| Volume 21 Number 1 |
Rescued from a Perilous Nest: D. W. Griffith's Escape from Theatre into Film, 2-30 Russell Merritt Abstract: In the twelve years between 1895 and 1907 that he spent on the stage, Griffith wrote his most nakedly autobiographical work. The plays, letters, and poems that survive come from a deeply troubled would-be artist ashamed of his rural poverty, haunted by his father, and afraid of women. His early experience in the theatre generally aggravated those troubles. His films enabled him to control, redirect, and sublimate his obsessions. From Virgin to Dynamo: The "Amoral Woman" in European Cinema, 31-58 David Davidson Abstract: Conceived within the framework of a shared aesthetic sensibility--masculine, European, modernist--the "amoral women" evoked in "Pandora's Box, The Blue Angel," and "Jules and Jim" are "free" to express their femininity absolutely; yet this self-expression becomes the terrifying measure of the sexism which had denied each of them a unified sense of identity. Cinema Journal Book Reviews ----------------, 59-64 To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema Noel Burch, Annette Michelson Review Author[s]: Sybil Thornton Screening out the past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry Lary May Review Author[s]: D. G. The Film in History: Restaging the past Pierre Sorlin Review Author[s]: D. G. |
| Volume 21 Number 2 |
"Bicycle Thieves": A Re-Reading, 2-13 Frank P. Tomasulo Abstract: The attempt here is to show the relationship of ideology to textual production and history through a close analysis of a single film, while at the same time challenging the conventional wisdom regarding its "progressive" political and aesthetic stances. Herrmann, Hitchcock, and the Music of the Irrational, 14-49 Royal S. Brown Abstract: The extremely fruitful collaboration between director Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann allowed for the evolution of a cine-musical style that seems in many ways to be the only one possible for a director primarily concerned with the eruptions of the irrational within the context of a solidly established ethos. Cinema Journal Book Reviews ----------------, 50-54 The Cinematic Apparatus Teresa de Lauretis, Stephen Heath Review Author[s]: William C. Wees Coronation Street Richard Dyer Review Author[s]: Jane Feuer The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer David Bordwell Review Author[s]: D. G. Motion Pictures: The Development of an Art A. R. Fulton A Short History of the Movies Gerald Mast A History of Narrative Film David A. Cook Review Author[s]: D. G. The Hollywood Social Problem Film: Madness, Despair and Politics from the Depression to the Fifties Peter Roffman, Jim Purdy Review Author[s]: D. G. Blake Edwards Peter Lehman, William Luhr Review Author[s]: D. G. Moving Pictures Budd Schulberg Review Author[s]: D. G. All the Stars in Heaven: Louis B. Mayer's M-G-M Gary Carey Review Author[s]: D. G. |
| Volume 22 Number 1 |
Front Matter Editor's Introduction, 2-4 Virginia Wright Wexman Professional Notes, 63-68 E. Ann Kaplan |
| Volume 22 Number 2 |
Thomas H. Ince: His Esthetic, His Films, His Legacy, 2-25 Jean Mitry, Martin Sopocy, Paul Attallah Abstract: A consideration of the first of the great Hollywood producers, stressing his use of expressive epic narratives long before such forms were adopted by other filmmakers. Translated from the French by Martin Sopocy with Paul Attallah. Abel Gance's Other Neglected Masterwork: "La Roue" (1922-1923), 26-41 Richard Abel, Abel Gance Abstract: In some ways, "La Roue" is an incoherent text, marked by widely varied theories of film that were emerging in France in the late 1910's and early 1920's. But the film also reveals textual coherence. The celebrated rapid montage sequences perform a narrative function, and there are several sustained patterns of rhetorical figuring. The Crystal Formation: Narrative Structure in "Grey Gardens", 42-53 Kenneth J. Robson Abstract: In "Grey Gardens" the Maysles resist the opposing tendencies to superimpose a narrative structure upon their material or to present it as essentially unstructured. The success of the film lies in the skill with which the two filmmakers capture the confusion and incoherence in the lives of their subjects. In so doing, they reveal fundamental insights and patterns without tampering with the integrity of the material. Professional Notes, 60-68 E. Ann Kaplan |
