Impure Cinema: Intermedial and Intercultural Approaches to Film (World Cinema)

Illustrations -- Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Part I: The History and Politics of Impurity -- Part II: Intertextual and Intercultural Dialogues -- Part III: Literary Impurities -- Part IV: Border Crossing Films -- Part V: Post Medium Films -- Index;"Impure Cinema goes back to Bazin's original title precisely for its defence of impurity, applying it on the one hand to cinema's interbreeding with other arts and on the other to its ability to convey and promote cultural diversity. In contemporary progressive film criticism, ideas of purity, essence and origin have been superseded by favourable approaches to 'hybridization', 'transnationalism', 'multiculturalism' and cross-fertilizations of all sorts. Impure Cinema builds on this idea in novel and exciting ways, as it draws on cinema's combination of intermedial and intercultural aspects as a means to bridge the divide between studies of aesthetics and culture. Film is revealed here as the location par excellence of media encounters, mutual questioning and self-dissolution into post-medium experiments. Most importantly, the book argues, film's intermedial relations can only be properly understood if their cultural determinants are taken into account. Scholars and students of film, cinefiles and students of the arts will discover here unexpected connections across many artistic practices."-- Andre Bazin's famous article, 'Pour un cinema impur: defense de l'adaptation', was first translated into English simply as 'In Defence of Mixed Cinema', probably to avoid any uncomfortable sexual or racial resonances the word 'impure' might have. 'Impure Cinema' goes back to Bazin's original title precisely for its defence of impurity, applying it on the one hand to cinema's interbreeding with other arts and on the other to its ability to convey and promote cultural diversity. In contemporary progressive film criticism, ideas of purity, essence and origin have been superseded by favourable approaches to 'hybridization', 'transnationalism', 'multiculturalism' and cross-fertilizations of all sorts. 'Impure Cinema' builds on this idea in novel and exciting ways, as it draws on cinema's combination of intermedial and intercultural aspects as a means to bridge the divide between studies of aesthetics and culture. Film is revealed here as the location par excellence of media encounters, mutual questioning and self-dissolution into post-medium experiments. Most importantly, the book argues, film's intermedial relations can only be properly understood if their cultural determinants are taken into account. Scholars and students of film, cinephiles and students of the arts will discover here unexpected connections across many artistic practices. pt. I. The history and politics of impurity From impurity to historicity The politics of impurity pt. II. Intertextual and intercultural dialogues Contestations of intercultural collaboration : the case of Whale rider Adapting Frida Kahlo : the film-paintings Transatlantic drift : hobos, slackers, Flâneurs, idiots and edukators Captain Swing the fearless : a Turkish film adaptation of an Italian Western comic strip pt. III. Literary impurities Adaptation by degree : a study of Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle thieves The supernatural from page to screen : Ambrose Bierce's and Robert Enrico's An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge pt. IV. Border-crossing films An art in the rough : the cinema of João César Monteiro Relational subjectivity, impure voice : the video essays of Agnès Varda, Bingöl Elmas and Kathy High Jia Zhangke's cinema and Chinese garden architecture Amidst landscapes of mobility : the embodied turn in contemporary Chinese cinema pt. V. Post-medium films Chantal Akerman : moving between cinema and installation Projection as performance : intermediality in Japan's expanded cinema Shooting for a cause : cyberactivism and genre hybridization in The Cove David Lynch between analogue and digital : Lost highway, The straight story and the Interview project. "Impure Cinema goes back to Bazin's original title precisely for its defence of impurity, applying it on the one hand to cinema's interbreeding with other arts and on the other to its ability to convey and promote cultural diversity. In contemporary progressive film criticism, ideas of purity, essence and origin have been superseded by favourable approaches to 'hybridization', 'transnationalism', 'multiculturalism' and cross-fertilizations of all sorts. Impure Cinema builds on this idea in novel and exciting ways, as it draws on cinema's combination of intermedial and intercultural aspects as a means to bridge the divide between studies of aesthetics and culture. Film is revealed here as the location par excellence of media encounters, mutual questioning and self-dissolution into post-medium experiments. Most importantly, the book argues, film's intermedial relations can only be properly understood if their cultural determinants are taken into account. Scholars and students of film, cinefiles and students of the arts will discover here unexpected connections across many artistic practices."-- Provided by publisher André Bazin's famous article, 'Pour un cinéma impur: défense de l'adaptation', was first translated into English simply as 'In Defense of Mixed Cinema'. Impure Cinema goes back to Bazin's original title precisely for its defence of impurity, applying it, on the one hand, to cinema's interbreeding with other arts and, on the other, to its ability to convey and promote cultural diversity. In current progressive film criticism, purity, essence and origin have been superseded by favourable approaches to 'hybridization', 'transnationalism', 'multiculturalism' and cross-fertilizations of all sorts