This thesis is an analysis of two film soundtracks, High Fidelity and Rushmore, and how each conforms to, and moves away from, trends in soundtrack production. The analysis begins by examining the relationship between film and music through the progression of key figures and moments leading to the current state of the film soundtrack. The soundtracks of High Fidelity and Rushmore are situated within the contexts of youth and rock culture as a means of illuminating their compilations and prospective audiences. The conclusion of this thesis is that these particular films and their soundtracks are entrenched in a dialogue about nostalgia and the superiority of archival music and provide clear examples of the growing use of nostalgia within cultural contexts generally.

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published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Fung Tat-yeung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-145). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1 --- "The ""Polanskian"" Style as Established in Knife in the Water, Repulsion, Cul-de-sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers" --- p.10 / Chapter (I) --- Knife in the Water and Cul-de-sac --- p.11 / Chapter (II) --- Repulsion --- p.22 / Chapter (III) --- The Fearless Vampire Killers --- p.26 / Chapter 2 --- The Breakdown of Human Relationships --- p.32 / Chapter (I) --- Friendlessness --- p.33 / Chapter (II) --- Unfulfilled Marriages --- p.37 / Chapter 3 --- The Extreme Sense of Superiority That Destroys Others --- p.67 / Chapter (I) --- The Villains' Lust for Power --- p.69 / Chapter (II) --- The Victims for the Villains --- p.78 / Chapter (III) --- The Villains' Methods of Victimization --- p.84 / Chapter 4 --- The Vulnerability of the Victims to Fight Against Evil --- p.90 / Chapter (I) --- The Victims' Inability to Fight Back --- p.90 / Chapter (II) --- Hallucinations as the Victims' Most Vulnerable Moments --- p.108 / Chapter 5 --- The Extremely Pessimistic Endings --- p.119 / Chapter (I) --- The Emphasis of the Evil's Ultimate Domination --- p.121 / Chapter (II) --- The Recurrence of Events --- p.129 / Conclusion --- p.139 / Works Cited --- p.144

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The film <em>Der Untergang</em> (2004), directed by Oliver HIRSCHBIEGEL and written and produced by Bernd EICHINGER, is based on Joachim FEST's historical monograph <em>Der Untergang</em> (2002) and Traudl JUNGE's and Melissa M??LLER's <em>Bis zur letzten Stunde</em> (2003). Taking place in April, 1945, the movie depicts the last days of Adolf Hitler and his staff in the 'F??hrerbunker'. The appearance of the film sparked wide-spread controversy concerning the propriety of Germans illuminating this most controversial aspect of their history. Specifically, the debate centred on the historical accuracy of the film and the dangers associated with the filmmakers' goal of portraying Hitler not as a caricature or one-sided figure but rather as a complete human being whose troubles and human qualities might well earn the sympathy of the viewers. <br /><br /> After surveying a variety of films that portray Adolf Hitler, the thesis analyses <em>Der Untergang</em> by focusing first on the cinematic and narrative aspects of the film itself and then on the figure of Hitler. It aims to demonstrate that the presentation of Hitler as a complex character reflects the circumstances of the film's time and culture. In particular, this thesis discusses two main aspects: first, it describes a figure of Hitler constructed in the film and conveyed to the viewers; second, it demonstrates that the film's construction of Hitler is embedded in the sociocultural context of the film's creation, thereby establishing that this is a Hitler for contemporary German society and the current state of German culture's reckoning with its fascist past. <br /><br /> The results of the analysis, in particular the depiction of Hitler and the representation of death and suicide, demonstrate that the film presents a multiple point of view. The film also faces the problematic issue of representing history adequately. The consideration of the German sociocultural context brings up some reasons that can explain the increased interest in the personal side of the perpetrators and especially in the figure of Hitler. <br /><br /> Finally, this thesis maintains that <em>Der Untergang</em> gives a complex but subsequently inconsistent picture of Adolf Hitler because it gets entangled by the attempt to be informative and entertaining at the same time. Though the film cannot replace historical investigation and analysis, it still informs Germans about Adolf Hitler and reflects how their society deals with its own troubled past.

