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Adam O’Brien
Adam O’Brien
University of Reading
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In and around The Bay: Water, Fish,
Infrastructure
in
Film Studies
An important theme in current studies of environmental representation is the inadequacy of many narratological and stylistic techniques for registering ecological complexity. This article argues that, in the case of cinema, water constitutes an especially vivid example of an allusive natural subject, and it examines the means by which one film, The Bay (Barry Levinson, 2012), manages to confront that challenge. It pays particular attention to The Bay’s treatment of animal life, and its acknowledgement of water’s infrastructural currency. The article draws on the writings of ecocritical literary theorist Timothy Morton and media historian and theorist John Durham Peters.
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‘All the evidence is that Cobargo is slipping’
An ecological approach to rural cinema-going
Author:
This paper considers the impact of extra-filmic elements on the cultural decision-making behaviours of a small rural Australian cinema audience, focusing on the rural New South Wales village of Cobargo in the late 1920s. In considering how why such fragile rural picture show operations either failed or became successful, it is critical to take account of rural geographies, particularly in terms of early road development, and the nature and state of road bridges in flood-prone areas. The paper argues that these elements are part of a broad ecosystemic framework for cultural decision-making which can assist in our interpretation of early newspaper advertising and promotion for picture show programs.
Cinemas in the City
Berlin‘s Public Space in the 1910s and 1920s
Author:
In the early years of the cinema and into the 1910s and 1920s, it was less the film than cinema-going itself that attracted urban publics. In this era, people were enthusiastic about technology and the achievements of modernity; while at the same time they felt anxious about the rapid and radical changes in their social and economic life. In Germany, this contradictory experience was especially harsh and perceptible in the urban metropolis of Berlin. The article demonstrates how within city life, Berlin cinemas – offering the excitement of innovation as well as optimal distraction and entertainment – provided an urban space where, by cinema-going, appeal and uncertainty could be positively reconciled.
Kissing and Killing
A Short History of Brighton on Film
Author:
Over fifty feature films have been made either in or about Brighton and they have all contributed to popular understandings of Brighton‘s history and its character. Collectively, they present the city as a site for extreme emotions and conflicts found within narratives that are always set either on the seafront or at the Royal Pavilion. It can be argued that these Brighton films are not about Brighton at all but instead serve as vehicles for the expression of popular anxieties, concerns and desires. As such, they transcend the specificities of place and history and become projections of what could be described as a national unconscious.