Journal of Film and Video 

About: Journal of Film and Video is an academic journal published by University of Illinois Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Movie theater & Filmmaking. It has an ISSN identifier of 0742-4671. Over the lifetime, 527 publications have been published receiving 3574 citations.

The myth of persistence of vision revisited

Abstract: Several years ago we wrote an article entitled "The Myth of Persistence of Vi sion," which appeared in the Journal of the University Film Association in the fall of 1978 (Anderson and Fisher). In it we offered a considerable volume of evidence that the concept "persistence of vision" was an inaccurate and inadequate expla nation for the apparent motion found in a motion picture. At the time we thought the article had laid the matter to rest. We had pronounced persistence of vision dead. And, frankly, we expected never to hear the term again, other than in a historical context.

The Reality of Illusion: An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Film Theory

Abstract: Joseph D. Anderson. The Reality of Illusion: An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Film Theory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1996. 200 pp. $29.95. Recently there has been growth of scientific interest in film and video. This interest has coalesced into cognitive film theory. Unlike psychoanalytic, Marxist, and feminist approaches, cognitive film theory neither offers nor seeks any analysis of cultural, historical, or political influences on film or on viewers. Instead, the central idea is that film succeeds because it meshes with our perceptual and cognitive endowment. From this view follows interest in such things as why flicker and flickerless images occur, how form and motion are perceived stripped of their meaning, how color and lighting work stripped of their effects on mood, how lens effects and shot angles affect perceived space, and how continuity and the juxtaposition of shots and cuts imply narrative structure. These topics and more are addressed with considerable clarity in Joseph Anderson's The Reality of Illusion. But Anderson's book is not simply about cognitive film theory. Its subtitle, An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Film Theory, allies it with a particular approach within the cognitive sciences, that of James J. Gibson.1Gibson looked to match the constraints of evolutionary biology to everyday human tasks and activities. Thus, Anderson's book is about the evolutionary constraints on human eyes and minds and how these have shaped film. Before Anderson's book, there was no systematic ecological approach to film.2 Anderson begins (I) with two questions: "Why [in a film] do the spokes of a wheel turn backward?" and "Why does a movie seem so real?" The answer to the first is straightforward, and is typical of the focus of his first five chapters. Backward wagon wheels refer to two phenomena, stroboscopic motion and structure-from-motion. The discrete presentation of frames in film (at 72 frames per second) is generally above the temporal resolving capacity of the human visual system. Thus, most motion is seen as smooth and correct. But these discrete frames also make separate images of adjacent spokes closer together than those of the same spoke. The visual system then assigns identity to these adjacent spokes, and the wheel looks as if it turns, often smoothly, backward.] Attempts at partial answers to the second question-about the "reality" of film-run throughout Anderson's book. The question runs deep. Part of an answer, not addressed by Anderson, concerns projected size-the larger (in terms of visual angle) and the better the resolution, the more a viewer feels like he or she is "in" the display.4 The effect of wide screens is that, while we focus more locally on characters and content, the layout and motion presented to our peripheral visual systems surrounding that focus very much control our visceral responses. Anderson's introductory chapter outlines differences between cognitive film theory and other approaches, and the second builds an understanding of the ecology of cinema-that is, the manner in which film has adapted to the auditory and visual systems of humans. It also contains a theoretical aside on the places of illusion (a term Anderson uses a bit more broadly than in the cognitive sciences) and computation in perceptual and cognitive theory. The third chapter concerns capacities and strategies of the cognitive system, with particular attention to the resolution of ambiguity and the categorization of natural objects around us. Traditionally and currently, these are wellresearched topics in cognitive science about the mental activity of building coherence from the world around us. The fourth chapter is the lengthiest and dives into specifics of flicker, motion, form, color, and depth perception. Anderson reviews the evidence for the generally separable parts of the human visual system that process form, color, and motion and depth. That is, the form system cares little about color or motion, the color system cares little about location and motion, and the motion and depth system cares little about form or color. …

