2024-03-28T10:05:43Zhttps://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/oai/requestoai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/35832019-07-01T10:18:35Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Trafton, John
221
2013-05-31T09:22:01Z
2013-05-31T09:22:01Z
2013-06-27
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3583
In this thesis, I argue that twenty-first century American war films are constructed in dialogue with the past, repurposing earlier forms of war representation by evoking the visual and narrative memory of the past that is embedded in genre form—what Mikhail Bakhtin calls 'genre memory.' Comparing post-9/11 war films with Vietnam War films, my project examines how contemporary war films envision war’s impact on culture and social space, explore how war refashions ideas about race and national identity, and re-imagine war’s rewriting of the human psyche. My research expands on earlier research and departs from traditional approaches to the war film genre by locating the American Civil War at the origin of this genre memory, and, in doing so, argues that nineteenth century documentation of the Civil War serves as a rehearsal for the twentieth and twenty-first century war film. Constructed in explicit relation to the Vietnam film, I argue that post-9/11 war films rehearse the history of war representation in American culture while also emphasizing the radically different culture of the present day. Rather than representing a departure from past forms of war representation, as has been argued by many theorists, I show that contemporary American war films can be seen as the latest chapter in a long history of reimagining American military and cultural history in pictorial and narrative form.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Print and electronic copy restricted until 16th January 2018
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations
War film
Genre memory
Iraq War
Afghanistan
Vietnam War
Documentary film
American Civil War
World War II films
Post 9/11 U.S. history
War technology
War representation
PTSD
Hauntology
National identity
PN1995.9W3T8
War films--United States--History and criticism
Anti-war films--United States--History and criticism
Film genres--United States
September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001--Influence
Genre memory in the twenty-first century American war film : how post-9/11 American war cinema reinvents genre codes and notions of national identity
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/207712021-08-06T14:46:49Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rice, Tom
Donaldson, Lucy Fife
Last, Cassice
University of St Andrews
298 p.
2020-10-12T13:56:33Z
2020-10-12T13:56:33Z
2020-12-02
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20771
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-20771
This thesis navigates the contents, patterns, limitations and renegotiations of the filmic survival space in 21st century American film. Defined as the audio-visual wilderness
environment in which the human becomes trapped, the survival space withers the human
body, and prevents communication and escape. In interrogating this survival terra incognito,
the thesis identifies ‘survival’ as a distinct, contemporary, and uniquely American, genre,
one that extends beyond cinema and across several media platforms. This thesis necessarily
traverses media forms, placing a variety of survival media in dialogue with film. Beginning
with Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis, 2000), the influential, benchmark hit that established a
model for the survival space in the 21st century, I examine how subsequent survival films,
television shows, video games and internet spaces respond to, update, and adapt this model
and, in so doing, position survival as a multi-media phenomenon.
This genre – and the spaces within it – require critical attention today, not least because
they function as a highly visible cultural response to questions and anxieties within 21st century America. These spaces, which are developed in the post 2000s American survival
film, respond to, and articulate, common cultural anxieties whether concerning the fragility
of our bodies in the technological era, our agency in and outside a rapidly progressing
capitalist society or the fraught relationship between humankind and the natural
environment. In working through what survival means today, the contemporary American
survival film popularises a discourse of survival; one that questions not only how to survive,
live and thrive today, but also where this can take place, ultimately making survival a spatial
concern.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
2025-09-30
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 30th September 2025
American cinema
Survival film
Space
Setting
Body
Multimedia
PN1995.9A3L2
Survival
Motion pictures--United States--History--21st century
Human versus where? : navigating the survival space in the 21st century American survival film
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/118662018-02-09T13:00:28Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Burgoyne, Robert
Cicchetti, Pasquale
166 p.
2017-10-17T13:51:54Z
2017-10-17T13:51:54Z
2014-12
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11866
This thesis addresses a set of transformations in the symbolic construction of America, as reflected by a number of films released during what is commonly referred to as the post 9/11 period. Following a rich debate in the field of American literary studies, the study investigates the self-image of the nation as projected by four representative films of the decade. Throughout the chapters, the central hypothesis of the thesis is that the cultural symbology of the nation, its symbolic map, continues to act as a territorialising force within the diegetic universes of the texts. In so doing, the meta-narrative of America stands in opposition to a deterritorialising tendency that - as a body of recent critical scholarship attests - inform the post 9/11 context, a tendency borne out of a new, shared awareness of historical violence within the national community. As it displaces codified social boundaries, and established links between individual and communities, such deterritorialising rhetoric threaten the symbolic coherence of the world. The conflict between long-standing symbologies of the nation and the impact of a new cultural milieu thus emerges in the cinema as a representational impasse, whose different textual outcomes are addressed in the main chapters of this thesis. In order to investigate the interplay of different symbolic maps, the present study focuses on four spatial signifiers - the house, the village, the city and the land - and derives its methodological tools from a body of scholarship largely comprised within the so-called 'spatial turn'. The terms of this theoretical engagement are specified in the first part the thesis, while the conclusion expands on the direction of the research, and connects the study to other related disciplinary discourses, both in Film studies and American studies.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1995.9N34C53
Motion pictures--United States--History--21st century
September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001--Influence
Motion pictures--Political aspects--United States
Motion pictures--Social aspects--United States
A long way home : cinema and the cultural map of America, 2001-2011
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2020-05-29
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 29th May 2020
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/10152020-09-28T17:40:02Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rogatchevski, Andrei
Girelli, Elisabetta
Kristensen, Lars Lyngsgaard Fjord
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
University of St Andrews. Centre for Film Studies
British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies
297
2010-09-22T15:11:34Z
2010-09-22T15:11:34Z
2010-07-25
uk.bl.ethos.552424
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1015
This study seeks to analyse cinematic representations of Russian characters that are portrayed as existing outside the Russian Federation,or ‘abroad’, by focusing on postcommunist cinema and the way it depicts the changing identities that occurred with the fall of the Soviet Union. The assertion of the thesis is that by depicting Russian characters abroad, filmmakers and their films are able to express, or comment on, global issues – such as labour migration, female prostitution, transnational crime and human trafficking, which have risen since the fall of communism. Examining the prevailing discourses (economic, social and political) concerning issues of migration and cross-border travel, the thesis identifies how the cultural capital of Russians traveling abroad comes under scrutiny from receiving countries. The range of films examined spans more than ten years of filmmaking and the study includes an examination of diverse contemporary filmmakers: Nikita Mikhalkov, Aleskei Balabanov, Yuri Mamin, Sergei Bodrov, Leonid Gorovets, Arik Kaplun, Pawel Pawlikowski, and Lukas Moodysson. These filmmakers and their films are selected from various cinematic contexts and filmmaking practices that are considered postcommunist. By asking the questions – who is speaking?, what is said? and to whom is it said? – the investigation is able to reveal the genre conventions, mode of address and specific ideological concerns that underpin the construction of onscreen cinematic ‘Russians abroad.’The cross-cultural analysis is divided into three parts: first a consideration of Russian filmmakers and their onscreen characters abroad; then Russian transnational cinema, where the focus switches to the investigation of filmmakers who are either floating
IIfreely between national film industries or producing films in diaspora; and, lastly, non-Russian cinema where the emphasis is on filmmakers who have no claims to Russian nationality but who nonetheless make Russian ‘themed’ films. The theoretical framework that upholds the analysis is drawn from cross-cultural studies, postcolonial studies and studies in cinematic representation.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
The University of Glasgow
Postcommunist cinema
Russian cinema
Transnational cinema
Diaspora cinema
Postcolonialism
Cinematic representation
Cross-culturalism
Nationalism
Urga/Territory of Love (1991)
Brat 2/Brother 2 (2000)
Okno v Parizh/Window to Paris (1994)
Belyi korol, krasnaya koroleva/White King, Red Queen (1992)
Kavkazkyi plennik/Prisoner of the Mountains (1996)
The Quickie (2001)
Bear's Kiss (2002)
Kafe V’Limon/Coffee with Lemon (1994)
Ha Chaverim Shel Yana/Yana's Friends (1999)
Last Resort (2000)
Lilja 4-ever/Lilya 4-Ever (2002)
PN1995.9R87K8
Russians in motion pictures
Motion pictures--Russia
Postcolonialism in motion pictures
Nationalism in motion pictures
Motion pictures, Russian
Russians abroad in postcommunist cinema
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/63542022-08-01T09:04:17Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Dorman, Andrew
v, 160
2015-03-26T14:35:04Z
2015-03-26T14:35:04Z
2014-06-26
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6354
Since the introduction of film to Japan in the 1890s, Japanese cinema has been continually influenced by transnational processes of film production, distribution, promotion, and reception. This has led inevitably to questions about the inherent nationality of Japan’s film culture, despite the fact that Japanese cinema has often been subjected to analyses of its fundamental ‘Japaneseness’. This study seeks to make an original contribution to the field of Japanese film studies by investigating the contradictory ways in which Japan has functioned as a global cinematic brand in the period 2000 to 2010, and how this is interrelated with modes of promotion and reception in the English-speaking markets of the UK and the USA.
Through textual and empirical analyses of seven films from the selected period and the non-Japanese consumption of them, this thesis argues that contemporary film exports are culturally-decentred in regards to their industrial and, to some extent, aesthetic dimensions. This results from contradictory modes of ‘cultural erasure’ and ‘cultural performance’ in the production of certain films, whereby aesthetic traces of cultural specificity are concealed or emphasised in relation to external commercial interests. Despite strategies of cultural erasure, explicit cinematic representations of cultural specificity remain highly valued as export commodities. Moreover, in the case of contemporary Japanese film exports, there are significant issues of ‘cultural ownership’ to be accounted for given the extent to which non-national industrial consortia (film producers, financers, DVD distributors, film festivals) have invested in the promotion and in some cases the production of Japanese films. Thus, both in relation to the aesthetic erasure of Japaneseness and their non-Japanese commercial identities, recent film exports can be viewed as non-national cultural products that have a commercial and cinematic identity connected to external influences as much as internal ones.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Print and electronic copy restricted until 13th May 2019
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations
Japanese cinema
Film exports
Cultural erasure
Cultural performance
Cultural representation
Film aesthetics
Japaneseness
Motion pictures--Japan
Motion picture industry--Japan
Motion pictures--Aesthetics
Cosmetic Japaneseness : cultural erasure and cultural performance in Japanese film exports (2000-2010)
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/114172019-12-20T09:58:06Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30com_10023_29col_10023_125col_10023_874
Martin-Jones, David
San Román, Gustavo
Tadeo Fuica, Beatriz
University of St Andrews. School of Modern Languages
Santander UK. Santander Universities
Thomas and Margaret Roddan Trust
Society for Latin American Studies (Great Britain)
Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
University of St Andrews. GRADskills
LJ Woodward Memorial Prize
v, 247 p.
