http://hdl.handle.net/10023/124 2013-04-20T02:01:32Z http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3473 Abstract: In this article I compare two recent films that foreground the body at risk in the new wars of the twenty-first century. Paradise Now (Abu-Assad, 2005) and The Hurt Locker (Bigelow, 2008) convey the subject of the body in war from what would seem to be opposing perspectives, the first representing the experience of a resistance fighter, a suicide bomber in present-day Palestine, and the latter rendering the perceptions of a US soldier, the leader of a bomb disposal squad in Iraq. Seeming opposites, antitheses of each other, the two protagonists and the two films can be set face to face in a way that brings the changing nature of modern war into frame. No longer defined by the ideology of total war that shaped the grand narratives of twentieth-century combat, the new imagery of war and resistance, of insurgency and counter-insurgency, is crystallized here in a new symbolic iteration of the body at risk. 2012-06-12T00:00:00Z Burgoyne, Robert James In this article I compare two recent films that foreground the body at risk in the new wars of the twenty-first century. Paradise Now (Abu-Assad, 2005) and The Hurt Locker (Bigelow, 2008) convey the subject of the body in war from what would seem to be opposing perspectives, the first representing the experience of a resistance fighter, a suicide bomber in present-day Palestine, and the latter rendering the perceptions of a US soldier, the leader of a bomb disposal squad in Iraq. Seeming opposites, antitheses of each other, the two protagonists and the two films can be set face to face in a way that brings the changing nature of modern war into frame. No longer defined by the ideology of total war that shaped the grand narratives of twentieth-century combat, the new imagery of war and resistance, of insurgency and counter-insurgency, is crystallized here in a new symbolic iteration of the body at risk. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3467 Abstract: Montgomery Clift has been underexplored by film scholars, who have mostly focused on his early career. This article uses queer theory to examine Clift's later work, focusing on Wild River (dir. Elia Kazan, 1960); it argues that in this film Clift's narrative role, performance, and star persona radically challenge normative masculinity and heterosexuality. 2011-09-23T00:00:00Z Girelli, Elisabetta Montgomery Clift has been underexplored by film scholars, who have mostly focused on his early career. This article uses queer theory to examine Clift's later work, focusing on Wild River (dir. Elia Kazan, 1960); it argues that in this film Clift's narrative role, performance, and star persona radically challenge normative masculinity and heterosexuality. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2012 Abstract: This paper focuses on three Czechoslovak films from the Communist era: two New Wave features, the Oscar-winning Ostre SledovanéVlaky/Closely Observed Trains (Jirí Menzel, 1966) and O Slavnosti A Hostech/The Party And The Guests (Jan Nĕmec, 1966), plus a key post-Prague Spring film, Ucho/The Ear (Karel Kachyňa, 1970). All three films were banned following the 1968 Soviet invasion. This paper considers the films in the light of their use of spatial constructions and narratives; it argues that the films’ inherent subversive content is primarily articulated through spatial strategies, which also provide the films with their main motivation. Specifically, the paper examines a filmic discourse of political and social subversion which hinges on the negotiation and appropriation of space. Starting from the notion that space is produced by social agency and interaction, and from Michael Foucault’s assertion that ‘we do not live inside a void, inside of which we could place individuals and things […] we live inside a set of relations’, this paper will look at the dynamic relationship of the films’ characters to their allotted spatial situations. At the same time, narrative and visual texts will be contextualized, by relating the films’ representation of private and public space to the national context in which the films were made. 2011-03-01T00:00:00Z Girelli, Elisabetta This paper focuses on three Czechoslovak films from the Communist era: two New Wave features, the Oscar-winning Ostre SledovanéVlaky/Closely Observed Trains (Jirí Menzel, 1966) and O Slavnosti A Hostech/The Party And The Guests (Jan Nĕmec, 1966), plus a key post-Prague Spring film, Ucho/The Ear (Karel Kachyňa, 1970). All three films were banned following the 1968 Soviet invasion. This paper considers the films in the light of their use of spatial constructions and narratives; it argues that the films’ inherent subversive content is primarily articulated through spatial strategies, which also provide the films with their main motivation. Specifically, the paper examines a filmic discourse of political and social subversion which hinges on the negotiation and appropriation of space. Starting from the notion that space is produced by social agency and interaction, and from Michael Foucault’s assertion that ‘we do not live inside a void, inside of which we could place individuals and things […] we live inside a set of relations’, this paper will look at the dynamic relationship of the films’ characters to their allotted spatial situations. At the same time, narrative and visual texts will be contextualized, by relating the films’ representation of private and public space to the national context in which the films were made.