From the early days of film studies, costumes have been analysed as an important element of the mise-en-scène and stardom, as they help shape identities and define subjectivities, crafting the stars. There is no question that costumes help create meaning, no less today than in the heyday of classical cinema. More recently, haute couture has […]
by Christian Ferencz-Flatz
In the following I will first sketch out a phenomenological interpretation of Walter Benjamin’s reflections on film-viewership, which he considers to be symptomatic for contemporary perception in general, by focusing especially on the implicit theory of intersubjectivity that underpins them.
by Elodie A. Roy In his numerous writings on archives, technologies, and time media archaeologist Wolfgang Ernst indefatigably interrogates the ways in which technical and digital media do not only exist in time but produce temporalities – and temporealities – of their own.[1] This interview sheds light on media archaeology as a discipline emerging within […]
by Michael Witt Introduction Recent years have seen rapid growth in the use of the digital audiovisual essay in teaching and research, including in film and screen studies.[1] This phenomenon has been fuelled by a number of interrelated developments: easier access to copies of films; increased availability of domestic computers and digital editing software; the […]
by Patrick Brian Smith A whole history remains to be written of spaces – which would at the same time be the history of powers – from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habitat. – Michel Foucault[1] We are just as much spatial as temporal beings … our existential spatiality […]
by Andrea Meuzelaar Introduction Over the course of more than 50 years Dutch television has generated an enormous amount of stories about Islamic immigration and has produced a collection of images that is still rapidly expanding. These stories and images are collected and preserved in the Institute of Sound and Vision, the Dutch national audiovisual […]
by Malte Hagener Following the conversation with Richard Dyer featured in the Spring 2016 issue of NECSUS, we continue our series of interviews with key figures in the field of media studies. This time we turn to David Bordwell, one of the most prolific scholars in film studies, but also a controversial figure who was […]
by Josef Früchtl (1) Rainer Maria Rilke’s Archaic Torso of Apollo is probably one of the most famous poems in the German language, with its last lines being two of the most quoted by lovers of literature everywhere. In this lyrical report the torso no longer has a head. As museum visitors we can no […]
In Autumn 2016 the notion of Home gained a new relevance. Globalisation, migration, and media seem more than ever entangled with growing insecurities about the safety of (the) home. Many of us fly over the world for work or as tourists, and we return home after a few days or a few weeks. Others desperately […]
by Catherine Grant and Jaap Kooijman How to introduce Richard Dyer? One could start by recognising that he is an academic star, as Su Holmes and Sean Redmond have done in their introduction to Framing Celebrity. Referring to Dyer’s 2006 SCMS keynote lecture, they write: [h]is entrance was greeted with ecstatic applause and he delivered […]
by Wim Staat The Right Stuff (1983) is a film about Project Mercury (1958-1963) and its protagonists, the first American astronauts.[1] It is an ensemble film, as it has an extended cast for several story lines interconnecting the lives of seven astronauts and the test pilot thought to be their predecessor in the 1940s. Philip […]
by Robert Sinnerbrink Although the question of ‘film as philosophy’ has attracted much attention, most discussion has focused on narrative film with only occasional references to documentary.[1] Even less attention has been given to the small number of non-fictional films that focus specifically on philosophers and their work.[2] One such documentary is Kirby Dick’s and […]
by Volker Pantenburg I. Albrecht Schäfer’s installation Swing (2008) is as simple as it is intriguing. In the catalogue its components are given as ‘video projector, DVD player, nylon thread, DVD, color, no sound’. The nylon thread (in the realised work more a robust steel cord) stands out in this list; as will become clear […]
by Clara Miranda Scherffig Introduction According to the Oxford Dictionary a remake is the action of making something again or differently, as well as a film or a music piece that has been recorded again. The construction of Chantal Akerman’s News From Home (1976) and John Smith’s The Man Phoning Mum (2011) can be traced […]
by Geert Lovink Unlike predictions, ‘networks’ are on their way out. The reason for this is the unprecedented concentration of money, power, and infrastructures in the hands of a few monopoly players. Instead of ‘social networks’ we speak of ‘social media’, and that is no coincidence. In fact, ‘network theory’ has followed this trend for […]