Dissertations / Theses: 'Film criticism'

1

Blose, Chris. "Ideas in action : film theory in film criticism /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2004. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p1421115.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

2

Garrett, Roberta. "Postmodernist cinema and feminist film criticism." Thesis, Staffordshire University, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.272823.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

3

McWhirter, Andrew Christopher. "Film criticism in the digital age." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5165/.

Full text

Abstract:

In a period of proposed crisis and disruptive transformation to media, journalism and criticism, this thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of English-language film criticism by offering an empirically-grounded study of observations and interviews with some of the world’s foremost film critics and editors from influential publications such as Cineaste, CinemaScope, IndieWIRE, The Guardian, Reverse Shot, Sight & Sound and Variety. These expert opinions are not only situated in the wider context of historical perspectives on criticism from ancient and modern origins, but also positioned against on-going debates into journalism and digital media which often denote a landscape characterised by both continuity and contestation. The findings are drawn from extensive fieldwork in the UK and North America taking place at two major international film festivals in Edinburgh and Toronto, supplemented with additional interviews with film critics from each of these regions. This thesis relies upon a great deal of published literature, from text books and media coverage to film criticism. These materials detail a crisis in criticism and in the culture at large, a prehistory of existing media, concepts around literary and arts criticism in general, and provide the means for a detailed model on Six Schools of Contemporary Film Criticism to be posited. A combination of desk research with participant observation and in-depth interviews has led to and strengthened the overall findings which conclude that film criticism in the contemporary digital age is defined by more continuity than disruptive transformation. While this prosaic – but not myopic – approach to film criticism highlights the habits and norms of film critics it also notes the significant changes taking place through the interactions of individuals and institutions with technologies. However, while transformations are acknowledged and new events specified – indeed the theme of change gives shape to the findings chapters in terms of a chronology of the new, newer and newest – in print, then online and subsequently towards convergent media forms – it is argued that the long view best serves to counteract hyperbolic discourses on film criticism as dead or inhabiting a new golden age. These empirical findings, in the face of transformative digital idealism, redress the balance and argue the case for evolution rather than the often mooted digital revolution.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

4

Law, Hoi Lun. "Reasonable doubt : ambiguity and film criticism." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2017. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.752726.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

5

Weiss, Asher. "21st Century Film Criticism: The Evolution of Film Criticism from Professional Intellectual Analysis to a Democratic Phenomenon." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2018. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1910.

Full text

Abstract:

Film criticism has changed since its inception and will continue to change moving forward. The evolution of film criticism has largely been a story of the shift from an elite field of intellectual exploration by a few knowledgeable experts to a democratic phenomenon where expert analysis is aggregated and averaged, and the lines are blurred between true expertise and the random opinions of the masses. This paper will address the transition from the birth of film criticism to its popularization through the 90s, to what it has become today. By exploring the nature of film criticism historically and reviewing the key elements of its growth from Victorian times through its emergence as an established field in the 1930s, 40s and 50s and its heyday in the 60s and 70s, we can understand the context of its evolution. This will provide a perspective to view today’s approach to film criticism with a clearer eye and a thorough analysis of film criticism in the digital age. It will demonstrate that more is not always a good thing, and the democratization of film criticism has not necessarily been all good.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

6

Roberts, Jason Kelly. "The Awkward Ages| Film Criticism, Technological Change, and Cinephilia." Thesis, Northwestern University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3741433.

Full text

Abstract:

This dissertation examines the rhetoric of popular and academic film criticism across moments of major technological change, focusing on the coming of sound, television broadcasts of movies, home video, and digital projection. Specifically, I investigate the appearance of four seemingly binary oppositions (change/continuity; specificity/convergence; scarcity/plenitude; and hope/disillusionment) constructed and deployed by film critics to ascertain the scope and value of these changes. In doing so, I uncover common responses to otherwise new and distinct cinematic technologies.

Although material and cultural differences distinguish these moments and their respective critical receptions, I argue that the persistence of these tropes belies claims frequently made by film critics that such changes represent “radical breaks.” My analysis of film criticism thus reminds us that both the use and interpretation of new technologies is contingent and relational, not determined by the technologies themselves. Technological determinism of this sort is stubbornly resilient among film critics, but viewed in the alternative perspective I propose, cinema and film criticism become interdependent mirrors of one another. Forged by humans and therefore lacking an immutable essence, cinema and film criticism are subject to being transformed, redefined, and reevaluated. Each must be understood as liberated from any medium-specific destiny; indeed, they are always the products of our invention, not objects of archaeological discovery. As I demonstrate, film critics meet such epistemological uncertainty ambivalently, evoking sensations of exhilaration and melancholy.

In tandem with my study of technological change, my study of cinephilia looks at the styles of thought and structures of feeling characteristic of serious film culture since the silent era. Whereas most studies of film criticism and technological change assess new styles or articulate new theories, I also contemplate technological change’s emotional resonances. In other words, I am interested not only in problems of filmmaking practice and modern technology, but also in probing the affective bonds connecting film critics to the medium. The Awkward Ages shows us, then, that film culture’s current crisis—the impact of digital technologies—is just the most recent instance of a larger pattern, whereby moments of major technological change simultaneously unsettle the myth of medium specificity, and provide an occasion for affirming the myth.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

7

Isaacs, Bruce. "Film Cool: Towards a New Film Aesthetic." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1156.

