Reframing Cinema Histories: ALPHAVILLE Issue 6

Header image from the symposium website for “Reframing Cinema Histories”

This issue of Alphaville originates in a one-day symposium, “Reframing Cinema Histories”, which was organised at University College Cork in March 2013. The aim of the event was to bring together a select group of scholars working on a range of historical projects and, through presentations of specific case studies and a round table discussion, highlight the variety of methodological approaches that may be adopted by the researcher studying and writing about cinema history [Reframing Cinema Histories: Editorial by Pierluigi Ercole and Gwenda Young, Alphaville, Issue 6, 2013]

And the new journal issues just keep on coming! Today, Film Studies For Free links to a very high quality issue of special interest to film historians and others working in film historiography: Alphaville's latest offering on Reframing Cinema Histories.

Utter brilliance from start to finish, IFSFFHO...


Alphaville, Issue 6, Winter 2013: Reframing Cinema Histories: 

• Editorial by Pierluigi Ercole and Gwenda Young (Issue 6 Editors) Articles:

• "A Taste in Pictures": The Second Birth of Cinema in Cork by Denis Condon, National University of Ireland Maynooth
• Understanding Dutch Film Culture: A Comparative Approach by Judith Thissen, Utrecht University
• "The Greatest Film of the Fascist Era": The Distribution of Camicia nera in Britain by Pierluigi Ercole, Oxford Brookes University
• Exploring Racial Politics, Personal History and Critical Reception: Clarence Brown's Intruder in the Dust (1949) by Gwenda Young, University College Cork
• An Advertiser's Dream: The Construction of the "Consumptionist" Cinematic Persona of Mercedes Gleitze by Ciara Chambers, University of Ulster
• The Politics of Independence: The China Syndrome (1979), Hollywood Liberals and Antinuclear Campaigning by Peter Krämer, University of East Anglia
• What is the Value of a Technological History of Cinema? by Lee Grieveson, University College London

Book Reviews:

1. A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove, by John Spong (2012) Reviewer: Matthew Carter, University of Essex
2. Ex-Cinema: From a Theory of Experimental Film and Video, by Akira Mizuta Lippit (2012) Reviewer: Niall Flynn, Independent Scholar
3. Men and Masculinities in Irish Cinema, by Debbie Ging (2013) Reviewer: Barry Monahan, University College Cork

[Book Reviews Editor: Ian Murphy]

Conference Reports:

1. World Cinema On-Demand: Film Distribution and Education in the Streaming Media Era
2. Queen's University Belfast, 15–16 June 2012; 26 June 2013; 19 September 2013 Reporter: Alexandra Kapka, Queen's University Belfast
3. Revisiting Star Studies, Culture Lab, Newcastle University, 12–14 June 2013 Reporter: Jennifer O'Meara, Trinity College Dublin
4. A Star is Born: Cinematic Reflections on Stardom and the "Stardom Film", King's College London, 13 September 2013 Reporter: Shelagh M. Rowan-Legg, King's College London

[Reports Editor: Yuanyuan Chen]

New SCREENING THE PAST: Special Issue on KNOCKNAGOW (1918)

Knocknagow; or, The Homes of Tipperary (1918)

Silent film based on 1873 novel of the same name by Charles J. Kickham. Production company: Film Company of Ireland. Director: Fred O'Donovan. Screenplay: Ellen Sullivan. Released in Ireland, the United States, and Britain in 1918. This film is in the public domain.

Film Studies For Free happily tips its readers the wink that there's a new special issue up of the high quality open access film studies journal Screening the Past. 

Issue 33 is devoted to the study of one of Ireland's first feature films, Knocknagow, an incredibly popular historical drama set during the land-clearances of the 1840s. Six articles by specialists examine this cinematic landmark in relation to Irish history, politics, sport, literature, and cinema in Ireland and the United States.

Appendices include a plot summary, contemporary press reviews and publicity materials, and a copy of the screenplay.

