Contemporary Extremism
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CINEPHILE CINEMA JOURNAL The University of British Table of Contents Columbia’s Film Journal Vol. 8 No. 2 THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY Fall 2012 Editors’ Note 4 “Contemporary Extremism” Contributors 5 FOR CINEMA & MEDIA STUDIES ISSN: 1712-9265 www.cmstudies.org Preface Copyright and Publisher The field of cinema and media studies is diverse, challenging, multi-cultural, and multi- The University of British The New Extremisms: Rethinking Extreme Cinema disciplinary. SCMS brings together those who contribute to the study of film and media to Columbia Film Program –– Tanya Horeck & Tina Kendall 6 facilitate scholarship and represent their professional interests, standards, and concerns. Editors-in-Chief Articles Chelsea Birks & Dana Keller Design Rites of Passing: Conceptual Nihilism in Jean-Paul Shaun Inouye Civeyrac’s Des filles en noir Artwork –– Tim Palmer 10 Matthew Wise Subject Slaughter Faculty Advisor –– Kiva Reardon 18 Lisa Coulthard Program Administrator Sacrificing the Real: Early 20th Century Theatrics and the Gerald Vanderwoude UPCOMING CONTENTS INCLUDE: New Extremism in Cinema Graduate Secretary –– Andrea Butler 26 Cinematic Destiny: Karen Tong Marvel Studios and the Trade Stories of Industrial Convergence Derek Johnson Cinematography and Sensorial Assault in Gaspar Noé’s Editorial Board Irreversible From Irony to Narrative Crisis: Andrea Brooks, Christine Evans, Reconsidering the Femme Fatale in the Films of David Lynch Frida Beckman –– Timothy Nicodemo 32 Oliver Kroener, Babak Tabarraee Postclassical Nonfiction: Narration in the Contemporary Documentary Chris Cagle Infecting Images: The Aesthetics of Movement in Rammbock Public Relations –– Peter Schuck 40 Zombie Media: Transmission, Reproduction, and the Digital Dead Allan Cameron Dana Keller Web Editor The Quiet Revulsion: Québécois New Extremism in 7 Days Mobile Endings: Screen Death, Early Narrative, and the Films of D. W. Griffith Scott Combs Oliver Kroener –– Dave Alexander 48 Nacer Khemir and the Subject of Beauty in Printing Report Bab‘Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul Firoozeh Papan-Matin East Van Graphics CINEPHILE is published by the Graduate Extreme Vancouver Program in Film Studies at the Depart- –– Chelsea Birks & Dana Keller 54 ment of Theatre and Film, University of university of texas press British Columbia, with the support of the mailing address Centre for Cinema Studies Post Office Box 7819 centreforcinemastudies.com Austin, Texas 78713-7819 UBC Film Program p: 512.471.7233 Department of Theatre and Film 6354 Crescent Road f: 512.232.7178 Vancouver, BC, Canada www.utexaspress.com V6T 1Z2 Editors’ Note Contributors John Carpenter’s 2005 film Cigarette Burns follows an subject that she theorizes. Considering a broader tradition Dave Alexander is the Editor-in-Chief of Toronto-based, Tim Palmer is the author of Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing American film buff commissioned by a wealthy collector to of catharsis and entertainment through violence, Andrea horror-themed magazine Rue Morgue. He holds a degree in Contemporary French Cinema (Wesleyan UP 2011) and track down the most extreme film ever made,La fin absolue Butler then traces the influence of Grand Guignol Theatre Film and Media Studies from the University of Alberta, is co-editor of Directory of World Cinema: France (Intellect/ du monde, which on its opening night threw the audience on contemporary extremism. Following that, Timothy a film programmer, award-winning filmmaker, published Chicago UP 2012). He is Associate Professor of Film Stud- into a murderous rage that left the theatre aisles slick with Nicodemo takes a haptic approach to cinema, using the fiction writer, and the curator of an art show titled If They ies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and blood. Our cover image recalls the moment shortly after example of cinematography in Irreversible to argue that aes- Came From Within: An Alternative History of Canadian his work has appeared in many journals including Cinema the collector obtains and views the coveted film: driven to thetic techniques can be used to affect the spectator on a Horror. Journal, Journal of Film and Video, Studies in French Cin- an ecstatic madness by what he has witnessed, and inspired visceral level. Pointing out the unusual lack of gore in the ema, The French Review, and Film International. He is cur- to make a film of his own, he cuts his belly with a straight German zombie filmRammbock , Peter Schuck then argues Andrea Butler is an MA candidate in Cinema and Media rently completing a monograph on the film Irreversible for razor and feeds his intestines into the film projector. that the film shifts the focus from the extreme gore con- Studies at York University in Toronto. She is currently Palgrave Macmillan’s Controversies series. The repeated assertion that La fin absolue du monde ventional to the genre towards a kind of extremity in film working on the relationship between horror film posters of “gets inside you” is reminiscent of