A teaching and research platform for 'Popular cinema and cultural studies' - a Year 2 module in Cultural Studies at Bath Spa University College. Includes: module reading links, articles, film and cultural theory, fan sites, reviews, etc.

 
Week 13 - Into the archive...

As we wind up the module, we take a closer look at what happesn when popular cinema comes into contact with changing conditions and modes of viewing. We'll be using Derrida's notion of 'archive fever' to address the relation of popular film and the database/archive through various new media, such as DVD and the web... even 'blogs like this one (or better ones preferably).

Have a look at any promotional web sites for recent films, but especially have a click/wander through the official site for Memento, cunningly called www.otnemem.com.

Watch the film, too, obviously!

Then read Christopher Bodnar's piece on Memento and the database: it's quite short, but the footnotes are very long... - 'The Database, Logic, and Suffering: _Memento_ and Random-Access Information Aesthetics'



posted by Stampman at 10:56 AM

 
Week 10 - Postmodernism and/as realism

For this week's session on Twelve Monkeys, you might want to clear up your nagging doubts about the time-twisting narrative with M. J. Young's rather detailed excursus on the subject: go to Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies - 12 Monkeys

In addition, here's the link for the Terry Gilliam interview with Henri Behar quoted in my lecture.

Alternatively, if you wanted to find out more about the work of Chris Marker - whose La Jetee was the inspiration for the original script of Twelve Monkeys, you have look at silverthread presents - Chris Marker
posted by Stampman at 5:11 PM

 
Week 7 - 'Asia Extreme'? Cultures of globalisation II

There are some frighteningly detailed web resources on the Ring series of films, books, remakes, merchandising, etc. - the best is ringworld (which includes interviews with Hideo Nakata, director of Ring and Ring 2, and Gore Verbinski, director of the Hollywood remake The Ring. There's also a useful translation of the script and a set of FAQs for both the Japanese and the US versions - should you interest become more obsessive...

On which subject, have a look at The Ring Cycle, which has some useful synopses of the films and an interesting visual comparison between some key shots in the various versions.

There's a good interview with Hideo Nakata on the Offscreen website -unfortunately it's called 'The "Ring" Master', but it sure beats Kermode's 'Eastern visionary'...
posted by Stampman at 2:11 PM

 
Week 6 - Film reviews

In this week's lecture, I'll be referring to a recent article (in Scope, the online film journal) by Martin Barker about using film reviews (and other 'ancillary materials') in film studies - 'News, Reviews, Clues, Interviews...'.
posted by Stampman at 11:25 AM

 
Week 5 - 'Our Jackie': Cultures of globalisation I

Bright Lights have republished a back issue on Hong Kong action films for anyone interested in following up this week's lecture. A whole series of papers are available here, including the texts and Jackie Chan interviews referred to in the lecture... Alive and Kicking

Also Aaron Anderson's excellent essay on Jackie Chan is available at the Jump Cutwebsite - Violent dances in martial arts films
posted by Stampman at 1:55 PM

 
Week 4 - 'London, England': Stars, location, romance

There's a selection of sites on Notting Hill available via Amelie.com - including the official site and a fan site (probably the best) called The Travel Book Co

And pretty much most things you'd want to know about Julia Roberts can be found via juliarobertsonline.com
posted by Stampman at 11:42 AM

 
Week 3 - 'Ripley-theory': The life cycle of the sequel

Pamela Church Gibson's article makes great use of Sigourney Weaver's on-set diary from the making of Alien Resurrection. You can get it here: The Alien Inside Me

I've also included some useful links here to help you research aspects of the Alien franchise and its fans: Alien Movies Resource; Alien Resurrection Webring

posted by Stampman at 11:10 AM