, is thus developing an analysis of how she is and how she acts in the world that the film projects and presents.

______________________
[1] See Andrew Klevan, Film Performance: From Achievement to Appreciation (London: Wallflower, 2005).
[2] Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings, ed. and trans. Ralph McInerny (London: Penguin Classics, 1998), pp. 410-28.

Pieces of Her

2010-06-29T22:59:00.031+01:00

29.06.2010

“Piece of Me”.

Some scholars claim that the figure of the star is central to the understanding of popular music videos.[1] We do not have to agree with this general assertion to acknowledge that Britney Spears’ music videos are an eloquent example of this. Moreover, Britney’s videos often reflect on her status as celebrity, providing counter-images — something quite singular in contemporary celebrity culture.
It would be fascinating to analyse these counter-images, and the counter-narratives they create, in detail. Concentrating on “Lucky” (2000), “Everytime” (2004), and especially “Piece of Me” (2008), in which Britney deals with tabloid stories and photos in festive fashion, it could be argued that these are not simply images and narratives of opposition or retaliation. They are not a counterattack. As “Piece of Me” exemplifies, they often duplicate previous representations with the intent of substituting them. They are a counterpoint.
A way of fleshing out how Britney’s videos rewrite the visual record of her history as a celebrity is to compare them with Madonna’s videos. Madonna’s career is commonly a template for young pop singers. Both Madonna’s and Britney’s videographies present several radical changes in look, but Madonna often uses recognisable figures and masks — Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, a Geisha — even when expressing something intimate. In contrast, Britney’s videos normally reflect her personal history more directly: for instance, her progression from girlhood to womanhood and the stages in between — as “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” (2001) suggests. Her videos depict a search for identity open enough to incorporate the realisation of responsibility — motherhood in “Someday (I Will Understand)” (2005) — as well as the indecision following emancipation — the alternative roles as housewife, waitress, and office colleague in “Womanizer” (2008). These counter-images shape and alter the public perception of her and of her life.

______________________
[1] See, e.g., Heidi Peeters, “The Semiotics of Music Videos: It Must Be Written in the Stars”, Image & Narrative, vol. 4, no. 2 (2004), http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/issue08/heidipeeters.htm.

Dreaming On

2010-06-26T11:05:00.015+01:00

26.06.2010

Dream On, “The First Episode”.

This sequence is exemplary of Dream On (1990-96), a series built on the memory of television. In “The First Episode” (1.01), Martin Tupper’s ex-wife tells him that they need to talk and that it is about them. Tupper, who grew up in front of a television set, thinks that he knows where the conversation is heading. So a black-and-white clip matches the shots/reverse-shots of the chat between them and shows a woman confessing, “I’m in love with you. I don’t hide it very well, do I, darling? I want what you want. I want to come back. I want to be your wife.” After this fantasy, the woman explains that she is still waiting for him to sign the divorce papers. He tries to change the subject, but she is vehement in her insistence. So we are shown a boxer throwing a brutal punch.

A Cor da Comunidade Pop

2010-06-25T22:46:00.008+01:00

25.06.2010

João Lopes, sempre atento, sempre disponível para voltar a pensar, relembra a eterna actualidade do legado artístico de Michael Jackson:

Jackson é um dos criadores contemporâneos por cuja obra perpassa uma energia vital que, numa lógica de perversas contaminações, não se opõe à nitidez branca da morte (e que a brancura se confunda, aqui, com a nitidez, eis o que, por certo, é esclarecedor sobre este nosso lugar em que o evocamos). No limite, a morte não passa de um gimmick das paisagens criativas de Jackson, um abismo sem nome alegremente convocado em nome do espectáculo e dos seus valores comunitários. Há muitas décadas que isso tem um nome: cultura pop. E como ele fez questão em cantar, pode ser preta ou branca. É igual.

Between Disorder

2010-05-21T15:47:00.052+01:00

21.05.2010

Balagan.

You can now view or download the conference paper that I presented at the University of Coimbra on 7 May here (in Portuguese). The following is the abstract of the paper that I read at the 1st Spring Colloquium, a multi-disciplinary event organised by the Centre of Portuguese Literature (CLP) in association with Minho University and the University of Santiago de Compostela. It is titled “Entre a Desordem: Balagan como Mapa Intersticial de Identidades e Histórias” (“Between Disorder: Balagan as Interstitial Map of Identities and Histories”, in English).

Acre is a city in the coast of Israel. Between 1993 and 1996, the Acre Theatre Centre, which gathers Jews and Arabs, performed Arbeit Macht Frei fun Toidtland Europa, a controversial play where the past was enacted as a present that revealed the marks of memory. The controversy was due not only to the thematic strings that the performance interwove — the Nazi regime, Israel, Palestine, the Holocaust, the concepts of occupation and aggression — but also to the grotesque and confrontational scenes of the performance.
Two documentaries were made about the play: the video Al Tigu Le B’Shoah (Don’t Touch My Holocaust, 1994) and the film Balagan (1993). This paper focuses on the second. In Balagan, which means mess, other contexts where the play was presented are absent and only the original context is shown. Through the interplay of different elements, the film reveals interstices, that is, spaces in between actions, words, persons, and viewpoints. The play and the film are a product of the second generation of Arabs, Jews, Germans, after World War II, and follow a “recent tendency to privatize and ethnicize the memory of the Holocaust”.[1] The documentary centres around a place and around people, people who look for and negotiate a place, people who come together and come apart in a place. It can be seen as an interstitial map of identities and histories.
The singularity of Balagan lies in this intersection that shows the Holocaust as an event of rupture that is neither fundamentally public nor exclusively Jewish — relation substitutes opposition, between what is private and what is public, Jewish and non-Jewish. To demonstrate how the film examines these intervallic spaces, it is productive to analyse its conflicting and unsettling elements that build a dialectic relationship, a dialogue, between four levels: performances, statements, lives, and gazes. The plurals of these four strata reflect the plural portrait of this documentary work.

______________________
[1] Yosefa Loshitzky, “Hybrid Victims: Second Generation Israelis Screen the Holocaust”, in Visual Culture and the Holocaust, ed. Barbie Zelizer (London: Athlone, 2001), p. 156.

Mystery Blonde Girl

2010-04-27T20:33:00.044+01:00

27.04.2010

Veronica Mars, “Pilot”.

