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Samuel Beckett's Film has been the focus of several articles in the past decade. While current investigations of Beckett's film are diverse, what most of them share is their dependence on biographical data to support their readings. Many scholars who have written on Beckett's failed cinematic excursion, for example, point to Beckett's letter of 1936 to Sergei Eisenstein. However, the link between Beckett's interest in film and his admiration for James Joyce has sadly been overlooked. Both Irish writers saw the artistic possibilities in film and both admired the Russian silent film legend, Sergei Eisenstein. Although there is no record of Joyce and Beckett discussing cinema or of Beckett knowing about Joyce's meeting with Eisenstein in 1929, it seems unlikely that Beckett would not have known something about these meetings or Joyce's much earlier film enterprise, the Volta. By re-examining Film and speculating on the possible three way connections between Eisenstein, Joyce and Beckett, I wish to add a footnote to Beckett studies which hopefully will lead others to wander on the Beckett-Joyce-Eisenstein trail and which will open up further discussions of Film. Beckett's film is haunted by the memory of his friendship with James Joyce and his admiration for Eisenstein's talent, both of which are visible in the screen images and theme of Film.

Excerpt:On his 59th birthday, Samuel Beckett began writing his first television play, Eli Joe (1965), in which he explored the technological possibilities offered by the camera.

This paper examines violence and masculinity in Sam Shepard's work as a symptom of war trauma, apparent in his characterization of several of his male characters as war veterans and the violent language accompanying his other characters. War becomes a cultural disease infesting and destroying the family on Shepard's stage.

This groundbreaking collection from scholars and artists on the legacy of Beckett in contemporary art provides readers with a unique view of this important writer for page, stage, and screen. The volume argues that Beckett is more than an influence on contemporary art―he is, in fact, a contemporary artist, working alongside artists across disciplines in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond.The volume explores Beckett's formal experiments in drama, prose, and other media as contemporary, parallel revisions of modernism's theoretical presuppositions congruent with trends like minimalism and conceptual art. Containing interviews with and pieces by working artists, alongside contributions of scholars of literature and the visual arts, this collection offers an essential reassessment of Beckett's work. Perceiving Beckett's ongoing importance from the perspective of contemporary art practices, dominated by installation and conceptual strategies, it offers a completely new frame through which to read perennial Beckettian themes of impotence, failure, and penury. From Beckett's remains, as it were, contemporary artists find endless inspiration. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1182/thumbnail.jpg

Review of Flaubert, Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians. by Hugh Kenner

Review of Emma Creedon, Sam Shepard and the Aesthetics of Performance Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xi + 199 pp., $90.00.

Excerpt: In 1975, Bob Dylan invited Sam Shepard, the young playwright who had ignited the Off-Broadway and London theatre scene, to go on tour with him in order to write scenes and dialogue for a film of the Rolling Thunder Revue.

高行健的戲劇作品與理論，兼備中西文化主題（motifs），東西方劇場的手法，最適合作比較文學的範例。本文全面分析高行健的劇作與理論，從主題與形式兩方面，審度劇作中重複出現追尋自我的主題。其劇作包括《絕對信號》、《車站》、《野人》、《彼岸》、《冥城》、《逃亡》、《山海經傳奇》、《生死界》、《對話與反詰》、《夜遊神》、《周末四重奏》、《八月雪》、《叩問死亡》；五個現代折子戲包括《模仿者》、《躲雨》、《行路難》、《喀巴拉山口》、《獨白》；一個舞劇《聲聲慢變奏》共計十八部戲劇。又整理探究理論文集《對一種戲劇的追求》、《沒有主義》、以及《文學的理由》。作者的主體意識扣緊不同時期的逃亡經驗，經一番外求與內尋的過程，不斷抗衡與否定不同的「他者」。這種抗衡，固然呈現人類本質的狀態，卻缺乏主體的自主性，也展示主題的矛盾。因為無論「他者」怎樣不斷置換為集體、強權、中國、性、慾望等對象，也不能抹殺其先於主體的實存性，反倒確立了主體的依附性。所以他的主體都一貫逃避中心、集體、缺乏實質的內涵，卻又內外交困，無法安頓。這種不斷反詰的精神，又反映在劇作的「間離」的形式上。高行健以敘事、三重角色與儀式（rituals），間離觀眾與角色。雖然他追求戲劇本質，嘗試回復中國儺戲與戲曲的傳統，也緊隨現當代劇作家如布萊希特（Bertolt Brecht）、惹奈（Jean Genet），但是難以調動觀眾的直覺感知經驗，達至娛人的目的。更有甚者，因為敘事手法的視點所限，宣揚個人主義的目的，昭然若揭。他的儀式意在增強戲劇的假定性，不在於回歸中國的佛道傳統，但效果不彰。他的「表演三重論」源於中國戲曲與布萊希特，貢獻止於為表演的監控意識命名，缺乏系統落實的方法，故難以與斯坦尼斯夫斯基（Konstantin Stanislavsky）、以及格羅多夫斯基（Jerzy Grotowski）的表演系統相提並論。本文試以高行健的劇作與理論，與現當代的國際劇作家、以及劇場理論家的成就互相發明，以鑑定其戲劇地位。

In this thesis I will discuss the influence of Sartrean themes found in Jean-Paul Sartre’s plays: No Exit (Huis clos), Les Mouches (The Flies), and Dirty Hands (Les Mains sales), on the theater of Alfonso Sastre, particularly in the plays: Death Squad (Escuadra hacia la muerte), and In the Net (En la red). In No Exit, the famous quote “Hell is other people,” sets the standard for what type of discussion Sartre initiates in his theater. I will compare the historical context and the Hells that Sartre and Sastre both experienced during their time as active playwrights and how this influences the Hellish environments the two playwrights create for their characters in each of their plays. Following this study of context, I will compare the diabolical atmospheres created in the plays, how they are created and their impacts on the characters and text.