This thesis examines the different ways films have explored female presence as a narrative and stylistic concern. The role of female presence in the creation of film meaning has often been reductively minimised or altogether neglected within many theoretical approaches to cinema. Depictions of female characters—especially those found in Hollywood films—have been viewed by feminist critics only in terms of the manifestation of sexist ideological principles, whilst more recently, 'affective' film theorists have reduced the role of presence to a simple question of fluctuating physical intensity. This thesis contests these limiting and monolithic understandings of the function of female presence by demonstrating how films have produced complex and diverse meanings through their portrayals of women characters. Closely analysing films by six directors from various styles of cinema, including examples from Classic Hollywood film and more experimental or avant-garde works, the thesis contends that films can raise the question of the condition of a female character's presence as a vital component of meaning. It illuminates how the subject of female presence is advanced, moment-to-moment, as a crucial element in the achievement of these films' intricately wrought dramas. The thesis therefore shows that female film presence is neither simply a symptom of ideology, nor a vehicle for varying degrees of affective intensity. Rather, it is something which is actively at stake in the drama and the design of films.

In this article, the conception ¡¨qu¡¦est-ce que le cinéma¡H¡¨ is set up as the initial point in order to reveal the core topic. As we know, the development of digital technology nowadays has raised the essential altering of inner and outer fields as to Film. At first, based on the research on film history, images and social environments, we attempt to figure out the possible revolution of technology, industries and aesthetics about the films. In addition, throughout the characteristics and construction of the inner and outer fields towards digital films, we offer the possibility of the postmodern turn on film aesthetics as well as the demonstration and strategies on social participation and democracy. Finally, we try to discuss the development of film aesthetics on le cinéma¢wen soi. Moreover, we acclaim that le-cinema-en-soi makes itself a becoming subject and gains the varieties of creation power to deconstruct Film ontology as well as the object/subject relationship between the public and the films.

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Since the introduction of film to Japan in the 1890s, Japanese cinema has been continually influenced by transnational processes of film production, distribution, promotion, and reception. This has led inevitably to questions about the inherent nationality of Japan's film culture, despite the fact that Japanese cinema has often been subjected to analyses of its fundamental ‘Japaneseness'. This study seeks to make an original contribution to the field of Japanese film studies by investigating the contradictory ways in which Japan has functioned as a global cinematic brand in the period 2000 to 2010, and how this is interrelated with modes of promotion and reception in the English-speaking markets of the UK and the USA. Through textual and empirical analyses of seven films from the selected period and the non-Japanese consumption of them, this thesis argues that contemporary film exports are culturally-decentred in regards to their industrial and, to some extent, aesthetic dimensions. This results from contradictory modes of ‘cultural erasure' and ‘cultural performance' in the production of certain films, whereby aesthetic traces of cultural specificity are concealed or emphasised in relation to external commercial interests. Despite strategies of cultural erasure, explicit cinematic representations of cultural specificity remain highly valued as export commodities. Moreover, in the case of contemporary Japanese film exports, there are significant issues of ‘cultural ownership' to be accounted for given the extent to which non-national industrial consortia (film producers, financers, DVD distributors, film festivals) have invested in the promotion and in some cases the production of Japanese films. Thus, both in relation to the aesthetic erasure of Japaneseness and their non-Japanese commercial identities, recent film exports can be viewed as non-national cultural products that have a commercial and cinematic identity connected to external influences as much as internal ones.

O objetivo desta tese é propor uma comparação das formas como o espaço e o tempo são elaborados em filmes das mais diversas inclinações, a fim de estabelecer alguns parâmetros do que seria a composição fílmica de maneira geral. A hipótese central é que uma análise comparada dessas formas possibilita organizar uma visão de conjunto do cinema: uma visão descritiva, não prescritiva; uma visão baseada nas próprias estratégias composicionais utilizadas pelos cineastas, mais do que em teorias externas. Para realizar essa investigação, será proposto um esquema em três partes que permite um diálogo com a bibliografia tradicional e que serve como referência para a análise dos filmes. / This thesis proposes a comparative study of the modes by which space and time are constituted in films of various dispositions, in order to establish the parameters of what would be film composition in a more general sense. The central hypothesis is that a comparative analysis of those forms enables us to organize a more unified point of view towards the films: a point of view which is descriptive, not prescritipve, and which is based on the strategies utilised by the filmmakers themselves, more than on preconceived theories. In order to advance this, we propose a three-part structure which serves as a reference to compare both theoretical writings and the films to be analyzed.