Veronica Mars is both character and narrator. The biggest mystery in Veronica Mars (2004-7) is not one of the cases that the blonde teenager tries to solve but the character herself, played by Kristen Bell. In the first and second seasons, Veronica’s voice-over reflects the protagonist’s puzzling identity.
       One of the first sounds heard in the first episode is Veronica’s voice-over explaining the social structure of Neptune, a “city without middle class”. When a character is an internal narrator (or intradiegetic), the resultant narration is not necessarily restricted and may recount events that she or he did not witness. That is not the case in Veronica Mars: her voice-over is highly subjective and it is always related to something she has lived or is experiencing. Consequently, it is used to make observations about the present and to give details of her inner life, and it sometimes confines itself strictly to specifics of a case — with consistent expressive variations in intonation.
       There has not been a tradition of using the voice of narrators in television series. Its use has been mainly limited to introductions — as in Bewitched (1964-72). Yet in recent years some shows have explored this way of presenting information and comments through a speaking agent more frequently. In Sex and the City (1998-2004), Carrie Bradshaw’s spoken words are observations of situations for her articles on sex and love. In Desperate Housewives (2004-), Mary Alice’s voice makes comments about Wisteria Lane after her suicide — and following the revelation of the reason why she did it during the first season, an unfamiliar spectator will probably interpret her voice-over in the next seasons as if it came from an external and omnipresent narrator. Veronica Mars’s voice establishes a different point of view; one that is not simply narrative because it is not simply justified by her investigations. Some cases have a personal and intimate nature — her rape, her best friend’s murder, her boyfriend’s accusation of homicide — which is signalled by the use of the voice-over, but her derisive and baffling remarks make it clear that she does not present the facts with rigour and objectivity.
       Veronica’s voice is similar to Georgia’s voice in Dead Like Me (2003-4). While talking about their “professional” experiences they assume a subjective position to make sense of their life — or death, in Georgia’s case. What is singular is the way these private thoughts often involve a detachment from the scenes. In “Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang” (2.03), for example, a confused Veronica criticises Wallace’s (Percy Daggs III) love interest in Jackie (Tessa Thompson) and he asks her: “What did you mean?” Then her voice-over repeats the question as if she is positioning herself as an external observer: “What did you mean?” This detachment contributes to the bewildering narrative structure of Veronica Mars, which incorporates her ignorance about certain events — well conveyed in the scenes in which she is not present, and through numerous flashbacks that forgo point-of-view shots and occasionally depict the same occurrence in different ways.

Seminars Around D.N. Rodowick

2010-03-21T12:17:00.022Z

21.03.2010

I am coordinating a series of research seminars on D.N. Rodowick’s work at the Philosophy of Language Institute of the New University of Lisbon, where I am now a researcher in film and philosophy. This series is part of the research project “Film and Philosophy: Mapping an Encounter” and serves as preparation for Rodowick’s visit to the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the University and to the Institute from 12 to 14 May 2010.

23 Mar., 10a.m.-12p.m.
“A Máquina do Tempo de Deleuze”, org. Susana Viegas
on Gilles Deleuze’s Time Machine (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997)

13 Apr. , 10a.m.-12p.m.
“Ler o Figural”, org. Susana Nascimento
on Reading the Figural, or Philosophy After the New Media (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001)

27 Apr., 10a.m.-12p.m.
“A Vida Virtual do Cinema”, org. Sérgio Dias Branco
on The Virtual Life of Film (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007)

4 May, 10a.m.-12p.m.
“Uma Elegia pela Teoria”, org. Dina Mendonça
on “An Elegy for Theory”, October 122 (2007): pp. 91–109.

11 May, 10a.m.-12p.m.
“Imagens Residuais da Filosofia do Cinema de Gilles Deleuze”, org. Joana Pimenta
on Afterimages of Gilles Deleuze’s Film Philosophy, ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009)

The Magnifying Class #7

2010-03-04T16:27:00.078Z

04.03.2010

Sanxia haoren.

The next “Magnifying Class” is taking place tomorrow at the University of Oxford. Our group will be analysing and discussing Sanxia haoren (Still Life, 2006), directed by Jia Zhang-ke.
The film, whose original title means The Good People of the Three Gorges, is abundant in medium shots that frame people from the waist up. It is as if these persons do not have a ground to stand on. The gigantic Three Gorges Dam project is at the centre of the narrative as an engine of transformation of this region and of the lives of its people and the earth (in the Heideggerian sense of sustenance to the historical being that disappears in the turmoil of technology). Following Heidegger, we could say that the film contextualises its own origin. It provides an interpretation of the specific relationship between the cultural contrivances of existence and the natural context with which these contrivances are engaged. Perhaps this is why in some moments the ordinary becomes extra-ordinary. The idea underlying the events involving UFOs seems to be that the uneventful is not an excuse for distraction, but an opportunity for attention.
There is not exactly a rapport between the camera and the performers. Instead, there is a kind of co-ordination since the first panoramic shots on the boat — Sanming Han turns his eyes to the landscape as the camera stops its movement to focus on him. The behaviour of the camera is often autonomous from the motion of actors. In the striking scene when a motorcyclist takes Han to the (submerged) part of the town that he is looking for, the camera apparently follows a passing boat, but then seems to be searching for, or simply steering our attention to, an inhabited piece of land where buildings still stand.

_______________________
“The Magnifying Class”: #3 | #4 | #5 | #6

The Weight of Meaning

2010-02-03T01:44:00.061Z

03.02.2010

The Sopranos, “The Weight”.

There is a play between the ordinary and the symbolic in The Sopranos (1999-2007). The most noticeable examples of this play are the dream sequences. Yet there are more subtle instances. Sometimes elements are completely inserted into the diegetic world, but gain the force of symbols to someone — which consequently justifies their return as something associated with that character.
This is what happens in “The Weight” (4.04). Consider the connection between Carmella (Edie Falco) and the song associated with Furio Giunta (Federico Castelluccio) at the end of the episode. When Tony (James Gandolfini) and Carmella are in the bedroom, the song seems an extra-diegetic element, music added to the scene. Then it is made clear that the sound is coming from Meadow’s (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) room. She is listening to the CD that she brought from Furio’s party. After Meadow turns down the music, Carmella and Tony have sex (or more precisely, just Tony). Later, the music returns when the camera concentrates on Carmella. She appears to be infatuated with Furio and the song recalls the connection between them and gives form to her infatuation through her memory. In the strict sense, the song is not an extra-diegetic sound since it directly expresses the contend of her thoughts and feelings.

Escolhas 2009

2010-01-29T09:41:00.064Z

29.01.2010

Coraline.

