Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Gabrielle Gasser: This article was born out of a fascination with horror movies and the less than savory reputation they have in film studies. Specifically, the assumption that all horror films exist solely for easy, usually gory entertainment. I wanted to explore the idea that horror could be something more and the category of giallo films in Italian cinema is a great case study.
Continue readingFilm Matters has been using its quarantine time wisely this past year, expanding the breadth and reach of our operations and adding – in the process – several new editor positions: Community College Editor (Michael Benton, Bluegrass Community & Technical College, USA), Online Editor (Kristi McKim, Hendrix College, USA), and Special Issues Editor (Kelli Fuery, Chapman University, USA). We are pleased to announce the latest appointment, effective January 1, 2021: Pedro Afonso Branco Ramos Pinto (University of Brasília, Brazil) as our Videographic Essay Editor.
Pedro is a Brazilian filmmaker with over a decade of experience crafting documentary and experimental films that sit at the intersection of artistic craftsmanship, social science scholarship, and public advocacy. One of the films he scripted/edited received the Workers of the World Award at the 2017 Brazilian International Labour Film Festival on the basis of “the innovativeness with which it approaches a theme related to labour.” He has also scripted/edited the two latest recipients of the most prestigious accolade in Brazilian visual anthropology –the Pierre Verger Prize, which is conferred by the Brazilian Anthropological Association. A founding member of (and an Associate Consultant at) the University of Brasilia’s Laboratory of Image and Recording of Social Interactions (IRIS) – which has been officially recognized by CAPES, the Brazilian governmental agency responsible for regulating and evaluating higher education, as having developed the best body of audiovisual work among national social science graduate programs in 2013 (relative to the 2010–2012 period) and again in 2017 (relative to the 2013–2016 period), Pedro currently serves at the Board of Directors of Remix←→Culture, a NYC-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization celebrating musical traditions in harmony with digital remix art.
We are thrilled to be working with Pedro, especially given his plans to distribute a call for videos in Portuguese, mostly to Portuguese and Brazilian universities (Mozambique as well), in Spanish across Latin American countries and Spain, in French across France and west African countries, and in English basically everywhere else (mostly US, UK, China, Hong Kong and east Asia in general).
Keep your eyes out for Pedro’s call for videos in early 2021. In the meantime, please join us in welcoming him to the Film Matters team.
Just as director Claudia Weill states in her 2019 Criterion interview (included in the new Blu-ray edition of her 1978 debut feature film), Girlfriends turns the popular convention of most young adult coming-of-age stories on its head. By crafting a protagonist who might be chalked up to a cheeky sidekick by more popular standards, Weill projects her own sense of feminine misfit mystique onto the relatable heroine Susan (Melanie Mayron) — a young bushy-haired girl with a toothy grin, a delightfully squeaky voice, and an excellent photographic eye to match. Unlike her best friend and roommate Anne (Anita Skinner), Susan doesn’t have smooth blonde hair, flawless bone structure, or a perfectly tiny waist — which several preexisting reviews and plot summaries of Girlfriends aim to make apparent. The two best friends have just moved into a new apartment together in the heart of New York City, each struggling to come into their own artistic identities. Exciting news soon comes for both of them; Susan succeeds in selling some of her photographs to a high-profile magazine, and Anne reveals her engagement to fiancé Martin.
Continue reading
As 2021 promises new beginnings, we leave behind one of the most tumultuous years in recent history; between political upheavals, natural disasters, and the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has proven destructive, demoralizing, and utterly unpredictable. During these turbulent times, we at Film Matters Online and cinephiles the world over have turned to film in search of comfort. Not even the escapist fantasies of the screen, however, exist entirely outside of the context of reality, and the events of 2020 have undoubtedly left their mark upon our interactions with visual media both new and old.
How have your recent experiences with film been shaped by these circumstances? How have your aesthetic, thematic, and cinematographic perceptions of cinema evolved over the past year? The past month? The past few days? Perhaps you returned recently to an old favorite film, only to discover that your perspective of it has changed in some way since your last viewing. Perhaps you have been digitally streaming new releases at home and find yourself pining for the unspoken community of a crowded theatre. What aspects of movies (and the experience of viewing them) do you notice now which might not have stood out to you a year ago? For example, as Kyle Stevens writes, “as the perception of space is reconditioned in life under Covid, our encounters with fictional spaces, and with what and how they express, alters… so-called negative space between characters, traditionally construed as an aesthetic choice, now takes on a biopolitical urgency, a politicized and medical meaning.”
