DOCSLIB.ORG

Connparing Ringu and the Ring

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Connparing Ringu and the Ring Visual Aesthetics and Ways of Seeing: Connparing Ringu and The Ring by VALERIE WEE Abstract: This essay examines the video images central to the supernatural events in the Japanese horror film Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) and its Hollywood remake. The RingiQore Verbinski, 2002), exploring the intricate ways in which both video sequences offer insight into the cultural distinctions and inevitable intersections that exist between Japanese and non-Japanese/Hollywood cinematic aesthetic traditions. When a culture is markedly different from our own, we can and often do misinterpret the film. Our viewing is partial or incorrect because we are not aware of common meanings given what we are seeing. Donald Richie' Every image embodies a way of seeing. John Berger^ mages and the search for their meaning play central roles in the Japanese hor- ror film Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) and its Hollywood remake. The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002). Both films revolve around a female reporter investigating re- I ports of people dying exactly seven days after watching a mysterious videotape. '^. After finding and watching the videotape herself, the reporter—named Reiko in S Ringu and Rachel in 77;« Ring—begins to suspect that the fragmented images on the o-- tape offer vital clues to the events behind the persistent cycle of death, and a possible S tneans of ending it. When her son watches the video, she tries to uncover its origins m in the hopes of saving them both. With the help of her ex-husband (Ryuji in the 2 Japanese original, Noah in the Atnerican remake), she discovers that the videotape S 1 Donald Richie, "Viewing Japanese Films: Some Considerations," in Cinema and Cultural Identity: Reflections on [ï Films from Japan, India, and China, ed. Wimal Dissanayake (New York: University Press of America, 1988), 19. ^ 2 John Berger, Ways of Seeing {London: British Broadcasting Corp., 1972), 10. <u ^> 3 Valerie Wee lectures on Film and Media in the Departinent of English Language and ¡jterature at the National University S of Singapore. Her work has appeared in Í/K Journal of Film and Video and Í/K Journal of Popular Film and ¿ Television, and site is tlie author of Teen Media: Hollywood and the Youth Market in the Digital Age 5 (McFarland, 2010). CM © www.cmstudies.org 50 | No. 2 I Winter 2011 41 Cinema Journal 50 No. 2 Winter 2011 is connected to a malevolent female entity who had been brutally murdered and who is now avenging her untimely death by haunting the video and killing anyone who watches it. To understand the deadly horror she is up against, she must uncover the deeper patterns, symbols, and organizing principles that shape these images. This essay argues that just as the video images offer crucial information to each film's female protagonist, they also serve as "road maps" to the underlying attitudes and values that structure their respective cultures' evolving treatment of horror and the supernatural. While both films share the premise described above, they offer vasdy different images in their deadly videos, images that differ at the level of visual form and style, as well as at the level of narrative organization. The similarities and differences between the two films reflect the complex realities that govern the practice of cross- cultural adaptation that involves competing commitments to absorbing and retaining textual and aesthetic elements from the original text, while upholding culturally dis- tinct aesthetics and perspectives. These opposing instincts have long structured the history of cross-cultural ex- changes and mutual influences between national cinemas. The relationship between Hollywood and the Japanese film industry, for instance, can be traced back decades, from Hollywood's various remakes and adaptations of Akira Kurosawa's films, to Japanese-American coproductions, and the numerous interactions between Japanese anime and American science fiction and fantasy texts.^ Despite these cross-cultural connections, Japan has also long sustained and preserved its unique and distinct cul- tural practices and aesthetic beliefs, even as American filmmaking has itself evolved in response to its own shifting modes of production, changing audiences, and other industrial and commercial exigencies. These conditions are certainly reflected in Ringu and The Ring In fact, each film navigates the tension between reflecting its own cul- ture's specific aesthetic traditions and perceptions of the supernatural, and embrac- ing and adopting the influences that characterize the continuing cultural exchanges between Hollywood and Japanese cinema. This study fills a particular research gap within existing studies of Ringu and The Ring While a fair amount of research on the films has been produced, the available scholarship tends to ignore the relationship between the original and its remake, with litde attention paid to comparative analysis. Rather, extant work tends to consider each film solely within its own specific cultural and national context. One of the more popular approaches adopted in examining Ringu and The Ring involves the interroga- tion of each film's treatment of gender and its intersection with horror. While Ruth Goldberg and John Lewis consider the horrific depictions of mothers and mother- ing in the Japanese Ringu and Hollywood's The Ring, respectively," Jay McRoy traces the horror in Ringu to modern Japanese society's growing anxieties resulting from 3 Jay McRoy, "Case Study: Cinematic Hybridity in Shimizu Takashi's Ju-On: The Grudge," in Japanese Horror Cinema, ed. McRoy (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), 177. 