Nada há de novo debaixo do Sol. O fetichismo tecnológico em volta de Avatar (James Camerson, 2009) relembrou esta verdade. Algo contra a tecnologia? Não. No entanto, talvez seja preciso dar um passo para trás e discutir não o que a tecnologia permite mas para que serve, o que serve. Compare-se o filme de Cameron com Coraline (Coraline e a Porta Secreta, 2009). Na fábula a partir do conto de Gaiman, o 3D é mais expressivo, espesso, a profundidade visual e solicitações de atenção evocam e correspondem ao olhar maravilhado e sobressaltado, curioso e inventivo de uma criança. De facto, o espalhafato efémero com que os filmes são hoje promovidos e divulgados por vezes encobre-os, reduzindo-os a acontecimentos estimulantes que negligenciam o seu valor humano e a sua dimensão artística. É urgente resistir a esta indiferença do consumismo cultural. É necessária uma abertura aos filmes, uma disponibilidade para a sua arte, um amor. A crítica, por seu lado, deve também fazer o seu papel, propondo um discurso de reflexão em vez de uma confirmação do óbvio (ou até de uma indicação de gosto).
Nada de novo sob o Sol. Mas as dez obras que escolhi mostram como no cinema, todas as coisas, quaisquer coisas, nos podem aparecer como novas, refeitas, recriadas, em imagens e sons, em gestos e palavras, que nos desafiam a concentrar no que é precioso, vibrante, diverso, único. É claro que nestes exercícios há sempre filmes ausentes. Mas vale a pena fazer uma distinção. Alguns ficaram de fora por falta de espaço — Amazing Grace (2006), Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura (2009), Shotgun Stories (Histórias de Caçadeira, 2007), This Is England (This Is England - Isto é Inglaterra, 2006), entre outros. Outros foram excluídos à partida — Gran Torino (2008), Inglourious Basterds (Sacanas sem Lei, 2009), por exemplo.

35 rhums (35 Shots de Rum, 2008), real. Claire Denis
El cant dels ocells (O Canto dos Pássaros, 2008), real. Albert Serra
Coraline
Go Go Tales (Histórias de Cabaret, 2007), real. Abel Ferrara
Happy-Go-Lucky (Um Dia de Cada Vez, 2008), real. Mike Leigh
The Hurt Locker (Estado de Guerra, 2009), real. Kathryn Bigelow
Michael Jackson’s This Is It (2009), real. Kenny Ortega
Ne change rien (2009), real. Pedro Costa
Rachel Getting Married (O Casamento de Rachel, 2008), real. Jonathan Demme
Two Lovers (Duplo Amor, 2008), real. James Gray
[sem ordem de preferência][1]

______________________
[1] Publicado simultaneamente em “Cinema2000: Balanço 2009 - As Nossas Escolhas”.

Writings of a Spectator

2010-01-27T10:14:00.031Z

27.01.2010

This is perhaps obvious for regular visitors, but I am now keeping three (visible) blogs — and my personal site has been renewed. This one, The Motions of Images, is the primary blog. Aesthetics and Other Philosophies develops my interest in aesthetics and philosophical topics.
Writings of a Spectator is the sister blog of Motions of Images, an archive of critical notes on art works of the moving image in English and Portuguese.

Cultural Borrowings, the E-Book

2010-01-16T13:03:00.034Z

16.01.2010

The Chemical Brothers’ “Get Yourself High” (2003).

In March 2008, I participated in a huge and fruitful conference at University of Nottingham on cultural borrowings. Almost two years after that event, Scope, the well-known online journal of the Institute of Film and TV Studies of that university, publishes an e-book titled “Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation”, a collection of the best papers presented at the conference. I have contributed with a chapter on music videos and reused footage. My thanks to the editor, Iain Robert Smith, to Dr. Elizabeth Evans, and to the three anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions have significantly improved my essay.
This issue of Scope also marks the 10th anniversary of the publication. It is an honour.

Maria de Morais

2010-01-14T17:05:00.018Z

14.01.2010

I heard about Maria de Morais and her paintings in November 2009, so I am bit late. But these untitled flowers that bloom everywhere are still impressive, organically emerging from the surface of the paintings as if they are living things and are in motion. Her web site also includes photos and collages.

The Magnifying Class #6

2009-12-01T08:55:00.038Z

01.12.2009

Trafic.

Another “Magnifying Class” is taking place the day after tomorrow at the University of Oxford. Our group will be analysing and discussing Jacques Tati’s Trafic (1971).
       The film is another chapter in the comedian’s portrait of modern life as strange, perplexing, and alienating. Yet it is different from Play Time (1967), Mr. Hulot’s previous adventure. It is not just the focus that is different — the modernist architecture in Play Time, the traffic and automobiles in Trafic — but also the perspective. In this movie there is no dichotomy between the natural and the produced; the kind of contrast that was apparent in the previous work. Artificial human productions here seem almost human — when a car is, visually and aurally, likened to an animal pursuing a prey (that is, in fact, a tire). Objects have a life of their own, a life marked by functional activity and reflexive reactions — the car that rests after it has reached its destination.
       Characters are not entirely defined. The film interested in their definition. That is why it is so difficult to grasp the development of characters. And that is why the formation of the couple in the end seems so surprising. In essence, characters are not psychologically characterised. The focus of the film is on their actions.
       A purely formalist approach to the film would ignore how contemplation is encouraged instead of the simple recognition of formal patterns. The world is constantly rearranged, with Tati creating, and calling attention to, rhymes and parallels that seem almost casual — the yellow stripes of the road and Altra’s yellow truck.

______________________
“The Magnifying Class”: #5 | #6

A Top 100 Film Studies Blog

2009-09-17T08:16:00.027+01:00

17.09.2009

I received a warm e-mail from Amber Johnson today informing me that the web site Online Degrees Hub (a valuable resource that I did not know) published an article with a list of the top 100 film studies blogs. The Motions of Images has been included in the list (no. 25). I feel honoured and grateful. I can only hope that this brings more readers to my writings.
There is a lot to discover in the list. You will read the best current writing on film on the Internet if you take the time to look at these sites and blogs — most of them are included in the links above (and in the listings at Writings of a Spectator). The list that Online Degrees Hub has put together also includes some of my friends’ blogs: Catherine Grant’s Anagnorisis (no. 63), Directing Cinema (no. 94), and Film Studies for Free (no. 100), and Jason Sperb’s Jamais Vu (no. 66).

Televisual Works

2009-08-19T13:59:00.030+01:00

19.08.2009

Desperate Housewives, “Pilot” (1.01).