2017-08-09T16:02:55Z
2017-08-09T16:02:55Z
2014
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11417
This thesis investigates fifty years of Uruguayan cinema in order to revisit the
relationship between cinema and nation, at a time in which transnational flows are
putting into question the concept of nation and, more precisely, that of national
cinema. This investigation also contributes to current discussions on the changing
nature of cinema, generated by the fast adoption of digital technology and the
imminent disappearance of film stock. Through the case of Uruguay, I explore the
construction of national identity not only through the text, but also through the –
filmic, digital and/or analogue – materiality of film. This approach incorporates aspects
which are not usually studied together to contribute to the analysis of Uruguayan
cinema in a manner potentially applicable to other nations with similar characteristics;
that is to say, nations without an established film heritage and filmmaking tradition.
Informed by writings on film, cultural, historical and archival studies, this thesis
approaches films as ‘hybrid’ rather than ‘pure’ or ‘authentic’ texts and media. I argue
that both the text and materiality of films absorb, influence and reflect the dynamic
processes involved in the construction of national identity. Rather than seeking for
authenticity and homogeneity, this thesis stresses the necessity to focus on
discontinuity and diversity. Therefore, it analyses lost and under-researched short,
documentary, animation and institutional films and videos, alongside feature fiction
films.
First, I present a theoretical discussion on the relationship between nation and
cinema, the concept of hybridity in film studies, and the importance of technology for
production, preservation and access. This is followed by four chronological chapters in
which the hybrid text and materiality of films are analysed in contexts of social and
political upheaval; dictatorship, resistance and exile; transition; and neo-liberalism and
globalisation. This thesis demonstrates that the ties between cinema and nation have
not necessarily loosened in the global and digital age, and still deserve critical
attention.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1993.5U85T2
Motion pictures--Uruguay--History
In search of images : Uruguayan cinema, 1960-2010
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2024-12-18
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 18th December 2024
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/203732021-07-27T11:05:21Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Deng, Huimin
China Scholarship Council (CSC)
ix, 348 p.
2020-07-30T11:28:28Z
2020-07-30T11:28:28Z
2020-07-27
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20373
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-20373
At the beginning of the 1990s, independent Chinese fiction and documentary film works made their first step, marking the rise of Chinese Sixth Generation cinema. Faced with the dominant communist state ideology and commercial values, both the two film types remained “marginal” and even “underground” in Chinese film history. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to figure out what cinematic subjects and film aesthetics make them an anomaly in relation to Chinese official and commercial cinema. Regardless of their different film types, this study uses the theories of intertextuality to deal with the iconographic signs and film codes shared by them. I shall argue that in the post-1989 era independent Chinese filmmakers root the two film types in marginal urban groups and jishizhuyi [on-the-scene realism]. On the one hand, they concentrate on urbanites’ sufferings against the background of the oppressive political environment and the social upheaval of China’s reform age. On the other hand, they introduce jishizhuyi and neorealism aesthetics to represent social reality, refusing to dissimulate the cruelty of reality. Under the enlightenment of intertextuality, this thesis provides a new angle of view on what and how contemporary Chinese urban identity is shaped in multiple Chinese independent film works. It also exposes the establishment of independent Chinese filmmakers’ speaking rights in the struggle against the official and commercial system.
"This work was supported by China Scholarship Council (CSC) [grant number 201608060100]." -- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Department of Film Studies
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
2025-06-11
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 11th June 2025
Chinese independent cinema
Urban identity
Marginality
Neorealist cinema
Intertextual film images
PN1993.5C5D4
Independent films--China--History and criticism
Documentary films--China--History and criticism
Motion pictures--China
Urbanization--China
The rise of grassroots voices : Chinese urban identity and independent filmmaking in the post-1989 era
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/255902022-07-02T02:02:38Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Flaig, Paul
Parks, Tyler Munroe
Liu, Quan
China Scholarship Council (CSC)
University of St Andrews
ix, 287 p.
2022-06-30T15:21:11Z
2022-06-30T15:21:11Z
2022-05-20
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/25590
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/184
201708060002
This study considers the underexplored uses of nostalgia by filmmakers from the Chinese New Waves. Over the last few decades, Svetlana Boym, Paul Grainge, and many other scholars have argued that nostalgia can be exploited to interweave imagination, longing, and memory in negotiating problems of identity, politics, and history in various communities. However, their arguments have largely been developed through considerations of European and American contexts. This project enters the critical field with a focused investigation into the uses that nostalgia has been put to by Chinese filmmakers. It follows a case-study design, with in-depth analysis of four emblematic films made by leading filmmakers of the Fifth Generation, the Taiwan New Cinema, and the Hong Kong New Wave. It argues that these filmmakers have used distinctive strategies to exploit nostalgia in their recreations of the past, often in order to reflect critically on significant social dilemmas in their filmmaking contexts. On this basis, this study demonstrates that dismissing the nostalgia put to use by these filmmakers risks occluding crucial dimensions of the critical reflections and aesthetic complexity of the Chinese New Waves. Ultimately, it demonstrates that nostalgia can be very “useful” despite its “inauthentic” representations of the past, thereby helping to challenge the perennial dismissal of nostalgia as a corrosive presence in contemporary cultural life.
"This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council-St. Andrews Scholarship [grant
number 201708060002]." -- Funding
en
Nostalgia
Fifth Generation
Taiwan New Cinema
Hong Kong New Wave
Chinese cinemas
Nostalgia and Chinese new waves
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
The University of St Andrews
2027-05-24
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 24th May 2027
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/290112024-03-19T16:45:40Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rice, Tom
Dootson, Kirsty Sinclair
Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, Anushrut
University of St Andrews. Handsel Scholarship Scheme
University of St Andrews. St Leonard's College
254
2024-01-15T11:46:41Z
2024-01-15T11:46:41Z
2024-06-10
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/29011
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/697
This thesis examines the relationship between film and education in Britain before 1910 and comprehends the impact of moral, religious, and disciplinary instructional cultures on the British film industry. Equally, the thesis traces how the moving image capabilities of the cinematic medium shaped the visual instruction methods of educational institutions such as schools, universities, churches, and disciplinary societies. This thesis argues that the process of institutionalisation of educational film began from the earliest days of the medium, and that forms of institutionalisation existed from these earliest days, rather than in the 1910s as film
historical literature has previously stated. Further, that the history of film’s usefulness to educational institutions is not a singular media history. Here, I situate film within a wider media archaeological framework, and reflect on how developments in moving image technology, and production and exhibition practices, were informed by the socio-cultural roles fulfilled by other
media, such as popular print and magic lantern projection.
Specifically, I examine how late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century legislations that regulated public entertainment shaped the use of film within places of public education in Britain; I discuss how film producers sought to advertise their educational usefulness via the publication of written content; I trace the overlapping history of cinema and geographical education, to show that film was crucial to popularising the discipline’s modes of thinking; and finally, I show how even in its absence within religious institutions, cinema was seminal in shaping the religious instruction strategies within these organisations.
My methodology has been to make use of materials that are recognised for their value to legal, municipal, disciplinary, and religious histories, and foreground their relevance to the history of moving image media. Here the thesis’ discussions are based not only on film-specific archival research – catalogues, trade-journals etc. – but also on the study of municipal records, church committee minutes, proceedings of literary and scientific societies, religious and scientific journals, and other documents that often had very little direct mention of film. In doing so, I connect the development in film technologies, and production and exhibition practices, to the wider developments in turn-of-the-century Britain. Thus, taking an interdisciplinary approach that positions the discourse around film and education within a broader legal, political, and sociological context of British society, the thesis shows that the
history of educational film is central to the history of early filmmaking practice and its subsequent cultural impact.
en
Film history
Early cinema
Educational cinema
Non-theatrical film
Media history
Media studies
Useful cinema
History of education
PN1993.5G7R2
Motion pictures--Great Britain--History
Motion picture industry--Great Britain--History
Education--Great Britain--History
Watch and learn : film and the British educational life 1895-1910
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
The University of St Andrews
2029-01-10
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 10 January 2029
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/292562024-02-21T03:02:43Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Smyth, Sarah Elizabeth
University of St Andrews. 7th century Scholarship
315
2024-02-15T12:03:13Z
2024-02-15T12:03:13Z
2020-12-02
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/29256
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/765
This study presents an examination of three diverse film festivals that are based in postindustrial cities in the UK. It takes the view that all film festivals are intrinsically bound to and affected by their host location. The research is particularly concerned with how film festivals help to create eventful cities, an all important objective within the postindustrial era. By examining Glasgow Film Festival (GFF), Flatpack Festival (Flatpack) in Birmingham and Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival (Doc/Fest) the study presents a perspective on each festival that links their programming strategies and modus operandi to the specificities of their respective city’s postindustrial milieu.
The thesis poses the following question: What are the prevalent characteristics that define film festivals located in postindustrial cities and conversely how does the postindustrial environment contribute to the realisation of each festival? It considers these questions by examining interlinking strategies that relate to programming, place-making and spatial materialisation. The research contributes to the growing field of film festival studies by being the first of its kind to present an in-depth comparative analysis of film festivals established in UK cities. As such the study offers an insight into the broader development of the film-festivalscape in the context of the UK during the most recent phase of its development.
Empirical evidence of each festival’s strategic approach is provided through case study methodology including participant observation, semi-structured interviews and archival research that examines how each festival came into being, formulated its identity and achieved sustainability. The study maintains that these particular film festivals provide an apt articulation of the experience economy through a marked turn towards non-theatrical programming practices and alternative use of spatial materialisation that has elevated the context of viewing to being a defining differentiator of the festivals in postindustrial cities.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1993.42G7S6
Glasgow Film Festival
Flatpack Festival
Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival
Film festivals--Great Britain
Urban renewal--Great Britain
Film festivalisation : the rise of the film festival in the UK's postindustrial cities
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/233332021-06-08T13:19:29Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rice, Tom
Cowan, Michael
Hopmeier, Sophie Kennedy
University of St Andrews
University of St Andrews. St Leonard's College
University of St Andrews. Department of Film Studies
Russell Trust. Postgraduate Award
vi, 201 p.
2021-06-08T08:46:00Z
2021-06-08T08:46:00Z
2021-06-28
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/23333
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/72
This thesis examines the development of cinema as part of the broader institutional ecology of the Musée de l’Homme between the 1930s and 1960s. In particular, it asks how film was used to analyse, illustrate, promote, and critique the emerging synergistic theorisation of the unity of humanity as – in the words of the museum’s first director, Paul Rivet – an “indivisible whole, not only in space, but also in time”. Film was adopted by the community of the museum in diverse and innovative ways to bridge numerous paradoxes and lacunae that arose in the institution’s mission and practices. These included how to foster feelings of identification between visitors and various kinds of ‘others’ represented in the museum; how to depict shared human connection across scale, from the particular to the universal; and how to interrelate different orders of information, including anthropological theory, scientific data, museum collections, and the perspectives of visitors. Film, here, integrated various facets of the museum in unique medium-specific ways that most fully actualised the institution’s theories. By examining its place in the museum, I analyse film as what I term a ‘technology of mediation’, tracing its singular capacity to bring otherwise discrete ontological orders into relationship. Methodologically, this involves examining film’s position within the expanded field of the museum, and how it was used to interact with and respond to disjunctures in institutional theory and practice. This thesis is the first extended analysis of the use of film in the Musée de l’Homme. It contributes to the study of film in institutional settings beyond ‘the cinema’, highlighting film’s understudied mediatory qualities. It also offers a novel model for engaging with history and theory, not as ‘context’, but rather as a broader institutional assemblage of which film is a part, and centrally mediates.
