| Volume 26 Number 1 |
The National Board of Review and the Early Art Cinema in New York: "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" as Affirmative Culture, 3-18 Mike Budd Abstract: The critical reception of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" in New York in 1921 was a significant occasion in the development of an American art cinema. The critical discourse and social status of the National Board of Review, economic changes in the film industry, and larger contradictions of Progressivism helped determine this historical moment. The Collective Voice as Cultural Voice, 19-30 Christine Saxton Abstract: This article examines the film author as a social function and a narrative function. It argues that in film the author emerges from a juncture of multiple codes and practices, manifesting itself as a voice that is at once collective and cultural. Sexuality and Power in Male Doppelganger Cinema: The Case of Clint Eastwood's "Tightrope", 31-42 Christine Holmlund Abstract: Why is Clint Eastwood's 1984 film, "Tightrope," popular despite--even because--of the fact that it splinters Eastwood's macho image? The answer lies in its combination of the ambiguities of male doppelganger cinema with the soft underbelly of Eastwood's star persona, and our own ambivalences toward the way sexuality, gender, and power are aligned today. Jesse James, the Bourgeois Bandit: The Transformation of a Popular Hero, 43-64 Christopher Anderson Abstract: "The True Story of Jesse James" is a film about the process of telling James stories and about the transformation of James as a cultural figure. It is both a parody of previous James films and a revisionist critique of them. Professional Notes, 65-66 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 26 Number 2 |
Fiery Speech in a World of Shadows: Rosebud's Impact on Early Audiences, 3-26 Robin Bates, Scott Bates Abstract: Although many critics no longer take it seriously, the Rosebud search in "Citizen Kane" provided a means for liberal male viewers in 1941 to confront and come to terms with their major political, aesthetic, and psychological anxieties. To reconstruct "Citizen Kane's" initial reception is to increase our admiration for this complexity. Sexual Misdemeanor/Psychoanalytic Felony, 27-38 Nina C. Leibman Abstract: This paper focuses on the distorted appropriation of Freudian theory in Hollywood's films dealing with female mental illness. The examples of "A Streetcar Named Desire, Splendor in the Grass," and "Lilith" show Hollywood claiming the etiology of neurosis in sexual "expression" rather than the Freudian model of sexual "repression". Cinematic Realism and the Phonographic Analogy, 39-50 David Alan Black Abstract: By bringing a synchronic extrapolation of certain properties of cinema and the phonograph into contact with a diachronic survey of their institutional behavior as realist instruments, this essay seeks to contribute to an understanding of the realist imperative which precedes and governs the popular receptions of these and other media. Dialogue Gaylyn Studlar Responds to Miriam Hansen's "Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification: Valentino and Female Spectatorship" ("Cinema Journal," Summer 1986), 51-53 Gaylyn Studlar William Lafferty Responds to Patrice Petro's "Mass Culture and the Feminine: The 'Place' of Television in Film Studies" ("Cinema Journal," Spring 1986), 53-54 William Lafferty Patrice Petro Replies, 54-55 Patrice Petro Professional Notes, 56-59 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 26 Number 3 |
Re-Placing "The Day after", 3-20 Gregory A. Waller Abstract: This essay examines "The Day After" as made-for-TV movie and "special" event and discusses it in relation to two genres: the social problem telefilm and the story of a future nuclear war. Following the tracing of genre(s) in "The Day After" in this manner leads across media and into history and raises certain questions about the complex workings of contemporary American popular genres. "What's the Matter with Sara Jane?": Daughters and Mothers in Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life", 21-43 Marina Heung Abstract: An analysis of this film in terms of the intersection of issues of race, class, and gender yields an understanding of how the woman's film expresses ideologies about issues as diverse as woman's work and woman's suffering, mother-daughter relationships, bonding between black and white women, and the possibility of women's resistance to the social order. The Musical Mode: Putting on "The Red Shoes", 44-54 Peter Fraser Abstract: This essay makes a distinction between cinematic modes and genres and attempts to redefine the musical by use of a nontypical musical text, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's "The Red Shoes." Dialogue Richard deCordova Responds to Miriam Hansen's "Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification: Valentino and Female Spectatorship" ("Cinema Journal," Summer 1986), 55-57 Richard deCordova Directory of General Scholarly Periodicals That Publish Articles on Film, 58-74 Alan P. Barr Professional Notes, 75-78 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 26 Number 4 |
