Showing posts with label all. Show all posts
Showing posts with label all. Show all posts

All That Film Pastiche Allows Fifty Online Studies

Friday, January 2, 2015


All That Pastiche Allows by Catherine Grant

"[Pastiche] can, at its best, allow us to feel our connection to the affective frameworks, the structures of feeling, past and present, that we inherit and pass on. That is to say, it can enable us to know ourselves affectively as historical beings."
Richard Dyer, Pastiche (London and New York: Routledge, 2007)

Film Studies For Free today presents a whole host of links to studies of cinematic pastiche. It begins with the above video -- the latest in FSFFs experiments in videographic comparison -- which is designed to afford its viewers a space for real-time co-contemplation of the opening titles sequences of All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955) and its pastiche Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002).
Read More..

Read all about it first issue of Celebrity Studies

Publicity shot of the celebratedly "eternally young"
(boyishly middle-aged) film star Jackie Chan

Film Studies For Free is delighted to flag up Routledges new journal Celebrity Studies as its inaugural issue is available free to download online. A quick glance at the names of editors and contributors will show that this is a highly worthwhile new venture. A detailed examination of its rationale and its contents underscores that very positive first impression.

Celebrity Studies focuses on the critical exploration of celebrity, stardom and fame. It seeks to make sense of celebrity by drawing upon a range of (inter)disciplinary approaches, media forms, historical periods and national contexts.

FSFFs increasingly ancient author particularly enjoyed the most film studies oriented article in this issue: Chris Holmlunds wonderful essay Celebrity, Ageing, And Jackie Chan: Middle-Aged Asian In Transnational Action. Below is the abstract for that contribution, and below that are direct links to all the issues contents:
Assessing ageing is one of the key tasks confronting celebrity and star studies today. If film could reflect upon its own relation to death only from the 1950s on, in films such as Sunset boulevard (1950) and Whatever happened to Baby Jane (1962), where the aging process of the first generation of stars exposed a glamour worn thin on screen, today the allure of the star is most definitely inseparable from his or her heroism and ruin (Celeste 2005, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 33, pp. 32, 29). Today, moreover, middle age increasingly matters. With 78 million people in the US aged 44-62, internet and print marketing, movies, television and more tout rejuvenation through Botox, steroids, plastic surgery and wardrobe/cosmetic make-overs. Hollywood stars and celebrities point us towards a brave new world where mature adulthood is seen primarily in chronological, biological and medical terms. It is no coincidence that photographs of healthy, wealthy stars grace each issue of AARP Magazine. Trainers, nips, tucks, lighting, make-up and digital retouching all help. Nor is it coincidence that roughly half are men - most white; a goodly number black. What, however, of middle-aged, Asian, male celebrities? Global mega-star Jackie Chan offers the perfect opportunity to explore ageing, race and masculinity in transnational action. Drawing upon Gina Marchettis analysis of Chans flexible masculinity in the Rush hour trilogy (2009), I study the nine films released theatrically post-2000 featuring the middle-aged star. In conclusion, I speculate upon what the future will bring, remembering that we are all aged by culture. Screen Actors Guild (SAG) statistics chillingly indicate just how few roles are available to actors (if especially to actresses) of all races after 40. Asians in particular are marginalised. Might other models of ageing be possible? How do film stars and celebrities impact upon conceptions and experiences of ageing today in our increasingly mediagenic culture? Jackie Chan serves here as special case and as test case.

Volume 1, Issue 1: Table of Contents

    Articles:

      Celebrity Forum:

        Book Reviews:
          Read More..