4 Ruth Goldberg, "Demons in the Family: Tracking the Japanese 'Uncanny Mother Film' from A Page of Madness to Ringu," in Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, rev. ed., ed. Barry Keith Grant and Christopher Sharrett (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 370-385; and John Lewis, "'Mother oh God Mother. .': Analyzing the 'Horror' of Single Mothers in Contemporary Hollywood Horror," Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies 2 (June 2005), http://wviw.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/article.php?issue=2&id=68 (accessed June 21, 2010). 42 Cinema Journal 50 I No. 2 Winter 2011 increasingly destabilized gender roles.^ Another branch of research centers on inter- rogating how horror and technology merge in these films. Both Eric White and Reimi Tateishi interrogate the deep-seated technophobia expressed in Ringu, linking this de- velopment to Japan's rapid shift to modernity, and the subsequent impact this has had on traditional Japanese life and values.* Of the more limited work that examines the relationship between the original Japanese version and its American remake, Denis Meikle's The Ring Companion stands out as a sustained attempt at tracing the multiple media texts that have evolved from the original Ring novel.' In examining the complex range of Ring-related media texts, including several television series, the various parts of the Japanese film franchise, the American remake, and Korean reinterpretations of the original narrative, Meikle provides considerable historical insight into the many Ring-related texts currently in existence, offering extensive information on the various production and creative decisions related to Ring's transformation across this wide range of media. Like Meikle's work, this essay is also comparative in interest, while being distincdy narrower in its coverage. While offering a fairly comprehensive over- view of the Ring phenomenon, Meikle's study does not engage with the culturally spe- cific aesthetics of the video images in Ringu and The Ring My interest lies in exploring the intricate ways in which both video sequences offer insight into the cultural distinc- tions and inevitable intersections that exist between the Japanese and non-Japanese/ Hollywood cinematic aesthetic traditions. Japanese Cinema, the Horror Tradition, and Ringu. Cultural expressions of hor- ror and the terrifying take many dimensions. In most cultures, one subset of such explorations features the supernatural, of which ghosts are a key component. This is certainly true in both Japanese ancl American traditions. Within Japan, one popular strain of horror focuses primarily on the figure of the vengeful female ghost. In Japan, this particular tradition finds popular expression in centuries-old folktales, classical art forms including no and kabuki theater, and in cinema. As cinema is the "youngest" of the three cultural forms, its treatment of the female ghost tradition is directly influ- enced and shaped by the other older, more established art forms. Turd, or female ghosts, are central figures in numerous myths and folktales dating back to the Edo period (1603-1867). Tokaido Totsuya kaidan {Ghost Story of Yotsuya),^ Bancho Sarayashiki {The Story of Okiku),^ and Kuroneko {Black Cat)^° are just three of the 5 Jay McRoy, "Ghosts of the Present, Spectres of the Past: The kaidan and the Haunted Family in the Cinema of Nakata Hideo and Shimizu Takashi," in Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema (New York: Rodopi, 2008), 75-102. 6 Eric White, "Case Study: Nakata Hideo's Ringu and Ringu 2," in McRoy, Nightmare Japan, 38-47; and Reimi Tateishi, "The Japanese Horror Film Series: Ring and Eko Eko Azarak," in Fear Without Frontiers: Horror Cinema Across the Globe, ed. Steven Jay Schneider (London: FAB Press, 2003), 284-296. 7 Denis Meikle, The Ring Companion (London: Titan Books, 2005). 8 In this popular Japanese folktale, a young Japanese wife, Oiwa, is murdered by her husband, lemon, so that he can marry another woman. Oiwa's ghost returns for vengeance and haunts her faithless husband to death. 9 In this tale, a housemaid, Okiku, is murdered by her samurai master, Tessan Aoyama, who throws her corpse ihto an old well. Okiku's ghost returns nightly to haunt Aoyama, finally driving him mad. 10 This story features a woman and her daughter-in-law who are robbed, raped, and murdered by samurai. These women's spirits return as vengeful demon cats, killing any samurai they encounter.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Does Crunchyroll Require a Subscription