Full text

Abstract:

The influential theorist, David Bordwell, talks about various modes of watching film: the intellectual, the casual, or the obsessive interaction with cinema practiced by the film-buff. This thesis is an attempt to come to terms with film and film culture in a number of ways. It is first an attempt at reinscribing a notion of aesthetics into film studies. This is not an easy task. I argue that film theory is not adequately equipped to discuss film in affective terms, and that instead, it emphasises ways of thinking about film and culture quite removed from the act of film ‘spectating’ – individually, or perhaps even more crucially, collectively. To my mind, film theory increasingly needs to ask: are theorists and the various subjectivities about whom they theorise watching the same films, and in the same way? My experience of film is, as Tara Brabazon writes about her own experience of film, a profoundly emotional one. Film is a stream of quotation in my own life. It is inextricably wrapped up inside memory (and what Hutcheon calls postmodern nostalgia). Film is experience. I would not know how to communicate what Sergio Leone ‘means’ or The Godfather ‘represents’ without engaging what Barbara Kennedy calls the ‘aesthetic impulse.’ In this thesis, I extrapolate from what film means to me to what it might mean to an abstract notion of culture. For this reason, Chapters Three and Four are necessarily abstract and tentatively bring together an analysis of The Matrix franchise and Quentin Tarantino’s brand of metacinema. I focus on an aesthetics of cinema rather than its politics or ideological fabric. This is not to marginalise such studies (which, in any case, this thesis could not do) but to make space for another perspective, another way of considering film, a new way of recuperating affect.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

8

Isaacs, Bruce. "Film Cool: Towards a New Film Aesthetic." English, School of Letters, Art and Media, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1156.

Full text

Abstract:

PhD
The influential theorist, David Bordwell, talks about various modes of watching film: the intellectual, the casual, or the obsessive interaction with cinema practiced by the film-buff. This thesis is an attempt to come to terms with film and film culture in a number of ways. It is first an attempt at reinscribing a notion of aesthetics into film studies. This is not an easy task. I argue that film theory is not adequately equipped to discuss film in affective terms, and that instead, it emphasises ways of thinking about film and culture quite removed from the act of film ‘spectating’ – individually, or perhaps even more crucially, collectively. To my mind, film theory increasingly needs to ask: are theorists and the various subjectivities about whom they theorise watching the same films, and in the same way? My experience of film is, as Tara Brabazon writes about her own experience of film, a profoundly emotional one. Film is a stream of quotation in my own life. It is inextricably wrapped up inside memory (and what Hutcheon calls postmodern nostalgia). Film is experience. I would not know how to communicate what Sergio Leone ‘means’ or The Godfather ‘represents’ without engaging what Barbara Kennedy calls the ‘aesthetic impulse.’ In this thesis, I extrapolate from what film means to me to what it might mean to an abstract notion of culture. For this reason, Chapters Three and Four are necessarily abstract and tentatively bring together an analysis of The Matrix franchise and Quentin Tarantino’s brand of metacinema. I focus on an aesthetics of cinema rather than its politics or ideological fabric. This is not to marginalise such studies (which, in any case, this thesis could not do) but to make space for another perspective, another way of considering film, a new way of recuperating affect.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

9

King, Noel. "Anxieties of commentary : interpretation in recent literary, film and cultural criticism /." Title page, table of contents and abstact only, 1994. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phk532.pdf.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

10

Hales, Barbara. "Dark mirror: Constructions of the femme fatale in Weimar film and Hollywood film noir." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/187445.

Full text

Abstract:

The femme fatale is a marker for the past is evident in the film noir work of German exile directors. These directors created a femme fatale character similar to Weimar examples of the sexual woman icon, using Weimar cultural constructions as a template for their work in Hollywood. The femme fatale figure in film noir is specifically an enigma or duplicitous mystery, a woman with a gun who threatens the male protagonist. She represents a piece of the male character's past often seen through the structure of the voice-over and flashback. These narrative devices enable the male protagonist to rework this jaded past vis-a-vis his relationship to the femme fatale and his fatal attraction to her. The film noir femme fatale is linked to German exile directors' desire to review a past that has been lost and cannot be recuperated. In the case of the Weimar femme fatale, she is a sign for the trauma of World War I and the ensuing political/social crises of the Weimar republic. The femme fatale in her castrating capacity is a marker for historical upheaval and male subjectivity in flux. She is ultimately the scapegoat for male questions of self and a split subjectivity brought on by historical events such as war and the experience of exile. Her various guises include the criminal woman, the technological entity, and the double.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

11

Everett, Anna. "Inside the dark museum : a genealogy of black film criticism, 1909-1949." Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning, 2005. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?res_dat=xri:ssbe&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_dat=xri:ssbe:ft:keyresource:Reg_Diss_07.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

12

Gibb, Adrienne. "Poetics of distraction : Ozaki Midori's writings on film." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=81492.

