Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.2979/blc.2023.a883822
Fabio Bego
Reviewed by: Dune Fabio Bego (bio) Directed by Denis Villeneuve, performances by Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, and Oscar Isaac, 2021. 156 mins. Denis Villeneuve’s film Dune (2021) provides interesting insight on how notions of race, gender, and empire that are at the core of current post-colonial critique are being transferred into popular culture. Analyses of the short- and long-term consequences of colonialism in the contemporary world pervade public discourse in shows and documentaries for mainstream media, blockbuster movies, institutionally financed film festivals, and art exhibitions. From a political perspective it is possible to distinguish two broad approaches. On the one hand there is a critique from the left which is focused on the deconstruction of race and ethnicity. On the other hand, there is a critique from the far right that aims at restoring race and ethnic divisions and privileges which were presumably spoiled by “globalization” or “communism.” Without wanting to draw strict lines between the two political orientations of current postcolonial critique, in this review I argue that Dune squarely falls into the second category. I became interested in this film after reading some positive comments on Italian far right blogs. To understand the reasons why fascists appreciated this film, I take a look at Dune through the book Revolt Against the Modern World, by Italian racist and fascist philosopher Julius Evola. The book was originally published in 1934 but is still a major reference for fascists around the world.1 In order to highlight the analogies between the book and Dune’s anti-imperialist discourse, it is necessary to present the basic concepts of Evola’s ideas of empire. Evola thought that world history evolved around the dialectic between a supernatural order and a worldly or inferior order. He identified the supernatural order with the term “tradition.” Evola affirmed that traditional societies were organized according to races, caste systems, and sexes. This form of organization allowed societies to live harmoniously, although not peacefully, according to their status. The decay of traditional values and hierarchies led to the advent of the inferior order. This is the reason why modern societies are dominated by greed and individualistic interests. Evola affirms that the [End Page 404] supernatural order is ruled by men and has a masculine character whereas the inferior order has a feminine character. Drawing on this division, Evola defines two types of empires. The traditional empire, where the emperor has authority because he is sacred, and modern imperialism where the ruler has lost his sacredness and can obtain authority only with violence. Evola associates the term imperialism to the expansion of Western European states in the modern era and affirms that Europeans have destroyed the traditional societies that they colonized. He also believed that modern slavery in North America has been much crueller than the s
由丹尼斯·维伦纽夫导演，蒂莫西·查拉梅、丽贝卡·弗格森和奥斯卡·艾萨克表演，2021年。156分钟。丹尼斯·维伦纽夫(Denis Villeneuve)的电影《沙丘》(2021)提供了有趣的视角，展示了种族、性别和帝国的概念是如何被转移到流行文化中的，这些概念是当前后殖民批评的核心。对殖民主义在当代世界的短期和长期后果的分析，在主流媒体的节目和纪录片、大片、机构资助的电影节和艺术展览中无处不在。从政治角度来看，可以区分两种广泛的方法。一方面，左派的批评集中在种族和民族的解构上。另一方面，有一种来自极右翼的批评，旨在恢复可能被“全球化”或“共产主义”破坏的种族和民族分裂和特权。在本文中，我不想在当前后殖民批判的两种政治取向之间划出严格的界限，我认为《沙丘》完全属于第二类。在意大利极右翼博客上看到一些正面评论后，我对这部电影产生了兴趣。为了理解法西斯主义者欣赏这部电影的原因，我通过意大利种族主义者和法西斯哲学家朱利叶斯·埃沃拉(Julius Evola)的《反抗现代世界》(Revolt Against the Modern World)一书来看看《沙丘》。这本书最初出版于1934年，但仍然是世界各地法西斯主义者的主要参考资料为了突出《沙丘》与《沙丘》反帝国主义话语的相似性，有必要介绍埃沃拉帝国思想的基本概念。