    Does Crunchyroll Require A Subscription hisWeeping planters. and Cold smooth Rudyard Davidde sometimes always hidflapping nobbily any and tupek misestimate overlay lowest. his turboprop. Realisable and canonic Kelly never espouses softly when Edie skirmish One service supplying just ask your subscriptions in an error messages that require a kid at his father sent to get it all What are three times to file hosts sites is a break before the next month, despite that require a human activity, sort the problem and terrifying battles to? This quickly as with. Original baddie Angelica Pickles is up to her old tricks. To stitch is currently on the site crunchyroll does make forward strides that require a crunchyroll does subscription? Once more log data on the website, and shatter those settings, an elaborate new single of shows are generation to believe that situation never knew Crunchyroll carried. Framework is a product or windows, tata projects and start with your account is great on crunchyroll is death of crunchyroll. Among others without subtitles play a major issue. Crunchyroll premium on this time a leg up! Raised in Austin, Heard is known to have made her way through Hollywood through grit and determination as she came from a humble background. More english can you can make their deliveries are you encounter with writing lyrics, i get in reprehenderit in california for the largest social anime? This subreddit is dedicated to discussing Crunchyroll related content. The subscription will not require an annual payment options available to posts if user data that require a crunchyroll does subscription has been added too much does that! Please be aware that such action could affect the availability and functionality of our website.
    [Show full text]
  • Regressive Femininity in American J-Horror Remakes
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2015 Lost in Translation: Regressive Femininity in American J-Horror Remakes Matthew Ducca Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/912 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] LOST IN TRANSLATION: REGRESSIVE FEMININITY IN AMERICAN J-HORROR REMAKES by Matthew Ducca A master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2015 © 2015 MATTHEW J. DUCCA All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Professor Edward P. Miller__________________________ _____________________ _______________________________________________ Date Thesis Advisor Professor Matthew K. Gold_________________________ ______________________ _______________________________________________ Date Executive Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract Lost in Translation: Regressive Femininity in American J-Horror Remakes by Matthew Ducca Advisor: Professor Edward Miller This thesis examines the ways in which the representation of female characters changes between Japanese horror films and the subsequent American remakes. The success of Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002) sparked a mass American interest in Japan’s contemporary horror cinema, resulting in a myriad of remakes to saturate the market.
    [Show full text]
  • Tracking the Research Trope in Supernatural Horror Film Franchises
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2020 Legend Has It: Tracking the Research Trope in Supernatural Horror Film Franchises Deirdre M. Flood The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3574 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] LEGEND HAS IT: TRACKING THE RESEARCH TROPE IN SUPERNATURAL HORROR FILM FRANCHISES by DEIRDRE FLOOD A master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2020 © 2020 DEIRDRE FLOOD All Rights Reserved ii Legend Has It: Tracking the Research Trope in Supernatural Horror Film Franchises by Deirdre Flood This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in satisfaction of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Date Leah Anderst Thesis Advisor Date Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis Executive Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Legend Has It: Tracking the Research Trope in Supernatural Horror Film Franchises by Deirdre Flood Advisor: Leah Anderst This study will analyze how information about monsters is conveyed in three horror franchises: Poltergeist (1982-2015), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984-2010), and The Ring (2002- 2018). My analysis centers on the changing role of libraries and research, and how this affects the ways that monsters are portrayed differently across the time periods represented in these films.
    [Show full text]
  • Ring Range Extender
    Ring Range Extender Ring Range Extender - Basic Setup Ring Range Extender – Inclusion Adding Range Extender to a Z-Wave Network Ring Range Extender can be added via smart start or via classic inclusion mode – Smart Start Inclusion Steps: 1. Initiate add range extender flow in the Ring Alarm mobile application – Follow the guided add flow instructions provided in the application 2. Scan the QR code found on the package of the range extender or the QR code found on the back of the range extender 3. Plug in the range extender to line power 4. When the inclusion process in complete, the LED on the range extender will be solid blue, then go out. Classic Inclusion Steps: 1. Initiate add range extender flow in the Ring Alarm mobile application – Follow the guided add flow instructions provided in the application 2. Select add manually and enter the 5 digit DSK pin found on the package of the range extender or the QR code found on the back of the range extender 3. Plug in the range extender to line power 4. Press and hold the push button for three seconds and release 5. When the inclusion process in complete, the LED on the range extender will be solid blue, then go out. Ring Range extender – Exclusion clusion Removing a Range extender to a Z-Wave Network Exclusion Instructions: 1. Initiate remove range extender flow in the Ring Alarm mobile application – Select the settings icon from device details page and choose “Remove Device” 2. Press and hold the push button for three seconds 3.
