This thesis is an observation and analysis of male performance in romantic comedy films released between 2005 and 2015. As a lasting genre, rom-com, like all forms of media, has the potential to influence society. Gender plays a vital role in the generic template of these films. Because women are the dominant consumers of this genre, what they observe as gender performance is important. This genre has been dissected under the eye of feminism and female gender performance but the changes in masculinity have been largely overlooked.This paper identifies common characteristics in leading men of this decade's rom-coms. After establishing the roles that gender, and men specifically, have played in the historical establishment of the genre, the modern man is proven to be significantly different than his predecessors. This research has identified three common facets of the modern leading man that are in stark contrast to the portrayals of the past: he is emotionally vulnerable, he is pointedly tender and domestic, and he is a strong proponent of the romantic relationship throughout the film. In response to the more autonomous and career-driven female leads of these modern films, the men have filled the genre-necessary void of domestic nurturers. This is seen through actions and characteristics such as their artistic careers, interactions with children, and commitment to the relationship.

This dissertation traces the history of the early Hollywood sound score for feature films between the years 1926 and 1934. In the growing literature on film sound, no topic has enjoyed more attention than film music. Yet film music scholars have almost uniformly written off film music in the early sound era (1926-1932). Believing the use of "nondiegetic" music (music without a source in the image) in the early sound era to be minimal, scholars have posited a striking narrative in which King Kong, released in 1933, burst onto the scene featuring a score that single-handedly revolutionized film music practices and paved the way for the heavily studied Golden Age of film music (1935-1950). In fact, a host of film scores preceded King Kong, scores which with rare exceptions have received no attention. Due to this inattention, scholars have mischaracterized the nature of late 1920s and early 1930s sound film, overlooked important and unusual early sound film music strategies and failed to offer any satisfactory account for the rise of the Golden Age of film music. Based on screenings of hundreds of early sound films, I demonstrate that the early sound era featured a wide array of musical approaches rather than a single-minded avoidance of nondiegetic music. Drawing upon musical techniques from opera, melodrama, musicals, phonography, radio, and silent films, the early sound era featured an eclectic mix of accompaniment practices. Though early synchronized sound films largely adhered to a silent film music model, the advent of synchronized dialogue encouraged the use of several other conflicting musical accompaniment models. The late 1920s featured a substantial reduction in musical accompaniment, but the period still contained a diverse array of film score experiments rather than a total avoidance of nondiegetic music. By the early 1930s, a more consistent musical approach emerged, in which music was tied to unfamiliar settings or heightened internal mental states. This tactic exerted a considerable influence on King Kong's score and continued to be influential on musical accompaniment practices in the classical era. The first chapter surveys a range of musical influences available to film music practitioners in the years leading up to the transition to sound. Chapter two then analyzes the film score in early synchronized films and part-talkies from 1926-1929, while chapter three examines the use of music in "100% talkies" from 1928-1931. After chapter four discusses the special case of the film score in the early musical from 1929-1932, chapter five examines the score for non-musicals from 1931 to just before the release of King Kong in April of 1933. In light of the plethora of pre-King Kong scores discussed in this study, chapter six offers a radical revision of King Kong's contribution to film music history. Finally, the Conclusion examines the early sound score's legacy in the Golden Age of film music.

The hardboiled hero is recognised as a central trope in the film noir cycle, and particularly in the classical noir texts produced in Hollywood in the 1940s. Like the films themselves, this protagonist has largely been understood as an allegorical embodiment of a bleak post-World War Two mood of anxiety and disillusionment. Theorists have consistently attributed his pessimism, alienation, paranoia and fatalism to the concurrent American cultural climate. With its themes of murder, illicit desire, betrayal, obsession and moral dissolution, the noir canon also proves conducive to psychoanalytic interpretation. By oedipalising the noir hero and the cinematic text in which he is embedded, this approach at best has produced exemplary noir criticism, but at worst a tendency to universalise his trajectory. This thesis proposes a complementary and newly historicised critical paradigm with which to interpret the noir hero. Such an exegesis encompasses a number of social, aesthetic, demographic and political forces reaching back to the nineteenth century. This will reveal the centrality of modernity in shaping the noir heros ontology. The noir hero will also be connected to the flaneur, a figure who embodied the changes of modernity and who emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as both an historical entity and a critical metaphor for the new subject.