"This work was supported by the University of St Andrews, in particular the Film Studies
Departmental Scholarship, the St Leonards Scholarship and the Russell Trust Postgraduate
Award." -- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Musée de l'Homme
Ethnographic film
French ethnology
Mediation
History of anthropology
Time
Space
André Leroi-Gourhan
Marcel Griaule
Marcel Mauss
Paul Rivet
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Ethnographic museums
AM7.H776
Musée de l'homme (Muséum national d'histoire naturelle)
Museums and motion pictures
Museums--Social aspects
Visual communication--Case studies
An in/divisible whole : time, space, and technologies of mediation in the Musée de l'Homme
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2025-12-11
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Electronic copy restricted until 11th December 2025
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/194972021-07-22T14:22:42Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Diao, Jinuo
University of St Andrews. Institute for Global Cinema and Creative Cultures (IGCCC)
v, 320 p.
2020-02-19T15:28:35Z
2020-02-19T15:28:35Z
2020-06-22
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/19497
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-19497
The thesis will analyse the evolution of the Chinese film industry between 2010 and 2016. During this period, the Chinese film industry experienced rapid development and underwent massive structural change and expansion. The years 2010 to 2016, also gave rise to a number of important events and phenomena within the Chinese film industry, including technological changes that impacted upon traditional entertainment practices, new Internet-driven innovations, an enormous influx of capital, generous government incentives and an overall explosion in media saturation and popularity.
My research poses the following questions; what are the key features of the Chinese film industry between 2010 and 2016? What developments transpired within the Chinese film industry between the years 2010 and 2016 and how might we understand and rationalise these contemporary trends. This thesis adopts a political economy approach. It is the assertion of my research that developments within the Chinese film industry must be considered within the wider socio-economic and political context of contemporary China. This thesis provides a macro-level study of the contemporary Chinese film industry, with focus given to four key areas of research, namely policy, production, distribution and exhibition. These four study areas provide a fitting entry point to better understand the shifting dynamics of the Chinese film industry between 2010 and 2016.
The intention of this thesis is to map out contemporary trends within the Chinese film industry. My research, aimed at both academics and industry insiders alike, adopts an industry perspective with the aim of both enriching further scholarship on Chinese cinema, while simultaneously serving as a source of knowledge and understanding for those working within the industry. It is hoped that this thesis will enhance further the academic studies on Chinese cinema by providing an industrial bedrock upon which additional analysis can be based, while also providing the industry with insight that will facilitate the continued health and sustainability of cinema in China.
"This work was supported by the Institute for Global Cinema and Creative Cultures - IGCCC [waiver scholarship, 2015]." -- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Chinese film industry
Features
Trends
Policies
Production
Distribution
Exhibition
PN1993.5C4D5
Motion pictures--China--History--21st century
Motion picture industry--China--History--21st century
The Chinese film industry : features and trends, 2010-2016
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/69512023-05-29T10:36:53Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Iacob, Raluca
University of St Andrews
vi, 197
2015-07-09T15:00:04Z
2015-07-09T15:00:04Z
2015-06-25
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6951
This thesis addresses aspects of Romanian society and cinema, by analyzing post-communist films through the perspective of marginality. The central hypothesis of this study refers to the ways in which films illustrate conditions of post-communist Romanian society, as they consider representations of the periphery through the angle of allegories of marginality. Following a long tradition, especially in literary studies, where it refers to the
overt insertion of symbolic meanings, allegory refers in this study to a less noticeable delivery, by using a postmodern interpretation of the concept. This translates to detecting a latent meaning in films, by interpreting them in a broader context pertaining both to the film’s circumstances (production, distribution and reception), and to the broader framework of the film’s content. What connects post-communist Romanian films is a
concern for matters of marginality, as they focus on dissensions in society,
intergenerational conflicts, youth and limited opportunities of social movement, and the use of satire as a way of handling the bleak conditions of life. Aiming to provide a realistic representation of post-communist life, new wave Romanian films focus on the mundane reality of everyday life. The films discussed in this thesis expand beyond the scope of the new wave, and present a diversity of aesthetic approaches and relating perspectives on allegory—from distinct to obscure—defined by the contextual conditions of post-communism.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Department of Film Studies
Romanian cinema
Post-communism
Allegory
Marginality
Intergenerational conflicts
Migration
Satire
National identity
Periphery
Immanuel Wallerstein
Ismail Xavier
Dominique Nasta
PN1993.5R6I2
Motion pictures--Romania
Post-communism--Romania
Marginality, Social--Romania
Projecting peripheries : allegories of marginality in post-communist Romanian cinema
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2025-06-14
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 14th June 2025
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/174292023-10-17T02:03:19Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Mann, Philip
vii, 379 p.
2019-04-03T15:25:21Z
2019-04-03T15:25:21Z
2018-06-28
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/17429
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-17429
This thesis examines the ways in which the rural functions as a site of counter-narrative in
post-communist Hungarian cinema. I argue that within the post-communist generation there
exists a number of filmmakers producing cinema, varied in style, that utilise the rural as a
space through which to challenge the multifarious political myths that have risen in the
ideological wake of communism. By scrutinising nine diverse examples of post-millennial
Hungarian cinema set in rural locations, Hungarian or otherwise, this thesis poses the
following questions: What can one learn about Hungary’s post-communist experience
through cinematic representations of the rural? How do these films complicate the prevalent
narratives of Hungary’s past and present? Who is telling these stories, and why are these
alternative narratives valuable to an understanding of contemporary Hungarian society?
Employing a cultural studies perspective, this thesis maintains that the films under analysis
respond to the specific socio-historiographical conditions of their making, contesting the
dominant political myths pertaining to post-communist life, the understanding and
application of national history and Hungary’s national self-perception within a now global,
post-communist setting. Confronting both internal and external political myths, these films
provide an alternative mode of discourse through which to better understand post-millennial
Hungary and the ongoing process of transition.
I divide my analysis into three areas of interest. First, I examine the political myths
surrounding Hungary’s return to the West, questioning how cinematic representations of the
rural challenge the mythopoeic narratives of Hungary’s capitalist assimilation. I then explore
the myths of Hungarian national history, examining the ways in which filmmakers utilise the rural to query and contest contemporary Hungarian memory politics. Finally, I examine the
consequences of post-communist political myths and the role that rural representation plays
in bringing these consequences to the fore.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Embargo period has ended, thesis made available in accordance with University regulations.
Hungarian cinema
Hungary
Post-communism
Rural cinema
Rural
Political myths
PN1993.5H8M2
Motion pictures--Hungary--History and criticism
Motion pictures--Hungary--Political aspects
Country life in motion pictures
Post-communism--Hungary
Challenging political mythology : representations of the rural in post-communist Hungarian cinema
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/173832024-03-23T03:04:40Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Torchin, Leshu
Seguí, Isabel
University of St Andrews
Santander UK. Santander Universities
298 p.
2019-03-27T09:42:40Z
2019-03-27T09:42:40Z
2019-06-24
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/17383
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-17383
This thesis examines the work of three women, active in the production of oppositional cinema in the Andes in the last third of the 20th century: Beatriz Palacios, María Barea and Domitila Chungara. A focus on women’s contributions is crucial for the examination of political film practices and politics in artisanal production contexts. However, to date, the privileging of auteurist and formalist approaches in Latin American political cinema scholarship —which foreground the products over the processes— has overshadowed women’s involvement and, also, the active and creative participation of indigenous and working-class subjects. To correct this gap and to restore the emancipatory and collective dimension of these cinematic practices —consistent with the decolonial principles of Latin American Third Cinema— I focus on women’s labour in production, distribution, and exhibition. To allow for the excavation of this hidden and complex scenario, I use oral histories, personal archives, and interviews—counter-sites to the domain of state archives, cinephilic journals, and auteurist scholarship. Inscribing Palacios, Barea and Chungara’s practices and politics into official history contributes not only to recover their figures but to situate the research field of Andean political cinema in a more rigorous framework of understanding.
"This work was supported by the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film
Studies of the University of St Andrews (Postgraduate Research Scholarship);
Santander Universities (Santander 600 Scholarship and Santander St Leonard’s
Scholarship); and the Society for Latin American Studies (Postgraduate Travel Grant)." -- Acknowledgements
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Andean cinema
Bolivian cinema
Peruvian cinema
Latin American women filmmakers
Beatriz Palacios
María Barea
Domitila Chungara
Jorge Sanjinés
Ukamau
Feminist film history
PN1995.9W6S4
Women motion picture producers and directors--Andes Region
Women in motion pictures--Andes Region
Motion pictures--Andes Region
Motion pictures--Political aspects--Andes Region
Azurduy-Palacios, Beatriz, 1952-2003
Barea, Maria
Barrios de Chungara, Domitila
Grupo Ukamau
Andean women's oppositional filmmaking : on and off-screen practices and politics
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Embargo period has ended, thesis made available in accordance with University regulations
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/196082021-07-23T11:23:21Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Torchin, Leshu
Pal, Shorna
University of St Andrews. School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies
Russell Trust. Postgraduate Award
[11], 279 p.
2020-03-06T12:11:57Z
2020-03-06T12:11:57Z
2020-06-22
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/19608
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-19608
My thesis identifies and establishes the Multiplex Film as a widespread paradigm in contemporary Indian Cinema, by critically examining its emergence from the post-millennium collapse of All-India and Alternative films, often referred to as Indian “art” and “commercial” films, previously well-established and seemingly distinct categories that have historically defined and characterised Indian cinema. I assert that reading pre-millennium Indian films by applying the Rasa analytical method, reveals multiple meeting points between All-India and Alternative Films, which have been obfuscated through a historic misconstruction and mislabelling of these film types; I contend that this interconnectedness expedites their convergence into the Multiplex Film. By tracing the contemporary phenomenon as a product of the Indian government’s economic liberalisation and globalisation policies, and the resultant corporatisation and transnationalism within the 21st century film industries in Mumbai and in other regional filmmaking centres, I present a way of studying Multiplex Films both as Indian Cinema as well as Transnational Cinema, while also contributing to the limited scholarship on the contemporary Indian film industries. My use of rasa in conjunction with generic dramatic principles detailed in the Natyasastra, an ancient Indian treatise on dramaturgy, offers a new Rasa framework that can be used to read any national cinema, as it functions independently of rasa as an aesthetic.
Through a series of forty-five interviews across seven cities with personnel from the Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telegu, Marathi and Assamese film industries, including writers, directors, actors, producers, cinematographers, editors, sound designers, distributors, exhibitors, alongside spectator focus groups in metropolitan and smaller cities, in addition to close textual analysis of a range of Indian films, existing scholarship, official government and film industry reports, I re-examine assumptions about Indian film history and show how the earlier two film types are metamorphosed through contemporary socioeconomic, political and industrial shifts into the Multiplex Film.
