Welcome to Issue 78 of our Journal the editors March 2016 Editorial As we reflect on the first few months of 2016, it’s already been an emotionally bumpy ride. With the passing of Chantal Akerman - and guest editor Bérénice Reynaud’s memorial dossier in Issue 77 - still fresh, ...
Sounding Loneliness in Under the Skin Sean Redmond March 2016 Feature Articles Listen. If you listen closely, intensely, you will hear the sounds of loneliness scoring the most profound encounters found on our screens and in t...
Zodiac and the Ends of Cinema Sam Dickson March 2016 Feature Articles This article interprets the obsessive procedural narrative of Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007) as a self-reflexive allegory for the transition from cellul...
Familiar Refrains and Minor Variations: Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful Eighth Jeremy Carr March 2016 Feature Articles Every Quentin Tarantino film has been greeted with considerable controversy and critical scrutiny, with arguments concerning each new release ranging ...
Chasing the Desert: An Interview with Enrica Fico on Her Work with Michelangelo Antonioni Eleonora Raspi March 2016 Feature Articles When I entered Michelangelo Antonioni’s apartment in Rome to interview his wife and long-standing collaborator Enrica Fico, I saw his clothes elegantl...
Doubt and Discovery: Laura Israel on her Work with Robert Frank George Kouvaros March 2016 Feature Articles “Look out the window. Look out. More, more! What a nice window.” - Robert Frank, The Present Recently described by the New York Times as the world’s...
Second Nature: On the Experimental Work of Richard Tuohy Lauren Bliss March 2016 Feature Articles Experimental and avant-garde cinema is often positioned in relation to the assumption that the cinematic arts are inherently commodified and commodify...
Towards a Technology of the Dead: Kim Soyoung on Her “Exile” Documentary Trilogy Kim Soyoung March 2016 Feature Articles Kim Soyoung is one of South Korea’s most prominent and acclaimed independent documentary makers. Directing under the name Jeong Kim, she is best known...
A Shared Space at Eye Level: An Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Philip Scheffner Brigitta Wagner March 2016 Feature Articles There is something prescient about the films of Philip Scheffner. While news teams chase down the stories of the moment and documentary opportunists v...
What Now? Remind Me – Rotterdam 2016 Urszula Lipińska March 2016 Festival Reports The 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) took place under the new artistic directorship of Bero Beyer. As all new artistic directors so o...
History Politics, Form at the Woche der Kritik, Berlin Yaron Dahan March 2016 Festival Reports To bring films together into a cohesive and provocative curation is to open paths of communication between them, to build links where they had never b...
Why Vancouver? Bérénice Reynaud March 2016 Festival Reports This is an appropriate question, as last fall the 34 year-old Canadian festival unfolded its second year with its new administrative team (Jacqueline ...
If Arte Povera was Pop: Artists’ and Experimental Cinema in Italy 1960s-70s Donatella Valente March 2016 Festival Reports As I write, the colourful and exuberant Pop art Exhibition at Tate Modern in London, The EY Exhibition. The World Goes Pop, is thriving and embracing ...
Sundance: Above and Beyond Bérénice Reynaud March 2016 Festival Reports Beyond I had spent too much time designing my schedule before requesting press tickets for the first weekend of Sundance, and as a result, none of th...
Berlinale 2016: Perspektive Deutsches Kino Jaimey Fisher March 2016 Festival Reports On the second full day of this year’s Berlin Film Festival, George Clooney’s earnest face peered out with an admonishing pointer finger from one of th...
AFI FEST/AFM: Paths for (Re)discovery Bérénice Reynaud March 2016 Festival Reports The AFI FEST presented by Audi is a great opportunity to catch up with films you have missed somewhere else, while offering Angelinos who don’t travel...
Hong Sang-soo Marc Raymond March 2016 Great Directors Hong Sang-soo, 25 October 1960, Seoul, South Korea There are few filmmakers as distinctive as the South Korean master Hong Sang-soo, a writer-directo...
Screening Life/Death: Deathwatch: American film, technology, and the end of life by C. Scott Combs Tyson Stewart March 2016 Book Reviews Deathwatch presents a sweeping history of on-screen death, from the silent film era to recent Hollywood blockbusters. Historically, American film has ...
The Mythographer and the Poet: On Marina Warner’s L’Atalante Nafis Shafizadeh March 2016 Book Reviews Film criticism from literary writers is a tricky business. I am of course using literary as a discursive term rather than a hard and fast category; on...
Film Worlds: A Philosophical Aesthetics of Cinema by Daniel Yacavone Reno Lauro March 2016 Book Reviews Imagine a reality where Terrence Malick, possibly one of the brightest philosophical minds of his generation, completes a doctoral dissertat...
Returning to the Movie Theatre: Roland Barthes’ Cinema by Philip Watts and La nuit sera noire et blanche by Jean Narboni Daniel Fairfax March 2016 Book Reviews Roland Barthes was notorious for his self-proclaimed “resistance” to the cinema. In fact, he hated the medium so much he could only bring himself to g...
