This thesis examines the development of the surreal and often transgressively lurid aesthetic of Italian horror cinema of the late twentieth century and its connection to the turbulent relationship between the nation’s cinema and its troubled political history. Much of the previous scholarship on Italian horror cinema tends to couch its analysis primarily through the lenses of either its transnational influences or the role of auteurs such as Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, or Riccardo Freda. While both approaches are vital to understanding the construction of Italy’s horror cinema as a robust movement, I argue that they neglect important historical context that can provide insight into the thematic interests that motivate the unique stylization of these texts. Often the focus on Italian horror cinema’s reputation for being mostly composed of cheap imitations of more successful international horror movements can reinforce the narrative of the horror film’s relatively low status within taste culture discourses. Exploitation films particularly fall victim to these stigmas and can have their more potent qualities ignored. Through a historical survey of the formation of Italy’s horror cinema in the aftermath of the political turbulence caused by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime and close, formal analysis of foundational Italian horror texts, this thesis argues that the stylistic excesses and indulgences in the grotesque that characterize Italy’s horror cinema upend the viewer’s comfort in spectatorship through confrontational aesthetics of destabilization. The aesthetics of destabilization not only challenge viewer’s passive consumption of such lurid content but also truly make them feel the sensorial destabilization and brutal impact of the violence onscreen. Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates how this stylistic approach is in conversation with Italy’s recent trauma and the inextricability of its national cinema development from this history.

Myrna Loy and William Powell appeared in fourteen films together, made from 1934 to 1947, resulting in an unprecedented number of cinematic pairing within the classical Hollywood studio system. This might prompt one to wonder: what was it about their onscreen personas and characters that contributed to their success as the quintessential ‘screwball’ couple? Drawing upon genre studies, this thesis examines the performances of Loy and Powell, the comedic intertextuality developed within their filmic oeuvre, and their films’ contributions to the romantic comedy genre. The films discussed within this thesis focus mainly on Loy and Powell’s roles as married couples within ‘The Thin Man’ film series, including The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936), Another Thin Man (1939), Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), The Thin Man Goes Home (1945), and The Song of the Thin Man (1947), as well as their stand-alone performances in the screwball and marital comedies, Libeled Lady (1936), Double Wedding (1937), I Love You Again (1940), and Love Crazy (1941). By analyzing the progression of Loy and Powell’s roles as iconic screwball and romantic comedy couples, this thesis traces the lasting cultural impact and legacy Loy and Powell’s films have had on subsequent generations of filmmakers and moviegoers.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 254-269). / Terrence Malick is a unique director in contemporary film, an enigmatic and resolutely independent filmmaker who operates successfully within the studio system of Hollywood. His unusual career - which includes a twenty-year 'sabbatical' during which he appeared to have dropped out of the industry altogether - has produced comparatively little in the way of academic research, though there has been increased activity since the release of The Thin Red Line in 1998. The title - 'Seeking the Other Shore' - provides a thematic approach to the central exploration of the thesis: myth and history in Malick's films. As I argue in the introduction, Malick's characters constantly seek new shores within historical realities, but in so doing they imagine returns to mythic spaces that are either in the past or unattainable in the present. The films themselves provoke us to reconsider particular myths and their historical context. The Introduction includes a brief synopsis of Malick's career and a critical overview of both journalistic and academic writing. A major feature of his films - their intertextuality, from poetry and novels to visual art and music - is also introduced as it plays an important part in all the subsequent chapters. With the release of The New World (2005), I argue that the two recent films should be seen not only as continuing the major themes of historical reality and mythic quest in his 1970s films (Badlands, 1973, and Days of Heaven, 1978), but also as expanding those themes to include colonial encounters with strangeness which underpin the emergence of America as a modem cultural and political entity. Chapter One sets out the historical and mythic terrain upon which all of Malick's films are built, particularly America's nineteenth-century, post-independence character, the idea that America is a nation constantly seeking to renew itself but is never able to outrun the terrors of its previous incarnation, the sins of its fathers. In the section, 'Manufacturing Myth' I use definitions by Claude Levi-Strauss and Richard Slotkin to begin the conversation between history and myth, finding that myth is constructed, laid claim to, and used continuously, and whose claims and uses are inevitably contested. Myths based in history, are, in Richard White's words, "historical creations", and it is this ideological tension between myth and history that one finds in Malick's films. History provides the context for explorations of America's mythic character, myths of innocence, renewal, ambition, and robust individualism. Chapters Two through Five examine the feature films in chronological order. Badlands is discussed in terms of its hybrid genre (drawing on the western and the road movie), before I investigate Holly and Kit's "competing fantasies"- their different views of their adventure and the land through which they travel. Days of Heaven represents a complex examination of the Turnerian myth of the frontier and its transformation at the turn of the twentieth century. Malick's use of period photography is observed as is the influence of American literary naturalism. However, a more significant discussion emerges around the art of Edward Hopper and his modernist interpretation of America coming to terms with its twentieth-century character. The analysis in this section includes Badlands, and illuminates the influence of Hopper on both early films. The Thin Red Line poses something of a problem as it appears to depart from the first two films and The New World, which follows eight years later. As a combat film, it is part of a fairly well-defined and fiercely debated genre, while it's largely male cast and multiple voiceovers differ from the single adolescent female voiceovers of Holly and Linda. However, it challenges the norms of the combat genre in significant ways, particularly in its balancing of personal experience (Malick's screenplay is a subtle adaptation of James Jones's war novels) with historical context (the viewer is alerted, as one rarely is in this genre, to the world outside of the battle). In The New World, Captain John Smith literally seeks the other shore and, like Private Witt in the previous film, encounters a division within himself. In reaffirming the mythic romance between Smith and Pocahontas, Malick opposes the ambition of Enlightenment discovery (m the turbulent heart of Smith) with the sure sense of humanity's relationship with nature (m the calm spirit of Pocahontas). Once again, the film's historical context is the bedrock for its examination of myth, though as the revelatory conclusion, shows, Malick reaches for more spiritual meaning than affirming or revising the historical record. The four feature films that constitute Malick's directorial career thus far are all concerned with fundamental American myths; however, they are also unusual interpretations these myths. Young girls narrate the stories of violent men possessed by the possibilities of a frontier that has passed while young men struggle to come to terms with the extreme violence of battle and the overwhelming strangeness of their surroundings, no matter how 'right' the cause. These are myths born out of history and rendered as cinematic revelations by Terrence Malick.

