Screen Studies Quarterly April 2021 Vol 1.4 Screen Studies Program Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema Brooklyn College, City University of New York Property of FGSC. For FGSC use only. Use outside of the school requires permission of the authors.

Table of Contents

“I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!”: Animating Transnational Realities in Chico y Rita 2

Searching for Self in the Police State: Posthumanism, Materialism and Affect in Ghost in the Shell and No Justice, No Peace! Young, Black, ImMEDIAte! 16

Autonomy, Functionality, and Ghost in the Shell 24

Copyright and the Process of Abandonment: Legality and Ease of Access to Orphan Films and the Public Domain 31

The Dual Frame Apparatus of Headset Cinema 44

Aniara: Mankind’s Self-Destruction and False Hopes 51

Bibliography 58

Screen Studies Quarterly 1

“I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!”: Animating Transnational Realities in Chico y Rita Isabella Pilares ABSTRACT This essay seeks to understand the ways in which transnational realities are depicted in the fictional story of the 2010 animated feature film Chico y Rita. Set in the late 1940s and early 1950s, this film follows the journeys of Cuban musicians Chico and Rita as their successful careers bring them around the world and, eventually, back to each other. This essay begins with an examination of intertextual American visuals, drawing parallels between the film's animation style to that of "Golden Age" Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as The Jetsons and The Flintstones. Following this analysis is the exploration of the American musical and its influence on the film's cinematography and visual aesthetics, though specifically West Side Story and Singin' in the Rain. An investigation of the historical accuracy of the musical entertainment industry of the 1940s concludes this analysis, ultimately depicting the coalescence of American, Spanish, and Indigenous cultures that make up the Cuban identities depicted in the film.

In between moments of performers from Cuba as they fall in interfering static, “Deberíamos deber and out of love all while chasing fame de conformarnos” are some of the in the American Jazz scene of the first words audiences hear in the 2010 1940s. In analyzing the film’s animated feature Chico y Rita, when animation style and historical Chico twists the dial of an old radio, allusions, Chico y Rita proves to be a eventually landing on a jazzy show nuanced and progressive depiction of titled “Yesterday’s Melodies.” From transnational Cuban identity that the film’s very first moments, the draws attention to the neocolonial intertextual visuals and musical score forces of capitalism and the set up this Shakespearean love story hybridized nature of cultural identity as more than just one of star-crossed within an increasingly globalized lovers from Havana, but one of world. transnational Cuban culture and Animating Intertextual American identity. Directed by Fernando Visuals Trueba, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando, this film follows two talented

2 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 “I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!” Recalling the Golden Age of 1937 through 1967, is vital to the film American Animation as it is not only a way of grounding the story in the past, but also a way of Chico y Rita as both an animated culturally subverting expectations. feature and a musical, proves itself to Unlike the typical Hanna-Barbera be culturally layered in the way it cartoon sitcoms, this animated reclaims traditionally American feature does not aim to entertain its media. From the moment the audiences with situational humor opening credits begin to roll, a very centered around a White, middle familiar aesthetic is established when class American families, rather it is a a smooth mambo underscores realistic depiction of life in Havana for minimalist animation, depicting a two Afro-Latino musicians who are montage of tiny boats, clouds, and tempted and misguided by the airplanes slowly making their way American entertainment industry. across an ocean. Various bright blue, Animation as a medium has a amorphous shapes make up this troubled history of depicting abstract seascape, providing further minorities due to the fact that movement to the film’s introduction, Vaudevillian minstrelsy is embedded as the shapes gently float across the into the foundation of the artform. screen (see Image 1 and 2). This Nicholas Sammond (2011), sequence is reminiscent of an elaborates on this when he explains: animation style unique to Hanna- Barbera, a famous American The animated minstrel characters— production company known for their Felix, Mickey, Bugs, and similar popular television cartoons from the continuing characters that have come 1940s through the 1970s such as Tom to define the form—were tricksters and Jerry, The Flintstones, and The and interlopers at the boundary Smurfs. The opening credits to Chico between the screen and the real, y Rita seem to mirror the ending arising from a tradition of interplay credits of The Jetsons, which feature with the animator and expressing a still versions of the bright blue, desire to escape the bounds of two amorphous backgrounds with dimensions. This relationship to the snapshots of main characters in the minstrel is more than a matter of foreground (see Image 3 and 4). homology: the white gloves, big Employing aesthetics similar to that of smile, and wide eyes sat on an the Golden Age of American ostensibly racially ambiguous or animation, which occurred between unmarked body (usually that of an

Screen Studies Quarterly 3 Pilares animal) as vestigial markers of showing the title characters sexually minstrelsy. Likewise, the animated engaged. After making their way to minstrel’s behaviors—its resistance to Chico’s apartment, the scene cuts to both the animator/Interlocutor who their entangled, naked bodies on the created it and to the physical bed, with the camera slowly panning strictures of animate space— over them from head to toe, then underpinned both the fundamental drifting away to the floor. After a fade gag structure of many an early to black, Rita wakes up the next animated short and the basic morning and, while entirely naked, template of the trademarked very nonchalantly dances her way continuing character.1 over to the piano and sits down next to Chico to help him compose. These Chico y Rita achieves something moments are particularly striking as entirely new as the style maintains its they allow Black bodies to be naked uniqueness in the way it mimics rather than nude, something John watercolor and ink drawings all the Berger distinguishes between when while referencing the very he says, “To be naked is to be Americanness of the medium. Unlike oneself. To be nude is to be seen early cartoons, which were merely naked by others and yet not minstrel caricatures, the black bodies recognized for oneself”.2 In this of the film are drawn with soft lines moment, both Chico and Rita are and realistic human proportions, given the chance to be seen by granting them a bodily autonomy that viewers not as entertainers or exotic Black characters are rarely given spectacles, but as two people sharing within animation. Though Chico and a moment of sincere physical and Rita are performers that eventually emotional intimacy. become commodified by the White, American, upper classes, the film West Side Story and the American allows them to be seen in intimate Dream and non-exploitative ways. The use of Following the opening credits, nudity is a perfect example of this, as the first shot of Chico y Rita features a the film does not shy away from panoramic view of Havana from

1 Nicholas Sammond, “‘Who Dat Say Who Press, 2011), 129-152. Dat?’ Racial Masquerade, Humor, and the Rise 2 John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: of American Animation.” In Funny Pictures: Penguin Books, 1972) 50. Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood, (Berkeley: University of California

4 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 “I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!” above as the underscoring cuts out contempt from the Puerto Rican (see Image 5). With a view of the community.3 tightly compacted buildings and According to Warren Hoffman boats docking along the island’s (2014), “the history of the American shores, audiences are placed into the musical is the history of white identity setting of the film just as the story in the United States”4 as most begins. This sequence is reminiscent musicals in American history have of Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story been “written by white people, for (see Image 6), as it also begins with a white people, and [are] about white panoramic shot of New York City at people. From its creators to its the end of the overture, bringing the consumers, the musical firmly reflects cityscape to the forefront. This a white outlook on American life.”5 decision seems very deliberate simply Given this analysis, what seems to be due to the general similarities at the heart of the musical is the hope between the two films: both are promised by rugged individualism musicals that explore Latinx identity and the attainment of the American through a retelling of Shakespeare’s Dream as it is so frequently employed Romeo and Juliet. Once again, there within classic white narratives. seems to be a deliberate reclamation Hoffman argues that “the history of of the filmic medium in order to tell a the musical has come to resemble the more culturally authentic story. West plot of a Broadway show itself: a rags- Side Story, has, and continues to be, to-riches story in which a highbrow one of America’s most beloved yet European art form, combined with problematic musicals. While its iconic immigrant contributions, assimilates music and choreography continue to and becomes the all-American be praised, the depictions of Latinx middlebrow musical comedy”6 Chico characters within the show are y Rita stays true to the traditional extremely stereotypical, receiving themes of Golden Age musicals by decades of negative criticism and featuring two lovers with their own “American Dreams,” while also

3 Seth Abramovitch, “Steven Spielberg Met 4 Warren Hoffman, The Great White Way: Race With Puerto Ricans About 'West Side Story' and the Broadway Musical (New Brunswick: Concerns,” last modified January 15, 2019 Rutgers University Press, 2014), 3. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ste 5 Hoffman, The Great White Way, 5. ven-spielberg-met-puerto-rican-activists-west- 6 Hoffman, The Great White Way, 11. side-story-concerns-1176285

