This visual essay sets clips from Robert Bresson's "A Man Escaped" to a reading of "Functions of Film Sound," a chapter from David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's book "Film Art." The chapter analyzes the sound design of Bresson's masterpiece as a means of discussing the use of sound in film.
Narrator (voice)
This visual essay sets clips from Robert Bresson's "A Man Escaped" to a reading of "Functions of Film Sound," a chapter from David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's book "Film Art." The chapter analyzes the sound design of Bresson's masterpiece as a means of discussing the use of sound in film.
2013-03-26
0
A desktop documentary that focuses on the Golden Record that NASA sent into space in the late 1970s. The piece reflects on issues such as the power of scientific discourse to produce revisions of the world, the evolution of the concept of the archive and the resignification of borders in the rhetoric of space colonialism.
Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.
For the third time, HBO cameras go inside Trenton State Maximum Security Prison--and inside the mind of one of the most prolific killers in U.S. history--in this gripping documentary. Mafia hit man Richard Kuklinski freely admits to killing more than 100 people, but in this special, he speaks with top psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz in an effort to face the truth about his condition. Filled with more never-before-revealed confessions, it's the most chillingly candid Iceman special yet as it combines often-confrontational interview footage between Kuklinski and Dietz with photos, crime reenactments and home movies that add new layers to this evolving and fascinating story.
A 60th anniversary retrospective documentary on the influence and context of the 1962 film, To Kill a Mockingbird.
"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." Daedalus weaves a tale of ambition and caution through an ancient myth, set in a nation below sea level. Shot in just seven consecutive days during the summer of 2023, it concludes the first volume of Bliss, a playlist of sounds and shapes. As the master craftsman gifts his son wings and wisdom, the film delves into the perilous dance between striving for greatness and the suffocating pull of stagnancy. This chaotic exploration bridges the warnings and epiphanic thoughts of 20th-century thinkers with the responses of today's dreamers.
Star Wars has a great deal of lore to analyse. Over time, the history of its universe has been modified. The most significant change was during the time of the Prequel Trilogy. A great many things were added, and some were altered. This can be hard to research, especially from official websites and wikis. We will infer what we can from the movie, combined with background information.
A fictionalized biography on John Dall who was in two great movies - Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950).
A documentary series finale analysing the entirety of Twenty One Pilots' new full-length studio album "Trench". Jimmy not only uncovers the stories of internal pain and fear that Tyler Joseph tells through the songs on the album. But, he also learns to overcome his own personal fears.
Umberto Eco, the author of best-selling novels who passed away in February 2016, unveils the secrets behind his undertakings and novels.
A documentary on the genesis, writing, shooting and analysis of the film "The Name of the Rose".
Joan Crawford's close-up in Humoresque. Michelangelo's David and Boticelli's "Birth of Venus". Stendhal was overwhelmed by the cultural overstimulation in Florence, which Graziella Magherini described scientifically in 1979 as Stendhal syndrome. Mark Rappaport describes his fascination for the Austrian actor Turhan Bey, who made a career in exotic roles in Hollywood in the 1940s. A very personal essay about the effect of close-ups, the canvas idols of the dream factory and the role of their admirers and fans.
Swimming, Dancing examines audiovisual representations of the Yangtze (1934–present), from silent film to video art to the contemporary vlog. Inspired by the city symphonies of the 1920s, Swimming, Dancing pieces together a “river symphony”, evoking the images, sounds and contradictions that make up the river’s turbulent history.
Letter to My Tribe started with a question: Why don’t more Jews and Israelis speak out about Palestine? Over many years my mother, who represents a more messianic perspective, and I have had numerous arguments, some recorded, some not. These form the backbone of this video essay in which Israelis and Jews, journalists, activists and a rabbi are interviewed, and in which documentation of actions on the ground, in the West Bank, are woven with more personal family histories and journeys to Iraq and to Poland.
A video essay by Mark Rappaport, which spans René Magritte and Michelangelo to Bonnie & Clyde. Let’s mask up to rob a bank! But make sure that you are home before the curfew.
George Lucas discusses how Joseph Campbell and his concept of the Monomyth (aka the Hero's Journey) and other concepts from mythology and religion shaped the Star Wars saga.
Wild Flowers Plants of Palestine follows journeys of observational tours solicited by the Palestinian Museum and conducted by two professors from Birzeit University to collect photos of and information on the Palestinian Flora. The title is adapted from a collection of 123 images (circa 1900 to 1920) of wild flowers in Palestine found in the Matson Collection in the Library of Congress. Despite the tendency to trace the wild plants, the text in general aims at questioning the territorial extension of what is meant by the term “Palestinian”, while standing on insignificant topographical features of the (postcolonial) landscape in West Bank. Furthermore, it addresses photography as a practice and a tool of distributing and restricting information at once.
A filmmaker reconstructs a common memory about the formerly industrialized Lake Constance region, which was also largely built up by migration – and in recent years has mainly attracted people who do not like to pay taxes. The imprints speak, the fog. Without talking heads, in perspectives beyond the memorialized self-image of this region, classism becomes comprehensible.