This thesis develops a conceptual and theoretical framework within which to position contemporary Afrikaans cinema as a cinema of political impotence. Afrikaans cinema is first located within the tensions of democratic post-transitional South African society and linked to the identity politics of being identified as 'Afrikaner' or 'Afrikaans speaking'. The thesis provides a critical overview of film scholar Thomas Elsaesser's studies of (New) German Cinema and Hollywood, identifying key notions such as double occupancy to inform the study's vocabulary, and discussing how certain cultures have responded to traumatic events in which they were complicit. The thesis then links Elsaesser's studies to Fredric Jameson's views on political cinema and the political failures of postmodernism. This conceptual and theoretical framework identifies and problematises the neoliberal structures that guide much of Afrikaans filmmaking, and offers a historical overview of key moments and figures in South African (primarily Afrikaans) filmmaking in order to demonstrate that there Afrikaans cinema.

This thesis analyzes three films made by director Jacques Rozier in the decades following the French New Wave: Du côté d’Orouët (1971), Les Naufragés de l'île de la Tortue (1976), and Maine Océan (1986). I pay special attention to the development of the theme of illusory or unreachable idylls and utopias over the course of the three films. Paralleling Rozier’s status as a late modernist, kept due to bad timing from profiting off the New Wave boom, the films center on the frustration of utopian dreams. They conceptualize various idylls, ranging from perfect times in one’s life to imagined paradises of self-sufficient labor, as being distant and impossible to realize through the use of various cinematic techniques to simulate memory, create distance, or establish a parodic sensibility. Then, in the last of these films, Rozier finally envisions a utopia that can exist, one of cooperative labor among workers that transcends linguistic boundaries. This thesis employs close analysis based on the work of celebrated film theorists like Siegfried Kracauer and Stanley Cavell to better understand the modernist techniques employed to develop this theme and to make the case for Rozier as a neglected master of cinematic modernism. / 2023-06-08T00:00:00Z

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-169). / This dissertation examines the work of Harmony Korine with a particular focus on his use of realism as a disruptive critical tool. My study combines a theoretical and an analytical project. My aim is to defend Korine's works against charges of naive realism by revealing the limits of a structuralist approach to Korine's realism and arguing, instead, for the adoption of the phenomenologically grounded, realist criticism of Andre Bazin. I use Bazin' s observations about the referential or indexical relationship between the camera and the physical world and his definition of 'phenomenological realism' to argue for a privileged and fruitful relationship between Korine's realism and the physical or affective dimensions of the cinematic image. I supplement this discussion with a critical application of theories of affect forwarded by such theorists as Vivian Sobchack and Laura U. Marks, as well as theories of the grotesque. In addition, my thesis extends the links that Bazin draws between the restraint defining phenomenological realism and a productive ambiguity to argue that, rather than presenting an unsophisticated realist approach, Korine's realism operates as the primary critical tool in a confrontation with dominant sign systems and, ultimately, with the limitations of both verbal and filmic language.

Includes bibliographical references. / South African cinemas, and Afrikaans cinemas in particular, have mostly been studied for its political, representational and socio-political value and its often-problematic furnishing in these categories. This dissertation explores different lenses through which Afrikaans cinemas can be studied. It models itself on Alexie Tcheuyap’s framework in Postnationalist African Cinemas (2011) which directly questions the notion that African cinemas have to be revolutionary, nationalistic, subversive and/or post-colonialist. These demands were clearly set out by FEPACI in the 1960s and many scholars never revised their strategies of scholarship or kept up with the vast political, social and cultural shifts of most of the continent’s cinemas and audiences. Tcheuyap argues for a new way of studying these cinemas that allows for emphases on genre, myth construction, sexuality, dance and the refraction of some cultural practices in the imagination of filmmakers, audiences and the screen (2011). Because this study models itself on new frameworks of investigating African cinemas, it contextualises Afrikaans cinemas within African cinemas. Afrikaans as a language should own its connections of a history of oppression and terrorisation of around 90% of South Africans for a very long time before, during and even after apartheid. It is however imperative that the language’s function, representation and literary and artistic contribution to South African culture is revised and included in studies of African cinemas. The unabashed subversiveness of Afrikaans filmmakers like Jans Rautenbach and Manie van Rensburg during the height of apartheid is often overlooked. Even though scholarship of Afrikaans cinemas is relatively limited, the domain of the discipline is rather large with a history that spans across 83 years. The parameters for this study beacon off one sector namely that of filmic adaptations of Afrikaans literature. Specific focus will be given to adaptations of novels, youth literature and stage plays. Adaptation theory has, like the study of African cinemas, only very recently moved away from the popular essentialist, page- to -screen view of what filmic adaptions should be or do. Kamilla Elliott teases out a complex history and development of scholarship and tendencies in adaptation studies in her book, Rethinking the Novel/Film debate (2003). I unpack Elliott’s tracing of interart wars and interart analogies and concepts of adaptation in chapter two. This proposed framework for adaptation studies is used to map some of the primary texts ’ film aesthetics and strategies of thematic moulding in Roepman (2011) in chapter two. Chapter three explores the special interaction between adaptation and particular narrative component and how the director uses a mixed film aesthetic to move between a character’s interiority and exterior environment in Die Ongelooflike Avonture van Hanna Hoekom (2010) . This chapter also analyses how Afrikaans films have posed challenges to the nuclear family – both Skilpoppe (2004) and Hanna Hoekom feature overt explorations of this theme. A contemporary stage play has never been adapted for Afrikaans film. Chapter four regards two adaptations from stage plays – Moedertjie (1931) and Siener in die Suburbs (1975) to observe how space and genre, with specific reference to melodrama, has entered into and functions in these texts.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-188). / This study seeks to account for the numerous ways critics in reviews, magazine articles, journal articles and books have interpreted David Fincher's Fight Club. It also seeks to account for growing appeal of the film even though it was initially described as a failure at the box-office. The film clearly engages with many provocative ideas, leading to the many ways it has been interpreted. This exploration is facilitated through an exploration of the various labels that have been placed on the film and investigates to what extent the film manages to provide a coherent message beyond its mixed bag of 'hip' allusions.

My dissertation uses, as starting point, an interview with Michael Haneke in which the Austrian filmmaker criticises Downfall and Schindler's List for manipulating audiences and for generating entertainment from real-life and unspeakable horrors. He argues that filmmakers have a responsibility to enable audiences to form their own opinion regarding a film and its subject matter. I set forth to engage, theorise and develop Haneke's call for responsibility by asking the following questions as I move chronologically through his films: why is responsible filmmaking important, how does Haneke approach his own filmmaking and how does a responsible approach to filmmaking influence the position of spectators. Firstly, I draw from Stanley Cavell's film theory to read our current experience in a media saturated society, describing the ways in which the media positions and influences the characters' understanding of the world and their relationships with each other in The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. Thereafter, I discuss Haneke's use of genre in Funny Games, the long take and continuity editing in Code Unknown, music in The Piano Teacher and sound in Time of the Wolf to analyse Haneke's approach to filmmaking. My readings are underpinned by Cavell's understanding of automatism and the manner in which Haneke uses and reflects upon film's automatisms. Finally, I illustrate Levinas' concept of responsibility for the Other through a reading of Georges and Majid's relationship in Caché, Kelly Oliver's work on witnessing in The White Ribbon and Judith Butler's work on responsibility in Amour in order to demonstrate how Haneke's responsibility ensures the audience's response-ability.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-140). / In this thesis I examine the differences between music in the two cinemas. Concentrating on exemplary films from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, I show how the apparent differences are manifested, and by analysing a number of key British films, I illustrate the modes of musical expression used. There are many ways to approach film music. My own interest lies in the connection between music of the romantic period of the 19th century and what became of it during the 20th. "Serious" music from Schoenberg onwards became increasingly dissonant, but the rich melodic tones of romantic music appear to have found a new home in the cinema, and in this thesis I explore how film composers kept the previous traditions alive.