If Guy Maddin were a scientist, he would be a mad scientist. Perhaps, then, he is a mad artist, effusively mixing images that appear to come from the silent era and sounds that seem to come from the first talkies. The metaphor is apt—and not just because of the weird, frenzied scientist father in “Brand upon the Brain!” (2006). It is apt becau…[Read more]

This analysis of the HBO television series ‘Carnivàle’ focuses on its overarching style as well as on its abrupt ending after two seasons.

This essay focuses on moments that stress the significance of inhabitation (of living in a space and finding a place in it) and duration (of experiencing time and valuing it) in classical American sitcoms. “Sitcom” is short for situation comedy and it is usually defined as a type of series in which an established set of characters are involved in…[Read more]

Paper about the archaeological documentation of the so-called Hexenturm of Ulmerfeld Castle using MAP (mast aerial photography) as well as IBM (image based modeling) and the combined application of commercial as well as open source software image processing software.

This essay gives a historical/theoretical account of the interaction between psychoanalytic theory and American film culture. Through an analysis of the popularization and sensationalization of psychoanalytic theory and practice in the 1950s in America, the article argues that psychoanalytic theory in a neoliberal age is no longer seen as modern…[Read more]

Discussion of the historiography of the reception of Edward Yang’s film and the specificity of it in terms of documenting Cold War Taipei, a tightly surveilled city torn and its emergence as a modern city with a critique of Fredric Jameson’s reading of the film.

Franz Waxman composed over 150 film scores, the most famous of which is Billy Wilder’s film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950). The film plot bears a striking resemblance to Rod Serling’s teleplay for The Twilight Zone, “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” (1959). Waxman, composer of the film, was approached to compose a score for a television episode…[Read more]

Editorial Article to the special issue “Mise en geste. Studies of Gesture in Cinema” (ed. by Ana Hedberg Olenina and Irina Schulzki) in journal “Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe” 5 (2017). 1. Gesture as a Figure of Speech. About this Issue 2. Liberated Gestures: Theories of Bodily Statements beyond the…[Read more]

The split screen is a well-known multi-frame technique used in film, television, and video. This essay focuses on cases in which this denomination seems incorrect, but that are currently classified under the same heading. In these instances, images of usually distinct characteristics are arranged on screen. The aim is to explore and define this…[Read more]

Las películas de Maddin absorben al espectador inmediatamente al mismo tiempo que su complejidad resulta agotadora. Dejan una impresión perdurable de un mundo efímero y distanciado, extrañamente cercano al nuestro —como una sombra profunda de él—. Nuestro propósito es reflexionar sobre esta impresión, dando cuenta de cómo la obra del cineasta ca…[Read more]

The terms ‘fandom’, ‘fan’, and even ‘fan studies’ appear to be, at first glance, self- evident. But considered in the context of both fan cultures and scholarship outside the English language-centered West, we begin to see the assumptions that underlie them. Whether we are talking about Japanese fans of manga and anime (somewhat codified it…[Read more]

A travers l’étude de tout un ensemble de paratextes (des descriptions de tournage aux pratiques du ballyhoo), cet article entend établir la réception des films muets américains sous le mode d’une connivence que permettrait un regard spectatoriel réaliste – connivence qui retrouverait la complicité qu’exigent les manipulations narratives de…[Read more]

From the perspective of 1920s film reception, this chapter proposes to look at Hollywood cinema’s intimacy project – the objective of ‘going into people’s houses’ (Irving Thalberg, 1927) by showing fictions of intimate everyday life. While cinema is consumed in the 1920s in a very theatrical context, it is also, and concurrently, projected…[Read more]

Through a document-based ethno-historical approach, this article shows how cinema in the 1920s managed to inform urban children’s games and world-building activities, contrary to contemporary assumptions from early education reformers and sociologists that informed research into children’s play. I first show how most of this research tried to pro…[Read more]

In this conference paper I discuss the relationship between some of the most representative visual strategies used by Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai and the different ways in which they relate to the notions of Trauma and Mourning.

This book analyses the various narrative material found in five of the films Susanne Bier directed between 1999 and 2007, four of them belonging to her ‘Danish’ period (The One And Only, Open Hearts, Brothers, After The Wedding), the fifth one being her first American feature (Things We Lost In The Fire). The first part deals with the nar…[Read more]