"This work was supported by the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and
Film Studies of the University of St Andrews (Postgraduate Research Scholarship) and
the Russell Trust Postgraduate Award" -- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Multiplex film
Indian cinema
Rasa theory
Natyasastra
Bollywood
Indian film Industries
Hindi films
Transnational cinema
Indian film history
PN1993.5I8P26
Motion picture industry--India
Motion pictures--India
Multiplex theaters--India
Rasas
India--Economic conditions
India--Social life and customs
The monsoon crush : rethinking Indian cinema's art-commerce divide in the context of transnationalism, corporatisation and liberalisation
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2025-02-27
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 27th February 2025
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/292282024-02-15T03:03:43Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Flaig, Paul
Sapountzi, Ana Maria
University of St Andrews. Department of Film Studies
283 p.
2024-02-13T16:04:09Z
2024-02-13T16:04:09Z
2021-12-01
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/29228
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/758
Between 1939 and 1940, British actor Laurence Olivier broke new ground as a film actor and star in a sequence of landmark performances in classical Hollywood cinema: as a tortured Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights’ (William Wyler, 1939), a brooding Maxim de Winter in ‘Rebecca’ (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940), and a charming Darcy in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (Robert Z. Leonard, 1940). This thesis argues that Olivier’s performances in these and subsequent Hollywood films depended on not only his much-vaunted abilities as an actor, but, more fundamentally, on an erotically mysterious and ultimately queer masculinity singular among male stars in the classical Hollywood era. It identifies this queerness as crucial to the Hollywood oeuvre Olivier established by these initial, star-making roles, particularly his performances as George Hurstwood in ‘Carrie’ (William Wyler, 1952), the Prince in ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ (Laurence Olivier, 1957), Gen. Burgoyne in ‘The Devil’s Disciple’ (Guy Hamilton, 1959) and Crassus in ‘Spartacus’ (Stanley Kubrick, 1960). Existing scholarship on Olivier offers a myopic understanding of the actor, as it neglects his other Hollywood projects in favour of his Shakespearean works on stage or screen. Against such neglect, the thesis is comprised of seven case studies, which, taken together, reveal a continuous, if varied, trajectory of a subversive sexual presence central to his Hollywood career. This thesis deploys Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s foundational concept of the closet to identify and decode a closetedness in each of Olivier’s performances, to argue for their queer sensibilities. Each case study textually analyses Olivier’s performance by bringing various accounts of gender and desire in dialogue with central concepts in queer theory as well as biographical material and archival resources. In exploring the queerness underlying Olivier’s Hollywood performances, this thesis offers a fundamental reassessment of the cultural, social, and aesthetic impact of a figure central to modern conceptions of acting.
"This work was supported by the Department of Film Studies (School of Philosophical,
Anthropological and Film Studies)." -- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN2598.O55S2
Olivier, Laurence, 1907-1989--Criticism and interpretation
Homosexuality in motion pictures
Motion picture acting
Making meaning of Laurence Olivier : reading queer sensibilities in his Hollywood performances, 1939-1960
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2026-11-04
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 4th November 2026
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/278402023-07-10T15:14:57Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Lovatt, Philippa
Shacklock, Zoe Ruth
Li, Peize
China Scholarship Council (CSC)
University of St Andrews
337
2023-06-29T09:48:59Z
2023-06-29T09:48:59Z
2023-11-30
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/27840
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/521
201703780006
This thesis examines how film festival venues participate in shaping broader film cultures. It proposes an approach to studying film festivals that is founded on looking at their physical spaces instead of merely focusing on the social space of film festivals. The physical sites, as essential and tangible elements and practices of film festivals (and ones entangled with questions of capital and power), play an essential role in representing films, presenting places, and navigating audiences. As such, they open up a productive route for understanding how festivals shape film cultures. Two major case studies – the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) – are analysed in this thesis, along with a case study of SIFF and IFFR during the COVID-19 pandemic. The festival venue is approached in terms of three key considerations in three layers: the geographical locations of film festivals, urban space and film festivals, and event sites of film festivals. This research contributes to the field of film festival studies and engages with the broader field of film cultures by highlighting the role of festival venues in presenting film cultures and drawing attention to the material basis of the global film festival circuit. Given the tremendous impact of film festivals' locations and venues – as material and physical features of festivals – on local and global film cultures, I argue that film festivals' venues should be examined in relation to the festivals' intangible formations. It can help us further understand how film festivals have been shaped by the political economy relating to location and how they occupy urban space and engage with the diversity of exhibition practices and space.
en
International film festival circuit
Film festival venue
Cultural and creative industry
Urban space
PN1993.4L5
Film festivals
When the place speaks : an analysis of the use of venues and locations in the international film festival circuit
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
The University of St Andrews
2028-06-21
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 21st June 2028
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/283442023-09-12T02:05:38Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Lovatt, Philippa
Fowler, Will
Miño Puga, Maria Fernanda
Ecuador. Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación
212
2023-09-11T10:39:44Z
2023-09-11T10:39:44Z
2022-06-13
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/28344
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/607
This thesis examines Ecuadorian cinema after the 2006 National Film Promotion Law or Ley de Cine, and its relationship to the encompassing political ideology of Socialism for the 21st century. It contends that the local cinema developed during this period, the so-called “mini-boom” of Ecuadorian cinema, carries the same ambiguities, ruptures, and even reversals as its governing ideology,
constituting what I label “Ecuadorian cinema for the 21st century”. In particular, this thesis identifies underlying neoliberal tendencies that are maintained, and at times encouraged by the mentioned policy and its operational arm, the National Film Council or CNCine, despite the anti-hegemonic rhetoric that informed this political period. To support this argument, this thesis initially argues for Ecuadorian cinema as a national industry, associating the local know-how with broader theories on national and transnational cinemas. With film activities dating back to the early 1900s, Ecuadorian cinema has constructed a particular definition of success that involves participation in film festivals, theatrical exhibition, and box office performance. Yet, Ecuadorian cinema also seems preoccupied by themes of social justice, environmental concerns, migration and coloniality, with cinema representing a continual
space for negotiation and reorientation. As such, this thesis examines the production practices, aesthetic choices, and narrative themes of films that achieved theatrical exhibition between 2007 and 2015, resulting in four identifiable tendencies: narrative features supported by CNCine and constituting a preferred indie subfield, vernacular film expressions that operate outside state support, community cinema practices that prioritise the needs and rights of the community, and memory articulations in documentary form. For each case, the ambiguities of Ecuadorian cinema for the 21st century are made evident, further emphasised by the dismantling of cultural policies in recent years.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
2023-04-19
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 19th April 2023
Ecuadorian cinema
Film policy
Socialism 21st century
Transnationalism
Memory
PN1993.5E3M5
Motion pictures--Educador--History--21st century
Ecuadorian cinema for the 21st century : negotiating neoliberalism? Policy, industry, and memory during the Ley de Cine years
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/272772023-11-21T03:06:07Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Flaig, Paul
Gelardi, Andrea
AD Links Foundation
Russell Trust
301
2023-03-28T10:52:07Z
2023-03-28T10:52:07Z
2022-06-13
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/27277
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/373
This thesis explores how concepts and canons of world cinema were historically and materially conditioned by European film institutions. Using the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna as a dynamic case study, it retraces the permutations of world cinema over the last half century, as it shifted from a universalist yet Eurocentric term to a militant phase in which European left-wing intellectuals sought to support and give visibility to Third World oppositional filmmakers and, finally, to a neoliberal phase in which filmmakers and films from the Global South have become dependent on the support of European and North American film institutions. Emphasising its “material life” over these three phases, this thesis argues that world cinema has emerged out of the preceding Third World Cinema, and describes a set of films produced in the so-called Global South and sustained and circulated by film institutions, primarily based in Europe. It focuses on two distinct historical periods, investigating two phenomena that have received scant attention in film historical research thus far. First, it excavates the neglected history of Italian Antifestivals, in particular the Porretta Terme Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero and early history of the Cineteca. In the 1960s-1970s period, these Antifestivals revolutionized the conventional festival format, energised innovative theoretical and critical discourses and, above all, crucially contributed to the European “discovery” of Third World Cinema. Second, this thesis explores the impact of film festivals’ rediscoveries of the world cinema canon by analysing the Cineteca’s subsequent phase, beginning with its archival film festival (Il Cinema Ritrovato) before turning to more recent conservative initiatives of the World Cinema Project and the African Film Heritage Project. In conclusion, the thesis concludes with an analysis of the Cineteca’s restoration of Med Hondo’s early films, which illuminate the different modes curators, critics and scholars use to relate to the film-historical past embedded in rediscovered world cinemas.
"This work was supported by the Postgraduate Research Scholarship (fee waiver and maintenance stipend) from the AD Links Foundation (Scholarship Reference Number: 111ADLINK002/1701/170023209/1). This work was also supported by the Postgraduate Award (research trip expenses) from the Russell Trust." --Funding
en
World cinema
Film festivals
Film history
Cineteca di Bologna
Film culture
Film preservation
PN1995.9S6G4
Cineteca comunale (Bologna, Italy)
Motion pictures--History and criticism
Motion pictures--Social aspects
Film festivals
The material life of world cinema : dynamics of ‘discovery’ and ‘rediscovery’ at the Cineteca di Bologna (1960-2018)
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
The University of St Andrews
2027-05-19
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 19th May 2027
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/19242019-07-01T10:11:57Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Vidal, Belén
Hwang, Yun Mi
360
2011-07-20T15:20:13Z
2011-07-20T15:20:13Z
2011-06-24
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1924
Electronic version excludes material for which permission has not been granted by the rights holder
From the dynamic landscape of contemporary South Korean cinema, one trend that stands out is the palpable revival of the historical drama (known as the ‘sageuk’ in Korean). Since the early 2000s, expensive, visually striking, and successful costumed pieces have been showcased to the audience. Now rivalling the other mainstream genres such as gangster action, romantic comedy, and the Korean blockbuster, the sageuk has made an indelible impact on the national film industry. Even so, the cycle has yet to receive much critical attention. This thesis addresses the gap, driven by the question, what is the impetus behind the surge of the ‘historical’ witnessed in recent sageuk films?
For this, I first take a diachronic view of the historical context of the genre, which later serves as the reference point for the genre memory. Adopting a synchronic approach, I then examine the industrial, political, and social contexts in Korea at the turn of the new century that facilitated the history boom. While national memory and transnational politics fuelled Koreans’ interest in their past, the popular media – cinema, television, publishing industry, and performance theatre – all capitalised on this drive. The government also took part by supporting the ‘culture content industry’ as a way to fashion an attractive national image and accelerate the cultural export system. Collectively, these efforts translated to the emergence of history as a commodity, carving a unique space for historical narratives in the national heritage industry. As such, different agents – the consumers, the industry, and the state – had their stakes in the national mobilisation of history and memory with competing ideological and commercial interests. Ultimately, the sageuk is the primary site in which these diverging aspirations and desires are played out.
