{"title":"\"It's Over\": Reflexivity in Don Mckellar's Last Night","authors":"Allan Weiss, Nicole Black","doi":"10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Résumé:Le film Last Night (Minuit) du cinéaste canadien Don McKellar est une œuvre de science fiction apocalyptique dont la création répond à un afflux de films-catastrophes hollywoodiens à grand déploiement comme Independence Day (Le jour de l'indépendance). McKellar n'explique jamais le pourquoi ou le comment de la disparition du monde ; il s'intéresse plutôt à la façon dont les gens font face à la situation dans le quotidien, à leur propre manière, en se livrant à leurs rituels personnels dans l'appréhension d'un anéantissement imminent. En se concentrant sur l'individuel et le contingent, et en rejetant toute forme de grand récit apocalyptique, le film propose une apocalypse postmoderne. L'une des principales techniques postmodernes qui y sont employées est la réflexivité ; les références au caractère du film à titre de film sont omniprésentes dans Last Night, bien que les allusions soient relativement subtiles. Une étude atentive de la distribution, du dialogue et de l'imagerie du film révèle que ce avec quoi les personnages sont forcés de composer n'est pas une apocalypse naturelle, surnaturelle ou d'origine humaine, mais une apocalypse textuelle. En d'autres termes, l'unique issue certaine et définissable qui menace les personnages est celle de la fin du film lui-même.Abstract:Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar's Last Night is an apocalyptic SF film created as a response to a spate of Hollywood blockbuster disaster films like Independence Day. McKellar never explains why or how the world is ending; instead, he is interested in how everyday individuals cope in their own ways, engaging in their own private rituals, with an impending annihilation. In its focus on the individual and the contingent, and its rejection of any grand apocalyptic narratives, the film presents a postmodern apocalypse. One of its major postmodern techniques is reflexivity; references to the film's status as a film permeate Last Night, although in relatively subtle ways. A close study of the film's casting, dialogue, and imagery reveals that what the characters are forced to come to terms with is not a natural, supernatural, or manmade apocalypse, but a textual one. That is, the only certain and definable end the characters face is the end of the film itself.","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"31 - 45"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46118321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reflecting the Man: Gendering Race in Paul Haggis's Crash","authors":"Mandy Elliott","doi":"10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Résumé:Le film Crash (Collision) de Paul Haggis (2004) emploie la fluidité des rôles de genre pour illustrer des cas d'iniquité raciale et les réactions qu'ils suscitent. L'auteure démontre de quelles façons le film joue avec l'idée que se fait Frantz Fanon du regard raciste comme forme de castration métaphorique—le remplacement systématique de la puissance sexuelle masculine par une objectification et une soumission forcées. Dans l'esprit des travaux de Fanon, Daniel Kim déclare que le regard homosocial du mâle blanc « force les hommes de couleur à féminiser leur position », affirmant la supériorité raciale à travers le langage de la domination sexuelle. Dans Crash, Christine (Thandie Newton) et Cameron (Terrence Howard) Thayer sont tous les deux privés de leur identité sexuelle à titre de gens de couleur. Bien que cette castration métaphorique ne soit pas nécessairement permanente, elle met en relief le lien inéluctable entre race et genre et les pairages qui tendent à dicter la domination et la soumission.Abstract:Paul Haggis's Crash (2004) employs the fluidity of gender roles to demonstrate and respond to instances of social inequity committed on the basis of race. This paper demonstrates the ways in which the film engages with Frantz Fanon's idea of the racist gaze as a form of figurative castration—as the systematic replacement of masculine sexual power with forced objectification and submission. Informed by Fanon's work, Daniel Kim states that the white male homosocial gaze \"forces men of color to adopt a feminized position,\" asserting ideas of racial superiority through the language of sexual dominance. In the film, Christine (Thandie Newton) and Cameron (Terrence Howard) Thayer both experience the racist cutting off of their sexual identity as people of colour. While this figurative castration is not necessarily permanent, it emphasizes the unavoidable link between race and gender and the binaries that tend to dictate dominance and submission.","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"117 - 133"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47900037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Democratic Movement and the Spaces of American Modernity in Early 1930s Woman's Films","authors":"A. Lafontaine","doi":"10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Résumé:L'auteure procède à une analyse chronotopique de la femme dans les films du début des années 1930 afin d'en