The aim of this thesis is to study the films of the Coen brothers at the intersection of the auteur film and the genre film, by conducting a literature review of the current research on their films. By means of a hermeneutic approach, mainly focusing on the term of genre, four major themes have been established based on the literary review: genres and conventions, hybridization of genre, other art cinema features, and the spectator as auteur. The analysis of the previous research shows that all Coen films have strong genre affiliations, foremost pertaining to classic Hollywood genres such as film noir, screwball comedy, and western. Furthermore, the Coens use gamesome strategies such as hybridization and allusions, which can be regarded as art cinema features. The meaning making is thus to a large degree left to the audiences, allowing them to be placed in the position of the “auteur”. These gamelike strategies and the fact that audiences are given the role as sort of co-creator constitute key auteur features in the filmmaking of the Coen brothers, who could thus be defined as auteur filmmakers rather than mainstream genre filmmakers.

The omission of boredom from 1950s cultural and literary discourse is somewhat glaring, especially considering the frequency with which terms such as banality, conformity, and uniformity appear in scholarly and popular representations of the era. Such evocations of social and personal malaise derive from postwar sociological and theoretical critiques that rather uncritically dismiss mass culture as hostile to expressions of individuality. For Frankfurt school theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Henri Lefebvre, and Herbert Marcuse, the capitulation of individuals to a contented (and thoroughly dull) status quo is symptomatic of the disappearance of culturally distinct localities into a standardized national space, the parameters of which are determined by commodity culture. I argue that a closer inspection of filmic, literary, and archival texts from the era reveals the limitations of such macro geographies; texts often acknowledge such mass cultural rhetoric while at the same time offering a more nuanced and optimistic appraisal of the potential for meaningful engagement with the marketplace. Texts such as Norman Foster’s Woman on the Run, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, and John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” attribute postwar boredom to passive, diversionary consumption habits that mediate and inhibit the consumer’s ability to find fulfillment within local environments. By scrutinizing setting, characterization, narration, and other formal concerns within the context of boredom theory and Michael de Certeau’s spatial phenomenology, it becomes clear that these texts encourage a mode of spatial and cultural literacy capable of revealing opportunities for meaningful engagement within local environments that remain vital.

No description available.

Le cinéma français de l’après-guerre, largement apolitique, laisse pourtant surgir des questionnements autour de la remise en place de l’État de droit dans ses représentations de la justice pénale. Point de rencontre entre l’individu et l’État qui doit rétablir sa légitimité après les abus et les exactions du régime de Vichy, la justice représente un thème épineux pour les cinéastes, d’autant plus que le cinéma est à cette époque un moyen d’expression hautement surveillé, censuré et toujours associé à la propagande des régimes totalitaires. À partir d’un corpus de quarante longs métrages de fiction, l’objectif de cette étude est d’analyser les représentations des tribunaux, des forces de l’ordre, des prisons, du crime et du châtiment par le média de masse le plus important de l’époque, avant que la Nouvelle Vague n’entraîne une transformation de l’industrie et de l’esthétique cinématographiques et que la télévision atteigne un public plus nombreux encore. Les critiques dans la presse, les archives de la censure publique ou encore les bandes d’actualités qui abordent ces mêmes thèmes font partie des sources utilisées dans cette étude pour replacer dans leur contexte historique les images de la justice dans le cinéma de fiction. Souvent dépolitisés, parfois propagandistes, en quelques cas subversifs, ces films permettent de délimiter le périmètre d’expression possible autour de ce thème intrinsèquement politique dans la France des années 1940 et 1950. Ils fournissent un aperçu de la morale, des idéaux, des tabous, des espoirs et des peurs d’une société qui a rétabli la démocratie, mais qui commence à interroger la violence de ses propres pratiques de maintien de l’ordre. / Although French cinema from the period following World War Two is known for being largely apolitical, its images of criminal justice allow for a glimpse of the difficult questions that the postwar society was forced to ask itself about its return to the rule of law. As a point of conflict between the individual and the state—in a state attempting to reestablish its legitimacy—criminal justice was a delicate subject for filmmakers to address, especially since the cinematic medium, still seen as a means of propaganda and associated with totalitarian regimes, was strictly monitored and censored by public authorities. Using a corpus of 40 feature-length fiction films, this study attempts to analyze the representations of law enforcement, courts, prisons, crime, and punishment in the most important mass media of the era, before the transformation of the film industry by the New Wave and the spread of television to a substantial audience. A range of primary sources, from film reviews in the press to public censorship archives and newsreels dealing with similar themes, help to place the feature films’ images of criminal justice in their historical context. Often depoliticized, sometimes propagandistic, occasionally subversive, the films reveal the possibilities and the limits of expression on an intrinsically political topic, in the film industry and more broadly in 1940s and 1950s French society. They expose the morals, ideals, taboos, hopes and fears of a nation that had recently reestablished democracy but faced difficult questions about the violence of its own methods of maintaining order.

