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| Persona (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1966) |
Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"
from Poetics of Cinema
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Art Cinema and Modernism in Film
Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"
from Poetics of Cinema
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
For Those About To Rock: Return of the Aura
Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart"I mean, man, whither goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?"
-Jack Kerouac
-Keightley, "Reconsidering Rock"
Here are a couple of articles to integrate Keightley's Reconsidering Rock article. The first Frith article is required; the second article is a highly recommended read. Enjoy the Lester Bangs reviews from Creem. Reebee Garofalo's article on Soul ("Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement") is required.
Simon Frith - "Rock and Popular Culture"
Simon Frith - "The Magic The Can Set You Free": The Ideology of Folk and the Myth of the Rock Community
Paul Clarke - "'A Magic Science': Rock Music as a Recording Art"
Lester Bangs - Various Record Reviews from Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Reebee Garofalo - Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement
Also, here is Andrew Chester's "For A Rock Aesthetic", Richard Merton's response, "Comments" and Chester's response to the response, "Second Thoughts on a Rock Aesthetic: The Band". It's all here at this link --the whole epochal exchange in one handy location.
Please read in 'Rocking Out' up to and including Chapter 8.
AC/DC, Let There Be Rock (1977)
Reverend Bon tells you all about it. As you can see the 'aura' is back around Angus' head.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Audience Heatmaps: Assessment, Interactivity, Analytics and Chatter
The Audience Response Heatmap from Bluefin
Andrejevic, The Twenty-First-Century Telescreen
Marshall, Screens: Television's Dispersed 'Broadcast'
McChesney, What is the Elephant in the Digital Room? from Digital Disconnect
Refer to Jon Gertner's epigraph in Chapter 6 of The Television Will Be Revolutionized:
"Finding out whether ''C.S.I.'' beats ''Desperate Housewives'' is just the beginning. Change the way you count, for instance, and you can change where the advertising dollars go, which in turn determines what shows are made and what shows then are renewed. Change the way you count, and potentially you change the comparative value of entire genres (news versus sports, dramas versus comedies) as well as entire demographic segments (young versus old, men versus women, Hispanic versus black). Change the way you count, and you might revalue the worth of sitcom stars, news anchors and -- when a single ratings point can mean millions of dollars -- the revenue of local affiliates and networks alike. Counting differently can even alter the economics of entire industries, should advertisers (thanks to the P.P.M.) discover that radio or the Web is a better way to get people to know their brand or buy their products or even vote for their political candidates. Change the way you measure America's culture consumption, in other words, and you change America's culture business. And maybe even the culture itself."
The complete Jon Gertner (from The New York Times Magazine), "Our Ratings, Ourselves" here.
A recent Toby Miller blogpost, "TV is Dead" chock full of nice links and statistics about TV consumption
The following are good background readings about network and transition era audience assessment methods. They also offer a good reflection and analysis of the ways in which audience assessment are used in developing a political and regulatory environment for media systems in general and television in particular.
Meehan, The Blame Game
Meehan, Don't Blame The Viewers
Ang, The Nature of the Audience
Gandy, Tracking the Audience
Thursday, February 23, 2017
"Beneath the cobblestones, the beach": Theory, Situationism and Cultural Resistance
Hans Magnus Enzensberger - Constituents of a Theory of the Media (1970)
Extra:
John Downing - Radical Media in Italy
How To Talk Like A Situationist
Guy Debord - Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency's Conditions of Organization and Action (1957)
If you are interested in reading more of the Situationist International's documents, manifestos and screeds (they are always fun, engaging and inspiring) you can find an excellent selection in the anthology edited by Tom McDonough and published by MIT Press titled Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. Modern day situationists have made the book available here. Of course all of the Situationist documents are also available online at the Situationist Online Archive which is a true treasure trove of material. There are many other sources for Situationist materials freely available online, a direct result of the 'proto-free culture' approach the Situationist International always promoted.