In chapters that follow, I engage with four main sub-types of the recent historical drama, offering textual and contextual readings. The main discussion includes the ‘fusion’ sageuk (Untold Scandal), the biopic (King and the Clown and Portrait of a Beauty), the heritage horror (Blood Rain and Shadows in the Palace), and the colonial period drama (Rikidozan, Blue Swallow and Modern Boy). While analysing the generic tropes and narrative themes of each film, I also pay attention to contemporary discourses of gender, and the cultural treatment of masculinity and femininity within the period setting. Such investigation, in turn, locates the place of the historical genre in New Korean Cinema, and thus, offers a much-needed intervention into one of the neglected topics in the study of cinematic trends in South Korea.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Biopic
Period horror
Historical dramas
Heritage industry
New Korean Cinema
Gender
National cinema
Genre
PN1993.5K7H8
Historical films--Korea (South)--History and criticism
Cultural property--Korea (South)
Motion pictures--Korea (South)--History
Gender identity in motion pictures
South Korean historical drama : gender, nation and the heritage industry
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/9852023-03-21T09:52:49Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Fleming, David H.
iii, 220 p.
2010-09-13T10:46:29Z
2010-09-13T10:46:29Z
2009-11-23
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/985
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-985
Drugs, Danger, Delusions (and Deleuzians?) opens up a philosophical investigation into a series of ‘extreme’ mind and body films drawn from different historical contexts. Through two sections and four distinct chapters, cinema is explored as an agent of becoming that allows viewers to think and feel in an affected manner. Investigating a broad spectrum of extreme narratives focusing on drugs, hooligan violence, insomnia and madness, the project provides a focused historical understanding of the films’ affective regimes and aesthetic agendas. The different lines of flight and escape explored on-screen all somehow appear to spiral around the same issues, concepts, ideas and philosophies. Utilising the cinematic theories of Gilles Deleuze along with his philosophical work co-authored with Félix Guattari, the thesis aims to investigate a range of related films, that in the extreme, reveal underlying models of an integrated or parallel mind and body and immanently embedded identity; wherein the concept of a stable and fixed being is replaced by that of a fluid becoming. All chapters investigate how immanently embedded characters embark upon extreme or dangerous lines of escape, where the reinvention of living and thinking is explored and made visible. The first section investigates a range of ‘head-films’ that take the mind as their theme, but are found to plicate and expand consciousness into the parallel body. The second section investigates extreme body films that push the sensory-motor schema to its limits so that thought, perception and consciousness become affected. The two interrelated sections investigate how the films and filmmakers employ different regimes of mind and body cinema to aesthetically convey and relay these concepts to the spectator. The project thus strives to develop Deleuzian paradigms beyond their original scope to explore parallel-image regimes and sequences that allow spectators to think and feel
the films’ underlying philosophical concepts and positions.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Deleuze
Extreme body or brain cinema
PN1995.F64
Motion pictures--Psychological aspects
Altered states of consciousness
Mind and body in motion pictures
Deleuze, Gilles--Views on motion pictures
Experimental films--History and criticism
Drugs, danger, delusions (and Deleuzians?) : extreme film-philosophy journeys into and beyond the parallel body and mind
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/4802020-12-22T13:04:41Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Petrie, Graham
Clark, Peter
Iordanova, Dina
Sudar, Vlastimir
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
xi + 342
2008-05-15T09:06:30Z
2008-05-15T09:06:30Z
2007-11-23
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/480
Exploration of the influence that politics may have on artists’ creativity has been undertaken by looking at selected works of Yugoslav film director Aleksandar Petrović. An attempt was made to identify thematic or stylistic motifs in his films that could be understood as reflections on the political context in which the work was made. One of the most common approaches to examine a work of one filmmaker, the auteur theory, has been modified into the theory of political auteur, to aid in identifying recurrent motifs and themes that artists introduce in their work as a reaction to the surrounding political reality. As Petrović worked in Yugoslavia during Socialism, this period was historicised in order to support the identification of ‘political motifs’ in his films. The period between 1965 and 1973 is taken as the focus of research, since it is known as the 'liberal hour', the period of great artistic and intellectual freedoms, during which Petrović directed four of his most significant films. Each of these four films is analysed in respective chapters, first by elaborating on the then current political background, and then by analysing the films’ narratives against it, and extrapolating thematic and stylistic motifs reflecting back on this background. Such exploration of art and politics has been undertaken with a view to emphasise consistent motifs in art works, not only to do with an artist’s personal interests, but also those that emerge as a result of imposing societal structures.
2675 bytes
application/pdf
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted permanently
Film studies
Slavonic studies
Serbian, Yugoslav, Balkan, East European Studies
History and politics of socialist Yugoslavia
PN1998.3P4665S8
Petrović, Aleksander, 1929-
Motion picture producers and directors--Serbia--Belgrade
A portrait of the artist as a political dissident : the life and work of Aleksandar Petrović
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/122472023-05-29T15:27:49Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Burgoyne, Robert
Prasannam, Natthanai
University of St Andrews
Čhulālongkō̜nmahāwitthayālai. Empowering Network for International thai & ASEAN Studies (ENITAS)
Mahāwitthayālai Kasētsāt. Faculty of Humanities
Hō̜phāpphayon hǣng Chāt (Thailand)
x, 310 p.
2017-12-04T15:46:32Z
2017-12-04T15:46:32Z
2018-06-28
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12247
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-12247
This thesis examines the politics of World War II memory in Thai screen culture with special reference to films and television series produced between the 1970s and the 2010s. Framed by memory studies and film studies approaches, the thesis hopes to answer 1) how WW II memory on screen is related to other memory texts: monuments, museums and commemorative rituals and 2) how the memory is coded by various genres: romance, biopic, combat film and horror. The project relies on a plurimedial network which has not yet been extensively studied by film scholars in Thailand.
Through the lens of memory studies, the on-screen memory is profoundly intermingled with other sites of memory across Thailand and beyond. It potentially is counter-memory and vernacular memory challenging the state’s official memory. The politics of WWII memory are also engaged with cultural politics in Thailand in terms of class, gender and ethnicity. The politics of commoners and trauma are given more voice in WWII memory compared to other moments of the national past, which are dominated by the royal-nationalism.
From film studies perspectives, the genres mediating WWII memory are shaped by traditions of Thai-Thai and transnational screen culture; the Thai WWII combat film is a newly proposed genre. The thesis also explores directors, the star system, exhibition and reception. The findings should prove that WWII memory on Thai screen serves their roles in memory institutions which construct and maintain mnemonic communities as well as the roles in entertainment and media institutions.
Another crucial implication of the research is that politicising WWII memory on the Thai screen can illuminate how memory and visual texts travel. The research likewise manifests its contributions to a better understanding of how Thai screen culture can be positioned within both global memory culture and global screen culture.
"I am keen to acknowledge scholarships and grants from the
University of St Andrews, the Empowering Network for International Thai & ASEAN
Studies (ENITAS) of Chulalongkorn University, the Faculty of Humanities at
Kasetsart University and Thailand’s Film Archive (Public Organisation)." -- Acknowledgements
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Thai cinema
Cultural memory
World War II
Thai television
D743.23P8
Motion pictures--Thailand
Television series--Thailand
World War, 1939-1945--Motion pictures and the war
Mnemonic communities : politics of World War II memory in Thai screen culture
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/19852019-04-01T09:22:06Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Balan, Canan
ix, 271 p.
2011-08-16T13:04:03Z
2011-08-16T13:04:03Z
2010-06
uk.bl.ethos.552465
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1985
This project explores a curious facet of early cinema that has not been studied
as yet: the relationship between Turkish modernity and the culture of spectatorship
within the context of the late nineteenth century’s viewing habits along with the era
of early and silent cinema in Istanbul. The aim of this project is to examine the
evolution of viewing habits in Istanbul at a particular period in which a radical
cultural transformation was experienced, namely from the 1890s to the 1930s, when
the late Ottoman era with its pre-cinematic shows, the cinematograph, and silent
films led to the early Turkish Republic and the end of silent cinema. In order to cover
the shift in the reception of early cinema, this study makes use of revisionist works
on early cinema and on modernity in Ottoman history. To this end, newspapers,
novels, memoirs and consular trade records that formed the majority of the primary
sources of this project are analyzed. The transformation of Istanbulite spectatorship
was initially experienced through a rupture in the late nineteenth century created by
the global flow of mechanical images. The cinematograph was viewed by a multi-
ethnic public that was accustomed to seeing both traditional and other more widely
recognized pre-cinematic shows such as the shadow play, public storytelling,
dioramas, panoramas and magic lanterns. At first the early cinematograph displays
were haphazard and parts of other shows. Yet, the international influence of the early
cinema attracted a curiosity-driven public even if the same public was critical of the
imperfect technology of the apparatus. With the outbreak of World War I, nationalist
resistance played a role in the reception of popular European films, particularly
Italian melodramas. The end of the war caused the demise of the Ottoman Empire
and the foundation of the Turkish Republic, after which, cinema started to be seen as
an educational tool in the service of nation-building.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1993.5T8B2
Motion picture audiences--Turkey--Istanbul--History
Silent films--Turkey--Istanbul--History and criticism
Istanbul (Turkey)--Intellectual life--19th cenury
Istanbul (Turkey)--Intellectual life--20th cenury
Changing pleasures of spectatorship : early and silent cinema in Istanbul
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/203752021-07-29T13:27:55Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rice, Tom
Raychaudhuri, Anindya
Sen, Sanghita
University of St Andrews. School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies. Postgraduate Research Scholarship
University of St Andrews. St Leonard's College Scholarship
Scotland's Saltire Scholarships (SSS)
Russell Trust. Postgraduate Scholarship
iii, 317 p.
2020-07-30T12:35:11Z
2020-07-30T12:35:11Z
2020-07-27
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20375
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-20375
In this thesis I focus on the cultural politics and film practices of Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, and Satyajit Ray in the long 1960s, with the aim of recovering Indian political cinema as Third Cinema practice. I posit the contexts that motivated the radicalisation of their cinema in the 1970s, as an act of counter-Establishment political resistance itself. I use Third Cinema, as a practice and framework, to contextualise and understand Indian political cinema. The prevalence of an auteurist approach in scholarly work has overshadowed the political, intellectual, collective, and emancipatory aspects of these filmmakers’ practices, which my thesis foregrounds. The thesis further argues that Third Cinema is not just an aesthetic choice or film style, but also a praxis and critical framework driven by decolonisation, anti-capitalism, and anti-imperialism. Based on this hypothesis, I argue that Third Cinema can potentially be practiced in any context across geopolitical boundaries, given its emancipatory nature focusing on decolonising culture. However, this connection has so far been critically disregarded both by scholars of Indian cinema and Third Cinema across the world. Most discussions of Third Cinema are restricted to Latin America with occasional reference to African and other ‘minor’ cinemas. The objective of my research is to extend both the canon and discourse of Third Cinema beyond Latin America to engage with contexts previously unnoticed. My thesis does this by situating Indian political cinema in the milieu of Transnational Third Cinema and by including critical writings and film manifestoes from India. Restoring Ghatak, Sen, and Ray’s filmmaking practices within Third Cinema discourse not just recovers them as Third Cinema practitioners but also strengthens Third Cinema as a rigorous critical framework.