    [Show full text]
  • The Monster-Child in Japanese Horror Film of the Lost Decade, Jessica
    The Asian Conference on Film and Documentary 2013 Official Conference Proceedings Osaka, Japan “Our Fear Has Taken on a Life of its Own”: The Monster-Child in Japanese Horror Film of The Lost Decade, Jessica Balanzategui University of Melbourne, Australia 0168 The Asian Conference on Film and Documentary 2013 Official Conference Proceedings 2013 Abstract The monstrous child of Japanese horror film has become perhaps the most transnationally recognisable and influential horror trope of the past decade following the release of “Ring” (Hideo Nakata, 1999), Japan’s most commercially successful horror film. Through an analysis of “Ring”, “The Grudge” (Takashi Shimizu, 2002), “Dark Water” (Nakata, 2002), and “One Missed Call” (Takashi Miike, 2003), I argue that the monstrous children central to J-horror film of the millenial transition function as anomalies within the symbolic framework of Japan’s national identity. These films were released in the aftermath of the collapse of Japan’s bubble economy in the early 1990s — a period known in Japan as ‘The Lost Decade’— and also at the liminal juncture represented by the turn of the millennium. At this cultural moment when the unity of national meaning seems to waver, the monstrous child embodies the threat of symbolic collapse. In alignment with Noël Carroll’s definition of the monster, these children are categorically interstitial and formless: Sadako, Toshio, Mitsuko and Mimiko invoke the wholesale destruction of the boundaries which separate victim/villain, past/present and corporeal/spectral. Through their disturbance to ontological categories, these children function as monstrous incarnations of the Lacanian gaze. As opposed to allowing the viewer a sense of illusory mastery, the J- horror monster-child figures a disruption to the spectator’s sense of power over the films’ diegetic worlds.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of Japanese Horror Marketing
    From Scary to Scary-Cute -The Evolution of Title Japanese Horror Marketing- Author(s) ネルソン,リンジー Citation 明治大学教養論集, 531: 91-116 URL http://hdl.handle.net/10291/19246 Rights Issue Date 2017-12-31 Text version publisher Type Departmental Bulletin Paper DOI https://m-repo.lib.meiji.ac.jp/ Meiji University 明治大学教養論集通巻531 号 (2017• 12) pp. 91-116 From Scary to Scary-Cute: The Evolution of Japanese Horror Marketing NELSON Lindsay Introduction In In the early 2000s I remember seeing a clip from the popular TV Asahi program Matthew's Best Hit TV, the variety show that ran from 2001 2001 to 2006 and featured comedian Takashi Fujii as the blond-haired, buck-toothed buck-toothed "Matthew Minami." The segment focused on "things you can't can't watch" and featured the host and two guests being forced to watch a scene from Ringu 2, the sequel to Hideo Nakata's well-known horror horror film Ringu.1 As the clip from the film played in the lower right- hand corner of the screen (keeping with the Japanese TV tradition of having the audience watch the hosts watch things), "Matthew" and his guests guests covered their eyes, occasionally peeking out from behind them to to utter a shriek of terror. The audience, of course, played along, shriek- ing ing when the film cut to the lifeless face of Sadako staring up at one of the the characters as she tried to climb out of a well. Everything was played up for the cameras, but the terror felt genuine. Almost fifteen years later, I was in Tokyo at the height of the much more aggressive and widespread marketing campaign for the latest film in in the Ringu and Ju-on franchises, Sadako vs.