<p>This paper examines the role of the pioneer Filipino filmmaker Jose Nepomuceno and his films in the Philippine quest for independence and in the process of nation-building. As all of Nepomuceno's films are lost, most of the information was gathered from old newspaper articles on microfilm in different archives in Manila. Many of these articles were hitherto undiscovered. Nepomuceno made silent films at a time when the influence of the new coloniser, United States, was growing, and the Spanish language was what unified the intellectual opposition. Previous research on Nepomuceno has focused on the Hispanic influences on his filmmaking, as well as his connections to the stage drama. This paper argues that Nepomuceno created a national consciousness by making films showing native lives and environments, adapting important Filipino novels and plays to the screen and covering important political topics and thereby creating public opinion. Many reviews in the newspapers connected his films to nation-building and independence, as the creation of a national consciousness is a cornerstone in the process of building a nation and defining "Filipino". Furthermore, the films of Nepomuceno helped spreading the Tagalog culture and language to other parts of the Philippines, hence making Tagalog the foundation of the national Filipino language.</p>

Chicano cinema is a genre of film that was born out of the Chicano Movement in the late 60’s, however not much has been written about the exhibition of Chicano film. The Chicano Film Festival began in 1976 in San Antonio, Texas to showcase Chicano filmmakers and their work. The Festival, later renamed, the CineFestival is the longest running Latino film festival in the U.S. and for my report I question how the Festival shared the work of Chicanos and promoted a Chicano discursive space. To answer these questions I turned to the Festival film programs and local periodicals. After my research, I found that the CineFestival served a purpose for Chicano cinema because it not only screened Chicano films, but it also promoted a Chicano discourse and therefore a very unique discursive space for Chicano media. However, I found that the Festival’s direction and motivations change year after year. In turn these changes, influence the Festival’s promotion or lack of promotion and screening of Chicano film. The CineFestival, even though promotes itself as a “Latino” film festival, has an obligation to sustain what it cultivated in 1976; Chicano cinema. This genre of film and its history runs the risk of being forgotten. I ask, if our own film community doesn’t screen or talk about Chicano film, then who will? It is in this report that I further explore these questions and CineFestival’s role in Chicano cinema. / text

Hammer Film Production’s brand of melodramatic Gothic Horror reinvented horror cinema in 1957. Despite bringing tremendous financial success throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Hammer’s Gothic had run its course by the early 1970s and cinematic production ceased altogether by 1975. After establishing multiple iterations of a markedly recognizable house style, it is generally agreed that Hammer failed to adapt to the demands of a changing marketplace. This thesis investigates the circumstances surrounding Hammer’s demise by conducting neoformal analysis of case study films and examining how they were affected by cultural, historical, and industrial factors. Looking to Hammer’s films themselves helps determine to what extent they were responsible for Hammer’s misfortune and why. This thesis demonstrates how Hammer’s own production setup and early genre success contributed to the studio’s eventual downfall and the outside factors that underscored this process. I argue that Hammer did experiment with house formula but the studio’s attempts to renegotiate the 1970s horror landscape were unsuccessful because of changing audience demographics, an industry in transition, and Hammer’s own perceived corporate identity. / text

This paper examines the role of the pioneer Filipino filmmaker Jose Nepomuceno and his films in the Philippine quest for independence and in the process of nation-building. As all of Nepomuceno's films are lost, most of the information was gathered from old newspaper articles on microfilm in different archives in Manila. Many of these articles were hitherto undiscovered. Nepomuceno made silent films at a time when the influence of the new coloniser, United States, was growing, and the Spanish language was what unified the intellectual opposition. Previous research on Nepomuceno has focused on the Hispanic influences on his filmmaking, as well as his connections to the stage drama. This paper argues that Nepomuceno created a national consciousness by making films showing native lives and environments, adapting important Filipino novels and plays to the screen and covering important political topics and thereby creating public opinion. Many reviews in the newspapers connected his films to nation-building and independence, as the creation of a national consciousness is a cornerstone in the process of building a nation and defining "Filipino". Furthermore, the films of Nepomuceno helped spreading the Tagalog culture and language to other parts of the Philippines, hence making Tagalog the foundation of the national Filipino language.