Full text

Abstract:

The cinematic experience in Taisho Japan was a defining part of a spectrum of modernity's experiences associated with daily urban life. This paper argues that rather than theorizing film in rational terms common to "serious" film criticism focussing on aspects of production, Ozaki Midori envisioned the cinematic experience from the standpoint of an enthralled spectator, in terms of a sensual, bodily interaction with the cinematic image. Given the over-determined relationship of women to mass culture, one that is wrought with contradictions, Ozaki's writings on film open up the question of gender as it relates to spectatorship and the development of subjectivity within mass culture. Ozaki writes from a perspective within the cinematic experience in which the boundaries between spectator and image collapse. Ozaki offers a new mode of thinking and writing, a poetics of distraction to articulate and comprehend the modern experience.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

13

Rosenfeld, Rachel F. "Confrontation Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalism; Where Brazil and the United States Meet." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2008. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/222.

Full text

Abstract:

Contents: Introduction; The Smell of Revolution and Popcorn; Filling the Gaps: Historical Context; Brazilian Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalism and Political Discourse of the New Brazilian Left; US Films and the Iraq War: This isn’t my America; Epilogue

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

14

Ma, Ran, and 马然. "Chinese independent cinema and international film festival network at the age of global image consumption." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2010. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B46676314.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

15

Gutierrez, III Jose. "Investigating Kracauerian cinematic realism through film practice and criticism: Life-world series (2017) and selected films of Lino Brocka." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2018. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_oa/525.

Full text

Abstract:

This dissertation is an investigation on the realist film theory of Siegfried Kracauer. It was principally conducted through film practice as exemplified by the ten short films that compose the omnibus film project, Life-world Series (dir. Joni Gutierrez, 2017, 118 minutes). To supplement the study's examination of Kracauerian cinematic realism (KCR), film criticism of selected works of Lino Brocka was also accomplished. The methodology involved three components: (1) research-based production of Life-world Series; (2) textual analyses of the said film collection and selected Brocka films; and (3) meta-analysis of the scholarly criticism on the Brocka film. This dissertation is the first to use film-making practice which was a part of the research project and devised to investigate KCR, which avows that the cinematic experience of physical reality as an object of contemplation fosters an intuitive understanding of the Lebenswelt (life-world) and, in turn, brings about the redemptive potential of film vis-à-vis the modern condition. The emergent design of Life-world Series opened the study to a wide range of possibilities that it could not have encountered if it limited itself to applying a particular theory as a framework in doing film criticism of pre-existing works. This project - through both its film practice and criticism components - is an interweaving of key notions from Husserlian phenomenology and the seven KCR tropes identified in the study, namely: (1) the quotidian; (2) the transient; (3) the refuse; (4) the fortuitous; (5) the indeterminate; (6) the flow of life; and (7) the spiritual life itself. The phenomenological engagement of this investigation has provided opportunities for expanding the inventory of KCR tropes, to conceivably include characteristics of the Lebenswelt which form part of the project's overall findings; that is, the life-world as: (1) expansive; (2) multi-layered; (3) flowing; (4) in the process of becoming; (5) resonantly intersubjective; (6) a thing of beauty; (7) relating to essences; (8) cyclical; (9) transcendent; (10) meaning-laden; (11) fragmented; and (12) malleable. The dissertation explicates how its phenomenological approach in inspecting KCR led to the construction of a prospective model of cinematic realism - the integrated quadrant model of Kracauerian cinematic realism (IQMKCR) - and finally, determines the implications and prospects of using film practice as an instrument in interrogating KCR.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

16

Cherry, Brigid S. G. "The female horror film audience : viewing pleasures and fan practices." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2268.

Full text

Abstract:

What is at stake for female fans and followers of horror cinema? This study explores the pleasures in horror film viewing for female members of the audience. The findings presented here confirm that female viewers of horror do not refuse to look but actively enjoy horror films and read such films in feminine ways. Part 1 of this thesis suggests that questions about the female viewer and her consumption of the horror film cannot be answered solely by a consideration of the text-reader relationship or by theoretical models of spectatorship and identification. A profile of female horror film fans and followers can therefore be developed only through an audience study. Part 2 presents a profile of female horror fans and followers. The participants in the study were largely drawn from the memberships of horror fan groups and from the readerships of a cross-section of professional and fan horror magazines. Qualitative data were collected through focus groups, interviews, open-ended questions included in the questionnaire and through the communication of opinions and experiences in letters and other written material. Part 3 sheds light on the modes of interpretation and attempts to position the female viewers as active consumers of horror films. This study concludes with a model of the female horror film viewer which points towards areas of female horror film spectatorship which require further analysis. The value of investigating the invisible experiences of women with popular culture is demonstrated by the very large proportion of respondents who expressed their delight and thanks in having an opportunity to speak about their experiences. This study of female horror film viewers allows the voice of an otherwise marginalised and invisible audience to be heard, their experiences recorded, the possibilities for resistance explored, and the potentially feminine pleasures of the horror film identified.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