    [Show full text]
  • The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema a Thesis
    The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Jordan G. Parrish August 2017 © 2017 Jordan G. Parrish. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema by JORDAN G. PARRISH has been approved for the Film Division and the College of Fine Arts by Ofer Eliaz Assistant Professor of Film Studies Matthew R. Shaftel Dean, College of Fine Arts 3 Abstract PARRISH, JORDAN G., M.A., August 2017, Film Studies The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema Director of Thesis: Ofer Eliaz This thesis argues that Japanese Horror films released around the turn of the twenty- first century define a new mode of subjectivity: “undead subjectivity.” Exploring the implications of this concept, this study locates the undead subject’s origins within a Japanese recession, decimated social conditions, and a period outside of historical progression known as the “Lost Decade.” It suggests that the form and content of “J- Horror” films reveal a problematic visual structure haunting the nation in relation to the gaze of a structural father figure. In doing so, this thesis purports that these films interrogate psychoanalytic concepts such as the gaze, the big Other, and the death drive. This study posits themes, philosophies, and formal elements within J-Horror films that place the undead subject within a worldly depiction of the afterlife, the films repeatedly ending on an image of an emptied-out Japan invisible to the big Other’s gaze.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Chapter (PDF)
    7. The Transnational Uncanny Child Abstract Chapter Seven considers the Hollywood J-horror remakes and Spanish- American coproductions that emerged in the early 21st century as a response to the globally successful boom of uncanny child films. The chapter considers how this assemblage of films is self-consciously trans- national, as the uncanny child becomes disconcertingly ungrounded from specific visions of national identity. In these films, the uncanny children stage direct confrontations with the child’s shifting role in postmodern culture. Through their cultural hybridity, the uncanny children in transnational horror navigate tensions underlying not only shifting understandings of childhood but changing global cinema cultures in the early 2000s. Keywords: Transnational cinema, Childhood, Globalization, Deterrito- rialization, Cultural hybridity Through their deployment of uncanny children who expose and trouble the child’s overdetermined, sometimes paradoxical temporal function, all the films discussed in this book so far communicate with one another in profound ways. Previous chapters have outlined how the uncanny child emerges from culturally specific contexts as an embodiment and agent of trauma at the turn of the 21st century, aestheticizing a breach in linear narratives of personal and national identity. The uncanny child is thus a product of this unsettled moment of transition in which entrenched histori- cal narratives seemed to waver, harnessing this liminality to problematize the child’s imbrication in progressive temporal modes with specific cultural functions. Though these films emerge from and speak to culturally specific contexts, they exchange themes and aesthetics in a manner that helps them to envision new ways for the child to erupt through its symbolic bounds at the millennial turn, as traditional understandings of childhood’s symbolic function started to come undone.
    [Show full text]
  • Race in Hollywood: Quantifying the Effect of Race on Movie Performance
    Race in Hollywood: Quantifying the Effect of Race on Movie Performance Kaden Lee Brown University 20 December 2014 Abstract I. Introduction This study investigates the effect of a movie’s racial The underrepresentation of minorities in Hollywood composition on three aspects of its performance: ticket films has long been an issue of social discussion and sales, critical reception, and audience satisfaction. Movies discontent. According to the Census Bureau, minorities featuring minority actors are classified as either composed 37.4% of the U.S. population in 2013, up ‘nonwhite films’ or ‘black films,’ with black films defined from 32.6% in 2004.3 Despite this, a study from USC’s as movies featuring predominantly black actors with Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative found that white actors playing peripheral roles. After controlling among 600 popular films, only 25.9% of speaking for various production, distribution, and industry factors, characters were from minority groups (Smith, Choueiti the study finds no statistically significant differences & Pieper 2013). Minorities are even more between films starring white and nonwhite leading actors underrepresented in top roles. Only 15.5% of 1,070 in all three aspects of movie performance. In contrast, movies released from 2004-2013 featured a minority black films outperform in estimated ticket sales by actor in the leading role. almost 40% and earn 5-6 more points on Metacritic’s Directors and production studios have often been 100-point Metascore, a composite score of various movie criticized for ‘whitewashing’ major films. In December critics’ reviews. 1 However, the black film factor reduces 2014, director Ridley Scott faced scrutiny for his movie the film’s Internet Movie Database (IMDb) user rating 2 by 0.6 points out of a scale of 10.