Guy Debord - Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency's Conditions of Organization and Action (1957)
If you are interested in reading more of the Situationist International's documents, manifestos and screeds (they are always fun, engaging and inspiring) you can find an excellent selection in the anthology edited by Tom McDonough and published by MIT Press titled Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. Modern day situationists have made the book available here. Of course all of the Situationist documents are also available online at the Situationist Online Archive which is a true treasure trove of material. There are many other sources for Situationist materials freely available online, a direct result of the 'proto-free culture' approach the Situationist International always promoted.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Monday, February 20, 2017
Cinematic Specificity: Language or Reality
On Montage:
Vsevolod Pudovkin, "On Editing" from Film Technique
Sergei Eisenstein, "Methods of Montage" from Film Form
On Realism:
André Bazin, What is Cinema, Vol. 1
(nb. please only read the essays at pg. 9 and pg. 41: "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" + "The Virtues and Limitations of Montage (aka Montage Interdit).
The In-Between Years (or The Empire Strikes Back)
The Folk Revival:
The Kingston Trio - Tom Dooley
Pete Seeger - Turn Turn Turn!
Joan Baez - Silver Dagger
Bob Dylan - Masters of War
Lyrics here.
Surf & Hot Rod Combos:
The Beach Boys - Surfin USA
Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Miserlou
Link Wray & His Ray Men - Rumble (Outtake)
The Stingers (Jack Cole) - Mustang
Uptown R&B from Motown/All songs by Holland-Dozier-Holland:
Martha & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run
The Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
The Supremes - You Can't Hurry Love
Marvin Gaye - How Sweet It Is
Girl Groups/Phil Spector Wall of Sound/Songs by Weill & Mann:
The Ronettes - Be My Baby
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron
Cynthia Weill & Barry Mann songs NOT produced by Phil Spector:
Lesley Gore - It's My Party
The Wall of Sound in full-effect:
Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep, Mountain High
The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling
Readings:
Keightley, "Reconsidering Rock"
nb. You will not be responsible for this reading for the midterm. We will discuss the issues and concepts raised in it after the exam. I do however urge you to read it as it offers a lot of points that would help your review of material that will actually be covered on the midterm.
In Garofalo you should read up to and including Chapter 6.
Monday, February 13, 2017
R'n'R or Transubstantiated R'n'B?
Elvis Presley - That's All Right, Mama + Blue Moon of Kentucky
Bill Haley & The Comets - Crazy Man Crazy
Fats Domino - Ain't That A Shame + Blueberry Hill
Little Richard - Tutti Frutti
Chuck Berry - Almost Grown + Little Queenie
Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing
The Chords - Sh-Boom
Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers - Why Do Fools Fall In Love
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Enough to Make Strong Men Weep: HK Cinema and John Woo by Bordwell
David Bordwell on the Hong Kong Action Cinema and John Woo.
You'll find three chapters from Bordwell's Planet Hong Kong here. Chapters 1&2 look at HK cinema from an industry and mode of production perspective and provides a comparative discussion of HK with the CHC. The third section (Chapter 4a) is a specific analysis of John Woo's filmic style.
from David Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and The Art of Entertainment; 2nd Ed (Irvington Way Institute Press: Madison, WI, 2011) -- if you are interested and want to read more (and why wouldn't you) you can visit davidbordwell.net to purchase a pdf copy of the complete book. You'll also find other books by Bordwell at the same link.
The Technology and the Society: A Critique of McLuhan
In order to be done with ol' Marshall (even though you're never done with him).
Raymond Williams, "The Technology and the Society" from Television: Technology and Cultural Form
Hot and Cold Media Is the Message in the Global Village of the Guttenberg Galaxy
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| Eisenstein Diagram |
Monday, February 6, 2017
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers: Something Wild
This is the Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug, the Suzie-Q. The clip is an excerpt from H.C. Potter's Helzapoppin' (1941). The Lindy Hoppers doing "The Big Apple" in 1939 are here. Enjoy.
In this clip the dancing starts at the 2:15 mark.
from Jonathan Demme's Something Wild; The Feelies play David Bowies's "Fame" and Jeff Daniels dances with his eye on the 'Other' for cues.
Post-War Hillbillies: Western Swing, Honky Tonk and Bluegrass
Hank Williams - Hey Goodlookin' + Lovesick Blues
Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys - Muleskinner Blues + Blue Moon Of Kentucky
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