“Televisual Works”, the conference paper that I presented at the University of Glasgow in July is now available on my writings archive. It is part of the doctoral thesis on the aesthetics of television fiction series that I am diligently trying to finish. I use the opening sequence of the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives (2004-) to illustrate the importance of visual elements in some television fictions.

A Brazilian Journal of Communication

2009-07-21T07:34:00.016+01:00

21.07.2009

I have discovered this interesting journal recently: Revista de Estudos da Comunicação. The latest issue (no. 20) includes essays on post-television and hybridisation theories and on Michel Gondry’s music videos, and other topics. It is in Portuguese (with abstracts also in English) and some past issues are available online.

Screen Studies Conference 2009

2009-07-03T13:02:00.035+01:00

03.07.2009

Twin Peaks.

The “Screen” Studies Conference 2009 begins today and ends on Sunday, 5 July, at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. The event will explore the different facets of contemporary screen theorising. It is the 19th international meeting organised by Screen, an esteemed journal that commemorates its 50th anniversary this year.
I am presenting a paper called “Televisual Works” in the only panel on television, “Serial Fictions”. My aim is to analyse the ontological differences that are usually pointed out between the aesthetics of cinema and television. They are not very persuasive. I shall present another way of distinguishing between them that does not depend on identifying essential features, but rather the specific history of development of each medium. I take Twin Peaks (1990-91) as an instance of what we may contingently call a televisual work (of art).
The programme is too big for me to include it in this post — but it can be downloaded (via the University of Glasgow web site).

The Magnifying Class #5

2009-06-17T10:04:00.030+01:00

17.06.2009

Elephant.

Another “Magnifying Class” is taking place tomorrow at the University of Oxford. Our group will be analysing and discussing Elephant (2003), directed by Gus Van Sant, for three hours.

______________________
“The Magnifying Class”: #3 | #4

Comprehensions of Cinema

2009-05-19T10:01:00.029+01:00

19.05.2009

Tomorrow and the next day I am presenting a research seminar in Portugal on Daniel Frampton’s Filmosophy and its criticism of Bordwell’s critical and analytical language — call it an academic tour. The paper is titled “Compreensões do Cinema: Funções da Linguagem Analítica e Crítica” (“Comprehensions of Cinema: Functions of Analytical and Critical Language”, in English).
       The first date will be in Lisbon at the New University of Lisbon following an invitation from Dr. João Mário Grilo. He is the director of the research project “Film and Philosophy: Mapping an Encounter” that includes my PhD supervisor at the University of Kent, Prof. Murray Smith, as consultant — as well as Dr. Jinhee Choi, also from Kent, and Prof. Noël Carroll (The City University of New York) and Prof. D.N. Rodowick (Harvard University).
       Dr. Vítor Moura, director of the Department of Philosophy and Culture of Minho University, has invited me for the second presentation, in Braga.
       Here is the structure of my talk:

1. Filmosophy
2. Frampton Against Bordwell
3. Languages of Cinema
4. Analysis and Criticism
5. Complements and Limitations

I shall show two clips to illustrate my points, from The Constant Gardener (2005) for the first section and Juventude em Marcha (Colossal Youth, 2006) for the last.

Reflecting Faces

2009-04-01T17:25:00.020+01:00

01.04.2009

Shirin (2008).

David Bordwell writes on Abbas Kiarostami’s latest film here. It appears to be a fascinating and absorbing experience.

Television and Film Network Narratives

2009-03-26T07:48:00.019Z

26.03.2009

The Wire.

David Simon, insisted that The Wire [2002-8] “was never a cop show. We were always planning to move further out, to build a whole city”. (Thanks to Dominic Topp for the reference.)

Acting Out

2009-03-22T08:35:00.026Z

22.03.2009

Last Friday, I was in Reading to attend Acting Out: A Symposium on Film Performance, Inference and Interpretation. Overall, it was an excellent event with evocative and pondered contributions to the study of film performance. It was also an opportunity to catch up with a few friends.

SESSION 1: A QUESTION OF STYLE

V. F. Perkins (University of Warwick), “The Eloquence of Bad Acting”

Ronan Paterson (University of Teeside), “A Little Touch of Harry in the Night: An Exploration of the Contrasting Acting Styles of Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh in Their Respective Films of Shakespeare’s Henry V”

Sarah Thomas (University of Aberystwyth), “Contrasting Modes of performance in Classical Hollywood Cinema and The Best Years of Our Lives”

SESSION 2: KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Andrew Klevan (University of Oxford), “Living Meaning: The Fluency of Film Performance”

SESSION 3: INTERPRETING PERFORMANCE AND PERFORMING INTERPRETATION

Martin Barker (University of Aberystwyth), “How Do Audiences Evaluate Acting on Screen?: A Case Study Using The Usual Suspects”

Alex Clayton (University of Bristol), “Acting to Save the World (Fuck Yeah): Team America, Comedy and Performance”

John Adams (University of Bristol), “Interpreting Oneself: Performance, Feedback, and the Digital”

Adam Ganz (Royal Holloway, University of London), “Interpreting Oneself: Performance, Feedback, and the Digital”

SESSION 4: ACTING IN?

Kathrina Glitre (University of West of England), “Still Acting: Doing Nothing as an Acting Choice”

David Morrison (King’s College London), “Performing Loneliness”

Steven Peacock (University of Hertfordshire), “David Lynch, Laura Dern and Crying on Film”

The Magnifying Class #4

2009-03-13T09:06:00.036Z

13.03.2009

The Little Foxes.

Yesterday I was at the University of Oxford for a meeting of the film research group “The Magnifying Class”, of which I am an invited member. These seminars happen once a term and focus on a single film that we discuss and analyse in the course of three hours — this time, the seminar focused on The Little Foxes (1941), directed by William Wyler. According to the group chair Andrew Klevan, the group and these sessions aim at: investigating film style, looking closely at how film sequences work, and expanding our appreciation of films and the people who make them.

______________________
“The Magnifying Class”: #3

Serial Forms

2009-03-11T09:45:00.018Z

11.03.2009

The conference Serial Forms will be held at the University of Zurich between June 4 and 6. It is organised by the Institute of Cinema Studies of the university, which demonstrates the increasing interest of film academics in television series (and other serial forms):

Bringing together scholars from various countries and disciplines, the conference takes the recent trend of quality television series as a starting point to explore the phenomenon of serial forms on a broad canvas. While the main focus will be on serial forms in cinema and television from the past and present, we would also like to discuss the role of serial forms in other media and art forms.