17

Avery, Robert. "Violence as (Masculinist) Epistemic Rhetoric: A Case for Memento." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 2004. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/AveryR2004.pdf.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

18

Sim, Gerald Sianghwa. "The race with class towards a materialist methodology for race in film studies /." Diss., University of Iowa, 2007. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/187.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

19

Pilkington, Ace G. "Screening Shakespeare." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.329017.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

20

Wong, Yat-kwong, and 黃日光. "Postmodernity in Wong Kar Wai's films: a postmodern and postcolonial discourse in Hong Kong." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1996. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31951120.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

21

Caddy, Scott. "(Mis)appropriating (con)text Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in contemporary literary criticism and film /." Bowling Green, Ohio : Bowling Green State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=bgsu1245361134.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

22

Wagenheim, Christopher Paul. "From Night to Dawn: The Cultural Criticism of George A. Romero." Scholar Commons, 2010. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3823.

Full text

Abstract:

Analyzing George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) in relation to the early works of Marshal McLuhan, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse reveals an ideological parallel that can be explicated using Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony. While McLuhan, Marcuse, and Fromm observe, in order to critique, social manifestations of power in a consumerist system, Romero presents a model of hegemony in his films that he exposes to extreme stress thereby allowing viewers to observe such manifestations of power for themselves. These analyses are significant because although Marcuse, McLuhan, Fromm, and Romero present congruous ideologies, scholars of Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead have failed to recognize cultural hegemony as the source of the psychosocial criticism within each film.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

23

Garza, Valerie F. "The Witch, the Blonde, and the Cultural "Other"| Applying Cluster Criticism to Grimm and Disney Princess Stories." Thesis, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10827734.

Full text

Abstract:

The Brothers Grimm and the Walt Disney Company have produced popular fairy tales for large audiences. In this work, cluster criticism—a rhetorical criticism that involves identifying key terms and charting word clusters around those terms—is applied to four Grimm fairy tales and four Disney princess films. This study aims to reveal the worldview of the rhetors and explore how values present in Grimm tales manifest in contemporary Disney films. Disney princess films in this study have been categorized as “White/European” and “Non-White/Cultural ‘Other.’” Because film is a form of non-discursive rhetoric, an adaptation of cluster criticism designed for film was been applied to the selected animated features. This study reveals that many patriarchal values present in Grimm fairy tales appear in contemporary Disney films, and while Moana (2016) features far fewer displays of these values, intersectional feminism should be kept in mind, with more diversity in princesses needed.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

24

Bisson, Vincent J. 1984. "Historical Film Reception: An Ethnographic Focus beyond Entertainment." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10816.

Full text

Abstract:

xi, 180 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
Drawing upon theories from folkloristics, history, and audience studies, this thesis analyzes historical films, their reception, and the importance of history and film in everyday life. Using an interdisciplinary approach, I demonstrate how a folkloric perspective may contribute to and strengthen the study ofhistorical films by emphasizing the attributes of narrative and belief at the vernacular level of reception. With an ethnographic and qualitative focus on the informal, common, and everyday film viewing habits of specific individuals in relation to historical belief, this project provides empirical evidence that is necessary for a more accurate understanding of the function and reception of historical films. This study also re-examines the formal aspects of historical films in relation to historical re-construction, the definition and categorization of such films, their reception, their function beyond entertainment, and the need for an integration of new research in both audience studies and folklore studies.
Committee in Charge: Dr. Daniel Wojcik, Chair; Dr. Jeffrey Hanes; Dr. Bish Sen

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

25

Truter, Victoria Zea. "Dreamscape and death : an analysis of three contemporary novels and a film." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012976.

Full text

Abstract:

With its focus on the relationship between dreamscape and death, this study examines the possibility of indirectly experiencing – through writing and dreaming – that which cannot be directly experienced, namely death. In considering this possibility, the thesis engages at length with Maurice Blanchot's argument that death, being irrevocably absent and therefore unknowable, is not open to presentation or representation. After explicating certain of this thinker's theories on the ambiguous nature of literary and oneiric representation, and on the forfeiture of subjective agency that occurs in the moments of writing and dreaming, the study turns to an examination of the manner in which such issues are dealt with in selected dreamscapes. With reference to David Malouf's An Imaginary Life, Alan Warner's These Demented Lands, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and Richard Linklater's Waking Life, the thesis explores the literary and cinematic representation of human attempts to define, resist, or control death through dreaming and writing about it. Ultimately, the study concludes that such attempts are necessarily inconclusive, and that it is only ever possible to represent death as a (mis)representation.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

26

Gallagher, Kaleen. "Female suicide in German literature and film since 1955." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709204.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

27

Goulden, Jan. "The western, the buddy movie and noir : lesbian re-readings of the American action movie." n.p, 1999. http://library7.open.ac.uk/abstracts/page.php?thesisid=13.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

28

Walton, Jennifer Lee. "POLITICAL REELISM: A RHETORICAL CRITICISM OF REFLECTION AND INTERPRETATION IN POLITICAL FILMS." Connect to this title online, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=bgsu1143492027.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

29

Haspel, Jane Seay. "Dirty Jokes and Fairy Tales: David Mamet and the Narrative Capability of Film." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1997. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278457/.