"The Scar of Shame": Skin Color and Caste in Black Silent Melodrama, 3-21 Jane Gaines Abstract: This essay uses "Scar of Shame", a silent film with an all-black cast, to consider the way in which melodrama addresses the disenfranchised. In addition, the film is situated in the race and class context of urban America in 1927 in an attempt to theorize the black spectator in history. Olivier, Hamlet, and Freud, 22-48 Peter Donaldson Abstract: This essay presents a psychoanalytic and psychobiographical account of Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet". The author appeals to the director's memoirs and contemporary theoretical contributions to the theory of narcissism, while both reviewing passive Oedipal and narcissistic issues in Olivier's early years and providing a new close reading for the film. Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" and Filmic Unpleasure, 49-59 Michael Anderegg, Hitchcock Abstract: This essay argues that "The Paradine Case" represents a thoroughly unpleasureable text in its concern for viewer expectations. Male impotence and female ambiguity merge with a lack of closure and "false" happy resolution to deny viewer pleasure, and so place the film in its position of canonical marginality. Dialogue Jonathan Rosenbaum Responds to Robin Bates's "Fiery Speech in a World of Shadows: Rosebud's Impact on Early Audiences" ("Cinema Journal," Winter 1987), 60-64 Jonathan Rosenbaum Leonard Leff Responds to Robin Bates, 64-65 Leonard Leff Robin Bates Replies, 65-66 Robin Bates Grants Bulletin, 67-74 William C. Siska Professional Notes, 75-77 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 27 Number 1 |
Editor's Introduction, 3-4 Virginia Wright Wexman Improbable Ethnic Hero: William Powell and the Transformation of Ethnic Hollywood, 5-22 Mark Winokur Abstract: The metamorphosis in the 1920s and '30s of the William Powell persona from ethnic villain to romantic lead is an index of Hollywood's tendency to repress all but stereotyped representations of ethnicity, and to displace ethnic filmmakers' anxieties about assimilation onto other issues, such as passion, violence, and crime. "No Attempt at Artiness, Profundity, or Significance": "Fireside Theater" and the Rise of Filmed Television Programming, 23-46 William Lafferty Abstract: "Fireside Theater" is significant within television broadcasting history as the site of a coalescense of elements that profoundly affected the American commercial television industry: the rise of filmed programming, the genesis of syndication, sponsor control of program content, and new television advertising strategies. A Tale of Two Movies: Charlie Chaplin, United Artists, and the Red Scare, 47-62 D. William Davis Abstract: Chaplin and his distribution company, United Artists, faced widespread public hostility toward his last American releases, "Monsieur Verdoux" and "Limelight". The combined distribution campaigns engineered for the films exemplify the interrelation of film economics, contemporary politics, and even critical reputation. Godzilla and the Japanese Nightmare: When "Them!" Is U.S., 63-77 Chon Noriega Abstract: That "Godzilla" (1954) protested United States H-bomb tests along the Bikini Atoll seems at once obvious and repressed. Godzilla is, after all, a comic icon in the United States. Placing the genre in a historical context reveals its dual inscription into Japanese and American culture and its ongoing political message, from H-bomb tests to "Star Wars." Professional Notes, 78-80 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 27 Number 2 |
SCS President's Report, 3-4 Richard Abel SCS Statement on Creative Rights, 5-7 John Belton "All I Can See Is the Flags": "Fort Apache" and the Visibility of History, 8-26 Leland Poague Abstract: This essay attempts to historicize the visibility and readability of "Fort Apache" along two axes. First, it undertakes to reread the film's notorious conclusion by construing it against the earlier departure scene where questions of sight, distance, and institutional loyalty are raised. The essay's last section then undertakes a speculative reading of some of the ideological and institutional protocols that have worked to render such a view of the film unthinkable or invisible. The Pornographic Image and the Practice of Film Theory, 27-39 