Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2019.1580025
Elizabeth M. Ward
{"title":"Screening Auschwitz: Wanda Jakubowska’s The Last Stage and the politics of commemoration","authors":"Elizabeth M. Ward","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2019.1580025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2019.1580025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17411548.2019.1580025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59929686","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}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2020.1741129
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
{"title":"Desires for reality: radicalism and revolution in Western European film","authors":"Felipe Espinoza Garrido","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2020.1741129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2020.1741129","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17411548.2020.1741129","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59930242","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}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2022.2049501
Owen Evans, Graeme Harper
As Russian forces launched their attack on Ukraine in February 2022, which had a sad inevitability after weeks of ‘sabre-rattling’ from the Kremlin – an accusation former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder levelled at Kyiv – a continent slowly emerging from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic braced itself for more uncertainty. The images of refugees fleeing the country were heartbreaking to see yet again; social media platforms now mean such pictures of distress are so much more prevalent than ever. Equally striking though was the number of Ukrainian civilians who vowed to stay and take up arms against the invading forces. It was in that context that the film Hurricane: 303 Squadron (Blair, 2018) struck a chord. Based on the squadron formed of exiled Polish fighter pilots who had fled their homeland after the Nazi invasion in September 1939, the film eulogises the bravery of the men, pilots and ground crew who made such a vital contribution to the eventual victory in the Battle of Britain. Indeed, 303 Squadron was reputed to have shot down more enemy aircraft than any other during the Battle, with the one Czech in the squadron, Flight Sergeant Josef Frantisek, the leading ace in terms of confirmed kills. As Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, would later observe: ‘Had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of the Battle would have been the same’ (Polish Embassy UK 2020). Leslie Felperin’s review in The Guardian is a little dismissive of the way the film can be set alongside so many other rather melodramatic or formulaic World War Two dramas, containing ‘the required guns blazing and handsome chaps being heroic, stoic and panicstriken’ (2018). He therefore compares it rather unfavourably to Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk from the previous year, though he acknowledges that Blair had a much smaller budget at his disposal and actually manages to orchestrate affairs relatively well overall. In truth, the inclusion of the love story between protagonist Jan Zumbach, convincingly played by Welsh actor Iwan Rheon, fresh from success in Game of Thrones, and Phyllis Lambert (Stefanie Martini), does evoke memories of Jan Svērák’s Dark Blue World (2001), with its comparable story of exiled Czech pilots fleeing to Britain to carry the fight to the Germans. But no matter that the film might betray the usual instances of truelife history being adapted for the screen with the creative flourishes that can antagonise historians, Hurricane has perhaps belatedly acquired additional significance in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis. What is particularly unsettling, in view of the British Government’s reluctance to issue visas for refugees from the conflict, is the film’s poignant conclusion at the end of the war with the surviving pilots toasting their fallen comrades before being expelled from Britain, irrespective of their
{"title":"Editorial","authors":"Owen Evans, Graeme Harper","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2022.2049501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2022.2049501","url":null,"abstract":"As Russian forces launched their attack on Ukraine in February 2022, which had a sad inevitability after weeks of ‘sabre-rattling’ from the Kremlin – an accusation former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder levelled at Kyiv – a continent slowly emerging from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic braced itself for more uncertainty. The images of refugees fleeing the country were heartbreaking to see yet again; social media platforms now mean such pictures of distress are so much more prevalent than ever. Equally striking though was the number of Ukrainian civilians who vowed to stay and take up arms against the invading forces. It was in that context that the film Hurricane: 303 Squadron (Blair, 2018) struck a chord. Based on the squadron formed of exiled Polish fighter pilots who had fled their homeland after the Nazi invasion in September 1939, the film eulogises the bravery of the men, pilots and ground crew who made such a vital contribution to the eventual victory in the Battle of Britain. Indeed, 303 Squadron was reputed to have shot down more enemy aircraft than any other during the Battle, with the one Czech in the squadron, Flight Sergeant Josef Frantisek, the leading ace in terms of confirmed kills. As Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, would later observe: ‘Had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of the Battle would have been the same’ (Polish Embassy UK 2020). Leslie Felperin’s review in The Guardian is a little dismissive of the way the film can be set alongside