Full text

Abstract:

David Mamet is best known as a playwright, but he also has a thriving film career, both as screenwriter and as director. He has taken very seriously each of these roles, formulating theories that, he suggests, account for the creative choices he makes. Though Mamet sometimes contradicts himself, as when he suggests that viewers should have the satisfaction of constructing their own meaning of a work, but at the same time is devoted to montage, which works by juxtaposing images that lead to a single interpretation, he clearly sees the story as a critical avenue into the spectator's unconscious, where he hopes it will resonate with a truth that speaks directly to the individual. His films House of Games, Things Change, and Homicide clearly reflect his ideas on the best ways of conveying a story on film. In House of Games, Mamet draws on Bruno Bettelheim's theories to construct a fairy tale designed to act on adult viewers in the same way that fairy tales act on the child. In Things Change, he creates a fable that explores issues of friendship and honor within the milieu of the gangster genre. And in Homicide, Mamet uses the expectations viewers bring to the theatre in anticipation of a genre film to explore themes of loyalty and identity. In Oleanna, however, Mamet relies heavily on exposition and dialogue, rather than the visual elements that separate the film from drama, which renders the film the antithesis of his long-held philosophy of film narrative. Mamet's best film work, in House of Games and Homicide, has been innovative and thought-provoking, bringing depth to the new noir and redefining the cop film. His work in Oleanna, though it may prove to be an anomaly, may suggest a surrender of his principles of filmmaking or a reformulation of them to fit some new vision.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

30

Levy, Michelle. "Nostalgia and renewal : the soundtracks of Rushmore and High Fidelity." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=98551.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis is an analysis of two film soundtracks, High Fidelity and Rushmore, and how each conforms to, and moves away from, trends in soundtrack production. The analysis begins by examining the relationship between film and music through the progression of key figures and moments leading to the current state of the film soundtrack. The soundtracks of High Fidelity and Rushmore are situated within the contexts of youth and rock culture as a means of illuminating their compilations and prospective audiences. The conclusion of this thesis is that these particular films and their soundtracks are entrenched in a dialogue about nostalgia and the superiority of archival music and provide clear examples of the growing use of nostalgia within cultural contexts generally.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

31

McCann, Mark. "Penser l'écran sonore les théories du film parlant /." Click here to access, 2006. http://thesis.library.adelaide.edu.au/public/adt-SUA20070320.161033/index.html.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

32

Vaughan, Michael Hunter. "From camera to code : Godard, Resnais and the problem of representation in film theory." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d8752498-1a8c-48ec-b774-b3e9f1e410ea.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis presents a theory of film representation as a process of organizing relations in order to connote the image's status as a type of representation. It is, thus, a study of film form, the form of its representations. Building from such theoretical sources as Merleau- Ponty and Deleuze, I hope here to use a phenomenological base to build a theory of film semiotics that focuses on the immanent field of film representation, which I will postulate as a structuring of the inter-dependent relationship between the content of representation and the signified source of representation. This relationship is infused through a film text according to various modes of differentiation: between the viewer and viewed, speaker and spoken or what, using principles of phenomenology, I call the problem of subject-object relations. In this study I use this framework of subject-object relations in order to re-conceptualize the problem of film representation and to systematize the fundamental debates in film theory. I will argue that even oppositional theories of film representation can be reconciled through their attempt to understand this immanent field as being organized so as to structure a relationship between the representation and an origin of meaning, or subject-function. This relationship is what I call a system of reference. The filmic subject-function is traditionally located within the camera itself or hi the diegetic subjectivity of a character; I will call these two systems of reference, respectively, objective and subjective representation. And, through a reconstruction of Deleuze's Cinéma project, I will argue that the immanent field of film representation is a constant fluctuation between these two poles, a dialogic circulation of interacting agencies and discourses. This thesis illustrates this fluctuation through a comparative analysis of two French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean-Luc Godard. I will argue that, illustrating similar goals as one finds in the works of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze, these two filmmakers radically deconstruct film codes in order to destroy the conventional division between interior and exterior that is imposed by classical notions of subjectivity.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

33

Carboni, Camilla. "Film spectatorship and subjectivity : semiotics, complications, satisfactions." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/1671.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

