scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers in "Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television in 2005"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: On 18 July 1936, a large contingent of Spanish armed forces rose in rebellion against the legally established government of the Spanish Republic and developed into a civil war, lasting for almost three years, until April 1939.
Abstract: On 18 July 1936, a large contingent of the Spanish armed forces rose in rebellion against the legally established government of the Spanish Republic. Something the rebels had conceived of as a military coup and which often occurred in 19th-century Spain, developed into a civil war, lasting for almost three years, until April 1939. The military Junta commanding the rebel military government promoted General Francisco Franco as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and Head of the State on 1 October 1936. Francisco Franco was known as the ‘Generalissimo’ or ‘Caudillo’ of Spain ‘by the grace of God’ in the dictatorship's rhetoric. He did not relinquish power until his death in 1975. The Francoist dictatorship lasted for 40 years, during which Spain underwent a series of changes. An essentially agricultural country with limited nationwide communications and a degree of illiteracy beyond European parameters became, above all during the second half of the 1960s, an emergent mass culture and consumer society of...

67 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Corner's own work on television history has broached such matters, but exceptions like Tim O'Sullivan's exploration through audience research and oral testimony of cultures of televiewing (in everyday life and as civic ritual around national events) in a Corneredited volume apart, has not induced many others to do so.
Abstract: ‘The study of television’, John Corner suggests, ‘has suffered from a lack of historical studies’. This was ‘a particular problem in Britain’, where studies of television were prone to ‘privileging questions of policy and organisation’ rather than obtaining a sense of the power of television as a medium, assessing its cultural content and reception by viewers or the status and meaning of the medium, the television set and activity of watching it. Corner's own work on television history has broached such matters, but exceptions like Tim O'Sullivan's exploration through audience research and oral testimony of cultures of televiewing (in everyday life and as civic ritual around national events) in a Corner-edited volume apart, has not induced many others to do so.1 Corner has hit upon a broader debate about the predilections of post-1945 British history that necessarily impacts upon writing about television more than radio, since television only became a mass activity in the mid-1950s. Critics charge that co...

22 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The best propaganda idea man, of course, is the Film Commissioner for Canada as discussed by the authors, who is best remembered for two distinct phases in his life prior to 1945, namely, as a propagandist and a film critic.
Abstract: The best propaganda idea man, of course, is the Film Commissioner for Canada. John Grierson, 19411 John Grierson is best remembered for two distinct phases in his life prior to 1945. Firstly, as th...

19 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the popular image of commandos and special forces in Britain since 1939 and highlight the reasons behind the images of these forces and how and why it has chan...
Abstract: This article seeks to explore the popular image of commandos and special forces in Britain since 1939. We seek to highlight the reasons behind the images of these forces and how and why it has chan...

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The truth is that access is not only about television, but also about access is about access as discussed by the authors, which is a common misconception in the media domain, and the primary misconception is that TV is about television.
Abstract: A primary misconception is that access is about television. Its cameras, recorders and means of distribution certainly seem to indicate a primary mission of making television. The truth is that acc...

9 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Barber of Siberia (Sibirskii tsiriulnik) as mentioned in this paper is Mikhalkov's first feature since winning the Academy Award for Burnt By the Sun.
Abstract: Nikita Mikhalkov's film Barber of Siberia (Sibirskii tsiriul’nik), his first feature since winning the Academy Award for Burnt By the Sun, debuted in February 1999 with a great deal of fanfare. The...

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Midnight Express as discussed by the authors is a classic movie and phenomenon that never becomes dated, adapted from Billy Hayes's autobiographical book, the "true" story of his five-year incarceration in a Turkish prison on charges of drug smuggling, which won many awards including two Oscars and six Golden Globes.
Abstract: Adapted from Billy Hayes’s autobiographical book, the ‘true’ story of his five-year incarceration in a Turkish prison on charges of drug smuggling, Midnight Express is a film and phenomenon that never becomes dated. Released in 1978, it was a small movie yet a major commercial success and a critical favourite on an international scale. It won many awards, including two Oscars and six Golden Globes. It launched several Hollywood careers, most notably that of Alan Parker, Oliver Stone and David Puttnam, has been shown on American and British televisions since 1980, and in 1986 was released on video. In 1998, a 20th-anniversary edition of the film was released on DVD. In 1998, David Panzer Productions even bought a script from Billy Hayes about the ‘real’ story of his prison escape. The new movie, Midnight Express—The Return, would also tell of Hayes’s attempts to free a still-imprisoned friend in Turkey. On 5 May 2000, Variety reported that the $30 million movie ‘Midnight Return’, ‘a sequel to Midnight Express’, would be shot in the fall in Tunisia and that the producers were approaching Edward Norton for the lead role. Although there has been no new information about the sequel since then, Midnight Express inspired several other films in the 1990s as well. While Return to Paradise (Joseph Ruben, 1998) is described by critics as a Midnight Express for the 1990s, Brokedown Palace (Jonathan Kaplan, 1999) is referred to as the female version of Midnight Express. Both films depict young Americans jailed on drug-related charges in ‘primitive’ Third World prisons, namely in Malaysia and Thailand, respectively. Moreover, it is possible to read the video erotic thriller Prison Heat (Joel Silberg, 1992)

