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This project examines the how camera movement as a stylistic element is used as a storytelling device in the films of select international filmmakers. The main intention of the study is to trace the changing function of the mobile frame to see how a specific stylistic element develops across different narrative paradigms, national industries and between “early” and contemporary periods of filmmakers. My primary assertion is that the norms guiding the development of the tracking camera expand gradually from normative functions toward figurative uses. In order to be able to differentiate between normative and figurative uses of the tracking camera with conceptual clarity, this project adapts Roland Barthes’s typology about the narrative function of distinctive textual/stylistic units. Barthes’ conceptual framework becomes functional by assigning specific codes (hermeneutic, the semic, the proairetic, the symbolic and the cultural codes) to the interactions of the elements of narration. When transforming and changing the function of stylistic elements across their films, artists respond to a wide range of industrial, technological, aesthetic, cultural factors, from which this study focuses on socio-cultural trends. The underlying assumption of this project holds that the mentioned trends can be detected in the stylistic choices of artists. This study takes a bottom-up route: starting with an analytical interpretation of a specific aesthetic device, it moves towards an explanation that connects camera movement to larger, dynamic signifying systems. The arch of my project traces the relation between normative and figurative textual codes through the prism of camera movement.

Dans mon mémoire de thèse, j'ai présenté l'histoire du cinéma documentaire polonais vu dans le contexte de l'histoire de la Pologne. La période sur laquelle j'ai travaillé, était celle des années 1955-1969. Mon doctorat est construit en trois parties, et une préface. Cette dernière présente la période de reconstruction de la cinématographie polonaise qui a presque été totalement détruite pendant la guerre. Elle décrit également l'influence de l'Etat sur toutes les branches industrielles. J'ai présenté les premiers films tournés après la guerre, et les premiers courants qui sont nés à cette période. J'ai parlé du réalisme socialiste et de ses conséquences. La première partie de mon travail est consacré à la Série Noire. Dans le premier chapitre, je décris la société polonaise des années 1950. Je présente les événements sociaux et politiques dont les manifestations d'Octobre 1956 ont été une conséquence directe. Je parle également de la situation cinématographique de cette époque. Le deuxième chapitre est consacré presque entièrement aux années universitaires des futurs créateurs de la Série Noire. Je décris et analyse les films de ce courant dans le troisième chapitre, j’ai consacré la seconde partie de mon travail à présenter des films documentaires et les courants artistiques nés en même temps que la Série Noire ou tout juste après elle. La période décrite couvre les années 1956-1960. Dans cette partie, je présente aussi « une brève histoire» de la diffusion du court-métrage en Pologne dans les années 1944-1969. Dans la troisième et dernière partie de mon travail, je parle des films, des courants artistiques et des phénomènes les plus importants dans le film documentaire polonais des années 1960 et j'indique les caractéristiques de la situation politique de cette période. J’attire l'attention sur les événements ayant eu une influence directe sur le développement du documentaire polonais: la création du Festival du Court-métrage à Cracovie en 1961, le développement de la télévision, les changements d'organisation dans le milieu cinématographique et la crise officiellement déclarée dans la presse du cinéma dans le milieu des années 1960. J’introduis également, dans les derniers sous-chapitres, la nouvelle génération de cinéastes de film documentaire. Dans les Annexes, on trouve les interviews que j'ai réalisées avec les gens liés à la cinématographie polonaise de la période traitée dans ma thèse. On y trouve également un texte consacré aux relations polo no- soviétique à travers la réalisation du documentaire 273 jours en dessous de zéro. / My thesis presents the history of Polish documentary cinema seen in the context of Polish history. The period which I worked on was the years 1955-1969. My dissertation is structured in three parts and a preface. The latter shows reconstruction-period cinematography almost completely destroyed during the war. It also describes the influence of the state on every industry. I introduce the first films made after the war and the first movements born in this period. Furthermore, I spoke of socialist realism and its consequences. The first part of my work is dedicated to the Black Series. ln the first chapter, I describe 1950s Polish society; I present the social and political events which consequently give rise to October 1956. Moreover, I talk about the state of cinema of the era. The second chapter is almost entirely devoted to the student Iife of the future Black Series creators. I describe and analyze the films from this movement in the third chapter. I dedicated the second part of my thesis to introducing the documentaries and artistic movements which are either contemporaneous with the Black Series or established just after it; the period described covers the years 1956-1960. ln this section, I also present a "brief history" of short film broadcasts in Poland in the years 1944-1969. ln the third and final part, I talk about the films, artistic trends and the most important phenomena of 1960s Polish documentary film, and I show the characteristics of the political situation of that period. I draw attention to the events that had a direct influence on the development of Polish documentaries: the creation of the Short Film Festival in Krakow in 1961, the development of television, the organizational changes of the film world and the crisis-officially declared by the film press-in the mid-60s. ln the last sub-chapters I also introduce the new generation of documentary filmmakers. The Appendix contains interviews I conducted with people associated with Polish cinema of the period which I speak of in my thesis. There is also a text on the production of the documentary "273 days below zero", illustrating the former state of Polish-Soviet relations.

This study examines the representation of Local Education Authority (LEA) secondary schooling in England and Wales as it was portrayed in non-fiction British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) programmes in the twenty-one years that followed the 1944 Education Act. The primary sources drawn on for this study include the surviving microfilmed radio scripts, dating from 1944–1965 and held at the BBC Written Archives (BBC WAC). The correspondence files from contributors to programmes also provide a key source from BBC WAC. The majority of the programmes considered are radio broadcast, however some documentary films on the topic of secondary education, made by the BBC and transmitted on television, are also analysed. Where audio-visual copies have survived, the programmes were viewed at the BFI Viewing Services. The study draws on 235 BBC programmes in total, made in the years 1944–1965. The details of these broadcasts can be seen in the three Appendices accompanying this study. The study also employs the use of drawing to present key ideas. This study explores how broadcasts are formed as cultural products. The research questions address: what was the content of these programmes? Who collaborated to create and edit these programmes and how were the programmes devised to inform the public about the provision of secondary education? What was the role of the All Souls Group (ASG) in this collaboration? The public included a domestic audience in England and Wales and an overseas audience for whom distinct broadcasts were usually created. A further element of the research is a scrutiny of the BBC as an organization that positions itself as neutral. The considered programmes enabled a group of eloquent educationalists to use their rehearsed and edited ‘conversation’ on a public stage. As the study unfolds it becomes apparent that the members of the informal education discussion group, the ASG, were lobbying to encourage the topic of secondary education to resurface sufficiently often on air. The study concludes with recognition that the reinforcing of loyalties between overlapping networks, such as the BBC and the ASG, should no longer be approached with reticence in academic research.

This thesis examines the depiction of warfare in post-9/11 ancient world epics and assesses the extent to which these films engage with contemporary events by means of allegory and analogy. Inspired by scholarship on allegorical and analogous interpretations of 1950s-60s ancient world epics, I explore how the current cycle engages with the American socio-political landscape in the wake of 9/11, with particular emphasis on the War on Terror and ensuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I chart the genre’s evolution in relation to the combat film, and examine how the current cycle of ancient world epics integrates the tropes of other genres into its portrayal of warfare, invasion, occupation and imperialism. Within this context, I explore the recurrent motif of the father-son dynamic, and assess how its use in combat films corresponds to that in ancient world epics. I also discuss how this motif was employed in 1980s Vietnam War films, and what its use in these modern epics suggests about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, I discuss the use of the unreliable narrator to engage with wider debates on the value of historical films compared to written history. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the ancient world epic is a malleable construct with which filmmakers can engage with the present while depicting the past. I build on existing studies of the ancient world in cinema, contributing new understanding of the current cycle’s relationship to its predecessors, to other genres, and to post-9/11 American society. In so doing this thesis contributes to notions of film as art, as industry, and as history, and how they intersect in cinematic depictions of the ancient world.

Since the beginning of the 2010’s, consumers have increasingly picked up the habit of using smartphones to shoot and watch video in portrait mode – vertical video. The format has also spread to professional film making in the form of advertising, fiction film and other genres produced for viewing on vertically oriented screens – especially smartphone screens. This rise of the vertical format can be attributed to digital conversion and new social habits of video communication via social media; in other words, the so called digital – or mobile – revolution. However, neither vertical media nor vertical film is actually new. In this paper, a media archaeological approach is used to show that vertical media is as old as human art, and that audiences have enjoyed vertical moving images at least since the 1830’s. For example, many early optical images and the first television images in the 1920’s were vertical. This paper is an elaboration on an archaeology of vertical video, inspired by the methods of media archaeologists Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka and the visual arts perspective of Anne Friedberg. Apart from the ancestry of the vertical frame, this paper also includes an analysis of what is inside the tall frame – a study on vertical shot composition. Focusing on eleven short films in competition at the 2016 Vertical Film Festival near Sydney, the analysis focuses especially on camera movement, scale of shot and editing. Using formal style analysis, as well as statistical style analysis, this paper defines characteristics of vertical shot composition; these include a frequent use of both long shots and tilt shots, and a general experimental playfulness in shot composition and in editing. By tracing the ancestry of – and analyzing the artistry of – portrait mode video, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the vertical video format and its renewed popularity in recent years. / <p>Grade on the bachelor's thesis: A</p>

The thesis is aimed on film advertising in the period of the Czechoslovak First Republic, which is often a neglected, but extremely interesting chapter in the study of advertising history. The origin of film advertising is examined from the point of view of the advertiser, creators, but also the technical possibilities and available technical background, which was often a limiting factor for the development of film as such. The possible reach of the film advertising at the time is then illustrated by the development of the number of cinemas in Czechoslovakia, their total attendance, as well as the number of these films and the average attendance per show.

I historieundervisningen i den svenska grundskolan blir det allt vanligare att lärare använder historisk spelfilm som inslag. Forskning inom området från både USA och Sverige visar dock på att användandet av spelfilm i historieundervisningen står inför en rad didaktiska dilemman. Dessa dilemman har dels att göra med på vilket sätt läraren utformar den spelfilmsbaserade undervisningen, dels vilken slags medvetenhet och förmåga till kritiskt seende och reflektion eleverna uppvisar i sina möten med spelfilm. Samtidigt visar forskning att om lärare besitter kunskaper och insikter både om den historiska spelfilmens didaktiska utmaningar som om dess möjligheter kan en sådan undervisning i allra högsta grad bidra till en hos eleverna utvecklad historielitteracitet. Syftet med föreliggande explorativa fallstudie är att undersöka huruvida och i vilken utsträckning spelfilmsbaserad historieundervisning kan sägas ge upphov till meningsskapande processer där historielitteracitet hos elever utvecklas. Studien har som yttersta teoretiska ramverk det sociokulturella perspektivet som ser på lärande som något som uppstår i en social gemenskap där individen alltid står i relation till det kollektiva och där lärandet är resultatet av individers kognitiva utveckling så som den sker i relation till det som händer i samspelet med andra. För att besvara studiens syfte och frågeställningar har en observerande fallstudie med explorativa samt intervenerande inslag genomförts och detta i kombination med en semistrukturerad intervju med berörd lärare. Studiens viktigaste resultat är att för att en historieundervisning med spelfilmsinslag ska inneha potentialen att förse elever med möjligheter till såväl meningsskapande som utvecklande av historielitteracitet behöver läraren ge eleverna möjligheter att förutom att möta, utveckla och analysera kunskap, även använda denna kunskap i en mellanmänsklig lärandemiljö där utrymme för klassrumsdiskussioner skapas. / <p>SO</p>

The United States film industry is controlled by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its six signatories--the major productions studios (Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal, Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Time Warner), and through this joint-partnership they have monopolized prime production, distribution, exhibition and classification of the U.S film market. The objective of this project is to shed light on biases present in the MPAA rating system's treatment of sex and violence under the X/NC-17 rating in order to demonstrate the lack of viability of the system in today's world.

This dissertation investigates how history is used in historical documentary films, and argues that the maker of such films constantly negotiates between cognitive, moral, and aesthetic demands. In support of this contention is discussed a number of historical documentaries by Swedish historian-filmmakers Olle Häger and Hans Villius. Other historical documentaries supply additional examples. The analyses take into account both the production process and the representations themselves. The history culture and the social field of history production together form the conceptual framework for the study, and one of the aims is to analyse the role of professional historians in public life. The analyses show that different considerations compete and work together in the case of all documentaries, and figure at all stages of pre-production, production, and post-production. But different considerations have particular influence at different stages in the production process and thus they are more or less important depending on where in the process the producer puts his emphasis on them. In the public service television setting, the tendency to make cognitive considerations is strong. For example, historical documentarists often engage historians as advisors, and work long and hard interpreting visual source materials such as photographs. The Häger and Villius case also indicates that the influence exerted on programmes by aesthetic considerations grows as the filmmaker learns about the medium. Among general conclusions are that it is not always important that the producer be a trained historian. What is crucial is that whoever is to succeed in making fine historical programmes must learn both history and filmmaking, must learn to balance the demands of content and form. Previously, researchers have suggested that historical documentaries function as entertainment, orientation, and restoration; this study adds the functions of interpretation and legitimisation. Finally, the study submits that typically historical documentaries attempt to convey cognitive and moral insights about the past.