Joseph E. Levine has been largely neglected by Film Studies, yet he was a uniquely important figure in the US film industry during his lifetime. As an independent producer, distributor and promoter, Levine's influence on the post-War cinematic landscape of the US was wide-ranging and profound. His versatility and multifariousness were unsurpassed during his lifetime and analysis of his abilities, strategies and influence complicates many areas of current film scholarship. Levine was a very prominent figure in the popular press where he was perceived as a master showman. His prominence and hyperbolic style undermines the traditional understanding of the cultural intermediary, a role usually associated with discretion. Levine's conspicuousness led to him becoming an easily identifiable public figure yet, due to his varied output, he resists the notions of branding that are often associated with prominent figures in the film industry. Studies of reputation building strategies are often closely aligned to critical approval, yet Levine never courted critical favour. Although Levine's output catered for many niche tastes, his public image was unabashedly populist. He would, however, utilise the critical adulation bestowed on others to bolster his own reputation as a supporter of talent, providing an ideal case study for the complex political interactions of reputational assessment. As a pioneer of industrial strategy and practice, Levine was hugely influential. He pioneered saturation publicity and opening tactics and was an early advocator of the use of television in movie marketing, and therein he represents a vital missing link in the evolution of blockbuster marketing techniques. He was similarly influential regarding the marketing and distribution of art cinema and, in the 1960s and 1970s, he helped to redefine the role of the independent producer. All these factors combine to make Levine an ideal vantage point for surveying cultural and filmic mores of the post-War US. His career was one of extraordinary contradictions and complexities. An analysis of his career provides a deepening of understanding of film historiography of this era and calls into question many commonly held scholarly assumptions regarding taste cultures, cultural boundaries and the supposed demarcation between independent and major studio film production.

The Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematogräficos (ICAIC) was the first cultural institution to be created by the new Cuban revolutionary government in 1959. One of its aims was to create a revolutionary cinema to suit the needs of the Revolution in a climate of transformation and renewal. At the same time, issues of gender equality and gender relations became extremely important in a revolution attempting to eradicate some of the negative social tendencies of the past. This thesis brings together these two extremely significant aspects of the Cuban revolutionary process by examining issues of gender and gender relations in six Cuban films produced by ICAIC from 1974-1990; a period of dramatic change and development in both Cuban cinema production and in Cuban civil society. The films are: De cierta manera, Retrato de Teresa, Lejania, Hasta cierto punto, ¡Plaf! (o demaiado miedo a la vida), and Mujer transparente. The thesis argues that the portrayal of aspects of gender relations in Cuban cinema developed along a progressive path from expressions of the modern to expressions of the postmodern, closely following a cultural transition in the nation as a whole. This does not mean that there occurred an absolute rejection of all the principles of what it meant to be `modern', but that, in the latter half of the 1980s, expressions of the postmodern can be seen through the prism of gender relations in the films produced during the latter part of the period concerned. One of the goals of this thesis is to illustrate how, through the prism of the gender debate presented on film, analysed using a number of theoretical approaches, Cuban cinema both reflected and produced some of the central ideological concerns on the island during this period. It will be possible to see how the gender debate both helps to create and, at the same time, makes reference to, more general cultural debates on the island. As such, the issues around gender explored through Cuban cinema can be seen as one of the most important cultural topics of this period.

This thesis examines the complex role played by film in the maintenance of an American “self” in opposition to a series of politically and culturally defined pathological “Others” in the 1950s. I reveal how popular imagery and political rhetoric combined to link domestic “deviants” such as juvenile delinquents, homosexuals, domineering or passive mothers and drug addicts with the Communist “Other,” portraying each as essentially pathological, an insidious and sickly threat to the health of the American home and family. By analysing case-studies within a wide-reaching and inter-connected cold-war media relay, underpinned by archival research that takes in newspaper and magazine journalism, television shows, government documents and medical journals, I uncover the ways in which film helped to maintain the visibility of the disenfranchised, as well contributing to their cultural surveillance and the discursive currency of the “pathological” Other. My study exposes the politics involved in medically attaching the term “diseased” to pre-existing domestic groups, and demonstrates how a culture maintains its guard against an invisible enemy. My thesis demonstrates that, across genres, American cinema embraced socio-medical tropes and disease metaphors in narratives that aimed to delineate friend from enemy and “self” from “Other” and in this way exposed fears and tensions that simmered beneath the supposedly placid surface of the 1950s.

This thesis is an analysis of the development of regional film policy and practice in England. From the late 1960s regional film production sectors have gradually emerged from small-scale, under-resourced cottage industries to become significant areas of British film practice. By the mid-2000s the English regions were incorporated into a national film policy strategy based on a network of nine Regional Screen Agencies and centrally coordinated by the UK Film Council. Along with similar developments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, for many commentators the devolution of film production has questioned the traditional way that British cinema can be understood as a national cinema. This thesis aims to understand how regional film production sectors have developed, what filmmaking practices have characterised them and what these mean for British cinema. It is argued that the development of regional film policy and practice can be understood in terms of two distinct models: the regional workshop model and the regional “creative industries” model. Each was based on different systemic processes and ideological frameworks, and is best represented in institutions. The development of an institutional framework for regional film production is placed within the wider context of the trajectory of public policy in Britain in the post-War period; specifically the shifting boundaries between cultural policy and economic policy. The thesis employs a critical political economy approach to analyse the development of these policy frameworks and the filmmaking practices that have emerged from them, including detailed case studies of regional film practices, specifically regional documentary, regional short film and regionally-produced feature films.