Fatiguée et vieillie, la modernité est pourtant toujours vivante : au moment de devenir tradition, le modernisme tardif se charge de l’enfermement de son esthétique. Sans rompre avec la modernité, comme le prétend le discours postmoderne, celui-ci assume jusqu’au bout les apories d’une modernité désormais tardive, et il tâche de les réfléchir. La posture du modernisme tardif par rapport à la modernité sera métacritique, se rapprochant des interrogations philosophiques de son temps (Marcuse, Adorno, Derrida, Foucault). Le modernisme tardif en cinéma aurait dès lors une place tout à fait singulière, mais pas du tout solitaire, dans l’ensemble des questions esthétiques que son temps lui pose. Dans les années soixante et soixante-dix, le modernisme déjà tardif du cinéma propose un ensemble de figures de l’enfermement qui réfléchissent le dispositif cinématographique : le cadrage autoréflexif, ou hypercadrage, sera son principe de mise en forme. Au niveau du montage, les rapports internes à l’image, entre les images, et entre sons et images se fonderaient tous sur une pratique disséminée comprise selon la dialectique négative d’Adorno, c’est-à-dire sans synthèse et vouée à faire apparaître un principe de « non-identité ». En ce sens, le cinéma moderniste tardif propose des allégories négatives d’une modernité qui n’en finit pas de finir. / On its last legs, showing its age, modernity is nevertheless still alive. Now that it has become tradition, late modernism takes on the task of imprisoning its aesthetics. Without breaking with modernity, as postmodern discourse would have it, modernism fully assumes the aporia of what is now late modernity, and attempts to reflect them. The attitude of late modernism in relation to modernity is thus metacritical, in synergy with the philosophical enquiries of its time (Marcuse, Adorno, Derrida, Foucault). Consequently, late modernism in film has an utterly unique place within the aesthetic issues of its time, without however being isolated from them. In the 1960s and 1970s, what was already late modernism in film presented a set of figures of imprisonment, which reflected the filmic apparatus: self-reflective framing, or hyperframing, was the principle behind its form. On the level of montage, the relationships within the image, those between images, and those between sounds and images were all based upon a diffuse praxis to be understood here according to Adorno’s negative dialectics: a praxis without synthesis, one destined to reveal a principle of “non-identity.” In this sense, late modernist film offers negative allegories of a modernity that never stops coming to an end.

This thesis examines the impact of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution on Egyptian cinema in curating what I call a revolutionary aesthetic. The project also provides an overview of the history of Egyptian cinema and its relationship with politics under different regimes. The artistic space enabled and enhanced by the 2011 Revolution is rooted in the rich cinematic tradition of Egypt and has influenced not only independent cinema but also mainstream and commercial cinema, particularly in terms of visual aesthetics and technical aspects. The films examined are: Dreamaway (El Helm el-Baeid, Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke, 2018), Décor (Ahmed Abdallah, 2014), The Blue Elephant (El Fil el-Azraq, Marwan Hamed, 2014), Sheikh Jackson (Amr Salama, 2017), Withered Green (Akhdar Yabes, Mohammad Hammad, 2016), and Feathers (Reesh, Omar ElZohairy, 2021). This thesis adopts a close textual analysis of the films, to reveal a new avenue for artistic expression, innovation, and transformation in Egyptian cinema. These films employ revolutionary aesthetics in their complex narratives that address political issues and challenge prevailing ideologies. Their cinematography is innovative and transformative, uncovering tensions that are prevalent in the minds of Egyptians but usually concealed by religious and moral standards. The cinematic realism in the mise-en-scène of the films also helps convey issues of corruption, poverty, and radicalization in contemporary Egypt. This thesis argues that Egyptian cinema is transitioning into a new era marked by an artistic approach to exploring societal struggles and complexities.

A tese investiga a recorrência do filme Um corpo que cai (Vertigo, 1958), de Alfred Hitchcock, como esquema matricial de uma reflexão meta-artística que, tomando como objeto a própria imagem (cinematográfica, pictórica, fotográfica, digital), atravessa toda a história moderna do cinema. Depois de definir e analisar a teoria artística proposta por Vertigo, a tese verifica os desdobramentos dessa teoria em uma série de filmes realizados desde o começo da década de 1960 até os anos 2000. Dentre os filmes analisados se acham La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), Blow up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966), Trágica obsessão (Obsession, Brian De Palma, 1975), Special Effects (Larry Cohen, 1984), Síndrome mortal (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Dario Argento, 1996), Estrada perdida (Lost Highway, David Lynch, 1997), A prisioneira (La captive, Chantal Akerman, 2000) e Na cidade de Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia, José Luis Guerín, 2007). / The thesis investigates the recurrence of Alfred Hitchcock\'s Vertigo (1958) as the matrix scheme of a meta-artistic reflection that crosses all the modern history of cinema. It includes a series of films whose subject is the image itself (cinematographic, pictorial, photographic, as well as digital image). After defining and analyzing the artistic theory proposed by Vertigo, the thesis verifies the developments of this theory in many modern and contemporary films made since the beginning of the 1960\'s. Among the films analyzed one will find La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), Blow up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966), Obsession (Brian De Palma, 1975), Special Effects (Larry Cohen, 1984), The Stendhal Syndrome (Dario Argento, 1996), Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997), La captive (Chantal Akerman, 2000), and In the city of Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia, José Luis Guerín, 2007).