Screen Studies Quarterly 5 Pilares providing a criticism of the very Rita. With each unfortunate turn in the culture from which their dreams are plot, American values and ideals such born. as money, fame, and Whiteness, seem to be at the center of the What comes between Chico and couple’s problems. The more they Rita from the start of the film is achieve the lonelier and more Chico’s gigolo lifestyle, which he unsatisfied they find themselves, commits to in order to find a “Yankee though this morality tale proves to be girl.” His desire to move to the United atypical as it does not end in tragedy. States and join “the top Cubans” in the American jazz scene, drives him to Unlike West Side Story, Chico and seek as many “Yankee” relationships Rita are reunited in the end because as possible, and it is for this reason they are able to grow and change as that Rita is special: her allure does not characters. When Chico is finally able come from the fact that she is rich or to return to the United States after White or American, rather, her allure decades of living in post- comes from the raw talent and biting revolutionary Cuba, he finds even honesty she possess. When Rita is greater success in the music industry, later approached by a talent agent, though he is no longer chasing fame; Chico’s presumptuousness and instead, finding Rita has become his jealousy, fueled by his desire for new dream. After decades of fame, are what set the couple on solitude, Chico comes to realize that divergent paths. Most importantly his “American Dream” clouded his though, neither are satisfied by their ability to understand his true desire accomplishments, which forces the for Rita. narrative to continue well past the Adapting Abstraction from Singin’ in moment they “make it” in the the Rain industry. Once Rita finds great success as a vocalist in New York City, One of the most striking a part of her cultural identity is taken moments of the film is an abstract away from her when she is given the sequence Chico dreams up while stage name “Rita LaBelle” to make traveling to New York City. The dream her Blackness more palatable to begins with violins in tremolo while a Western audiences. When Chico finds line drawing of New York City is set his success as a pianist and composer against a black background, with touring Europe, he continues to feel a neon colors flashing behind it, crippling loneliness and aching for followed by a series of flashing Times Square signs pointing to different

6 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 “I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!” clubs and theaters (see Image 7). thematically as the rest of the story Chico walks into the frame animated takes place in the United States. in a similar style, encountering men in Drawn in the style of Al Herschfeld, sailor outfits who escort him to a door one of the most famous American through which he falls. He then sees comics of the 1920s and 30s, the Rita descend from a staircase in a dreamscape is designed to highlight tight-fitting dress and attempts to kiss the cultural conforming both her. Before their lips touch, a man characters must undergo in order to grabs Rita and begins dancing with find success in the states, though her, passing her around to dance with more specifically, Rita. The way she is and kiss various other men until she passed around to different American spins out of control and transforms men and then transformed into into Josephine Baker. As she begins various exoticized and sexualized pop an African-styled dance in a banana- culture icons, reinforces her status as skirt, a man with a trumpet blows his a commodified object of horn into Chico’s face, launching him entertainment. This foreshadows into a piano where he begins to play Rita’s public denouncement of the the song “As Time Goes By” from American entertainment industry and Casablanca. Rita approaches the its racism while performing in Vegas, piano in a trench coat and large hat, ending her career in show business giving Chico romantic looks until altogether. This scene also serves as a Humphrey Bogart grabs her and direct allusion to the abstract dance kisses her. Chico stops playing by sequence in Singin’ in the Rain which abruptly banging on the piano, to begins with similar Times Square which Humphrey Bogart responds imagery (see Image 8). Chico’s “Keep playing Sam.” Chico angrily journey through undefined, replies “Me llamo Chico,” before abstracted spaces mimics Fred Humphry Bogart turns to him with a Astaire’s vision for a scene called gun and says “Te llamastes,” “Broadway Melody,” which tells “the shooting him in the chest. story of a young Hoofer who comes to New York.”7 Unlike Fred Astair’s This sequence indicates a major daydream, which tell the story of a shift in the film both aesthetically and young dancer who eventually finds

7 Singin' In the Rain, directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen (1952; Burbank, CA: HBO Max, 2020).

Screen Studies Quarterly 7 Pilares success and accolades on Broadway, throughout the 1930s and 40s, many Chico’s nightmare is formatted in a Cuban musicians created names for similar style, emphasizing his inability themselves within the American jazz to “play along” with the roles community, such as Dizzy Guillespie American culture expects him to and Chano Pozo, who’s tragic and fulfill: a bystander, an admirer, a side untimely death is incorporated into character. The roles Chico and Rita the plot of Chico y Rita. In fact, Chico, are cast in are decided upon by the Rita, and Ramón’s interaction with the white men who surround them, and it music industry of the 1940s is rooted is Chico’s outright refusal to succumb in realism as evidenced by the to these white men that ultimately attention to detail in the film’s plot leads to his demise both in his dream and settings. The club in which Chico and later in his life. performs Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto, El Tropicana,9 refers to a A History of Music, A History of very famous nightclub in Villa Mina Culture that was a popular tourist destination The story of Chico and Rita is, in and the radio competition Chico large part, the story of Afro-Cuban enters with Rita, “Concurso Cadena jazz and its transnationality. The Azul,” references a popular Cuban genre began in 1939 with a radio station that operated between composition titled “Tanga,” by Mario 1939 and 1954 called Radio Habana Bauzá, considered to be the “first” Cuba-Cadena Azul.10 Additionally, piece of Afro-Cuban jazz due to the Rita’s character design seems incorporation of instruments typical of inspired by famous singer and actress Afro-Latin music such as the claves, Rita Montaner, while Chico’s tingales, bongos, and congas.8 With character is largely based on famous the many talented musicians traveling pianist, composer, and bandleader from Cuba to New York and Chicago Bebo Valdes11 who also composed all

8 “Chucho Valdes, Jazz Bata, and the 2005). Evolution of Afro-Cuban Jazz” Stanford online, 10 “RHC Cadena Azul,” Libre, accessed August October 19, 2019, 16, 2020, https://live.stanford.edu/blog/october- http://www.libreonline.com/home/index.php? 2019/chucho-vald%C3%A9s-jazz-bat%C3%A1- view=video&id=168%3Arhc-cadena-azul- and-evolution-afro-cuban-jazz. 1950&option=com_jomtube 9 Rosa Lowinger and Ofelia Fox, Tropicana 11 Bob Mondello, “‘Chico and Rita’ and All Nights: The Life and Times of The Legendary That Jazz,” last modified February 9, 2012, Cuban Nightclub by Rosa (Harcourt Books, https://www.npr.org/2012/02/09/146468045/c

8 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 “I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!” the music in the film. These historical States, waiting for Chico to find her, references not only allow a retelling of each representing the fragmentation a fascinating transnational musical of Cuba’s population after the history, but also redefines what it revolution. In the fifteen years means to be Cuban. following Fidel’s rise to power, an estimated 500,000 Cubans Nationalism, as defined by immigrated to the United States in Benedict Anderson, is an “imagined opposition of Castro’s communist political community” based on the political structure.14 Afro-Cuban jazz fact “that any social grouping so large provides a united cultural identity for that its members have no direct Cubans regardless of their current contact with one another requires a nationality as the genre is, itself, degree of imagination to conceive a transnational, and is ultimately what sense of community.”12 James brings Chico and Rita together again Ferguson builds upon this idea of at the end of the film. “imagined community” when he argues that “music, in its range of The Future of Cuban Perspectives expression and reception, forms part Chico y Rita's ability to tell a of the imagined landscape that history of Cuban culture through influences both national identity and animation, song, and dance, proves its perception overseas.”13 The heart to be brilliantly inventive and offers and soul of Chico y Rita is its music, as exciting possibilities for the future of it reflects the nuanced complexities of Cuban storytelling. Most impressive cultural imperialism and transnational was the film’s blunt commentary on identity all the while providing a sense U.S. cultural imperialism, highlighting of cultural unity among the Cuban the impact of American capitalism characters in the film. While Chico is and its interference with Latin deported back to Cuba and unable to America through a postcolonial return due to the effects of the Cuban narrative. Despite the film’s nuanced Revolution, Rita stays in the United

hico-and-rita-and-all-that-jazz. The Culture Mandala 6, no. 1: 2003. 12 T.M. Scruggs, “‘Let's Enjoy as Nicaraguans’: 14 “The Miami Mirror: Cubans on the Other The Use of Music in the Construction of a Side of the Water are Slowly Changing Too.” Nicaraguan National Consciousness.” The Economist Online. March 21, 2012. Ethnomusicology 43, no. 2 (1999): 297. https://www.economist.com/special- 13 R. James Ferguson. “The Transnational report/2012/03/24/the-miami-mirror. Politics of Cuban Music and Cuban Culture,”

Screen Studies Quarterly 9 Pilares understanding of the politics of live to serve the tourists visiting their transnationalism, it is given yet paradise. He argues that both of another layer of complexity as it is these depictions suggest a “Cuba told from a European perspective. prison,” which comes about when “a Released in association with RTVE, civil society demanding free market the national radio and television policies is represented, and, in turn, broadcasting company in Spain, and prey to the will of a state oligarchy with an entirely Spanish directorial incapable of leading the country team, the film does not resist the towards economic development.”15 stereotypical depiction of Cuba as a Western countries lean into the prison. When Chico is deported, his depiction of the “Cuba prison” passport is withheld from him at because it refuses to challenge their Cuban customs and he is no longer own socio-economic system in place. allowed to leave the country. Chico y Rita’s focus on the Afterwards, he is notified that playing romanticism of pre-revolutionary jazz music has been outlawed Cuba is problematic as it was clearly because of its imperialist status under run by American capitalism. The the new government, forcing him out reality brought on by the very system of a job. While these are just a few under criticism is what Chico is most examples of the human rights nostalgic about, which begs the violations Cuba has been known for question, is this film really interested since the revolution, it’s worth in depicting cultural imperialism or considering whether or not this type the loss of a Cuban culture at the of depiction is valid or ethical. hands of communism? Possibly both, though it is abundantly clear that the A 2014 study conducted by future of storytelling for Cuba is to be Manuel Gonzalez Ayestaran analyzes in control of its own narrative, one four separate RTVE documentaries that is written and told by its people. about Cuba, all released between Chico y Rita holds promise for a more 2003 and 2011, concludes that these inclusive future in media, though films depicted Cuba as either poor, there is certainly still a long way to go sad, and lost without its colonizers or before our understanding of Cuban full of ignorant, happy people who history is truly holistic.

