<p>I två analyser av filmerna; <em>Do The Right Thing</em> av Spike Lee (1989) och <em>Hemligheter och lögner</em> av Mike Leigh (1996), har jag undersökt  hur och varför samhällsproblematik  som berör klass- och rasfrågan presenteras på film utifrån hur cultural studies teoretiskt förhåller sig till problematiska relationer mellan kulturella identiteter i USA och Storbritannien. Jag kom fram till att identifikationen av den kulturella identiteten var olika i respektive länder; USA och Storbritannien. I USA var rastillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten och i Storbritannien var det klasstillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten.</p>

<p>This study deals with a research on what the opening sounds in movies tell us about the story that we are about to follow. The purpose is to examine if and how the sound in the first five minutes of the movie contribute in giving information about the film’s genre. The theoretical base includes both genre theory and Michel Chion’s theory on film sound. Six different movies representing different genres, countries and year of production are analyzed in an audiovisual way.</p><p>The result shows that the sound in the opening sequence could describe the genre which the movie belongs to, but it doesn’t always work like this. The analysis also shows examples on movies where the sound in the beginning of the movie focus on other things, like describing place or ethnicity. In some of the movies, especially the ones that represent adventure and action, you can hear the genre very clearly. In others, for example the comedy, there is a bit harder to decide if the sound alone could tell us about which genre the movie belongs to, and if the sound is typical for that specific genre or if it could be about almost everything. Furthermore, in some movies it was quite clear that the sound concentrates on describing something else instead, for example the place where the story is set.</p>

<p>The intention with this essay is to investigate how the narration of the South Korean film <em>Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance</em> (Park Chan-wook, 2002) relates to the Hollywood pictures of today. An important change which David Bordwell pays attention to is an intensifying of former stylistic paradigms in what he denominates as intensified continuity. That said, Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are in agreement on that the new films still are predominantly classical. The neoformalistic standpoint which Thompson and Bordwell use appears however to contain some problematic implications. Their way of categorizing films as classical, critics maintain, could only result in empty shells of formal parameters. The essay is built upon investigating three areas: plot, narration and style. The result of this study indicates that <em>Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance</em> remains within the classical characteristics, as well as differentiates on certain matters. However, appropriate conclusion needs taking into account also some of the difficulties and critiques targeting the neoformalistic take on style.</p>

This study discusses and analyses recorded/filmed speech, translation, and cultural identity in film discourses in early European sound film. The purpose is to frame these issues from a number of theoretical perspectives in order to highlight relations between media, speech and translation. The points of departure are 1. “universal language” vs. “linguistic diversity”, 2. “media transposition” vs. “language translation”, and 3, “speech as words” vs. “speech as body”. An important aspect in order to discuss these topics is the problem of “versions”, both different translated versions, and versions in different media of speech representation. The correlation of theory with a historical focus offers a contextualisation of translation as an issue of cinematic culture, and also sheds new light on topics that previously have been referred to as details (such as foreign accents in film) or as phenomena considered to be unrelated to “cinematic quality” (such as “filmed theatre”). The object of analysis consists of German, French and Swedish films, trade and fan press, and film theory from the 1920s and 1930s. The study begins with a theoretical and historical introduction, which addresses representation of speech in reproduction media focusing on early sound technology predominantly from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Chapter two offers a discussion of speech as signifier of differentiated ethnicity in relation to a utopia of universal language embodied in film and sound media. Chapter three addresses film speech as a multimedia issue revealing a problematic of version as a context for the various means of translating. Chapter four offers a general discussion of film translation in the period of transition to sound with a focus on dubbing, subtitles and inter-titling. The two last chapters deal exclusively with the multiple language version film, a translation practice based on re-making the same script in different languages.

The main aim of this dissertation is to examine the different childhood discourses permeating Swedish children’s cinema. This is done through close readings of three films that, each in their own way, play an important role in the history of this tradition: THE CHILDREN OF FROSTED MOUNTAIN (Rolf Husberg, 1945), THE CHILDREN OF BULLERBY VILLAGE (Olle Hellbom, 1960) and ELVIS! ELVIS! (Kay Pollak, 1977). Other subjects analysed are media debates about children’s film from the periods in which the films were produced, as well as official reports on the same subject. Taken as a whole, these elements form a significant body of material, describing the notions of children and childhood, as well as ideas around children’s film as medium, that predominated in Swedish society at three given moments in the 20th century. The study shows, that the most striking characteristic is that ever since 1945, when the first film specifically made for children was produced in Sweden, such films have been created with the intention of ‘benefiting’ the young audience. This ‘cinema of best intentions’, in turn, contains a number of attributes that are not always as unequivocally positive as they might initially seem. One of the main starting points for this exploration comes from modern childhood studies, according to which every given time and culture has its own complex of ideas, understandings and representations of children and childhood. Another central theoretical source is Michel Foucault. His ideas of power and knowledge, discipline and oppression, as well as his methodology, permeate this study. From this point of view, there is an aspect of ‘best intentions’ children’s cinema that can be seen as imposing ‘the oppression of benevolence.’ The closing discussion shows how the Swedish children’s film, today as always, is inhibited by factors such as faithfulness to the written original, fear of upsetting the young audience and commercial demands.

This dissertation is a comparative study of the concept of the figural in relation to moving images with three case studies on filmmaker and writer Jean Epstein (1897-1953), video artist Bill Viola (1951-) and the cd-rom art magazine Artintact 1-5 (1994-1999). The conceptually focused case studies also enable a comparison between the different media technologies of film, video and new digital media. The figural is a concept originally used by Jean-François Lyotard and has resurfaced in the works of Jacques Aumont, Philippe Dubois, Nicole Brenez and D. N. Rodowick. Building on ideas expressed by these writers I show how the figural is a concept describing a border zone between abstraction and representation, where focus is on the image as event and process, and various effects due to image manipulation. I argue that a figural approach enables a more nuanced understanding of visual materiality as well as of new relationships between image and text. I also show how the figural can be understood as part of a ”new aestheticism”, where the relationship between viewer and image is emphasised. On a conceptual level the figural is put in relation to the concept of a ”haptic visuality” and the so-called ”post-medium condition”. In the reading of Jean Epstein the figural is used to foreground aspects of ”thinking with images”, and of a ”temporal perspective” as a new visual matter. In the case of Bill Viola the figural is to be found for example in his frequent use of slow motion as an embodied visuality. In the case of Artintact the figural is used to show how digital media is not as immaterial as often claimed, on the contrary the digital brings a new importance for visual materiality. Taken together these aspects introduce the figural as an important element for our understanding of visual culture.

I två analyser av filmerna; Do The Right Thing av Spike Lee (1989) och Hemligheter och lögner av Mike Leigh (1996), har jag undersökt  hur och varför samhällsproblematik  som berör klass- och rasfrågan presenteras på film utifrån hur cultural studies teoretiskt förhåller sig till problematiska relationer mellan kulturella identiteter i USA och Storbritannien. Jag kom fram till att identifikationen av den kulturella identiteten var olika i respektive länder; USA och Storbritannien. I USA var rastillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten och i Storbritannien var det klasstillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten.

The thesis examines ’intermediality’ in Svenska Bios (Swedish Biograph) first fiction films. Värmlänningarne (1910), Fänrik Ståls Sägner (1910), Bröllopet på Ulfåsa (1910), Regina von Emmeritz och Konung Gustaf II Adolf (1910), Amuletten (1910), Emigranten (1910) and Järnbäraren (1911) are analysed in relation to theatre, literature, music and ‘reality’. A detailed discussion of intermediality is combined with specific theories relating to pictorialism and literary presentation in film. The thesis conclude, that early fiction films in general, and Svenska Bios films in particular, depended on their association with other media. The thesis also includes a short discussion concerning silent cinema music.

This study is a conscious attempt at opening up the discussion on the Italian giallo film of the 1960’s &amp; 1970’s. Part of its mission is examine views and writings currently available on the giallo and using these to analyse the body of films known as the giallo. It is also an attempt at the generic definition seeing the giallo as a series of thriller films according to Tzvetan Todorov’s model and in depth discussing the influence of the horror story and the whodunit. Beyond that it is a close look upon the form and devices of giallo narration, with focus upon the role of the eyewitness, focalization and point of view as first person narration. The study also traces the giallo’s influences interdisciplinary including placing it in the cultural context of the Italian adult comics known as fumetti neri. The study also includes a close look upon the idea of the eroticised violent set piece tracing it to the French theatre of horror – the Grand Guignol. Furthermore the study addresses the concept of seriality as understood in reference to the giallo. Finally the study examines the role of the giallo hero and suggests that the giallo is posing existential questions, and can be understood as existential suspense thrillers. The findings are exemplified through a wide scope of films including brief references and longer analytic examples elaborating on topical discussions in this developing field of study.

Filmmusic is often composed specially for a film. When analyzing film-music it seems very common to study the function of the music in a narrative context in order to see how it cooperates or relates to this narration. In the present thesis I am investigating the interaction between film and music as two ingredients on an equal level. In short: what happens when a filmmaker chooses music that has already been composed for another occasion, even in another time and a different cultural context? My aim is twofold: first to examine current film analytic strategies, secondly to find new ways of comprehend pre-composed music in relation to its new setting in a film. My interest, thus, is to seek meaning of music in film rather than function. The study calls for an inter-disciplinary approach using theories and discussions from a wide range of subjects: psychology, music therapy, anthropology, musicology in general and semantics. I am examining two films that are similar in their respect to use music that has been composed and used elsewhere. However, in “2001-a Space Odyssey” Stanley Kubrick uses music from the European art music tradition whereas Woody Allen in “Manhattan” uses music from the popular American music repertoire of the 20s and 30s (The American Songbook). The music, by various composers and in various idioms, in Kubrick´s films, works on a fairly abstract level in a sort of counterpoint to the mythological and visionary contents of the film plot. The meaning of the music on the one hand, and film music on the other operates on a deeper level as a result of this confrontation. In Woody Allen´s film the pieces of music represent a culturally and tecknically much more homogenous group. The implicit texts of the songs ( they are never sung) can be comprehended as a commentary on a deeper level by those familiar with this repertoire. Allen´s choice of subject and enacted dramaturgy for his film is very different from Kubrick´s. The chosen music contributes in an independent way to a reciprocal understanding of film and music as two separate but still independent art entities.