This thesis is a primer on the experimental independent animator Don Hertzfeldt, whose filmography—described by one critic as “a singular universe of stick figures in crisis”—has for more than two decades been engaging some of the larger questions of post-millennial existence, particularly with regard to consciousness, temporality, and death. First, I will briefly introduce who Hertzfeldt is as an auteur (where he comes from, where his primary interests lie, and what his impact has been); second, I will provide an overview of the historical context in which his oeuvre should be placed (i.e. the history of animation and of experimental cinema); third, I will closely analyze his work, examining questions of style and narrative, starting from his student films and continuing to his more recent films; and fourth, I will explore some of the philosophical implications of recurring Hertzfeldtian motifs and themes (particularly with regard to consciousness, temporality, and death) before concluding.

Thesis advisor: Celeste Wells / This paper analyzes the rights and privileges Black Widow and Captain Marvel are afforded in their respective films coupled with audience perception to understand how that might inform the future of the action heroine genre. There is a stark contrast between the reception of Black Widow and Captain Marvel that is best understood through the release timing of the films along with the character’s plotline within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Regardless, the rights and privileges each character is afforded in both films demonstrate a dimension of the female experience that had not been fully realized in the MCU prior to their release. Captain Marvel and Black Widow indicate a progression of female representation within the action heroine genre– both in frequency and quality. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Communication.

This thesis examines how religious traditions, collective memory, and conflict are represented in the Nepali film White Sun (2016), which was co-written and directed by Deepak Rauniyar. The film focuses on an anti-regime partisan who returns home to the rural areas of Nepal to bury his father. During his stay, he is forced to face social and political obstacles, which reflects on the history of Nepal, in particular the Civil War (1996-2008). In this study, I am using feminist theories such as the North American feminist theorist Donna Haraway’s concept of situated knowledge mixed with theories drawn from the psychology of religion and sociology of religion, e.g., Nancy Ammerman’s lived religion and the concept of chosen trauma to analyze the representation of religion and society in the film. As a methodology, I use Dutch cultural theorist Mieke Bal’s cultural analysis, which focuses on interpreting film in the context of culture. Thus, I am looking at various themes in the film centered around both social and political oppression, but also the importance of this film, which is still quite unknown to an international audience. In that sense, the film represents a new wave of filmmaking that reflects the history and culture of Nepal. Additionally, I am also reshaping my own relationship to Nepali culture as a Nepali adoptee in exploring the deeper meaning of the film as a collective memory.

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This thesis offers an analysis of women in horror film through an in depth exploration of what I term ‘gynaehorror’ – horror films that are concerned with female sex, sexuality and reproduction. While this is a broad and fruitful area of study, work in it has been shaped by a pronounced emphasis upon psychoanalytic theory, which I argue has limited the field of inquiry. To challenge this, this thesis achieves three things. Firstly, I interrogate a subgenre of horror that has not been studied in depth for twenty years, but that is experiencing renewed interest. Secondly, I analyse aspects of this subgenre outside of the dominant modes of inquiry by placing an emphasis upon philosophies of sex, gender and corporeality, rather than focussing on psychodynamic approaches. Thirdly, I consider not only what these theories may do for the study of horror films, but what spaces of inquiry horror films may open up within these philosophical areas. To do this, I focus on six broad streams: the current limitations and opportunities in the field of horror scholarship, which I augment with a discussion of women’s bodies, houses and spatiality; the relationship between normative heterosexuality and the twin figures of the chaste virgin and the voracious vagina dentata; the representation and expression of female subjectivity in horror films that feature pregnancy and abortion; the manner in which reproductive technology is bound up within hegemonic constructions of gender and power, as is evidenced by the figure of the ‘mad scientist’; the way that discourses of motherhood and maternity in horror films shift over time, but nonetheless result in the demonisation of the mother; and the theoretical and corporeal possibilities opened up through Deleuze and Guattari’s model of schizoanalysis, with specific regard to the 'Alien' films. As such, this thesis makes a unique contribution to the study of women in horror film, while also advocating for an expansion of the theoretical repertoire available to the horror scholar.

This paper serves to explore how female subjects are represented in films featuring a woman on the road in ways that can create a female gaze, as an alternative to the male gaze. It looks for answers in four films from the 1970s to 2016, all made by female filmmakers, which are Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Vagabond (Sans Toit Ni Loi) (1978), Wendy and Lucy (2008) and American Honey (2016). All four films share approaches that reject objectification in the depiction of females, but each is distinctive in their filmi strategies. Focusing on each work individually while attempting to make comparisons with others, this paper also aims to connect the shift of strategies in these works to the related discussion in feminist film theories.

