This thesis is an interpretation of three films by the Greek Cypriot director Michael Cacoyannis: Stella, 1955), To koritsi me ta mavra/A Girl in Black, 1956 and To teleftaio psema/A Matter of Dignity, 1958. These films appear early in Cacoyannis' career and very little has been written on them. My thesis seeks to show that they are accomplished and complex films, which merit close attention, both in virtue of their dramatic form and because of the ethical questions they raise regarding individual autonomy and the force of archaic ethical norms. The aim of this thesis is to interpret these films by examining the evolving motivations of their protagonists. The thesis seeks to show that the dramatic form of the films renders the agency of the protagonist partly intransparent. In order to show this, my thesis examines, on the one hand, how characterisation, perspective, character relationships and the development of the drama provide an internal context for agency in each film. On the other hand, the interpretation seeks to tease out the ethical implications and stakes of the dramatic action in each film. These implications, I argue, are structured by a thematic ambivalence running through these films between modernity, understood as subjective freedom, and archaic ethical norms, implying a limit to subjective freedom. In the approach to the films' dramatic form and their ethical implications, I am indebted to Hegel's aesthetic and ethical theory. I use the Hegelian term 'modern tragedy' to characterise both the dramatic form of these films and the ethical situation of their protagonists. I also situate these films within international auteur cinema of the 1950s and early 1960s. The thesis aims, thus, to contribute to scholarship on European auteur cinema of the mid-20th century. It also aims to be a contribution to the study of agency and ethics in film in general.

Thesis (doctoral)--Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 340-361) and indexes.

Thesis (doctoral)--Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 340-361) and indexes.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: p. 351-380.

This study utilises a variety of research methods in order to investigate aspects often overlooked within Scottish film criticism, and indeed film studies more generally, namely: pre-production, production experiences, marketing and distribution, and reception. To date, Scottish film criticism has exhibited a preoccupation with questions of nation, national identity and national cinema, and overwhelmingly scholars have privileged almost exclusive analysis of the film text. Spurred by Jonathan Murray’s (2007, 2011, 2012) questioning of the continued relevance of the national framework, this thesis goes beyond the frame of the film text in order to consider new ways in which a national framework might be of relevance when analysing Scotland’s cinematic output. Concurrently, the chosen case study is also used as a means of critiquing existing literature on collective identity and national cinema. As the title of this thesis suggests, analysis centres on the Dogma-inspired Advance Party initiative and its resulting films, Red Road (Arnold, 2006) and Donkeys (McKinnon, 2010). Devised by Glasgow-based Sigma Films and Denmark’s Zentropa, the cross border collaborative dimension of the Advance Party framework initially appears to challenge the appropriateness of the national framework. As this thesis demonstrates however, such a simplistic conclusion is reductive and overlooks the complexities of the film industry. Throughout this thesis, questions as to the intended and eventual function of the Advance Party framework arise, and these are revisited by means of the thesis Conclusion.

This dissertation examines the representations of Casablanca in Moroccan cinema and their articulation of postcolonial subjectivity since the 1990s. To overcome a deep economic recession and simmering social unrest in the early 1980s, Morocco embarked on a comprehensive programme of structural adjustment policies under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund. Market reforms ushered in novel forms of spatial development and social relations in Moroccan cities over the next decades. In the cultural field, a popular cinema emerged in the early 1990s and has projected the complex structures of everyday life in urban space. The New Urban Cinema (NUC) has anchored national cinema in the everyday life and affective economy of a society in transition. The country’s largest city, Casablanca, is the setting for some of NUC’s most original portrayals of the Moroccan subject under globalisation. Taking space, affect and violence as intertwined sites of film analysis, my research project closely examines the new forms of postcolonial subjectivity that have evolved in Morocco through this cinema. Twenty films are read against the backdrop of neoliberal Casablanca and the social, economic as well as political transformation of Morocco and the world under globalisation. The dissertation combines close textual analysis with a cultural studies perspective, which situates films in their historical contexts of production and reception in Morocco and beyond. Drawing on postcolonial, film and urban studies, my aim is to contribute to interdisciplinary scholarship on cinematic responses to neoliberal globalisation, and to a social history of contemporary Morocco.

The present dissertation investigates similes and their importance in Eichendorff’s narrative work. The sources of the investigation consist of seven of Eichendorff’s narratives. Their 734 similes make up the corpus, which is presented in its entirety in the appendix. The context of the similes is partly included as well. Initially, I define the concept of “simile” more precisely, partly distancing myself from the definitions found in classical dictionaries of literary terms. After this, I describe my procedure for analysis in detail. This turned out to be necessary, since there was no similar study to be found on this topic in the extensive literature on Eichendorff. The search for models of types of similes brought me back to antique rhetoric as well as to Middle High German epic poems. In the first analysis, the types of similes occurring in the corpus are presented. The syntactic structures of image receivers and image givers are used as criteria. Four structures of similes occurred: a) classical similes and b) similes with image givers, which represent adverbial clauses and c) as / as if – clauses or are d) subject-related. The frequency and the development of frequency of types of similes are presented as well. In the second step of the thesis, I investigate whether similes tend to depict conditions/qualities or procedures/actions. It turned out that similes reflecting conditions/qualities, i.e. epic similes, dominated strongly. The high number of similes could possibly be explained by the functions carried out by epic similes in narrative texts. In the third part, I concern myself with the question whether the similes of the corpus are imaginative representations only and what kind of sensorial perceptions they express. Admittedly, the dominating percentage of the similes proved to be images, but more than fifteen per cent consist of sounds and other sensorial perceptions. Furthermore, imaginative similes, but also sounding similes express motion, so that they illustrate pictures in motion and sounding motion respectively. These come close to synaesthesia, whereas only five similes illustrate „pure“ synaesthesia. In contrast, subject-related similes are perceptions of different sensations and feelings, illustrating the inner life of a character not shared by any other character. Finally, the semantic content of the similes is investigated in order to determine the metamorphosis, i.e. the trope transfer from proprium to improprium. It turned out that only the classical simile originating in antique rhetoric is suitable for a semantic analysis. Above all, there is great variation in the trope transfer. The metamorphosis human being → nature dominates strongly, which makes the narrative text appear as a palimpsest, in which yet another world glimmer in front of the human being behind every character. However, the many trope transfers that convey reality → unreality could be interpreted as transitions and as a “magical code” of Eichendorff. Furthermore, the semantic analysis uncovers content and motives of classical similes. It becomes clear that pre-constructed – and only pre-constructed - content is imitated here. Consequently, it can be asserted that Eichendorff’s great number of similes constitute or at least contribute to the formulaic manner (according to Kohlschmidt) and the intertextuality (according to Nienhaus) in Eichendorff’s narrative work. Above all, the subject-related simile type turns out to be a typical representative of Romanticism because of its subjectivism. Together with its preformed semantic content, it constitutes the “romantic formula” of Eichendorff’s work.