This thesis examines how the conventions of four distinct genres, the star personas of two key Hispanic male stars and conceptions of Hispanic men as 'macho' intersected in constructing images of Hispanic masculinity in Hollywood between the years 1998 and 2008. The work makes an original contribution to knowledge as the first extensive study of Hispanic masculinity in contemporary Hollywood and affording new insights into the way in which genre conventions and star personas contributed to these representations. The structure is based around four genre based case studies. The first analyses how Hispanic masculinity has been represented in action adventure films, with a specific focus on Antonio Banderas' performances in The Mask of Zorro (1998) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). The second case study chapter examines representations of Hispanic masculinity in the contemporary family film, its two case studies being the male members of the Cortez family of spies in Spy Kids (2001) and the animated Puss in Boots in Shrek 2 (2004). The third focuses on the cross genre form of the border film discussing images of Mexican masculinity in the drug trafficking drama Traffic (2000),with a specific focus on the performance of Benicio Del Toro, and border Western The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005). The fourth and final case study chapter centres around the representation of Hispanic masculinity in contemporary Biopics, analysing the performances of Banderas in And Staring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003) and Del Toro in Stephen Soderbergh's Che (2008). This research demonstrates that, in a decade where Hispanics became the US' largest ethnic minority, Hispanic males were cast in increasingly central and heroic roles across a range of genres but were still subject to long standing stereotypes than represent Hispanic men as excessively macho.

My area of research is best described as the promotion of a new methodological approach to the study of film. It is an approach that is founded upon a spatial reading, based on an exploration into abstract aesthetics and pays particular attention to the interactions between sound and image. Whilst this methodological approach can be utilised to read any film, this thesis looks particularly at the musical genre and, more specifically, the musical number and its representation of space. The need to delimit my study notwithstanding, the musical has been taken as a case study in order to demonstrate how this spatial methodology should pay attention to, and be aware of, the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies that genres encapsulate. My thesis challenges the dominance of cognitive theory by providing an approach based upon gestalt theory, making use of ‘forensic’ analysis to remove aesthetics from their narrative context. Theorists such as Rick Altman (1989, 1999) and Jane Feuer (1993) have long discussed the structural qualities of the musical genre in an attempt to delimit the musical number from that which surrounds it. A different representation of space emerges in the musical number, one that permits a deeper exploration into the negotiated relationship between sound and image. In this thesis I examine this space closely utilising a range of innovative analytical techniques including virtual reconstruction and diagrammatic notation. This ‘forensic’ analysis is considered within the overarching framework of gestalt theory: that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This thesis studies film as an audio-visual medium and considers a range of different spatial realms in order to best understand the complex negotiations between sound and image. Previous scholars of the musical genre have largely focused upon narrative readings of either new or canonical filmic texts. I argue that these narrative readings, whilst 4 providing significant contributions to the field, are ultimately deficient as they fail to adequately explore the finer qualities of film language.

The most important and celebrated chapter in the history of Bangladesh is its nine-month long Liberation War (Muktijuddho in Bengali) of 1971. My research explores the ways in which memories and histories of the war are shaped by the gender dynamics of nationalism in different periods through examining war-themed films of Bangladesh. By covering both mainstream and alternative war films produced just before, during and after the war, from 1970 to 2011, I trace the various ways in which men and women are represented in war films and construct the idea of nation. I also aim to unpack the politics and aesthetics of war films, contextualizing them as they intersect with the socio-historical contexts. Employing textual and visual analyses with using solid theoretical scholarship, both from the East and the West, concerning cinematic representation of the past, women and nation, I argue that the different power structures of men and women constructed in war films are in accordance with the dominant ideology of the society. The Liberation War was a people’s war, involving manifold participation of both men and women from different classes, religions and localities. Despite this reality, cinematic representations of the War have always portrayed the combat experience as an exclusively masculine enterprise. By contrast, women have been constructed in the films as passive victims or in subordinate roles. Woman is valorized in one instance, in her idealized portrayal as the ‘mother-nation’; this iconic projection of woman, however, highlights men’s heroic defence of their motherland. On the other hand, female rape victims in the war are framed as shame or dishonour for the nation and are offered a customary exclusion by suicide, death or occasionally by some other means at the end of the war films. I have argued that war films exclude the raped women from the narratives in order to maintain a perceived purity of the nationalist discourse, following the national politics, culture and historiography of Bangladesh.

This thesis is an investigation of the explosive growth of Bhojpuri cinema alongside the vernacularisation of north Indian media in the last decade. As these developments take place under the shadow of Bollywood, the thesis also studies the aesthetic, political, and infrastructural nature of the relationship between vernacular media industries – Bhojpuri in particular – and Bollywood. The thesis then argues that Bhojpuri cinema, even as it provincialises Bollywood, aspires to sit beside it instead of displacing it. The outrightly confrontational readings notwithstanding, the thesis grapples with the ways in which the vernacular departs from its corresponding cosmopolitan form and how it negotiates cultural representation as an industry. The two chapters in Part I provide a narrative account of the discourses and media-texts that saturate the Bhojpuri public sphere. The prevailing discourses and the dominant texts, the thesis argues, resonate with each other, but also delimit the destiny of Bhojpuri film and media. The tug of war between the cultural and economic valuations of the Bhojpuri commodity, as between enchantment and discontent with its representative prowess, as also between ‘traditional’ values and reformist ‘modernity’, leaves us within an uncomfortable zone. The thesis shows how aspirations to male stardom consolidate this territory and become the logic by which the industry output keeps growing, in spite of a failing media economy. Each of the three chapters in Part II traces the historical trajectory of language, gendered use of public space, and piracy, respectively. In this part, the thesis establishes the analytical provenance for the emergence of Bhojpuri cinema in particular, and vernacular media in general. While Bhojpuri media allows Bhojpuri to seek its autonomy from state-supported Hindi, it also occupied the fringe economy of rundown theatres as Bollywood sought to move towards the multiplexes. If the advent of audiocassettes led to the emergence of Bhojpuri media sanskar, the availability of the single-screen economy after the arrival of multiplexes cleared the space for the theatrical exhibition of Bhojpuri cinema. The suboptimal transactions of counterfeit media commodities, on the other hand, regulate the legal counterpart and widen the net of distribution beyond the film theatre. I argue that the suboptimal practices are embedded within the unstable meanwhile. As an occupant of this meanwhile temporality, Bhojpuri film and media, whether in rundown theatres or on cheap mobile phones, grow via contingent and strategic coalitions. This thesis, then, argues that cinema as a form makes it possible for Bhojpuri speaking society to confront, and reconcile with, its own corporeality – the aural and visual footprints, the discursive and ideological blind spots, and the aspiration to break free. On account of the media economy and its power to ratify a new order of hierarchy via celebrity, Bhojpuri media threatens to transform the social order, yet remains open to the possibility of manipulation by which the old order could rechristen itself as new.

This thesis investigates the children’s horror film in Hollywood cinema. Children are typically thought of as being innocent and vulnerable, and horror – usually considered a genre for adult viewers – is one area of the media from which children are often thought of as needing protection. However, evidence shows that children’s viewership and enjoyment of horror films dates to least as early as the 1930s, while violent imagery has been used as a pedagogical tool in fairy tales, cautionary tales and other children’s stories for centuries. The number of horror films made specifically for and about children in US cinema has been steadily increasing since the 1980s, with recent releases including Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012) and Frankenweenie (2012). Despite this, scholarship dedicated exclusively to this rich and intriguing area is scarce. One intention of the research, explored predominantly in Chapter One, is to chart the development of this subgenre in Hollywood, explore how it differs aesthetically, formally, narratively and thematically from ‘adult’ horror, and how it mediates its content in order to be recognisably ‘horrific’ while remaining ‘child-friendly’. Following the review of scholarly literature in Chapter Two, the thesis is then divided into three case study chapters which focus on how horror films which are both addressed to a child audience and about child characters utilise iconography and conventions of the horror genre to represent specific fears and desires associated with children and childhood. Chapter Three examines texts which feature ‘monstrous’ children. These child characters’ ‘monstrosities’ are presented in a way that can be read as pleasurable and potentially cathartic for a child audience. As such, these representations largely subvert the common depiction of children as demonic antagonists in adult horror films. The chapter is also framed by societal fears that children may become ‘monstrous’ threats should they be exposed to horror in order to argue that these films offer critiques upon the relationship between children and the horror genre. Chapter Four explores texts from the late-1980s to early-1990s in which children must protect themselves and their communities from evil vampires, witches, and other monsters. These predatory ‘risky strangers’ are read as reflecting contemporaneous concerns about child abuse which were particularly prevalent during this period in the US. As such, the chapter queries whether these texts address adults’ fears about or for children more than actual children’s fears. Chapter Five examines films set in the home, which is presented as an uncanny and threatening space in which to address childhood fears and anxieties concerning maturation, independence, identity formation and familial relationships. It is argued that by facing their fears, the child protagonists of these films undergo beneficial experiences and emerge better prepared to face life ahead. This thesis argues that children’s horror films, by providing safe and pleasurable spaces in which to experience fear, can be read as offering positive and beneficial experiences for child viewers. Far from being ‘unsuitable’ for children, the imagery and conventions of the horror genre are in fact highly suited to addressing the fears and experiences of childhood. Simultaneously, however, this thesis questions the problematic ideological aspects of children’s horror films which may be ‘bad’ for children: that is, in showing children how to overcome their fears, what, or who, do these films imply children should be afraid of?

The idea of the auteur as the sole creator of a film has, from its inception, been of central importance to Film Studies. In this regard, we will resituate these debates in the context of a historically unique case study; that of the 'Lubitsch touch.' Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947) bears the distinction of having been a director central to two national cinemas – early German film and classical Hollywood. Yet as an auteur, Lubitsch is a paradox. Arguably, his 'signature' was written over his films with such distinction that they soon became associated with the so-called 'Lubitsch touch.' However, theoretical debates about authorship have never focused on Lubitsch. What is more, while the 'Lubitsch touch' has acquired a central position in the writing on Lubitsch, it has never been questioned, let alone investigated, in terms of how, as a concept, it came about or in what ways it has informed our understanding of this key director. Here, we will therefore consider the author, rather than as an actual person, as a cultural and period specific construction in order to place the ‘Lubitsch touch’ at the centre of our research study. It is necessary to approach the term through para-textual rather than textual analysis. Thus, this project relies upon a large variety of material comprised of historical newspaper reviews, portraits and interviews, posters, press books and trailers. Focusing on the period 1923 – 1947, we will examine how the 'touch' was first introduced and defined, and explore the arguments that have emerged on the basis of critical and commercial negotiation. In taking a historiographical approach, we will place Lubitsch’s films in the context of multiple discourses, such as those of national cinema(s), genre, continental sophistication and self-censorship, collaboration and stardom and the workings of the studio system. The 'Lubitsch touch,' precisely because it is contested territory, offers a site of negotiation for various key discourses and then as now foregrounds what is implicit in the construction of every author. The example of Lubitsch will therefore enable us to examine the extent to which criticism and historiography have contributed to our idea of a text as the work of a single creator, but the implications of this thesis on Lubitsch and his 'touch' will reach out not only beyond the Golden Age of Hollywood, but also beyond the field of Film Studies.

This thesis examines representations of the courtroom trial in Hollywood cinema produced between 1934 and 1966. The primary method is close textual analysis, which has been neglected in previous work on trial sequences in cinema. However, I argue that a rigorous engagement with both the conventions of the courtroom trial form and individual films’ use of these conventions requires close attention to the text. The introductory chapter identifies the dominant conventions, meanings and ideology underpinning Hollywood representations of the courtroom trial by looking at the treatment of space, character, procedure and drama in a number of films produced between 1957 and 1962 that serve as a representative sample of the conventions of trial representation in Hollywood cinema. I conclude that the narrative scenario of the courtroom trial tends to dictate a set of formal strategies that respect and affirm the American adversarial trial system. However, I also use this chapter to begin mapping out the ways in which individual films are able to nuance their representation of the courtroom trial despite its multitude of fixed components. My subsequent chapters examine how different genres and modes inflect the dominant representations of the courtroom trial as I look in detail at trial sequences in, respectively, the social problem film, the woman’s melodrama and film noir. This method involves firstly engaging with existing criticism on each genre and considering how previous definitions and identified conventions, meanings and representational strategies might be said to affect that particular genre’s representations of the courtroom trial. My second chapter examines representations of the courtroom trial in the social problem film, which I argue cleaves relatively closely to the representational model outlined in my introductory chapter. However, through close readings of two case studies, Dust Be My Destiny and Pinky, I also demonstrate the differences in how both films handle the didacticism and resolution that the trial form offers the social problem film, and identify competing voices in the text that complicate what could be viewed as a solely affirmative depiction of the court system. My third chapter examines representations of the courtroom trial in woman’s melodrama, employing as primary case studies Peyton Place and Madame X. My analyses of these films demonstrate how the female-centred melodrama can, to different degrees, challenge the patriarchal structures of the court by emphasising the female protagonist’s viewpoint. My final chapter looks at courtroom trial representations in film noir. I provide close readings of trial sequences in Stranger on the Third Floor and The Lady from Shanghai. Here I argue that noir’s use of the courtroom trial exemplifies the genre’s oft-situated difference from conventional forms in Hollywood cinema of the period. Noir trials consistently challenge notions of the adversarial trial system as the correct one for seeking justice.

This thesis attempts to provide a critical framework for discussion of English language films featuring non-white homosexual characters and contribute to the on-going debate concerning the cinematic representation of racial and sexual minorities. It does not attempt to offer an exhaustive account of the field. Emphasis is placed on why there have previously been few films containing non-white homosexual characters and why there are now more such films, as well as identifying the way in which these characters are depicted. The study begins by examining the intimate relationship between Western construction of racial and sexual discourses. Through analysing several contemporary films and reviewing critical literature from the fields of post-colonial and “race” criticism, lesbian, gay and gender studies, I argue that (white) homosexuals and non-white people have often been depicted as analogous, although not identical, in sexual “perversity”. I further suggest that they are depicted as similarly deviant because of the reproductive threat that they pose to the white heterosexual norm. The homosexual actions of nonwhites, (who have historically been stereotyped as “naturally” sexually deviant), are usually interpreted as an example of their loose morality, rather than as an indication of non-heterosexual identity. By contrast, white subjects who engage in homosexual practises are usually accorded a lesbian or gay identity. I argue that the recent increase in the number of films containing non-white homosexual characters reflects the influence of “politically correct” discourses and theories of “hybridity”. I further suggest that the crossover success of a number of these films indicate that traditional stereotypes of race and sexuality are now called into question.

This thesis takes the view that film festivals are ‘social constructions’ and therefore need social subjects (people/audiences) to function. Nevertheless, Film Festival Studies, with its preoccupation with global economics and/or the political nature of these events, has arguably omitted the ‘audience voice’ meaning much of the empirical work on offer derives from market research by festivals themselves. As such, there is little conceptual contribution on what makes festivals culturally important to audiences or the ways in which festival practice differs from, or synergises with, broader cinematic practice. This thesis investigates exhibition practice and audience reception at Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) over three years (2011-13). The originality of the work is found in its contribution to the burgeoning field of Film Festival Studies and its methodological intervention as one of the earliest studies on film festival audiences. Using qualitative audience research methods, elite interviews and ethnography, it approaches film festival analysis through a nuanced lens. Furthermore, the positioning of the research within the interdisciplinary landscape of Film Festival Studies, Film Studies and Cultural Studies offers a broad context for understanding the appeal of ‘audience film festivals’ and the exhibition practices that exist within this often neglected type of film festival. The thesis argues that Glasgow Film Festival continuously negotiates its position as an event that is both populist and distinct, and local and international. Through its diverse programme (mainstream and experimental films, conventional and unconventional venues) and its discursive positioning of programmed films, it manages its position as both a local and inclusive event and a prestigious festival with aspirations of international recognition. More broadly, the thesis argues that festival exhibition is a multi-layered operation that strives to create a ‘total experience’ for audiences and in this respect it differs greatly from standard cinematic exhibition. Furthermore, I propose that – despite the fact that the raison d'être of film festivals is to present films – audiences privilege the contextual conditions of the event in their experiential accounts, articulating festival experiences (pleasures and displeasures) in spatial and corporeal terms. As such, the thesis serves to problematise Film Studies’ conventions of immersion and disembodiment by proposing that film festivals are predominantly sites of heightened participation, active spectatorship, and spatial and embodied pleasure.

This thesis proposes a new approach to film authorship that is compatible with the postmodern theory of Linda Hutcheon. By taking up, building on, and combining the work of Peter Wollen, Michel Foucault, and Will Brooker I develop a theory of film authorship that moves away from conceptualisations of the author in terms of self-expression and instead conceives of the author as a text. Additionally, I identify four different genres of authorfunction: The Romantic, modernist, feminist, and commercial genres of author-function. These four genres of author-function provide a framework and critical vocabulary for the accurate description of the ways in which author-texts are constructed. The characteristics of these four genres of author-function are derived from the major trends in theories of film authorship identified in the review of literature. In addition to these genres of author-function, I also develop my own postmodern genre of author-function. The characteristics of this postmodern genre of author-function are derived from the analysis of existing literature on two key directors of postmodern film, David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. In particular, the postmodern genre of author-function adapts and expands upon Peter Brooker’s and Will Brooker’s affirmative reading of the role played by generic reworking in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). The characteristics of the postmodern genre of author-function are further refined through its application as a critical framework in two case studies focusing on Tony Scott and Sally Potter. Scott and Potter serve as contrasting case studies. In addition to operating in the very different contexts of Hollywood action cinema and art cinema respectively, Scott and Potter occupy very different positions in regards to authorship. The Scott author-text is largely constructed in terms of failed authorship. In contrast, the Potter author-text is apparently more secure in its authorial status. There are, however, a number of overlaps between the Scott and Potter case studies. Firstly, films across both the Scott and Potter oeuvres exhibit stylistic features associated with postmodern film. Despite this, Scott and Potter are not included within the central canon of postmodern cinema, and occupy a more marginal position. The Scott and Potter oeuvres are also characterised as fragmented and fractured rather than in terms of unity. This further limits the possibility of constructing Scott as an auteur and suggests that the Potter author-text is more precarious than at first appears. The thesis opens with a review of literature tracing the developments of theories of film authorship. The first chapter begins by examining the place of authorship in postmodernism as conceptualised by two key theorists of postmodernism, Fredric Jameson and Linda Hutcheon. This is followed by the development of the new approach to authorship outlined above, and its demonstration through the meta-critical analysis of existing literature on Lynch and Tarantino. This analysis also facilitates the development of the postmodern genre of author-function and provides the initial characteristics of that genre. The postmodern genre of author-function is further refined and tested through the case studies. Each of these case studies follows a similar format, beginning by situating Scott and Potter in their respective contexts. The second stage of the case studies involves determining the genres of author-function in play in the construction of the Scott and Potter author-texts. The final stage of the case study focuses on the analysis of three films by each director from the perspective of the postmodern genre of author-function in order to determine what readings are yielded by this approach, and how they compare to existing approaches. The development of a postmodern genre of author-function facilitates a revaluation of postmodern cinema. The Scott case study demonstrates one aspect of this reappraisal, the revaluation of texts previously classified as meaningless spectacle in terms of a re-inventive impulse and a critical reworking of genre conventions. The Potter case study demonstrates both the political and critical potential of such a de-constructive engagement with genre, while also showcasing the ways in which adopting the postmodern genre of author-function as a critical perspective allows for texts to be reorganised around a new centre, and for new patterns of meaning and significance to be traced across the oeuvre.