Stephen Prince Abstract: This essay critiques the psychoanalytic analysis of film spectatorship and gender representation by drawing on data gathered as part of a study of pornographic feature films. The issues explored bear on the relationship between film theory and its object of study. Words and Images in Stan Brakhage's "23rd Psalm Branch", 40-49 William C. Wees Abstract: In a significant departure from his usual practice, Stan Brakhage gave words an essential role in "23rd Psalm Branch" by treating them as visual images. Besides contributing to the film's deeply personal meditation on war, these words-as-images show how Brakhage's visual aesthetics can effectively incorporate verbal expression. Dialogue Lee Lourdeaux Replies to Mark Winokur's "Improbable Ethnic Hero" ("Cinema Journal," Fall 1987), 50-52 Lee Lourdeaux Mark Winokur Replies, 52-54 Mark Winokur Kathryn Kalinak Responds to Jane Gaines's "Scar of Shame": Skin Color and Caste in Black Silent Melodrama ("Cinema Journal," Summer 1987), 54-56 Kathryn Kalinak Thomas Cripps Responds to Jane Gaines, 56-59 Thomas Cripps Professional Notes, 60-65 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 27 Number 3 |
Editor's Introduction, 3-4 Virginia Wright Wexman ApProppriations and ImPropprieties: Problems in the Morphology of Film Narrative, 5-20 David Bordwell Abstract: For many critics, Propp has become the Aristotle of film narratology; yet his influence has come at the cost of serious misunderstandings. This essay illustrates and attempts to clarify some of them. The Censorship of "Blonde Venus": Textual Analysis and Historical Method, 21-31 Lea Jacobs Abstract: This essay explores the effects of industry censorship through an examination of the evolution of the script for Josef von Sternberg's "Blonde Venus". It relates censorship logic to particular formations of gender and family roles. Looking for the "Great Whatzit": "Kiss Me Deadly" and Film Noir, 32-44 Robert Lang Abstract: This essay identifies a "hom(m)o-sexual logic operative in "Kiss Me Deadly", equating the elusive box of radioactive material in the film with the phallus of Lacanian psychoanalysis. In their search for the "great whatzit" the film's protagonists dramatize and radically critique dominant culture's demand for exclusive heterosexuality. Dialogue Robert Ray Responds to Leland Poague's "All I Can See Is the Flags': "Fort Apache" and the Visibility of History" ("Cinema Journal," Winter 1988), 45-49 Robert Ray Leland Poague Replies, 49-50 Leland Poague Linda Williams Responds to Stephen Prince's "The Pornographic Image and The Practice of Film Theory" ("Cinema Journal," Winter 1988), 50-53 Linda Williams Stephen Prince Replies, 53-54 Stephen Prince Professional Notes, 55-56 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 27 Number 4 |
Front Matter Editor's Introduction, 3 Dana Polan Film, Photography, and Fetish: The Analyses of Christian Metz, 4-22 Ben Singer Hollywood, Home Movies, and Common Sense: Amateur Film as Aesthetic Dissemination and Social Control, 1950-1962, 23-44 Patricia R. Zimmermann The Text of Music: A Study of "The Magnificent Ambersons", 45-63 Kathryn Kalinak Oedipus Unresolved: Covert and Overt Narrative Discourse in Emir Kusturica's "When Father Was Away on Business", 64-81 Andrew Horton Professional Notes, 82-85 Mirella Jona Affron |
| Volume 28 Number 1 |
Editor's Introduction, 3-5 Dana Polan Beverle Ann Houston: 1935-1988, 6-9 Marsha Kinder Claire Johnston: 1940-1987, 10-11 E. Ann Kaplan Jay Leyda: 1910-1988, 12-16 Annette Michelson Jean Mitry: 1904-1988, 17-18 Tom Gunning Raymond Williams: 1921-1988, 19-21 Stephen Heath CinemaScope and Historical Methodology, 22-44 John Belton "Poetic Justice": Formations of Subjectivity and Sexual Identity, 45-64 Allen S. Weiss The Abstraction of a Lady: "La Signora di tutti", 65-84 Mary Ann Doane Professional Notes, 85-89 Robert Lang |
| Volume 28 Number 2 |
"Primitive" Cinema: A Frame-up? Or the Trick's on Us, 3-12 Tom Gunning Morgan Fisher: Film on Film, 13-27 Scott MacDonald Fassbinder, Spectatorship, and Utopian Desire, 28-47 Peter Ruppert The Look at the Camera, 48-63 Marc Vernet Professional Notes, 64-70 Robert Lang |
| Volume 28 Number 3 |
Editor's Introduction to the Homages, 3 Dana Polan Jacques Ledoux: 1921-88, 4-7 Kristin Thompson, David Bordwell George C. Pratt: 1914-88, 8-12 Herbert Reynolds George Pratt's Published Writings: An Annotated Bibliography, 13-17 George Pratt Gerald Mast: 1940-88, 18-21 Tag Gallagher Transition through Tension: Stylistic Diversity in the Late Griffith Biographs, 22-40 Charlie Keil Representing Romance: Reading/Writing/Fantasy and the "Liberated" Heroine of Recent Hollywood Films, 41-56 Mimi White Temporality as Historical Argument in Bertolucci's "1900", 57-68 Robert Burgoyne Dialogue Laurence Miller on Robert Lang's Interpretation of "Kiss Me Deadly" ("Cinema Journal," Spring 1988), 69-72 Laurence Miller Robert Lang Replies, 72-74 Robert Lang Professional Notes, 75-83 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 28 Number 4 |