so many other rather melodramatic or formulaic World War Two dramas, containing ‘the required guns blazing and handsome chaps being heroic, stoic and panicstriken’ (2018). He therefore compares it rather unfavourably to Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk from the previous year, though he acknowledges that Blair had a much smaller budget at his disposal and actually manages to orchestrate affairs relatively well overall. In truth, the inclusion of the love story between protagonist Jan Zumbach, convincingly played by Welsh actor Iwan Rheon, fresh from success in Game of Thrones, and Phyllis Lambert (Stefanie Martini), does evoke memories of Jan Svērák’s Dark Blue World (2001), with its comparable story of exiled Czech pilots fleeing to Britain to carry the fight to the Germans. But no matter that the film might betray the usual instances of truelife history being adapted for the screen with the creative flourishes that can antagonise historians, Hurricane has perhaps belatedly acquired additional significance in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis. What is particularly unsettling, in view of the British Government’s reluctance to issue visas for refugees from the conflict, is the film’s poignant conclusion at the end of the war with the surviving pilots toasting their fallen comrades before being expelled from Britain, irrespective of their","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41974530","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}
Pub Date : 2021-11-17DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2021.2004010
Alexander Woodman
ABSTRACT This article transcribes an interview with the President of the European Film Academy, film director and scriptwriter Agnieszka Holland. It traces the filmmaker’s journey from her early filmmaking career and the potential influence of acting as a global citizen. Agnieszka Holland studied directing at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. She began her career as an assistant director to Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. In 1977, Agnieszka Holland made her co-directing debut with ‘Screen Tests.’ In 1978, Holland wrote her first screenplay for Wajda, ‘Without Anaesthesia.’ Her solo feature directing debut started with ‘Provincial Actors,’ which won the International Critics Prize at Cannes Film Festival (1980). Since then, she has directed over 30 films, won numerous awards, including the Golden Globe and Silver Bear Berlinale. Agnieszka Holland was nominated for a BAFTA and Emmy, while her films ‘Angry Harvest’ (1985), ‘Europa Europa’ (1990), and ‘In Darkness’ (2011) were nominated for an Academy Award. The emotional impact and foresight of these films have earned her international fame. Throughout her career, Holland’s vision of cinematography and the way reality is depicted influenced the further history of cinema.
{"title":"Discussion with the President of the European Film Academy, Agnieszka Holland","authors":"Alexander Woodman","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2021.2004010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2021.2004010","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article transcribes an interview with the President of the European Film Academy, film director and scriptwriter Agnieszka Holland. It traces the filmmaker’s journey from her early filmmaking career and the potential influence of acting as a global citizen. Agnieszka Holland studied directing at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. She began her career as an assistant director to Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. In 1977, Agnieszka Holland made her co-directing debut with ‘Screen Tests.’ In 1978, Holland wrote her first screenplay for Wajda, ‘Without Anaesthesia.’ Her solo feature directing debut started with ‘Provincial Actors,’ which won the International Critics Prize at Cannes Film Festival (1980). Since then, she has directed over 30 films, won numerous awards, including the Golden Globe and Silver Bear Berlinale. Agnieszka Holland was nominated for a BAFTA and Emmy, while her films ‘Angry Harvest’ (1985), ‘Europa Europa’ (1990), and ‘In Darkness’ (2011) were nominated for an Academy Award. The emotional impact and foresight of these films have earned her international fame. Throughout her career, Holland’s vision of cinematography and the way reality is depicted influenced the further history of cinema.","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46671402","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}
Pub Date : 2021-10-24DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2021.1989159
Thomas Austin
ABSTRACT This paper investigates how László Nemes’ Sunset (Napszállta 2018), a drama set in Budapest of the early 1910s, gestures to but problematises the pleasures of ‘heritage space’. The film combines the careful assembly of period mise en scène with a countervailing and systematic attenuation of this reconstruction, achieved through tight framing, shallow focus and extreme focalisation on the protagonist Írisz Leiter. This strategy consigns many of the splendours of Belle Époque Budapest to off-screen or out-of-focus space. I explore how Sunset’s deployment and complication of the visual, and narrative, pleasures of the period film engages critically with attitudes towards history and the past; the resulting response to the film among Hungarian reviewers; and the gender politics of the film. The institutionalised gender abuse behind the beautiful façade of the Leiter hat store and its opulent clients parallels contemporary scandals. Like many period films, Sunset is set on the cusp of change, a moment when ‘the present imagines itself to have been born and history forever changed’. But it refuses to be sealed off as a closed history to be either nostalgically enjoyed or smugly judged at a safe distance from the present.
