Showing papers in "Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television in 2012"
TL;DR: WILDERSON as discussed by the authors, Red, White and Black: cinema and the structure of U.S. antagonisms, 2010 xii+388 pp., $25.00 (paper)
Abstract: Red, White & Black: cinema and the structure of U.S. antagonisms FRANK B. WILDERSON III Durham, NC and London, Duke University Press, 2010 xii+388 pp., $25.00 (paper) This provocative volume is com...
44 citations
20 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the parameters that the original reviewers set in place concerning the 3D aesthetic, notably claims around realism, novelty, and gimmickry, and argued that the language and terms of 1950s British film reviewers have worked to set an agenda that resonates through both the 1980s 3D revival and modern day digital 3D.
Abstract: Recent debates about the role of 3-D within cinema (and other media) have contained the traces of a largely anti-stereoscopic agenda that can be traced back to critical responses to 3-D in the 1950s. This article considers how British film reviews from the 1950s and 1980s established potent terms of discussion around the 3-D technology, its potential aesthetic development, and the role of stereoscopy within cinema. Exploring the parameters that the original reviewers set in place concerning the 3-D aesthetic, notably claims around realism, novelty, and gimmickry, the article argues that the language and terms of 1950s British film reviewers have worked to set an agenda that resonates through both the 1980s 3-D revival and modern day digital 3-D.
17 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how the Army Radio Galei Tzahal became a leading force in Israeli broadcasting and news coverage, and explore how military broadcasts, which are ostensibly foreign to the democratic experience, have become a symbol of pluralism, journalistic freedom, and the social and cultural avant-garde in Israel.
Abstract: Israel’s Army Radio (Galei Tzahal) has been broadcasting for sixty years. Unlike military stations around the world, Galei Tzahal has always transmitted from the centre of the country, with programming aimed at the civilian population. This article examines how Galei Tzahal became a leading force in Israeli broadcasting and news coverage. Among other points, the article explores how military broadcasts, which are ostensibly foreign to the democratic experience, have become a symbol of pluralism, journalistic freedom, and the social and cultural avant-garde in Israel.
12 citations
TL;DR: The regulatory war on radio fortune tellers from 1931, hitherto scarcely noticed by historians, provides evidence for an archivally-researched case study of the regulatory construction of early American radio's public sphere, and illuminates it in a much sharper way than the usual recital of the colorful Brinkley, Baker and Shuler de-lice as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Discussion of the regulation of program content in the early years of radio has most often been framed in the context of First Amendment rights and freedom of speech. This however removes from view one of the most potent and pervasive forms of censorship exercised on early American radio – the regulatory attempt to banish personal and private matters from the air as almost by definition not in the public interest. Charged with defining the public nature of broadcasting, in order to license stations whose programs served the public interest, the Federal Radio Commission (1927–1934) urgently needed to define what was public and what was private in broadcast communications. The regulatory war on radio fortune tellers from 1931, hitherto scarcely noticed by historians, provides evidence for an archivally-researched case study of the regulatory construction of early American radio’s public sphere, and illuminates it in a much sharper way than the usual recital of the colorful Brinkley, Baker and Shuler de-lice...
11 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the political controversy the film engendered in the weeks before and after the film's air date, focusing on the intent of the filmmakers to make an apolitical film that appealed to "ordinary Americans" and the campaign by the Nuclear Freeze movement to use the film in their political and fundraising campaigns.
Abstract: Aired in the midst of the heated public debate over American nuclear-arms policy, The Day After (1983) attracted 100 million viewers and both praise and brickbats from nuclear freeze advocates and supporters of President Ronald Reagan’s nuclear deterrence strategy. This paper examines the political controversy the film engendered in the weeks before and after the film's air date. It focuses on the intent of the filmmakers to make an apolitical film that appealed to “ordinary Americans”; the campaign by the Nuclear Freeze movement to use the film in their political and fundraising campaigns; and the efforts of deterrence advocates to marginalize the film and its supporters as anti-American. The paper concludes with a consideration of how “ordinary Americans” actually received The Day After through the prisms of their own political attitudes.
11 citations
TL;DR: Out of Time: desire in atemporal cinema TODD MCGOWAN Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2011 ix+285 pp., index, bibliography and illustrations, $25 (paper) as mentioned in this paper
Abstract: Out of Time: desire in atemporal cinema TODD MCGOWAN Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2011 ix+285 pp., index, bibliography and illustrations, $25 (paper) Jean-Luc Godard proclaimed that ...
