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- Volume 14, Issue 2, 2016
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film - Volume 14, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 14, Issue 2, 2016
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Introduction
Authors: Alan O’Leary and Shoba Venkatesh GhoshAbstractThis special issue is intended to take forward a sympathetic reconceptualization of the pleasures of popular film and of related forms such as soap operas and pornography. The five articles contained in the special issue vary in length and scope, and are followed by a response piece from a senior scholar. We hope that the dialogic mix of case studies and theoretical or survey approaches brings a liveliness to the treatment of pleasure, and indeed that it encapsulates our sense that pleasure retains a conceptual elusiveness, no matter how often discussed (or experienced). We acknowledge the elusiveness in this introduction, which we have cast in the form of a dialogue to acknowledge our individual motivations and to indicate the different academic and cultural contexts in which we, the two editors, work. We jointly describe the content of the articles at the end of the dialogue.
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Beyond the pleasure principle: Exploring the limits of a pervasive term
By Louis BaymanAbstractThis article aims to discuss pleasure as a way of understanding film. I do not seek to judge the correctness, political or otherwise, of certain pleasures, or to offer any overarching theory of pleasure. Instead I investigate what film scholars talk about when we talk about pleasure. Understanding pleasure more as an attitude to film spectatorship rather than an object in and of itself, I consider the importance not solely of the rational pursuit of prima facie pleasures but also of more enigmatic emotional needs relating to intimacy, pain and the confirmation of shared values. Separating cinematic pleasure from any necessary association with positivity, I caution against the potential for pleasure to be instrumentalized as part of a neo-liberal ethic of happiness.
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Queer effractions: Male to male porn and the pursuit of self-shattering
More LessAbstractThe changing status of HIV disease has significantly influenced cinematic representations of sex between men and the pleasures these representations offer. This article examines two different cinematic explorations of ‘risky’ sex: one, the documentary Chemsex, on the combining of sex and drugs; the other, raw (condomless) porn – including auto-porn, porn made by the people engaged in the sex being filmed. It argues that, because the sexual is the site of so much ambivalence, its representation engages sensibilities far more nuanced than the term pleasure suggests.
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The pleasures of muscular bonding in Bring It On and Pitch Perfect
More LessAbstractThis article explores girl teen films from the perspective of pleasure and affect. It starts from the premise that ideologies do not explain pleasures but pleasures can explain why we may be drawn towards certain films. Taking a material-semiotic approach that prioritizes embodiments of feeling, the body and affect the article articulates the ways in which films are designed to invite particular kinaesthetic pleasures. Certain moments in girl teen films are designed to generate a kinaesthetic experience of muscular bonding. This article explores how muscular bonding is created in the films Bring It On, directed by Reed (2000) and Pitch Perfect, directed by Moore (2012). The first celebrates the contained, bourgeois feminine body while the other carnivalizes this body with elements of the grotesque, but both show how Hollywood girlhood is made to feel pleasurable through the kinetic portrayal of collectivity. By focusing on how notions of fun (which sit in accord with postfeminist and neo-liberal ideologies) feel pleasurable we can understand why we might potentially be drawn to this version of girlhood.
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The undeniable pleasures of Tabu’s return
By James HarveyAbstractMiguel Gomes’s Tabu (2012) was met with widespread critical appreciation upon release, with much attention lavished upon its rich, romantic imagery, texture and tone. The film divides itself historically (split between contemporary Lisbon and colonial Mozambique) and stylistically (between 35mm and 16mm film), which brought further acclaim for its nuanced take on history and form. However, this historical context provides the backdrop for a love story, leaving Portugal’s colonial legacy as a haunting subtext for the romance that unfolds. Tabu is notable for its stylistic flair, aesthetic beauty and evocation of sensation, over and above its arguable moral duty to engage with the past. As such, the film’s treatment of colonialism has been viewed as aesthetic opportunism. In response, this article explores Tabu’s treatment of film history as a form of critical nostalgia, showing how it harnesses what Robert Stam and Ella Shohat described as the ‘undeniable pleasures’ of Eurocentric media.
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The pleasure of repetition: The Bombay cinema and the South American telenovela
More LessAbstractSouth American television soap operas (telenovelas) follow the same strand of melodrama as mainstream Hindi cinema, referred to here as Bombay cinema. Characters tend to be archetypes and the emphasis is on generating an emotional reaction. Both types of screen fiction attract legions of loyal fans, with series or films even acquiring cult status. At the same time, the critics and the educated elite of their respective countries brand the forms ‘repetitive’ because telenovelas and Bombay cinema rely on predictable formulae and many productions are remakes or transpositions, especially from foreign sources. I propose that the audiences of telenovelas and Bombay cinema derive pleasure precisely from repetition. Accusations of a lack of originality disregard the influence in their narratives of the oral storytelling tradition, in which what was important was not whether the audience knew the story but how engagingly it was told. Moreover, the predictability of the formula allows audiences to experience intense emotions safely and even to flaunt social rules.
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Response: It has been a pleasure
More LessAbstractThis response is a commentary that reflects upon a certain shared characteristic in the five essays in this Section: that is, a shared sense that the ways in which ‘pleasure’ has been understood and theorized in film studies are not adequate to the particular cases examined in each essay. This commentary explores the issues addressed, beginning with a consideration of the long list of words available in English (and in other languages) for describing positive feelings. Their subtle differences and nuances reflect the complex ways in which people ordinarily understand and describe their enjoyments of films. These are contrasted with the restrictive ways in which ‘pleasure’ is conceived within three major film theoretic traditions: psychoanalysis, cognitive film theory and phenomenology. The article argues, finally, for wider attention to the ways in which audience research can take us beyond the ways of understanding ‘pleasure’ currently on offer within film theory.
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Reviews
Authors: Ann Davies, Elizabeth M. Ward, Jaimey Fisher and Raquel MedinaAbstractInternational Noir, Homer B. Petty and R. Barton Palmer (eds) (2014) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 272 pp., ISBN 13: 9780748691104, h/bk, £65.00
The Nazi Past in Contemporary German Film: Viewing Experiences of Intimacy and Immersion, Axel Bangert (2014) Rochester, NY: Camden House, 199 pp., ISBN: 9781571139054, h/bk, £55.00
Contemporary German Cinema, Paul Cooke (2012) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 320 pp., ISBN-13: 9780719076190, p/bk, £14.99
Cultures of Representation: Disability in World Cinema, Benjamin Fraser (ed.) (2006) New York: Wallflower Press and Columbia University Press, 256 pp., ISBN 9780231177498, p/bk, $30
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 20 (2022)
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Volume 19 (2021)
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Volume 18 (2020)
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Volume 17 (2020)
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Volume 16 (2018)
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Volume 15 (2017)
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Volume 14 (2016)
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Volume 13 (2015)
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Volume 12 (2014)
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Volume 11 (2013)
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Volume 10 (2012)
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Volume 9 (2011 - 2012)
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Volume 8 (2010 - 2011)
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Volume 7 (2009)
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Volume 6 (2008 - 2009)
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Volume 5 (2007)
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Volume 4 (2006 - 2007)
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Volume 3 (2005)
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Volume 2 (2004)
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Volume 1 (2002 - 2003)