Film - Page 2

The Christmas Boooks: a non-Dickensian Paradise of Fantasy, Magic and Supernatural

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Namrata Dey Roy, Susil Kar College , South 24-Parganas

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Abstract

‘Fantasy’, ‘magic’, and ‘supernatural’ – all these words reside far away from the world of Charles Dickens’s novels. The realistic representation of the Victorian society and its cruel maladies in novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations have enriched the English literature and genre novel to a great extent. But The Christmas Books containing A Christmas Carol (1943), The Chimes (1944) and The Cricket on the Hearth (1945) stands as something different from the worn-out tradition of Dickensian novels. With the free play of fantasy, magic and supernatural these stories not only trade the ground of children’s fiction but also verge on the boundary of magic-realism. The paper explores the dominant features of a children’s fantasy and magic realistic elements that are embedded in these novellas with focusing on the major themes and ideas. Keep Reading

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Cooking as Performance: Negotiating Art and Authenticity in Ratatouille

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Poushali Chakraborty, Rabindra Bharati University, India

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Abstract

 Be it quotidian or haute cuisine, ‘Caviar’ or ‘Quesadillas’, cooking has always been a performance, in its experimentation to create an “appetite appeal” (Carafoli 146). This paper, through an analysis of Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava’s directed, Disney animation Ratatouille, explores the engaging analogies and correlations between the processes in cooking and performance. The stage is being replaced by a single performative site – the kitchen, which becomes the theatre of action, producing the ultimate ‘orgy of olfaction’ (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 7). A direct communication is shown to be re-established between the spectator and the spectacle, between the actor and the spectator, from the fact that the spectator is invited to share the secret of the kitchen, and ultimately, is, not only affected by the sight, feel, taste, or smell of the final performative outcome – the food, but also impacted upon by the identity of the performer – Remy, the ‘tiny chef’ – nothing but a provincial rat. Keep Reading

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

A Poetics of Free Indirect Discourse in Narrative Film

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Mohammad Ghaffary, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Amir Ali Nojoumian, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

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Abstract

This essay provides, for the first time, a model for identifying and analyzing “free indirect discourse” (FID) in narrative film, the most problematic mode of representing characters’ discourse which has received little attention from film theorists and critics. According to the established “dual-voice” hypothesis, FID is an ambiguous merger of the narrator’s voice and the character-focalizer’s, without one predominating over the other. The basic argument of the essay, then, is that FID occurs in a film at the moment when the spectator is not able to distinguish narratorial objectivity from characterological subjectivity. This characterizes the narrative text as polyvocal / polyphonic, leading to artistic ambiguity and such processes as “différance” and “deterritorialization.” Based on this theory, the researchers offer a detailed analysis of the textual markers and major functions of FID in filmic narratives. The model provided can be adopted for analyzing any narrative film. Keep Reading

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Revolutionary Roads: Violence versus Non-violence: A comparative study of The Battle of Algiers (1966) and Gandhi (1982)

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Vikash Kumar

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi India

Considered one of the finest realist films ever which reconstitutes perfectly the revolution by the people of Algeria, The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo Gillo, La Bataille d’Alger, Igor Film/ Casbah Films, Italy, 1966) presents us an image of a world of anger and agony. The making of The Battle of Algiers possibly heralded the birth of Algerian cinema as it was the first film made just after their independence. In fact, this cinematographic masterpiece reveals to its viewers a plethora of images depicting the Algerian people in their quest for independence. Made in the year 1966, by Gillo Pontecorvo and based on the personal experiences of Yacef Saddi, Military Head of the FLN (Front de liberation National/ National Liberation Front) who also collaborated on the script of the film, The Battle of Algiers, interestingly, was directed with the aim to highlight the invisible aspects and unheard voices of this violent revolution by the people of Algeria as well as the counter measures taken by the colonial power to suppress the movement. Keep Reading

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

“Popart”: the ‘Global’ Avatar of Bollywood

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Prateek, Ramjas College, New Delhi, India

 Abstract

Since its inception, the concept of “popart” – the interaction of popular cinema and art cinema – has been heralded as one of the most important contributions to Indian film scholarship. Drawing upon insights from Dev Benegal’s English, August, which is supposedly the first and the best example of “popart” film, I shall try to track down the genesis of ‘popart’ cinema and show how and why “popart” has become India’s countershot to world cinema. The first part of the article addresses the rise of Indian cinema through the process of imitation of its western counterpart either in terms of themes borrowed from Western mainstream cinema or cinematic techniques imitated from the “auteurs” of New Wave cinema. The second part of the article argues how a new art form popularly known as “popart” could become an Indian success story. Keep Reading

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Ravaged Bodies, Embodied Performance: Performativity in Dattani’s Brief Candle

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Samipendra Banerjee, University of Gour Banga, Malda, India

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Abstract

Brief Candle, Mahesh Dattani’s latest play concerns itself with the plight of cancer patients but in the process takes important strides in performativity. This paper is an attempt to evaluate performance and performativity within the theatrical space through an analysis of the centrally dominant stage prop, the mask or ‘Face of Cancer’ and performing bodies. Touching upon the genealogy of Performance Studies as a discipline and its intricate and fraught relationship with the theatre I seek to explore performative elements in the play. I also seek to look at the ‘derogated’, cancerous body as a charged site of performativity and argue that bio-medical and technological intervention crucially transforms the human body. The play could also be read as a space that explores the post-human body and its performative possibilities. Keep Reading

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Was Shakespeare an Existential Wimp?

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Rob Harle, Independent Researcher and Artist, Australia

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In this paper I discuss the way in which Shakespeare explores the implications of such human traits as lust, greed and envy.  The acts of violence we perpetrate upon ourselves and one another indicate that there may be no guarantees of benevolent human action. I will look at “Measure for Measure” and “The Merchant of Venice”, these two plays seem to me to address the problem of benevolent human action at a more complex level than many of Shakespeare’s other plays. Further, many performance studies address how the audience feels ‘during’ the performance, this essay addresses how the audience feels when ‘leaving’ the theatre. Keep Reading

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Re-narrating Globalization: Hybridity and Resistance in Amores Perros, Santitos and El Jardín del Edén

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Brent Smith

University of New Mexico, USA

Volume 2, Number 3, 2010 I Download PDF Version

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v2n3.05

Abstract

This paper explores the articulation of resistance to neoliberal globalization in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros, Alejandro Springall’s Santitos and Maria Novaro’s El Jardín del Edén.  I argue that this resistance is enunciated within what Homi Bhabha terms ‘Third Space’, the in-between space of cultural translation and negotiation where notions of an essential national identity are destroyed and a contingent and indeterminate hybrid identity is constructed. Speaking from this hybrid space, these films employ Western cinematic conventions to construct narratives of the disjunctive experience of postcolonial time and space that disrupt the dominant temporality and imaginative geography of Western grand narratives of historical progress and global economic development, while at the same time deterritorializing the space and time of national imagining. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

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