{"title":"Sunset (Napszállta) and the politics of the period film","authors":"Thomas Austin","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2021.1989159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2021.1989159","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper investigates how László Nemes’ Sunset (Napszállta 2018), a drama set in Budapest of the early 1910s, gestures to but problematises the pleasures of ‘heritage space’. The film combines the careful assembly of period mise en scène with a countervailing and systematic attenuation of this reconstruction, achieved through tight framing, shallow focus and extreme focalisation on the protagonist Írisz Leiter. This strategy consigns many of the splendours of Belle Époque Budapest to off-screen or out-of-focus space. I explore how Sunset’s deployment and complication of the visual, and narrative, pleasures of the period film engages critically with attitudes towards history and the past; the resulting response to the film among Hungarian reviewers; and the gender politics of the film. The institutionalised gender abuse behind the beautiful façade of the Leiter hat store and its opulent clients parallels contemporary scandals. Like many period films, Sunset is set on the cusp of change, a moment when ‘the present imagines itself to have been born and history forever changed’. But it refuses to be sealed off as a closed history to be either nostalgically enjoyed or smugly judged at a safe distance from the present.","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47843688","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-24DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2021.1978769
Birger Langkjær
ABSTRACT Several contemporary film directors have created distinct auteur-signatures through their approach to music. The article analyzes how Lars von Trier has used music and sound to enhance his idiosyncratic visions from early on in his dystopian Europe-trilogy comprising The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987), and Europa (1991). These films playfully invoke film and film music stereotypes and references as part of their apocalyptic visions. They do so, however, in very different ways: The generic music mood-approach in The Element of Crime; the claim on big emotions through the use of Wagner’s overture to Tannhäuser in Epidemic; and an emphasis on stylistic elements rather than on character action in combination with musical salutations to film history in Europa. These various forms of music seldom provide access to characters’ psychology or invite emotional engagement in them. Rather, the music enhances stylistic patterns, which adds a dissonant beauty to the brutal sceneries and disconnect the male protagonists from a classical goal oriented series of actions. Trier thereby ambiguously situates his characters in a narrative of which they – despite their best intention – have no control. Instead, the protagonists finally surrender to their fate as marionettes in a musically orchestrated narrative.
{"title":"Musical marionettes: sound and music in Lars von Trier’s Europe trilogy","authors":"Birger Langkjær","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2021.1978769","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2021.1978769","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Several contemporary film directors have created distinct auteur-signatures through their approach to music. The article analyzes how Lars von Trier has used music and sound to enhance his idiosyncratic visions from early on in his dystopian Europe-trilogy comprising The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987), and Europa (1991). These films playfully invoke film and film music stereotypes and references as part of their apocalyptic visions. They do so, however, in very different ways: The generic music mood-approach in The Element of Crime; the claim on big emotions through the use of Wagner’s overture to Tannhäuser in Epidemic; and an emphasis on stylistic elements rather than on character action in combination with musical salutations to film history in Europa. These various forms of music seldom provide access to characters’ psychology or invite emotional engagement in them. Rather, the music enhances stylistic patterns, which adds a dissonant beauty to the brutal sceneries and disconnect the male protagonists from a classical goal oriented series of actions. Trier thereby ambiguously situates his characters in a narrative of which they – despite their best intention – have no control. Instead, the protagonists finally surrender to their fate as marionettes in a musically orchestrated narrative.","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46020249","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2021.1928824
Laurence Carr
ABSTRACT Since the release of Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of Metropolis in 1984, paired with his electronic musical score, it has become increasingly popular for composers to create new scores for silent films. Some scholars credit new musical scores with introducing younger generations to silent cinema. However, other critics argue that new scores make silent films less authentic. F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was initially released with an orchestral score by Hans Erdmann. This original score is still regularly used to accompany Murnau’s film when it is screened today and is contained on the Eureka Video home media releases of Nosferatu that feature the 2013 F.W. Murnau Stiftung restoration of the film. In 1997, composer James Bernard created a new score to accompany Photoplay Productions’ remaster of Enno Patalas’ 1995 Nosferatu restoration, which has since been paired with the BFI DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Nosferatu. This article examines the effects that Erdmann’s and Bernard’s musical accompaniments have on implied sound in Murnau’s film in the two aforementioned editions of Nosferatu. In particular, I focus on how audible and inaudible sound can affect the audience’s reception of, and creative engagement with, Nosferatu.