O presente trabalho busca realizar uma análise do filme Câncer de Glauber Rocha em vista de estabelecer as implicações políticas e culturais da sua distensão temporal, internalizada como integrante da sua estrutura, entre os quatro dias de captação de suas imagens, em agosto de 1968, e os quatro anos que decorreram até a sua montagem e sincronização, sendo finalizado somente em maio de 1972. A nossa hipótese é a de que, ao incorporar o tempo de sua realização na forma, esta obra, por meio de duas inserções documentais coladas nos dois últimos estágios de sua realização, efetua uma intervenção política e cultural ao ano em que foi filmado. A partir da defesa da experimentação na arte, no contexto das vanguardas culturais e políticas de 1968, Glauber Rocha procura, via finalização, apresentar a sua experiência na forma de Câncer como experiência de uma época. / This project carries out an analysis of Glauber Rochas Cancer that aims to establish the political and cultural implication of the films temporal distention between the four days of shooting, in August 1968, and the four years over which it was edited and synchronized, until its completion in May 1972 and the way in which the film embeds this distention in its formal structure. We argue that the films formal incorporation of the period of its production, through the two documental segments inserted during the last two stages of production, effectively performs a political and cultural intervention on the events of the year it was shot. In the defense of experimentation in Art, in the context of the cultural and political avant-gardes of 1968, Glauber Rocha attempts, in postproduction, to present his experience, in the form of Cancer, as the experience of an epoch.

Partant de la difficulté qu’il y a à définir le « cinéma politique », ce travail se propose dans un premier temps de synthétiser, d’organiser et d’actualiser les savoirs disponibles sur le sujet. L’objectif est d’esquisser un panorama, non des films eux-mêmes, mais des discours théoriques qui accompagnent leur développement et fixent leurs objectifs. Ces discours peuvent être rassemblés en trois grands modes de lecture, en fonction de la définition qu’ils donnent de la politique et de la manière dont ils la rendent disponible pour les films. La deuxième partie procède à partir d’une hypothèse inverse : certes, on peut identifier des formes d’engagement dans les arts, mais on peut également constater que la politique est traversée par des logiques esthétiques, au sens de ce qui a trait à la perception et à la sensation (fictions, procédés de mise en scène, modes de distribution de l’espace et du temps). Or, si l’expérience esthétique est une modalité de l’expérience politique, cela signifie que les œuvres d’art peuvent avoir un rôle à jouer dans la manière dont une société se donne à voir, à éprouver, se transforme. À partir de là, il reste à imaginer les conséquences de cette hypothèse dans le champ de la théorie du cinéma, l’enjeu étant de parvenir à formuler un quatrième mode de lecture des films : la lecture esthétique. Les onze thèses qui composent la troisième partie s’efforcent d’en dessiner les contours, sur le plan à la fois théorique et méthodologique. Enfin, des analyses de films des années 1960 (une période qui passe souvent pour « moins politique » que la suivante) viennent mettre en pratique la lecture esthétique, explorer ses possibilités, éprouver ses limites. Chaque analyse se présente comme le contrechamp d’une thèse, de manière à illustrer la complémentarité des discours et des images. L’ambition de ce travail est donc de proposer une nouvelle analytique du cinéma politique, mais aussi de montrer ce que les films sont susceptibles d’ajouter aux problèmes politiques dont ils héritent. / Noticing how difficult it is to understand the notion of “political cinema”, I intend to summarize, arrange and update the knowledge on this subject. Part I presents an overview of theoretical discourses that try to define the purpose of political films. These theories can be gathered into three major reading frameworks, depending on the definition of politics they rely on and the way they extend it to include filmic phenomena. Part II reverses the perspective: it certainly is possible to identify several forms of commitment in the movies, but one can also notice that politics itself is woven from aesthetic logics, i.e. issues of perception and sensation (fictions, staging, directing, partitions of space and time). Yet if aesthetic experience is involved in political experience, it means that works of art can play a crucial part in the way a given society takes its definite shape, produces determined feelings, evolves. This hypothesis prepares the ground for a fourth reading framework that I present as a legitimate candidate to fulfill the task of understanding political cinema: the aesthetic reading. Part III consists of eleven theses that try to outline it, from both a theoretical and a methodological point of view. Finally, I put the aesthetic reading into practice by providing analyses of films from the 1960’s, a time often seen as “poorly committed”. The intention is to investigate the relevance of the aesthetic reading and its limits. Since politics is about discourses and images complementing one another, the whole part adopts an alternate structure, each analysis immediately following and expanding on a thesis. This study thus aims at renewing the methods and purposes of political film analysis, but also intends to understand what a film can do to the political problems it inherits.