extraire les représentations sémiotiques et phénoménologiques de la modernité américaine à travers le personnage de la femme moderne. Elle met en relief la façon dont les espaces filmiques concrets—c'est-à-dire les espaces privés d'appartements modernes, et les espaces publics et les espaces de travail des hôtels, des immeubles de bureaux et des grands magasins—servent à exprimer le chronotope de la femme moderne sur les plans à la fois sémiotique—à titre de producteurs et de vecteurs de sens—et phénoménologique—à titre de cadre se prêtant à une certaine manière d'être. Les résultats de cete analyse illustrent comment s'est articulée une vision évolutive de la modernité américaine au moyen de la représentation de la femme moderne dans les films hollywoodiens du début des années 1930, et ils confirment qu'à titre de chronotope, la femme moderne s'est trouvée intimement liée à une conception optimiste de la démocratie américaine.Abstract:In this article, I deploy a chronotopic analysis of early 1930s woman's films to flesh out semiotic and phenomenological representations of American modernity through the figure of the modern woman. I emphasize how concrete film spaces—the private spaces of modern apartments and the public and work spaces of hotels, office buildings, and department stores—function as expressions of the modern woman chronotope in both semiotic—as producers and conveyors of meaning—and phenomenological senses—permitting a certain way of being. This will serve to show how a progressive vision of American modernity was articulated through the figure of the modern woman in early 1930s Hollywood films, and that as a chronotope, the modern woman was intimately linked with a hopeful conception of American democracy.","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"68 - 92"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46390826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"D. W. Griffith et l'émergence du montage alterné","authors":"A. Gaudreault, P. Gauthier","doi":"10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.2.2017-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:General agreement exists today that David Wark Griffith, while not the \"inventor\" of crosscutting, is nevertheless a key figure in its development. But what does that mean exactly? Or, more precisely: how does one establish a list of Griffith's concrete contributions to the development of the technique? The goal of this article is to present a new theoretical framework for evaluating the evolution of various parameters of crosscutting during cinema's transitional era. This framework results from the combination of our hypothesis concerning actorial and narratorial cuts with a new theory on the articulations of spatial language. This new theoretical tool allows us to detect variations in the presence of an underlying narrator as the agent responsible for filmic enunciations and to establish, in the end, a typology of cuts connecting the shots in a crosscutting sequence.Résumé:On convient généralement aujourd'hui du fait que David Wark Griffith, s'il n'est pas l'« inventeur » du montage alterné, n'en a pas moins joué un rôle clé dans le développement de cette figure. Mais qu'est-ce que cela veut dire, au juste ? Plus précisément : comment arriver à établir la liste des contributions concrètes de Griffith en la matière ? L'objectif de cet article est de présenter un nouveau cadre théorique permettant d'étudier l'évolution des différents paramètres du montage alterné durant la période de transition entre la cinématographie-attraction et le cinéma-institution. Ce cadre théorique, qui combine les hypothèses des deux auteurs sur les coupes d'ordre actoriel et d'ordre narratoriel avec une théorie des articulations du langage spatial, permet de mettre en évidence les divers gradients de la présence du narrateur à titre d'instance responsable des énoncés filmiques et d'établir in fine une typologie des coupes susceptibles de relier les plans d'une séquence en montage alterné.","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"1 - 29"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43835127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure In American Cinema by Todd Berliner (review)","authors":"G. Wiedenfeld","doi":"10.3138/cjfs.26.2.br5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/cjfs.26.2.br5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"148 - 151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44229421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"George Kleine and American Cinema: The Movie Business and Film Culture in the Silent Era by Joel Frykholm (review)","authors":"Charles Keil","doi":"10.3138/cjfs.26.1.br1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/cjfs.26.1.br1","url":null,"abstract":"George Kleine, though central to the development of American cinema, has always seemed something of an outlier: one of the founding members of the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), he was neither a manufacturer of equipment nor a producer of films at the time of the Trust’s inception. Instead, Kleine made his mark in distribution, and distribution of foreign films at that. Kleine’s position in early