| Volume 22 Number 3 |
Editor's Introduction, 2-3 Virginia Wright Wexman American Vitagraph: 1897-1901, 4-46 Charles Musser Abstract: The early years of American Vitagraph Company are re-examined in a way which reveals the problems and realities of the moving picture world during the 1890s. Vitagraph's business policies reflect the interplay of film production and exhibition, suggesting that the company's business strategies are seen most profitably in relation to cinema's historically specific mode of production. From Lukács to Kracauer and beyond: Social Film Histories and the German Cinema, 47-70 Patrice Petro Abstract: In an effort to uncover the assumptions behind sociological analysis of the German cinema, this essay examines Siegfried Kracauer's "From Caligari to Hitler", Paul Monaco's "Cinema and Society", and Julian Petley's "Capital and Culture", arguing that despite its obvious flaws, Kracauer's study remains the most compelling model for subsequent interpretation. Professional Notes, 71-75 E. Ann Kaplan, Lauren Rabinovitz |
| Volume 22 Number 4 |
Front Matter Editor's Introduction, 2 Virginia Wright Wexman Visit to a Familiar Planet: Buñuel among the Hurdanos, 3-17 E. Rubinstein Abstract: This paper explores, amplifies, and challenges some commonly accepted views of Buñuel's "Land Without Bread" as (1) a "scientific" document, (2) a travelogue, and (3) a radical variation on received notions of the relation of image and sound in film. The Blattnerphone: An Early Attempt to Introduce Magnetic Recording into the Film Industry, 18-37 William Lafferty Abstract: Magnetic recording, today the standard film industry process for production sound recording, is often considered a purely post-World War II phenomenon. Actually, attempts had been made throughout this century to implement magnetic recording in sound motion pictures. Ludwig Blattner's effort to interest the film industry in magnetic recording as a viable alternative to the cumbersome disc and costly optical systems which revolutionized the industry during the late 1920s proved abortive. Yet Blattner's promotional activities on behalf of his Blattnerphone culminated in the introduction of magnetic sound recording in the international broadcasting industry during the 1930s. The Middle-Class American Home of the Fifties: The Use of Architecture in Nicholas Ray's "Bigger than Life" and Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows", 38-57 Roger D. McNiven Abstract: Two important fifties melodramas characterize the contemporary home in ways typical of the genre of films dealing with the American family. Formal analysis of the films reveals an opposition between conceptual and expressionistic uses of architecture. These contrasting uses of architecture, in turn, affect the way in which the films function as social critiques. Dialogue Historical Method and Data Acquisition: Douglas Gomery Replies to Charles Musser's "American Vitagraph: 1897-1901", 58-60 Douglas Gomery Charles Musser Responds, 61-64 Charles Musser Professional Notes, 65-74 E. Ann Kaplan |
| Volume 23 Number 1 |
Editor's Introduction, 2-3 Virginia Wright Wexman Report from the President, 4-6 Bill Nichols The Workers' International Relief and the Cinema of the Left 1921-1935, 7-23 Vance Kepley Jr. Abstract: Workers' International Relief, a Berlin-based socialist organization, worked throughout the 1920s to create an international apparatus to support leftist cinema. Its organization eventually encompassed radical cinema movements in Germany, Russia, America, and elsewhere before it was crushed by the rise of Nazism. Two-Faced Women: The "Double" in Women's Melodrama of the 1940s, 24-43 Lucy Fischer Abstract: In the 1940s a particular sub-genre of the Hollywood "woman's picture" was popular--films whose plot centered on twin sisters played by the same actress. Three such films are examined in this essay: "Cobra Woman" (1944) and "Dark Mirror" (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak, and "A Stolen Life" (1946) directed