34

Haas, Tara Nicole. "Critiquing the Critic: A Case for Journalistic Criticism in the Theatre." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2015. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5512.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis suggests that journalistic theatre criticism is a necessary and vital aspect of the theatre, promoting a healthy theatre community and culture. A healthy theatre community is supported by critics and artists alike, and is one where citizens are excited about the theatre, desiring to participate and engage with it often. It is one where artists and spectators listen, respect, and trust one another, being open to opinions and suggestions that may enhance and improve the theatre community. A healthy theatre community strives to provide theatre that may be multi-faceted in purpose, but allows for opportunities to challenge, uncover, teach, or simply entertain to become magnified, creating transformative experiences within the viewers. In the most utopic state, healthy theatre causes epiphanies that provide glimpses of a better world, one where individuals and societies may know peace. These interactions, with the magic that theatre can bring, may benefit communities on a level ultimately akin to changing the world. Journalistic criticism supports such healthy theatre by increasing interest and viewership, contributing to the theatre's growth, and recognizing ways in which it can utilize its deepest potential. In this thesis, I have performed qualitative and action research in order to evaluate myself as a critic. The thesis also explores how criticism functions in our society and, further, how it should function. I have analyzed various theatrical reviews I have written, and placed them into three sections, each representing a distinct element of theatre criticism. These elements comprise the most fundamental and vital functions of a review that leads to a healthy and improved theatre community. These sections are: “Increasing Promotion,” “Honest and Specific Feedback,” and “Emphasizing Social Justice.” Grouping the reviews into these sections, I will identify how I have contributed to the field of theatre criticism, and to these three realms in particular. I will also be able to recognize and indicate how I can progress as a critic to help support the field of journalistic theatre criticism. This thesis is very insular, personal, and beholden to me, presenting distinct limitations. The value of this work lies primarily in giving aspiring critics the opportunity to learn from my experiences and insights. Above all, this thesis holds value because of the improved critic I have become from completing it, ultimately able to better serve people in my writing for years to come.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

35

Caddy, Scott A. "(Mis)appropriating (Con)text: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in Contemporary Literary Criticism and Film." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245361134.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

36

Ross, Oliver Paul. "Same-sex desire and syncretism : 'homosexualities' in Indian literature and film." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609810.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

37

Blake, Eric Michael. "Genre, Justice & Quentin Tarantino." Scholar Commons, 2015. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5911.

Full text

Abstract:

The films of Quentin Tarantino have held a significant influence on modern cinema, and therefore on cinema studies. As such, studies on the social and philosophical implications of his work have appeared over the years, mostly in regards to content. However, with the exception of references to his use of cinematic violence, studies of his technique—i.e., his cinematic style—have been rare, and rarer still have been studies of the social implications that arise from the patterns of his style as well as those his subject matter. The following thesis seeks to use the concept of Auteur Theory—specifically, that Tarantino is the primary artist of the films directed by him—to propose that a specific artistic style conveys a specific worldview: namely, that the artistic choices made by the director, in content and technique, can and do convey a viewpoint regarding “real life” and the world. Specifically, this work will culminate in analyzing and determining tenants to be gleaned from the Tarantino canon regarding issues of justice, both on an individual and societal basis. With his focus on crime—again, both societal and individual—Tarantino makes commentary on societal breakdown; the audience’s emotional support (or lack thereof) for characters and their actions corresponds with identification, and therefore draws real-life parallels. Such refers to the concept of “Realism”, which will be discussed in detail. Further, Tarantino’s trend of recycling elements from prior films refers to artistic “Postmodernism”—use of “pastiche” and sampling to create a “new” work. The thesis will analyze the value and meaning of the major samplings in Tarantino’s films—particularly in regards to genre--and concludes that, far from a simple conglomeration, a Tarantino “Genre-Blender” forms a cohesive whole, oriented towards specific impact of the audience. From the above two issues of Realism and Postmodernism in art, and establishing the existence of a cohesive artistic vision in Tarantino’s work, this thesis identifies patterns in such that identify specific viewpoints on questions of “Good”, “Evil”, and “Justice”. Key to this is the dichotomy between objective principles and subjectivity in human interaction amid the applications of principles. Tarantino’s work conveys a belief in certain objective tenants; however, the applications that arise through interaction cause complications, arising through human limitations in perspective. The ultimate purpose of this study is to link studies of social implications of film to not merely content, but in choices in cinematic style. It is a contribution at once to studies of film and to studies of artistic theory (in particular Realism and Postmodernism), using both to analyze how a specific, popular, mainstream artist reflects a worldview through the sensibilities that are channeled in creating his works.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

38

Hofmann, Ingrid. "Deadly seductions : femme fatales in 90's film noir." Title page, table of contents and abstract only, 1998. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ARM/09armh713.pdf.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

39

Jubis, Oscar. "The Salta Trilogy of Lucrecia Martel." Scholarly Repository, 2009. http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_theses/234.