"My research was supported by Postgraduate Research Scholarship offered by the School of
Philosophical, Anthropological, and Film Studies, University of St Andrews; St Leonard’s
Scholarship; Scotland’s Saltire Scholarship. The field work was supported by the Travel Grant
from the Russell Trust Postgraduate Scholarship 2016-17."-- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Indian political cinema
Decolonisation
Third Cinema
Radical cinema
Long 1960s political upheaval
Countercinema
Counter-archive
Film history
Brechtian aesthetics
PN1993.5I8S46
Ghatak, Ritwikkumar, 1925-1976--Criticism and interpretation
Sen, Mrinal, 1923-2018--Criticism and interpretation
Ray, Satyajit, 1921-1992--Criticism and interpretation
Motion pictures--India--20th century--History and criticism
Motion pictures--India--Political aspects
Decolonization--India
Recovering Indian Third Cinema practice : a study of the 1970s films of Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, and Satyajit Ray
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Electronic copy restricted until 12th June 2025
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/33222019-04-01T09:22:06Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Monaldi, Paola
108
2013-01-09T12:35:05Z
2013-01-09T12:35:05Z
2012-11-30
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3322
Electronic version excludes material for which permission has not been granted by the rights holder. Copyright permissions are pending.
In this thesis I look at the way in which Cuban cinema of the post-Cold War period re-envisions the image of the nation through a theoretical framework of Deleuzian extraction. In particular, I refer to Deleuze's philosophy of difference and multiplicity to explain how national difference can be produced by film narratives operating within given ideological boundaries, and national identity differentiated within a broader, socialist idea of society.
A review of recent Cuban cinema reveals the emergence of intensive and crystalline regimes of narration in both fiction and documentary cinema. Chapters one and two will therefore examine the shift of Cuban fiction cinema towards forms of time-image (metanarrative and magical realism); chapter three will consider the affective turn of the new Cuban documentary. In both cases, the inclination of Cuban cinema towards affection- and time-image will appear motivated by a national need for self-revision. In particular I will argue that, by raising intensities and virtualities, contemporary Cuban cinema acts as modern political cinema. While Cuba is rethinking itself and its position in the wider world, Cuban cinema is reimagining the nation in terms of becoming-minoritarian, that is, as a transformative and multifaceted entity in which national contradictions can be reconciled and similarities with the outside world can be more easily found.
By bringing together Deleuze and Cuban cinema, this research aims to contribute to the studies on cinema and national identity through the case study of Cuba, and to the field of Deleuzian studies by presenting a new application of Deleuze’s philosophy in a socialist context.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Deleuze
Cuban cinema
PN1993.5C8M7
Motion picture plays--History and criticism
National characteristics, Cuban, in motion pictures
Cuba--In motion pictures
Motion pictures--Cuba--History--20th century
Socialism and motion pictures
Deleuze, Gilles, 1925-1995
Folding cubanidad : a Deleuzian approach to contemporary Cuban cinema
Thesis
Doctoral
MPhil Master of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/31382023-05-29T14:21:40Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Pekerman, Serazer
203
2012-09-22T19:50:01Z
2012-09-22T19:50:01Z
2011
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3138
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-3138
This study compares independent films from different countries (Turkey, Denmark,
Iran and Spain) in a transnational context. Making use of schizoanalytic concepts, it
presents an analysis of filmic space in relation to character construction in the
internationally acclaimed contemporary films: Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002), Talk to
Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002), Two Girls (Kutluğ Ataman, 2005), Allegro
(Christoffer Boe, 2005), The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, 2001), Destiny (Zeki
Demirkubuz, 2006), Offside (Jafar Panahi, 2006), Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003) and
Climates (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2006). I argue that these films are feminist texts, in
which becoming-woman of the female character deterritorializes the patriarchal ideal
of home(land) as a political statement. In the above listed films filmic space is never
configured as a harmonious unity of a righteous woman and a peaceful home. Despite
the pervading homelessness, the female characters turn the male dominated public
space into a habitable place through the filmic assemblages with space, objects and
other characters. I also argue that the homelessness and the problematic connection
between the female character and the storyworld posits a metaphor for the
disconnection between the auteur-filmmakers and their home(land)s.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Female intimacy
Film theory
Filmic space
Schizoanalysis
Transnational
PN1995.9W67
Women in motion pictures
Feminism and motion pictures
Motion pictures and transnationalism
Psychoanalysis and motion pictures
Framed intimacy : representation of woman in transnational cinemas
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/5162019-07-01T10:16:38Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Martin-Jones, David
Cheung, Wai Yee Ruby
347
2008-07-09T14:56:20Z
2008-07-09T14:56:20Z
2008-06-25
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/516
Electronic version excludes material for which permission has not been granted by the rights holder
This thesis seeks to interpret the cinematic representations of Hong Kongers’ identity quest during a transitional state/stage related to the sovereignty transfer. The Handover transition considered is an ideological one, rather than the overnight polity change on the Handover day. This research approaches contemporary Hong Kong cinema on two fronts and the thesis is structured accordingly: Upon an initial review of the existing Hong Kong film scholarship in the Introduction, and its 1997-related allegorical readings, Part I sees new angles (previously undeveloped or underdeveloped) for researching Hong Kong films made during 1982-2002. Arguments are built along the ideas of Hong Kongers’ situational, diasporic consciousness, and transformed ‘Chineseness’ because Hong Kong has lacked a cultural/national centrality. This part of research is informed by the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall, and the diasporic experiences of Ien Ang, Rey Chow and Ackbar Abbas. With these new research angles and references to the circumstances, Part II reads critically the text of eight Hong Kong films made during the Handover transition. In chronological order, they are Boat People (Hui, 1982), Song of the Exile (Hui, 1990), Days of Being Wild (Wong, 1990), Happy Together (Wong, 1997), Made in Hong Kong (Chan, 1997), Ordinary Heroes (Hui, 1999), Durian Durian (Chan, 2000), and Hollywood Hong Kong (Chan, 2002). They meet several criteria related to the undeveloped / underdeveloped areas in the existing Hong Kong film scholarship. Hamid Naficy’s ‘accented cinema’ paradigm gives the guidelines to the film analysis in Part II. This part shows that Hong Kongers’ self-transformation during transition is alterable, indeterminate, and interminable, due to the people’s situational, diasporic consciousness, and transformed ‘Chineseness’. This thesis thus contributes to Hong Kong cinema scholarship in interpreting films with new research angles, and generating new insights into this cinematic tradition and its wider context.
1428479 bytes
application/pdf
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Department of Film Studies
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Hong Kong cinema
The 1997 Handover
Transition
Identity quest
Situational, diasporic consciousness
Transformed ‘Chineseness’
Cultural/national centrality
Jacques Derrida
Homi Bhabha
Stuart Hall
Ien Ang
Rey Chow
Ackbar Abbas
Boat People
Song of the Exile
Days of Being Wild
Happy Together
Made in Hong Kong
Ordinary Heroes
Durian Durian
Hollywood Hong Kong
Hamid Naficy
Accented cinema
PN1993.5C5C54
Motion pictures--China--Hong Kong
Nationalism in motion pictures
Hong Kong cinema 1982-2002 : the quest for identity during transition
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/156872021-06-01T07:53:14Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Grgić, Ana
University of St Andrews
Russell Trust
British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies
264 p.
2018-07-24T13:30:48Z
2018-07-24T13:30:48Z
2016
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15687
Is cinema ‘the most modern, technologically dependent and Western of all the arts’ (1995) as David Parkinson seems to suggest? My thesis addresses and problematizes this often evoked misconception on the art of cinema, with the aim to offset, or if not slightly shift, the dominant perspective through which early cinema history is observed, by positing the analysis through Balkan “haptical lenses”, and tracing regional cultural traditions that pre-date first cinema projections. This study examines the specific geopolitical position of the Balkan space at the beginning of twentieth century and the multi-cultural identity of the communities that influence and shape the development of cinema in the region, through the contemporary prism of archives, preservation and cultural memory. The intermingling, contamination and fusion of artistic traditions from East and West resulted in a unique regional visual culture, to which, at the end of the nineteenth century, the arrival of cinema added yet another layer of expression.
In the first part of the thesis I outline the theoretical framework and historical context of the region,
and provide a close analysis of visual culture in its relation to the haptic. The second part focuses on
the concepts of Balkanism, semi-colonialism and the gaze, which it addresses through an analysis of
selected footage and images, produced by both foreign companies and local filmmakers, throughout
the region. The third part is a study of local cinema pioneers, within the context of global filmmaking
at the time, through the advent of modernity and self-reflection. Finally, a close reading of texts from
newspapers, journals and books at the time provides the basis for an exploration of the arrival of
cinema in the Balkans and its reception by local audiences.
By building on phenomenological theory and visual culture in the Balkans and transnational studies,
as well as combining theoretical and empirical evidence from both fields, this thesis establishes a
strong theoretical and historical basis that can inform further research on film reception studies and
embodied vision.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1993.5B27G8
Mapping constellations : early cinema in the Balkans, archives and cultural memory
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2026-05-17
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 17th May 2026
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/160042019-04-01T09:22:09Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Torchin, Leshu
Shields, Amber
[9], 238 p.
2018-09-11T08:24:26Z
2018-09-11T08:24:26Z
2018
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/16004
While fantasy as a genre is often dismissed as frivolous and inappropriate, it is highly relevant in representing and working through trauma. The fantasy genre presents spectators with images of the unsettled and unresolved, taking them on a journey through a world in which the familiar is rendered unfamiliar. It positions itself as an in-between, while the consequential disturbance of recognized world orders lends this genre to relating stories of trauma themselves characterized by hauntings, disputed memories, and irresolution. Through an examination of films from around the world and their depictions of individual and collective traumas through the fantastic, this thesis outlines how fantasy succeeds in representing and challenging histories of violence, silence, and irresolution. Further, it also examines how the genre itself is transformed in relating stories that are not yet resolved. While analysing the modes in which the fantasy genre mediates and intercedes trauma narratives, this research contributes to a wider recognition of an understudied and underestimated genre, as well as to discourses on how trauma is narrated and negotiated.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Fantasy
Trauma
Fairytale
PN1995.9F36S5
Fantasy films
Psychic trauma in motion pictures
Fairy tales in motion pictures
In-between worlds : exploring trauma through fantasy
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/130752018-04-10T10:43:59Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Burgoyne, Robert
Rositzka, Eileen
229 p.
2018-04-05T12:37:29Z
2018-04-05T12:37:29Z
2017-06-22
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/13075
In this thesis, I explore the ways the sensory experience of war is staged as a corporeal apprehension of space in the Hollywood war film. Placing an emphasis on films that foreground tactile, and sonic experience in combat as a key dimension of symbolic meaning in the depiction of war, I move beyond the emphasis on optics and weaponised vision that has largely dominated contemporary writing on war and cinema in order to highlight the wider sensory field that is powerfully evoked in this genre.
In my conception of war cinema as representing a somatic experience of space, I am applying a term recently developed by Derek Gregory within the theoretical framework of Critical Geography. What he calls “corpography” implies a constant re-mapping of landscape through the soldier’s body. Gregory’s assumptions can be used as a connection between already established theories of cartographic film narration and ideas of (neo)phenomenological film experience, as they also imply the involvement of the spectator’s body in sensuously grasping what is staged as a mediated experience of war. While cinematic codes of war have long been oriented almost exclusively to the visual, the notion of corpography can help to reframe the concept of film genre in terms of expressive movement patterns and genre memory, avoiding reverting to the usual taxonomies of generic texts.