by Curtis Bernhardt. After discussing the narrative of these films in relation to classical theories of the "double" figure in literature and psychoanalysis, the essay argues that the specific configuration of these narratives confirms certain patriarchal notions of womanhood, which bifurcate the female into alleged "feminine" and "masculine" poles. BDR 1-2-3: Fassbinder's Postwar Trilogy and the Spectacle, 44-56 Howard Feinstein Abstract: This essay attempts to historicize Fassbinder's BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) Trilogy films, "The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lola", and "Veronika Voss". He stresses the spectacular nature of the image, often embodied in the form of a female protagonist in her encounter with concrete historical forces. In terms of structure, he treats the films' basic generic mode, the melodrama, dialectically, both adhering to, and revising, its norms in their historical development. Dialogue The AFI and Film Education II: Jean Firstenberg Responds to E. Ann Kaplan's Editorial Statement, 60-61 Jean Firstenberg The BFI and Film Education: Edward Buscombe Responds to E. Ann Kaplan's Editorial Statement, 62-63 Edward Buscombe Professional Notes, 64-70 E. Ann Kaplan, Thomas E. Erffmeyer |
| Volume 23 Number 2 |
Report from the President, 2-3 Bill Nichols The Absent Presence: Stendhal in Bertolucci's "Prima della rivoluzione", 4-28 T. Jefferson Kline Abstract: Although Bertolucci alludes to Stendhal's "The Charterhouse of Parma" as the source for "Before the Revolution", the film appears unfaithful to the novel's plot. Bertolucci uses the issue of stylistic adaptation as the fulcrum of a cinematic revolution parallel to Godard's anti-Bazanian work of the same period. "At Last I Can Tell It to Someone!": Feminine Point of View and Subjectivity in the Gothic Romance Film of the 1940s, 29-40 Diane Waldman Abstract: This paper focuses on the Gothic romance film of the 1940s, its place within the Gothic genre and the relationship between its textual variations and the historical situation of American women. For although the Gothic mode has always permitted the articulation of feminine fear, anger, and distrust of the patriarchal order, the films of the war and post-war period place an unusual emphasis on the affirmation of feminine perception, interpretation, and lived experience. Combination and Litigation: Structures of U.S. Film Distribution, 1896-1917, 41-72 Janet Staiger Abstract: This new account of early US filmmaking argues that the Patents Company and independents operated similarly. Both factions formed distribution combinations, organizing efficient and profitable alliances to secure an economic dominance. Furthermore, Patent members did not cling to their alliance when it was threatened but sought competitively viable options. Dialogue Charles H. Harpole Replies to Bill Nichols's "Report from the President" ("Cinema Journal," Fall 1983), 73-75 Charles H. Harpole Bill Nichols Replies, 75-76 Bill Nichols Professional Notes, 77-82 E. Ann Kaplan, Thomas E. Erffmeyer |
| Volume 23 Number 3 |
Editor's Introduction, 2-3 Virginia Wright Wexman Report from the President, 4-5 Bill Nichols A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre, 6-18 Rick Altman Abstract: In an attempt to reconcile conflicting views regarding the determination of a film genre's corpus, opposed strategies characteristic of genre history and genre theory, and the different claims of ritual and ideological genre critics, this article proposes a new understanding of generic concerns based on a structured combination of semantic and syntactic approaches. Time and Desire in the Woman's Film, 19-30 Tania Modleski Abstract: This article reviews the scholarship on melodrama, which has been linked to "muteness" and to "conversion hysteria," and, using "Letter from an Unknown Woman" as its chief example, speculates on the reasons for the genre's special appeal to women. Political Allegory and "Engaged Cinema": Sembene's "Xala", 31-46 Marcia Landy, Sembene Abstract: Sembene's films are an attempt to create "engaged cinema" as an alternative discourse to dominant cinematic practices. His texts interrogate the relationship between film and politics and specifically the nature of what he terms "cultural imperialism." This essay explores Sembene's uses of allegory, satire, and montage as major strategies for creating interactions between text and audience. Professional Notes, 47-52 E. Ann Kaplan, Thomas E. Erffmeyer Erratum, 52 |
