This study analyzes the relationship between the access to capital and the individual's construction of gender as presented in six Latin American cinematic depictions from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico that focus the point of view on young women in the urban space. David Harvey's theory on the urbanization of consciousness is used to analyze the females' relationship to family, class, community and state in terms of how each of these elements will impact the access to capital. The interaction with these factors determine that capital will also impact the construction of gender in the city-space. The films analyzed are as follows: Perfume de Violetas (2000) directed by Maryse Sistach, Àngel de fuego (1991) directed by Dana Rotberg Un día de suerte (2002) directed by Sandra Gugliotta, Hoy y mañana (2006) by Alejandro Chomsky, Uma Vida em Segredo (2001) by Suzana Amaral and Antônia (2006), by Tata Amaral. Film theory, feminist film theory, and gender studies are applied in the analysis of films.

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Sexual delinquency marked midcentury cinematic representations of adolescent girls in 1940s, 50, and early 60s. Drawing from the history of adolescence and the context of midcentury female juvenile delinquency, I argue that studios and teen girl stars struggled for decades with publicity, censorship, and social expectations regarding the sexual license of teenage girls. Until the late 1950s, exploitation films and B movies exploited teen sex and pregnancy while mainstream Hollywood ignored those issues, struggling to promote teen girl stars by tightly controlling their private lives but depriving fan magazines of the gossip and scandals that normally fueled the machinery of stardom. The emergence and image of the postwar, sexually autonomous teen girl finally began to see expression in mainstream melodramas of the late 50s, and teen girl stars such as Sandra Dee and Natalie Wood created new, “post-delinquent” star images wherein “good girls” could still be sexually experienced. This new image was a significant departure from the widespread belief that the sexually active teen girl was a fundamentally delinquent threat to the nuclear family, and offered a liberal counterpoint to more conservative teen girl prototypes like Hayley Mills, which continued to have cultural currency.

The politique des auteurs was, from the period 1968 through 1973, the dominant methodology in cinematic criticism. It was tentatively formulated by Francois Truffaut in 1954 and greatly expanded upon by Andrew Sarris in 1962. Briefly, the “auteur theory” (as it is known in English speaking countries.) contends that aesthetically important films are the product of an auteur--an equivalent term to author in a work of literature or composer as opposed to conductor in a musical composition--and that that auteur is usually the film’s director. The quality of the film under scrutiny is directly related to the ability of that auteur to express his personality on film, his technical expertise, the relation of the film to the auteur's entire oeuvre, and to the tensions between the artist's accomplishments and the circumstances under which he had to work. This thesis is an exploration into and an assessment of the successes and failures of the “auteur theory” as employed by Sarris and those who were influenced by his thought. It concludes with the author's speculation about the future of auteurism as it relates to new cinematic methodologies (specifically genre criticism and structuralism) which are becoming more and more common.

This project chronicles an in-depth character study on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in film. The term was coined in 2007 by a film critic about a very specific kind of female character—one who exists “solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” The MPDG has often been written off as nothing more than a stereotype or sexist characterization of a woman, but I argue that the MPDG can be much more than a flat character, as evidenced by the increasingly complex characterization of the MPDG in independent film. Based on case studies of several films, I discuss how the MPDG has grown from a supporting archetype into a well-rounded and multi-dimensional character. Based on a history of female depiction in film, a discussion of the critical interpretations of the MPDG, and these case studies, I argue that the MPDG has the potential to exist as a complex and realistic character rather than just an archetype.

In this paper, I will detail the process that went into the making of my thesis film, Out of True. The areas I will cover include Writing, Directing, Production Design, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, as well as Technology and Workflow. Special emphasis will be given to Directing and the new directing style I experimented with in an effort to create not only believable but engaging performances. I will then assess the success of this experiment through the use of audience questionnaires.

Excerpt: Towards the end of Ethan and Joel Coen's Academy-Award winning No Country for Old Men (2007), Carla Jean Moss's life depends on the toss of a coin. Heads or tails will decide whether she lives or dies.

Excerpt: The mountain man of American folklore and history is a man between cultures. Like Janus, the doorkeeper god of the Romans, he is bifrontal, looking back at European, white civilization, and forward toward Indian civilization and culture.

Excerpt: A generally accurate appraisal of Western films might claim that Indians as hostiles are grouped into one undifferentiated mass. Popular hostile groups include the Sioux (without much differentiation between tribes or bands, the Apaches, and the Comanches).

Belly Laughs: Body Humor in Contemporary American Literature and Film Scholars are more than happy to laugh at but seem somewhat reluctant to discuss body humor, which is perhaps the most neglected form of comedy in recent criticism. In this dissertation, I examine the ways in which contemporary American writers and filmmakers use body humor in their works, not only in moments of so-called "comic relief" but also as a valid way of exploring many of the same issues that postmodern artists typically interrogate in their more somber moments. The writers discussed in this project-Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Charles Johnson, and Woody Allen-were chosen for the divergent ways in which they present the body's comic predicament in psychological, metaphysical, and historical situations. The introduction explains the diverse traditions that these artists draw upon and considers how various theoretical approaches can affect our understanding of body humor. The first chapter examines Jewish-American novelist Philip Roth's use of absurd and grotesque body imagery as manifestations of his characters' moral dilemmas. The second chapter looks at how slapstick comedy informs a worldview dominated by paranioa and chaos in Thomas Pynchon's novels. Chapter Three looks at Woody Allen's early films, in which he parodies and revises the slapstick cinematic tradition of artists like Charlie Chaplin and The Marx Brothers. Chapter Four considers African-American writer and cartoonist Charles Johnson's depiction of the ways in which the body's desires and pitfalls complicate the quest for spiritual enlightenment.