Review of Mike Wayne’s “Marxism Goes to the Movies”.

Abstract: Insofar as Walter identifies with this myth, his rational imperative is profoundly interrupted. However, this representational interruption also operates on a larger level. Since the film opens and closes with the western actor Sam Elliott (The Stranger) and is shot through with western stylistic motifs, it can be seen as striving toward…[Read more]

This chapter examines the portrayal of Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes in Stephen Frear’s film Philomena (2013) and the biography on which the film is based, the British journalist Martin Sixsmith’s account of Philomena Lee’s life and search for her son, who was given up to an American couple for adoption under coercive circumstances. Enforced a…[Read more]

As with many of the Kinoks’ films trains often appear in Dziga Vertov’s 1929 masterpiece, ‘Man with a Movie Camera’. Used to create dynamism, criss-crossing the screen, often at dramatic angles, and acting as a counterpoint to previous and following scenes. Train sequences also signpost a journey to Odesa by the eponymous cameraman. The paper…[Read more]

Dziga Vertov’s 1929 masterpiece ‘Man with a Movie Camera’ is a staple of film studies courses and academic papers but there has been no research until now into the important ‘co-stars’ of the film, the movie cameras. This paper discusses in detail the Debrie Parvo and other cameras used by the film’s cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman.

The definitive timeline for the early screening of Dziga Vertov’s 1929 masterpiece has been established for the first time. This illustrated paper looks at the details of the first showing of the film in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Moscow, and Germany. The earliest (pre-release) review of the film in 1928 has been translated into English for the first time,…[Read more]

Following extensive research and detective work, most of the locations used in Dziga Vertov’s 1929 masterpiece have been discovered. Described by leading film academics as ‘extraordinary and exciting research’ and ‘a huge step ahead in knowledge of the film’ the paper describes each location in detail including contemporary and current views. The…[Read more]

In July 1944, the Red Army was advancing through Eastern Poland when they discovered the first traces of the camps. On reaching Lublin they found an enormous compound behind barbed wire in the city’s suburb of Majdanek. Embedded with the Soviet army were film crews, who made the first images of a Nazi camp, among them the “flight survivors” Olga a…[Read more]

In July 1944, the Red Army was advancing through Eastern Poland when they discovered the first traces of the camps. On reaching Lublin they found an enormous compound behind barbed wire in the city’s suburb of Majdanek. Embedded with the Soviet army were film crews, who made the first images of a Nazi camp, among them the “flight survivors” Olga a…[Read more]

This book aims to uncover and assess changes in the EU’s foreign policy towards Ukraine in the times of wide-scale social protests in Kyiv. To accomplish this task, this book enlists and analyses documents, agreements, and treaties which establish the frameworks for EU-Ukraine cooperation. It also identifies the interests of lobbying groups in…[Read more]

This article examines the link posited by Virilio and others between the camera shot and gun shot, arguing that this link operates differently in the context of Soviet vs. Western fantasies of agency, community and technology. Comparing THE LOST PATROL (USA 1934, John Ford) with TRINADTSAT (THIRTEEN, UdSSR 1936, Mikhail Romm), it asks what kind of…[Read more]

This article examines the link posited by Virilio and others between the camera shot and gun shot, arguing that this link operates differently in the context of Soviet vs. Western fantasies of agency, community and technology. Comparing THE LOST PATROL (USA 1934, John Ford) with TRINADTSAT (THIRTEEN, UdSSR 1936, Mikhail Romm), it asks what kind of…[Read more]

The political system of early socialist-era Mongolia, established by the first Constitution in 1924, can be interpreted as a vernacular version of the Soviet system, in which the formally supreme representative body, the State Great Khural (“assembly”), was sidelined by the standing Presidium of the Small Khural and the Cabinet and eclipsed by the…[Read more]

This paper analyses the sitcom “Friends” (1994-2004) and its performance motifs.

Analysis of the episode from television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Who Are You?” (4.16).

Urban and domestic spaces are at the core of the American film noir developed in the 1940s and 50s. The connection between such spaces and noir cannot be considered only as motivational (an association between city and crime) or protective (a separation between home and violence). The context of this genre must be considered more largely as the…[Read more]

The concept of class has been progressively erased in contemporary discussions around art — and other topics. The explanatory power of this economic and social category, as articulated by Karl Marx, has been annulled precisely at a time when the contradictions of late capitalism are growing, composing an ideological background that creates c…[Read more]

Interview with Catherine Grant about her move to Birkbeck, teaching and research, the project [in]Transition, changes in scholarship, and technology and the humanities.

Leaning into the work of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Vertov, and Cunhal, I present a critical analysis of the dialectic of work and art.

This talk reads Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer, not as a mere collection of thoughts, but as spiritual reflections. These brief meditations record aspects of his film practice in condensed form and reveal the connection between contemplation and action. The contemplative tone of the book becomes perceptible through the careful o…[Read more]