The issue contains a link to the film itself (embedded above), which was shot on location in Tipperary in summer 1917.

Screening the Past, Issue 33, 2012: "Featuring the Nation: Knocknagow (1918) and the Film Company of Ireland"

• Introduction: Ireland’s Own Film  by Stephen Donovan
• Knocknagow, the Film Company of Ireland, and Other Irish Historical Films, 1911–1920 by Kevin Rockett
• The Making of an Irish Nationalist: James Mark Sullivan and the Film Company of Ireland in America by Dan Schultz & Maryanne Felter
• “Pointing a Topical Moral at the Present”: Watching Knocknagow in 1918 by Denis Condon
• The Film Company of Ireland and the Irish-American Press by Gary D. Rhodes
• “For the honour of old Knock-na-gow I must win”: Representing Sport in Knocknagow (1918) by Seán Crosson
• Irish National Discourse in the Poems and Songs in Knocknagow (1918) by Christopher Natzén

AppendicesAppendix A. – Plot Summary
Appendix B. Cast of Knocknagow (1918)
Appendix C. Intertitles
Appendix D. Press cuttings
Appendix E. Publicity Materials
Appendix F. Film Company of Ireland filmography
Appendix G. Typescript of Knock-na-gow, or The Homes of Tipperary with manuscript annotations
Appendix H. Intertitle Artwork

Acknowledgments

Lots of Film Studies PhD Theses Online

Masculine 'musculinity' (almost) all grown up -  Sylvester Stallone, in The Expendables ( Stallone, 2010). (See Yvonne Tasker's PhD on masculinity and action movies)

It was time for one of Film Studies For Free's regular visits to a research repository search-engine to see which PhD theses have been made openly accessible online since this blog last took a look.

A few of the below PDF files have been linked to before by FSFF but the vast majority have not come up in earlier searches. And there are some fabulous items here: such as Yvonne Tasker's paradigm shifting thesis on gender and action cinema, and Donato Totaro on time and the long take in the cinema. And what a truly astounding variety of topics!

• SooJeong Ahn, The Pusan International Film Festival 1996-2005: South Korean cinema in local, regional, and global context, PhD Thesis,  University of Nottingham, 2008

• Steven William Allen, A pleasure in pain: contemporary mainstream cinema's fascination with the aestheticized spectacle of the controlled body, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2003

• Noor Al-Qasimi, The codes of modesty: reconfiguring the Muslim female subject, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007

• Tom Brown, From intimate pleasures to spectacular vistas: musicality and historicity in French and American 'classical' cinema of the 1930s, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007

• Felicia Chan, In Search of a Comparative Poetics: Cultural Translatability in Transnational Chinese Cinemas, PhD Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2007

• Brigid S. G. Cherry, The female horror film audience : viewing pleasures and fan practices, PhD Thesis, University of Stirling, 1999

• Marisa Farrugia, The plight of women in Egyptian cinema (1940s 1960s), PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 2002

• Dongning  Feng, Text, politics and society : literature as political philosophy in post-Mao China, PhD Thesis,  University of Stirling, 1997

• Michael Flanagan, True sons of Erin: catholic/nationalist ideology and the politics of adventure in Our Boys 1914-32, PhD Thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, 2006

• Mary Gillan, In the shadow of the church: Irish and Quebec cinema, PhD Thesis, Dublin City University, 2009

• Leighton Grist, Authorship and context: the films of Martin Scorsese 1963-1977, PhD Thesis,      University of Warwick, 1996

• Henrik Gustafsson, Out of Site: Landscape and Cultural Reflexivity in New Hollywood Cinema 1969-1974, PhD Thesis, Stockholm University, Sweden, 2007 and errata

• Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, Early Discourses on Colour and Cinema : Origins, Functions, Meanings, PhD Thesis,  Stockholm University, Sweden, 2006

• Timothy John Hollins, The presentation of politics : the place of party publicity, broadcasting and film in British politics, 1918-1939, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1981, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