film history seems secure, but until now he has remained relatively underexamined as an industry player, his activities never garnering the attention of his more widely chronicled peers, such as Edison or Lubin. Joel Frykholm’s George Kleine and American Cinema: The Movie Business and Film Culture in the Silent Era, seeks to remedy that situation by assessing the full span of Kleine’s career, from his beginnings as a purveyor of Edison films and projectors in the late 1890s until his exit from the industry by the mid-1920s. But, as his title indicates, Frykholm’s study is more than simply a biography: the author views Kleine’s somewhat unorthodox experiences as an opportunity to analyze the economic logic of the American film industry in its early years, while also situating that analysis within a consideration of cinema’s shifting cultural value during the same period. As Frykholm puts it, “the goal is to join three storylines—a career history, an economic/industrial history and a cultural history—into a unified narrative of how the institution of cinema took its shape from its emergence to the end of the silent era” (3). Ultimately, as Frykholm himself would likely concede, the economic history takes precedence. Frykholm’s approach, indebted in particular to the work of Gerben Bakker, attempts to make sense of the business actions of the entrepreneur within a matrix of market forces, industrial performance, and a changing socio-economic landscape. Borrowing concepts and approaches from economist Arthur De Vany (who has argued that revenue distribution in the film industry tends toward the “kurtotic,” or is heavily skewed toward success for the few) and business scholar Candace Jones (who has argued for the interplay of “entrepreneurial choice and institutional rules”), Frykholm views the fluctuations in the career of Kleine as a way to promote a particular understanding of the early institutionalization of cinema. At first glance, this appears to be Frykholm’s boldest historiographic move: positioning his work squarely in the centre","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"126 43","pages":"81 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41311945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Women Stripped Bare: Rape in the Films of Hong Sang-Soo","authors":"M. Raymond","doi":"10.3138/CJFS.26.1.2017-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.1.2017-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Résumé:Dans cet article, nous analysons le thème du viol dans les films du réalisateur sud-coréen Hong Sang-soo, en comparant le traitement que celui-ci en fait avec les représentations que l’on en retrouve historiquement à la fois dans le cinéma sud-coréen et dans les films d’art et d’essai réalisés dans le monde. Ce qui m’intéresse d’abord est d’une part la façon dont le viol reflète ou contredit la politique d’égalité des sexes dans les films de Hong, et particulièrement le lien entre celle-ci et le féminisme, et d’autre part l’évolution, au cours de la carrière du réalisateur, du traitement que celui-ci fait de la violence sexuelle et de la sexualité en général. L’étude se concentre sur quatre films, Le jour où le cochon est tombé dans les puits (2009), La Vierge mise à nu par ses prétendants (2003), La femme est l’avenir de l’homme (2004) et Les Femmes de mes amis (2009), et se conclut par une discussion sur les œuvres plus récentes, et plus introspectives, du réalisateur.Abstract:This essay analyzes the subject of rape in the films of South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo, comparing his treatment with the history of representations of sexual assault in both the cinema of South Korea and the international art film. Of particular interest is the issue of how rape reflects and/or contradicts the gender politics of Hong’s films, especially their relationship with feminism, and how his handling of both sexual violence and sexuality as a whole has evolved over the course of his career. The essay focuses on four films, The Day a Pig Fell in the Well (1996), Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000), Woman Is the Future of Man (2004), and Like You Know It All (2009), with a concluding discussion of Hong’s recent, more self-reflexive narratives.","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"45 - 63"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41863456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cinephemera: Archives, Ephemeral Cinema, and New Screen Histories in Canada ed. by Zoë Druick and Gerda Cammaer (review)","authors":"D. Orgeron","doi":"10.3138/CJFS.26.1.BR4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.1.BR4","url":null,"abstract":"Zoë Druick and Gerda Cammaer’s weighty collection, Cinephemera, takes its place among a growing number of volumes (mostly edited collections) tackling the difficult-to-pin-down category of ephemeral film. And, while focused on Canadian works, the book is also the first in this expanding field to consider the topic so broadly (“ephemera,” for example, is a much more inclusive category than, let’s say, “educational” or “industrial” film, though the category might contain both of these as well). For this reason, the