15 Manuel Gonzalez Ayesteran, “Approach to documentaries,” History and Social the study of the media war against Cuba: Communication 19, (2014): 299-319. representation of Cuba in 4 TVE

10 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 “I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!”

APPENDIX

Figure 1: Trueba, Fernando, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando, dir. Chico y Rita. 2011; London, England: Amazon Video, 2020.

Figure 2: Trueba, Fernando, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando, dir. Chico y Rita. 2011; London, England: Amazon Video, 2020.

Screen Studies Quarterly 11 Pilares

Figure 3: Warner Archive, “The Jetsons (End Credits)” YouTube video, 00:40. March 18, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qURn3BkoIXQ

Figure 4: Fail Bob 2000, “The Jetsons Credits (Syndicated Season 1 version, HQ)” Youtube video, 00:40. September 12, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evmmd1D8vc0

12 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 “I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!”

Figure 5: Trueba, Fernando, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando dir. Chico y Rita. 2011; London, England: Amazon Video, 2020.

Figure 6: Robbins, Jerome dir. West Side Story. 1961; Santa Monica: MGM/UA Home Entertainment.

Screen Studies Quarterly 13 Pilares

Figure 7: Trueba, Fernando, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando dir. Chico y Rita. 2011; London, England: Amazon Video, 2020.

Figure 8: Kelly, Gene and Stanley Donen dir. Singin' In the Rain. 1952; Burbank, CA : HBO Max, 2020.

14 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 “I’m Not Talking Havana, I’m Talking New York!” BIO Isabella Pilares is a middle school ELA teacher by day and a second-year Screen Studies student at Feirstein by night. As a Latina scholar, her studies in film school primarily focus on the representation of minorities within children's animation. With a Masters of Arts in Teaching degree, her perspective as an educator allows her to approach each topic she addresses with a unique take on how the medium, message, and distribution of media affect children and students. Her goal as an educator and a film scholar is to emphasize the importance of media literacy and equitable technological practices among all students despite their ethnic or socio-economic background.

Screen Studies Quarterly 15 Searching for Self in the Police State: Posthumanism, Materialism and Affect in Ghost in the Shell and No Justice, No Peace! Young, Black, ImMEDIAte! Devon Narine-Singh ABSTRACT This essay uses the short experimental video work No Justice, No Peace! Young, Black, ImMEDIAte! (US, 1992) by Portia Cobb and the anime feature Ghost in the Shell (Japan, 1995) by Mamoru Oshii to explore issues of connection/disconnection in posthuman police state. Through textual analysis as well examination of the technological aspects of both pieces, the article demonstrates the contemporary relevance of both works. In addition, the recirculation of the works through retrospective screenings as well as remake will be discussed.

In searching for humanity within a of the dissociative and the dissociative state, the posthuman is posthuman. evoked through psychological and Cobb’s film is a short produced in materialist means. This article the wake of the police brutality attack examines this central conflict with on Rodney King, made as Cobb’s cross-cultural examination of graduate thesis at San Francisco State posthuman police states as University. Ghost in the Shell was a represented through a video feature length production with a manifesto (No Justice, No Peace! studio backing and cutting edge Young, Black, ImMEDIAte!) and an technology. They both arrive at anime feature (Ghost in the Shell). I radical notions of the posthuman in will highlight this examination relationship to police in different through multiple sources including tones and methods. scene analysis, interviews with A pinnacle moment within Ghost filmmakers Portia Cobb and Mamoru in the Shell (Japan, 1995) can be Oshii alongside recent circulation of found in a sequence towards the the works within the contemporary middle of the film. It centers gaze, but moment (including my own more so it centers the emotive nature experience programming the work). of the eye and the power (or lack The scholarship of Shane Denson and thereof) of voice. The protagonist, Jackie Wang will illustrate dynamics the cyborg cop Major, has just heard a voice, revealed towards the end of

Screen Studies Quarterly 16 Searching for Self in the Police State the film to be the “villain” The Puppet Voice should also be considered Master, an AI created by another in terms of a material means, given faction of the police. The Puppet that the anime nature of Ghost in the Master sympathizes with Major's Shell functions fully around layers of desire to transcend boundaries by the disembodied voice. At the physically risking her body and “deep primary level the voice actor, the diving,” a concept her partner Batou disconnect of image and sound, is a does not understand. The Puppet disembodied voice. When a Master is not present, making the disembodied voice functions as an remarks in eerie disembodied purely embodied voice (i.e. the characters vocal form. This is important to note speaking to one and another without as Major goes from being looked at any clear connotation of separation to looking. The sequence begins with between the physical and the audio), Major looking up following the the line between distance and power incident, clearly showing us her gaze is blurred. It creates a false is now the dominant one and she will connection that once faded is lifted, be one to seek. We enter a montage as in the boat sequence, representing that climaxes with a replication of the the devastating qualities of the gaze once again, a re-affirming, but is dissociative nature. broken when a doppelgänger gazes “If television has an impact on back. people's perceptions...then yes Compare this to the opening of television does have a measure of 1992’s No Justice, No Peace! Young, responsibility for white people's Black, ImMEDIAte! A disembodied fear....of the black male." voice is present once more and is in The voice in these sequences command of the image. It gives a embodies both a dissent to the police count, a rhythm, setting the way time state (of which both films, from and image will unfold, making the different perspectives unwork) and visual gaze secondary. Cobb counts acts in an all-knowing way. Jackie first the seconds, then the amount of Wang’s video essay (later translated times Rodney King was struck by into an essay for her 2018 collection police officers. While not referring to of writings Carceral Capitalism), The frame rate, it begins a relationship Cybernetic Cop: The Future of between the image and the digital Policing (US, 2016), opens with an image as a surveillance object. anecdote describing her brother and her playing with a toy version of

Screen Studies Quarterly 17 Narine-Singh RoboCop. She denotes that there are ambiguous, it is clear that television is three phrases that the toy could not within the community and is a speak: “Drugs are trouble,” “Drop product of the corporate world. That it,” and “Your move creep.” Wang alone makes its function at the very follows this up by noting that in each least with ties to the posthuman. of the selected sentences, the Television functions as the address is that of the consumer (in this posthuman mimicking the human, case Wang and her brother) and not calling to mind the voiceover creating of the corporation that produces it. embodiment to the drawn, fictitious The material nature of the toy (“little body. In a recently released talk cop in the toybox”1) highlights the Shane Denson explored the notion of posthuman and disembodied nature the post-cinematic bodies.2 Denson of the policing. Wangs wonders if her argues that hidden artifacts within own reluctance to ever do drugs digital video (that can manifest as comes from hearing the commands of glitches, etc.) continue to “exert a the RoboCop toy as a child. Although force on our bodies even when they Wang is speculating, she fuses these remain invisible.”3 He cites Merleau- two polarities, giving us an example Ponty’s notion of the inner diaphragm of the real-world consequences of (discussed in Merleau-Ponty’s work disembodiment and disposition of a Phenomenology of Perception), and posthuman police state. Cobb’s work how even when something escapes opens with the following quote from consciousness awareness it can Bernard Shaw, a CNN ultimately reshape our perception. Correspondent: While Denson argues that such a If television has an impact on people's dynamic does not equate a perceptions...then yes television does subjective/intentional relation to what have a measure of responsibility for is being shown on the screen, I white people's fear... of the black counter that perception shift occurs male. within a materialist shift towards digital, enabling the disembodiment While television’s direct function and the effect of the spectre in both as police/non-police is more

1 Jackie Wang, “The Cybernetic Cop: The Goethe Uni/GRK 2279, 14 Dec. 2020, Future of Policing,” Lone Berry, 19 Dec. 2016, vimeo.com/488245302?fbclid=IwAR1OuDOR www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbQh8HegLU. e6AsHPq1m87A_jZHu7YMrMQALlSAAxmVxg 2 Shane Denson, “Shane Denson: Post- DMRsk5jdwZ5L9rue8. Cinematic Bodies (Mercator Lecture),” Vimeo, 3 Denson, “Shane Denson.”