Front Matter Digressions at the Cinema: Reception and Mass Culture, 3-19 Barbara Klinger The Figure in the Monitor: Beckett, Lacan, and Video, 20-37 Catherine Russell Visible Difference and Flex Appeal: The Body, Sex, Sexuality, and Race in the "Pumping Iron" Films, 38-51 Christine Anne Holmlund Society for Cinema Studies Constitution, 52-62 Professional Notes, 63-65 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 29 Number 1 |
Sitcoms and Single Moms: Representations of Feminism on American TV, 3-19 Lauren Rabinovitz Wiseman's Realm of Transgression: "Titicut Follies," the Symbolic Father, and the Spectacle of Confinement, 20-35 Dan Armstrong A War of Utter Rebellion: Kinugasa's "Page of Madness" and the Japanese Avant-Garde of the 1920s, 36-53 James Peterson, Kinugasa Feminine Narrative and the Law in Renoir's "Le Crime de M. Lange", 54-70 Lyall Bush Professional Notes, 71-75 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 29 Number 2 |
SCS Past-President's Report, 3-4 Richard Abel SCS New-President's Report, 5-7 Peter Lehman Keeping Your Amateur Standing. Audience Participation and Good Citizenship in Hitchcock's Political Films, 8-22 Ina Rae Hark From Clochards to Cappuccinos: Renoir's Boudu Is "Down and Out" in Beverly Hills, 23-35 Janice Morgan American Film Genres and Non-American Films: A Case Study of "Utu", 36-59 Kenneth Marc Harris Professional Notes, 60-63 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 29 Number 3 |
Announcing Wares, Winning Patrons, Voicing Ideals: Thinking about the History and Theory of Film Advertising, 3-31 Janet Staiger "Shall We Make It for New York or for Distribution?": Eddie Cantor, "Whoopee", and Regional Resistance to the Talkies, 32-52 Henry Jenkins III "The King and I" in Uncle Tom's Cabin, or on the Border of the Women's Room, 53-68 Laura Donaldson Dialogue Angela Dalle-Vacche on Robert Burgoyne's Interpretation of Bertolucci's "1900" ("Cinema Journal," Spring 1989), 69-72 Angela Dalle-Vacche Robert Burgoyne Replies, 72-78 Robert Burgoyne Professional Notes, 79-83 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 29 Number 4 |
The Cabinet of Lucy Ricardo: Lucille Ball's Star Image, 3-22 Alexander Doty Historical Excess: Johnny Guitar's Containment, 23-34 Leo Charney The Most Romantic Art of All: Music in the Classical Hollywood Cinema, 35-50 Carol Flinn The Sign of the Sociologist: Show and Anti-Show in Godard's "Masculin Féminin", 51-74 Joel Haycock Professional Notes, 75-79 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 30 Number 1 |
Serious Pleasures: Cinematic Pleasure and the Notion of Fun, 3-19 R. L. Rutsky, Justin Wyatt "Something's Missing Here!": Homosexuality and Film Reviews during the Production Code Era, 1934-1962, 20-41 Chon Noriega Structural Irony in "Mildred Pierce," or How Mildred Lost Her Tongue, 42-54 Pamela Robertson "Selling the Sight/Site of Sound: Broadcast Advertising and the Transition from Radio to Television", 55-66 James Schwoch Professional Notes, 67-74 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 30 Number 2 |
Institutional Power and the Fleischer Studios: The "Standard Production Reference", 3-22 Mark Langer Francesco Casetti and Italian Film Semiotics, 23-46 Giuliana Muscio, Roberto Zemignan "It Does Something to a Girl. I Don't Know What": The Problem of Female Sexuality in "Applause", 47-60 Jeffrey P. Smith Sauve qui peut (L'image): Reading for a Double Life, 61-73 Thomas Albrecht Professional Notes, 74-78 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 30 Number 3 |
Homage to Kitty Singer Kovacs, 3-5 Ron Gottesman Home Movies of the Avant-Garde: Jonas Mekas and the New York Art World, 6-28 Jeffrey K. Ruoff Heresies: The Body of Pasolini's Semiotics, 29-42 Giuliana Bruno Sartre/Cinema: Spectator/Art That Is Not One, 43-59 Robert Harvey The Grants Bulletin, 60-76 Peter Lunenfeld Professional Notes, 77-83 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |
| Volume 30 Number 4 |
Front Matter Statement on the Use of Video in the Classroom, 3-6 Society for Cinema Studies Task Force on Film Integrity Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage, 7-23 David R. Shumway Realism as a Style in Cinema Verite: A Critical Analysis of "Primary", 24-50 Jeanne Hall The Mise-en-Abîme in Hitchcock's "Vertigo", 51-74 Deborah Linderman "I'm Not a Doctor, but I Play One on TV": Characters, Actors, and Acting in Television Soap Opera, 75-91 Jeremy G. Butler Professional Notes, 92-97 Robert Lang, Jane Sloan |