The film <em>Der Untergang</em> (2004), directed by Oliver HIRSCHBIEGEL and written and produced by Bernd EICHINGER, is based on Joachim FEST's historical monograph <em>Der Untergang</em> (2002) and Traudl JUNGE's and Melissa MÜLLER's <em>Bis zur letzten Stunde</em> (2003). Taking place in April, 1945, the movie depicts the last days of Adolf Hitler and his staff in the 'Führerbunker'. The appearance of the film sparked wide-spread controversy concerning the propriety of Germans illuminating this most controversial aspect of their history. Specifically, the debate centred on the historical accuracy of the film and the dangers associated with the filmmakers' goal of portraying Hitler not as a caricature or one-sided figure but rather as a complete human being whose troubles and human qualities might well earn the sympathy of the viewers. <br /><br /> After surveying a variety of films that portray Adolf Hitler, the thesis analyses <em>Der Untergang</em> by focusing first on the cinematic and narrative aspects of the film itself and then on the figure of Hitler. It aims to demonstrate that the presentation of Hitler as a complex character reflects the circumstances of the film's time and culture. In particular, this thesis discusses two main aspects: first, it describes a figure of Hitler constructed in the film and conveyed to the viewers; second, it demonstrates that the film's construction of Hitler is embedded in the sociocultural context of the film's creation, thereby establishing that this is a Hitler for contemporary German society and the current state of German culture's reckoning with its fascist past. <br /><br /> The results of the analysis, in particular the depiction of Hitler and the representation of death and suicide, demonstrate that the film presents a multiple point of view. The film also faces the problematic issue of representing history adequately. The consideration of the German sociocultural context brings up some reasons that can explain the increased interest in the personal side of the perpetrators and especially in the figure of Hitler. <br /><br /> Finally, this thesis maintains that <em>Der Untergang</em> gives a complex but subsequently inconsistent picture of Adolf Hitler because it gets entangled by the attempt to be informative and entertaining at the same time. Though the film cannot replace historical investigation and analysis, it still informs Germans about Adolf Hitler and reflects how their society deals with its own troubled past.

The presence of early modern Spanish history in Spanish film has received only limited scholarly attention. The entire group of Spanish films dealing with the Spanish early modern era has never been placed under study by any overarching research. This dissertation reframes the evolution of the cinematographic representation of the Spanish past as it studies the mechanisms employed by Spanish films in representing an essential part of Spanish past: early modernity. Studied are 19 period films that group themselves around some of most representative subjects in early modernity: the Monarchy and Nobility, and the Spanish Inquisition. Studied also is the most expensive Spanish period film, Alatriste (2006). Through the analysis of artistic, industrial, historiographical, and political elements, and the deconstruction of the historical message of each film, as well as the analysis of their reception, it is clear that Spanish period films set in early modernity tell us as much about the time of their making and the shaping of the historical consciousness of Spain as they do about the era that they represent on screen.

This dissertation provides a cultural history of the first North American film archive, the Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), established in 1935. It asks a seemingly simple question: How was it that small, popular, debased, ephemeral objects like films came to be treated as precious, complex and valuable historical objects? It therefore explores how ideas about archiving (seeing and saving films) intersect with practices of collection and exhibition, by mapping the evolution of key institutional discourses and cultural trends from the birth of the medium to the Film Library. It considers links between the archive and longstanding concepts in film culture---utopianism, cinematic knowledge and art. It attends to the more specific convergence of interests---public and private, national and international---which impacted on the Film Library's institutional shape and on the debates in which it was embroiled. This dissertation shows that despite the Film Library's home within an institution of modern art, film's archival value was associated more with the urgency of recovering a history that had been lost and less with an art that had been neglected. This contention is further supported by an examination of the Film Library's first circulating film programs and their public reception. This dissertation postulates that the library's development of an unprecedented and broad acquisition policy as well as an active exhibition program made it more than a mere reflection of the uniquely historical and modern attributes of the cinema: a meeting of aesthetic ferment, technology, commercialism, propaganda, popularity and information. It concludes that the library was an important intervention into these discourses marking with institutional certainty the contested nature of film as a cultural object as well as the ongoing project to understand it.

Diploma thesis The relation between Media Depiction and Historical Truth on the example of Historical Motion Picture and Television Series deals with the relationship between official historiography and contemporary historical film or TV series. The work is based on a theoretical framework, which postulates Robert A. Rosenstone in several publications, especially in the book History on Film/Film on History. The American historian and film theorist is one of the most prominent supporters of the view that historical film must be seriously perceived not only as a historical artifact but also as a medium conveying the depiction of the past. Qualitative analysis was performed in the work of movies Masaryk, Lidice and the miniseries Hořící keř. In the first part of the work, they were compared with an institutionally recognized version of the past - specifically with secondary school textbooks with the approval clause of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. In the following part, the film inventions were examined according to the theory of Rosenstone and finally according to the theory of fictional worlds according to the linguist Lubomír Doležel. The thesis aims to answer the hypotheses that state that the Czech historical film in historical key events coincides with the...