18 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Searching for Self in the Police State of the work of the police and the Oshii’s statement illustrates that civilian. material (animation) becomes the In moving away from a human- main entry point for understanding based cinematic language to one of the psychology of the subject animation and video, one of the (computers). Cobb discusses a similar materialist “other,” the post- paradigm of material and subject in cinematic body enters into our during a screening held at NYU’s conversation. Further, the post- Department of Cinema Studies on cinematic body gives way to the October 30th, 2020: posthuman and the dehumanized I think of it as an essay style and as I state of mind. Both works utilize was editing it the momentum did pick technology that at the times of up as I watched the news all night.…. production were both cutting edge So when I listen to this and I kind of and outside the norm. Ghost in the understand this of what I was Shell utilized Digitally Generated recording everything I was seeing on Animation for its process. Digitally television the night that happened Generated Animation is created using and then synthesizing this into this “moving images via computers using essay, I do remember thinking wow it both 2D and 3D graphics,”4 and was so obvious to me to see how you gained traction in the 1990s with can see the change in sentiment.6 productions such as Toy Story (US, For Cobb the material is the 1995) and Jurassic Park (US, 1993). video/videotape while the subject is Oshii has clear intentions his use of the 24 hour news cycle. Cobb further such a process: evokes the relation to drones and There are only a few movies, even out surveillance when discussing the work of Hollywood, which clearly portray in a contemporary context, creating a the influence and power of link back to the post-cinematic bodies computers. I thought this theme and Oshii’s aesthetic decisions to would be more effectively conveyed work within computers to create through animation.5 Digital Generated Animation.

4 Luqi Jiang, “DGA (Digitally Generated 6 Witness, “Film the Police!: Animation) Used in Ghost in the Shell,” Countersurveillance and Community Omeka RSS, kimon.hosting.nyu.edu/physical- Activism,” YouTube, WITNESS, 9 Nov. 2020, electrical-digital/items/show/1191. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xG0uSlTDfU. 5 Ibid.

Screen Studies Quarterly 19 Narine-Singh The use of numbers in both of the purely number based, in a nod to films’ opening sequences acts as Dave Chapelle’s 8:46 (US, 2020), increment of measurement and as made in response to the murder of aesthetic expression that evokes George Floyd.8 Considering the posthuman materiality of the post- notion of giving voice, Cobb’s vocal cinematic. Denson discusses use of numerology goes against the processes like coding/decoding of police state, as she reclaims the digital video and upscaling of method of speech from one that is a imagery as similar to images post-cinematic and one of privilege designed by machines solely for with its connection of the police state, machines (drone image processing to one of the community members for example).7 Ghost in the Shell assuming a dehumanized state. opening credits decodes each title Does posthuman depictions of card from a seemingly randomized policing allow for the normalization of sequence of numbers into a written the police? I contend posthuman human language. If we are taking the policing shows the flaws of the digital processes that Denson policing system. Wang notes in her describes as signifiers for the post- video essay that as RoboCop pursues cinematic gaze, each by its nature his origins, he reveals the capitalist made up of 1s and 0s, then use of means of production behind it.9 This numbers as primary language before once again evokes Major’s journey of the written makes us attuned to the self-discovery, destruction, and Major’s search for vision and speech. ultimately rebirth outside of the As mentioned before, Cobb’s use police state and highlights the textual of numerology is making us aware of fusions of the cybercop—hard and the amount of times the officers struck soft skin—that Wang points out. The Rodney King. Here numbers once posthuman/human fits into this again function as the posthuman, as dichotomy. In Ghost in the Shell the they are emblematic of the posthuman exists not only by the dehumanization of black bodies introduction of a technology-oriented under white supremacy. Cobb even society, but as Wang explores with said in a recent Q and A she might RoboCop, the desire to find solace have changed the title of the work to within it, the lack of content. In No

7 Denson, “Shane Denson,” 25:08. 9 Wang, “The Cybernetic Cop.” 8 Witness, “Film the Police!”

20 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Searching for Self in the Police State Justice, No Peace! Young, Black, The renewed interest in Cobb’s ImMEDIAte! the posthuman echoes work and in particular the framing of the community navigating the the film as an alternative form of inhumane actions that have occurred image-making that responds but and being forced to be confronted does not reproduce trauma is with an abject, posthuman state. significant. Given the fact that the last In recent years both films have 28 years has seen little to no change been revisited and speak to in regards to police brutality and the contemporary issues. In 2020, I, along circulation of those images (the with Alia Ayman and Suneil Sanzgiri, videotape becomes body cam programmed No Justice, No Peace! becomes the Twitter video), Cobb’s Young, Black, ImMEDIAte! as part of choice of utilizing community our programming residency with The interviews creates the spectre effect Flaherty Film Seminar. The screening by naming but not seeing them. We titled Unwriting the Disaster dealt are not subjected to more images of with “work in opposition to the the brutality of violence and when spectacularization of tragedy.”10 The grainy fuzzy images of Rodney King’s program occurred between August assault is seen in the opening, the 12, 2020 to August 18, 2020 as part techniques of the calculated of the Mimesis Documentary Festival. disembodied and the visual distortion In addition, the film screened on creates distance from the trauma. October 30, 2020 at NYU Cinema While Cobb’s work was directly Studies for their event Film the Police! addressed to race in 1992, Oshii’s Countersurveillance and Community work has no direct commentary on Activism. One of the central questions anything racial or cultural identity of this screening was “what wise beyond the fact the film takes alternatives are there to reproducing place in Japan. However as the film is images of violence and suffering?”11 remade in a live-action Hollywood Due to COVID-19 both of these remake, the concerns of Cobb’s work screenings, inherently dealing with (the media’s way of shaping the aspects of surveillance and by narratives of the police-state) can be extension embodiment, where held applied in examining the outright online. whitewashing of Rupert Sanders’

10 “The Unwriting of Disaster - Flaherty x flaherty-x-boulder. Boulder.” The Flaherty, 14 Aug. 2020, 11 Witness, “Film the Police!” theflaherty.org/news/the-unwriting-of-disaster-

Screen Studies Quarterly 21 Narine-Singh 2017 film and the casting choice of repeating the gaze of the Machine. Scarlett Johansson as Major. Once again thinking of the In his article “Ghost in the Shell as panopticon, the film is not meant for a Cross-cultural Franchise: From us to see in, but to be seen by. Daliot- Radical Posthumanism to Human Bul closes his first section of his article Exceptionalism,” Michal Daliot-Bul noting of Sanders’ film: “It stands in a points to how these choices can have transnational space, and at the same a wider impact and act as a reflection time it seeks to capitalize on the of the anthropocene. Daliot Bul Japaneseness of its product while establishes the difference between aiming at a global audience with an the initial Japanese franchise and the adjusted story that has all the 2017 remake. “The Japanese characteristics of an anticipated 14 franchise offers a philosophical American Hollywood blockbuster.” existential exploration that begins Denson’s above-mentioned notion of with the transhuman state that is the images by and solely for machines, intermediate evolutionary state of could be extended to products humans who transcend themselves by seemingly for humans. Sanders’ film is merging with technology.”12 Daliot- operating on negation of identity that Bul contrasts this in describing the is authentic as image for an image. nature of the live action film The dissociative nature of the comparing it to a eulogy of “the police-state can be felt both by the physical human body and human community and members of the existence as we know them.”13 I police itself. While created in the believe one can find the reason for 1990s, the works by Portia Cobb and this in the fact that the media image, Mamoru Oshii demonstrate that the Hollywood Machine (a producer techniques such as material choices of death images in Minh-ha’s words), of digital means, voice as a function is an equivalent to the spectre state. of narrative, and ultimately the Instead of acting as means of centering of gaze, are ways in which exposing the distinctive nature of the moving image artists can evoke the cyborg, it instead becomes a product psychological disconnect that

12 Michal Daliot-Bul, “Ghost in the Shell as a doi:10.1080/10357823.2019.1631257. Cross-Cultural Franchise: From Radical 13 Daliot-Bul, “Ghost in the Shell,” 528. Posthumanism to Human Exceptionalism,” 14 Daliot-Bul,” Ghost in the Shell,” 531. Asian Studies Review, vol. 43, no. 3, 2019, pp. 527–543,

22 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Searching for Self in the Police State policing produces on a population. works, be it through retrospective The fact that the temporal aspects do programming or recreating them into not restrict relevance can be summed new digital images, speaks to the up by Foucault’s observation that post-cinematic body and how works surveillance is an ever-interlinking created at the onset of that can still history that always comes back to a hold space in a post-cinema world. In similar origin. It may seem that both this world of the post cinematic and of the works are relevant in today's the posthuman, it is more important world. However one can approach it than ever that works engaging with that these are still vital tools to unpack those transitions can voice those now the unseen ways of policing. The in a dissociative state. continued engagement with the

BIO Devon Narine-Singh is a filmmaker and curator. His works have screened at Microscope Gallery, YOUKI International Youth Media Festival, NOFLASH Video Show, UltraCinema, The New School and The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. He has presented screenings and presentations at The Film-Makers Coop, Maysles Cinema, NYU Cinema Studies and UnionDocs. Along with Alia Ayman and Suneil Sanzgiri, he is one of the programmers in residency for the 2020-2021 Flaherty NYC. He has a BFA in Filmmaking from SUNY Purchase and is currently pursuing his MA in Screen Studies at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Brooklyn College.