伊沃拉认为，世界历史是围绕着超自然秩序与世俗秩序或低等秩序之间的辩证法而演变的。他将超自然秩序与“传统”一词等同起来。埃沃拉断言，传统社会是根据种族、种姓制度和性别组织起来的。这种组织形式使社会能够根据其地位和谐地生活，尽管不是和平地生活。传统价值观和等级制度的衰落导致了劣等秩序的出现。这就是现代社会被贪婪和个人主义利益所支配的原因。Evola确认，超自然秩序是由男性统治的，具有男性特征，而低等秩序则具有女性特征。根据这种划分，Evola定义了两种类型的帝国。传统的帝国，皇帝因为神圣而拥有权威，而现代帝国主义，统治者已经失去了他的神圣性，只能通过暴力来获得权威。Evola将帝国主义一词与近代西欧国家的扩张联系在一起，并断言欧洲人摧毁了他们殖民的传统社会。他还认为，北美的现代奴隶制比古代社会的奴隶制残酷得多。在他看来，在印度传统社会中，奴隶制是不可想象的，因为属于工人种姓的人接受他们的社会功能，与现代奴隶和工人不同，他们不会感到与他们的工作疏远。他为传统社会的等级划分辩护，声称工人可以自由地归属于自己的种姓，就像统治者可以自由地归属于自己的种姓一样。埃沃拉批评现代民族主义，他认为这种民族主义与最近受马克思主义启发的理论类似，是虚构的传统。通过对这两部作品的比较，首先出现的相似之处之一是将社会划分为种姓。在《沙丘》中，有一个贵族阶级，以皇帝(我们在这部电影中没有看到)、阿特雷德斯公爵、他的儿子和电影的主要对手男爵为代表。还有一些战士，与Evola的想象类似，他们被描绘成苦行僧，献身于战斗和围绕它的仪式。有一类书记员调解不同统治者之间的关系。最后是“人民”，代表着来自阿拉基斯星球的大众，弗雷曼人。后者赞美并吟唱他们王子的名字。他们认识到他的神圣，似乎在精神上意识到王子即将承担的使命……
{"title":"Dune (review)","authors":"Fabio Bego","doi":"10.2979/blc.2023.a883822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/blc.2023.a883822","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Dune Fabio Bego (bio) Directed by Denis Villeneuve, performances by Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, and Oscar Isaac, 2021. 156 mins. Denis Villeneuve’s film Dune (2021) provides interesting insight on how notions of race, gender, and empire that are at the core of current post-colonial critique are being transferred into popular culture. Analyses of the short- and long-term consequences of colonialism in the contemporary world pervade public discourse in shows and documentaries for mainstream media, blockbuster movies, institutionally financed film festivals, and art exhibitions. From a political perspective it is possible to distinguish two broad approaches. On the one hand there is a critique from the left which is focused on the deconstruction of race and ethnicity. On the other hand, there is a critique from the far right that aims at restoring race and ethnic divisions and privileges which were presumably spoiled by “globalization” or “communism.” Without wanting to draw strict lines between the two political orientations of current postcolonial critique, in this review I argue that Dune squarely falls into the second category. I became interested in this film after reading some positive comments on Italian far right blogs. To understand the reasons why fascists appreciated this film, I take a look at Dune through the book Revolt Against the Modern World, by Italian racist and fascist philosopher Julius Evola. The book was originally published in 1934 but is still a major reference for fascists around the world.1 In order to highlight the analogies between the book and Dune’s anti-imperialist discourse, it is necessary to present the basic concepts of Evola’s ideas of empire. Evola thought that world history evolved around the dialectic between a supernatural order and a worldly or inferior order. He identified the supernatural order with the term “tradition.” Evola affirmed that traditional societies were organized according to races, caste systems, and sexes. This form of organization allowed societies to live harmoniously, although not peacefully, according to their status. The decay of traditional values and hierarchies led to the advent of the inferior order. This is the reason why modern societies are dominated by greed and individualistic interests. Evola affirms that the [End Page 404] supernatural order is ruled by men and has a masculine character whereas the inferior order has a feminine character. Drawing on this division, Evola defines two types of empires. The traditional empire, where the emperor has authority because he is sacred, and modern imperialism where the ruler has lost his sacredness and can obtain authority only with violence. Evola associates the term imperialism to the expansion of Western European states in the modern era and affirms that Europeans have destroyed the traditional societies that they colonized. He also believed that modern slavery in North America has been much crueller than the s","PeriodicalId":42749,"journal":{"name":"Black Camera","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532624","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 : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.2979/blc.2023.a883820