much of the discourse form. In the piece concluding the articles section of our the seventies and eighties and the new insurgence of con- Kiva Reardon received her BA in Cultural Studies from surrounding a group of recent European films that fea- issue, Dave Alexander encourages a historically sensitive temporary artists who are reimagining familiar cult classics. McGill University, and then went on to complete her MA ture graphic depictions of sex and violence. According to understanding of Québécois extreme cinema, arguing that Other research interests include the representation of tech- in Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. In both Tanya Horeck and Tina Kendall, whose preface lays the Daniel Grou’s 7 Days is a visceral response to the horrors nology in film, theories of spectatorship and affect, docu- degrees she focused on issues of national cinema (particu- theoretical groundwork for our issue, visceral affect and a of the Quiet Revolution. Finally, the issue concludes with mentary aesthetics, and sound in film. larly Israeli and Canadian) and trauma studies. Working as self-reflexive appeal to the spectator characterize European our coverage of extremist cinema at this year’s Vancouver a film writer based in Toronto, her work has appeared in new extremism, which includes films as diverse as Lars von International Film Festival. Tanya Horeck is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Anglia Cinema Scope, Reverse Shot, and others. Trier’s Antichrist, Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, Yorgos Lanthi- This issue would not have been possible without the Ruskin University in Cambridge. She has published wide- mos’s Dogtooth, and Claire Denis’s Trouble Every Day. This hard work of an amazing group of people. To our editorial ly on the topic of violence and cinema, and is author of Peter Schuck is a PhD student at the University of Erfurt/ issue of Cinephile seeks to expand the discourse, calling board, thank you for your invaluable insights and sugges- the book Public Rape: Representing Violation in Fiction and Germany. He studied Comparative Literature and Philoso- into question the status and significance of extreme cinema tions. We would also like to express our gratitude to those Film (Routledge 2004) and co-editor (with Tina Kendall) phy at the University of Erfurt and the Ruhr-University- across the globe. Is new extremism a phenomenon specific who submitted articles, as well as to our faculty advisor, Lisa of The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe Bochum/Germany, and wrote his MA thesis on Discourse of to Europe, or can we find its correlatives in other national Coulthard, and UBC’s Department of Theatre and Film. (Edinburgh UP 2011) and (with Berit Åström and Katar- the Sublime. Currently he is writing a PhD thesis on Zom- cinemas? How fruitful is it to compare films from different Special thanks go out to our talented (and very patient) ina Gregersdotter) Rape in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy bies and the Media of the Posthuman and is a member of the cultural contexts based solely on their shared penchant for designer, Shaun Inouye, and our incredible artist, Matthew and Beyond: Contemporary Scandinavian and Anglophone Erfurt graduate forum “Texte.Zeichen.Medien.” transgression? And finally, is extremism really “new,” or is Wise: without them this issue would look as though we Crime Fiction (Palgrave MacMillan 2012). it merely a contemporary incarnation of old provocations? threw it together using chainsaws, fingerpaint, and a few Matthew Wise’s work is inspired by the room of empty These questions lie at the heart of our issue. By using the awkwardly placed staples. Tina Kendall is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Anglia boxes his stepfather insisted on cultivating during his youth. phrase “contemporary extremism” in our title, rather than From the early erotic pictures of the silent era, to the Ruskin University in Cambridge. She is editor of a special Sometimes he is also inspired by tough men, but not in any simply extremism or new extremism, we wish to encourage Surrealist movement that emerged in the twenties, to the issue of Film-Philosophy on disgust (15.2 2011) and co- functional way. He spends most of his time in bed, coveting an approach that acknowledges the potential for extremist exploitation and splatter pictures of the seventies and eight- editor (with Tanya Horeck) of The New Extremism in Cin- his neighbour’s cat. cinema beyond a particular time or culture. ies, to the forms of extreme cinema that have emerged glob- ema: From France to Europe. She is currently researching the Horeck and Kendall’s aforementioned preface opens ally over the past decade, cinema has always used sex and aesthetics of boredom in contemporary cinema. the issue by suggesting the implications of opening the con- violence to shock and titillate audiences. Like the film col- cept of new extremism to include different national contexts, lector feeding his guts into the projector, we are compelled Timothy Nicodemo is an MA candidate in Film Studies at approaches, and styles.