Screen Studies Quarterly 23 Autonomy, Functionality, and Ghost in the Shell Michael Piantini ABSTRACT The cyborg as presented in Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) shows the possibilities human augmentation may hold for the future of humanity. In both cases, the cyborg is a vessel for investigation on the social politics of bodily agency and contentious ethics of the practices involved with cyborgs. This analysis uses text Donna Haraway’s foundational "Cyborg Manifesto" to define what a cyborg is, Laurent Alexandre and Jean-Michel Besnier's dialogue on the rationale for cyborgs, and the Deleuze-Guattari concept of "body without organs." Additionally, Ghost in the Shell counters the tradition of individualism as the leading goal for the film's protagonist, suggesting that the cyborg is not a sole entity but rather a non-conforming being that does not establish social norms. What these films (and this franchise, more broadly) scrutinize is the complexities of non-organic life taking shape to resemble the likewise complex structure of organic life we call humanity.

The 1995 film Ghost in the Shell organic life is heading. This and the 2004 film Ghost in the Shell examination of GitS and its sequel, 2: Innocence (both directed by contextualized by Donna Haraway’s Mamoru Oshii) look at the cyborg “Cyborg Manifesto” and an body as the central location for expanded philosophical discussion defining what consciousness means regarding anatomy, will explore the when that consciousness is housed in competing approaches to adopting an artificial body. Through these two artificial bodies as the next step in films, we can do a deep analysis on human evolution, as popularized by the nature of being and determine the transhumanist movement. the function of a body, organic or As defined by Haraway, a cyborg otherwise. As will be discussed, to is a “cybernetic organism, a hybrid of have an artificial body has machine and organism, a creature of implications on ability, politics, social reality as well as a creature of economic status, and technophilic fiction.”1 Though in fiction the cyborg connotations about the direction is taken to technological extremes,

1 Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism Nature. (New York; Routledge, 1991): 149-181 in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Screen Studies Quarterly 24 Autonomy, Functionality, and Ghost in the Shell the social reality inherent in its humans into cyborgs, mainly as existence presents investigations to another form of eugenics. This thesis what a body means because a cyborg of going beyond the human form is is made, not born. Understanding what an ideology such as that cyborgs navigate blurred lines of transhumanism rallies behind. organicness and artificiality within a Alexandre and Besnier investigate the post-industrial society is important in kind of eugenics associated with our discussion of GitS. Meaning the altering humans when looking at the cyborg is created in a world that does aboration rate of embryos pre- not rely on an organic workforce, or at diagnosed with Down Syndrome. least an organic workforce that is not “There is strong social pressure to assisted by artificial beings. When a ‘eradicate’ the disorder from society, human is “upgraded” with and few people receiving a Down’s biotechnological enhancements this syndrome diagnosis for their unborn becomes a cyborg. However, this child are able to resist this pressure.”3 definition can be broadened when One’s ability (even before birth) looking at the ideological practice of dictates what society has deemed as eugenics. In their chapter “Should the worthy of existence, the right way to human race be improved?”, Laurent live. Following this logic perhaps the Alexandre and Jean-Michel Besnier cyborg could be the optimal way to discuss how medicine has become so live. advanced that it looks towards not Major Motoko Kusanagi, one of repairing but improving the human the central characters of the GitS race. While most living things are franchise, embodies the optimality an born as ”fully and immediately what artificial body affords whilst being they will be at the moment of death,” distinctively still human. Kusanagi humanity has the distinct drive to leads Public Security Section 9 of the 2 repair itself. Making the cyborg, as Japanese police, made up of various well any other organic-machine members with scientific and military hybrid, a distinct novelty of humanity. backgrounds. Notably, most of them This unique quality is at the heart have been given augmented bodies of much criticism aimed at turning from their employers, the

2 Laurent Alexandre and Jean-Michel Besnier, Questions. (Octopus Books, 2019): 8-15. “Should the human race improve?” in Do 3 Alexandre and Besnier, “Should the human Robots Make Love?: From AI to Immortality – race,” 11. Understanding Transhumanism in 12

Screen Studies Quarterly 25 Piantini government. These cybernetic she identifies the particular enhancements are given to them at relationship her individuality has with the cost of what was their original her body. human bodies, and all that remains is Section 9 is tasked to find the their organic brain. Because of her Puppet Master, a mysterious hacker employment with the Japanese that has been hijacking people’s government, Kusanagi is forever bodies and making them commit tasked to be the Major, and her fraud and violent acts. After capturing cybernetic body is completely owned an android taken control by the by the state. It is this captivity that Puppet Master, Section 9 learns the drives Kusanagi to investigate what Puppet Master is an AI wishing to her body can and cannot do, pushing break free from their formless it to its limits as it takes minimal effort existence as a neural network. to maintain her body. In a scene with Knowing Kusanagi’s dreams of being her teammate Batou, Kusanagi free of her cyborg body, the Puppet describes her fondness of regularly proposes they fuse together. The deep-sea diving and how diving in technological reproduction they the water to emerge feeling like a new perform creates a hybrid of cyborg person. and AI; Kusunagi dies to give birth a Just as there are many parts needed new breed of machine life. to make a human a human, there's a This brings to light the remarkable number of things needed philosophical question of examining to make an individual what they are. the body’s function to define artificial A face to distinguish yourself from life. Daniel Smith reinvestigates others. A voice you aren't aware of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of yourself. The hand you see when you “the body without organs,” which awaken. The memories of childhood, demonstrates a new way of the feelings for the future. That's not understanding the organic and non- all. There's the expanse of the data organic body. Smith alludes to the net my cyber-brain can access. All of machine to be relative to other that goes into making me what l am. machines, they function in dialogue - Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in with other machines. Smith writes, the Shell) “what is not predictable in advance Kusanagi compares the artificial parts are the capacities that a machine has, that make up her cyborg body are just which only emerge once it enters into as artificially put together as a human;

26 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Autonomy, Functionality, and Ghost in the Shell combination with other machines.”4 illegitimate fusions of animal and While machines are typically machine,”6 but in the AI and designed to have one purpose, their Kusanagi’s case, these two beings capacity for purpose expands with fuse to free themselves from the other machines. Machines do not enslavement of their origins. Their have the capacity to reproduce as action marks a break from a “story humans do, but when we that begins with original innocence recontextualize reproduction as an and privileges the return to inter-relational system, machines are wholeness.”7 The traditional nature of indeed capable of reproduction. a story is bound to connotations of Smith cites Samuel Butler’s analogy individualism and centered on the from The Book of Machines: bees are tragedy of losing individuality. One not capable of reproducing without way to interpret the film is that losing the queen bee, and the queen bee Kusanagi to be fused with the Puppet cannot reproduce without the other Master is a tragic ending, ultimately bees. This logic follows other natural signifying loss of individualism phenomena, like how bees need because she could not continue as flowers to make honey, and inversely, who she was. flowers need bees to pollinate other However, Ghost in the Shell does flowers. Thus, why are machines not not present itself as a film to please thought of as inter-relational beings classical stances of capitalism’s 5 as well? phallocentric individualism, in that the Because Kusanagi is literally a greater systems of technology take body of the government, and the up the most space visually and Puppet Master is an AI that has theoretically. From the opening surpassed its masters to develop credits to the last shot, the film fixates sentience, when they reproduce into on how the body’s anatomy relates to a new hybrid we see the the greater space it inhabits— amalgamation of their desired however individualism as we know it freedoms. Haraway writes that does not work the same way. For “cyborg politics insist on noise and instance, the abilities and advocate pollution, rejoicing in the enhancements the cyborgs are

4 Daniel Smith, “What Is the Body without 5 Smith, “What Is the Body,” 101. Organs – Machine and Organism in Deleuze 6 Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” 176. and Guattari.” Continental Philosophy Review 7 Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” 177. 51, no. 1 (March 2018): 99.

Screen Studies Quarterly 27 Piantini capable of are interwoven with While Ghost in the Shell lays a greater networks of the city they live foundation for what the cyborg does in. By using the outlets at their nape, when their existence is threatened to the Section 9 members are able to be limited, Ghost in the Shell 2: “jack in” to the systems that connect Innocence moves forward to visualize everything in the city; from building what could be a plausible yet temperatures to exact vehicle contentious transhumanist vision: that location, the city knows it all. Aside “everything that is technically from the intrusiveness of this pseudo- practicable deserves to be realised, police state, the cyborg body is not whatever the ethical cost.”9 In one but many access points to the Innocence, the hybrid Kusanagi is no greater web of how this society works. longer the central character, and the At the film’s conclusion, the film is primarily focused on Batou and Puppet Master and Kusanagi’s Togusa, members of Section 9. After offspring leave a safehouse in a a string of rogue robots murdering derelict section of the city to look out people, the duo is investigating on the city skyline, as if it is an who—or what—are causing these undiscovered new world. As a new malfunctions. type of artificial sentient being, “the With the plot of Innocence possibilities for our reconstitution centering on placing humans in include the utopian dream of the artificial bodies known as dolls, hope for a monstrous world without Deleuze and Guattari’s “body without gender.”8 The cyborg is born out of a organs” concept becomes more fusion of militarism and capitalism to applicable. As Smith describes, hold a certain function for the world Deleuze and Guattari were looking they inhabit making any action away from how a body lives as a towards their own autonomy is hollow vessel, but how the organs are greatly significant. What comes out of rearranged to have different the artificial offspring is a body that is functions. When defining a machine, neither a government tool nor an it should be noted on its function and experiment but an entity capable of not its form (a cup holds water.) But exploring the available world without when examining organic beings’ designated function. anatomy, the converse is applied: the

