Film Studies and Aesthetics video and audio resources from the University of Kent

Image of a domestic interior in A Star is Born (George Cukor, 1954). Listen to John David Rhodess talk on the encounter between cinema and modernist American domestic architecture, in relation to this film and others.

Today, Film Studies For Free brings you glad tidings of the very high quality, audio and video, Film Studies research resources that have been generously shared through the University of Kent website.  

As FSFFs author well knows, having been fortunate enough to work there for a decade, Kent is one of the largest and best university centres in Europe dedicated to Film Studies. Film research there, in both theory and practice (faculty include the world-leading scholars Murray Smith and Elizabeth Cowie, as well as the award-winning film-makers Clio Barnard and  Sarah Turner), is currently centred in four broad areas: national cinemas – form and history: North American, European, Latin American, Asian; the digital in film; the  documentary film; and, especially, film aesthetics, the latter often in collaboration with the interdisciplinary ‘Aesthetics Research Group’.

Some of these interests, and plenty more besides, are beautifully reflected in the amazing wealth of recordings of conferences, symposia and seminars directly linked to below. Just feast your eyes and ears on them.

Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Film and the Moving Image

Audio Resources

• "The Art of Not Playing to Pictures’ in British Cinemas, 1908-1914" Dr Jon Burrows (University of Warwick) Recent scholarship on musical practices in the silent era argues that by the end of the 1900s and throughout the 1910s the typical cinema musician was a lone pianist who occupied a subordinate position in relation to the projected image and provided forms of accompaniment which ignored traditional musical logic and obediently responded instead to the dictates of narrative logic. Using a variety of evidential sources available in the UK (cinema licensing records, police inspection files, trade paper debates) my paper will argue the contrary: that miniature orchestras were extremely common in British cinemas before the First World War, and that, well into the feature film era, careful synchronisation of music and image was probably the exception rather than the rule. Listen to the lecture here (mp3)

• "Theory and Practice in British Film Schools" Prof Duncan Petrie (University of York) Film and media education in the UK has long been characterised by a fundamental polarisation between theory and practice. This is most clearly manifest in the widespread separation between academic study and hands-on production training within University and College departments and programmes...Listen to the lecture here (mp3)

• "Easy Living: The Modernist House and Cinematic Space“ Dr John David Rhodes (University of Sussex) In this paper I will look at a series of encounters—both real and imaginary—between cinema and modernist American domestic architecture. The paper moves from the sets of A Star is Born (Cukor, 1954), to the short experimental film House (1954)...Listen to the lecture here (mp3)

• "World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism" Prof Lucia Nagib (University of Leeds) This paper will address world cinema through an unusual theoretical model, based on an ethics of realism. The juxtaposition of the terms ‘world cinema’, ‘ethics’ and ‘realism’ creates a tension intended to offer a productive alternative to traditional oppositional binaries such as popular vs art cinemas, fiction vs documentary films, Hollywood vs world cinema... Listen to the lecture here (mp3)

University of Kent Aesthetics Research Group

Audio and video resources:

Kendall Walton and The Aesthetics of Photography and Film (2007)

• Interview with Kendal Walton (pdf)
• Videos of all lectures  (flash format)

Jerrold Levinson: Key Concepts in Aesthetics (2008-09)

• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - The Aesthetic(mp3 - 1hr 36s)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - Beauty  (mp3 - 1hr 14mins)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - Art  (mp3 - 1hr 13s)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - The Artwork (mp3 - 1 hr 12m
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - Artform  (mp3 - 1hr 14m)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - Artistic form(mp3 - 1hr 20m)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - Artistic expression (mp3 - 1hr 04m)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - Artistic Interpretation (mp3 - 1 hr 25m)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson - Artistic Value  (mp3 - 1hr 28m)

Research Seminars (ongoing)

• Audio - Cynthia Freeland: Why Some Art Should Be Censored  (mp3 - 44mins 7secs)
• Audio - Aaron Meskin: Kinds of Multiples (mp3 - 53mins 39secs)
• Audio - Howard Caygill: ‘Sun Pictures - Photography And The Astronomic Image’ (mp3 - 56mins 24secs)
• Audio - Noël Carroll: ‘The Problem with Movie Stars’ (Introduction by Murray Smith) (mp3 - 57mins 09secs)
  This paper is published in Scott Walden (ed.), Photography and Philosophy: Essays on the Pencil of Nature, New York: Blackwell, 2008.
• Audio - Andrew Kania: ‘The Death of the Narrator: Fiction and Narrative in Literature and Film’ (mp3 - 1hr 33 secs)
• Audio - Jerrold Levinson: Defending Hypothetical Intentionalism (excerpt - mp3 - 19m 28s)
• Audio - Jennifer McMahon: Aesthetic Autonomy: the Expression of Freedom (a Pragmatist Reading of Adorno) (mp3 - 1hr 4min 39s)
• Audio - Aaron Meskin: Authenticity in the Hybrid and Digital Arts (mp3 - 50m 35s)

