<p>Filmbolaget Pixar har under de senaste femton åren legat först med att producera datoranimerad film. Bakom utvecklingen av den animerade filmen finns en tro på att kunna förändra. Jag vill i min uppsats se om idéer som dessa framträder i filmerna. Som utgångspunkt har jag använt Karin Johannissons bok <em>Nostalgia</em>, där begrepp såsom nostalgi och modernitet diskuteras. Dessa begrepp har jag sedan använt i min undersökning. Vill deras filmer föra vidare värderingar om utveckling eller representerar de något som de själva inte står för?</p> / Projektblock 8: Fördjupning i kultur och mediegestaltning

<p>This text deals with the shooting of a movie comedy. The author of this text was script writer as well as director. The film was extremely dependent upon the interpretation of the role of the leading female character, but the director and the leading actress, in spite of their willingness to cooperate, were unable to understand each other, and no creative meeting ever occurred.</p><p>The film dealt, in amused distance, with male and female strategies and shortcomings, but the lack of understanding between the director and the leading actress caused the subtleties of the text disappear, so that when the film was ready it was possible to interpret it in a way that partly opposed its intentions.</p><p>From the director’s point of view different aspects of the situation are investigated: what could she /should she have done? What are the obstacles for a better understanding? Is ”understanding” dependant only upon that which is verbal? Should the director not only be a director but also a kind of therapist? What is professional and what is private? Could a director who wasn´t also the script writer have seen other solutions? And how does it affect you as a female director never to have role models, only a very clear idea of what you <em>don’t</em> want your professional role to look like.</p><p>The director thought she was being constantly compromising, but finds out she was not, she had only a different, and in appearance, friendly but manipulative strategy in trying to reach her goal: that of enforcing and implementing her personal interpretation of the script.<strong> </strong></p><p>The role of director is also a role, and must be played. Men and women often do it in very different ways. Much more is permitted for men, in the name of”art.” The role of the artist is as such, defined by men. Women are expected to be reasonable and the (their) stage for action<strong> </strong>appears to be more limited. This is what is expected of them, and is also what many women try to live up to, often in direct conflict with their own interests. It is important to become a less reasonable but clearly defined person.  This often requires training. To become a good director you need knowledge, empathy and experience gained through many mistakes, and not least, you need what Aritsoteles calls fronesis.</p>

<p>Women are subordinate of men in the society, this is visible both in work places and private lives. Equality between the sexes is daily discussed in politics and the private sphere. As this is a hot topic which is debated within many areas, one of those is film production, we chose to write this essay about how the view of women has changed in movies over time. If equality doesn’t exist within the film media, then it will be hard to change the society’s point of view. To get the answer of our question, we chose to analyze three movie pictures from three different time areas, the choice came to be the three King Kong movies that were produced in 1933, 1976 and 2005.</p><p>After we finished analyzing the films we came to learn that society’s view of women has changed drastically between the 1930’s and the 21st Century. The changing progress has been both positive and negative because of the fact that women in today’s society are exploited more as sex objects than they used to be. But even in the 30’s men looked at women in a sexual matter, but in those days the difference between the respectable women and those time’s pin-up girls. On the other hand, equality between the sexes has come a long way in the work place and women have gained more independence in their private lives. But there is still a long way to go before we reach a complete equality.</p>

The subject of my thesis is what I have chosen to call the “action babe cinema” of the 21st century, essentially action-movies featuring a female heroine in the lead role. Inspired by the theories of Vladímir Propp, author of Morphology of the Folktale, I have tried to reveal the underlying structure of these films. I have chosen eleven films which form my material, and from these extracted a number of functions (which means the actions of a character), that reoccur frequently. The heroines’ transformation can be seen as a central theme of the action babe cinema, and I have divided the films into two groups depending on the course of the transformation, either from soft to hard or the other way around. One of my findings is how there seems to be a constant need to explain the hard and tough characteristics of the female action-heroine, implying that it isn’t a natural trait for a woman. The functions have been further visualised and exemplified throughout the text, and I have found that the functions tend to be repeated in a similar pattern depending on which group they belong to. I also use the functions in an extended analysis of Kill Bill vol. 1 and Kill Bill vol. 2. The application of Propp is discussed and I present my point of view on the subject. Finally I discuss the results of my study, and what binds these films together and set them apart.

Den fransk-algeriska filmaren Yamina Benguiguis dokumentärfilmstriptyk Mémoires d’immigrés. L’héritage maghrébin var när den hade premiär 1997 en av de första filmerna som på allvar gav röst åt de nordafrikanska arbetskraftsinvandrarna och lyfte fram deras minnen av immigrationen till Frankrike. Uppsatsens syfte är att studera den filmiska gestaltningen av minnen i de tre filmerna utifrån hypotesen att de skapar ett kollektivt minnesrum som utmanar den officiella historieskrivningen och det nationella minnet i Frankrike. Analysen av filmerna tar avstamp i en teoretisk bakgrund i två delar: Diaspora- och exilfilm, där jag kortfattat redogör för vissa drag inom området diaspora- och exil inom filmteorin, samt Rörliga bilder och minne, där jag tar upp teman som filmen som minnesteknologi och kollektivt minne, spår och minnestecken, samt gestaltning av minnesprocesser på film. I analysens tre huvuddelar uppmärksammas följande aspekter av minnesgestaltningen: Att bryta tystnaden: Språk, röst och det akustiska, Bildminnen och visuell arkeologi, och Resor i tid och rum: Filmens minnesplatser. De muntliga vittnesmålen utmanar den kollektiva och nationella amnesin kring immigrationen samtidigt som de vittnar om den förda politikens konsekvenser i enskilda människors liv. Urvalet av arkivbilder, klippning och musik bidrar till en form av poetisk gestaltning av spår och minnesplatser. Sammantaget rör sig filmerna i skärningspunkten mellan privata, kollektiva minnen och offentlig historia där den inre, levda upplevelsen av historien står i centrum.