| Volume 23 Number 4 |
Report from the President, 2-3 Bill Nichols What Is Description in the Cinema?, 4-11 Seymour Chatman Abstract: This essay investigates the way in which a film can be said to describe rather than simply to show an environment as background to action. The problem arises because film, unlike print, operates in the audience's real time, and hence suggests that "story-time" (the time of the fictional events depicted) is always passing, whereas genuine description in novels evokes the sense of a pause in the story. Examples of description from narrative fiction and film (Antonioni) are given by way of demonstration. Painting the Legend: Frederic Remington and the Western, 12-27 Edward Buscombe Abstract: Frederic Remington is not only the best known painter of Western subjects but also an artist who has had a decided impact on directors of Western films such as John Ford. This essay explores the relationship between Remington and the Western film genre. Remington's involvement in some of the decisive moments at which images of "the West" became focused created a corpus of work which embodied values that provided the basis for later Western films. Artaud and Film: A Reconsideration, 28-40 Naomi Greene Abstract: This essay explores Artaud's work in film (his theories, screenplays, and his one film "La couqille et le clergyman") in light on his own preoccupations and in relation to French artistic currents of the 1920s. It shows that while surrealism did have a major effect upon his work, it was by no means the only important influence. Humanizing "The Voice of God": Narration in "The Naked City", 41-53 Sarah Kozloff Abstract: "The Naked City" provides an example of creative and distinctly personal voice-over narration. Through close examination of this film and through the perspective provided by current narrative theory, this essay questions previous assumptions about the authority and legitimacy of voice-over narration. Grants Bulletin, 54-62 Elizabeth Davidson Ludicky Professional Notes, 63-71 E. Ann Kaplan Erratum, 76 |
| Volume 24 Number 1 |
"Something Else besides a Mother": "Stella Dallas" and the Maternal Melodrama, 2-27 Linda Williams Abstract: This article asks what is different about a classic narrative film in which the primary "look" motivating the narrative is between mother and daughter--e.g., when the typical look of desire articulates a visual economy of mother-daughter possession and dispossession and when the significant viewer of this drama is herself a woman. King Vidor's "Stella Dallas" is thus used as an interesting test case for many important concepts of recent feminist film theory as well as for feminist thinking about the formation of the female subject. Fred Astaire and the Integrated Musical, 28-40 John Mueller Abstract: A method for distinguishing the plot relevance of various kinds of musical numbers is suggested. The contribution of Fred Astaire to the development of the integrated musical is assessed with emphasis on the remarkable story-telling aspects of his choreography, and it is concluded that he was probably the first meaningfully to integrate dance into musicals. Functions of Film: Léger's Cinema on Paper and on Cellulose, 1913-25, 41-64 Richard Brender Abstract: The first generation of the French avant-garde to become involved with film theory pinned its hopes on the new medium's potential for reaching all classes of French society. Fernand Léger, Elie Faure, Ricciotto Canudo, and Blaise Cendrars saw their utopian socialist ambition of strengthening the ties of solidarity among French citizens as being within their reach once the cinema was allowed to created a "new humanity." By the mid-twenties, however, it was left to Léger alone to pursue this line of inquiry and to develop a film practice pursuant to its aims. "Ballet Méchanique" was the result. Professional Notes, 65-72 E. Ann Kaplan |
| Volume 24 Number 2 |