Understanding Reality Television

Abstract: UNDERSTANDING REALITY TELEVISION Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn, eds. London: Routtedge, 2004, 302 pp. In a recent issue of Cranta (no. 86), Andrew O'Hagan discusses the relationship between films and personal experience, referencing the particular and complex ways in which people identify with, and engage in, moving images. In an astute comment, O'Hagan writes that "movies and real life share secret things to do with one another... that only the hard-hearted could fail to see" (180). This describes something of the connection that binds viewers to narratives on film and television, and it highlights the mysterious ways in which audiences take meaning from, and interpret, what they see on screen. But what happens when these images not only call out to viewers at the level of narrative, but also make claims about being "real"? In other words, if narrative, fictional worlds connect with viewers' inner lives, how might one characterize the power of unscripted, nonfktion images? Do these images provoke a heightened sense of identification on the part of viewers? Do they also encourage a greater degree of anticipation during the viewing experience? Do unscripted scenarios hold the promise (fulfilled or not) that anything can happen? One might consider, then, the role of unscripted narratives in the current cultural milieu, which has seen documentary films (Fahrenheit 9/11 [2004], Capturing the Friedmans [2003], Spellbound [2002]) and unscripted reality-television shows (Survivor, American Idol, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) generate enormous fan bases and strong numbers, either at the box office or in the Nielsen ratings. Film studios and television networks have witnessed and responded to this surge in the popularity of unscripted media; cable and network television in particular have attempted to capitalize on this phenomenon. The cable television network Bravo has even produced a five-part documentary called The Reality of Reality-thai is, a metareality show-with segments such as "How Real is the Real?" and "Behind the Scenes." Reality television, which promises to unveil things "as they are," has generated its own reality show (with its own portrayal of "the real"). In this context, unscripted television has become an important site of public debate over the past decade, and this is why the essays collected in Understanding Reality Television, edited by Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn, are so welcome. Focusing on how reality programming creates new challenges for existing analytical approaches in television and cultural studies (16), Holmes and jermyn have assembled a highly readable and even exciting collection that should be of keen interest to students, academics, and critics alike. The strength of Understanding Reality Television lies in the variety of topics it addresses and the accessibility of its essays. Holmes and Jermyn's introduction both sets the stage for the essays that follow and offers a compelling discussion of its own about several key issues in the critical study of reality television-debates concerning definitions, terminology, cultural value, and the representation of the "everyday." Holmes and Jermyn examine the theoretical space that reality television occupies, from the way in which participants and contestants "talk explicitly about the politics of how they are being 'represented' at the level of the text itself (12), to reality television's "very self-reflexive and self-conscious interplay between different programme forms" (6). They argue that debates about reality television should not be abstracted from their "relationship with a range of existing critical, theoretical and methodological paradigms," and that these debates can provide an opportunity for experimentation and exploration, at the theoretical level (18). Holmes and Jermyn make a concerted effort to incorporate essays that cover a range of areas, addressing reality television's history and reception, issues of class, gender, race, and community, as well as questions concerning celebrity and temporality. …

Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video

Abstract: Grant, Barry Keith, and Jeannette Sloniowski, eds. Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1998, 496 pp., $27.50 (paper). There is no standard formula for the documentary. It can assume any number of forms: fictional, avant-garde, propagandist, ethnographic, autobiographic, and a host of others. Although many critics and theorists have incorrectly lumped all documentaries (from Night and Fog to This Is Spinal Tap) in the same category, the editors of Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video have created a text that directly addresses this issue of false groupings and erroneous labeling. In their collection, which closely investigates 30 documentaries and spotlights the work of 27 film scholars, Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski have compiled a work that promises to change the way we collectively think of the "documentary." It is for this reason that Documenting the Documentary deserves to sit (within reach) on the shelf of oft-cited documentary texts, alongside the work of Jacobs, Renov, Stott, and Winston. Written for the scholar, student, or cinephile, Documenting the Documentary is arranged in straightforward, standard academic, completely traditional chronological order, and the articles are entirely independent of each other. Although Grant and Sloniowski's introduction hints at similar themes that unite certain articles (such as the "avant-garde," which links the essays on Man with a Movie Camera, The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, and I Do Not Know What 1 Am Like), it is left to the reader to make many of these connections. It is this awareness of their audience's interpretive ability that makes this text appealing. The conventional arrangement of the articles facilitates quick referencing and easily conforms itself to the rigid, (at times) inflexible nature of a course syllabus. This reading is supported by a note from the editors in the preface: "Such an arrangement is an invitation to readers to move around in the book as they might wish, while also affording instructors (who, in any case, usually adapt textbook sequencing to the particularities of their own courses) greater freedom in the order of selection." The ease of indexing and its classroom-ready status make Documenting the Documentary a noteworthy text, but its greatest asset is the rich criticism. Each article addresses a component of the wide spectrum that is documentary while managing to remain aware of the other writings that preexisted the author's interpretation of a given film. Rather than reiterating the words of others (and not offering any new insights), the articles synthesize these earlier criticisms and build on them, creating new, complex, and thought-provoking readings. In addition, the chronological arrangement of the articles helps the reader see the movements and various shifts in documentary filmmaking over the past 75 years. …

Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties

Abstract: Steven Cohan Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1997 346 pp $3995 ($1895 paper) Steven Cohan's comprehensive study of masculinity and star images adroitly debunks the image of the masculine conformist of the 1950s, that is, the masculine identity formed by a middle class sexual ideology polarizing heterosexual and homosexual Drawing from Judith Butler's influential work on the performativity of gender and sexual roles, Cohan offers a more nuanced vision of the male star, and by extension the male, constituted by a range of social and personal influences As such, the text presents a range of masculine representations for the male movie stars of the era Often the contradictions and confusions inherent in a single star image reflect the larger social formation and possibilities for male identity during the period As Cohan states, his historical analysis is sensitive to the fields obscured (homosexuality), included (class, ethnicity, age), and excluded (race) in the establishment of "normal" masculine identity Rich in detail and exceedingly sensitive to the larger contextual factors at play in the creation of these male star images, Cohan's book is invaluable for understanding the social climate of the 1950s which served to create these star images and the conflicted roles for men during the period The text develops as several case studies, falling across the fields of star studies, gender, and institutional analysis Indeed, one of the greatest strengths in this compelling work is the method through which Cohan builds his argument, moving between the social, the institutional and the sexual in a series of interlocking analyses Cohan starts by situating masculinity in crisis The first chapter addresses the unstable masculine identity of North By Northwest's hero Roger Thornhill through close analysis of shifting identities and the theatrical star image of Cary Grant in the context of cold war ideologies Similarly, crisis also defines the subject of the second chapter: the prototypical Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a pivotal role that clearly splinters the male As Cohan suggests, the role offers the "paradox" of hegemonic masculinity: while the breadwinner, the father, and professional-managerial class were being validated by Hollywood in the Gregory Peck film, the "traditional" masculine (read "aggressive", "stoic", "adventurous") roles were being subordinated in adjoining films This dynamic was also evidenced in the '50s career of Humphrey Bogart Bogart shifted from the 1940s film noir tough guy to a variety of "troubled" characters as evidenced by the homoerotic and misogynistic dynamic in Dead Reckoning, the sexual dysfunction of In a Lonely Place and the psychopath in The Desperate Hours Cohan illustrates that the psychopathic and homosocial characters portrayed by Bogart served to regulate the heterosexual conformity of the era The remainder of the book also engages masculinity in crisis, but more directly through the focus of the male body as spectacle In a chapter that at times strays from its thesis by offering an account of the biblical cycle and religious boom of the 1950s, Cohan contrasts the stars of The Ten Commandments Yul Brynner (under a section titled "baldness brings its own rewards") and Charlton Heston ("But size counts even more") are presented as cold war binaries, representing America and the exotic "alien" through body shape, size, costuming, and even body hair Moving into the realm of beefcake from the era, Cohan illustrates how William Holden in Picnic was designed to visually exploit the male star for a range of gendered/sexed viewing positions, placing Holden as the object to be looked at Other prominent stars-Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando-are more disruptive in their postwar star images by appearing as softer "boys" rather than as men in melodramas, effectively allowing them to pass between the binarized categories of male/female, straight/gay, and young/mature …