{"title":"True Colors: Chromaticity, Realism and Technological Honesty","authors":"A. Philip","doi":"10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i17.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i17.05","url":null,"abstract":"I propose an application of agential realism to my practice as research, a film about my mother getting one tattoo covered with a new one, to investigate the material-discursive role played by the camera in determining meaning within the film image. I use my practice as a comparative case study, considering how a specific camera apparatus determines and negotiates standards of colour accuracy, and what it means to remove those colour values in post-production. I argue that the different colour processing of the same footage produces perceptible onto-epistemological difference, even while it remains indexically equivalent. Second, I will show exactly how this particular digital photosensitive technology meets the pro-filmic event to record colour, enacting agencies that reduce matter to fit a specifically programmed colour system, prior to any manipulation in post-production. The system itself draws the boundaries of accuracy it claims to achieve, with inevitable ethical implications.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125087802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Memories from the Darkness in the Films of Pedro Costa and Affonso Uchôa","authors":"Edson Pereira da Costa Júnior","doi":"10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i17.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i17.03","url":null,"abstract":"This essay analyses realist works from contemporary world cinema wherein the representation of space-time is directly affected by the color black, referring to both night and dark shadows. It investigates exactly how darkness participates in moments when the filmed subjects remember traumatic events and confront them through their courageous retellings. My hypothesis is that the color black converts the space—realistic and concerning the characters’ present time—into a place where different temporalities coexist. Through a comparative analysis of films made by the Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa and the Brazilian filmmaker Affonso Uchôa in the past two decades, I show how this modulation in space-time produced through color has a political meaning, since the narrated memories are related to a social experience of class and race.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"150 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116569688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Politics of Nostalgia: Colorization, Spectatorship and the Archive","authors":"Liz Watkins","doi":"10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i17.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/cc.2021.v9.i17.07","url":null,"abstract":"Colorization describes the digitization and retrospective addition of color to photographic and film materials (celluloid nitrate, glass negatives) initially made and circulated in a black-and-white format. Revisiting the controversial 1980s colorization of 24 classic Hollywood studio titles, which incited debate over questions of copyright, authorship and artistic expression, this essay examines the use of colorization to interpret museum collections for new audiences. The aesthetics of colorization have been criticized for prioritizing image content over the history of film technologies, practices and exhibition. An examination of They Shall Not Grow Old (Jackson, 2018) finds a use of digital editing and coloring techniques in the colorization of First World War film footage held in the Imperial War Museum archives that is familiar to the director’s fiction films. Jackson’s film is a commemorative project, yet the “holistic unity” of authorial technique operates across fragments of archive film and photographs to imbricate of fiction and nonfiction, signaling vital questions around the ethics and ideologies of “natural color”, historiography, and the authenticity of materials and spectator experience.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114616951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reading the Biopic through Persona: A Comparison between \"Bohemian Rhapsody\" and \"Rocketman\"","authors":"H. Andrews","doi":"10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.02","url":null,"abstract":"Personas are the public expressions of a private identity, the performance of personality in the social world. They are particularly visible and familiar in the world of celebrity, where entertainers regularly adopt an alter-ego for performance. This has intriguing consequences for biographical representations of performers. Biopic actors are obliged to duplicate the public-facing persona, which is an already-known, semi-fictional construction, and the private individual beneath. The narrative of the biopic must account for this relationship between the persona and the person who authors it. This article explores this process in two high-profile rock biopics, Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and Rocketman (2019), comparing their different approaches to reproducing and exploring the persona of their subjects in performance, style and mise en scène.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133193436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"El México que no fue: The Tentative Retelling of Luis Donaldo Colosio’s Assassination","authors":"Anna Marta Marini","doi":"10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.03","url":null,"abstract":"On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his death in 2019, Netflix released two limited series focused on Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and his assassination. 