Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka filmarbetares syn på regissörens roll i det svenska filmlandskapet för att ta reda på om det finns en rättvis bild. Samtidigt ska det också undersökas kring begreppet auteur och auteur-teorin för att se om det existerar idag och just i den svenska filmbranschen. Jag har intervjuat fyra svenska filmarbetare för att få svar kring hur regissörens roll ser ut och för att ta reda på hur välbekant begreppet auteur och auteur-teorin är. Slutsatsen är att regissören har en övergripande roll i produktionen där hen betraktas som en konstnärlig ledare som ska föra sitt team under en vision. Samtidigt framkommer det att begreppet auteur är bekant för vissa och existerar idag i det svenska filmlandskapet. Vad som definierar en som auteur är fortfarande en subjektiv åsikt och auteur-teorin är inte lika välbekant. En auteur kan vara både manusförfattare och regissör men andra anser att det ska innebära något mer, såsom en personlig stil. De intervjuade är eniga om att det bästa är att följa regissörens vision men att det är viktigt att låta övriga filmarbetare få känna att de bidrar till skapandet av en film. En manusförfattare eller regissör som inte är ödmjuk eller öppen för ta emot producentens förslag gör det svårare att få igenom sitt verk.

Denna uppsats behandlar huruvida huvudkaraktärerna i Silence (2016) och Hacksaw Ridge (2016) påvisar dygderna tro, hopp och altruism respektive lasterna förnekelse, tvivel och högmod genom deras handlande och värderingar för att se hur detta förhåller sig till teologiska perspektiv kring vad som utgör en god kristen. Undersökningen visar att Desmond från Hacksaw Ridge är överväldigande trofast, hoppfull och altruistisk och det kan argumenteras för att han demonstrerar dessa dygder enligt de valda teologiska definitionerna. De motsvarande lasterna påvisar han väldigt lite, om överhuvudtaget. Rodriguez, huvudkaraktären i Silence tvivlar oftare, både på sig själv och på Guds plan. Huruvida hans val i slutet av filmen kan sägas vara altruistiskt i en kristen bemärkelse och väger upp hans offentliga avsägande av den kristna tron är något som de lärda lär tvista om.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att utföra en jämförande strukturanalys samt utforska hjältekaraktärernas motivation och moral i filmerna Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope samt dess uppföljare Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. Metoden som används har utformats från Christopher Voglers omarbetade version av Joseph Campbells hjälteresa. Resultatet av analysen visar på flera likheter i strukturen av filmerna samt hjältarnas motivation och moral. Uppföljaren använder dock en medvetenhet om de liknelser som den drar och lyckas därmed skapa en egen unik historia som vävs samman med de redan existerande elementen från originalet.

The main purpose of the essay is to find out how Ruben Östlund dramatizes the thematic subject of peer pressure in his film De Ofrivilliga (2008), compared to conventional theories about the narrative of story and group psychology based on Craig Batty’s (2010) and Lars Svedberg’s (2012) works. By creating a model based on certain values a well-functioning group should have and a narrative model of twelve steps, the five scenarios of the film can be analysed. Since each scenario has five parts spread out over the course of the playtime, each scenario is most easily analysed in isolation. Then, after this analysis, all of the scenarios are compared and discussed together as a whole and complete piece of art. The result shows that the scenarios actually follow many of the external narrative steps, but usually lacks steps that take place internally in the characters. The characters often deny their emotional journeys and individual expression since it would harm their reputation and status in the group. This is intentional and shows the films true message, which is to show the viewer that groups have a very strong will of its own and can easily censor individual voices, especially if they are critical towards the group. Östlund seems more concerned with starting a discussion about peer pressure by showing a multitude of perspectives, rather than giving obvious answers to the problems the film poses. This answers the question why some conventional narrative steps are missing. The characters are not supposed to have complete transformational narrative arcs. Instead, the film is told directly to its audience.

I denna uppsats undersöks creature design samt narrativ teori kring skräckfilmer för att ta reda på hur man kan skapa filmmonster vars utseende kan berätta och föra fram en fängslande historia. Ett väldesignat monster lever kvar i publikens minnen, och skapar ikoner för sin tidsperiod eller sin genre. Uppsatsen använder sig av en semiotisk metod för att analysera monstren i filmerna Alien, The Thing och Rovdjuret. För att designa monster till science fiction kan man kombinera zoologi, anatomiska studier samt mänsklig psykologi och fobier för att skapa ett visuellt fascinerande monster som skrämmer publiken och lever kvar i det allmänna medvetandet.

This study tells the life stories of four Saudi female artists. Using life story narrative approach, I focused on the following research questions: How are Saudi female artists fulfilling their aspirations as artists in the conservative Saudi society? What are the common and divergent themes in the life stories of the Saudi women artists, namely Safeya Binzagr, Maha Almalluh, Tagreed Albagshi, and Fida Alhussan? The artists were interviewed using open-ended questions and asked to discuss their artwork. The postmodern feminism and social construction theories were used to understand their life experiences and how they came to be “successful artists” in the conservative Saudi society. The findings showed that family and formal education played an important role in these women’s life journeys as artists. The Saudi society was also a major influence, sometimes supporting them, at other times obstructing them. These artists share many personality features such as being persistent, believing in themselves, taking risks, facing challenges, being independent, being responsible as artists and as part of society, and being honest in their artwork. This study contributes to the art education curriculum in Saudi schools and universities. Globally, it contributes to women’s studies and to social and cultural studies in shedding light on the Saudi society, especially as it is experienced by women.

My thesis works as an experiment, or rather a series of experiments, in methods of thinking about historical material. These methods come from anthropology and engage with myths and ritual, with the concept of “complementary others”, and the concept of “schismogenesis" as it has been developed by Gregory Bateson and advanced further by Marshall Sahlins. My overall goal is not to re-describe a well-researched historical event, but to explore how different ways of analysis, using different analytical frameworks, could lead to valuable explanations of the same political-cum-cultural event. The phenomenon I engage with is the last Oecumenical Council, a major religious event in the history of Councils within already schismatic societies. For this reason, I treat this Council in particular, as a ritual, unprecedented in scale and ambiguous in its inception. I am examining the structure and the return of this Event in History, and the controversies and tensions in the diachrony of East and West. I do this not only through the notion of schismo-genesis and ritual, but specifically the notion of sacrifice as developed by Maurice Bloch, in which the journey from Constantinople to Italy becomes a historical metaphor of mythical realities, regarding the Emperor John VIII Palaiologos. And finally, I explore the significance of Bessarion and complementary others within the notion of transformation and alterity. What I establish through discussions of the historical material, which span eleven centuries of history, is first of all, that there is no event without a system; that means the journey can acquire the form of the ritual. I argue that the relation between the myth and the idea of unity is dialectical in nature; the Event of a Union, which could bring peace in the one Church of Christ, from this moment of realisation becomes a fabrication, a mystery to the witnesses, and all the other myths that will be developed on the way become even more imperative and melancholic, because they seek to express a negative and unavoidable truth. The Event doesn’t portray reality any more, it exists despite it and becomes an extreme position, almost like a dream, and it justifies the vision one wished to be possible, only to show that it is untenable: the “what if it could be”; the possibility of all parts being aspirations to the whole, oecumenicity as a goal rather than unity. Overall, this thesis is about the presence of the past in the present, in relevance to the future.

This practice-informed research establishes points of intersection between reanimative practices within moving image work and queer theoretical positions. It frames this within autoethnographic understandings of memories pertaining to my adolescent experience of gay acculturation via textual sources. A bricolage methodology deriving from the work of Kincheloe and Berry (2004) is used. Multiple methods of investigation are employed including alternative archive creation, moving image tests and prototypes, processes of reading and re-reading and autoethnographic, reflective and academic writing practices. Analysis and evaluation are informed by selected queer theoretical concepts which correspond to the broad structural phases of reanimation. Research outputs deriving from these processes are i) moving image tests, ii) autoethnographic vignettes, iii) a moving image piece entitled Unbounded and iv) a written thesis. The research aims to build on current understandings of the term “reanimation” (Cholodenko, 1991, 2004, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c, 2009; Skoller, 2013; Wells, 1998; Wells & Hardstaff, 2008), particularly within moving image practices using “found” material, and to articulate these within a queer perspective. A contextual review assesses previous work on reanimation in research, scholarship and queer-related animation. A series of moving image tests establish a relationship between animation, deanimation and reanimation which, I propose, constitutes the reanimative process. I consider this practice-informed understanding in relation to analogous patterns and motifs in queer theoretical literature. Finally, evaluation of the evidence from my practice tests and the terminal piece, Unbounded, corroborate a proposed set of intersections. The conclusion offers a conceptualisation of the process of reanimation in my moving image practice and establishes that the reanimated outcome attests to its reanimated status through the “temporal composite” (Skoller, 2013). I build on work concerning queer forms of evidence (Muñoz, 1996, 2009), alternative archive creation (Cvetkovich, 2003), queer temporality (Freeman, 2010; Rohy, 2009; Stockton, 2009) and futurity (Bansel, 2012; Edelman, 2004; Muñoz, 2009) to demonstrate that this reanimative principle is reflective of contemporary queer concerns with historicity. This practice-informed research contributes to knowledge by extending a modest body of animation literature addressing sexuality (de Beer, 2014, 2015, January 21; Griffin, 1994; Halberstam, 2011; Padva, 2008; Pilling, 2012b; Takahashi, 2014; Wells, 1998; Wood, 2008) through its focus on the formal aspects of reanimation and interconnections with the queer, as opposed to the more frequently addressed issue of queer representation.

PIPPET 1 tar avstamp i 10 olika spår eller riktningar som är tongivande för mitt konstnärsskap. Av 10 spår valdes 3 slumpmässigt ut; Öknen, Humorn och Språket. De övriga finns nämnda i uppsatsens appendix. Då min konstnärliga praktik är projektbaserad och diskparat både i estetik och koncept, syftar detta till att bena ut min egen praktik för att komma närmare pudelns kärna. De olika spåren tar upp både populärkulturella och konstnärliga referenser, samt några få personliga anekdoter som har bäring för dem. Även tankar och kritiska reflektioner om egna konstverk tas upp.I "Öknen" disskuteras det sökande och det mytiska. "Humorn" kretsar kring den relativt nya teoribildningen Concrete Comedy, som utformats av konstnären och skribenten David Robbins. I "Språket" disskuteras användandet av ord och text som bilder, men bortom det typografiska och litterära.

The happening of life can reduce you in to a machine where its only focus is on the relentless rationing of energy. When down on the deep sea plane, not much work gets done. But; I write everything down. Because of my fear of forgetting. I forget anyway, so it might seem pointless. I leave the notes, tucked away behind my back while trying to get out of bed, get dressed, answer an email, speak and understand language, remembering the now. Why take notes that does not get read for weeks, months, years or never. Halfway through my masters I realized its importance; my practice contains of the excavation of my own archive. The words of time has always been my foundation, my point of departure; this essay is surrounded of the past but exists in the now. "All this time with a different pulse. Maybe it is something inside of the water."