• Christopher James Homewood, From Baader to Prada The Representation of Urban Terrorism in German-Language Film, PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 2008

• Claire Jenkins, Family entertainment: representations of the American family in contemporary Hollywood cinema,   PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009

• Krzysztof Jozajtis, Religion and film in American culture: the birth of a nation, PhD Thesis, University of Stirling, 2001

• Abdelrhaffar Bourkiba Larbi, Parody and ideology: The case of Othello, PhD Thesis, Universitat de València, 2005

• Barbara Lehin, Cinema and society: Thatcher's Britain and Mitterand's France, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2003

• Elaine Lennon, The screenplays of Robert Towne 1960-2000, PhD Thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, 2009

• Maasilta Mari, African Carmen. Transnational Cinema as an Arena for Cultural Contradictions, PhD Thesis, University of Tampere, 2007

• Laurent Marie, The French Communist Party and French cinema 1944-1999, PhD Thesis,  University of Warwick, 2000

• Sara Martin Alegre, More human than human: aspects of monstrosity in the films and novels in english of the 1980s and 1990s, PhD Thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1996, (chapters are: 1 Fascinating Bodies: The New Iconography of Monstrosity; 2 Old Monsters, New Monsters: Vision and Re-Vision From Screen Adaptation to Novelization; 3 Nostalgia for the Monster: Mythical Monsters and Freaks; 4 Evil and Monstrosity: The Moral Monster, 5 The Politics of Monstrosity: The Monsters of Power; 6: Frankenstein's Capitalist Heirs: The Uses of Making Monsters; 7 Gendered Monstrosity: The Monstrous-Feminine and the New Woman Saviour and 8 Little Monsters?: Children and Monsters)

• Anthony T.  McKenna, Joseph E. Levine: showmanship, reputation and industrial practice 1945-1977, PhD Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2008

• Christopher Meir,  Underwriting national sovereignty?: policy, the market and Scottish cinema, 1982- present, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007

• Douglas Morrey, Jean-Luc Godard and the other history of cinema, PhD Thesis,  University of Warwick, 2002

• Fabio Parasecoli, Food and men in cinema: an exploration of gender in blockbuster movies, Universität Hohenheim, 2009

• Louise Ann Parsons, An analysis of 'The Gold Diggers' (1983) by Sally Potter: feminist film, Julia Kristeva and revolutionary poetics, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1994, Vol. 1 and Vol 2

• Martin Luther Patrick, The myth of the Black male beast in postclassical American cinema: ‘Forging’ stereotypes and discovering Black masculinities, PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2009

• Anna Sofia Rossholm, Reproducing Languages, Translating Bodies : Approaches to Speech, Translation and Cultural Identity in Early European Sound Film, PhD Thesis, Stockholm University, Sweden, 2006

• Trevor Ryan, Labour and the media in Britain 1929-1939: a study of the attitudes of the Labour movement towards the new media, film and radio, and of its attempts to use them for political purposes,  PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1986, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

• Alice Stanley, Representations of sexuality in the films of Francois Ozon, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009

• Yvonne Tasker, Spectacular bodies: gender, genre and the action cinema, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 1995

• Gewain Francis Henry Tickell, Homelands and the representation of cultural and political identity in selected South-Asian texts, 1857 to the present, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1998

• Donato Totaro, Time and the long take in The Magnificent Ambersons, Ugetsu and Stalker, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2001

• Louise Ann Williams, Masculinity on the run: history, nation and subjectivity in contemporary mainland Chinese cinema, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 2004

• Leila Wimmer, The French reception of British cinema, PhD Thesis,  University of Warwick, 2006

Irish cinema studies online (I gcuimhne ar Michael Dwyer)

Film Studies For Free would like to offer its condolences to the partner, family, and friends of renowned Irish film festival founder and Irish Times film correspondent Michael Dwyer, who very sadly died on Friday at the far too young age of 58. 

