Transnationalism has replaced the comfort zone of a ‘national’ cinema with the continual temporal and spatial redesign of its evolution and current condition, while tracking its provenance has erased hegemonic historical perspectives by revealing that globalization is less a contemporary phenomenon than a longstanding tradition for some and a dark secret for others. The limited … Continue reading “Corners and Edges”
Category: Uncategorized
Traffic Lights
We have a plan. Okay, we have part of a plan. We have twelve percent of a plan. That’s a fake laugh. Anyway, we’re almost down to the wire for submissions to The Routledge Companion to World Cinema and I’m off on holiday for a few weeks so I thought I’d check on the incoming, … Continue reading “Traffic Lights”
Don’t Give Up The Day Job
One consequence of co-editing The Routledge Companion to World Cinema is that one’s horizons are continually expanding, as is one’s ‘to watch’ (i.e. to buy) list as fascinating films are described in chapters like restaurant reviews offering haptic descriptions of great meals. The problem is that when I find time to do my day job, … Continue reading “Don’t Give Up The Day Job”
Adapt and Overcome
The organic nature of an edited book means that no matter how thorough your planning nor how strict your e-mails, it will throw up anomalies, left turns (when you want go right) and alternative universes. You want blue? It turns out I can’t do blue. Here’s a yellow one instead. 6000 apples is all you … Continue reading “Adapt and Overcome”
Finished! (My Chapter, Not The Book)
I finished my chapter. Or at least the first draft of it. It’s too long but I don’t know what to cut and it’s gone off to external review in the hope that someone will tell me. It’s something of a culmination of theories that I’ve been following and developing since 2004, when I first … Continue reading “Finished! (My Chapter, Not The Book)”
So Where Were We?
If you’re counting, we’re up to chapter 15. 15 of 40. Except chapter 15 dropped out. So we’ll jump to 16 for the moment and come back to 15 when we’ve considered our options, rethought the structure and commissioned something new. Nobody could ever predict how an edited book might turn out. Not the publishers … Continue reading “So Where Were We?”
When Is A Film Not A Film?
When it’s long form TV? Ask me what the best new films I’ve seen recently are and nothing I’ve seen in the cinema or on DVD comes to mind. What comes to mind are the knowing and affectionate Stranger Things and the weird, stylish and wonderful Fargo season 2 with its incredible soundtrack on Netflix, … Continue reading “When Is A Film Not A Film?”
Meanwhile…The Screening Rights Film Festival
The Screening Rights Film Festival 2016 is almost upon us – festival passes are on sale and the exciting programme is available! The Screening Rights Film Festival 2016 is a four-day programme of important and inspiring Social Justice films by award-winning and new directors from across the globe. Taking place across Birmingham, all films will … Continue reading “Meanwhile…The Screening Rights Film Festival”
Interconnections
Staying with Crofts’ problematic view that Australian and Canadian cinemas are “imitations of US cinema” brings us to our abstract on Canadian cinema(s) from Christopher E. Gittings (note the optional s). This chapter was a big ask. Canadian cinemas are complex, multifarious and very little known outside of the art house and horror genre. This chapter … Continue reading “Interconnections”
Revise, Rewatch, Rewrite
One of the most obvious ways in which the revisionism and usefulness of The Routledge Companion to world Cinemas will be tested is by comparison with prevailing theories and frameworks of World cinema. Unafraid to take on Benedict Anderson’s theory of imagined communities or the long-standing paradigm of eight concepts of national cinemas elaborated by Stephen Crofts, The … Continue reading “Revise, Rewatch, Rewrite”