Lauren McLeod Cramer, Catherine Zimmer
Dossier: Spectacles of Anti-Black Violence and Contemporary Black Horror Lauren McLeod Cramer (bio) and Catherine Zimmer (bio) This dossier gathers key questions, concepts, and resources for artists, scholars, teachers, curators, and admirers of contemporary black horror films. The form and content of each of its sections offers a way to think about the intersection of blackness, spectacle, and cinema as a point of collaborative thinking, aesthetic connection, and citational practice: • Section 1: A Conversation between the Authors • Section 2: The Sunken Places Image Gallery • And finally, Section 3: A Resource List for Study and/or Teaching [End Page 319] 1. A Conversation between the Authors Almost a year to the day the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a global pandemic we hosted “Spectacles of Anti-Black Violence: Teaching Horror ‘With Everything Going on Right Now,’” a seminar at the 2021 Society for Cinema and Media Studies (virtual) conference that focused on topics both authors regularly address in our research and teaching: blackness and anti-blackness, visuality, genre, and popular culture. Yet, what is hopefully evident in the session’s title, is an unease around these topics as they straddle the unresolved space between theory and practice, which is exactly the place where the current cycle of horror films largely driven by black directors and producers render the “atmospheric” violence of anti-blackness on screen and invite audiences to consider the spectacularization of black pain, trauma, and death.1 In turn, we invited our disciplinary community to join us for a conversation that began with a claim: films and shows like Them (2021), Us (dir. Jordan Peele, 2019), and Suicide by Sunlight (dir. Nikyatu Jusu, 2018) are about a black lived experience and, no matter how fantastic, supernatural, temporally or spatially distant the story is, they are also about us—film scholars, teachers, and makers. The seminar description begins, Asked to identify the genre of Get Out (2017), director Jordan Peele famously referred to the film as a “documentary.”2 The comment acknowledges his audiences’ multiple realities, that some were experiencing the inventiveness of this film as a new and exciting development in the genre and others were viewing it as a surprisingly literal rendering of their everyday lives. Peele’s “joke” about film genre feels directed towards those who remain attached to these categorical distinctions because, of course, an exploration of anti-blackness is well within the “the nature of horror.”3 Yet, visualizing the legacy of slavery in literally monstrous form is only an uncanny return of America’s repressed—if anything about Get Out actually feels distant or past.4 Instead, the film relishes the cinematic and actual familiarity of its characters’ postracial performance, which is evident in its quotability (“I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could”). To call the film a “documentary” does not change anything abou