Lost Souls: The Soul of Film Theory by Sarah Cooper Troy Michael Bordun March 2016 Book Reviews In the first half of the twentieth century, film theorists developed competing concepts of soul in the cinema. According to Sarah Cooper, the concept ...
Open Game – Our Strange Love for Martha Ivers David Melville March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “You’re insane. You’re out of your mind. Me too! You see how close we are to each other?” - Kirk Douglas to Barbara Stanwyck in The Strange Love of M...
Stella Dallas: The Female Hero in the Maternal Melodrama Gwendolyn Audrey Foster March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937) is the most well known and celebrated of the genre known as the ‘maternal melodrama.’ Stella Dallas (Barbara Stanwyck...
Individualism and Populism in Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe (1941) Sandra E. Lim March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film Meet John Doe (Frank Capra, 1941), is the story of down and out baseball player Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), who having never quite made it to ...
Night Nurse (1931) Wheeler Winston Dixon March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “Oh, ethics . . . ethics . . . ethics! That's all I've heard. Isn't there any ethics about letting poor little babies be murdered?” – Barbara Stanw...
Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924) Frederick Blichert March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film What I don’t like is the persistent denial by blubbering sentimentalists of man’s basic nature. Away with those who would sterilize life, or, as they ...
The Betrayals of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Querelle (1982) Claire Henry March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing of ecstasy at all.” – Jean Genet, Prisoner of Love (1986) Querelle was Rainer W...
Whose are the Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant? Cerise Howard March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “When it came to Fassbinder, ... one was made to feel that the real drama in film after film wasn't so much in the makeshift characters or the fruit-s...
Dream Baby Dream: Robert Altman’s 3 Women (1977) Tanner Tafelski March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “I had a dream last night,” says a boy. “We had the same dream,” an oddly similar voice replies. Renowned ambient musician, Geir Jensen, using the mon...
Fever Dream: Combat! – “Survival” (Robert Altman, 1963) Adrian Danks March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film Although Robert Altman is now widely regarded as one of the key figures of New Hollywood cinema, he was also a significant director of mainstream US t...
Not so dirty realism: Altman glosses Carver in Short Cuts Julian Murphy March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film Somebody wins the lottery. The same day, that person’s sister gets killed by a brick falling off a building in Seattle. Those are both the same thing....
Robert Altman’s Jazz ’34 Jesse Schlotterbeck March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film The music performance film Jazz ’34 (1997) is best introduced in the context of a feature that this title could easily be mistaken for: Kansas City (1...
La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937) Tamara Tracz March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film At the end of La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937), two prisoners of war, working class engineer Marechal (Jean Gabin) and wealthy Jew Rosenthal (Ma...
Foolish Wives (Erich von Stroheim, 1922) Luke Aspell March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film The morning routine of the Villa Amarosa has the vagueness of habit. The tenants come together slowly, in frames mostly weighted towards their rightwa...
Exchange, exchange: Jean Rouch’s Petit à Petit David Heslin March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film No outside figure has contributed more to the cinema of francophone West Africa than Jean Rouch. Yet, much as he devoted his life's work to subverting...
Abandonment, Loss and Longing in Margot Nash’s The Silences Felicity Ford March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “What does the past tell us? In and of itself, it tells us nothing. We have to be listening first, before it says a word, and even then, listening mea...
Sensing the Past: Margot Nash’s Vacant Possession Gabrielle O'Brien March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film There are moments in Vacant Possession (1994) when the past becomes a material presence. Writer/director Margot Nash’s ambitious ‘state of the nation’...
Nosferatu The Vampyre (Werner Herzog, 1979) Pedro Blas Gonzalez March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film Werner Herzog's 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre takes its inspiration from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. Herzog’s version of the Dracula tale pays hom...
Woyzeck (Werner Herzog, 1979) Darragh O’Donoghue March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film Werner Herzog began Woyzeck within a week of shooting Nosferatu, phantom der nacht (Nosferatu the Vampyre, 1979) in Moravia with the same crew. It is ...
Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982): Waking Dreams and Casting Spells in the Jungle Adam Powell March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “Herzog is a music addicted gypsy who is a specialist on limited people (cripples, dwarfs, the blind and deaf) and has an outsized rage as extreme as ...
Challenging the Impossible: Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams Keva York March 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “You wanted to know the story of Fitzcarraldo,” Werner Herzog intones over roving shots of treetops shrouded in fog, deep in the Peruvian Amazon. “It’...
The Contiguous World of Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963) John Edmond February 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film In the middle of The Leopard (Il Gattopardo 1963) there is a hunting trip. The ring of Sicilian cicadas. A rabbit is killed. A conversation takes plac...
To Shoot at the Impassive Stillness: Marcello Mastroianni in Luchino Visconti’s The Stranger (Lo straniero, 1967) Joanna Di Mattia February 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film Oppressive heat shrouds an Algerian beach. A Frenchman, Arthur Meursault (Marcello Mastroianni), pauses at the foot of the stairs of the house at whic...
