Chủ Nhật, 17 tháng 1, 2010

Sonic Image: Exploring relationships between the sound and visual worlds



Thanks to Adrian Martin Film Studies For Free heard about the online availability in one volume of the second edition of Sound Scripts: Proceedings of the Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference (2009). It is downloadable as a large pdf file/e-book here. The excellent contents, some of which are brilliantly film-related, are listed below, together with page numbers for ease of scrolling.

The volume explores the theme of 'Sonic Image: Exploring relationships between the sound and visual worlds', and features papers presented at the 2007 Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference, including the keynote address from cinema-sound expert Philip Brophy, a critical examination (by Jonathan W. Marshall) of the work of the 2007 keynote artist, Dutch contemporary opera composer Michel van der Aa, and other papers addressing the theme of the sonic image.

Also included is a discussion of the aesthetics microsonic vibration and bio-art (Paul Thomas), sonic immanence and dwelling within the space of sound (Bruce Mowson), Badalementi’s music for the films of David Lynch (Clare Nina Norelli), sonic Surrealism and the work of Nurse With Wound (Darren Jorgenson), Christoph Herndler’s notes to his visual score Im Schnitt, der Punkt [At Interface, the Point] (2003), flânerie, sonic flatness and the work of David Chesworth and Sonia Leber (Jonathan W. Marshall), low frequency effects in contemporary film composition (Cat Hope), the translation of the sights and environment of Antarctica into musical form (Patrick Shepherd), and Ross Bolleter’s account of his own work translating Australian landscapes and history into music via the Ruined Piano.

Grazie ancora, Adrian!

SOUND SCRIPTS Volume 2 (2009)
Edited by Cat Hope and Jonathan W. Marshall
Published by Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts Faculty and Education Edith Cowan University and the Australian Music Centre

Editorial: Cat Hope    5
The Nth Art: The State of the Sonic Image at the 2007 Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference
2.    Keynote 1: Philip Brophy    9
Pseudo Soundtracks: The myth of inventive audiovision in contemporary cinema
3.    Keynote 2: Jonathan W. Marshall    16
Freezing the Music and Fetishising the Subject: The audiovisual dramaturgy of Michel van der Aa
4.    Paul Thomas    26
Audionano—Vibrating Matter
5.    Bruce Mowson    32
Being Within Sound: Immanence and listening
6.    Clare Nina Norelli    38
Suburban Dread: The music of Angelo Badalamenti in the films of David Lynch
7.    Darren Jorgenson    44
The Marvellous Surrealism of Nurse With Wound and The Sylvie and Babs Hi-Fi Companion 8.    Christoph Herndler    51
Im Schnitt, der Punkt [At Interface, the Point] (2003)
9.    Jonathan W. Marshall    55
Flatness, Ornamentality and the Sonic Image: Puncturing flânerie and postcolonial memorialisation in the work of David Chesworth and Sonia Leber
10. Cat Hope    74
The Bottom End of Cinema: Low frequency effects in soundtrack composition
11. Patrick Shepherd    79
From Ice to Music: The challenges of translating the sights and sounds of Antarctica into music
12. Ross Bolleter    89
The Well Weathered Piano: A study in ruin

Thứ Năm, 14 tháng 1, 2010

Study of a Single Film: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)




What makes A.I. Steven Spielberg’s strangest, most interesting, and (though it may sound ironic to say it) most mature work is that, whether by accident or design, it’s the first of his movies to be both a “children’s” film, ingratiating and manipulative, and a film for adults—complex, ambiguous, brutal and cold. Or, to put it another way, both a Steven Spielberg film and a Stanley Kubrick film.
Tim Kreider, 'A.I.: Artificial Intelligence', originally published in Film Quarterly, Vol. 56, no. 2, December 2002


Although Stanley Kubrick spent almost two decades developing A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), Steven Spielberg would eventually write and direct the final film after Kubrick’s death. While it may seem odd for a single work to result from two creators—especially two directors so distinct in style and temperament—this combination of minds actually reflects the themes and motifs of the film. Within its visual text, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is obsessed with patterns of doubling and circular design. Throughout the film, faces become superimposed on top of one another, different characters repeat similar actions, and even the film narrative circles around on itself. In addition, specific characters are repeatedly framed through oval structures or reflected against rounded surfaces. These repetitions of shot choice and composition suggest multiple readings and underlying themes, including an interconnection between humans and machines that spans both desire and destiny.
Ben Sampson, ''Intelligence Doubled: A Visual Study of A.I. Artificial Intelligence”, UCLA, 2010
Way back in the increasingly dim and distant past, when Film Studies For Free's author used to teach film studies in a real classroom ... to real people ... (imagine!), one of her favourite courses was called Study of a Single Film. It fruitfully took a single film as its subject and object, for a whole semester,  revealing -- even to students who had hoped they might be able to choose the film themselves... -- the many benefits of truly concentrated film analysis and scholarship.

FSFF was reminded of these benefits when its attention was drawn to a marvellous new video essay on a single film by Benjamin Sampson, a graduate researcher in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA. Sampson is the creator of another visual essay that this blog loved, on Orson Welles's F for Fake, originally published in the online UCLA journal Mediascape. According to the Mediascape website, prior to his graduate studies, Sampson worked for four years as a freelance videographer and video editor. His current research focuses on the later films of Orson Welles, audience segmentation in the 1950s, and essay films

Sampson's magnificently edited and profoundly argued new essay, embedded above, studies in detail the design and purpose of the many motifs of duality in Steven Spielberg's 2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence. As Sampson himself notes in his commentary, duality is a particularly interesting aspect to study in relation to A.I., as it was the film with which Spielberg 'completed' Stanley Kubrick's original project in his own fashion. The essay is very timely, too: while somewhat derided by serious film criticism at the time of its release, A.I. recently found its way into some of the most discerning 'Best Films of the Decade' lists (see here [Reverse Shot], here [Glenn Kenny], and here [Jonathan Rosenbaum]), very deservedly in this blog's humble opinion.