9 citations
TL;DR: Andrew Higson as mentioned in this paper argues that increased transnational co-operation can reinforce certain assumptions about national characteristics as well as weaken them, and argues that these trends began to accelerate as the 20th century pulled to a close and had consequences for the 'Englishness' of English cinema.
Abstract: Cinema has often been understood as a way of narrating the nation, of telling stories that enable audiences to empathise with aspects of a particular nation’s life. The question Andrew Higson’s Film England asks is what has happened to British cinema since the end of the Cold War? What exactly has globalisation done to the national cinema? Not much, perhaps. Pan-national financing, co-productions and casts are hardly a new phenomenon. The argument made here is that these trends began to accelerate as the 20th century pulled to a close and had consequences for the ‘Englishness’ of English cinema. The book begins with an overview of UK film production in the nineties and the noughties, before broadening out into a discussion of government policy (in particular the changes introduced by New Labour post 1997). The publication of Chris Smith’s Creative Britain, the creation of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the formation of the UK Film Council, along with changes to Lottery funding, marked the return of a more directive (and demanding) national film policy. The historical paradox played out in the book sets the reconstruction of a national film policy against the bullish advance of the global market. As Higson acknowledges early on, there are manifold difficulties in talking about English cinema. That film in England was served during this period by the UK Film Council, the British Film Institute and the National Film Theatre illustrates just the tip of the administrative and organisational problems in defining English cinema, such difficulties are themselves (as Orwell similarly noted back in the Lion and the Unicorn) both indicative of, and also a proxy for, all manner of cultural differences and, indeed, power structures. One of the delineations that Higson makes, in a book meticulously long on them, is between industrially English films and culturally English films, between Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (Shane Meadows, 2002). The multitude of definitions during a period of devolution can’t really be helped. Indeed, it’s a nice irony that it was the European Union that foisted a Cultural Test to determine national origin upon the UK’s film industry in 2007. Evidently, increased transnational co-operation can reinforce certain assumptions about national characteristics as well as weaken them.
8 citations
TL;DR: When French Catholics are mentioned in film history books, it is usually in the context of the scandal surrounding Luis Bunuel's Surrealist film The Golden Age/L'Âge d'or (1930) as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: When French Catholics are mentioned in film history books, it is usually in the context of the scandal surrounding Luis Bunuel's Surrealist film The Golden Age/L’Âge d’or (1930).1 According to an o...
7 citations
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an introduction and reader for film and literature: an introduction, reader and reader (2nd edition) TIMOTHY CORRIGAN (Ed.) Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2012 xvii+470 pp., illus., bibliography, index, $135.00 (cloth), $44.95 (paper)
Abstract: Film and Literature: an introduction and reader (2nd edition) TIMOTHY CORRIGAN (Ed.) Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2012 xvii+470 pp., illus., bibliography, index, $135.00 (cloth), $44.95 (paper...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive, comparative, critical analysis of 100 years of films of the Titanic, including news-film from 1912, together with the early silent features Saved from the Titanic directed by Etienne Arnaud, Eclair Film Company, USA, 1912; and In Nacht und Eis directed by Mime Misu, Continental-Kunstfilm, Germany, 1912.
Abstract: This article marks the centenary of the sinking by providing a comprehensive, comparative, critical analysis of 100 years of films of the Titanic. It begins with news-film from 1912, together with the early silent features Saved from the Titanic directed by Etienne Arnaud, Eclair Film Company, USA, 1912; and In Nacht und Eis directed by Mime Misu, Continental-Kunstfilm, Germany, 1912. It then pays particular attention to the five major Titanicsound features of the 20th century: Titanic, directed by Herbert Selpin and Werner Klinger, Tobis Films, Germany, 1943; Titanic, directed by Jean Negulescu, Twentieth Century Fox, USA, 1953. A Night to Remember, directed by Roy Ward Baker, The Rank Organization, UK, 1958; Raise the Titanic, directed by Jerry Jameson, Incorporated Television Company, UK, 1980; and Titanic, directed by James Cameron, Twentieth Century Fox/Paramount Pictures, USA, 1997. The analysis is text-based and interpretive, paying particular attention to the sometimes wilful differences between t...
TL;DR: The Mortal Storm (1940) as mentioned in this paper is an anti-nazi film based on a novel by the British writer Phyllis Bottome, which was adapted from a lecture tour through America in which she engaged her audiences with warnings about the Nazi regime's behaviour.
