DEFINITIONS
INUIT CINEMA
MISC.
IDENTITY/SELFIES
ASSIGNED READINGS
100
What is cel animation?
Hand-drawn animation on a transparent sheet.
100
Who co-directed Journals of Knud Rasmussen, Dog Sled, and had a hand in creating Isuma TV?
Zacharias Kunuk
100
Is Ballet Mecanique a surrealist, dadaist, or soviet montage film?
Dadaist
100
Who made Birthday Suit with Scars and Defects and in what year?
Lisa Steeles, 1974.
100
According to Bordwell and Thompson, what are the two modes of documentary film? How would we describe When the Levees Broke in these terms?
Categorical and Rhetorical. WtLB contains both the categorical and rhetorical forms.
200
Describe the difference between a pan and a tilt.
A pan is a camera movement that rotates on a horizontal plane (left to right). A tilt is a camera movement that rotates on a vertical plane (up and down)
200
What is the central dilemma/tension in Journals of Knud Rasmussen?
'Modernization' of Inuit people - loss of culture and practices
200
Who directed Rome Open City and in what year?
Roberto Rossellini, 1945
200
Describe the key differences between Andy Warhol's Screen Tests and Chantal Akerman's La Chambre. Do these experimental films have any similarities?
Warhol- static camera - portrait of one person - confrontation with celebrity culture - plain white background Akerman - movement camera - rotating 360 degrees around a room - passing Akerman as she lies in bed -self portrait - situated in a real space
200
What does Bazin mean by the "mummy complex"?
Bazin suggests that the underlying drive of all arts is to preserve life - the preservation of life by representation of life.
300
Define "ontology".
The nature of being.
300
Why was the introduction of TV and video so important but also contentious for remote Inuit communities in the early 1970s?
Provides a means for self-representation and could be use to educate others on Inuit life; Magic in the Sky also shows us how TV could be seen as dangerous as it brings a strong 'Southern' influence into these communities.
300
Name three ways in which The Wire creates its realism.
Details; reference to real places/problems; narrative complexity; narrative cohesion; lack of redundancy.
300
In what ways does Persepolis speak to the notion of hybridity?
Identity and Form - rests somewhere between documentary and fiction
300
Briefly summarize Phase II (1969-1980) in the development of First People's media.
Phase II marks the beginning of the end of having solely southern portrayals of indigenous peoples in media. With the Telesat Act of 1969, satellite television became a possibility for remote indigenous communities. It is during this time, these communities recognized the power of media in communicating and preserving their culture.
400
What does the term 'postcolonial' refer to?
Refers to historical period that comes after the period of colonization- when the previous colonized countries are de- colonized (the usually European rulers leave). While the colonizers may be gone, the effects of such a violent system are nonetheless still present. Postcolonialism is the then a theory that studies these effects of colonization. Relates to issues of identity, hybridity, globalization.
400
How could Daughters of the Dust and Journals of Knud Rasmussen be compared?
Both deal with remote/isolated cultures that are facing the tides of modernity; both involve Christian missionary figures; both present anxieties around the loss of language/dialect/cultural practices
400
What are the different historical contexts that Battleship Potemkin and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari refer to? How does their feelings about this context emerge in the formal aspects of the films?
Battleship - propaganda film that shows major battle before Russian Revolution - depicts the Csarists to be evil - film uses complex editing to communicate ideas about how the 'people' are the brave, sympathetic, and heroic ones, who rightly stood up to the 'bad guys'. Cabinet is a response to the insanity of WWI - the anxieties, disillusionment, disgust, etc. felt in postwar period reflected in the distorted and dark mise-en-scene.
400
Name three protagonists from three different films we've seen this term who could be said to have "hybrid identities."
Marjane in Persepolis; Super Shamou in Super Shamou; Daughter in Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy; Apak in The Journals of Knud Rasmussen; Christian-missionary woman in Daughters of the Dust
400
How does P. Adams Sitney differentiate Un Chien Andalou and Meshes of the Afternoon?
Meshes is a psycho-drama - an inward exploration of the filmmakers - more of a 'trance film' - extended view of the mind - explicitly references dream state. Un Chien does not offer a inward gaze - it presents a violent, unstable world that has no bearings in actuality - voyeuristic view - dream-like but not explicitly about the dream experience.
500
Define diaspora.
Dispersal of people across the globe; how they bring their cultures with them. Related to globalization, identity, and hybridity.
500
Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy and Dog Sled are both created by indigenous people as means of dealing with a colonial past, but they use very different strategies to do so. Explain.
Night Cries - deals with the forced assimilation of Aboriginals in Australia in the early to mid twentieth century. Highly theatrical setting, painted backgrounds > opposite of "ethnographic films" (which adopt a realist doc style) on purpose; A Dog Sled - uses the 'ethnographic style' but doesn't romanticize or exoticize the culture - retelling of history in a more accurate manner and from the perspective of an 'insider'.
500
Why does Manovich privilege Man with a Movie Camera in his article on digital cinema?
MwaMC seems to embody many of the traits of the computer: loops, spatializing time, collage, archiving, etc. It is the prime example of the way in which an avant-garde cinema resurfaces into the mainstream.
500
How is "Dog Team" an effort by Cohn and Kunuk to represent Inuit identity and culture on its own terms?
It is a reenactment - tries to revision older histories of the North told by Southerners. It's made by an Inuit person for Inuit peoples - shows customs, practices, accurately. de-romanticizes/de-exoticizes the Inuit culture.
500
Describe two motivations behind the development of the interactive site Isuma TV.
1. Encourage participation in the creation and discussion of Inuit and indigenous culture. (SILA project) 2. create an archive of stories, cultural practices, and traditions for future generations
M
e
n
u