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that the major milestones of political history, the start of the war in 1939, its end on 8 May 1945, and the founding of the two German states in 1949, did not represent biographical milestones for most of those who lived through the period, instead, they more frequently remember the war's interruption of their "normal" everyday lives and the markers of the onset of normality at some point in the years that followed.
Abstract: Germany at the end of the Second World War was not only a shattered place, but also a shattered time.1 The physical scattering of populations through the mass movements of war and the atomisation of individuals through the oppressive Nazi regime, followed by occupation and the division of Germany into four occupation zones, left Germans with very few collective ‘events’ into which they could place their individual experiences. Oral history and other histories of everyday life consistently reveal that the major milestones of political history, the start of the war in 1939, its end on 8 May 1945, and the founding of the two German states in 1949, did not represent biographical milestones for most of those who lived through the period. Instead, they more frequently remember the war's interruption of their ‘normal’ everyday lives and the markers of the onset of normality at some point in the years that followed. In the place of the war's beginning on 30 September 1939 stand memories of the defeat of the Germa...

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In his introduction to Africans on African-Americans, Yekutiel Gershoni relates a discussion he once had with the African historian L.H. Gann.
Abstract: In his introduction to Africans on African-Americans, Yekutiel Gershoni relates a discussion he once had with the African historian L.H. Gann. The most popular films among African miners in Norther...

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Walt Disney as an individual, as a film-maker, and as a studio head increasingly has become the subject of respectable academic enquiry as discussed by the authors, despite a number of balanced, scholarly publications which...
Abstract: Walt Disney as an individual, as a film-maker, and as a studio head, increasingly has become the subject of respectable academic enquiry. Despite a number of balanced, scholarly publications which ...


Journal ArticleDOI
Abstract: Despite the lofty status of its director in American film history and genre study, Douglas Sirk's Battle Hymn (1957) has received remarkably little critical attention—a fact that reinforces the mar...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The brouhaha over the CIA's funding of a cultural Cold War against the Soviet Union has obscured various projects that benefited from the infusion of those dollars as mentioned in this paper, regardless of the political rationale.
Abstract: The brouhaha over the CIA's funding of a cultural Cold War against the Soviet Union has obscured various projects that benefited from the infusion of those dollars. Whatever the political rationale...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The term "cinema of attractions" was coined by Tom Gunning as discussed by the authors for the study of early, primitive, primitive films, and has been used for a variety of purposes.
Abstract: Tom Gunning has claimed the term ‘cinema of attractions’ for the study of early, ‘primitive’ films.1 Whilst this terminology refers to a specific time period and type of film, it also calls attenti...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: While the international impact of early Soviet silent film is well documented, histories of film typically assume that early Soviet sound cinema was of little or no interest to foreign audiences as discussed by the authors.1 Sympto...
Abstract: While the international impact of Soviet silent film is well documented, histories of film typically assume that early Soviet sound cinema was of little or no interest to foreign audiences.1 Sympto...


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: After the United States declared war on the Axis Powers in December 1941, the US Armed Services faced a series of strategic problems from service and supply to the difficulties inherent in fighting as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: After the United States declared war on the Axis Powers in December 1941, the US Armed Services faced a series of strategic problems from service and supply to the difficulties inherent in fighting...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: ASCHEID et al. as mentioned in this paper discuss stardom and womanhood in Nazi Cinema and show how women in the Third Reich were portrayed in the film "Hitler's Heroines".
Abstract: Hitler's Heroines: stardom and womanhood in Nazi Cinema ANTJE ASCHEID Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2003 x + 274 pp., illus., $64.50 (cloth), $19.95 (paper) Filming Women in the Third Reic...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In 2001, the National Broadcasting Company announced a departure in its advertising policy: the network would effectively break the taboo against spirits advertising on television by a change in advertising policy as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Near the end of 2001, the National Broadcasting Company announced a departure in its advertising policy: the network would effectively break the taboo against spirits advertising on television by a...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A common-sense understanding of propaganda often associates it with the machinery of the state as discussed by the authors, and it seems odd to discuss it in the light of it being a "product".
Abstract: A common-sense understanding of propaganda often associates it with the machinery of the state. With wartime propaganda in particular, it seems odd to discuss it in the light of it being a ‘product...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The History and Social Significance of the Cinema in South Africa was the title of Thelma Gutsche's PhD thesis, submitted in 1946 at the University of Cape Town towards a doctorate in social history as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In her short overview of film studies in South Africa, Jacqueline Maingard declared in 1997 that film studies would not be regarded as a subject in its own right, but would be included within studies concerning contemporary television, which would presumably receive all the attention. This clearly signifies the preoccupation of South African researchers with more current issues than historical ones. Maingard also states that another way of assessing film studies in South Africa is in terms of research and publication output. According to her, South African film history is found mostly in three books: Thelma Gutsche’s The History and Social Significance of Motion Pictures in South Africa (1972), Keyan Tomaselli’s Cinema of Apartheid: Race and Class in South African Cinema (1989) and J. Blignaut and M. Botha’s Movies-Moguls-Mavericks: South African Cinema 1979–1991 (1992). For Maingard there is no doubt that Gutsche is the most important. Because 2004 and 2005 are anniversaries of Thelma Gutsche (1915–1984), I would like to draw attention to a piece of the earliest South African film history documented by her. The History and Social Significance of the Cinema in South Africa was the title of Thelma Gutsche’s PhD thesis, submitted in 1946 at the University of Cape Town towards a doctorate in social history. Gutsche’s work is virtually the only reference for all studies dealing with South African film history from its beginning until the Second World War. This highly elaborate piece of scholarship can with every