Abstract: The Mortal Storm (1940) was MGM’s powerful contribution to the anti-nazi ‘genre’ film. Adapted from a novel by the British writer Phyllis Bottome, the studio took some risks in producing a picture in which Germany was mentioned by name and in which the controversial political questions aroused by Nazi persecution of liberals, intellectuals and Jews were clearly represented. Bottome herself was an experienced propagandist, having been trained by John Buchan during World War One, and, during the Second World War, she was briefed by the Ministry of Information for propagandist purposes. Bottome was passionately engaged firstly with pushing the Hollywood studios to film her novel and then, once MGM bought the film rights, she tried hard to prevent the message of her book from being watered down by the studio. Simultaneously, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour though America in which she engaged her audiences with warnings about the Nazi regime’s behaviour in Germany. Bottome had lived for many years in ...
TL;DR: The British Film Weeks of 1924 as mentioned in this paper served as a testing ground for a number of industrial and political initiatives that would influence the ways in which British cinema was debated and promoted later in the 1920s and beyond.
Abstract: This article examines the British Film Weeks of 1924. Drawing on trade, national and local press reports, I explore how these high-profile events impacted on the British film industry’s operations at this time and on broader discussions of British national cinema raging in the public sphere. While most academic literature dismisses the ‘Weeks’ as the failed projects of an ailing industry, I argue that they served as a testing ground for a number of industrial and political initiatives that would influence the ways in which British cinema was debated and promoted later in the 1920s and beyond.
TL;DR: Air Outpost as mentioned in this paper is a short documentary about the airfield and town of Sharjah in the Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates) in 1936-37 and produced by Paul Rotha.
Abstract: The short documentary Air Outpost is one of three films commissioned from Strand Films by Imperial Airways in 1936-37 and produced by Paul Rotha. It focused on one overnight stop on the airline’s India service: the airfield and town of Sharjah in the Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates). British policy in the Gulf carefully controlled access to the Trucial States by Westerners, so the release of a documentary about this region was unprecedented. Rotha’s published and unpublished writings are used to argue that he selected Sharjah for its exotic appeal as a result of his own visit there in 1932 while shooting Contact, also for Imperial Airways. For a film commissioned by an airline for marketing purposes, Air Outpost shows almost nothing of the passenger experience. Rather than this having been Rotha’s deliberate omission, it is argued that it resulted from practical difficulties encountered during filming.
TL;DR: Based on the book by A.J. Cronin, The Citadel as discussed by the authors was one of the first films in British cinema to explore seriously the role of the medical profession and alert audiences to the political failings of contemporary medical care in Britain.
Abstract: Based on the book by A.J. Cronin, The Citadel, directed by the American King Vidor, was one of the first films in British cinema to explore seriously the role of the medical profession. The semi-autobiographical account was influenced by the themes that dominated the author’s life - religion, poverty, politics and social concern. Seen through the eyes of Andrew Manson (Robert Donat), the film alerts audiences to the political failings of contemporary medical care in Britain, challenged deep seated traditions held by the establishment, and appealed for innovation and a willingness to embrace new inventions and treatments in medicine. The film is renowned for getting past the British Board of Film Censors rigorous standards to be granted an ‘A’ certificate and also provided a vivid portrayal of the wide social and class divisions of the country, contrasting the life of the poor mining communities of South Wales with the opulence of the rich and privileged society in London, and was an important landmark in ...
TL;DR: In the summer of 1938, in preparation for war, the British Government established a shadow Ministry of Information (MoI) which included a section for war-time film propaganda as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the summer of 1938, in preparation for war, the British Government established a shadow Ministry of Information (MoI) which included a section for war-time film propaganda. On 20 September, the ...
TL;DR: In 1945, the established British imperial communications system, based on the Cable and Wireless network, was re-structured as discussed by the authors, and the British partners agreed to break up the hitherto integrated system and re-establish it as an interconnecting network of networks based on separate, nationalised entities.
Abstract: In 1945, the established British imperial communications system, based on the Cable and Wireless network, was re-structured. The imperial partners agreed to break up the hitherto integrated system and re-establish it as an interconnecting network of networks based on separate, nationalised, entities. Co-ordination began to shift from a consensual system to one based on prices and the hitherto largely self-contained system began to interconnect with other global telecommunication networks, notably those of the USA. John, Lord Reith played an important role in these transformations and his January 1945 “Mission” to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia epitomises both the mutuality and the London dominance that characterised the imperial system and which were to fall away following the Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference held in London in mid 1945. Reith’s Mission exemplified the swan song of a distinctive manner of imperial governance.