Art, Aesthetics and the Sexual (2009)

• Photos from the conference
• Video - Cain Todd (University of Lancaster): ‘Imagination, Fantasy, and Sexual Desire: the aesthetic and the pornographic attitude’
  Respondent: Jerrold Levinson (University of Maryland)
• Video - Kathleen Stock (University of Sussex): ‘What Pornography Can Tell Us About Imaginative Responses to Fiction’
  Respondent: Murray Smith (University of Kent)
• Video - David Davies (McGill University): ‘Is Pornography in the (Intended) Eye of the Beholder?’
  Respondent: Elisabeth Schellekens (Durham University)
• Audio - Rob van Gerwen: ‘How to do Things with Pictures: Pornography and Real Sexuality’ (mp3 52m 40s) Response by Ted Nannicelli (mp3 19m 53s)
• Audio - Susan Dwyer: ‘Docusex: Display and Desire in Internet Pornography’  (mp3 45m 40s)
  Response by Elizabeth Cowie (mp3 19m 01s)
• Audio - Alex Neill: ‘The Pornographic, the Erotic, and the Charming: remarks on a Schopenhauerian theme’ (mp3 45m 36s)
  Response by Jerrold Levinson (mp3 12m 28s)

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Mar�a Luisa Bemberg online resources

Still on the subject of film authorship (see here and here), Film Studies For Free chirpily (cheekily?) cross-posts (again, with Directing Cinema - do visit that blog for some great video clips) a little list of choice, freely-accessible online resources pertaining to the Argentine film director María Luisa Bemberg.

A somewhat late starter as a filmmaker, at the tender age of fifty-eight, Bemberg directed six films against the odds of a hugely difficult economic and political situation in Argentina in the 1980s and 1990s. She has been an important influence on a number of young filmmakers, most notably a favourite of FSFF, Lucrecia Martel (also see HERE). Martels films have been produced by Bembergs legendary producer and friend Lita Stantic.

In honour of Bemberg and her films, below is a list of high-quality and freely-accessible online studies of her work:

In English:

• Caleb Bach, Maria Luisa Bemberg tells the untold, Americas 46 (Mar/Apr 1994): 20-7
• Michael Chanan, Latin American Cinema in the 90s: Representational Space in Recent Latin American Cinema, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 9:1 (enero-junio 1998)
• Catherine Grant, Intimista transformations: María Luisa Bembergs First Feature Films, originally published in An Argentine Passion: María Luisa Bemberg and Her Films, John King, Sheila Whitaker and Rosa Bosch, eds. (London: Verso, 2000), 73-109
• John King, Sheila Whitaker and Rosa Bosch, eds., An Argentine Passion: María Luisa Bemberg and Her Films (London: Verso, 2000)
• Bernard McGuirk, Review of An Argentine Passion: María Luisa Bemberg and her Films, by John King, Sheila Whitaker and Rosa Bosch (eds.), London & New York: Verso, 2000, Scope, May 2003
• Hugo Salas, Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others: María Luisa Bemberg, Senses of Cinema 22 (September-October 2002)
• Cynthia L. Stone, Beyond the Female Gaze: María Luisa Bembergs Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Ciberletras, Number 13, July 2005
• Fernanda Vitor Bueno,The Myth of Camila OGorman in the Works of Juana Manuela Gorriti, María Luisa Bemberg and Enrique Molina, PhD e-thesis, The University of Texas at Austin, December 2007
• Bruce Williams, Bemberg’s Third Sex: Argentine Mothers at the Dawn of Democracy, Cinémas/Cinémas, Volume 15, numéro 1, Automne 2004, p. 125-144
  

In Spanish:

• Mary Elizabeth Barnard, Nietzsche y el cine latinoamericano: un estudio de tres obras, Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos (marzo-julio 2006)
• Anke van Haastrecht, Mujeres en rebelión: el discurso cinematográfico de María Luisa Bemberg, (date unknown)
• Clara Kuschnir, La narrativa, el cine y las mujeres, Estudios feministas = Etudés feministes (agosto-diciembre 2005)
• Jane Mooney, Directoras latinoamericanas: Susana Amaral, María Luisa Bemberg, Viviana Cordero y María Novaro, La Tatuana number 3, (Cinenavaja), 2005
• Lourdes Vázquez, De identidades: María Luisa Bemberg, filmografía y bibliografía, 1967-2006 [Segunda edición], SALALM Latin American Information series, no. 6a, edited by Laura D. Shedenhelm, University of Georgia Libraries, 2007
• Guillermina Walas, María Luisa frente al espejo: la (auto)_reflexión en María Luisa Bemberg, La Tatuana number 3, (Cinenavaja), 2005
  

In Italian:

• Raffaella Bassetti, et al., María Luisa Bemberg: la passionaria . Italy: Associazione LOcchio delle donne, 2004

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Obstinate Battles for Documentary Memory Patricio Guzm�n Resources Online

Regular readers will know, hopefully, that Film Studies For Free issues forth only on the topics that take its fancy. It receives no commercial or other patronage, and it does not respond to prompts for its hypertextual-utterances: nor does it want any! It loves and supports free online culture, and it prefers to make its own reading, viewing and blogging choices. Sometimes, though, it does get independently inspired by commercially-available film releases or new offline publications of a very worthwhile kind, as was the case today. And the result is a little bit of unsolicited free advertising...

