Category: Film Studies
Panopticon Perspective: Visual Analysis of a Film
Bent Hamer’s movie Kitchen Stories (2003) is a Norwegian movie that is a combination of the post-war context within the research storyline of daily life practices. Kitchens are places where parts become wholes: where various ingredients could be combined and turned into a new form. In the film, space turns into a research field about …
The Implicit Observer: Exploring Voiceover and the Sense of Reality in Taiwanese Documentary Films
This study examines the role of voiceover in Taiwanese documentary films, with a focus on the increasing use of self-narration by filmmakers. While filmmaker presence was traditionally believed to enhance authenticity, voiceover holds a complex position in documentary aesthetics. Language’s referential nature can convey messages clearly but may also be overly direct, disconnecting audiences and …
Disability or a Personal Lifestyle? Examining Indian and Foreign Depictions of Obesity in “Double XL” and “The Whale”
Growing obesity rates are a serious problem among Indigenous populations in several nations throughout the world. Numerous media studies have been done on various elements of obesity, but there hasn’t been much research done on how obesity is portrayed in the media, particularly in films. Recent films released from both industries with the underlying theme …
Orientalism and Self-Orientalization: A Case Study of Female Images in Chinese Films Awarded at the San Sebastian Film Festival
Since the 1980s, Chinese cinema has gained international recognition, with an increasing number of Chinese films receiving accolades overseas. The portrayal of women in Chinese films has emerged as a contentious and significant creative theme. This research focuses on 11 award-winning Chinese films showcased at the San Sebastian Film Festival, employing textual analysis and cultural …
Unvelling Red Culture in Zhang Yimou’s Films Through a Semiotic Perspective
From “Red Sorghum” (1987) to “Full River Red” (2023), Zhang Yimou’s illustrious career spanning over four decades has been marked by a distinct emphasis on color, particularly the vibrant shade of red. In Zhang Yimou’s films, red transcends its role as a mere color, birthing a visual language that masterfully conveys his creative concepts. This …
Cinematic Practices of Repetitions in “The Grudge” and “Ju-On: Origins” –Remaking Networks, Contexts and Building Taxonomy
Globalization processes profoundly affected the world economy and, consequently, film industries. Film remakes, among the most well-known forms of creative repetitions, became a norm, especially when approached by Hollywood. The scholarship usually associates remaking with the institutional practices of recycling previously established and financially successful trademarks. However, continuous releases of repeated film titles created complicated …
Biography as Cinema Verité? Writing Steve Job’s Life
This paper reviews the biographical film within the genre of documentary and proposes a contemporary approach to a subgenre. Neither completely fiction nor fact, it attests not just to the conceptual hybridity between historie and discours; it also permits both a creative approach to the inscription of life and a critical analysis of the temporal …
Decomposing the Stereotypes: East-West Dichotomy in the Film Adaptations of W. S. Maugham’s the Painted Veil
William Somerset Maugham’s classical novel The Painted Veil (1925), in which a marital crisis is set against a cholera epidemic in China in the 1920s, and its three Hollywood adaptations (1934, 1957, 2006) feature a confrontation between the East and the West through the interaction between the Westerners, allegedly bringing progressive methods in dealing with …
Using the ‘Candle in the Tomb’ Fandom as an Example and Explain Its Associated Behaviours and Values
In recent years, IP films and their fans have received increasing attention. Every film adaptation of an IP work has fans’ support, which actively spreads information. Fans have created their own discourse space in virtual communities, producing a reasonably close-knit social group, thanks to the development of mobile internet technology and the relative democratisation of …
Roars and Recuts: A Comparative Analysis of Japanese and American Versions of Godzilla 1954-1962
This presentation explains how various American distribution companies rebranded the first three Japanese films about Godzilla. I propose these examples offer a unique meeting ground between two film industries and their narrative norms. By textual and industrial analysis with examination of marketing, I reveal the extensive modifications of all three films were done pragmatically. American …
Kissing Scenes in the Representation of Family in Post-war Japanese Films
Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse are well-known Japanese filmmakers who depict the “everyday life” (nichijo in Japanese) of family in the post-war period. Their ways of presenting “everyday life” are characterized by the exclusion of violent and sexual expressions. However, exceptionally, there are kissing scenes in their films and they form unusual expressions. Focusing on …
Droids and Peasants: Akira Kurosawa’s Thematic Influence on the Star Wars Saga
Following the international success of Rashomon (1950) and Seven Samurai (1954), Akira Kurosawa’s films came to exemplify Japanese cinema to western cinemagoers and had ‘a significant influence on many international auteurs and genres’ (Russell 2011). Most famously, George Lucas admits to basing the storyline for the original Star Wars (1977) upon The Hidden Fortress (1958), …
Strength Through Poetry as We Regain Our Balance in the Cinematic COVID Aftermath
Drawing on aforementioned Seamus Heaney and his symbolic reference to a great sea change or tidal wave indicating that a new chapter is about to begin, and “The City” by contemporary writer Ted Hughes ̶ where a life is read like a poem and in fictional dark [Parisian] city centres the writer roams “my own …