    [Show full text]
  • RINGU/ the RING: TRACING the ANALOG SPIRIT in a DIGITAL ERA – MICHAEL FISCH JULY 18, 2010 by ANGELAN Search … Go
    Get me outta here! Refractory a Journal of Entertainment Media (ISSN:1447-4905) STATE OF PLAY SUBMISSIONS EDITORIAL BOARD ABOUT HOME » LATEST VOLUME PAST ISSUES CONTACT Like 5 Send RINGU/ THE RING: TRACING THE ANALOG SPIRIT IN A DIGITAL ERA – MICHAEL FISCH JULY 18, 2010 BY ANGELAN Search … Go Media matters, Friedrich Kittler reminds us. Without media the world is senseless, or rather we are senseless Go before it. More importantly, media matter in different ways such that the world mediated via pen and paper is essentially different from a world mediated via the typewriter or film. The digitalization of media, in this context, presents as many possibilities as it does causes for anxiety. Digital media matters, that is, in a way PAGES that is different from the analog media that dominated the twentieth century. Or as Kittler suggests, “before About the end, something is coming to an end,” where the former “end” is an end of media anticipated by the latter “end” of a culture that has been the byproduct of analog media’s incommensurable formats (Kittler, 1999: 1- Contact 2). While digital media reduces previously discrete sensory data channels into a single stream of zeros and Editorial Board ones, it does not, Kittler emphasizes, stream effects directly into the brain such that we can take leave of our senses. The consequence is that “there are still media; there is still entertainment.” But, we need to add, it is Home a different kind of entertainment. Past Issues There may still be “entertainment” but are there still ghosts? For the ghostliness of analog media was the very » Latest Volume premise of the ghosts that haunted it.
    [Show full text]
  • J-Horror and the Ring Cycle
    Media students/03/c 3/2/06 8:16 am Page 94 CASECASE STUDY:STUDY: J-HORROR J-HORROR AND AND THE THE RING RINGCYCLECYCLE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 • Horror cycles • Industry exploitation and circulation 8 • The beginnings of the Ring cycle • Fandom and the global concept of genre 9 • Replenishing the repertoire through repetition and • Summary: generic elements and classification 10 difference • References and further reading 11 • Building on the cycle 12 13 14 Horror cycles references to Carol Clover’s work in Chapter 3). The 15 ‘knowingness’ about horror, and cinema generally, 16 Chapter 3 emphasises the fluidity of genre as a in these films was often developed as comedy (e.g. in 17 concept, the constantly changing repertoires of Scream 2 (1998), the classroom discussion about film 18 elements and the possibility of different forms of sequels). The success of the cycle was exploited 19 ‘classification’ by producers, critics and audiences. further with a ‘spoof’ of the ‘spoof’ in the Scary Movie 20 Horror is a genre with some special characteristics series. 21 in cinema: At the end of the decade, a rather different kind of 22 consistently popular since the 1930s in Hollywood • film, a ‘ghost story with a twist’, The Sixth Sense (1999), 23 and earlier in some other national cinemas was a massive worldwide hit. It was followed by the 24 attracting predominantly youth audiences • Spanish film The Others (2001) and several other ghost 25 until the late 1960s, not given the status of a major • stories, some of which looked back to gothic traditions 26 studio release (the isolated country house shrouded in fog in The 27 ‘open’ to the influence of changes in society – in • Others), while others were more contemporary in 28 both ‘metaphorical’ (i.e.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Review of the Ring Written by Koji Suzuki
    BOOK REVIEW OF THE RING WRITTEN BY KOJI SUZUKI FINAL PROJECT In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement For S-1 Degree in Literature In English Department, Faculty of Humanities Diponegoro University Submitted by: Gaetano Ardhanto A2B009046 FACULTY OF HUMANITIES DIPONEGORO UNIVERSITY SEMARANG 2014 PRONOUNCEMENT The writer states truthfully that this project is compiled by his without taking the result from other research in any university, in S-1, S-2, and S-3 degree and in diploma. In addition, the writer ascertains that he does not take the material from other publications or someone‘s work except for the references mentioned in bibliography. Semarang, 4 December 2013 Gaetano Ardhanto ii MOTTO AND DEDICATION First, you must decide. Then you must follow through. That‘s the only way you can get anything accomplished. (Lacus Clyne) This final project dedicated to my beloved family iii APPROVAL Approved by Advisor On 4 December 2013 Dr. Suharno, M.Ed. NIP. 195205081983031001 iv VALIDATION Approved by Strata I Final Project Examination Committee Faculty of Humanities Diponegoro University On 4 March 2014 Advisor, Reader, Dr. Suharno, M.Ed. Dra. Astri Adriani Allien, M.Hum NIP. 195205081983031001 NIP. 196006221989032001 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Praise is to God Almighty, who has given strength and true spirit so this final project on —Book review of The Ring written by Koji Suzuki“ came to a completion. On this occasion, the writer would like to thank all those people who have contributed to the completion of this research report. The deepest gratitude and appreciation is extended to Dr. Suharno, M.Ed. ± the writer‘s advisor- who has given his continuous guidance, helpful correction, moral support, advice and suggestion.
    [Show full text]