Women are subordinate of men in the society, this is visible both in work places and private lives. Equality between the sexes is daily discussed in politics and the private sphere. As this is a hot topic which is debated within many areas, one of those is film production, we chose to write this essay about how the view of women has changed in movies over time. If equality doesn’t exist within the film media, then it will be hard to change the society’s point of view. To get the answer of our question, we chose to analyze three movie pictures from three different time areas, the choice came to be the three King Kong movies that were produced in 1933, 1976 and 2005. After we finished analyzing the films we came to learn that society’s view of women has changed drastically between the 1930’s and the 21st Century. The changing progress has been both positive and negative because of the fact that women in today’s society are exploited more as sex objects than they used to be. But even in the 30’s men looked at women in a sexual matter, but in those days the difference between the respectable women and those time’s pin-up girls. On the other hand, equality between the sexes has come a long way in the work place and women have gained more independence in their private lives. But there is still a long way to go before we reach a complete equality.

Japanese horror film has since the late 1990: ies been extremely successful. The success could probably, at least partly, be due to the Japanese narrative style (which in my own opinion is quite suitable and effective in horror films). In what way does the Japanese narrative tradition work in matter of expression? My results point towards a narrative discrepancy between J-horror and American horror film, possibly due to the Japanese narrative tradition – a narrative tradition under the influence of various forms of ancient Japanese theatre and general Japanese culture.

This text deals with the shooting of a movie comedy. The author of this text was script writer as well as director. The film was extremely dependent upon the interpretation of the role of the leading female character, but the director and the leading actress, in spite of their willingness to cooperate, were unable to understand each other, and no creative meeting ever occurred. The film dealt, in amused distance, with male and female strategies and shortcomings, but the lack of understanding between the director and the leading actress caused the subtleties of the text disappear, so that when the film was ready it was possible to interpret it in a way that partly opposed its intentions. From the director’s point of view different aspects of the situation are investigated: what could she /should she have done? What are the obstacles for a better understanding? Is ”understanding” dependant only upon that which is verbal? Should the director not only be a director but also a kind of therapist? What is professional and what is private? Could a director who wasn´t also the script writer have seen other solutions? And how does it affect you as a female director never to have role models, only a very clear idea of what you don’t want your professional role to look like. The director thought she was being constantly compromising, but finds out she was not, she had only a different, and in appearance, friendly but manipulative strategy in trying to reach her goal: that of enforcing and implementing her personal interpretation of the script. The role of director is also a role, and must be played. Men and women often do it in very different ways. Much more is permitted for men, in the name of”art.” The role of the artist is as such, defined by men. Women are expected to be reasonable and the (their) stage for action appears to be more limited. This is what is expected of them, and is also what many women try to live up to, often in direct conflict with their own interests. It is important to become a less reasonable but clearly defined person.  This often requires training. To become a good director you need knowledge, empathy and experience gained through many mistakes, and not least, you need what Aritsoteles calls fronesis.

Uppsatsen är en analys där de två amerikanska science fiction-serierna Dollhouse (Joss Whedon, 2009) och Firefly (Joss Whedon, 2002), som sänts i både svensk och amerikansk tv har granskas. Syftet är att titta närmare på hur kvinnor och deras kroppar framställs i serierna och i reklamen för sagda serier. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys granskas de båda serierna, där fokus har legat på hur de kvinnliga karaktärerna framställs i båda serierna men också på hur de marknadsförs i reklamen innan serierna har sänts. Uppsatsen är uppdelad i tre teman; ”den kvinnliga hjälten”, ”kvinnans roll” och ”den kvinnliga kroppen”. Serierna har valts ut eftersom de båda är gjorda av regissören Joss Whedon som tidigare gjort serien Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon, 1997), en serie som hyllats för sin positiva framställning av kvinnor. I slutdiskussionen finns sedan en sammanfattning på vad som uppsatsen har kommit fram till. Diskussionen innehåller även reflektioner över Joss Whedons ambition att framställa kvinnor på ett bra och accepterat sätt, men också hur andra serier idag gör framsteg i sina porträtt av kvinnor och deras kroppar.

Filmbolaget Pixar har under de senaste femton åren legat först med att producera datoranimerad film. Bakom utvecklingen av den animerade filmen finns en tro på att kunna förändra. Jag vill i min uppsats se om idéer som dessa framträder i filmerna. Som utgångspunkt har jag använt Karin Johannissons bok Nostalgia, där begrepp såsom nostalgi och modernitet diskuteras. Dessa begrepp har jag sedan använt i min undersökning. Vill deras filmer föra vidare värderingar om utveckling eller representerar de något som de själva inte står för? / Projektblock 8: Fördjupning i kultur och mediegestaltning