8 Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” 181. race,” 13. 9 Alexandre and Besnier, “Should the human

28 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Autonomy, Functionality, and Ghost in the Shell form and not its function should be plot, which involves children who are noted (the bones of your arm.) being relocated into experimental sex Therefore, the body without organs dolls. The rogue dolls Batou and replaces form and function with new Togusa are tracking become violent meanings altogether. due the child vessels attempting to [Its] non-mechanical mechanism, disconnect from the bodies they are which is also a vitalism of the linked to. As noted by a scientist inorganic, highlights not the form or (ironically named Haraway,) the dolls structure that bodies actually have, are initiating a type of self-destruction but rather the virtual capacities that because their violence will destroy bodies have to do something the connection. But this self- different. A body may be structured destruction is referred to as suicide, like an organism, but, since its organs insinuating the tragedy that is casted are all machines, it will always retain across the entire film. This raises the the capacity to ‘disarticulate,’ as they question of transhumanism’s ethics: is put it, to cease to be an organism.10 the ability for humanity to cheat death suited to be achieved when children As discussed earlier about humans’ are put in to sex dolls? The film ability to alter themselves, the presents the ideological problems inorganic body can replicate organic with experimenting the concept of function yet maybe dismantle to take the body without organs verbatim. on new forms. This is what the body without organs is, it is the Overall, GitS and Innocence limitlessness of the artificial body to navigate the implications of the take on different forms and functions. cyborg body in dynamic possibilities. The theme of the body in Innocence What can the human body be when is altered to replace organic bodies disassociated with what is known as with artificial ones. the organic origins? This is the tale of innocence that centers on the Further, the body without organs individualism persistent in humanity is the name of the franchise: ghost in as we have known for most of our the shell, with “ghost” embodying existence. Living a fifth into the 21st the human soul and “the shell” century, so many cybernetic personifying the non-organic body it aspirations are on the horizon, from is housed in. However, this premise articulate limb augmentations to becomes complicated in Innocence’s

10 Smith, “What Is the Body,” 109.

Screen Studies Quarterly 29 Piantini cybernetic eyes, the realization of a This hybridity is what machine sci-fi world is looming. Thus, looking philosophers call “an event,” where at Mamoru Oshii’s films—as objects of different functions create perspective futures about the body’s something new and transversely alter role in relation to artificiality and their own form. This prospect is function—are useful to shed light on further examined in Innocence where what realities are to come. The the machine and organic life are cyborg, though subtle, is alive in our forcibly placed together. However world. The body as a platform to the consequences are beyond govern politics and belief systems is unethical and question the nature of approaching our reality faster and transhumanism to begin with. faster every year. This leaves us with two questions In conclusion, the cyborg body when asking if transhumanism is recognizes it does not fit in traditional viable. Can organic life find a way to societal structures and sees that it is reproduce inter-relationally as bees governed by a gendered hyper- and flowers do? Is it best to keep our individualistic capitalitic world, organic bodies superior for as long as therefore it desires to break free. possible as to avoid the inevitable When the cyborg body is owned by a automation and organic extinction? third party, and not the sentient being The questions beg to be examined that lives inside, that cyborg will do further when understanding what that anything in their ability to future may look like. What these films systematically free themselves from (and this franchise, more broadly) their shell. Additionally, GitS scrutinize is the complexities of non- exemplifies what body a new lifeform organic life taking shape to resemble would take: an AI with human what is also likewise complex: consciousness, the closest humanity humanity. can reach to becoming omnipresent.

BIO Michael Piantini is a graduate student at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. His interests involve discovering how philosophy and aesthetics intersect with sociopolitical history of art. Currently he is researching how performance art, documentary aesthetics, and Black culture inform the myth-making found in rap battles. Beyond academia, he is learning about mixology and bartending history.

30 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Copyright and the Process of Abandonment: Legality and Ease of Access to Orphan Films and the Public Domain KC Genualdo ABSTRACT Copyright law's nuances often lead to perplexing and complicated legal statuses for intellectual properties that formerly enjoyed legal protection. In the piece, I will discuss the various processes that result in intellectual properties finding themselves abandoned by their copyright holders or relegated to what is known as the public domain. The piece will discuss some of the legal, political and cultural implications of this abandonment, particularly how it impacts archival efforts, distribution of works, and overall access. I will also briefly examine the concepts of the legal public domain in contrast to its theoretical counterpart and the differences between utilitarian theory and natural rights theory as they pertain to intellectual property law. Additionally, I will explore some of the advantages, consequences, and nuances of each. Though there are some qualitative assessment elements within this piece, the primary goal is to outline all of the aforementioned topics in an objective, fact-based manner, rather than engaging in argumentative discussion aimed towards elevating some views over others.

Copyright law can be incredibly or abandoned. Specifically, the confusing and difficult to understand; nuanced legality of the public domain thus, many tend to keep away from and the treatment of orphan works, any complex jargon or the including legislature introduced to investigation of legal codes. preserve these films, directly affect However, copyright is an important the archival process. part of United States law that sits on a Copyright scholars find foundation of constitutional backing. themselves divided in a seemingly Additionally, copyright law directly endless debate between two influences the information and artistic persisting theoretical frameworks works we consume, how they are regarding copyright usage: utilitarian distributed and disseminated, and theory and natural rights theory. Both the cultural legacies these works theories work in different ways to leave behind. Some works, however, rectify and create a working balance have complex and semi-undefined between the public and private. relationships to copyright law, which Utilitarian theory posits that the put them at a unique risk of being lost Screen Studies Quarterly 31 Genualdo incentive to create new work in a and unobstructed creative labor (one private market economy, provided could say, "from scratch"). Thus, and amplified by copyright law, must authors and content creators should maintain a balance with public have at their disposal a sturdy and interest.1 In this way, copyright is not robust legal presence with which they responsible for creating the work; may safeguard the works they have rather, it simply creates the conditions produced.3 Conversely, one could for which the work can be produced. argue that created works result from a Natural rights theory abides by a strict compounding of efforts, as is typically and more traditional interpretation of the case in both academic and artistic copyright law and theory, which works. harkens back to property theory Public domain works can be proposed by philosopher John considered foundational building Locke—everyone is entitled to the blocks to be compounded upon each rewards of their labor; all property other to create entirely new works. rights are limited "by the rights of Den Kamp writes, "Public domain others to the common stock of works are important as a repository of 2 property.” This mode of thinking is raw material. This is particularly the not universal among natural rights case for cultural heritage theorists—some of those who institutions."4 Despite their prescribe to natural rights theory widespread use and paramount contend that if allowed to importance, the term "public monopolize, corporations and license domain" is nebulous. Thus, there are holders may inhibit discourse and challenges when attempting the contention that is necessary for a public domain and what constitutes; democratic dialog—though others the designations and delineations argue that the paradigm is dominated regarding and dictating criteria for by the notion that content is what is considered within the public constructed from completely original domain can be confusing. To

1 Susan Corbett, "Creative Commons 4 Claudy Op Den Kamp, "A Vehicle of Power: Licences, the Copyright Regime and the Recategorization III – The Public Domain Film Online Community: Is There a Fatal (or, What Orphan Films Are Not)" In The Disconnect?", The Modern Law Review 74, no. Greatest Films Never Seen: The Film Archive 4 (2011): 503-31. and the Copyright Smokescreen, (Amsterdam: 2 Corbett, "Creative Commons Licences.” Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 95-113. 3 Corbett, "Creative Commons Licences.”

32 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Copyright and the Process of Abandonment propound the concept of a singular writes David Pierce, entered the "public domain" is also deceptive; public domain accidentally. There are there is a pronounced difference cases in which negligence on the part between theoretical and practical of the purchasing party results in a public domain. The theoretical public property entering the commons: a domain comprises works that are work is sold by a studio and bought public domain, as the name implies, by another to produce a remake. The in theory. A work that has been latter studio buys the original, created by an author or institution produces the remake, and forgets to that has since ceased to exist, or renew the original's copyright.7 Pierce perhaps owned privately or even offers the example of RKO producer destroyed, can be appropriated Pandro S. Berman, who wanted to without being granted permission by remake The Hunchback of Notre the owner. Dame, a film Universal produced in An example is using notable 1923, as a big-budget picture. The works of art through the physical work situation was further complicated itself is privately owned by a museum when Carl Laemmle, Jr., who had left or private collection. Another Universal to work for MGM, had the common problem is geographically studio purchase the property for influenced—a work that is considered further use. "Although Victor Hugo's to fall under the public domain in one copyright to the novel fell into the territory or country may be public domain worldwide in 1935, the copyrighted in another, and vice MPAA protocol required RKO to versa.5 There are several ways a work purchase MGM's interest…It cost comes to fall under the public RKO $125,000 to purchase MGM's domain: the first and most easily priority to Hunchback along with the understood process is when the negative to the original 1923 film 8 copyright protecting a work simply version" The 1023 version, which was expires. In other instances, copyrights primarily purchased to avoid legal of works can be forfeited due to trouble, was forgotten and eventually "Failure to comply with technical fell into the public domain. formalities.”6 Some studio-era films,