self-imposed limits of exploring only Canadian film seem all the more appropriate (even necessary), making Cinephemera a fine companion to the earlier and more narrowly focused Useful Cinema (Charles Acland and Haidee Wasson, Duke University Press, 2011). Cinephemera, however, also hopes to carve out a unique space for itself in its consideration of what it phrases “the digital turn,” and its effect on both cinema studies and archival practice, suggesting, in the introduction, the ways in which these technologies have (or haven’t) altered the work of preservation, access, and distribution. Though dealt with specifically in only a couple of the collection’s essays, this notion forms a kind of organizational logic that runs through the book in its entirety and becomes a significant part of the book’s contribution to the field. Druick and Cammaer’s volume makes explicit the connection, assumed in other recent books, between what we might still call “emergent” technologies and the rediscovery of moving image materials that have, since their creation, existed in a stratum below (sometimes well below) what we conceive of as the “mainstream.” Though the book’s introduction conceives of a loose taxonomy of “cinephemeral” types, the essays themselves are organized in a roughly chronological fashion, which results, ideally, in the reader discovering materials and ideas outside of the rigidity of classifications. In a way, the strategy replicates the very nature of ephemeral film: the category is massive, unruly, full of surprises, and the films themselves are frequently found where you least expect them. Among the many things that recommend this book, then, reader experience (which is infrequently lauded in academic circles) ranks high. I urge readers, no matter the narrowness of their own research focus, to read the book from beginning to end, as this experience is part of the magic the field offers.","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"91 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49002705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Critique of Calculation: Labour, Productivity, Limits, and Love in Lars Von Trier’s Dogville","authors":"Nicolas Lema Habash","doi":"10.3138/CJFS.26.1.2017-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/CJFS.26.1.2017-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Résumé:Dans cet article je propose d’interpréter Dogville (2003), du réalisateur Lars von Trier, comme un film qui prolonge une tradition philosophique de critique de la réification. En appuyant sur les œuvres de Marx et de Lukács, nous mettons l’accent sur le concept de calcul pour analyser l’histoire de la protagoniste, Grace, en tant que récit d’une exploitation fondée sur des mécanismes d’échange de travail. Notre but n’est cependant pas seulement de décrire ce processus par rapport à l’intrigue du film, mais aussi, et surtout, de caractériser ontologiquement le langage et les dispositifs cinématographiques comme une allégorie visuelle du problème de calcul dans le capitalisme contemporain. En faisant transparaître les « limites » de toute chose (par exemple, celles de l’architecture de Dogville, celles du ratio d’échange de la force de travail de Grace, celles de la diégèse du film), von Trier crée avec Dogville ce que nous appelons un « cinéma calculatoire ». Suivant la notion kantienne de « critique », nous avançons que Dogville explore cinématographiquement les limites des mécanismes de calcul eux-mêmes.Abstract:I argue in this article that Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003) is a film that prolongs a philosophical tradition of critique of reification. Making use of Marx and Lukács’s work, I highlight the concept of calculation for analyzing the story of the protagonist, Grace, as a tale of exploitation based on mechanisms of labour exchange. My aim, however, is not only to describe this process in terms of Dogville’s storyline, but to ontologically characterize the cinematographic language and devices of the film as a visual allegory of the problem of calculation in contemporary capitalism. By making transparent the “limits” of everything (Dogville’s architecture, the exchange rates in Grace’s labour-power, and the limits of the film’s diegesis, for instance), von Trier creates in Dogville what I call “calculative cinema.” Following the Kantian notion of “critique,” I propose that Dogville explores the limits of the mechanisms of calculation in cinematic terms.","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"26 1","pages":"24 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48581993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Doing Time: Temporality, Hermeneutics, and Contemporary Cinema","authors":"Michael Meneghetti","doi":"10.3138/cjfs.26.1.br2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/cjfs.26.1.br2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41748,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Film Studies-Revue Canadienne d Etudes Cinematographiques","volume":"31 1","pages":"84-87"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2017-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90436568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}