The aim of this master's thesis is to define and analyse the anti-Communist cycle: a group of several dozen feature films, which were produced in the United States since the late forties until the end of the fifties. The thesis adopts a critical approach to the current research on the cycle; it considers that scholars have not taken into account much of the relevant context and have described the cycle only as a reflection of some social phenomena. This project enriches the debate by considering the plurality of differently motivated participants. In addition to shifts in the society as a whole, the emphasis is put on the interests of both the film industry and ones, who expressed their disagreement with the dominant form of anti-Communism, but not with the anti-Communism itself. The anti-Communist cycle is thus presented as a dynamic group of various films in terms of ideas, style or genres; among these films a discreet tension was created. This general hypothesis is tested by three extensive chapters. The first chapter deals with the context and defines the role of all participants. It is divided into two parts: (a) the historical context, (b) the context of the film industry. The second chapter summarizes the long continuity of production of anti-Communist films in the United States; then it...

The thesis Darkness as a Metaphor in Film Noir explores the theme of darkness in film noir. Darkness is not merely formal, but also metaphorical communication vehicle, which works as a semantic framework and therefore when "reading" interpretive efforts have to be expended. In question of theory the thesis is based on Paul Ricoeur's living metaphor that transmute existing meanings and causes interpretive activities, as well as on conceptualization of the text openness towards the recipient, which is represented by theories of Roman Ingarden's places of indeterminacy, Wolfgang Iser's gaps, and Umberto Eco's open work. The hypothesis is the presumption that film noir can be understood in a way that it brings to viewers a change of perception, or a new visual experience, which was not present in cinema until then and which leads to the perception of "third sense". The thesis provides analyses of film noir movies and highlights their specific narrative and stylistic elements. The research also refers to the history of darkness in visual culture, while asking whether the traditional stereotypes can be separated from the inevitable sensual experience.

Bibliography: leaves 104-117.

The focus of this essay is a discussion of Libby Larsen's relationship with American vernacular musical expression in her piano chamber music works. This essay examines three works that are representative of the wide range of influences in her piano chamber music: Holy Roller for Alto Saxophone and Piano; Barn Dances for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano; and Trio for Piano and Strings for Violin, Cello, and Piano. They are inspired, respectively, by three different genres of American music: gospel, Western square dance, and jazz. In so doing, this essay discusses Larsen's use of musical quotations, idiomatic harmonic elements, and patterns of rhythm and melody drawn from these varied aspects of American culture. It is essential for musicians to understand how to play varying genres, and this essay offers suggestions on how to play the three different genres of gospel, Western square dance, and jazz within the context of Larsen's music. This essay will hopefully bring these works, and Larsen's larger body of works, to the greater attention of the musical community and introduce them to a wider audience.

As a postmodern director, David Lynch makes films which are innovative, evocative, and uniquely his own. The theme of twinning, in particular, is recapitulated throughout the director's oeuvre; however, it is with Lost Highway that the thematic element he addresses takes center stage. The film's main character Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) is unable to cope with the trauma in his life. After killing his wife and finding himself on death row, he has a parallel identity crisis; he manages a metamorphosis into a younger, virile Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty). The method which allows this transformation is the psychogenic fugue: a fantasy which creates an alternate reality caused by the subject's refusal to see objective truth(s). As the plot progresses, there are several more characters who develop alter egos. These other important twinnings include Fred's wife Renee/Alice (Patricia Arquette), Mr. Eddy/Dick Laurant (Robert Loggia), and the Mystery Man played by Robert Blake. Of all the doppelgangers, the Mystery Man is vital to the unraveling of the story; he is an abstraction and can exist in several places at one time. He is a symbolic function of the superego which allows Fred to carry out the mission. Lynch also uses the Moebius Strip as another tool to interweave reality and fantasy into the plot. The story can have a litany of meanings because of the twist in the strip. It allows overlap in the space/time continuum. The use of this concept is invaluable in applying certain types of analysis to the film. Among others, Jacques Lacan , Sigmund Freud, and Slavoj Zizek are central to defining the film. Lynch shows the audience that fantasy cannot subvert reality. It is only a temporary fix. Fred Madison's twinning is unsuccessful in the end. He is forced to continue riding his own lost highway until another new reality is created.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript.