Browsing by Subject "Documentary"
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Open Access Finding Home: Journey of an Italian Immigrant(2015-04-06) Carlevaro, AlexandraThis paper accompanies an interactive multimedia documentary that tells the story of the Carlevaro family’s journey from Palermo, Sicily to New York City, then to Brooklyn, Rutherford, NJ and eventually Stony Point, NY. The documentary explores the Italian immigrant experience in early 20th century Manhattan and the subsequent experiences of my great-grandparents Rudolph and Evelyn as Italian-Americans making their way in their new home. In this paper I describe the personal and academic occurrences that led to the pursuit of this topic, as well as the technological and creative processes I underwent in the making of this documentary. The documentary, Finding Home: Journey of an Italian Immigrant, is available at and as an ebook in the iTunes and iBooks stores on any compatible iOS device.Item Open Access Impure Cinema: Political Pedagogies in Film and Theory(2009) Baumbach, NicholasImpure Cinema: Political Pedagogies in Film and Theory asks what are the ways that the politics of film theory have been conceptualized since the era now known as "70s film theory." In particular, it analyzes the writings on cinema, politics and art by contemporary French philosophers Alain Badiou and Jacques Rancière in relation to the influential approaches of Louis Althusser and Gilles Deleuze and to theories of documentary cinema. I argue that unlike the political modernism of 70s film theory and the post-theory turn of 90s film studies, Badiou and Rancière offer an approach to film theory that neither assumes that all films are political, nor that politics underdetermine theory, but rather suggests that we analyze both theories and films in terms of how they construct connections between cinema and politics. Following Deleuze, I call these connections "pedagogical" not because they transmit knowledge but because they always involve a new kind of connection or relation that seeks to transform habitual ways of seeing, saying or doing. For Badiou and Rancière this is based on a conception of cinema as "impure." Cinema, they argue, is never free of elements from other arts or daily life, but it is this impurity that is the grounds for linking its artistic and political possibilities. I look at various film forms that highlight cinema's impurity, in particular the "actuality" and how it has been reappropriated in various forms of documentary and essayistic practices as a way of giving cinematic form to questions of political equality.
Item Open Access Real Politics and Feminist Documentaries: Re-Visioning Seventies Film Feminisms(2010) Warren, Shilyh J.For a brief moment in feminist time, from 1968 to 1974, women's documentaries were influential in the emerging field of feminist film studies and for feminist activism. By the late sixties feminists had identified visual representation within popular culture, film, and the media as one of the central battlegrounds for women's activism. For feminist filmmakers, documentary, with its alleged superlative grip on truth and transparency, seemed to provide an ideal counterpoint to the perceived mis-representation of "real" women in dominant, narrative cinema. Within seventies feminist film theory, however, scholars elaborated a gender-specific take on the ideological critique of realism that disavowed women's documentary films as naïve, unsophisticated, and complicit with the ideologies of patriarchy and capitalism.
In this project, I recast realism as an unruly and contradictory set of codes and conventions that generate oppositional and revolutionary political documentaries. In contrast to the dominant anti-realist reception of feminist documentaries in seventies feminist film theory then, I argue that these documentaries contain unacknowledged nuance and neglected visions of the political aspirations (however flawed) of second wave feminism. Key figures in feminist political theory, such as Nancy Fraser and Hannah Arendt, shed light on the political and subjective configurations brought forth in several feminist documentaries, including I Am Somebody (1969), Janie's Janie (1971), The Woman's Film (1971), and Joyce at 34 (1972), and Self-Health (1974), which depend rather on second wave aspirations of collectivity and agency, and the power of self-authorship and experience.
Item Open Access Realism in Ancient History Documentaries(2022-11-23) Yu, JieThis project focuses on the representation of realism in ancient history documentaries. While documentaries are often distinguished from fictional films for the general public by their intimate connection to reality and their strong persuasiveness, the fictional component of documentaries is higher than spectators’ expectations. Compared to other types of documentaries, the time and space distance between the producers of ancient history documentaries and the original material leads to the problem that ancient history documentaries face a greater challenge in authenticity. In order to seek the documentary mission of recording reality and to bring it closer to spectators’ expected authenticity, exploring the issue from the perspective of realistic expressions in ancient history documentaries is meaningful. Therefore, by combining theory and practice, based on realism-related theories, this project explores the expressive techniques in ancient history documentaries and provides examples and reflections on theoretical practice in filming experience. This project proposes the impossibility of restoring reality in films and emphasizes that the realism in ancient history documentaries should be pursued with a belief in the way of conducting a ritual. The results are evaluations of the realistic tendency of the commonly used expression techniques in ancient history documentaries and confirm the importance of research investments and filmmakers’ commitment during practice.Item Embargo Residing in Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Domestic Spaces in Domestic Spaces in 21st Century Chinese-Language Documentary Films(2024) Fan, YueThis project explores the concept of domestic space as depicted in the films Small Talk (2016) and The Moon Palace (2007), alongside philosophical and cultural insights. Through an interdisciplinary lens that incorporates cinema studies, philosophy, and cultural analysis, we examine how these filmmakers navigate the complexities of familial relationships, societal norms, and individual identities within the context of domesticity.