The thesis focuses on selected films exemplary of the aesthetic continuities and changes in American cinema’s audio-visual representation of war (with each chapter centring on a specific military conflict and historical constellation): All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Paths of Glory (1957), Objective, Burma! (1945), Fury (2014), Men in War (1957), The Boys in Company C (1978), Rescue Dawn (2006), and Zero Dark Thirty (2012).
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Sensory experience of war
Hollywood war film
Cinematic corpography
Genre
Poetics of affect
PN1995.9W3R7
War films--History and criticism
Human body in motion pictures
The cinematic corpography of war : re-mapping the war film through the body
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2022-05-25
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 25th May 2022
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/200402021-07-26T17:50:16Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rice, Tom
Yechury, Akhila
Magazine, Aakshi
University of St Andrews. St Leonard's College Scholarship
University of St Andrews. School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies
Charles Wallace India Trust
257 p.
2020-06-03T08:47:33Z
2020-06-03T08:47:33Z
2020-07-27
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20040
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-20040
The thesis argues that the film songs in the 1950s, often termed the ‘golden era’ of films and film music, function as an integral narrative device of the cinema’s engagement with the national discourse and with socio-political issues. The songs do this by being a site of ambivalence and struggle rather than resolution. In this way, they engage with the ideological contradictions of the nationalist discourse and the newly-independent Indian nation-state. These are the contradictions of the transition towards modernity -- the tussle between tradition and modernization, Indian identity and westernization, home and the world – which were a part of the anti-colonial nationalist discourse, and continued to be pre-occupations for the policy makers of the newly independent nation-state. These contradictions have been written about in scholarship, both in Film Studies (Prasad 1998; Sarkar 2009; Majumdar 2009; Rajadhyaksha 2009; Vasudevan 2011) as well as from a Political Studies perspective (Chatterjee 1993; Parekh 1991; Kaviraj 2010). However, in the context of 1950s Bombay based Hindi cinema, the significant role of the song sequences in negotiating with these tensions has not been studied in detail; in fact the songs have not been recognised as playing a role in this equation, existing instead on the periphery of theoretical arguments on the film form. The original contribution of the thesis is to examine the significant role of the song in this equation.
"This work was supported by the University of St Andrews (St Leonard’s College
Scholarship), School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies and the Charles
Wallace India Trust (Doctoral Grant towards completion of thesis)." -- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
2025-04-16
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 16th April 2025
Film studies
Hindi film song
1950s Bombay cinema
Indian cinema
Indian nationalism
ML2075.M2
Motion picture music--India--Bombay--History and criticism
Popular music--India--History and criticism
Songs, Hindi--History and criticism
Nationalism--India--History--20th century
India--Politics and government--1947-
The 1950s Hindi film song : between transgression and memory
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/63552019-07-01T10:12:26Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Burgoyne, Robert
Hanlon, Dennis Joseph
Wessels, Chelsea
215
2015-03-26T14:40:55Z
2015-03-26T14:40:55Z
2014-05-13
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6355
This project argues for rethinking the western as a global genre, rather than one rooted in a particular construction of the American West. First, by considering the western's global origins through an examination of early cinema, I challenge the singular connection to an American origin. Through tracing an alternative history of the genre in early cinema, we can see that the assumed connections between America and the western can be challenged by way of examples from France, Argentina, and Australia. Moving to the post-war and contemporary periods, this project highlights the popular and political uses of the genre by way of examples from Germany, Latin America, Spain and Italy, and Australia. These case studies identify how considering the western as a global popular genre allows it to address local political concerns across a range of national and transnational contexts. To situate the different contexts, this thesis relies on the broad theoretical framework of transculturation, following Mary Louise Pratt, to consider how the western 'selects' and 'invents' from particular historical, cultural, and political moments, often as part of asymmetrical power relations. Each case study also seeks to provide a theoretical framework specific to the local context, such as the theories and practices of Third Cinema in Latin America, in order to suggest ways of addressing the western outside of Hollywood. By shifting the western away from a central origin point, this thesis shows how the genre becomes meaningful on a global scale in terms of key issues of identity, political critique, and representations of space.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Print and electronic copy restricted until 8th July 2019
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations
Genre
Global film
Western films
Film genres
Motion picture industry
Once upon a time outside the West : rethinking the western in global contexts
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/31222019-04-01T09:22:09Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Chen, Yun-Hua
i, 333
2012-09-22T17:47:06Z
2012-09-22T17:47:06Z
2011
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3122
In this thesis I propose approaching multi-strand films in a way that extends our focus
beyond narrative strategy, arguing that the assemblage of narrative threads in fact infers a
larger spatial mosaic. In this mosaic, spaces with diverse socioeconomic and geopolitical
backgrounds, historical implications, and virtualities are interwoven through a variety of
cinematic means, which include not only narrative but also editing, framing and mise-en-scene.
In addition, I demonstrate that in certain auteurs’ works the construction of filmic
mosaic space correlates with the bringing-together of film professionals, locations, financial
resources and distribution routes across borders through the auteurs’ travelling. Hence this
thesis lies in the intersection between the cinematic manifestations of mosaic space, spatial
representations, and transnational filmmaking networks facilitated by authorship. Since the
term “mosaic” is used here as a spatial metaphor to connect the interlinking concepts of
space, narrative, and authorship, I term the travelling auteurs “mosaic auteurs”, the multistrand
narrative “mosaic narrative”, and the assembled film space “mosaic space”. I will use
the filmmaking contexts and film works of Michael Haneke, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Atom Egoyan
and Alejandro González Iñárritu as examples, and the spatial theories of Marc Augé, Gilles
Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Saskia Sassen, Mike Featherstone among others to explain the
dynamism of spatial configurations.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1995.9T6855C5
Motion pictures and transnationalism
Multiple person narrative
Motion picture producers and directors
González Iñárritu, Alejandro
Egoyan, Atom, 1960-
Hsiao-Hsien, Hou
Haneke, Michael, 1942-
Mosaic space and mosaic auteurs : Alejandro González Iñárritu, Atom Egoyan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Michael Haneke
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2021-11-29
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Electronic copy restricted until 29th November 2021
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/34212019-04-01T09:22:10Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Girelli, Elisabetta
Gustafsson, Fredrik
168
2013-03-25T14:59:51Z
2013-03-25T14:59:51Z
2013-06-27
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3421
This thesis takes a historical approach to its subject and focuses on Swedish cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. The thesis argues that Swedish cinema experienced a renaissance in the 1940s, lasting approximately from 1940 to 1953. It further suggests that one of the most important filmmakers in this renaissance was Hasse Ekman. By focussing upon Ekman and this renaissance, a much-needed contextualisation of Ingmar Bergman will be achieved. Ingmar Bergman is one of the most well-known and well-researched filmmakers of all time, but there are still gaps in the material surrounding him, and one such gap concerns his cinematic origins. Bergman was a part of the 1940s renaissance, during which Bergman worked with, and was influenced by, other filmmakers and in particular Ekman.
The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the relevant literature and discusses ideas of authorship and national cinema. It also provides a historic overview of Swedish society and cinema during the 1940s and 1950s, providing the context needed to better understand the films of Ekman, and Bergman too. This part also looks at the 1930s to illustrate what came before this renaissance, and how the films of the 1940s differed from what had gone before. The second part is a chronological overview of Ekman's career from the late-1930s to his move to Spain in 1964. The last part is a discussion of Ekman's relation to Swedish society and his view of the world, based on close textual readings of his films.
The aim of the thesis is to present, for the first time, a coherent and extensive overview of Ekman's career and body of work, while also situating it in the specific context in which it emerged, thereby shedding new light on an important, though neglected, episode in cinema history.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Authorship
National cinema
Ingmar Bergman
Hasse Ekman
Sweden
Swedish cinema
Film studies
Film history
PN1998.3E42G8
Ekman, Hasse, 1915-2004--Criticism and interpretation
Bergman, Ingmar, 1918-2007--Criticism and interpretation
Motion pictures--Sweden--History
Sweden--Social conditions--20th century
Motion picture authorship
Hasse Ekman : a question of authorship in a national context
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/168942023-08-21T10:08:37Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Cowan, Michael
Jacobson, Brian
Ingravalle, Grazia
Russell Trust
Banco de Santander
University of St Andrews
xii, 233 p.
2019-01-18T09:12:44Z
2019-01-18T09:12:44Z
2017-05-11
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/16894
As analogue film approaches obsolescence and new modes of engaging with moving images through digital media displace traditional cinema-going practices, film archives and museums acquire increasing prominence in the cultural scene. These institutions preserve audiovisual works, apparatuses and techniques from the past, exhibiting them as artefacts and records of a cinematic time before the “digital turn.” While media and art scholars have addressed the appearance of film, video and digital media artworks in the contemporary art museum, insufficient attention has been dedicated to film museums as sites of moving-image exhibition and historical mediation. This study explores the work of film archivists and curators, with particular attention to the exhibition of early and silent films through different media, institutional settings and
historical narratives, shaping contemporary audience’s interpretation. This research examines three institutions—the EYE Filmmuseum (EYE) in Amsterdam, the George Eastman Museum (GEM) in Rochester, NY and the National Fairground Archive (NFA) in Sheffield (UK)—that have recently experimented with innovative film exhibition practices, advancing compelling new models of film curatorship. Through archival research, historical analysis and interviews with curators, this study focuses not just on present curatorial work at these archives, but also on their institutional histories and shifting understanding of moving-image historicity. The EYE, the GEM and the NFA represent three alternative curatorial strategies, respectively exhibiting early and silent films through practices of “crowd-curatorship,” “fine art
curatorship” and “modern cine-variety pastiche,” mediating between these archival records and new media cultures. The present research advances a double contribution. On one hand, it proposes a more refined theoretical framework to understand film curatorship within the context of contemporary film historiographical debates. On the other, it provides film museums with a critical analysis of alternative exhibition strategies, highlighting the cultural politics at play within the historical interpretation and exhibition of archival films.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1993.4I6
Motion pictures--Museums
Film archives
Curating film history : film museums and archives in the age of new media
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print available to consult on-site. Electronic permanently restricted.
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/141242024-01-15T11:37:37Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Dyer, Richard
Popa, Emilia Diana
259
2018-06-15T13:39:07Z
2018-06-15T13:39:07Z
2018-06-28
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14124
Contemporary Romanian cinema, particularly in its internationally successful instances, displays formal characteristics that have often led to its being seen in terms of the so-called Slow Cinema trend in contemporary cinema. This thesis proposes that there is something distinctive about slowness in contemporary Romanian films, similar to and yet different from Slow Cinema. Through a detailed analysis of films made by Cristi Puiu and Cristian Mungiu, two of the most representative contemporary Romanian filmmakers, Romanian slow films emerge as a less stringent form of slowness characterised by tension.
This thesis first looks at some of the ways in which slowness can be developed in film - through the use of the long take and the trope of waiting along with the use of stillness and silence. Within this slowness an attitude of contemplation emerges, a characteristic that is key to Slow Cinema. Through close textual analysis of a number of films with a reputation for slowness, both classic and more recent examples, this thesis looks at how the techniques used to develop slowness in film allow for variation and how they can be used not only to create this attitude of contemplation but also to create tension. While this aspect has been less discussed with the more prevalent focus on Slow Cinema and its themes of contemplation, tension can be identified in a variety of films, both those considered part of Slow Cinema and those considered slow films.