Speakers include Jennifer M. Bean (University of Washington), Glen Creeber (Aberystwyth University), Nicola Dusi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Jens Eder (University of Hamburg), Lorenz Engell (Bauhaus-University Weimar), Ursula Ganz-Blaettler (University of Lugano), Wolfgang Hagen (University of St. Gallen), Jason Mittell (Middlebury College), Greg M. Smith (Georgia State University), Jörg Schweinitz (University of Zurich), Jörg Türschmann (University of Vienna), and Rainer Winter (University of Klagenfurt). Trailer here. Further information here.
A personal thanks to Peter Stanfield for letting me know about this event.

A Comment on the Mosaic-Screen

2009-03-09T06:30:00.016Z

09.03.2009

The Tracey Fragments (2007).

Seth Keen, a lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, has recently commented on my essay on the mosaic-screen. According to him, this new term “provides another way to define the use of spatial montage in the creation of moving-image narratives, in addition to the term split-screen”.

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Hiper-Real

2009-03-07T07:14:00.023Z

07.03.2009

New Rose Hotel (1998).

O hiper-real, ensinou Jean Baudrillard, é o desaparecimento dos objectos na sua própria representação. É um universo sem origem produzido pela simulação. O simulacro é tão sedutor que estanca a sede pelo real. As imagens, as ficções, tornam-se autónomas e ganham a sua materialidade. São formas sensíveis que discutem essa noção vulgar que opõe o virtual ao real — quando a filosofia diz que o real é o que tem existência, não distinguindo as suas modalidades.
O futuro que Ferrara encena neste filme não está muito distante do presente que vivemos. Há personagens que são apenas aquilo que um ecrã mostra. Há imagens das cidades que tentam fixar a sua estrutura, a sua ordem. Há hierarquias que se diluem, valores que se confundem. Mas o que circula nesta acção é a paixão e o seu jogo. É um filme de rostos muito intensos, tensos na sua atenção. Eles murmuram palavras, entre silêncios que contrariam a rapidez do mundo. Sensualidade e melancolia contaminam-se na virtualidade dos sonhos, das memórias, das imagens. Porque o virtual pode ser um reflexo cruel dos desejos, das desilusões, do amor sem limites.

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Ruína

2009-03-06T00:22:00.020Z

06.03.2009

Escape from L.A. (Fuga de Los Angeles, 1996).

A ruína parece desenhar uma paisagem desumanizada. As suas matérias corroídas falam da ausência e da morte, de um Homem que desvaneceu. Ergue-se como um símbolo vivo do tempo que morre, imagem de uma falência, de um abandono. Qualquer destroço tem a transparência de dar a ver o seu passado através da sua degradação. Ainda que seja um território assombrado que encontrou a sua decadência.
Quinze anos depois de Escape from New York (Nova Iorque 1987, 1981), o anárquico Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) regressa para outra missão de resgate. Para muitas personagens ele está morto, é uma imagem sem substância. Tal como a ilha devastada de L.A., John Carpenter orquestra um precário delírio formal, esplendor e estertor de um tempo onde o humano se tornou uma miragem antiga. E é com isso que todos serão confrontados, dos excluídos aos poderosos. Como se estivessem frente a um espelho, tal como o espectador está perante este filme. “Welcome to the human race”, diz Snake depois do fim, anunciando o recomeço.

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Velocidade

2009-03-05T07:12:00.020Z

05.03.2009

Chung Hing sam lam (Chungking Express, 1994).

Há uma palavra que contém o termo “cidade”. “Velo-cidade”, como se a cidade tendesse para ela e fosse preciso encontrar uma expressão que a mantivesse, acrescentando-lhe apenas um prefixo. Isto não é exacto; o elemento que forma “velocidade” é “veloci”, veloz. Mas não serão os rigores da etimologia a impedir que a intensa beleza da velocidade seja comentada. Ela nasce dos movimentos da luz produzida, das superfícies que são espelhos, dos corpos que se cruzam na sua transitoridade, dos reflexos distorcidos, das imagens que se diluem como espectros, das identidades que se refazem.
Para Kar-wai, Hong Kong é uma cidade sem centro. Existe apenas na circulação e na troca, no comércio e no tráfico, na vida que alguém pode partilhar, cheirando roupas, dispondo objectos, numa canção popular entoada, através da qual alguém existe mais. Enfim, no tempo que se expande e no espaço que explode, sem horizontes, na electricidade dos gestos.

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Tensão

2009-03-03T10:53:00.025Z

03.03.2009

Summer of Sam (Verão Escaldante, 1999).

A cidade é um espaço de relações. As suas partes ligam-se numa composição de matérias e movimentos, refeita a cada impulso. É uma realidade tensa, feita de porções isoladas relacionadas por uma cadeia invisível. Essa corrente, assombrada pela quebra iminente, une a vastidão do território urbano ao espaço íntimo, o indivíduo à comunidade, os lugares sem saída à abertura sem horizonte, a diferença à norma, a violência à segurança — e manifesta-se na televisão e nos jornais.
Spike Lee coreografa a tensão através dos elementos fílmicos, sensualmente. A película confronta-se com o vídeo. As cores explodem, intensamente. A nervo dos actores é dirigido para o irredutível de cada personagem. No verão de 1977, o desespero quente atingiu todos, indistintamente. Como diz o escritor Jimmy Breslin no início e no fim do filme: “Nova Iorque tem milhões de histórias e esta foi uma delas.”

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Noite

2009-03-02T10:35:00.030Z

01.03.2009

Bringing Out the Dead (Por um Fio, 1999).

A noite é o sono da cidade. É o dia que se prolonga com a electricidade, porque o sol se ausentou. A sua energia vital ergue-se sobre um silêncio desmedido, do tamanho do mundo. Os sonâmbulos percorrem-na: os rostos e os corpos quase dormentes, a mágoa e a dor do vazio habitado de todas as ruas. A cidade impregna-os, até ao indissociável que liga os gestos ao espaço. Ela não existe neles, como eles não existem nela. A cidade existe através deles, como eles existem através da cidade. Por isso, a cidade morre um pouco cada vez que adormece, cada vez que anoitece. Porque o negro da noite é também um símbolo vivo da morte — a imagem de todas as mortes.
Nos filmes de Martin Scorsese, o concreto e o abstracto, o profano e o sagrado, unem-se numa ritualização criada pela exuberância. A sua arte é obsessivamente realista e intensamente simbólica. Ele conhece o espaço que as imagens abrem, porque sabe o que não se pode representar: o que se adia apagando o amanhã, o passado que não deixa de ser presente, a euforia urbana que tudo consome, em delírio. Tudo isso, só pode ser redimido na intimidade. Reencontrar esse lugar é, talvez, aprender a amar onde já não existem palavras.