“I’m No Lady” and the Tramp: Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione Alexandra Heller-Nicholas February 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film The production history of Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione (1943) is one so rich that it at times risks distracting us from the intricate internal mechan...
Heaven Can Wait (Ernst Lubitsch, 1943) Eloise Ross January 2016 CTEQ Annotations on Film “With your ingenuity it will be easy to make up a story.” So Martha Strable Van Cleve (Gene Tierney) writes in a telegram when quarrelling with her hu...
Erich von Stroheim’s Damned Queen: Queen Kelly Michael Koller August 2007 CTEQ Annotations on Film Queen Kelly (1928 USA 96 mins) Prod Co: Gloria Swanson Pictures Corporation/United Artists Prod: Erich von Stroheim, Joseph P. Kennedy , Gloria...
My Best Fiend Antonia Shanahan November 2006 CTEQ Annotations on Film This annotation previously appeared in Senses of Cinema, no. 19, 2002, and Issue 41, 2006. My Best Fiend (1999 Germany 98 mins) Source: ACMI/NL...
California Split Peter Tonguette May 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film California Split (1974 USA 108 mins) Source: ScreenSound Australia Prod Co: Columbia Pictures Prod: Robert Altman, Joseph Walsh Dir: Robert Alt...
The Lady Eve Peter Tonguette March 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film The Lady Eve (1941 USA 90mins) Source: ACMI/NLA Prod Co: Paramount Prod: Paul Jones Dir, Scr: Preson Sturges Phot: Victor Milner Ed: Stuart Gilmore...
Introduction to Black Girl Rahul Hamid December 2002 CTEQ Annotations on Film Black Girl/La noire de… (1966 Senegal 59 mins) Source: ACMI/NLA Prod Co: Filmi Domirev, Les Actualitès Françaises Prod: André Zwoboda Dir, Scr:...
Aguirre, Wrath of God Ingo Petzke March 2002 CTEQ Annotations on Film Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972 West Germany 95mins) Source: ACMI/NLA Prod. Co: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion Prod, Dir, Scr: Werner Herzog Phot: Th...
Just Some Jesus Looking for a Manger: McCabe & Mrs. Miller Adrian Danks September 2000 CTEQ Annotations on Film McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971 USA 121mins) Source: CAC Prod Co: Warner Brothers Prod: David Foster, Mitchell Browerk Dir: Robert Altman Scr: Alt...
Mono No Aware: The Films of Abel Ferrara, 2005-2015 the editors March 2016 Mono No Aware: The Films of Abel Ferrara, 2005-2015 Special Dossier edited by the Senses of Cinema editorial team Since his earliest feature films from the 1970s, the work of American director Abel Fer...
Late Capitalist Atrocity Exhibition: Abel Ferrara’s Welcome To New York James Slaymaker March 2016 Mono No Aware: The Films of Abel Ferrara, 2005-2015 It’s difficult not to detect the influence of Pasolini on Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York (2014), and not only due to the fact that Ferrara was rep...
The Tao of Abel Rowan Righelato March 2016 Mono No Aware: The Films of Abel Ferrara, 2005-2015 “The sage disregards all distinctions and takes his point of view from Heaven.” - Chuang Tzu “That film (Mary) made me a Buddhist. I got so Cathol...
Abel Ferrara gets real: Chelsea on the Rocks, Napoli, Napoli, Napoli and Mulberry St. Tim O’Farrell March 2016 Mono No Aware: The Films of Abel Ferrara, 2005-2015 After a decade plagued by financing imbroglios and enervating battles with financiers, producers and distributors, the period between 2008 and 2010 sa...
Reflections on Contemporary British Experimental Film and Video Deniz Johns and Simon Payne March 2016 Contemporary British Experimental Film & Video The essays that we have collected together here offer a partial reflection on contemporary experimental film and video in the UK. Other writers would ...
Two ‘Machine’ Films: About Now MMX and Ex Library Nicky Hamlyn March 2016 Contemporary British Experimental Film & Video For a long time I have been interested in the paradoxical idea of machine vision – cameras that ‘see’. What this really means is non-anthropic forms o...
1970s Experimental Films: Then and Now Patti Gaal-Holmes March 2016 Contemporary British Experimental Film & Video This essay focuses on films by the British experimental filmmakers Guy Sherwin, Malcolm Le Grice, William Raban and John Smith, who began working in t...
Negative Light: Contemporary British Experimental Film and Video Simon Payne March 2016 Contemporary British Experimental Film & Video Cinema depends on negation. Framing is a form of exclusion; cutting is destructive as well as constructive; the projected image turns on presence and ...
Beyond the Cringe: Australia, Britain, and the Post-Colonial Film Avant-Garde Steven Ball March 2016 Contemporary British Experimental Film & Video For some decades there has been two-way traffic between the avant-garde film worlds of Australia and the UK. Australian artists arrive from a local sc...