5 Den Kamp, “A Vehicle of Power.” Domain,” Film History 19, no. 2 (2007): 125- 6 Den Kamp, “A Vehicle of Power.” 43. 8 7 David Pierce, "Forgotten Faces: Why Some Pierce, “Forgotten Faces.” of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public

Screen Studies Quarterly 33 Genualdo Furthermore, some works are not August 1941 by author Gilson Willets viable for copyright protection. for the 1913 Selig Polyscope film Man Copyright notices, which were legally in the Street. In February of the mandated until 1989, informed the following year Paramount filed buyer when the film's protection renewals for three features based on would expire and subsequently enter Jack London stories, including Martin the public domain. "The copyright Eden (1914), and the next month notice has three necessary elements - Twentieth Century-Fox renewed nine © mark or the word copyright, the film copyrights, including A Fool year of first publication, and the name There Was (1914), the film that of the owner of the copyright.”9 established actress Theda Bara.11 Failure to comply with these As many copyright holders were regulations could be disastrous for unfamiliar with the renewal process studios. "Prior to 1978, the failure of due to its lesser use, properties that a film to have a proper copyright were not renewed within the notice upon release was catastrophic, appropriate guidelines and as the work would instantly lose all timeframes consequently became 10 copyright protection" Though available for public usage. copyright renewals are not new, they While orphan films mirror many were not commonplace at the law's aspects of works under the public inception. Interestingly, the first domain, they are markedly different notable examples of copyright from both a legal and theoretical renewal took place nearly 50 years standpoint. The orphan film after the first films had been movement has a history interwoven registered: with that of archival history. "In the Although motion pictures had been 1960s, film archivists began to protest registered for copyright as early as with their motto, "Nitrate Won't 1894, not a single renewal was filed Wait," as a way to raise public for films from the first twenty years of awareness and to appeal to the U.S. cinema. The first copyright renewal government funding agencies.”12 for a motion picture was filed on 18 These archivists vested themselves in

9 Pierce, “Forgotten Faces.” Orphan Films and the Politics of 10 Pierce, “Forgotten Faces.” Reproduction," American Anthropologist 106, no. 4 (2004): 719-31. 11 Pierce, “Forgotten Faces.” 12 Emily Cohen, "The Orphanista Manifesto:

34 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Copyright and the Process of Abandonment a movement focused on securing surrounding Orphan films is often funds necessary to establish incredibly complex—some of the first institutions able to protect orphan legal discussions surrounding Orphan films. The movement later began to films began in the years leading up to employ the "orphan" connotation to the passage of the 1998 Sonny Bono denote the thematic imagery of Copyright Term Extension Act, abandonment. The name proved sometimes nicknamed the "Mickey popular, as many activists "first Mouse Act" due to the company's identified themselves as extensive lobbying in its support. The 'orphanistas."13 Since the inception of act extended the term to that of "the the movement, the Orphan Film life of the author plus a seventy-year project has gained substantial term or ninety-five years for works momentum: The first Orphan Film made for hire…"15 It was understood symposium took place in September by both those in favor and opposition 1999 and has thus far continued into of the newly proposed extensions the present. Like the public domain, that many works, like orphan films, what constitutes an orphan film is would be swept into consideration As frequently debated or contested. The such, some attention was afforded first way of understanding orphan specifically to orphan films, whose films is a strictly legal definition: a cultural importance and significance work protected by copyright is is considered by some to be "abandoned' by the copyright holder immense.: "The Report of the in some way or form. Most likely, the Librarian of Congress concluded that right owners cannot be identified. films, 'often labeled 'orphans,' that The second definition is much more lack either clear copyright holders or theoretical, as Dan Streible says, commercial potential to pay for their "While a film might not be literally continued preservation' require the abandoned by its owner, if it is most urgent attention from the unseen or not part of the universe of government and preservationists.”16 knowledge about moving images, it is As Orphan Films find themselves essentially orphaned."14 The legality without copyright owners,

13 Cohen, "The Orphanista Manifesto.” 15 Eric J. Schwartz and Matt Williams, "Access 14 Dan Streible, "The State of Orphan Films: to Orphan Works: Copyright Law, Editor's Introduction," The Moving Image: The Preservation, and Politics," Cinema Journal Journal of the Association of Moving Image 46, no. 2 (2007): 139-45. Archivists 9, no. 1 (2009): VI-XIX. 16 Schwartz and Williams, “Access to Orphan.”

Screen Studies Quarterly 35 Genualdo preservation costs cannot be paid Luckily, there are legal avenues traditionally. As a result, the legal one can traverse to transgress and discussion surrounding Orphan Films subvert the iron-clad grip has become more and more monopolized corporations have pronounced. Film preservation efforts maintained on the dissemination of in the 1990s were important because copyrighted works and properties. they promoted an understanding of Whether intentionally or the need to preserve these films. coincidentally, these legalities have However, legislature from 2005 is a shaped and influenced the state of more appropriate measure of the film archival and preservation efforts. consideration afforded to Orphan The most notable legal subversion of Films. copyright law is fair use. Section 107 In 2005, the Family Entertainment of title 17 of the United States Codes and Copyright Act became law provides a list of factors that allow the including its "Preservation of Orphan public to use copyrighted material, 18 Works Act." This amended U.S. law so such as news reports and parodies. as to permit archives and libraries to Additionally, section 412 of title 17 preserve moving images during the encourages the registration of films last 20 years of their copyright term. and thus entries into the Library of The more potent "PRO-USE" Act Congress by limiting remedies that 19 (Preservation and Restoration of the copyright owners can use. Orphan Works for Use in Scholarship Section 108 of title 17 also allows and Education) failed to pass.17 public libraries and archives the right to distribute, display and reproduce This legislation was created to erase, copyrighted works during their last or at the very least, lessen the legal 20 years of protection for impact and risks associated with preservation.20 Another important Orphan films; many believed that transgression is the existence of there should be legal guidelines and Creative Commons licensing. legislation to dictate the appropriate Creative Commons operate under use of such films to avoid any liability traditional copyright models and for (unintentionally) unauthorized use. were created to address distributing

17 Dan Streible, "The Role of Orphan Films in 18 Schwartz and Williams, “Access to Orphan.” the 21st Century Archive," Cinema Journal 46, 19 Schwartz and Williams, “Access to Orphan.” no. 3 (2007): 124-28. 20 Schwartz and Williams, “Access to Orphan.”

36 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Copyright and the Process of Abandonment and disseminating material that goal does indeed possess some legal enriches the commons by balancing posturing, as its inception and public and private enterprises' power impetus for existence was brought for preservation and information forth as an attempt to circumvent distribution.21 The Creative Commons traditional copyright law, albeit while Project, also known as "The Project," operating in accordance with it. It was conceived to "promote an comes as no surprise that the main intellectual commons" through the consideration of the legality creation of licenses.22 In turn, these concerning issues of preservation, licenses promote culture by archiving, and copyright are increasing the catalog of works financially motivated. accessible to the public. Oftentimes Perhaps the most effective means these licenses result in repurposing or of presenting this profit-based 23 remixing. As a 501(c) (3) company, preservation and archiving regulation or "charitable organization," the is to discuss the National Film Creative Commons project is exempt Preservation Act. In 1988, the from federal taxes under Title 26 of National Film Preservation Act (NFPA) the United States Code. With this tax- transformed public policy regarding exempt status comes several film preservation; the act resulted in stipulations: charitable organizations the creation of the National Film cannot be operated for private Registry (NFR) and the National Film interests (for example, the financial Preservation Board (NFPB), though benefit of its creator, the creator's archival preservation was not the family, or shareholders). Additionally, intent of the legislature (though it was these organizations cannot present a a result). Instead, the act was mainly political agenda, as so-called "Action concerned with combating what Brian organizations" or those that engage Real refers to as the "…controversial, in political or legislative lobbying are contemporary efforts to colorize 24 not tax-exempt. One could argue classic black-and-white motion that the Creative Commons project's pictures."25 Altercations among older

21 Corbett, "Creative Commons Licences.” https://www.irs.gov/charities-non- 22 Corbett, "Creative Commons Licences.” profits/charitable-organizations/exemption- requirements-501c3-organizations. 23 Corbett, "Creative Commons Licences.” 25 Brian Real, "FROM COLORIZATION TO 24 “Exemption Requirements - 501(c)(3) ORPHANS: The Evolution of American Public Organizations.” Internal Revenue Service. Policy on Film Preservation," The Moving Accessed December 23, 2019.

