The Moving Form of Film : Historicising the Medium Through Other Media

The Moving Form of Film: Historicizing the Medium through Other Media charts the ways in which crossing borders between film and other arts and media can provide an encompassing, inclusive, and non-teleological understanding of film history. Evolutionary narratives of cinema have traditionally adopted the Second World War as a watershed that separates 'classical' Hollywood films from 'modern' European productions, a scheme that subjects the entire world to the cinematic history of two hegemonic centres. In turn, histories of film as a technological medium have focused on the specificity of cinema as it gradually separated from the other art and medial forms - theatre, dance, fairground spectacle, painting, literature, still photography and other pre-cinematic modes. Taking an ambitious step forward with relation to these approaches, this book focuses on the fluid quality of the film form by exploring an array of exciting and often neglected artistic expressions worldwide as they compare and interconnect films across temporal, geographical, and cultural borders. By observing the ebb and flow of film's contours within the bounds of other artistic and medial expressions, the chapters aspire to establish a flexible historical platform for the moving form of film, posited, from production to consumption, as a transforming and transformative medium. "This book charts the ways in which intermediality - the crossing of borders between film and other arts and media - can provide an encompassing, inclusive and non-teleological understanding of film history. Moving across diverse approaches, technologies, national contexts and artistic styles, the collection depicts a clear as much as complex trajectory of cinematic phenomena according to the medial and artistic interactions they require and produce. Visions of the 'evolution' of cinema have traditionally hinged on the axis of World War II that separates so-called 'classical' Hollywood cinema from a purported 'modern' European-style production, a scheme that subjects the entire world to the cinematic history of two hegemonic centres. In turn, histories of film as a technological medium have focused on the specificity of cinema as it gradually separated from the other art and medial forms at its base - theatre, dance, fairground spectacle, painting, literature, still photography and other pre-cinematic modes. Taking an ambitious step forward with relation to these theories, this book places its bet on the fluid quality of the film form itself. In so doing, it opens up to an array of exciting and often neglected artistic expressions worldwide as they permeate and interconnect films across temporal, geographical and cultural borders. By observing the ebb and flow of film's contours within the bounds of other artistic and medial expressions, this collection aspires to establish a flexible historical platform for the moving form of film, posited, from production to consumption, as a transforming and transformative medium"-- Provided by publisher Cover Half-Title Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction PART I: METHODOLOGIES 1. Hegel, Cinema, and the Other Arts 2. One-​Dimensional Man? A Reply to Alain Badiou 3. Hybrid Variations on an Intermedial Theme 4. Parallax Historiography and Metareference: The Intramedial Case of Nagasaki Shun’ichi’s Heart, Beating in the Dark PART II: TECHNOLOGIES AND ENVIRONMENTS 5. Intermediality and the Carousel Slide Projector 6. Up the Junction, Intermediality, and Social Change 7. When the Past Is Present: Digital Cinema and the Philosophical Toys of Pre-​Cinema 8. Panoramic Views, Planetary Visions: An Intermedial Analysis of Medium Earth and Walden 9. Elemental Intermedia PART III: NATIONAL AND REGIONAL PHENOMENA 10. Cinema from the Perspective of the Stage: For an Integrated History of Theatrical Entertainment in Brazil 11. Flamenco on Screen: The Intermedial Legacy of Carmen Amaya in Bajarí 12. Impurity and Identification: Historicising Chinese Cinema through Opera 13. Historicising the Story through Film and Music: An Intermedial Reading of Heimat 2 PART IV: INTERMEDIAL ARTISTS 14. Stephen Dwoskin, an Intermedial Artist 15. Intermedial Voices: Intersections in Feminist Sound and Moving Image 16. Entanglements of Intermediality: Polanski, Pinter, Steptoe and Son 17. The Intermedial Reworking of History in Peter Greenaway’s The Tulse Luper Suitcases Trilogy Index