Mainstream cinema is to an ever-increasing degree deploying digital imaging technologies to work with the human form; expanding on it, morphing its features, or providing new ways of presenting it. This has prompted theories of simulation and virtualisation to explore the cultural and aesthetic implications, anxieties, and possibilities of a loss of the ‘real’ – in turn often defined in terms of the photographic trace. This thesis wants to provide another perspective. Following instead some recent imperatives in art-theory, this study looks to introduce and expand on the notion of the human figure, as pertaining to processes of figuration rather than (only) representation. The notion of the figure and figuration have an extended history in the fields of hermeneutics, aesthetics, and philosophy, through which they have come to stand for particular theories and methodologies with regards to images and their communication of meaning. This objective of this study is to appropriate these for film-theory, culminating in two case-studies to demonstrate how formal parameters present and organise ideas of the body and the human. The aim is to develop a material approach to contemporary digital practices, where bodies have not ceased to matter but are framed in new ways by new technologies.

The present thesis is dealing with the theoretical concept of modernity. It is attempting to define the concept with a reference to the experience of a shifted time-perception. The first part of the text analyses some of the theoretical approaches to the concept. The following parts are dedicated to the work of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer and are trying to examine the way in which those two described their own experience of modernity.

In 2K Games’ Bioshock (2007) the player, as the protagonist Jack, is thrown into a dystopian, futuristic alternate history of America. Rapture is an underwater city saturated in music: popular songs from the mid twentieth century; classical-style soundtrack pieces composed by Garry Schyman; characters humming, singing, whistling or playing instruments; musical vending machines; and even the sounds of whales and other creatures all participate in forming a textured soundscape. The songs from the 1930s - 50s used throughout Bioshock recall a real-world cultural environment—a popular music culture that is both comfortably recognizable yet strangely unfamiliar. They occur within the game world and are heard by the player and game characters, and thus the songs are diegetic or “screen music.” In Bioshock, such music is an explicit component of narrative production, game environment creation, and player immersion. Significantly, diegetic music participates in the construction of narrative through a constant interplay or negotiation with the video game’s other elements—visual, textual, ludic—and ultimately functions as a distinct discourse able to mediate for Jack/the player between contesting factors, via established conventional codes of musical, cultural, film, and now video game signification. Bioshock’s use of music initiates a pre-game discourse during installation and prior to every game session in the disc-loading scenes, and this musical discourse is continued throughout the narrative. The story’s opening and descent into Rapture further establishes and “naturalizes” the presence of diegetic music as part of the story being told, and as a vital component of the audio-visual environment enhances player immersion. At the same time, these opening instances and subsequent occurrences of diegetic music at significant points in the story demonstrate that music’s culturally encoded emotive potential produces ironic and poignant effects, while its lyrical intertextuality generates narratological and ludic commentary in various song/scene pairings.

With a view to conducting a study of the identity portrayal as presented in the film Paljas - and more specifically of the two youth characters, Willem and Emma - a few relevant theoretical concepts are included in this investigation, i.e. developmental psychology, film theory and narratology. By analysing and interpreting the film-related representation of the two youth characters it was possible to establish to which extent and in which way the identity portrayal of the two youth characters enhances the main theme of the film. It was, accordingly, also possible to elucidate facets of the placement of the fictional reality as represented in the film text and the reality as such in parallel correlation. According to the research method that was implemented certain aspects of different related sciences proved to be of integral importance. Such aspects included the psychological development of the child during mid-childhood years, the psychological development of the late adolescent, the application of film-related techniques pertaining to character portrayal and characterisation in narratology. During the course of this research the focus was on the identity portrayal of the two characters, Willem and Emma as youth characters in the film Paljas. An analysis of the identity portrayal of the youth characters implies that the investigation and application of narratology and film theory be incorporated in conjunction with theories pertaining to developmental psychology as specific point of focus. The research results were thus described by means of an integrated method. The children's experience of interpersonal communication at their home exercises an important influence on their identity development. The parents create the primary framework of reference for the children's attitude, value systems and convictions in connection with life in general as well as for their own sense of the self and their self-estimation. Key words: film, film text, film theory, identity portrayal, interpretation, youth characters, late adolescence, mid-childhood years, narratology, developmental psychology, Paljas, reception theory. / Thesis (M.A. (Languages))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.