The distinctiveness of slowness in contemporary Romanian cinema is partly to do with its being rooted in Romanian culture. This study looks at Romanian cinematic and cultural inheritance, specifically at how slowness figures in this history.
This thesis contributes to the existing body of research on contemporary Romanian cinema addressing its most salient characteristic, its sense of slowness, by placing it in relation to wider discussions about slowness and Slow Cinema as well as by linking its distinctiveness to wider cultural notions and practices of temporal organisation as well as the social history of the nation.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
2028-03-09
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 9th March 2028
Slow cinema
Slowness
Aesthetics of slowness
Romanian cinema
Tension
Contemplation
Communism
Post-communism
PN1995.S67P7
Motion pictures--Romania--Aesthetics
Slow cinema
The specificity of the aesthetics of slowness in contemporary Romanian cinema
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/36242019-04-01T09:22:10Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Holtmeier, Matthew
v, 273
2013-06-07T10:15:00Z
2013-06-07T10:15:00Z
2013
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3624
This project uses Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of the minor cinema to
argue for a contemporary political mode of film that critiques dominant or majoritarian
ideologies. I argue that these 'modern political films' perform this critique by rupturing the sensory-motor schemata that make up official times and create a space for everyday life and labor to emerge on screen. While political theorists such as Carl Schmitt argue proper politics necessitate oppositional conflict and dialectical progression, a classical
model based on the opposition between ultimately Other subjects, modern political
films challenge this notion by fragmenting the concept of an appropriate subject and
revealing the networks that contribute to and create modern, multifaceted subjects. I
locate modern political films in four global contexts: Algeria, Iran, China, and the
United States. While the political circumstances of each context differ greatly, the filmmakers I examine turn to a slower pace or use of cinematic time that resists narrative conclusion to address political, economic, and social issues affecting populations within these global locations. Through this slower pace, these directors also address the biopolitical concerns of the subjects they depict: intolerable laws, ideologies, and economic forces that structure or otherwise control how individuals live their lives. As a result, these films operate according to a particular form of politics that opposes the subject-creating assemblages of regulatory biopower, and affirms the potential for new life to emerge on screen.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
PN1995.9P6H7
Time in motion pictures
Subjectivity in motion pictures
Motion pictures--Political aspects
The modern political film : biopolitical production and cinematic subjectivity
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2021-04-15
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 15th April 2021
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/215972021-10-10T11:21:25Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rice, Tom
Adamson, Patrick
University of St Andrews. Department of Film Studies
ix, 305 p.
2021-03-10T16:51:48Z
2021-03-10T16:51:48Z
2020-12-02
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/21597
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/40
This study examines the emergence of epic Western filmmaking in the late silent era. Identified by vocal Hollywood proponents and critics of filmdom morality alike as the most laudable use for the increasingly ubiquitous motion picture, titles such as The Covered Wagon (1923), The Iron Horse (1924), The Pony Express (1925), and The Vanishing American (1925) were hailed for not only the rare ‘authenticity’ they brought to reconstructing America’s constructive nineteenth-century frontier period but the edifying, Americanising ends their doing so could serve. Projecting historical episodes foundational to the nation’s self-image before audiences from across linguistic and cultural divides, they demonstrated, in an apparently unprecedented fashion, a singular social purpose for Hollywood.
And yet, scant attention has since been paid to the films of this important cycle, whether in terms of their remarkable initial popularity or their precipitous subsequent fall from popular grace. This study intervenes here by examining an overlooked cultural phenomenon that pro-cinema advocates of the era consistently placed at the centre of their Hollywood-boosting arguments. Among early film writers and theorists, these epic Westerns were recognised as a new type of distinctly American history, enlarged by cinema’s medium-specific reach to provide the ‘melting pot’s’ diverse filmgoers with inspiring, unifying lessons in the very ‘making’ of their nation. Combining close analyses of their historiographical articulations with readings of their production and reception, this study investigates how their emergence responded to and informed discourses far beyond those traditionally associated with the genre. By tying the nation’s most pervasive form of mass entertainment to publicised aspirations to enlighten and educate the public, studios moved frontier-historical filmmaking to the heart of the period’s most pressing debates around Hollywood: as a social influence; as an Americanising force for national unity; and, even, as a harbinger of world harmony.
"This work was supported by a Film Studies Postgraduate Scholarship (fee waiver and
maintenance stipend) from the University of St Andrews." -- Funding
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Silent film
Historiography
Westerns
Transnationalism
Epic western
National identity
History
PN1995.9W4A3
Western films--United States--History and criticism
Silent films--United States--History and criticism
Motion pictures--History--20th century--United States
‘Americanism in action’ : the 1920s epic western and Hollywood historical cinema
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2025-10-07
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 7th October 2025
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/190532021-04-06T16:07:23Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Rice, Tom
McMorran, Connor Anthony
University of St Andrews. Department of Film Studies
[8], 237 p.
2019-12-03T14:25:58Z
2019-12-03T14:25:58Z
2019-06-24
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/19053
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-19053
South Korean cinema has enjoyed a rise in academic attention since the turn of the twenty-first
century. That said, the way in which the vibrant and tumultuous history of the Korean peninsula
throughout the twentieth century affected the development and evolution of film genre has yet
to be examined in-depth. This thesis therefore seeks to establish histories of Korean film genres
by examining the on-screen shifts and transitions of genre. Focusing on three genres –
melodrama, action, and horror – this thesis illuminates the complex relationships and
interactions occurring within the East Asian region, showing how Korean cinema has interacted
with the genre cinema of its geographic neighbours. At the same time this thesis excavates the
pre-cinematic histories of these genres in an attempt to establish genealogical evidence of genre
form and content as found in folklore, theatre, and other traditional narrative media or
performance. In doing so, this thesis attempts to challenge the assumed universality of genre
terminology by exploring the degree to which such terms are able to map onto cinemas fuelled
by cultural traditions and histories which are largely disparate from the Western films that
historically informed the notions and understandings of particular genres. As such, this thesis
hopes to discuss Korean cinema through an investigation into genre which places emphasis on
Korea’s own cinematic and pre-cinematic histories.
"This thesis was part-funded by a fee waiver from the Department of Film Studies at
the University of St Andrews." -- Acknowledgements
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
The textual genealogies of Korean genre cinema
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2024-05-24
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 24th May 2024
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/63122019-09-27T02:04:21Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Martin-Jones, David
Scott, Kathleen
334
2015-03-25T10:18:37Z
2015-03-25T10:18:37Z
2014-12-01
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6312
This thesis explores the intersection of phenomenological, bio-political and ethical facets of
spectatorship in relation to female suffering and gendered violence in contemporary film
produced in Europe (mainly drawing on examples from France) and the United States. I
argue that the visceral and affective cinematic embodiment of female pain plays a vital role
in determining the political and ethical relationships of spectators to the images onscreen.
Drawing on phenomenological theory, feminist ontology and ethics (primarily the work of
Hélène Cixous), as well as the ethical philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy, I
establish the bio-political and ethical positions and responsibilities of spectators who
encounter female suffering in film. In doing so, I highlight the ways in which adopting a
phenomenological approach to theorizing and practicing spectatorial perception can open up
new areas of ethical engagement with (and fields of vision within) controversial modes of
filmmaking such as European New Extremism and body horror.
I analyze how suffering female bodies embody contemporary corporeal, socio-political and
ethical problematics in what I define as the “cinema of exposure.” I argue that through
processes of psychosomatic disturbance, films within the cinema of exposure encourage
spectators to employ a haptic, corporeally situated vision when watching women experience
pain and trauma onscreen. I explore how encounters with these suffering female bodies
impact spectators as political and ethical subjects, contributing a crucial bio-political
dimension to existing work on spectatorial engagement with cinematic affect.
The goal of this thesis is to highlight the continued importance of feminist critiques of
gendered and sexualized violence in film by attending to the emotional, physical, political
and ethical resonances of mediated female suffering. This thesis contributes productively to
those areas of film and media studies, women’s studies and feminist philosophy that explore
the construction of female subjectivity within contemporary culture.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Cinema
Female suffering
Ethics
Feminism
Continental philosophy
Phenomenology
Affect
Politics
Perception
Violence
Gender
Horror
PN1995.9W6S3
Suffering in motion pictures
Women in motion pictures
Motion picture audiences
Motion pictures--United States--History and criticism
Motion pictures--France--History and criticism
Motion pictures--Philosophy
Phenomenology
Cinema of exposure : female suffering and spectatorship ethics
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/189972021-04-19T15:40:46Zcom_10023_123com_10023_30col_10023_125
Iordanova, Dina
Gadalean, Andrei Mihai
xvi, 312 p.
2019-11-25T12:14:49Z
2019-11-25T12:14:49Z
2019-12-04
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/18997
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-18997
This study seeks to trace a history of the representations of sex and sexuality in the Romanian film culture, specifically in relation to the various political, social, and economic factors that have shaped these representations. The assertion of this thesis is that, within the Romanian film culture, there is a continuity evident over the course of the last century, which takes the form of a tension between an impulse to showcase sexuality in an honest, liberated manner, and, opposing it, a systematic compulsion to conceal matters related to sexuality, due to both a tradition of repressed morality, and to an assortment of political and ideological repressive mechanisms.
One of the aims of this thesis is to introduce more complex ways of understanding visibility and representation in cinema, beyond the confines of a profit-driven global film culture, therefore the study moves both on a national, and a transnational level. On the one hand, it explores the ways in which sexuality as represented in Romanian films could nuance the discussion concerning sexuality in the cinema. On the other, it looks at how sexuality as represented in other film cultures has travelled to, and has been received within, the specific Romanian context. While a national framework can be seen as limiting, it is also aimed to focus the discussion, and to establish a scope of concrete evidence to illustrate how the specificity of the context constructs specific ways in which sexuality is represented and interacted with at a cinematic level. In Dagmar
Herzog’s words, “the nation-state is a logical unit to analyse when we are trying to
understand changes in laws and government policies; and for most of the twentieth
century, it is striking how profound an impact laws have had in shaping national and
local sexual cultures and individuals’ self-conceptions alike, as well as – for instance, in the case of restrictions on contraceptive products – the actual bodily experiences of sex”.
The analysis is divided into three main sections. The first focusses on the period
between the start of the 20th century and the end of the Second World War, looking at
the ways in which the Romanian film culture has communicated with the wider,
American and European one, in terms of regulating film sexuality. The middle section
moves to investigate how the mutations brought by state socialism in terms of ideology
and morality have impacted on the visibility of film sexuality, which has been reduced
to the point of sublimation. The final section explores the post-communist period, and
the ways in which cinema, in the Romanian film culture, has used sex and sexuality to
both reckon with a traumatic past, and alleviate traumas of the present.
en
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Romanian cinema
Film sexuality
Sex and sexuality
PN1993.5R6G2
Motion pictures--Romania--History
Gender identity in motion pictures
Sex in motion pictures
"Can Michael the Brave love, or not?" : sex and sexuality in Romanian film culture
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
2024-11-08
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 8th November 2024