{"title":"The audience as creative contributor: examining the effects of implied sound and music in two versions of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)","authors":"Laurence Carr","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2021.1928824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2021.1928824","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since the release of Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of Metropolis in 1984, paired with his electronic musical score, it has become increasingly popular for composers to create new scores for silent films. Some scholars credit new musical scores with introducing younger generations to silent cinema. However, other critics argue that new scores make silent films less authentic. F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was initially released with an orchestral score by Hans Erdmann. This original score is still regularly used to accompany Murnau’s film when it is screened today and is contained on the Eureka Video home media releases of Nosferatu that feature the 2013 F.W. Murnau Stiftung restoration of the film. In 1997, composer James Bernard created a new score to accompany Photoplay Productions’ remaster of Enno Patalas’ 1995 Nosferatu restoration, which has since been paired with the BFI DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Nosferatu. This article examines the effects that Erdmann’s and Bernard’s musical accompaniments have on implied sound in Murnau’s film in the two aforementioned editions of Nosferatu. In particular, I focus on how audible and inaudible sound can affect the audience’s reception of, and creative engagement with, Nosferatu.","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17411548.2021.1928824","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47523221","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2021.1957624
Agata Frymus, Luca Antoniazzi, Laurence Carr
This collection is the result of a 2018 conference that was held at the University of Leeds and funded by White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH). As organizers, we were brought together by our broad interest in silent film and film heritage, more generally. Yet, it was clear to us that our respective work drew on vastly different approaches to the subjects. While Luca Antoniazzi (2018, 2020) deals with policy issues of digital preservation and curatorship, Agata Frymus’s (2020, 2021) primary research focus is on silent film audiences and stardom. Laurence Carr was, at the time, completing a PhD thesis on the visual representations of sound in Weimar cinema. Intrigued by the differences in our ways of thinking, and our subsequent methods, we became interested in the idea of crosspollination – and the potential overlaps – between these distinctive approaches and lines of enquiry. Therefore, we envisioned an event that would provide a space for dialogue between archivists and media scholars, who often work in isolation. Broadly speaking, the conference aimed to bridge the gap between various types of expertise that essentially exist on the same subject, across various sub-fields and institutions. The conference also aimed to explore how different disciplines viewed key debates on digital technology, curatorship, access and the visibility of silent cinema and archival collections in the public sphere.
{"title":"Introductory essay: silent film historiography, digital technology and the archive","authors":"Agata Frymus, Luca Antoniazzi, Laurence Carr","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2021.1957624","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2021.1957624","url":null,"abstract":"This collection is the result of a 2018 conference that was held at the University of Leeds and funded by White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH). As organizers, we were brought together by our broad interest in silent film and film heritage, more generally. Yet, it was clear to us that our respective work drew on vastly different approaches to the subjects. While Luca Antoniazzi (2018, 2020) deals with policy issues of digital preservation and curatorship, Agata Frymus’s (2020, 2021) primary research focus is on silent film audiences and stardom. Laurence Carr was, at the time, completing a PhD thesis on the visual representations of sound in Weimar cinema. Intrigued by the differences in our ways of thinking, and our subsequent methods, we became interested in the idea of crosspollination – and the potential overlaps – between these distinctive approaches and lines of enquiry. Therefore, we envisioned an event that would provide a space for dialogue between archivists and media scholars, who often work in isolation. Broadly speaking, the conference aimed to bridge the gap between various types of expertise that essentially exist on the same subject, across various sub-fields and institutions. The conference also aimed to explore how different disciplines viewed key debates on digital technology, curatorship, access and the visibility of silent cinema and archival collections in the public sphere.","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44617306","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2021.1921930
Luca Antoniazzi, S. Popple, Ruxandra Lupu
ABSTRACT The digital optimism of the past decade has been reflected in many policy documents related to cultural heritage in which digital technology is portrayed as a great opportunity to bring cultural heritage to a much wider audience. This potential has been contested as widening access has proved much more complex than some at first thought. Despite that, in this paper we argue that curators of national silent film collections can realistically get inspired by grassroots participatory projects. We consider two digital projects: silent feature films in the British context; and silent home movies in Italy. The first study considers the BFI Player as part of the broader BFI digital strategy. We examine the development of institutional practices to digitally publish silent films, the role of the archive and curators, and the new public experiences of silent cinema. The second study is a grassroots project that looks at the role of digitisation in the re-use of digitised footage from Sicilian home movie collections. The study explores digital forms of organisation and access to this material and how they encourage creative reuse. We extrapolate some best practices that curators and policy makers might find useful and could follow nationally and locally.