TL;DR: In Journeys of Desire, a landmark multi-authored volume on the experiences of European actors in Hollywood, 1 the Italian Alida Valli appears as something of an anomaly as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In Journeys of Desire, a landmark multi-authored volume on the experiences of European actors in Hollywood,1 the Italian Alida Valli appears as something of an anomaly. The actress, who played oppo...
TL;DR: Logan as mentioned in this paper shows how much we learn about history from Jennings films and how film-making in the past can be topical, and how this affected the making of his last two films A Dim Little Island (1949) and Family Portrait (1950).
Abstract: historical events depicted in the corpus of films. He shows how much we learn about history from Jennings films. In his analysis of The Cumberland Story (1948) for instance, he points out how the reconstitution of the closing of a mine is ‘inter-cut with actual footage’ from the Hunger March of 1934 (p. 299). We see how film can serve as historical document. Furthermore, it’s obvious what films can teach us about today, and how film-making in the past can be topical. He writes how at the time that Jennings returned from Burma in June 1947 Britain was facing bankruptcy, and how this affected the making of his last two films A Dim Little Island (1949) and Family Portrait (1950). ‘The celebratory themes of the festival’, Logan observes, ‘were in marked contrast to the situation facing the country when Jennings set about making the film’ (pp. 310–319). Logan shows once more how intense and rich a topic Jennings is. He writes inspiringly and gives new information and material, which should get students, scholars and even poets thinking and writing for some time.
TL;DR: Kessler as mentioned in this paper discusses music, masculinity and mayhem in the Hollywood musical, and the role of women in the plot of "The Godfather" in the musical "The Phantom of the Opera".
Abstract: Destabilizing the Hollywood Musical: music, masculinity and mayhem KELLY KESSLER Basingstoke/New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 xiii+256 pp., illus., bibliography, index, £55.00 (cloth) Destabilizi...
TL;DR: The film and television industries have many stories as mentioned in this paper, and which of those stories are granted credibility and gain public attention depends on the author's cultural and political authority, which is a challenge for any story writer.
Abstract: The film and television industries have many stories. Which of those stories are granted credibility and gain public attention depends on the author's cultural and political authority. Major produc...
TL;DR: In a recent essay on local films from Liverpool, England, Julia Hallam argues that such motion pictures remind us of the territorialising power of the cinema, its capacity to project place as well as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In a recent essay on local films from Liverpool, England, Julia Hallam argues that such motion pictures remind us of the territorialising power of the cinema, its capacity to project place as well ...
TL;DR: Popular music and television in Britain this article is a well-arranged and highly necessary con-tracted collection of popular music and TV in Britain, with a focus on popular music.
Abstract: Popular Music and Television in Britain IAN INGLIS (Ed.) Surrey/Burlington, Ashgate, 2010 xi+252 pp., bibliography, index, £60.00 (cloth) This collection is a well-arranged and highly necessary con...
TL;DR: The short history of the Mezhrabpom (International Workers' Relief) film studio in the 1920s and 1930s is a remarkable case of an international organisation committed to the Soviet experiment and t
Abstract: The short history of the Mezhrabpom (International Workers’ Relief) film studio in the 1920s and 1930s is a remarkable case of an international organisation committed to the Soviet experiment and t
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that there was an intense care and attention shown by broadcasters and managers to the coverage of India, and that the factors which underlay this include the growing confidence of the Indian diaspora population, a continuing interest by individual broadcasters in Indian affairs and the influence of an exceptional correspondent in Delhi.
Abstract: We are accustomed to the complaint that western media depict the developing world in a stereotyped and inadequate manner. However this article, based on documents in the BBC Written Archives Centre, demonstrates that the way India was reported in the period 1970–1987 provides an exception to this characterisation. The material reveals that the there was surprisingly, an intense care and attention shown by broadcasters and managers to the coverage of India. The factors which underlay this include the growing confidence of the Indian diaspora population, a continuing interest by individual broadcasters in Indian affairs and the influence of an exceptional correspondent in Delhi throughout this period. Moreover the Indian government and indeed many Indian individuals maintained a critical interest, bordering sometimes on an obsession, in the portrayal of Indian affairs by the BBC. The networks between India and its UK diaspora enabled pressure to be exerted on the BBC which, as the records demonstrate, broad...