Full text

Abstract:

During the past decade, Lucrecia Martel has emerged as the most respected filmmaker from South America. This thesis is motivated by my conviction that Martel's films are worthy of serious engagement and critical scrutiny. It is also motivated by my curiosity about the seemingly inexhaustible pleasure and edification I derive from them. Martel describes her filmmaking as "cine de autor" (auteur cinema). Indeed, her films evidence a personal involvement in every aspect of filmmaking. This thesis will define and explore the characteristics and conditions of her authorship. This thesis constitutes an expression of the enduring usefulness of auteurist criticism. In this case, this critical approach is entirely appropriate and likely to yield the deepest insights into the films. The introduction to my thesis provides pertinent biographical information and the necessary socio-cultural context to set the stage for an intellectual immersion into her three features to date: The Swamp (2001), The Holy Girl (2004) and The Headless Woman (2008). I propose that these films constitute a trilogy that distills Martel's experience of growing up in the remote province of Salta and critiques the social and cultural forces at play in provincial Latin American life. However, no matter how specific the sense of place the films convey and how grounded they are in subjective experience, they illuminate universal aspects of being a person in the world and contain progressive prescriptions for living from which anyone can benefit. My research into the literature on the films of Lucrecia Martel failed to find any serious and thorough appraisal of Lucrecia Martelâ??s films as a trilogy. While my analysis benefits from familiarity with the available literature, the operative critical approach privileges my direct experience with the audiovisual material provided by the films. Each film will be subjected to a close reading illustrated with images from it. These readings focus sharply on certain sequences I deem crucial to the conveyance of characterization, meaning and ideology. These readings aim to think with the films rather than think against or about them. They explore the themes and issues that arise within the narratives of the films as well as the formal means by which they do.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

40

Savitsky, Matthew Port. "The ManShed." Thesis, University of California, San Diego, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1592082.

Full text

Abstract:

Hot House highlights the current evolution of The ManShed, an ongoing solo project that takes the form of a multi-screen video installation and accompanying film set. Beginning in summer 2013, The ManShed refers to an enclosed, two-roomed meeting place built from conjoined panels that plays host to a series of sexual encounters between myself and other men. Under its roof, an infrastructure of hidden cameras documents these interactions between my body, a stranger’s, and material forms that interest me. The participating men were solicited through online services used to locate partners for casual sex, like Craigslist and Adam4Adam, as well as through my involvement with the San Diego Fetish Men and the San Diego Gay Pride event.

In its first iteration, the resulting video and sculptural elements are organized in a minimal, highly staged environment set in adjacent galleries in the University of California, San Diego’s Visual Art Department. Presented in flux, this work represents an ongoing investigation of alter kinships that spring up within gay male communities and the unexpected conditions in which they flourish. Modeled artificially in my project, The ManShed acts as a metaphorical ‘hot house’ of queer experimentation, breeding a “rare species” of feeling, exchange, and desire, rooted in the sculptural environment.

Outside the conceptual formations of project, this exhibition unifies my sculptural and performance-based production under the umbrella of a single work and represents my current direction toward constructed, theatrical environments combined with video display.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

41

Sherrill, Brenna Elizabeth. "The Birth of the MPDG 2.0: The Potential for the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope in Independent Film." TopSCHOLAR®, 2016. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1572.

Full text

Abstract:

This project chronicles an in-depth character study on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in film. The term was coined in 2007 by a film critic about a very specific kind of female character—one who exists “solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” The MPDG has often been written off as nothing more than a stereotype or sexist characterization of a woman, but I argue that the MPDG can be much more than a flat character, as evidenced by the increasingly complex characterization of the MPDG in independent film. Based on case studies of several films, I discuss how the MPDG has grown from a supporting archetype into a well-rounded and multi-dimensional character. Based on a history of female depiction in film, a discussion of the critical interpretations of the MPDG, and these case studies, I argue that the MPDG has the potential to exist as a complex and realistic character rather than just an archetype.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

42

Gibbs, John. "'It was never all in the script...' : mise-en-scene and the interpretation of visual style in British film journals, 1946-1978." Thesis, University of Reading, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.298747.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

43

Whitney, Allison. "Labyrinth : cinema, myth and nation at Expo 67." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape7/PQDD_0025/MQ50586.pdf.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

44

Harrington, Matthew David. "G.W. Pabst and the New Objectivity: Social Criticism and the Loss of Idealism in the Weimar Republic." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/31286.

Full text

Abstract:

Between the years of 1919 and 1933, the Weimar Republic was a world leader in art and entertainment. However, it was also torn apart by severe economic depressions and political violence. This intense atmosphere provided a powerful context for the art and films of the period. As the political and economic tides shifted, the style of painting and filmmaking changed, as well. The idealistic Expressionist art of the years immediately following the optimistic revolution subsided as a sober realism emerged. This New Objectivity was both evident in the paintings of artists such as Otto Dix and George Grosz, as well as in the films of G.W. Pabst. However, within the changing artistic and social climate of Weimar Germany, Pabst has received little attention by scholars. This thesis contextualizes G.W. Pabst, one of Weimar's leading film directors, within the artistic transitions and social climate of the era, specifically analyzing issues of class and gender within his silent features.
Master of Arts

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

45

Kaplan, Stacey Meredith 1973. "The modern(ist) short form: Containing class in early 20th century literature and film." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10574.