Besides Tora-san series and samurai trilogy, veteran Japanese filmmaker Yamada Yoji also endeavors in making family films, however, his ‘home drama’1 genre has long been neglected in academia. To fill this gap, the aims of this research are to investigate firstly the aesthetics of his social realistic films; secondly, what are the family values revealed in his family films and thirdly, how ‘woman’ is portrayed in his ‘home drama’. Working under the ‘director system’ of Shochiku Studio, this research argues that auteur theory which advocates director as the author of a film is applicable to Yamada and is thus employed to examine family films that are produced between 1970 and 2013. Background information of the auteur (author) and his films are reviewed in Part I of this thesis while Part II will focus on the discussion and analysis of the film aesthetics and motifs of Yamada Yoji’s family films. Similar to other cultural artefacts, film aesthetics cannot stand apart from the surrounding culture. Italian neorealism which flourished at the time when Yamada entered the film industry will be used to examine Yamada’s stylistic orientation. It is found that except collaborating with professional actors, Yamada’s films display most of the characteristics of Italian neorealism. In the pursuit of aesthetic realism, the “repeated team” (also known as ‘director’s team’) of Yamada at Shochiku Studio helped him to actualize his film aesthetics. With its adoption of ‘director system’ and ‘star system’, Shochiku is also known for producing shomingeki (film of ordinary people), so besides the possible influences from Italian neorealism, Shochiku Studio may have also cast influences to the artistic style of Yamada Yoji. Through intertextual reading of his social realistic films, the kind of social problem always lies in the dilemma between tradition and progression. Viewing ‘family’ as the fundamental unit of a society, Yamada presents to us the importance of preserving traditional virtues and family values in the continuation of a family so as to the sustainability of a society. This research reaffirms the influence of Chinese ideology on the construction of Japanese family system that the family relationships and the core family values found in films can well be explained by Chinese Confucianism. Under the patriarchal social context, it is interesting to discover the portrayal of ‘strong woman and weak man’ image in his family films. While the oppression of women is depicted in the process of modernization, the image of ‘strong woman’ is presented through the inscription of femininity in Yamada’s cinematic film texts. Rejecting the binary opposition of sexes, women in Yamada’s films is portrayed to encompass the qualities of masculinity and femininity under the ecriture feminine writing of Yamada. This feminine approach can be regarded as a way out, as proposed by the auteur, to tackle social challenges. Through an in-depth examination of Yamada Yoji’s family films, this research demonstrates that is a good way to learn more about a culture or a society through social realistic cinema. / published_or_final_version / Japanese Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis explores the depiction of masculinity in the American serial killer film with a particular focus on the articulation of surveillance. I trace shifts and trends in films made between 1978 and 2008. Drawing on existing analyses of the serial killer panic, I argue that cinema swiftly assimilated FBI rhetoric which influenced the development of the serial killer as a cultural figure. In particular, I highlight the profiler as a crucial element of serial killer discourse. This thesis tracks the development of this figure within American cinema, investigates the influence of this character on portrayals of the serial killer, and argues that the killer and profiler are constructed as opposing agents of surveillance. Using a chronological approach, I investigate the films shaped by this historical moment, splitting them into time-specific cycles in order to understand the cultural shifts affecting their development. I argue that a fascination with surveillance is a factor in the continuing power of the serial killer, exploring the different ways in which surveillance is thematised in the films. Highlighting the gendered nature of surveillance, I contend that the films support gender norms, with the killer often functioning as a violent example of the suppression of non-normative expressions of gendered identity. Including discussions of both mainstream and niche films, I show that the serial killer is distanced from normative masculinity in ways which allude to the Gothic and to gender, class and race prejudice, constructing the status of the serial killer as a special, inscrutable individual removed from power structures. The thesis argues that cinematic representations have embraced certain elements of FBI rhetoric, emphasising the exceptional surveillance skills of the profiler. As a result, the serial killer is frequently depicted as an extraordinary figure requiring elite expertise. I consider the ramifications of these portrayals and discuss the moments at which patriarchal power structures underlying this form of violence are both concealed and exposed.

This thesis has compared two groups of seventh grade girls on the trampoline, by utilizing two different methods of teaching. One group viewed a film twice of the five skills to be learned, and also saw a live demonstration twice by the instructor, Both methods, during the movie and during the live demonstration, were narrated by the instructor. The other group was presented solely with the lecture-demonstration method twice.The purpose of this study was to explore the possible differences in learning that might have occurred between the two groups, due to the different methods of teaching. Each subject was given a written test for knowledge retention and a subjective skill test by a panel of gymnastic judges. By computing the mean, standard deviation, and standard error of measurement for both groups, the derived t-test scores conveyed a statistical difference for the written tests, but failed to achieve significance on the skill tests.

The thesis describes a range of discourse on language in cinema as they have emerged in film reception, production and exhibition contexts in Europe, and assesses their implications for the critical construction of European cinema. The thesis argues that the ‘problem’ of language is constituted in a number of pervasive but seldom acknowledged discourses which have circumscribed the ways in which the category ‘European cinema’ is understood. The primary sources utilised in the research, which date from the 1920s to the present day, are film magazines and journals, trade journals, policy documents and interviews. The thesis pays particular attention to the exhibition and reception cultures surrounding ‘foreign-language films’ in Britain. It takes a historical approach in addressing the cineaste attitudes promoted in the magazines Close-Up and Sight and Sound, and reflects upon the reaction against the film appreciation tradition communicated by the journal Screen. The thesis also explores the positioning of European cinema at film festivals and contemplates the translation issues therein, including the contemporary correspondence between the practice of subtitling and rhetoric on the ‘original version’ and the culturally ‘authentic’ film. It examines how language is implicated in the argument for a ‘cultural exception’, which was used in defence of European film industries during the 1993 GATT negotiations, and considers how filmmakers in Denmark have attempted in their production activities to test the parameters of this discourse on exceptionality by producing Dogma ’95 and English-language ‘cross-over’ films. The thesis finally looks at the relationship between Scottish cinema exhibitors and the European Commission, organisations which are institutionally linked through the Europa Cinemas network, and suggests that a similar ethics of consumption is articulated by each with respect to European cinema. The thesis argues that while the status of European cinema as foreign-language cinema is rarely addressed, its framing as such nonetheless impinges significantly upon the ways in which European films are consumed.

This thesis examines representations of gender in the Italian giallo, a short-lived but tremendously popular, lucrative and prolific body of films in the murder-mystery thriller tradition that enjoyed their heyday in the early-to-mid 1970s. Traditionally, both academic and populist responses to these films have focused on the output of a small number of maverick directors that have been elevated critically above their peers. Conversely, this thesis aligns itself with a more recent trend towards eschewing auteurist readings in favour of examining the giallo as a broad ‘filone’ (cycle) defined by shared iconography, narrative conventions and underlying anxieties. Building on the typological approach of this body of literature, I place the gialli within the historical context of their initial production and release, relating the anxieties they exhibit in their depiction of gender and sexuality to the seismic sociocultural changes that occurred during this period. Drawing on the methodologies employed in criticism of the American film noir movement of the 1940s and 1950s, I explore the gialli not as straightforward allegories of real world events but rather as discursive texts that engage in a refracted form with contemporary sociocultural concerns. As its central hypothesis, this thesis asserts the giallo uses the generic conventions of the ‘whodunit’ thriller to negotiate a crisis of norms in which traditional notions of masculinity and femininity have been destabilised. In exploring the ways in which this crisis manifests itself across a corpus of sixty films, I adopt the unique approach of restructuring the giallo into two distinct subcategories – ‘M-gialli’, focusing on male protagonists, and ‘F-gialli’, focusing on their female counterparts – and examining the differing ways in which they negotiate the same anxieties about gender and modern sociocultural transformation, and the differing solutions (or lack thereof) that they propose. I also examine the portrayal of gender/sexual minorities, children and teenagers as further articulations of concerns relating to the transformation of society. I argue that the gialli are characterised by a marked sense of ambivalence towards the upheavals of this period, precluding these films from being straightforwardly pigeonholed as either reactionary or progressive in their overriding ideology. This manifests itself in a plethora of uncertainties and contradictions in their narratives, mise en scène and the portrayal of the aforementioned characters, and an inability to provide credible solutions to the problems posed by the changing face of society. This thesis moves criticism of the giallo beyond merely describing its conventions to actively explaining them, and highlights the value in reading popular filmic movements as articulations of the prevalent anxieties, attitudes and worldviews of their era.

Through an engagement with Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of the cinema, this thesis explores how the notion of labyrinthine time is represented differently in movement- and time-images. Part I contrasts the different types of subject that are created in the narratives of the two types of image. This begins with an exploration of the philosophical conceptions of time behind the two images and the subjects they create. Chapter two focuses on the role of memory in the creation of these subjects, drawing on the works of Henri Bergson, and using films by Hitchcock and Fellini. The third chapter delves into the recent re-emergence of the debate over spectator positioning, and questions what Deleuze can offer this field. Here the thesis most comprehensively negotiates its place within the field of film studies, through its interaction with psychoanalytical theories of the subject, and the debate over what exactly constitutes suture. Part II focuses on the movement-image. In particular it explores characters' attempts to perform their present identities differently, by falsifying their past and taking a new direction through the labyrinth of time. Chapters four and five analyse the way in which this performativity is represented in, Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, The Talented Mr Ripley and Memento. These recent films are seen to draw a broad distinction between female performativity, which is sanctioned, but only for a brief while, and male performativity, which is represented as getting away with murder. Movement-images are thus found to uphold a very traditional gender binary, by reterritorializing the labyrinth's subversive potential into a legitimizing straight line and its marginalized, labyrinthine other. This is a conclusion that had already been suggested in chapter three.