FSFF was so HAPPY to hear that Chilean documentarist Patricio Guzmáns films The Battle of Chile (1975-1978), The Pinochet Case (2001) and a particular personal favourite, Chile, Obstinate Memory (1997 - see the opening sequences above) have been released on a new DVD by a great and longstanding supporter of Latin American film culture -- Icarus Films -- that it decided to mark this very auspicious occasion with a related scholarly links-list in honour, and warm appreciation, of Guzmáns hugely important films.

• Articles on Guzmáns website:

• MOVIES THAT MARKED ME FOREVER
• When I was about eight or nine years old (I really don’t remember exactly)...
• THE DOCUMENTARY EXPLOSION
• THE LOST IMAGES
• PIECES OF LIFE
• STAINS ON THE NEGATIVE
• OBLIVION AS A CENTRAL THEME
• THE CHILEAN DOCUMENTARY, A PANORAMIC LOOK

• Pat Aufderheide, Interview with Patricio Guzmán, Center for Social Media, Oct. 25, 2002

• Pamela Biénzobas, Patricio Guzmáns Salvador Allende: The Personal Painting of a Universal Myth, Senses of Cinema, Issue 34, January 2005

• Katherine Bliss, Review of Chile, Obstinate Memory/Battle of Chile, The Public Historian, Vol. 21, No. 1, Winter 1999

• Judy Branfman, Poking in the wound or reclaiming history? Documentary Films as Gendered Historical Memory in Post-Dictatorship Chile and Spain, CSW Update, October 2007
  

• Michael Chanan, The Changing Geography of Third Cinema, originally published in Screen Special Latin American Issue (edited by Catherine Grant and Jackie Stacey), Volume 38 number 4 Winter 1997

• Michael Chanan, The economic condition of cinema in Latin America , Third World Affairs 1985, London: Third World Foundation, pp.379-389

• Michael Chanan, Latin American Cinema in the 90s. Representational Space in Recent Latin American Cinema, E.I.A.L. ESTUDIOS INTERDISCIPLINARIOS DE AMERICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE, Vol. 9, No. 1, enero-junio 1998 (Cultura visual en América Latina, Editor invitado: John Mraz)

• Michael Chanan, New Cinemas in Latin America (1960-1995), from The Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, OUP, 1996

• Hugo Chaparro Valderrama, Patricio Guzmán according to Jorge Ruffinelli, El ojo que piensa, 2002
  

• First Run/Icarus Films Presskit for THE BATTLE OF CHILE (1975-1978), CHILE, OBSTINATE MEMORY (1997), THE PINOCHET CASE (2001), Films by Patricio Guzmán
  

• First Run/Icarus Films Presskit for SALVADOR ALLENDE (2004), Film by Patricio Guzmán

• Jim Hillier, The Battle of Chile/La batalla de Chile, Patricio Guzmán, 1975–9, 100 Documentary Films (London: BFI/Palgrave, BFI Film Guides, 2009 (scroll down to Ch. 14))
  

• Sarah Kessler, An Imperfect Cinema, The Brooklyn Rail, September 2009
  

• Nicola Marzano, Third Cinema Today, Offscreen Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 6, 2009
  

• Nicola Marzano, The Art of Hunger: re-defining Third Cinema, 16:9, November 2009 - 7. årgang - nummer 34

• Zuzana M. Pick, Chilean cinema: ten years of exile (1973-83), from Jump Cut, no. 32, April 1987, pp. 66-70
  

• Margaret Power, Chile, Obstinate Memory, H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. September, 1998
  

• Margaret Power, The Battle of Chile, H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. August, 1998
  

• Juan Carlos Rodríguez, The Postdictatorial Documentaries of Patricio Guzmán: Chile, Obstinate Memory, The Pinochet Case, and Island of Robinson Crusoe, PhD Thesis, Duke University 2007
  

• Antonio Traverso, Unsettled Screens: The Cinema of Latin America, Film-Philosophy, Vol. 9 No. 12, March 2005
  

• And a very special bonus for French or Spanish speakers: … à Valparaiso (1963 France/Chile 29 mins, directed by Joris Ivens, with a script by Chris Marker and assistance from Patricio Guzmán). See Adrian Danks Senses of Cinema article on this film here.

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