By combining the approaches of film history theory with research of the Soviet period, and on the basis of empirical research, this study carries out the reconstruction of exhibition, distribution and production. The main aim of this study is to present film as a multi-layered phenomenon of the Soviet period which encompasses socio-cultural, ideological, political, creative, technological, economical and institutional levels. This research not only identifies the main aims and tasks of the Soviet film policy (from above), but also discloses reasons for those cases when the programme-aimed intentions failed to be executed (from below). As it turns out, the “most important of all arts” was not that significant. The so-called advantages of cinema, such as its “mass appeal” or “effectiveness”, were only programme-based aspirations that granted film with mythical powers that had nothing in common with the processes that took place in the reality of Soviet Lithuania. The end of the creation of the Lithuanian film studio signified, on the one hand, the fact that the creation of the model of film industry in the periphery of the USSR had come to an end (production, distribution, exhibition); on the other hand, it marked the appropriation of the multi-stage system of film control. Having thoroughly analysed the modes of control expression, the research proposes a construct for this control system (“control pyramid”). / Derinant tarptautinėje istoriografijoje susiformavusias kino istorijos teorijos prieigas su sovietmečio tyrinėjimais, empirinio tyrimo pagrindu darbe atliekama kino rodymo (kino rodymo tinklas), platinimo (kino repertuaras), kino gamybos ir kūrybos rekonstrukcija. Pagrindinis darbo tikslas – pristatyti kiną kaip įvairialypį sovietmečio fenomeną, apimantį sociokultūrinius, ideologinius, politinius, kūrybinius, technologinius, ekonominius, institucinius lygmenis. Tyrime identifikuoti ne tik sovietų kino politikos pagrindiniai tikslai, uždaviniai („iš viršaus“), bet ir apčiuopti programinių intencijų neįgyvendinimo atvejai, priežastys („iš apačios“). Pasirodo, „svarbiausias iš menų“ ne toks jau ir buvo svarbus. Menami kino privalumai – „masiškumas“, paveikumas – tebuvo programinė siekiamybė, kurioje kinui suteiktos mitinės galios nieko bendra neturėjusios su sovietų Lietuvos tikrovėje vykusiais procesais. Lietuvos kino studijos kūrimo pabaiga, viena vertus, ženklino kino industrijos modelio kūrimo baigtį SSRS periferijoje (gamina, platina, rodo), kita vertus, daugiapakopės filmų kontrolės sistemos perėmimą. Atlikus nuoseklią kontrolės raišką, tyrime pasiūlytas kontrolės sistemos vaizdinys („kontrolės piramidė“). Šis leido ne tik priartėti prie supratimo kokioje gamybinėje, kūrybinėje, ideologinėje tikrovėje kino filmų kūrimo procesas vyko, bet ir pirmą kartą identifikuoti užmanymus bei filmus, patyrusius skirtingas nuobaudas ir draudimus.

Appalshop, a multi-media and arts organization in Whitesburg, Kentucky emerged in 1969 at the crossroads of several different developments. It started as a War on Poverty program and its history exhibits the contradictory ideologies that fueled that effort and the political changes that forestalled it. The production company began in the midst of technological advances in media and is an early example of the democratization of technology and the potential of portable video equipment in affecting social change. Most importantly, its genesis is located within the context of a renewed interest in Appalachian history and culture and the related issues of negotiating regional cultural identity in the American national context. This one small organization in Eastern Kentucky provides a window to a wide slice of American history and culture in the midst of profound changes. Throughout the twentieth century the Appalachian region has been repeatedly characterized in mainstream American culture in an overtly negative light. Appalshop played an integral role in countering these characterizations and the stereotypes they generated and reinforced. Technology became more accessible the second half of the twentieth century. As a result, Appalshop was able to challenge these negative perceptions of the region in the national mind by placing cameras, printing capabilities, drama, and visual art in the hands of Appalachians. This allowed them to speak for themselves—first to each other and eventually to the nation. This dissertation focuses on the founding of the Community Film Workshop of Appalachia, the subsequent abandonment of the project by the federal government, the acquisition of control over its artistic output by artists and staff members, and its expansion between 1969 and 1984. It also addresses the significant role Appalshop played in the burgeoning Appalachian social movement context that emerged concurrently with its founding and its related role as a social change organization.

The hardboiled hero is recognised as a central trope in the film noir cycle, and particularly in the classical noir texts produced in Hollywood in the 1940s. Like the films themselves, this protagonist has largely been understood as an allegorical embodiment of a bleak post-World War Two mood of anxiety and disillusionment. Theorists have consistently attributed his pessimism, alienation, paranoia and fatalism to the concurrent American cultural climate. With its themes of murder, illicit desire, betrayal, obsession and moral dissolution, the noir canon also proves conducive to psychoanalytic interpretation. By oedipalising the noir hero and the cinematic text in which he is embedded, this approach at best has produced exemplary noir criticism, but at worst a tendency to universalise his trajectory. This thesis proposes a complementary and newly historicised critical paradigm with which to interpret the noir hero. Such an exegesis encompasses a number of social, aesthetic, demographic and political forces reaching back to the nineteenth century. This will reveal the centrality of modernity in shaping the noir heros ontology. The noir hero will also be connected to the flaneur, a figure who embodied the changes of modernity and who emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as both an historical entity and a critical metaphor for the new subject.