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Cosmos

2009-03-01T08:46:00.026Z

01.03.2009

Yi yi (Yi-Yi, 2000).

Dizemos: o nosso mundo. Não podemos dizê-lo de outro modo, porque é de nós que falamos nos nossos discursos sobre o mundo. Esse cosmos habita-nos como uma totalidade que pode ser entrevista em cada uma das suas partes. Como escreveu Mircea Eliade, o cosmos é uma estrutura orgânica, uma ordem contraposta ao caos.
Para observar este todo basta entender o infinito que está contido no ínfimo de cada gesto. Cada acto, cada palavra, cada momento, arrasta significações, relações, e aproximações, construindo um universo de constelações. Por isso, Edward Yang fez este retrato imenso que parte de uma família para envolver a comoção de outras personagens e alguns reflexos como presenças distantes. Habitar o mundo, os lugares, os tempos, é aceitá-lo no seu equilíbrio precário entre a união e a separação, a recordação e o esquecimento. Acreditar nisto devolve-nos a visão do que o nosso olhar não abarca.

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Vizinhança

2009-02-28T09:58:00.023Z

28.02.2009

American Beauty (Beleza Americana, 1999).

O vizinho é o próximo. E o que está perto partilha um estado: a vizinhança. A vida torna-a uma relação. E há um espaço que se corrompe, quando as coisas vivas geram esse movimento. O ser presente passa a ser ligado ainda que a separação física o desminta. No mundo urbano e no universo mental, o outro é o que permite a nossa formação. Pela alteridade, qualidade do que é outro, vamos também construindo um sistema de identificação. Essa nossa encenação não se faz apenas para o outro, mas para o espectador de nós mesmos que somos.
A beleza americana é talvez esse esplendor que se alimenta da utopia que lhe empresta o fulgor. A sua exuberância formal é uma interrogação do ser como jogo entre o expor e o ocultar, sentimento entre o saber e o ignorar. É essa narração subjectiva, esse discurso sobre o ser no mundo e o mundo no ser, que neste filme de Sam Mendes é de um ente que já não é corpo, apenas espírito em forma de voz. Como se estivesse estado sempre assim — só, com as suas imagens.

______________________
“Os Sentidos da Cidade”: Preâmbulo | Intro | Memória | Intimidade | Lugar

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Lugar

2009-02-27T07:10:00.024Z

27.02.2009

Safe (Seguro, 1995).

O lugar é, primeiro, o espaço ocupado por um corpo. Objectos, entes, definem lugares pelo que abrangem. A relação entre cada um cria outro lugar — uma ordem. Chamamos-lhe lugar quando ele nos segreda o infinito na disposição das suas partes. Esse murmurar revela a sua fragilidade, a sua efemeridade; permite que alguém encontre ou invente o seu lugar. E o infinito segredado por ele não é o absoluto, o eterno. É a intensidade viva do instante que não abandona os que a sentiram.
Os espaços e os tempos, constroem os lugares, dimensionam as vidas. Tudo parece minúsculo, porque há sempre algo maior, mais envolvente, mais assustador. Um vazio que representa uma ameaça que não pode ser figurada. Todd Haynes narra essa luta com um ambiente hostil, com a negação do lugar como arranjo humano, e sobretudo com a personagem que uma mulher já não suporta interpretar. A solidão que ela acaba por aceitar não é uma escolha. Não há alternativas. O trágico emana do avistar desse destino implacável que grita que a intimidade é segura como a identidade é insegura. E que em vez de “segurança” quase podemos dizer “lugar”.

______________________
“Os Sentidos da Cidade”: Preâmbulo | Intro · Memória | Intimidade

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Intimidade

2009-02-26T08:28:00.023Z

26.02.2009

Ossos (1997).

Intimidade. Não há modo de dizer ou ouvir esta palavra sem sentir a violação do inviolável. Ou que se desvanece o espaço que o discurso e a escuta tentam desvendar no momento em que é dita, no instante em que é escutada. A palavra pretende evocar. É uma imagem que profana, porque tenta representar aquilo que conhecemos demasiado para querermos enunciar. O íntimo como o sagrado não pode ser representado. Estas palavras com que escrevo compõem uma aparência que não consegue reduzir essas paisagens inomináveis a uma imagem mental, a uma ideia, a um conceito.
Pedro Costa evita esta violência exercida sobre as coisas. O seu trabalho paciente procura captar o que se revela num olhar furtivo, numa respiração demorada, num gesto cru. Aceita que a linguagem dos corpos é, talvez, anterior a toda a ordem e invenção. Que as suas presenças são os limites do secreto, as manifestações do espírito. Que quando eles falam só podem falar da solidão e do medo. Porque sob essa fala corre um processo simples, lento, sem palavras, de ligação com as pessoas e com os lugares, para que o amor e o desespero possam ser vividos sem terem que ser comentados. É uma partilha, feita de silêncios e frases cortantes, que precisa do olhar humano do espectador para existir verdadeiramente. Ao contrário da palavra. Intimidade.[1]

______________________
“Os Sentidos da Cidade”: Preâmbulo | Intro | Memória
[1] Para uma transcrição da sessão ver “Ossos e Intimidade”.

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Memória

2009-02-25T06:22:00.022Z

25.02.2009

Sicilia! (Sicília!, 1999).

Memorizar, disse alguém, é uma função. Através desse processo, apreendemos. Mas só aprendemos quando assimilamos e criamos ficções. Isso vai-nos habitando, ocupando e preenchendo. Até nos ensinar que a memória é também uma capacidade sem limites conhecidos. Portanto, um estranho espaço interior — um lugar de desconhecimentos, a partir do qual somos.
A memória, disse alguém, manifesta-se por hábitos e lembranças. Por entre eles, apercebemo-nos que ela é também um território do inconsciente. Daquilo que não pode ser dito, mas pulsa vivo e oculto em cada novo encontro. Daquilo que faz da memória um espelho secreto, onde qualquer imagem é devolvida como presente.
O que falta aos filmes modernos, disse Griffith, é o vento nas árvores. Jean-Marie Straub gosta de citar essas palavras porque elas relembram a importância do vento, que não é mais do que o espírito. E, assim, recordam também o límpido valor da escuta e do olhar, ou seja, dos rigores da memória.

