Film Matters Magazine

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Paige Hartenburg: My article, “See No Evil: Audio Identification with the Monstrous in Under the Skin,” focuses on the relationship between identity and body as seen in horror. Commenting on Carol Clover’s Final Girl and Kara Silverman’s female authorial voice, my essay argues that audio provides audiences an opportunity to choose how they identify the film’s protagonist: as a monster or as the Final Girl. Through audio, Under the Skin (2013) provides alternative modes of reading that allow the film to take on subjective meaning.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Mary Beth Bauermann: This article takes a deep dive into three of Spike Lee’s films that feature significant compilation soundtracks of American popular music: Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), and BlacKkKlansman (2018). The music that fills these soundtracks recalls historic eras and specific sociocultural events, grounding audiences in two coexisting worlds: Lee’s diegesis and our American society. Ultimately, the soundtracks facilitate audiences’ understanding that the stories conveyed in each film narrative exist in our own history, past and present.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Leandra Djomo: My article “Daydreaming” focuses on the distortion of identity caused by VR technology in Satoshi Kon’s 2006 film Paprika and how that distortion serves as a way to escape reality. What attracted me to this film were the fun colors and the ultimate confusion that came with trying to understand where reality began and where fiction ended. I found this confusion to be horrific, and as a horror fanatic, I wanted to explore this sentiment further. Although, Paprika is certainly not considered a horror film.

Station MVP explores the behind-the-scenes world of a public radio station and the characters who work there. The protagonist Jamie is in over her head—she must navigate a demanding new job, her zany colleagues, and ongoing threats from her estranged husband.  She’s a no-nonsense woman who battles the highs and lows of dealing with a position of power while trying to forget the time when she had hers taken away. Despite it all, she still has her sense of humor, and the fictional Maggie Valley Public Radio—WMVP—is lucky to have her!

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

A. G. Lawler: “‘Films for Humanity:’ De-victimization of the Female in At Five in the Afternoon and The Milk of Sorrow” addresses the need for a new type of representation of women within film. The conventional filmic narrative all too often reduces women to helpless or powerless victims. Such traditional depictions are problematic and do not provide accurate or truthful portrayals of how women understand and adapt to the circumstances around them. In my article, I argue that Samira Makhmalbaf’s At Five in the Afternoon (Panj é asr, 2003) and Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow (La teta asustada, 2009) redefine the concept of victimization on-screen and thus provide the world with a new, respectful way of representing not only women, but underrepresented groups and voices as well.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Johanna Carter: “Translating a Monster: Motherhood and Horror Criteria in Ringu and The Ring” analyzes the shifting tonalities inherent in the cross-cultural process of monster adaptations. Since The Ring marks the boom of Asian-horror remakes in the US, my paper compares this influential remake with its original to better illustrate the difficulty of cultural translation and, more specifically, what is lost in this process. By default, the vengeful spirit of the onryō can’t convey the same message in a society with divergent gender politics. In my article, I detail how the cross-cultural changes inflicted on the “long-haired ghost girl” and the film’s female protagonist affect how each society views otherness, motherhood, and the criteria for an effective horror movie.  

Sophia Fuller: Tell us a little about yourself; how did you get started in filmmaking?

M. W. Daniels: I got into filmmaking in 2011. I was a musician before that and a composer. Someone wanted to make a video for one of my tracks that I was doing at the time. I did that and it kind of spin-boarded from there. I was acting in films as well, even though I don’t particularly like acting myself. I just learned how to write scripts through the years. I worked with a guy for about three years and then a friend introduced me to Nicolai Kornum, who I have been working with ever since. He is a director of photography, sound editor, and really a teacher. He was a great teacher for me, like a guru, I suppose. It’s been almost ten years, we have been working together. This all came up in 2018. I got professional sound on the films finally–before they were just the camera, so you’ve got the annoying clicks all the time when you watch the films back. And then that steps it up. He [Nicolai] really taught me how to write the scripts properly, and then I taught myself how to direct properly. It’s been a long journey, but I have learned a lot through those years. It’s a long time. Nicolai is amazing. Without him I think I would have given it up by now, to be honest.