Small Talk by Huang Hui-chen provides a deeply personal exploration of domesticity, shedding light on taboo topics such as sexual identity and domestic violence. Meanwhile, Qiu Jiongjiong's The Moon Palace offers a fragmented yet profound portrayal of domestic space, challenging conventional boundaries and inviting viewers to contemplate the interplay between physical architecture and emotional resonance. Drawing from philosophical, this project expands understanding of domestic space as a liminal entity shaped by both tangible structures and intangible narratives. Through the lens of these filmmakers, the analysis interrogates the narratives embedded within the walls of our homes, gaining insight into the complexities of the human condition and the enduring power of familial bonds.
Ultimately, this thesis project argues that the study of domestic space transcends mere architectural analysis to encompass a deeper interrogation of human existence itself. By engaging with cinematic representations of home, we gain a deeper appreciation for the multiplicity of meanings that reside within the spaces we call home, offering valuable insights into the complexities of modern life and the human experience.
Item Open Access The Gaze of “Chaos”: Temporal-Spatial Migration and Power Dynamics in a Globalizing Post-Socialist China(2020) Zhang, WenxianThe thesis approaches the positionality of visuality within third-world cinema by examining the case of transnational documentary filmmaking. In past decades, China’s post-socialist transformation has altered not only its local conditions but also transcended the national and cultural borders. Such shift can be significantly captured by the perspective of Chinese documentary since the 1990s. Produced outside of the state-owned studios and exhibited on international film festivals and online platforms, Chinese documentary is a transnational cinematic production from the very beginning. Current research illustrates its positionality of “minor cinema” as resistance to China’s mainstream cinema, but this binary term oversimplifies the uneven tensions of the state power, transnational forces, and the shifting aesthetic paradigms that constitute the spectrum of documentary in a globalizing post-socialist China.
This research undertakes a critical reading of Zhou Hao’s documentary practice. Unlike many of his counterparts’ “on-the-spot” realism, Zhou proposes the conception of “hundun”(混沌), literally meaning chaos and disorder, to represent the ambiguous reality of China in his transnational documentary. As hundun replaces the “real” as the aesthetic paradigm of filmmaking, one might further ask about how the conception of hundun appeared and functioned in Zhou’s film, its political and historical implications in both domestic and transnational contexts, as well as its potential of theoretical and practical intervention.
Through discussing Zhou’s three representative works Houjie Township(2002), The Cop Shop(2010), and The Chinese Mayor(2015) , I will argue that Zhou’s documentary practice opens up a space of hundun in terms of ambiguity, heterogeneity, and dynamism, where the dialectics between migration in a temporal sense and power dynamics in a spatial sense reflect both the local circumstance and China’s post-socialist transformation as a whole. Furthermore, regarding the exhibition, distribution, and circulation of documentary as a connective and global media, the representation of hundun prompts us to reflect on Félix Guattari's conception of “Chaosmosis”, which is “at the junction of the finite and infinite, at this point of negotiation between complexity and chaos.” By engaging theories of visuality, cultural anthropology, and migration studies, I will further ask about how the gaze of chaos(hundun) within visuality is productive in challenging the totalizing understandings of China, thus envisioning an alternative approach to reframing locality within globally mediated networks and power order.
Item Open Access The Persistence of Smoke: Opera in One Act, Libretto by John Justice(2011) Lam, George Tsz-KwanThe Persistence of Smoke is a documentary opera. The libretto is based on interviews with various individuals related to the former Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company headquarters in Durham, North Carolina.
The cigarette industry once dominated Durham, but saw its decline in the 1990s as the link between cancer and smoking became increasingly clear. The American Tobacco Company and the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company were once the biggest cigarette manufacturers in the city. As these companies left Durham, their factories and tobacco warehouses first sat vacant, but were gradually preserved and transformed into new spaces for offices, apartments and restaurants.
This project focused on the former Liggett and Myers headquarters along Main Street, a collection of buildings now known as "West Village". I interviewed current and former Durham residents who had a connection with these buildings, including local business representatives, community leaders, former Liggett employees, historians, current residents in the downtown area, municipal urban planners, journalists, and an architect. These interviews were given to local playwright John Justice, who created a libretto based on the themes that emerged.
The opera's story focuses on Kevin, an architect about to unveil his visionary master plan for redeveloping several defunct cigarette factories in an unnamed city. As Kevin leaves his newly renovated apartment for the press conference, he is confronted by his estranged father Curtis, a former cigarette worker who desperately wants to reconcile and reconnect, deliriously recalling the glory days of tobacco and the money that followed.
Item Open Access The Post-dictatorial Documentaries of Patricio Guzmán: Chile, Obstinate Memory; The Pinochet Case and Island of Robinson Crusoe(2007-05-10T14:55:35Z) Rodriguez, Juan CarlosThe aim of this investigation is to study the various cinematic and rhetorical strategies that Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán uses to construct a complex image of the postdictatorial Chilean society. By analyzing three of his documentaries from the late 1990s and early 2000s (Chile, Obstinate Memory; The Pinochet Case and Island of Robinson Crusoe), I argue that Guzmán's cinematic images expose the challenges of constructing a collective memory of the 1973 coup in Chile and its aftermath. In an attempt to interrogate the social, political and economic dynamics of the Chilean transition to democracy that began in the year 1990, Guzmán's documentaries also explore the consequences of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1989) in the present. The historical conjuncture of postdictatorial Chile is connected to at least three geopolitical phenomenons: the Post-Cold War international arena formed after the dissolution of existent socialist regimes, the advent of neoliberalism as a transnational economic paradigm, and the struggle for global human rights. The documentaries of Patricio Guzmán are poetic responses to each of these geopolitical phenomenons that affect the constitution of the Chilean present.