______________________
“Os Sentidos da Cidade”: Preâmbulo | Intro

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Intro

2009-02-24T07:25:00.016Z

24.02.2009

As cidades que habitamos constroem um horizonte. Podemos sonhar a partir dele, mas é impossível esquecê-lo. Os nossos gestos, as nossas ideias, dão-nos a cidade como uma realidade material, um conjunto de qualidades sensíveis, uma estrutura conceptual. Este organismo que confere sentidos, funções e finalidades às aglomerações populacionais é o tema contemporâneo por abrangência. O cinema contemporâneo representa-o.
Da cidade, como representa e o que representa um filme? Representar é re-presentar: tornar presente, novamente. Representa-se através de um sistema de signos. Por isso, foram dois os propósitos do ciclo intitulado Os Sentidos da Cidade. Entender como se formam estes discursos, estas visões sobre a cidade, e conquistar significados, desvelar conteúdos pertinentes na discussão dos sentidos da cidade. Os dois foram cumpridos através da discussão dos temas sugeridos e da reflexão sobre os filmes apresentados.
Em cada sessão, um tema. Um objecto de reflexão que contextualizava o filme projectado, uma matéria que guiava a discussão: memória, intimidade, lugar, vizinhança, cosmos, noite, tensão, velocidade, ruína, e hiper-real. No decorrer do ciclo estas palavras foram lidas, pensadas, relacionadas, sucessivamente, com o espectro das passadas, com a sombra das futuras, definindo as significações e os valores das cidades, desenhando os sentidos da cidade.

______________________
“Os Sentidos da Cidade”: Preâmbulo

Os Sentidos da Cidade: Prêambulo

2009-02-22T08:16:00.014Z

22.02.2009

Em 2002, quando estagiava na Secção de Teoria e Criticismo da Faculdade de Arquitectura, organizei um ciclo de projecções e debates chamado Os Sentidos da Cidade. A ideia era reunir pessoas ligadas à arquitectura e outras ao cinema para discutirem o tema e o filme de cada sessão — ambos escolhidos por mim.
Recupero os pequenos textos que escrevi para cada sessão nas próximas entradas do blogue. Tinham o objectivo de intrigar a audiência, dando início a uma reflexão que se prolongou nos debates que se seguiram às projecções.

Thanks

2009-02-21T12:22:00.013Z

21.02.2009

I am surprised and thankful to David Tidmarsh and the Yale Daily News for having chosen my presentation to illustrate “Study of the Superhero”, a short article on the conference at Yale University in which I recently participated. The picture caption misstates the title of my paper, but they got it right in the text.

Super Style

2009-02-15T17:57:00.028Z

15.02.2009

Heroes, “Company Man” (1.17).

The paper that I have recently presented at Yale on Heroes (2006-) and television aesthetics, may now be downloaded from my writings archive — where other conference papers and essays (or links to them) are available.

Post-Theory

2009-02-13T17:00:00.012Z

13.02.2009

Thirteen years later, David Bordwell and Noël Carroll’s book still packs quite a punch. I am re-reading it right now.

The Wanderer

2009-02-11T07:27:00.014Z

11.02.2009

I do not know why, but the song that closes U2’s Zooropa resurfaced in my mind a few days ago. Bono’s words evoke powerful images and are unforgettable in Johnny Cash’s grieved voice:

I went out walking
Through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
I went out walking
Under an atomic sky
Where the ground won’t turn
And the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye
Yeah I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering
I went drifting
Through the capitals of tin
Where men can’t walk
Or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don’t want God in it
I went out riding
Down that old eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name
I went with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you
I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can
Before he repents
I went out searching
Looking for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand
I went out walking
With a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one
Now Jesus, don't you wait up
Jesus, I’ll be home soon
Yeah I went out for the papers
Told her I’d be back by noon
Yeah I left with nothing
But the thought you’d be there too
Looking for you
Yeah I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you

Homerism

2009-02-07T12:01:00.015Z

07.02.2009

Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover.
— HOMER SIMPSON

The Politics of Superheroes

2009-01-30T03:51:00.050Z

30.01.2009

Heroes, “The Butterfly Effect” (3.02).

The conference The Politics of Superheroes: Renegotiating the Superhero in Post 9/11 Hollywood Cinema began today at Yale University. It is taking place in a room close to Harold Bloom’s office at the Whitney Humanities Center. I am presenting a paper on the style of Heroes (2006-) tomorrow afternoon. Here is the conference programme:

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Scott Bukatman (Stanford University), “Look! Up on the Screen!: The Poetics of Superheroes”

PANEL 1A: BATMAN RELOADED

Tara Ghai (University of Exeter), “Clown or Terrorist: Depictions of the Joker in Batman Films Pre- and Post-9/11”

Gerry Canavan (Duke University), “Person of the Year: Barack Obama, the Joker, Capitalism, and Schizophrenia”

PANEL 1B: “LOW” CULTURE AND HIGH TECH

Cary Jones Elza (Northwestern University), “Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?: Technology and Perception in Batman Begins”

Jon Hogan (Syracuse University), “Understanding Iron Man: An Examination of the Relationship between Technology and Humanity in a Popular Comic Book Series”

PANEL 2: INCREDIBLES +

Ramzi Fawaz (George Washington University), “Eternal Homecoming: Cold War Nostalgia and the Crisis of the Family Body in The Incredibles”

Chris Jaynes (New York University), “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It's Bob Parr: Narrative Discourse and the Post 9/11 Super-hero in The Incredibles”

Michael High (Stony Brook University), “The Superhero Film: 9/11, Melodrama, Justice”

PANEL 3: POST-CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD ACTION FILMS

Dan Hassler-Forest (University of Amsterdam), “From Flying Man to Falling Man: Post-9/11 Superhero Narratives”

Ryan Vu (Duke University), “Cinematic Superman and the Ideology of Participation”

Paul Johnson (University of Exeter), “Of Gods (or) Monsters: Superman Returns”

Jean-Guy Ducreux (Nancy-Université), “Mirror Effects and Bad Conscience in Superhero Movies Since 9/11”

PANEL 4: ALTERNATIVE, INTERNATIONAL AND NEAR-SUPERHEROES

Jacob Brogan (Cornell University), “Fantasies of Forgetting”

Emily Perez (University of Southern California), “Twilight: America, Vampires, and the Perils of Self-Hating Superheroes”