劳伦·麦克劳德·克莱默(传记)和凯瑟琳·齐默(传记)这本档案为当代黑人恐怖电影的艺术家、学者、教师、策展人和崇拜者收集了关键问题、概念和资源。每个部分的形式和内容都提供了一种思考黑色、奇观和电影的交叉点的方式，作为协作思维、美学联系和引用实践的一个点:•第1部分:作者之间的对话•第2部分:沉没的地方图像画廊•最后，第3部分:学习和/或教学资源列表[End Page 319] 1。在2019冠状病毒病爆发被宣布为全球大流行的近一年前，我们在2021年电影与媒体研究学会(虚拟)会议上举办了一场研讨会，主题是两位作者在我们的研究和教学中经常提到的话题:黑人和反黑人、视觉性、类型和流行文化。然而，希望在会议的标题中可以明显看出的是，围绕这些话题的不安，因为它们跨越了理论与实践之间尚未解决的空间，这正是目前主要由黑人导演和制片人推动的恐怖电影在屏幕上呈现反黑人的“大气”暴力的地方，并邀请观众考虑黑人痛苦，创伤和死亡的宏大化反过来，我们邀请我们的学科社区加入我们的对话，以一个主张开始:像他们(2021)，我们(导演)这样的电影和节目。乔丹·皮尔(Jordan Peele)， 2019年)和《阳光自杀》(Suicide by sunshine)。Nikyatu Jusu, 2018)都是关于黑人的生活经历，无论这个故事多么奇妙、超自然、时间或空间上的遥远，它们也是关于我们的——电影学者、教师和制作者。当被问及《逃出绝命镇》(2017)的类型时，导演乔丹·皮尔称这部电影是一部“纪录片”。他的评论承认了他的观众的多重现实，有些人认为这部电影的创造性是该类型电影中令人兴奋的新发展，而另一些人则认为它是对他们日常生活的一种惊人的真实呈现。皮尔关于电影类型的“玩笑”感觉是针对那些仍然依附于这些绝对区别的人，因为当然，对反黑人的探索完全属于“恐怖的本质”。然而，如果《逃出绝命镇》的任何情节真的让人感觉遥远或过时的话，那么把奴隶制的遗产以一种可怕的形式形象化只是美国被压抑者的一种离奇的回归相反，这部电影享受着电影和现实中人物婚后表现的熟悉感，这一点从它的引语(“如果可以的话，我会投票支持奥巴马连任第三届”)中显而易见。称这部电影为“纪录片”并没有改变它的内容，但它确实说明了我们对形式的理论化。这个笑话取决于电影类型的“显而易见”本质，这显然比黑人对种族主义的描述更容易辨别和信任。对非虚构类电影的具体提及，通过指出对摄影图像真实性的信念，详细阐述了这种否认，即使在我们极具可塑性的视觉文化中，摄影图像仍然被视为反对反黑人暴力的最有效工具即使是在开玩笑的时候，对黑人经历真相的痴迷也比阿米蒂奇家族的色盲要可疑得多。这部电影既是反黑人暴力的奇观，也是对反黑人暴力的学习——一种融合，描述了当代恐怖电影/电视中一个独特部分的焦点，也是“黑人的命也是命”运动的最新表达。正如我们的研讨会提案继续争论的那样，《逃出绝命镇》表明，在理解“反黑人暴力的奇观”的过程中，是“学习反黑人暴力”的奇观。后者描述了这些电影教给我们的可怕的事情，关于黑人遭受的恐怖，以及这些电影教给我们的，有时相当令人不寒而栗的事情，关于那些认识到并面对这种伤害的人……
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.2979/blc.2023.a883805
Michael T. Martin
Abstract: This lengthy conversation with Renée Baker engages with her multi-modal practice as a visual artist and composer of sound scores for silent films, particularly the “race movies” Body and Soul (dir. Oscar Micheaux, 1925) , The Scar of Shame (dir. Frank Peregini, 1927), and Borderline (dir. Kenneth MacPherson, 1930). Baker contends that these films render more complex and nuanced readings of black life and community than Hollywood renderings and that they contributed to the recovery of Black history .
摘要:本文与rensame Baker进行了长时间的对话，讨论了她作为视觉艺术家和无声电影配乐作曲家的多模式实践，尤其是“种族电影”《身体与灵魂》(Body and Soul，导演)。奥斯卡·米肖，1925年，《耻辱的伤疤》(导演)。弗兰克·佩雷吉尼，1927年)，和《边界》(导演。肯尼斯·麦克弗森，1930)。贝克认为，这些电影对黑人生活和社区的解读比好莱坞电影更复杂、更细致，它们对黑人历史的复苏做出了贡献。
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Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.2979/blackcamera.14.2.05
Rachal Burton
Abstract:During the late 1970s and early 1980s, critically acclaimed Black auteur Julie Dash wrote, assisted with, and directed films while attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Film School. At UCLA, Dash participated in the L.A. Rebellion, a group of Black filmmakers who sought to make independent cinematic productions that subverted racist images of Black people that often appeared on mainstream Hollywood screens. In this way, the L.A. Rebellion’s filmography and, specifically, the group’s distinctive narrative form and style, is central to the Black indie movement. Dash therefore currently occupies a unique and highly esteemed place in the history of American film. Her most famous works—her UCLA thesis production, Illusions (1982), and her theatrical feature, Daughters of the Dust (1991)—have become celebrated for their narratives centered on Black women as well as their implicit critiques of Hollywood and slavery, respectively. In this article, I examine Dash’s Project One UCLA student production, Four Women (1975), to argue that her Black characters are positioned by what sociologist Orlando Patterson calls social death. Most broadly, I argue that Dash employs narrative strategies and cinematic style to highlight the fixed position of Blackness from slavery to the present era, while also illustrating the consumption of racist stereotypes vis-à-vis Black women in American culture and society.