Report from the SCS President: Applying for Jobs in Film and TV Studies, 2-8 Bill Nichols Cinematic Snuff: German Friends and Narrative Murders, 9-18 Timothy Corrigan Abstract: Renowned collaborators, Wim Wenders and Peter Handke share an obsession with narratives not only about death and murder but about the murderous action of narrative itself. In "Lightning Over Water", however, Wenders breaks with this aesthetic bond and confronts these narrative patterns of murder in order to expose the Oedipal logic on which they are based. Like no other Wenders work, the film redeems its subject and father-figure, Nick Ray, from the traditional death through imagistic homage, and so becomes a most significant move in Wenders's historical development. The Evolution of Orson Welles's "Touch of Evil" from Novel to Film, 19-39 John C. Stubbs Abstract: The essay traces the evolution of "Touch of Evil" through its four major stages: an original novel by Robert Wade and William Miller, a screenplay by Paul Monash, a screenplay by Orson Welles, and the film itself. It attempts to clarify the extent of Welles's indebtedness to his previous sources and the ways in which he reshaped that material to make it his own. Dialogue Ann Kaplan Replies to Linda Williams's " 'Something Else besides a Mother: "Stella Dallas" and the Maternal Melodrama' " ("Cinema Journal," Fall 1984), 40-43 Ann Kaplan Symposium: The Future of Cinema Studies, Part I Introduction, 44-45 Robert C. Allen Participants Symposium on the Future of Cinema Studies, 46 Ruminations of an Ex-Cinematologist, 47-52 Jack C. Ellis The Future of Cinema Studies: A View from the Trenches, 53-55 Janice R. Welsch From Photoplays to Texts: Film Theory, Film Studies, and the Future, 56-61 Ana Lopez Evaluating the Text: Canon Formation and Screen Scholarship, 62-65 Virginia Wright Wexman Professional Notes, 66-71 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 24 Number 3 |
Front Matter Editor's Introduction, 3 Virginia Wright Wexman The Politics of Film Canons, 4-23 Janet Staiger Abstract: Canons and canon formation pose questions for the Academy: On what bases do we evaluate films? What are the politics of those judgments? This essay surveys some of the positions taken regarding these questions, considering their economic and social contexts and the political implications of these positions. Holes in the Sausage of History: May '68 as Absent Center in Three European Films, 24-42 Robin Bates Abstract: The French student-worker uprising of 1968 opened up a crack in prevailing conceptions of reality, undermining traditional assumptions about the nature of advanced capitalist society. Godard ("Tout va bien"), Tavernier ("The Clockmaker"), and Tanner ("Jonah who will be 25 in the year 2000") draw on these insights as they maneuver in a society that denies class conflict. Tabu: The Making of a Film, 43-64 Mark J. Langer Abstract: This production history of "Tabu" outlines the determining effect of personal, organizational, economic, and other factors on the final form of the film, in order to demonstrate that "Tabu" is not the inscription of a single personality. Dialogue Terry Comito Replies to John Stubbs's "The Evolution of Orson Welles's "Touch of Evil" from Novel to Film" ("Cinema Journal," Winter 1985), 65-67 Terry Comito John Stubbs Replies to Terry Comito, 67-68 John Stubbs Society for Cinema Studies Constitution, 69-76 Professional Notes, 77-80 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 24 Number 4 |
Editor's Introduction, 3 Virginia Wright Wexman The Subject of "The Conversation", 4-22 Dennis Turner Abstract: Coppola's film strives to be a genre film at the same time that its origins are in the fractured past of the fantasy tale and the continental art film. The ruptured narratives and unreadable sound track fail to provide viewers the certainty and closure in which they have learned to constitute themselves in a comfortably integral subjectivity. The Studios Move into Prime Time: Hollywood and the Television Industry in the 1950s, 23-37 William Boddy Abstract: This article analyzes the economic relations between the motion picture and television industries through the 1950s, challenging the traditional explanations