Dwyer (pictured above) was a very talented, and much admired, film critic, broadcaster, and programmer, 'a true star of Irish film', as a great tribute to him in the Irish Times put it. Known very much as a keen internationalist in his film tastes and championings, Dwyer did make an incalculably important contribution to Irish national film culture, as many of the personal tributes to him since his untimely death have made very clear (see, for instance, those posted here and here). Here is a link to his last column for the Irish Times with his favourite film lists for 2009 and the last decade.

Below, in his memory, FSFF has assembled its own list of links to high quality, online, and openly accessible scholarly resources on Irish cinema.

• Desmond Bell, 'Interview with Filmmaker Pat Murphy', Kinema, 2008

• Maeve Connolly, 'Excluded by the Nature of Things? Irish Cinema and Artist’s Film', CIRCA 106, winter 2003: 33-39

• Seán Crosson, 'Vanishing Point: An examination of some consequences of globalization for contemporary Irish film', e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, Volume 2: 1-23

• Seán Crosson, "‘They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever pa, ‘cause we're the people' - Misrepresenting death in Jim Sheridan's In America (2003)", Estudios Irlandeses: Journal of Irish Studies, Issue 3, (2008)

• Christine Evans, 'On Genre and Semantic Quibbling: Or, there's no pleasing a genre critic', Genre and Irish Cinema Conference, University of British Columbia, March 2005
  

• Peter Flynn, 'Some Mother's Son: Postcolonial, Postnational, Posthistorical?', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 29, July 2000  

• Roddy Flynn, 'Raiders of the Lost Archive: the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Film Industry 1942', Irish Communications Review, Volume 10, 2007 (large pdf - scroll down)
  

• Debbie Ging, 'A ‘Manual on Masculinity’? The consumption and use of mediated images of masculinity among teenage boys in Ireland', Irish Journal of Sociology, Vol. 14(2) 2005, pp. 29–52

• Rosa Gonzalez Casademont, 'Ireland on Screen. A View from Spain', International Journal of English Studies, vol. 2 (2), 2002, pp. 71-82

• Brendan Kelly, 'Psychiatry in contemporary Irish cinema: a qualitative study', Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 2006; 23(2): 74-79

• Cornelis Martin Renes, 'The Quiet Man and Angela's Ashes: Hollywood Representations of Irish Emigration as Male Quest Narrative', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Brian McIlroy, 'The Repression of Communities: Visual Representations of Northern Ireland during the Thatcher Years', first published in Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism., ed. Lester Friedman. Revised edition. London: Wallflower Press, 2006: 77-90
  

• Brian McIlroy, 'Exodus, Arrival & Return: The Generic Discourse of Irish Diasporic and Exilic Narrative Films', first published in Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television, eds. Ruth Barton and Harvey O’Brien (London: Wallflower Press, 2004): 69-77
  

• Raita Merivirta-Chakrabarti, 'Between Irish National Cinema and Hollywood: Neil Jordan's Michael Collins', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Raita Merivirta, 'Like Cain and Abel: Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera in Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins', Wider Screen, 1, 2005
  

• Paula Murphy, 'The Irish Phone Home: Reflections of Ireland in Jim Sheridan’s In America', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 4, 2009
  

• Paula Murphy, 'Interrogating Intermission', Kritikos: A Journal of Postmodern Cultural Sound, Text and Image, Volume 3, 2006

• Kim Newman, 'Irish Horror Cinema', The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Issue 1, October 2006

• Harvey O’Brien, The identity of an Irish cinema, 3rd edition, 2007
  

• Renée Penney, 'Bloody Sunday: Classically Unified Trauma?', Vol. 1, UBCinephile, April 2005

• Renée Penney, 'Genre and Irish Cinema Conference Review - March 2005', Center for Cinema Studies,University of British Columbia
  