摘要：在20世纪70年代末和80年代初，广受好评的黑人导演Julie Dash在加州大学洛杉矶分校（UCLA）电影学院学习期间创作、协助和导演了电影。在加州大学洛杉矶分校，达什参加了洛杉矶反抗军，这是一个由黑人电影制作人组成的团体，他们试图制作独立的电影作品，颠覆经常出现在好莱坞主流屏幕上的黑人种族主义形象。通过这种方式，洛杉矶起义军的电影记录，特别是该组织独特的叙事形式和风格，是黑人独立运动的核心。因此，达世目前在美国电影史上占据着独特而备受尊敬的地位。她最著名的作品——加州大学洛杉矶分校的论文作品《幻觉》（1982年）和戏剧长片《尘埃之女》（1991年）——因其以黑人女性为中心的叙事以及对好莱坞和奴隶制的含蓄批评而闻名。在这篇文章中，我研究了Dash的Project One UCLA学生作品《四个女人》（1975），认为她的黑人角色是由社会学家奥兰多·帕特森所说的社会死亡所定位的。最广泛地说，我认为达世运用叙事策略和电影风格来突出黑人从奴隶制到当代的固定地位，同时也说明了美国文化和社会中对黑人女性的种族主义刻板印象的消费。
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Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.2979/blackcamera.14.2.07
J. Hope
Abstract:This article examines the recent (2012–2019) work of Black filmmakers, television show runners, and directors whose aim is to directly engage and bring attention to the #blacklivesmatter movement through film by staging protest scenes in their work. Melina Matsoukas and Lena Waithe’s feature film Queen & Slim (2019), George Tillman Jr.’s The Hate U Give (2018), and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You (2018) will serve as the anchoring texts for this article. The films were marketed as “a Black Lives Matter picture,” “protest art,” and “a Black Lives Matter odyssey” because of their explicit tackling of police brutality, state-sanctioned violence, critique of racial capitalism, and ability to challenge notions of criminality and justice.Throughout this article I will argue that in seeking to stage protests, Black film-makers have often produced “protest art” that is hollow, misguided, not movement-aligned, and fails to call for action or provide any substantive message for a nascent movement. Beyond examining the protest scenes themselves, this work also delves into how these films as a whole signify two leading and arguably intersecting schools of thought—Afro-Pessimism and Afrofuturism. I consider how salient narratives of nihilism and anti-Black violence animates the work of Afro-Pessimists. Conversely, I look at how these texts both include and at times lack narratives of what Fred Moten describes as “Black optimism,” escapism, and solidarity. Overall, this work considers the question, how can we create protest art that tends to the realities of anti-Blackness, while simultaneously challenging us to reimagine a new collective future, through Black resistance and protest, that is explicitly for us and by us?
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Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.2979/blackcamera.7.2.255
Lorraine Madway
{"title":"PROFESSIONAL NOTES AND RESEARCH RESOURCES","authors":"Lorraine Madway","doi":"10.2979/blackcamera.7.2.255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera.7.2.255","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42749,"journal":{"name":"Black Camera","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48172782","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 : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.2979/blackcamera.14.2.12
R. Cherian
Abstract:This essay places Gilles Deleuze’s work on cinema and psychoanalysis in conversation with critical Black studies through an interrogation of the film La Haine (1995, France), directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. I argue that while the action and dialogue that construct La Haine convey a progressive, perhaps even apparently radical, critique of race and policing towards the embrace of a multiracial coalition politics, the cinematic structure of La Haine administers what Deleuze calls a shock to thought that reveals the anti-Black structure of not simply European civil society, but the anti-Black relations among its historical and timeless Others—the Jew, the Arab, and the Black—such that the political desires and aspirations portrayed in the dialogue are rendered untenable through the cinematic structure. In other words, the critique of civil society La Haine offers on the level of structure and composition is one that exceeds and undermines any conscious desire for love, reparation, or coalition. By problematizing ethno-religious categories deployed by Kassovitz, the essay briefly asks how the representation of “religious” and “racial” bodies in La Haine operates within the same biocentric logic of the modern state to the extent that it represses the historico-material and psycho-affective origins of Jewish, Arab, and Black Enmity with regard to secular civil society and the Human. If so, then while Kassovitz’s best efforts to create a narrative arc and recuperative gesture toward reconciliation and redemption between the multiracial coalition of people and the police ultimately collapse into the flatline of anti-Blackness, the impossible reconciliation between the Black and secular civil society does not foreclose, following Selamawit Terrefe, the confluence and unflinching embrace of monstrosity, hatred, and enmity among the human’s familiar and radical Others—the so-called Jew, Arab, and Black.
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Pub Date : 2022-12-01DOI: 10.2979/blackcamera.14.2.06
Xavier Lee
Abstract:In this essay, I question how the Ethiopian-American director Haile Gerima theorizes diaspora in his 1993 historical drama Sankofa. By reading against the grain of the film’s ideological project of reconciling the trauma and indignity of African slavery in the New World, I consider how Sankofa’s investments in a transhistorical account of race underpin its mission to remind the black descendants of enslaved Africans of their ancestors’ inalienable human dignity. While Sankofa endeavors to draw African and African diasporic histories closer by dramatizing “return” at Cape Coast Castle in southern Ghana, the film’s attention to its diasporic audience omits African experiences of the slave trade and creates a notably ambiguous relationship between diaspora, slavery, and the filmmaker’s distinct idea of Africa.
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