Moreover, consider how recent circumstances have impacted the film industry itself—how have filmmakers adapted (or failed to adapt) in the face of current events? How might the future of the film industry be influenced by such changes?
The editorial board of Film Matters Online welcomes submissions from undergraduate or recently graduated undergraduate writers for online publication. We are interested in papers that explore how the events of the past year have impacted observations of and interactions with cinema on an individual, community, or industrial level. These papers might address concepts including, but not limited to:
For further inspiration, the Criterion Collection’s First Person series contains some excellent examples of personal film writing (although submissions are not required to follow this form).
Specific information about eligibility to publish in Film Matters, style guide, images, etc. can be found at https://www.filmmattersmagazine.com/style-guide/. Submissions should be between 1,000 and 3,000 words.
Submissions should be sent to filmmattersonline AT hendrix.edu.
Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Vincent Bec: My article is “Women Still in Danger: A Look at Incel Rhetoric in the 1980 Slasher Film He Knows You’re Alone.” It is meant to be a discussion on how this film can be viewed through a rather extreme misogynistic lens to show how elements of this film’s plot came together, probably accidentally, in a way that gives it a narrative similar to rhetoric found in the incel community. It is not meant to suggest that watching the film is going to turn someone who isn’t a misogynist into a misogynist, rather it is meant to show how someone who is already deeply invested in misogynistic beliefs and communities could connect to the film in a way the standard viewer may not.
Continue readingPhantom Hunter is a fictional film that comments on many aspects of reality, including gender norms, politics, and societal issues. My biggest inspiration for this film is the Jason Bourne series, whose story – in addition to being an action thriller – serves as a subtle political comment in the aftermath of 9/11 (Gaine). If it were an actual film, the plot of Phantom Hunter would be presented in a nonlinear fashion so as to reveal information to the viewer as the story progresses.
Continue reading
Curses, bad luck, and the special powers of the moon all emerge at one point or another in Norman Jewison’s magical Moonstruck (1987), almost providing audience members with the same viewing experience they would have with a fantasy film. Yet, the film excels as one of cinema’s most polished and revered romantic comedies, with the American Film Institute listing it as the eighth best romantic comedy in its “10 Top 10” list dedicated to the genre. Moonstruck flourishes due to the undeniably engrossing leading love interests Loretta Castorini (Cher), a self-assured Italian American widow residing in Brooklyn Heights, and Ronny Cammareri (Nicolas Cage), a volatile yet tender-hearted bakery worker, as the pair irrationally fall head over heels in a passion-induced night lit by a spell of the full moon. Despite Loretta’s engagement to Ronny’s estranged brother, Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), she is still unexplainably smitten with Ronny, making for an irresistibly appealing plot.
Continue reading
Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Jasper Chen: “Westernization and Sinicization” is a historical research piece on the effects of Westernizing and modernizing influences on Chinese film in the early twentieth century. It explores how this tug of war between such influences and nationalistic, anti-imperialist sentiments played out in films, creating an imagined space to explore Chinese identity.
Continue reading
It is easy to assume that action films are artistically insignificant. Many people truly believe that action films are all the same and serve little to no purpose in terms of filmic artistry. However, this belief is harsh and inaccurate. There can be infinite meanings behind any film, and action movies are no exception. In this essay, I will solidify this argument with a well-known action film entitled John Wick (2014). We will analyze recurring motifs throughout the film, including the use of color, dark clothing aesthetic, guns, and violence. While these motifs are present in all three John Wick films, we will be focusing particularly on the first film in this piece.
Continue reading
Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Lydia Spencer-Elliott: “Choreography to Choreocinema: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Surrealism and Dance” explores the role of dance within the Surrealism movement from performances in 1917 to contemporary cinema in 2016. The article delimits the notion of legacy and of labeling different styles of dance choreography “surrealist.”
Continue reading