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the view of cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, the social significance of film is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic aspects, that is, the liquidation of the traditional cultural... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the view of cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, the social significance of film ‘is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic aspects, that is, the liquidation of the traditional cultural ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In early 1968, Jacobs, the owner and founder of Chicago classical music radio station WFMT, sold his station to WGN Continental FM Corporation, a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In early 1968, Bernard Jacobs, the owner and founder of Chicago classical music radio station WFMT, sold his station to WGN Continental FM Corporation, a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune. Despite the fact that the Tribune claimed that it would make no changes to the station’s programming or management, the sale was profoundly disconcerting to many loyal listeners, a number of whom wrote letters to the federal government opposing the sale and asking it to intervene. Listeners expressed varying reasons for their opposition, but a dominant theme in their letters was that WFMT was the standard-bearer for a liberal and sophisticated local culture that would be stifled if the Tribune-owned WGN took over the station. Listener Marjorie Newsome wrote that WFMT’s audience was ‘composed largely of persons or a more progressive bent’, and was a group that possessed ‘a certain level of judgment, sophistication, and discrimination, with respect to its listening preferences.’ WGN, she argued, targeted its programming to an audience that was ‘considerably less discriminating, largely lacks the listening sophistication of the [WFMT] audience, and very simply possesses a different set of interests and values.’ Newsome felt that WGN’s ownership of WFMT would inevitably tarnish the quality of WFMT’s broadcasting ‘since the conglomerate . . . supports a particular editorial policy’, and thus it would ‘find the presentation of a variety of views to conflict with that special interest. The result will be restricted and biased presentation of political and social issues.’ Other listeners made the politics even more overt, arguing that the Tribune and its various broadcasting stations ‘consistently represented the conservative Republican elements in American politics

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the early 1930s to the mid-1950s, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) presented over its nationwide network of stations a unique program, the University of Chicago Round Table as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Every Sunday from the early 1930s to the mid-1950s, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) presented over its nationwide network of stations a unique program, the University of Chicago Round Table...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The American War of Independence has been largely neglected in feature films as discussed by the authors, and it is one of the more curious points in film history that the American Revolution has not been much discussed in the media.
Abstract: It is one of the more curious points in film history that the American War of Independence has been largely neglected in feature films. Stories centred on the country's origins would seem to offer vivid cinematic material, and not least because there are so many dramatic episodes associated with the revolutionary period: the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's ride, the first shots fired in Lexington, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Washington crossing the Delaware, to name but a few. Equally, the Founding Fathers would seem to make ideal cinematic heroes, and it is easy to envisage scenes in which a young George Washington admits to having chopped down a cherry tree, Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence and Benjamin Franklin experiments with electricity. Indeed, throughout the 20th century (and into the 21st) the Founding Fathers have remained among the best-known figures in American life. Their stories and deeds have been kept alive in the country's classrooms, from el...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Debussy Film was the first fully-realized composer biopic as mentioned in this paper, and was one of Russell's major contributions to the art of film bowing. But it was not a successful biopic.
Abstract: First telecast on 18 May 1965 as part of the BBC's Monitor series, The Debussy Film was Ken Russell's first fully-realized composer biopic—‘one of Russell's major contributions to the art of film b...


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The controversy surrounding Elia Kazan's testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, in particular in 1999 when Kazan was awarded a Life Achievement Award at that year's Academy Awa...
Abstract: The controversy surrounding Elia Kazan's testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, in particular in 1999 when Kazan was awarded a Life Achievement Award at that year's Academy Awa...