Full text

Abstract:

ix, 182 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
My dissertation analyzes the overlooked short works of authors and auteurs who do not fit comfortably into the conventional category of modernism due to their subtly experimental aesthetics: the versatile British author Vita Sackville-West, the Anglo-Irish novelist and short-story writer Elizabeth Bowen, and the British emigrant filmmaker Charlie Chaplin. I focus on the years 1920-1923 to gain an alternative understanding of modernism's annus mirabulus and the years immediately preceding and following it. My first chapter studies the most critically disregarded author of the project: Sackville-West. Her 1922 volume of short stories The Heir: A Love Story deserves attention for its examination of social hierarchies. Although her stories ridicule characters regardless of their class background, those who attempt to change their class status, especially when not sanctioned by heredity, are treated with the greatest contempt. The volume, with the reinforcement of the contracted short form, advocates staying within given class boundaries. The second chapter analyzes social structures in Bowen's first book of short stories, Encounters (1922). Like Sackville-West, Bowen's use of the short form complements her interest in how class hierarchies can confine characters. Bowen's portraits of classed encounters and of characters' encounters with class reveal a sense of anxiety over being confined by social status and a sense of displacement over breaking out of class groups, exposing how class divisions accentuate feelings of alienation and instability. The last chapter examines Chaplin's final short films: "The Idle Class" (1921), "Pay Day (1922), and "The Pilgrim" (1923). While placing Chaplin among the modernists complicates the canon in a positive way, it also reduces the complexity of this man and his art. Chaplin is neither a pyrotechnic modernist nor a traditional sentimentalist. Additionally, Chaplin's shorts are neither socially liberal nor conservative. Rather, Chaplin's short films flirt with experimental techniques and progressive class politics, presenting multiple perspectives on the thematic of social hierarchies. But, in the end, his films reinforce rather than overthrow traditional artistic forms and hierarchical ideas. Studying these artists elucidates how the contracted space of the short form produces the perfect room to present a nuanced portrayal of class.
Committee in charge: Paul Peppis, Chairperson, English; Michael Aronson, Member, English; Mark Quigley, Member, English; Jenifer Presto, Outside Member, Comparative Literature

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

46

Tweed, Hannah Catherine. "Aesthetics of autism? : contemporary representations of autism in literature and film." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2015. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5996/.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis analyses representations of autism in twentieth and twenty-first century Anglo-American literature and film. It posits that, while many cultural portrayals of autism are more concerned with perpetuating the stereotypes surrounding the condition than with representing autistic experiences, there is evidence of a small but significant counter-current that is responding to and challenging more reductive representational modes. Each of my chapters examines prevailing narrative tropes that reinforce existing stereotypes of disability (narratives of overcoming, victimhood, dependency), which can be clearly evidenced in contemporary depictions of autism, from Barry Levinson’s Rain Man (1988) to Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003). In each case, a significant proportion of texts use the generic markers of autistic representation to question and subvert these more established literary and cinematic approaches. The twenty-first century authors discussed in this thesis repurpose and interrogate the prevailing stereotypes of autistic representations, and provide provocative considerations for the study of postmodernism, crime fiction, melodrama and autobiography. This critical crossover and the employment of genre tropes cross-examines the subversive potential of genre fiction and the significance of postmodernism as frameworks for examining depictions of autism. This thesis proposes that this crucial minority of texts embodies a writing forwards out of stereotypes of autistic representations, by both autistic and neurotypical authors, into new, twenty-first century representational patterns.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

47

McMahon, Orlene Denice. "Listening to the French new wave : the film music and composers of postwar French art cinema." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610716.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

48

Hart, Hilary 1969. "Sentimental spectacles : the sentimental novel, natural language, and early film performance." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/297.

Full text

Abstract:

Advisor: Mary E. Wood. xii, 181 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm. Print copy also available for check out and consultation in the University of Oregon's library under the call number: PS374.S714 H37 2004.
The nineteenth-century American sentimental novel has only in the last twenty years received consideration from the academy as a legitimate literary tradition. During that time feminist scholars have argued that sentimental novels performed important cultural work and represent an important literary tradition. This dissertation contributes to the scholarship by placing the sentimental novel within a larger context of intellectual history as a tradition that draws upon theoretical sources and is a source itself for later cultural developments. In examining a variety of sentimental novels, I establish the moral sense philosophy as the theoretical basis of the sentimental novel's pathetic appeals and its theories of sociability and justice. The dissertation also addresses the aesthetic features of the sentimental novel and demonstrates again the tradition's connection to moral sense philosophy but within the context of the American elocution revolution. I look at natural language theory to render more legible the moments of emotional spectacle that are the signature of sentimental aesthetics. The second half of the dissertation demonstrates a connection between the sentimental novel and silent film. Both mediums rely on a common aesthetic storehouse for signifying emotions. The last two chapters of the dissertation compare silent film performance with emotional displays in the sentimental novel and in elocution and acting manuals. I also demonstrate that the films of D. W. Griffith, especially The Birth of a Nation, draw upon on the larger conventions of the sentimental novel.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

49

Wong, Yat-kwong. "Postmodernity in Wong Kar Wai's films : a postmodern and postcolonial discourse in Hong Kong /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1996. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B17983435.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

50

Adams, Tessa L. "An Ideological Criticism of Portrayals of Black Men in Film: An Analysis of Drumline, Dangerous Minds, Higher Learning, and Stomp the Yard." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1447637852.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Film criticism'

Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles