Issue 96: Cinema As Synthesis the editors October 2020 Editorial Welcome everyone to another issue of Senses of Cinema, our last for 2020. The year has certainly not panned out the way anyone could have predicted 12 months ago. The COVID pandemic is still raging across the w...
‘60s American pop in Dyn amo (1972) Darragh O’Donoghue October 2020 Pop Music in Film What happens when the use of pop music is neither celebratory nor liberating? When it is the soundtrack to emotional pain and social oppression, and m...
Liminality in a Microcosm: “California Dreaming” in Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express (1994) Fabian Reinhard October 2020 Pop Music in Film Seldom does a singular song shape an entire film’s atmosphere, nature and subtext as completely as “California Dreaming” (1965) by The Mamas and the P...
“Can I get an encore?” On “Numb/Encore” in Michael Mann’s Miami Vice (2006) Hugo Emmerzael October 2020 Pop Music in Film Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord. -Phil Collins, “In The Air Tonight” I'm in, Boeing jets, Global Express Out th...
On the Wire soundtrack in Carlos (2010) Jean-Baptiste de Vaulx October 2020 Pop Music in Film Olivier Assayas' Carlos (2010), a sprawling six-hour biopic of notorious terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez aka Carlos 'the Jackal' Ramirez, is many thin...
“All These Things That I’ve Done” in Southland Tales (2006) Keva York October 2020 Pop Music in Film “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier / I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier / I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier…” In an American flag-festooned ar...
Far From the Sea in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) Joanna Di Mattia October 2020 Pop Music in Film Do secret agents have hearts that break? In its final minutes, Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), delivers an affirmative answer with...
On Wang Chung’s title track and score in To Live and Die in LA (1985) Lee Hill October 2020 Pop Music in Film While I would disagree with Mark Kermode, as he argues in his BFI book on the horror classic, that The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) is the greate...
Everybody Wants Some Sugarhill Gang Lidiya Josifova October 2020 Pop Music in Film Richard Linklater’s “spiritual sequel” to, alternately, Dazed and Confused (1993) or Boyhood (2014), is alive with the sound of music. It thrums under...
Teddys, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Anita Ekberg: La Dolce Vita Stephen Gaunson October 2020 Pop Music in Film The Italian “Elvis” Adriano Celentano’s performance of the Little Richard song, “Ready Teddy” in La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) is raucous, un...
Ecstatic Moments Out of Time Wheeler Winston Dixon October 2020 Pop Music in Film There are so many moments in the cinema when pop music takes over the image on the screen that I can’t possibly confine myself to one, so here are jus...
Murder, Mystery & Music: “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” in Gumnaam (1965) Martyn Bamber October 2020 Pop Music in Film Seeing the murder mystery thriller Gumnaam (The Unknown, Raja Nawathe, 1965) for the first time this year, the film’s opening song and dance number is...
Spirits Soaring: Pop music in Bande de filles (2014) Fiona Villella October 2020 Pop Music in Film Belonging to a tradition of French cinema, Bande de filles (Céline Sciamma, 2014) continues that tradition’s fine balance between documentary-like rea...
Ellie Goulding’s “Burn” in The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) Angus McGrath October 2020 Pop Music in Film The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017) is an inscrutable psycho-drama, following a cursed family through clinical upper-class houses an...
The Temptations’ “My Girl” in Father of The Bride (1991) Grant Bromley October 2020 Pop Music in Film I don't need no money, fortune, or fame. I've got all the riches, baby, one man can claim. -The Temptations, “My Girl” Charles Shyer’s Father of...
“Wasn’t Born to Follow” / “The Weight” in Easy Rider (1969) Ian Olney October 2020 Pop Music in Film Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969), a herald of Hollywood’s ‘70s renaissance and lament for the death of the ‘60s counterculture, is a movie famously fu...
Caetano Veloso seduces us in Almodóvar’s Hable con ella (2002) César Albarrán Torres October 2020 Pop Music in Film Perhaps no other contemporary director has questioned and delved into masculine beauty and vulnerability as deeply as Pedro Almodóvar. Throughout his ...
Criminals Against Decoration: Modernism as a Heist Andy Reischling October 2020 Feature Articles The first thing you see in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1966 film, Le Samouraï, is an apartment. It’s a bare studio, undecorated and almost wholly bereft of...
The New-Ark: trying to disavow anti-blackness Andrew Brooks October 2020 Feature Articles i: ceaseless calls for impossible devotions But my tendency, body and mind, is to make it. To get there, from anywhere, going wherever, always. By ...
Claustrophobia and Intimacy in Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth and Her Smell Zoë Almeida Goodall October 2020 Feature Articles Michelle: “Small world.” Catherine: “Increasingly.” – Queen of Earth Cinema can produce, through a variety of techniques, a sense of claustrophobia...
What’s in a Cone? Barbara Loden’s Wanda Between Weakness and Resilience Luise Moerke October 2020 Feature Articles In the middle of an empty parking lot, a lonely snack stall promises roadside indulgence. Its red and white marquee speaks of sunnier days, seaside va...
Come and See The Painted Bird: A Filmmaker’s Plea Salvador Carrasco October 2020 Feature Articles Recently I saw what will most likely be my favourite film of the past year and foreseeable future, especially in light of the pandemic: The Painted Bi...
Thresholds of Work and Non-Work in Tulapop Saenjaroen’s People on Sunday Steffanie Ling October 2020 Feature Articles Last January, I was seeking a joyful film at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. When I asked around, one recommended a film about a woman who ...
Missing links: exploring traces of Kubrick’s ‘unknown’ early works Mick Broderick James Fenwick and Joy McEntee October 2020 Feature Articles Previously unseen materials donated by the Stanley Kubrick estate to the London University of the Arts Special Collections Archive sheds new light on ...
Segregation and Film Pedagogy: Aboriginal Kids Nullah and Dujuan Laleen Jayamanne October 2020 Feature Articles “…I am dispended”, says Dujuan Hoosan, the Arrente/Garrwa little Aboriginal boy at the centre of the documentary, In My Blood it Runs (2020). “… suspe...
Countering Dominant Cinema: Temporality in Meek’s Cutoff Catherine Putman October 2020 Feature Articles Living in a time and place that moves faster than ever; ultimately, we end up with less. Lutz Koepnick suggests that subsequently we experience less s...
The Living Theatre: An Interview with Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo about their film Slow Machine Michelle Carey October 2020 Interviews Slow Machine is at once elliptical and allusive. It opens up worlds of poetry, downtown theatre and music, yet holds within it a satisfyingly solid na...
“A ghost mob”: Interview with Sandra Wollner Alison Taylor October 2020 Interviews In February this year, Sandra Wollner’s contentious film, The Trouble with Being Born (2020) debuted at Berlinale, earning a Special Jury prize. In Au...
Capitalism and its Discontents: an Interview with Mike Hoolboom Dirk de Bruyn October 2020 Interviews Dirk de Bruyn has been practicing, writing and curating in the area of experimental film and animation for over 35 years. He is currently teaching Ani...
The 34th Cinema Ritrovato Has Full Resuscitation under COVID Roger Macy October 2020 Festival Reports Bologna in 2020 was destined to be different, with COVID-19 still lapping around. Frankly, when I saw the postponement announcement, that was the last...
Women at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival Alexandra Heller-Nicholas October 2020 Festival Reports In 2016, the 5050x2020 campaign was launched by the Swedish Film Institute at the Cannes Film Festival, and big names were there to share in the annou...
Lest We Forget: the 31st FID Marseille Leonardo Goi October 2020 Festival Reports Are you ready to attend the first “real” festival post COVID-19? The invite came in early July, four and a half months since my last memory from the f...
A Vitalising Cinema in an Agitated Age: The 58th New York Film Festival Jake Pitre October 2020 Festival Reports The 58th New York Film Festival, which took place September 17 to October 11, was inevitably unique in a year of disease and unrest. Taking place at d...
Locarno 2020: The Open Doors Experience Maria Giovanna Vagenas October 2020 Festival Reports Because of COVID-19, the structure of the 74th Locarno Film Festival was rethought. Under the motto “For the future of films” and opting for a hybrid ...
Scott, Tony Jeremy Carr October 2020 Great Directors b. 21 June, 1944, Tynemouth, Northumberland, England, UK d. 19 August, 2012, San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA When Tony Scott passed away a...
Menzel, Jiří Brendan Black October 2020 Great Directors b. February 23, 1938, Prague, Czechoslovakia d. September 5, 2020, Prague, Czech Republic Jiří Menzel was one of the defining voices of the Czechosl...
Trade Follows the Film: Cinema and the Wealth of Nations: Media, Capital, and the Liberal World System by Lee Grieveson Daniel Fairfax October 2020 Book Reviews Few recent books in film and media studies can match the ambition Lee Grieveson set himself with Cinema and the Wealth of Nations: Media, Capital, and...
War, Community, and the Cinema: Front Lines of Community: Hollywood Between War and Democracy by Hermann Kappelhof and Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris Joshua Sperling October 2020 Book Reviews War is a limit-experience for human communities. In the modern era this has often meant nation states, which during periods of total conflict become c...
The Perfect Conditional: Philippe Garrel by Michael Leonard Tony McKibbin October 2020 Book Reviews Philippe Garrel is now in his seventies and has behind him a body of work that looked initially like it might have become no more (and no less) than a...
Stairways to Paradise: Youssef Chahine and Alexandria…Why? David Melville October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film I’ll build a stairway to paradise With a new step every day. I’m going to get there at any price. Stand aside, I’m on my way! - Georges Guétary, A...
At Home Among Strangers (Свой среди чужих, чужой среди своих, Nikita Mikhalkov, 1974) Darragh O’Donoghue October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film At first it looks like we’re in for a Soviet Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. A group of Red Army soldiers and a young woman on a farm celebrate th...
German Yearnings, East and West: The Sons of Great Bear (Josef Mach, 1966) Donovan Renn October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film Right out of the gate, Die Söhne der großen Bärin (The Sons of Great Bear) is confrontational, startling, and something else we can't quite describe. ...
Waiting for Rain: Oppression and Resistance in Youssef Chahine’s The Land (1970) David Heslin October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film Al-ard (The Land, Youssef Chahine, 1970) begins and ends in the dirt. In its opening sequence, a hand is seen patting the soil around a young cotton p...
Of East and West and High and Low: Lemonade Joe (1964) Cerise Howard October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film It’s not news that the 1960s were an extraordinarily fecund time for cinema in Czechoslovakia; the output of the filmmakers connected to the FAMU-cent...
A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines (Chelovek s bulvara Kaputsinov, Alla Surikova, 1987) Martyn Bamber October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film While the Western is primarily known as an American cinematic institution, this has not stopped other countries from enthusiastically embracing the ge...
Cairo Station (باب الحديد, 1958) Darragh O’Donoghue October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film Qinawi, the anti-hero of Youssef Chahine’s international breakthrough, is introduced into the main narrative by indirection. First, the ‘lame’ newspap...
Abbas Kiarostami’s The Traveller (1974) Grant Bromley October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film In 1959, François Truffaut's Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, 1959) presented delinquent childhood in a manner that allowed for its lead actor, ...