{"title":"Neither sublimes nor catastrophes: digital affordances in silent film heritage and suggestions from home movies collections","authors":"Luca Antoniazzi, S. Popple, Ruxandra Lupu","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2021.1921930","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2021.1921930","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The digital optimism of the past decade has been reflected in many policy documents related to cultural heritage in which digital technology is portrayed as a great opportunity to bring cultural heritage to a much wider audience. This potential has been contested as widening access has proved much more complex than some at first thought. Despite that, in this paper we argue that curators of national silent film collections can realistically get inspired by grassroots participatory projects. We consider two digital projects: silent feature films in the British context; and silent home movies in Italy. The first study considers the BFI Player as part of the broader BFI digital strategy. We examine the development of institutional practices to digitally publish silent films, the role of the archive and curators, and the new public experiences of silent cinema. The second study is a grassroots project that looks at the role of digitisation in the re-use of digitised footage from Sicilian home movie collections. The study explores digital forms of organisation and access to this material and how they encourage creative reuse. We extrapolate some best practices that curators and policy makers might find useful and could follow nationally and locally.","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43209238","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}
Pub Date : 2021-08-06DOI: 10.1080/17411548.2021.1939593
Katharina Bonzel
ABSTRACT In Christian Petzold’s 2012 film Barbara, a film about a disgraced East German doctor who has been demoted to work in a provincial hospital, borders and boundaries abound. While moral, ethical, and personal boundaries are frequently crossed in the film, the German-German border remains somewhat of a mystery. It is a border that cannot be spoken of, rendering not only the characters mute, but also any visual representation impossible. Using the understated realism of the Berlin School of filmmaking, this paper argues, the film visualizes instead an ambivalent approach to the German notion of ‘Heimat’: rather than being the homely, safe haven it is usually depicted as, Barbara’s country of birth becomes ‘unheimlich’ – uncanny, a place of invasion, surveillance and confinement. And yet, in the end, Barbara chooses to stay there, giving up her place in an escape plan to a pregnant teen patient instead. The film thus throws up more questions than it answers, most crucially about the human capacity to live within even the most personal constraints.
{"title":"The Uncanny Heimat: longing for home in Barbara (Petzold, 2012)","authors":"Katharina Bonzel","doi":"10.1080/17411548.2021.1939593","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2021.1939593","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In Christian Petzold’s 2012 film Barbara, a film about a disgraced East German doctor who has been demoted to work in a provincial hospital, borders and boundaries abound. While moral, ethical, and personal boundaries are frequently crossed in the film, the German-German border remains somewhat of a mystery. It is a border that cannot be spoken of, rendering not only the characters mute, but also any visual representation impossible. Using the understated realism of the Berlin School of filmmaking, this paper argues, the film visualizes instead an ambivalent approach to the German notion of ‘Heimat’: rather than being the homely, safe haven it is usually depicted as, Barbara’s country of birth becomes ‘unheimlich’ – uncanny, a place of invasion, surveillance and confinement. And yet, in the end, Barbara chooses to stay there, giving up her place in an escape plan to a pregnant teen patient instead. The film thus throws up more questions than it answers, most crucially about the human capacity to live within even the most personal constraints.","PeriodicalId":42089,"journal":{"name":"Studies in European Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17411548.2021.1939593","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46247792","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}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：