Sandra Kang (New York University), “Post Hero or Post-9/11: Chinese Face Superhero with Western Values”

PANEL 5: SUPERHEROIC AESTHETICS AND GENRES

Sérgio Dias Branco (University of Kent), “Super Style: Heroes and Television Aesthetics”

Marianna Martin (University of Chicago), “In a World Where More is More: Superheroes and Genre Play”

Yoshi Nakazawa (Seattle University), “Inculcating Aesthetics and Slaying Monsters: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Aesthetics in Education”

Communication, Cognition and Media

2009-01-28T11:22:00.017Z

28.01.2009

The lively and august Catholic University of Portugal will hold an international three-day conference on communication, cognition and media in September 2009 at the Faculty of Philosophy.
Scholars and researchers are invited to send proposals on any topic related to media studies, particularly within these research areas: journalism, television studies, advertising, multimedia, interactive media, political communication, organisational communication, sociology of communication, theories of communication, cognition and languages, semiotics, art and rhetoric, and communication ethics.
An excerpt from the conference description:

Over the last decades, cognitive sciences have developed theoretical models that allow us the understanding of essential aspects of cognition, of language and of communication itself. For example, we know from cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics that people find most categories meaningful in terms of prototypes, not in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Hence follows the development of typically polysemous radial networks that are grounded upon human experience. From neurosciences we know that the brain does not process visual information in a disembodied way, but instead maintains the perceptual topology and rebuilds image schemas. These offer coherence to radial categories and motivate metaphorical projections of more concrete domains into more abstract ones. It is known that we may conceptualise certain situation in alternative ways and that we do it by means of construal operations such as perspective, focal attention, prominence, abstraction and the figure/ground distinction, well known from studies in gestalt psychology. We also know that communication is not confined to an exchange of information about the world. It is rather a means of cognitively coordinating different perspectives from the subjects of conceptualisation (speaker and addressee), therefore taking into account other minds, ruling and influencing them. It has been recently argued that human cognition is to be understood as situated, synergic or social, being equally determined by social interaction and culture and therefore can not be reduced to neural individual operations.
The aim of this congress is to promote interdisciplinary research on the biological, cognitive, emotional and sociocultural basis of traditional and new media, regarding their impact on cultures, societies and individuals. The congress includes both the perspective of interpretation or critical analysis of the media discourses and representations and perspectives about their production, perception and assessment. We are particularly interested on the following topics: cognitive and cultural models of socio/cultural identities and in social, political, economic and scientific debates, cognitive and cultural models as covert ideologies; structures, cognitive systems and rhetoric in single and multimodal discourses; prototypes and stereotypes in categorization; conceptual metaphor, in its verbal, non-verbal and multimodal appearances; cognitive power of metaphor and metonymy; mental spaces and conceptual integration; gestalt perception; image perception, understanding, structure and meaning; interaction patterns established between verbal text and image; interpretation of multimodal text; preconceptual image schemas and mental imagery; attention attribution; perspective and intersubjectivity; methodologies and techniques of interpretation and production of the media discourses; interaction between embodied and sociocultural aspects of cognition and of communication.

Further information here.

Online Lusophone Comunication Studies

2009-01-27T01:09:00.015Z

27.01.2009

Portcom, the information network in communication studies of the Portuguese-speaking countries (based in Brazil), allows open access to these four noteworthy journals:

Comunicação e Sociedade (Communication and Society), University of Minho, Portugal

Observatorio (OBS*), OberCom: Observatory for the Media, Portugal

Contemporanea: Revista de Comunicação e Cultura (Journal of Communication and Culture), Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

Intercom: Revista Brasileira de Ciências da Comunicação (Brazilian Journal of Communication Sciences), Brazilian Society of Interdisciplinary Communication Studies

Moffat’s Stories and Words

2009-01-25T09:18:00.021Z

25.01.2009

Dr. Who, “Blink” (3.10).

Steven Peacock’s excellent short piece, “Steven Moffat: Time Lord” for Critical Studies in Television is the right companion to David Lavery’s recent post on Steven Moffat.
I have been following the spin-off of Doctor Who (2005-), Torchwood (2006-), but not the original series. Comments like these lead me to think that I should find some time to take a look at it — especially at the episodes written by Moffat.

Relembrar Paul Newman

2009-01-20T10:17:00.026Z

20.01.2009

The Sting.

Está a decorrer um ciclo na Universidade de Coimbra que relembra a carreira de Paul Newman através de seis sessões — uma delas de The Sting (A Golpada, 1973). Este evento é organizado pelo Teatro Académico Gil Vicente e é mais um exemplo da vitalidade das iniciativas culturais enquadradas pelo Curso de Estudos Artísticos da universidade. Mais informações aqui.

Conference on Media and Sports

2009-01-15T07:53:00.014Z

15.01.2009

An international conference on media and sports will be held in Lisbon, 22-23 January. It is promoted by the outstanding Research Center for Communication and Culture (CECC) of the Catholic University of Portugal and it

aims both at a polyphonic discussion of sports representations in the media and at a reflection upon sports language worldwide. Drawing on recent analyses of sports language from semiotic, linguistic and sociological angles, the event wishes to provide insights into the core issues of Sports Media and Power, Sports Media and Fiction and Sports and Globalisation.

The Mosaic-Screen

2009-01-13T16:49:00.029Z

13.01.2009

24, “3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.” (1.16).

Refractory, a refereed journal of the University of Melbourne, has published my essay “The Mosaic-Screen: Exploration and Definition” just before the end of 2008. I argue that what may be termed mosaic-screen is a technique used in works like 24 (2001-). Thank you very much to Tessa Dwyer, one of the editors of this special issue, and to Professor Angela Ndalianis, editor of Refractory, for their support and patience.
A mention in english. Uma menção em português.

Jason

2009-01-12T11:47:00.012Z

12.01.2009

Sad, devastating news. Our colleague Jason Simpkins, 25, passed away at his home in Lakewood, CO, last Friday. Jason was pursuing a PhD in Film Studies at the University of Kent, following a MA in the same subject at the University of Warwick. He was a vibrant, intense person, always interested in the administrative issues of the university and student representation. My sincere condolences to his parents, Larry and Michelle.

Masculine/Feminine

2008-12-15T01:49:00.016Z

15.12.2008

Joss Whedon — about whom two books are forthcoming, David Lavery’s Joss: A Creative Portrait of the Maker of the Whedonverses and Matthew Pateman’s Joss Whedon — in a recent interview: “I describe television as feminine and movies as masculine”. Godard is around.