of the transition from television's "Golden Age" of live drama to the modern era of "Hollywood television" dominated by network-licensed film series. Symposium: The Future of Cinema Studies, Part II Introduction, 38 Robert C. Allen Film as a Museum Object, 39-42 John Kuiper Film Study and Filmmakers, 43-47 David H. Shepard Film and Television Studies in Great Britain, 48-50 Edward Buscombe Broader Alliances: Focusing the Field, 51-58 J. Ronald Green Report on the American Film Institute Education Services, 59-71 Bill Nichols Grants Bulletin, 72-79 William C. Siska Professional Notes, 80-83 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 25 Number 1 |
Robert Altman and the Theory of Authorship, 3-11 Robert Self Abstract: "Robert Altman" is the name of the author metonymic with the variety of productive forces that intersect and disperse across the set of two dozen films bearing that name. It signifies numerous modes of discourse -- technological, industrial, societal, formal, psychological, academic--each of which authorizes a different "notional coherence" in the reading of these films. On the Threshold of French Film Theory and Criticism, 1915-1919, 12-33 Richard Abel Abstract: Led by Emile Vuillermoz and Louis Delluc, between 1915 and 1919, French writing on the cinema developed into an autonomous discourse. Within that discourse there emerged a spectrum of "theories" of "narrative" film, a fascination with "description" through the concept of "photogénie" (later crucial to André Bazin and Jean Mitry), and alternative "musical", "plastic", and "poetic" "theories" of film construction. Rossellini and Cinematic Realism, 34-49 Peter Brunette Abstract: This essay sees neo-realist aesthetics from a Derridean perspective and considers how the "real" is used in Rossellini's post-war films to disrupt the prevailing codes of "realism." It examines such later films as "A Human Voice" and "The Machine to Kill Bad People" to make a provisional case for an "expressionist" Rossellini. Dialogue Patrice Petro and Carol Flinn on Feminist Film Theory, 50-52 Patrice Petro, Carol Flinn E. Ann Kaplan Replies, 52-54 E. Ann Kaplan Of Canons and Quietism: Dudley Andrew Responds to Janet Staiger's "The Politics of Film Canons" ("Cinema Journal," Spring 1985), 55-58 Dudley Andrew Gerald Mast Replies to Janet Staiger's "The Politics of Film Canons" ("Cinema Journal," Spring 1985), 59-61 Gerald Mast Janet Staiger Replies to Dudley Andrew and Gerald Mast, 61-64 Janet Staiger Professional Notes, 65-68 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 25 Number 2 |
President's Report, 3 Vivian Sobchack The Metafictional Hitchcock: The Experience of Viewing and the Viewing of Experience in "Rear Window" and "Psycho", 4-19 R. Barton Palmer Abstract: Hitchcock's later American films are metafictional in that they connect closely to the narrative/representational traditions of classic film realism while, simultaneously, critiquing those traditions. "Rear Window" makes a hero of the spectator who violates his or her contract with the fiction consumed, while "Psycho," a radical "film noir," defeats generic expectations and refuses the operation of textual closure/disclosure. Lost Lost Lost over "Lost Lost Lost", 20-34 Scott MacDonald Abstract: This introduction to Jonas Mekas's epic "diary" "Lost Lost Lost" sees the film as a tightly constructed experimental narrative which enacts a triadic pattern familiar from classic literature: expulsion from Eden, the dark night of the soul, and rebirth. Mekas began collecting the footage upon his arrival in the United States in 1949, assuming it would become part of a documentary about the Lithuanian displaced persons community in Brooklyn; but when he finally edited the footage in 1975, it focused on his discovery/creation of the aesthetic homeland which had enabled him to recover from the loss of his native land. "Getting Physical": Text/Context/Reading and the Made-for-Television Movie, 35-50 Laurie Jane Schulze Abstract: This essay indicates the general shape of the made-for-TV movie that emerges from a consideration of the economic conditions of its production, and examines a recent example of the form, "Getting Physical," a film which ostensibly