TL;DR: Mendenhall as discussed by the authors presents a history of screen colour in the context of the movie industry and its role in the development of screen color in popular culture, arguing that "colour" as a sub-word is a subword.
Abstract: Chromatic Cinema: a history of screen colour RICHARD MISEK Malden, MA/Oxford/Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 x+227 pp., illus., bibliography, index, £75.00 (cloth) Apparently, ‘colour’ as a subje...
TL;DR: Kramer and TODE as mentioned in this paper describe the idea of film-making as an epistemological tool for epistemology, which is characteristic for the Essayfilm. But they do not discuss its application in the present paper.
Abstract: Der Essayfilm. Asthetik und Aktualitat SVEN KRAMER and THOMAS TODE (Eds) Konstanz, UVK, 2012 358 pp., illus., €28.00 (paper) The idea of film-making as an epistemological tool is characteristic for...
TL;DR: The role of the film producer is imprecise and subject to change, and therefore very difficult to quantify as discussed by the authors, which has led to the producer's role being somewhat overlooked or underrated within the Academy.
Abstract: ‘Nobody knows what we do’, grumbles Stanley Motts, Dustin Hoffman’s movie producer in Wag the Dog (dir. Barry Levinson, Baltimore Pictures/New Line Cinema/ Punch Productions/Tribeca Productions; USA, 1997), before complaining that there is no Academy Award for Best Producer. Indeed, what, precisely, a film producer does is one of the mysteries of film studies. The role of the film producer is imprecise and subject to change, and therefore very difficult to quantify. Perhaps it is this nebulousness that has led to the producer’s role being somewhat overlooked or underrated within the Academy. Vincent Porter’s work highlights the variable role of the film producer throughout British film history. The producer’s creative freedom, or lack thereof, is dependent on changes in technology, finance, industrial structures, etc. However, in seeking to establish the producer’s creative legitimacy Porter argues that the film producer’s role has, historically, been both administrative and creative, bifurcating the role as if the two component parts were distinct. It is, however, in the administration of a project that the producer’s creative contribution can often be most keenly felt, in its strategy, packaging and logistics. For those that knew him, Michael Klinger was a natural showman, raconteur and deal-maker. Former business associates have also highlighted the traits that led to Klinger becoming an effective producer. Tony Tenser, Klinger’s partner in Compton Films, emphasised both Klinger’s strategic acumen and personal charm by calling him a ‘Machiavellian character [who was] full of fun’; Gene Gutowski, who produced Repulsion for Compton Films, remembers an entertainer with ‘an inexhaustible fund of
TL;DR: The saloon bar of the Saloon Bar in the Ealing comedy 'Saloon Bar' (1940) as mentioned in this paper is a classic example of a saloon where upper-class women in evening dress are not made welcome and their order is brusquely interrupted when the barmaid tells them there is no tomato juice.
Abstract: At a key moment in Walter Forde’s Saloon Bar (1940), a popular but critically neglected Ealing comedy, the band of regulars who are on the verge of solving a murder mystery are annoyed when the pub is invaded by a crowd of theatregoers in evening dress. They are not made welcome and their order is brusquely interrupted when the barmaid tells them there is no tomato juice. An upper-class lady in a fur coat exclaims, ‘No tomato juice! What a terrible pub!’ And they troop off to The Shakespeare, a much more glittery and pretentious establishment round the corner, where they will be served by Doris, played by Judy Campbell, the society favourite famous for singing ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’. Here she is a Cockney barmaid who has adopted an exaggeratedly affected accent in order to disguise her humble origins. Back in the saloon bar, as the theatregoers leave, Gordon Harker’s Joe Harris derisively echoes ‘No tomato juice! What a terrible pub!’ Voice is a vital indicator of social class in Britain. In 1940, when everyone was supposed to be pulling together to win the war, upper-class voices, with their connotations of privilege and inequality, were mocked rather than admired, but things were different and more complicated in 1929 when the first British talkies emerged. In the aftermath of the General Strike of 1926, Britain was bitterly divided along class lines, and the mass unemployment among industrial workers that persisted throughout the 1930s caused widespread resentment. But it was also—at a time when the only sizeable immigrant community apart from the Irish were the East European Jews settled in the East End of London—much more culturally homogenous than it is now. There were distinctively British manners, diet, habits, style, clothes and characteristics that to some extent at least cut across class and