• Sarah Pierce, 'The Archival Fourth Dimension', Afterall, November 23, 2009

• Marita Ryan, 'Answering the Question: “What is Intermission?” – An Exploration of Intermission as a Postmodern Film', International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Volume 5, Number 1 (January, 2008)

• Matthew Ryan, 'Ourselves Alone: Solipsism in Neil Jordan's Novels and Films', Barcelona English Language and Literature Studies, no.11, 2000, pp.187-98

• Sean Ryder, 'Representing Ireland: Literary Adaptation and Irish Cinema', Barcelona English Language and Literature Studies 9, 1998, 119-130

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television - 2005' (including Introduction Tony Tracy; Irish Film 2005: An Industry in Crisis? Roddy Flynn;Boy Eats Girl Ruth Barton; Masculinity in Contemporary Irish Cinema Debbie Ging;Adam and Paul Barry Monahan;The Trouble with Sex Emma Grealy;Pure Mule Tony Tracy;Fair City Helena Sheehan;Mickybo and Me and The Mighty CeltPádraic Whyte; Man About Dog Díóg O’Connell;Documentary Film and TelevisionHarvey O’Brien; Pavee Lackeen Seán Crosson;Adaptations: Tara Road and Breakfast on Pluto Tony Tra), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 1, 2006
  

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television – 2006' (including Introduction Tony Tracy; Industrial In/Activity Roddy Flynn; TG 4 Eithne O'Connell; The Wind that Shakes the Barley Ruth Barton; Isolation Barry Monahan; Capital Letters Debbie Ging; Once Tony Tracy; Middletown Jane Ruffino; Six Shooter Seán Crosson; Brendan Gleeson Harvey O'Brien; The Clinic Diog O Connell; The Tiger's Tail and The Pope's Children Pat Brereton) Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Tony Tracy (ed.),'Irish Film and Television – 2007 (including Introduction Tony Tracy; From Kings to Cáca Mílis: Recent Trends in Irish Film and Television as Gaeilge Seán Crosson; Cré na Cille Gearóid Denvir The Kings’ Irish: Dialogue, Dialect and Subtitle in Kings Eithne O’Connell; Altered Images: Shrooms and Irish Cinema Roddy Flynn; Small Engine Repair Ruth Barton; Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage: A Drama of Cinematic Silence Barry Monahan; Prosperity: Social Realism in the New Millennium; Díog O’Connell; The Celtic ‘Chick-flick’: How About You and PS I Love You Debbie Ging; The Brave One Maria Pramaggiore; Experimental Conversations: Ourselves Connected? Donal Foreman; Ghosts of Empire: Mitchell and Kenyon inIrelandand Saoirse? Harvey O’Brien; At Home With the Clearys Pat Brereton; Interview with Simon Perry Tony Tracy), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 3, 2008

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television – 2008',(including Irish Film and Television Review 2008 Tony Tracy; In the Beginning: Ardmore Studios Celebrates 50 Barry Monahan; Kisses Ruth Barton; Hunger Seán Crosson; Staging Space: Cinema, Image, and Text in Declan Recks’ Eden Harvey O’Brien; In Bruges Joan Dean; Entering the Dark Place: Visions of Irish Horror in SeerZélie Asava; 32A Roddy Flynn; Níl aon tinteán mar do hinteán féin: Home insecurity in recent Irish Cinema Veronica Johnson; Tom Jordan Murphy: An Appreciation Michael Patrick Gillespie; The Short Film and Irish Cinema Conn Holohan; Drawing Conclusions: Irish Animation and National CinemaLiam Burke; Meltdown makeover: TV3’s The Apprentice Gavin Titley; Fairytale of Katmandu Laura Canning; Bertie: Portrait of a Politician Under Suspicion Pat Brereton; Striapacha Tri Chead Bliain Duailcis Niamh O’Reilly), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 4, 2009
  

• Pilar Villar-Argáiz, 'Latter-day Mother Irelands: The Role of Women in Michael Collins and The Wind that Shakes the Barley', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007