Film Matters - Current Issue

Are non-binary and genderfluid identities distinct from other trans identities in their screen representation? I look to two examples; The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg, 1976) and Under the Skin (Glazer, 2013) to explore the variability of these identities in relation to screen representations of aliened characters within a Western understanding of gender. To ground my assertion, I utilize key theories in trans cinema studies, including Jack Halberstam’s conception of queer time, Cáel M Keegan’s trans phenomenology, and Eliza Steinbock’s considerations of trans aesthetics. I argue that the liminal positionality of these identities is non-assimilative and deserving of inquiry, as both contained within, and beyond, trans cinematic theory.

Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers and Burn! are most widely known as revolutionary films. At the same time, both films take physical space as their subject and a character. Pontecorvo uses space as a narrative and visual device to orient the revolution, a way of understanding the role of the partisan, a cause and victim of violence, and a series of boundaries, whose placement and transgression are key to revolutionary action. These uses of space rearticulate the philosophy of revolutionary space found in the works of Carl Schmitt and Frantz Fanon.

The film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) explores trans expression within an online environment. By comparing the film to the research of three gender theorists, motifs can be related to ideas such as the shimmer and glitch feminism. The film’s main character, Casey, is compared to the concept of the Terminator in how she defies the normative expressions of gender that created her within an online viral horror game. Later in the film, she encounters another online user who feels threatened by her gender expression, and how she can move freely in and out of the online space.

Review of: New Wave, New Hollywood: Reassessment, Recovery, and Legacy, Nathan Abrams and Gregory Frame, eds. (2021)

New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 261pp., ISBN: 9781501372728 (pbk), $39.95, ISBN: 9781501360404 (hbk), $130.00

Review of: A New History of Documentary Film, 3rd ed., Betsy A. McLane (2023)

New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 464pp., ISBN: 9781501385155 (pbk), $34.95, ISBN: 9781501385131 (ebk), $31.45

Review of: The Red Years of Cahiers du cinéma (1968–1973), Daniel Fairfax (2021)

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 880pp., ISBN: 9789463721011 (hbk), $260.00, ISBN: 9789048543908 (ebk), $0.00 [Open Access]

Review of: Coming to Know a Writer Through His Interviews

Conversations with Sam Shepard, Jackson R. Bryer, Robert M. Dowling, and Mary C. Hartig, eds. (2021)

Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 291pp., ISBN: 9781496836618 (pbk), $30.00, ISBN: 9781496836601 (hbk), $110.00

Review of: The Space of Sex: The Porn Aesthetic in Contemporary Film and Television, Shelton Waldrep (2021)

New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 293pp., ISBN: 9781501377365 (pbk), $39.95, ISBN: 9781501333057 (hbk), $150.00, ISBN: 9781501333064 (epub/mobi), $35.95, ISBN: 9781501333088 (pdf), $35.95

Review of: The Bloomsbury Handbook to Sofia Coppola, Suzanne Ferriss, ed. (2023)

London: Bloomsbury Academic, 459pp., ISBN: 9781350244306 (hbk), $175.00, ISBN: 9781350244313 (ebk), $157.50

Review of: Marlene Dietrich’s ABC’s: Wit, Wisdom, and Recipes, Marlene Dietrich (2022)

Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 189pp., ISBN: 9780813195438 (pbk), $17.95

Review of: A Silence from Hitchcock, Murray Pomerance (2023)

Albany: State University of New York Press, 372pp., ISBN: 9781438491882 (pbk), $36.95

Review of: Playtime (1967)

Italy/France

Director Jacques Tati

Runtime 124 minutes

Blu-ray

USA, 2014

Produced and distributed by The Criterion Collection (region A/1)

Review of: The Eight Mountains (2022)

Italy/Belgium/France/UK

Directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch

Runtime 147 minutes

Blu-ray

USA, 2023

Produced and distributed by The Criterion Collection (region A/1)

Review of: Paris, Texas and a Journey Through Clouds of Despair

Paris, Texas (1984)

Germany/France/USA Director Wim Wenders

Runtime 145 minutes

Blu-ray

USA, 2006

Produced and distributed by The Criterion Collection (region A/1)

Review of: Wings of Desire (1987)

Germany

Director Wim Wenders

Runtime 127 minutes

Blu-ray

USA, 2009

Produced and distributed by The Criterion Collection (region A/1)