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9 Work in progress By April 2004, La pelota vasca was still causing aftershocks and reflection in all who had participated in its production. Koldo Zuazua was ‘content, but not proud; actually rather disturbed’ [13] while Medem declared ‘it’s very ironic, but thanks to the Partido Popular I can now pay all my debts’ [5]. Moreover, the debate about the Basque conflict had extended beyond Spain as the film played in international festivals. Meanwhile, a somewhat reclusive Medem saw out his prior commitments by filming television advertisements for an electric
3 The work diptych In a founding gesture that seemed to set a pattern, the first French film, the Lumière brothers’ famous Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon (1895), captured exit from the workplace rather than the toil within it. Associated with free time and with distraction from labour, cinema has generally avoided more than fleeting engagement with work (Comolli, 2004: 338–46). Breaking with this more general pattern, some recent French film has shown sustained interest in the workplace (Cadé, 2000). The period since about 1995 has seen a resurgence
Work and leisure: Spare Time 2 Alberto Cavalcanti, the film’s producer, called Spare Time ‘one of the best films the GPO ever made’ and Dai Vaughan, in his portrait of Stewart McAllister, calls the film ‘a curiously important [film] in the history of British documentary’.1 Jennings rejoined the GPO Film Unit just prior to making Spare Time, which was his first major film and the last major film of the GPO Film Unit before it became the Crown Film Unit late in 1940 under the auspices of the Films Division of the Ministry of Infor mation. This important though
(Leutrat 1990 : 41), while Bergala recognises that Sauve qui peut ‘porte en germe la trilogie à venir’ 3 (Bergala 1999 : 107). Ultimately, then, to the extent that one wishes to impose these rather arbitrary divisions within a body of work, it would perhaps be better to speak of a quartet , rather than a trilogy of films beginning with Sauve qui peut (la vie) , and in this chapter we will demonstrate the validity of
Carne trémula (Live Flesh, 1997 ) was seen as a change in direction for Almodóvar in three ways. First, it is an adaptation from a novel, the eponymous thriller by Ruth Rendell. Second, it was, as José Arroyo pointed out, ‘his “straightest” yet – camp figures less than in his other films and, interestingly, not to Carne trémula’ s disadvantage’ ( 1998 : 51). Finally, the film is often interpreted as an explicitly political work and as a clear break with Almodóvar’s previous non-engagement with Spain’s past and the dictatorship in particular (Allinson, 2001
Men at work 3 The Dustbinmen (1969–70), The Knowledge (1979) and London’s Burning (1986) Each of The Dustbinmen, The Knowledge and London’s Burning has an ensemble format in which we witness relationships between working men – and sometimes women. Dramatic tension is derived from the hierarchy within which the men work. The plot arises in The Dustbinmen and London’s Burning from the nature of the job, which involves interaction with the community at large. While rubbish-collection makes for comedy, plots about firefighting are more generically mixed and tend to
The work of Grierson, Bazin and Kracauer makes up the core of what is here referred to as the intuitionist realist tradition in film theory. Most of this work has, generally, been classified as falling into the frame of’ ‘classical’ film theory, although this is an all-embracing term, often used to consign most film theory appearing before the rise of the Saussurian paradigm within one general ‘early
In this co-authored review-reflection, we discuss the African Feminisms 2019 conference, offering a snapshot of the vital and emboldening African feminist work being conducted by researchers, cultural producers and creative practitioners at all levels of their careers, as well as a sense of the emotional labour that this work entails. We note the particular, shocking event that took place in South Africa just prior to the conference informed the papers, performances and ensuing discussions. We also note that the conference and many of its attendees advocated for a variety of approaches (and more than one feminism) when seeking to challenge power.
This interview took place on 8 September, 1976, at the London Filmmakers’ Coop, Fitzroy Road, London. Frampton already had a reputation as one of the major theorist-filmmakers of the contemporary avant-garde, although his work was comparatively little known in Britain at this time.
Dismissed by most critics, including even those sympathetic to alternative cinema, Harmony Korine‘s Gummo (1997) presents a tabloid look at the dark underside of adolescence. It aims to provoke its audience by pushing the boundaries of acceptable good taste. In Gummo, Korine employs a more experimental collage technique in which scenes are linked, not by the cause and effect of conventional plot, but by the elusive logic of free association. This essay contextualizes Korines work within skateboard culture and the recent Modern Gothic trend toward creepy, angst ridden, and death-obsessed work by younger contemporary American artists. It argues that Gummo‘s real achievement rests on its unusual narrative syntax – the way Korine is able to weave together the films disparate scenes and events to create a viscerally assaulting, Modern Gothic portrait of the notion of “difference” in its various manifestations.