promotes a sub-cultural figure that would seem to threaten dominant, patriarchal values: the female competitive bodybuilder. Crossing Wavelengths: The Diegetic and Referential Imaginary of American Commercial Television, 51-64 Mimi White Abstract: This article offers a reading of American television that approaches the medium in terms of dispersed mechanisms of continuity. It analyzes the fascination and hold of television in general, in its multiple textuality, for and on its viewers with each of their distinctive patterns of watching. Dialogue Tania Modleski Replies, 66 Tania Modleski Linda Williams Replies, 66-67 Linda Williams Professional Notes, 68-73 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 25 Number 3 |
Editor's Introduction, 3-4 Virginia Wright Wexman Mass Culture and the Feminine: The "Place" of Television in Film Studies, 5-21 Patrice Petro Abstract: When describing the differences between film and television viewing, theorists and critics all too frequently employ gendered metaphors and oppositions. This article examines representative writings on film and television and speculates on the reason for the continual appeal to gender-oppositions in film and television criticism. Toward Victory: Left Film in France, 1930-35, 22-52 Jonathan Buchsbaum Abstract: Between 1930 and 1935, as France reeled from political and economic crises, an oppositional left culture formed to mobilize popular support for resisting the threat of fascism. Before and during the ultimately successful campaign, French filmmakers -- for the first time in France -- turned to film as a political resource. Notes on the Soap Opera Apparatus: Televisual Style and "As the World Turns", 53-70 Jeremy G. Butler Abstract: In order to fully understand how the soap opera apparatus constructs the meanings that it does, we must examine the operation of its presumably "invisible" style. Utilizing recent work on film melodrama and television soap opera, this study describes and analyzes the signifying function of the genre's televisual style. Dialogue In Response to "Cinema Journal's" New Policy of Publishing Articles on Television, "David Thorburn" Has Submitted the Following Comments, 71-74 David Thorburn Jane Feuer Replies to David Thorburn, 74-76 Jane Feuer Leland Poague Replies to Robert Self's "Robert Altman and the Theory of Authorship" ("Cinema Journal," Fall 1985), 76-80 Leland Poague Robert Self Replies, 80-83 Robert Self Professional Notes, 84-85 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 25 Number 4 |
Editor's Introduction, 3-5 Virginia Wright Wexman Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification: Valentino and Female Spectatorship, 6-32 Miriam Hansen Abstract: As the first major star whose films were primarily addressed to a female audience, Valentino both overstates and undercuts the patriarchal economy of visual pleasure, combining the traditionally masculine agency of the look with a feminine position of erotic object. Valentino's appeal is discussed along with feminist concepts of spectatorship and identification, but also in terms of historical standards of masculinity, social marginality, and ethnic/racial otherness. Carmen: Sound/Effect, 33-43 David Wills Abstract: This essay looks at recent Carmen films as reworkings of an old story of sexual politics. It analyzes, in particular, Rosi's use of the bullfight, and Saura's and Godard's films in terms of a problematization of the matters of gender and genre. For Godard's case this refers, via the sound/image relationship, back to the problematics of representation. Dialogue Christine Gledhill on "Stella Dallas" and Feminist Film Theory, 44-48 Christine Gledhill E. Ann Kaplan Replies, 49-53 E. Ann Kaplan Jeanne T. Allen Responds to R. Barton Palmer's "The Metafictional Hitchcock: The Experience of Viewing and the Viewing of Experience in "Rear Window" and "Psycho" ("Cinema Journal," Winter 1985), 54-56 Jeanne T. Allen R. Barton Palmer Replies, 56-58 R. Barton Palmer Peter Lehman Replies to Virginia Wright Wexman on Referee Procedures ("Editor's Introduction," "Cinema Journal," Spring 1986), 59-60 Peter Lehman Grants Bulletin, 61-68 William C. Siska Professional Notes, 69-76 Mirella Jona Affron |