In honour of A.I., as well as in celebration of Ben Sampson's wonderful, multimedia essay on it -- a piece of work which really begins to show what scholarly video essays can achieve, FSFF today launches its occasional series of 'Study of a Single Film' blog-posts.

There'll be links galore to online and openly accessible film scholarship or criticism of note (as below), all pertaining to great films of particular relevance to academic film studies. More of the usual, really...

But if you'd like to suggest a fruitful film for this series on which FSFF might base future such blogposts, or if, like Sampson, you have produced a really good scholarly video essay on a single film (or know of someone else who has) that might be centrepiece of future posts, do please get in touch by email.

Thứ Ba, 12 tháng 1, 2010

The eloquence of cinematic space: Eric Rohmer 1920-2010


Image from La Collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer, 1967)
"What Rohmer does, in essence, is precisely to give space to this elusive life of the heart, expanding the arena for those subtle and important personal choices which most of the time, for most of us, are squeezed below the surface made up of work and more conscious or pressing demands", Judith Williamson [Deadline at Dawn: Film Criticism 1980-1990, Marion Boyars, London, 1993, p. 180]
“After all I do not say, I show. I show people who move and speak. That is all I know how to do, but that is my true subject.” Eric Rohmer ["Letter to a Critic Concerning my Contes moraux"]
"Rohmer remained true to a restrained, rationalist aesthetic, close to the principles of the 18th-century thinkers whose words he frequently cited in his movies. And yet [his] work was warmed by an undercurrent of romanticism and erotic yearning, made perhaps all the more affecting for never quite breaking through the surface of his elegant, orderly films" 
Dave Kehr [The New York Times, January 11, 2010]


A shocked Film Studies For Free mourns the passing of Eric Rohmer, one of the key directors of the French New Wave and one of the most eloquent founders, audiovisually and verbally, of the discourse of modern cinema.

David Hudson of The Auteurs is busily gathering links to a fantastic range of eulogies to, and other worthwhile material about, this filmmaker. Below, FSFF offers up its own (customary) tribute in the form of a list of links to online, freely accessible, and notable scholarly resources which explore Rohmer's magnificent body of cinematic work:


                • YouTube videos (part 1 and part 2): excerpts of Claire Denis's film of Serge Daney interviewing Jacques Rivette on his early interest in filmmaking, his days with Cahiers du cinéma, and his first meetings with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer (from 3 mins 30 secs). A must watch for those who haven't yet seen Denis's Jacque Rivette, The Watchman.

                Thứ Hai, 11 tháng 1, 2010

                Tenth Anniversary SCOPE !! On Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation



                Hooray! It's OUT. Film Studies For Free has been checking almost every day for a couple of months now because it knew that an amazing issue of Scope: an online journal of film and tv studies -- its TENTH anniversary issue -- was just about to be published. It's here now *Scope* # 15: an issue and  an e-book -- see the contents links below -- and contains some fantastic items of film and media studies. 

                Congratulations to the whole editorial team at Scope, who do a fabulous job. These have been ten great years of remarkably high quality and FREELY ACCESSIBLE scholarly works. Thank you.


                Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation
                Edited by Iain Robert Smith
                Acknowledgements Iain Robert Smith
                Foreword: Scope's Tenth Anniversary  Mark Gallagher and Julian Stringer
                Introduction Iain Robert Smith
                Part I: Hollywood Cinema and Artistic Imitation
                Part II: Found Footage and Remix Culture
                Part III: Modes of Parody and Pastiche
                Part IV: Transnational Screen Culture

                On INCITE! A journal of experimental media & radical aesthetics



                An image from Michael Robinson's Victory Over the Sun (2007)

                A shivering, but purposefully heroic, Film Studies For Free has crept out from its cosy igloo in order to excite some more, much merited, interest in INCITE!, the online and Open Access journal of experimental media & radical aesthetics.  

                INCITE! describes itself thus:
                Merging handmade and online platforms, this hybrid [on and off-line] publication addresses the lack of critical attention afforded film and media artists working today. In addition to scholarly articles, INCITE! publishes aesthetic statements, manifestos, artist projects, multiples, archival documents, interviews, reviews, and hastily drawn plans.
                Stationing ourselves at the cross-flow of research, scholarship, and creation, we encourage personal writing, critical poetics, and radical approaches to film and media.
                Issue # 1: Manifest appeared in Fall 2008 -- see the wonderful list of contents below.

                Issue # 2 "Counter-Archive," which should go online in early 2010, is thus much anticipated. But the journal has also just launched "Back & Forth," a new monthly interview series.

                In the first edition of the series, Cat Tyc talks to the poetic pop recycler Michael Robinson about his filmmaking roots, cultural references, thematic trajectories, and future directions (see also Michael Sicinski's wonderful Cinema-Scope article about Robinson here).





                 





                Thứ Hai, 4 tháng 1, 2010

                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.


                They came from the Twitterfeed...




                Below is a quite horrendously long (and hyperbolic) list of live links to online and freely accessible items of note (or of quirk) as already delivered up to e-posterity (or e-phemerality) by Film Studies For Free's occasionally very vibrant Twitterfeed.

                If you'd like to be almost constantly supplied with news of such magnificent resources as these (-- in 140 characters or fewer -- in real time -- as they excitedly happen --), please subscribe to the ever so abbreviated & abridged @filmstudiesff HERE. Ta!