1994 (directed by Diego Enrique Osorno) and Crime Diaries: The Candidate (Historia de un crimen: Colosio, directed by Hiromi Kamata and Natalia Beristáin) are, respectively, a documentary series and a drama, both delving into the political conjuncture surrounding both Colosio’s candidacy and the investigations subsequent to his assassination. Since his dramatic death, the image of Colosio has maintained its associations with heroism and his unrealized presidency has come to embody the “México que no fue,” a radically innovated Mexican state that never was and, possibly, will never be. Both series rely on the exploitation of original footage and underlying political takes on the events. This analysis will critically compare the two series from three main thematic perspectives: the Mexican political context at the time of the assassination; Colosio’s characterization and private life; and the procedural aspects of the investigations.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"99 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115977620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Flowing Bodies: Autoethnographies of Desire in \"Christmas on Earth\", \"Fuses\" and \"Je, tu, il, elle\"","authors":"Ariadna Moreno Pellejero","doi":"10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.07","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how three women filmmakers express their ways of understanding and experiencing pleasure, based on a comparative study of Christmas on Earth (Barbara Rubin, 1963), Fuses (Carolee Schneemann, 1964–67) and Je, tu, il, elle (Chantal Akerman, 1974). By filming the subculture to which they belong or presenting themselves in the sexual act in a way that emulates ritual, these filmmakers recognize their own sexuality in opposition to the model that relegates the woman to the role of muse. Drawing on Artaud’s concept of ritual and his “Body without Organs,” this analysis posits the possibility of the concept of “flowing bodies,” referring to bodies in motion that affirm their own pleasure, andproposes to describe the three films explored here as “autoethnographies of desire.”","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134435956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards New Ways of Representing History: Generic Innovations in the Historical Biopic in Spain","authors":"Victoria Pastor-González","doi":"10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.04","url":null,"abstract":"As virtual sites of public memorialization, historical biopics play an important part in shaping our view of the past. The genre employs a range of formal and narrative strategies in order to create persuasive narratives about historical characters and events. However, nation-specific socio-cultural and industrial conditions frequently determine whose lives are deserving of biographical treatment and how their stories are told. The following comparative analysis of two recent historical biopics, Clara Campoamor, The Forgotten Woman (Clara Campoamor, la mujer olvidada, Laura Mañá, 2011) and While at War (Mientras dure la guerra, Alejandro Amenábar, 2019), foregrounds some of these nation-specific circumstances in the Spanish context. It then proposes that these two works employ innovative strategies that signal possible new avenues for the historical biopic in Spain. In the case of Clara Campoamor, Mañá suggests alternative ways of representing historical female figures in the public arena, whilst in his film Amenábar mobilizes the conventions of the Hollywood biopic to aid transnational readability.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124812863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tropical Purgatory: Brazil Through the Lenses of Stefan Zweig and Elizabeth Bishop","authors":"Fabio Camarneiro","doi":"10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.05","url":null,"abstract":"Writers Stefan Zweig and Elizabeth Bishop both lived in Brazil, although in very different circumstances. Their stories served as basis for two films: Maria Schrader’s Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (Vor der Morgenröte, 2016), and Bruno Barreto’s Reaching for the Moon (Flores raras, 2013). This article aims to describe the differences between these two films, and how they can be connected to Brazilian authors such as Gilberto Freyre and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, whose works attempt to understand Brazil’s social dynamics from the perspective of its violent colonial past. Furthermore, this article aims to question the connections between historical accuracy and political engagement, arguing that the general tone of a film narrative may sometimes be much more politically-oriented than the actual facts it portrays.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124841738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Van Gogh Enigma: Re-Mythifications of the Artist’s Genius in \"Loving Vincent\" and \"At Eternity’s Gate\"","authors":"P. A. Ruiz","doi":"10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31009/CC.2021.V9.I16.06","url":null,"abstract":"Few painters have had as many films made about their lives as Vincent van Gogh. The interest in his story is due in part to the mystery surrounding his last days, in Arles, France. It is thus no coincidence that all the biopics about the Dutch painter focus on this stage of his life, including the recent works Loving Vincent (2017), an animated film by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, and Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate (2018). A comparative study of these two feature films, representing two different aesthetic and dramatic approaches, is conducted in pursuit of the two objectives of this paper: to identify the conventions of the subgenre of the artist biopic; and consequently, to analyze how both films reflect on the artist’s creative practice in order to determine whether the film camera is in fact capable of capturing the brushstroke and the mystique of the genius.","PeriodicalId":414949,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cinema","volume":"8 7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134513034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}