Screen Studies Quarterly 37 Genualdo films were commonplace at the created, with moral rights being advent of several new technologies limited control given to artists to and methods for film viewing. prevent the legal owner of their work Technical fixes for formatting from altering it substantially without purposes, such as "fixing" and their permission.26 adapting aspect ratios, were Final legislation of NFPA did not common. Editing for the purpose of change copyright law, though it did censorship, either for changes in require the library of congress to regulation or inception, was "…designate twenty-five sometimes required to abide by commercially released motion regulations. These edits and pictures each year as significant works adaptions are less controversial, as of art worth protecting."27 To be sure, they are usually necessary for either the artistic obstruction of these works dissemination or legal reasons. In was a legitimate consideration for contrast, colorizations are commonly lawmakers, though it is clear that seen as obstructions or violations of a financial interest is at the heart of the work's artistic intent. issue. Surprisingly, the lawmakers Therefore, despite the popularity of were on the side of artistic virtue. these colorized works among Another important piece of portions of the public, the original legislature passed in 1988 was the filmmakers and stars of these films Berne Implementation Act. Created argued that the colorization process as an amendment to Title 17 of altered these works in an artistically United States Code, H.R. 4262 (100th) unacceptable manner, presenting was a bill in the United States them in a way that defaced their Congress with a stated purpose to original intentions. These creators of protect literary and artistic works.28 In the original motion pictures—who Copyright, Preservation, And were not the copyright holders— Archives: An Interview with Eric attempted to argue that they should Schwartz, Schwartz recalls his have moral rights over works they experience with the act:

Image: The Journal of the Association of ORPHANS.” Moving Image Archivists 13, no. 1 (2013): 129- 28 “Berne Convention Implementation Act of 50. 1988 (1988 - H.R. 4262).” GovTrack.us. 26 Real, "FROM COLORIZATION TO Accessed December 22, 2019. ORPHANS.” https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/100/hr 27 Real, "FROM COLORIZATION TO 4262.

38 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Copyright and the Process of Abandonment There were some key issues involving domain. Those against the extension copyright registrations that the of copyright terms argued that the Copyright Office and the Library of extension of terms would augment Congress did not support in the initial preexisting problems associated with bill as drafted, because in their view, Orphan films and those who fall under the provisions would have taken away the public domain, such as those that some of the key incentives to making have been forgotten or simply registrations, thus resulting in fewer neglected. Conversely, others argued registrations (and fees) for the that increased legality promotes the Copyright Office, depriving the "Maintenance and preservation of database of registration of important creative works."30 information, and resulting in fewer Film archives are a site of deposits for the Library's collections. knowledge production that resists the The Copyright Office took the constraints of copyright law by position that the copyright "controlling the dissemination of its registration database was a key holdings."31 The archival process is aspect of future copyright licensing rife with legal implications and and rights management, and would practices that are only complicated by be invaluable to future users of vague and unclear copyright statuses material; so, they wanted to enjoyed by films that can be encourage more, not fewer, considered to fall under the public 29 registrations. domain. For example, it is commonly The political climate that inspired a understood that because public push back against the so-called domain films do not have a copyright "expansion" of copyright protections owner, they are freely obtained by was massively interwoven with the whoever wishes to "own" them—this vocalization of a desperate need for is simply not true, as films that fall archiving efforts, especially regarding under the public domain umbrella are orphan works and works that fall often difficult to find, and are under the umbrella of the public sometimes deemed "lost media" due

29 David Pierce, and Eric Schwartz, 30 Schwartz and Williams, “Access to Orphan.” "COPYRIGHT, PRESERVATION, AND 31 Claudy Op Den Kamp, "A Handbag: ARCHIVES: An Interview with Eric Schwartz," Recategorization II – The Orphan Film." In The The Moving Image: The Journal of the Greatest Films Never Seen: The Film Archive Association of Moving Image Archivists 9, no. and the Copyright Smokescreen, (Amsterdam: 2 (2009): 105-48. Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 65-93.

Screen Studies Quarterly 39 Genualdo to this difficulty. Stating the obvious: sector ones, safeguard those films being allowed to use something does that, in the absence of a rights holder, not guarantee you will be able to find have lost the commercial value that it, making the legal permission moot. usually provides an incentive for "…although public domain works can preservation.”34 be used without permission, this does Orphan films exist within a non- not mean that they are publicly descript plain that limits their access 32 accessible." One way that public to the commons. As such, Archives domain works are accessible to the that preserve and legal access to public is through home media that is these films are imperative. distributed at a bargain price. Public First, there is the legal problem of an domain works are often identified and orphaned reel as encountered in sold— usually in compilation DVDs— archival practice: a film whose rights and found in discount bins at large holder/s (if they exist) have department stores, such as Walmart abandoned its care, or are unaware of or Target. They are sold at discounted the legal claim they have on it. prices because they are not Archives have sought the right to take copyrighted, and therefore, proper care of such items without distributers do not have to acquire having to worry about legal trouble licensing rights.33 Another reason for should an owner later appear. U.S. the discounted price is competition copyright law has reckoned with the between distributors: as the works do phenomenon of "orphan works" in not require licensing to be sold, they recent years, and the creative, legal, can be appropriated by any and archival communities continue to distributor. As such, distributors offer seek practical and legislative reforms the works at extremely discounted that will allow these works to be prices to attract customers (a preserved and used.35 consumer is more likely to buy a DVD valued at two dollars over the same This issue is often referred to as the film valued at three). This anecdote "Orphan Works" problem, which can signals a larger problem of a lack of be defined as when a film is "…still financial incentive to preserve these within the copyright period but the films. "Archives, especially public- rights holder can be neither identified

32 Den Kamp, “A Vehicle of Power.” 34 Den Kamp, “A Handbag.” 33 Real, "FROM COLORIZATION TO 35 Streible, “The State of Orphan.” ORPHANS.”

40 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Copyright and the Process of Abandonment nor located, the archive is unable to to engage with these works due to a seek permission to duplicate and fear that their acquisition will be disseminate them."36 This difficult or legal mishaps will occur in phenomenon makes it increasingly the process. difficult for archives to obtain orphan As the statement in the beginning footage for preservation—archives suggests, there is a moral conundrum are not legally able to simply preserve concerning the ethics of copyright the film without legal permission if and a struggle between public the copyright holder cannot be interests and private enterprise. This contacted for approval (though it still raises several questions: how should exists). This problem can manifest in copyright work? Should it be used several different ways: primarily for authorial ownership and (1) inadequate identifying information a means of maximum profit or used in on a copy of the work itself; tandem with public institutions for the (2) inadequate information about greater good? If a balance between copyright ownership because of a the public and private sectors is the change of ownership or a change in more desirable route, how is a the circumstances of the owner; balance between public endeavors meant to enrich the commons and (3) limitations of existing copyright private enterprise achieved? Public ownership information sources; interests work for the sake of the and (4) difficulties researching commons; access to content and 37 copyright information. works of artistry is incredibly Though legislative measures used to important, as it promotes a happier protect these orphan films have and more intellectually inclined improved in recent years, there is still populace. Libraries and archives offer a long way to go to ensure the services that allow certain works to preservation of these works. Once reach audiences that would not again, the uncertain legality normally have access to such content. surrounding these films and their Conversely, profit-based, free-market nebulous legal nature have values and notions of ownership and contributed to uneasiness in the intellectual property under the "adoption" of these films; some jurisdiction of copyright welcomes investors and distributors are scared competition and, thus, stokes

36 Den Kamp, “A Handbag.” 37 Den Kamp, “A Handbag.”

Screen Studies Quarterly 41 Genualdo innovation. It is important to censoring the voices of so-called acknowledge that the perceived societal outsiders, such as advantages and disadvantages of Communists, people of color, each theoretical and legal framework feminist scholars, and the LGBTQ do not exist in an idyllic vacuum, as community. Justification for relativism there are a multitude of instances in falls flat; themes deemed which the ethos of each camp is controversial or taboo by the legally interpreted in a manner that mainstream may be commonplace in results in the material inverse of the the future—should they be censored respective theory being invoked. in the present, they may very well be It is imperative to consider each lost in the future. When cultivating proposal's dangers: what are the and creating a limited selection of implications of these assets' complete films to submit for their cultural public ownership? What are the impact, it is easy to disregard films consequences of copyright law and that are deemed "unacceptable." legislature dictating how films are to Increased emphasis on be produced and released? Or copyrights and ownership of so-called publicly owned entities determining property also presents its own unique which works are worthy of being list of risks to be considered. Perhaps distinguished as educational, the most relevant dilemma that valuable, or "culturally significant"? A comes to mind is the acquisition and danger of government regulation absorption of smaller production and regarding creative content and public distributers into mega-conglomerates institutions being charged with and corporations. Strict copyright disseminating information and control, increased legality regarding content is the metrics employed to terms of ownership, and profit-based determine a sense of worth. It is easy interests limit marginalized to understand the sense of unease populations' access to content, which that manifests when one considers is often hidden behind a paywall. the risks associated with allowing Additionally, the monopolization of government-run and funded these corporations not only create organizations to determine which wealth based imperatives and films should be preserved or deemed struggles but also stifles innovation important. Furthermore, censorship and competition; this is increasingly issues only add more complexity to evident through the free-market's the debate—American history is rife enabling and encouragement for with examples of suppressing and these conglomerates to focus on

42 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Copyright and the Process of Abandonment derivative content, such as a constant makes it increasingly difficult to go stream of sequels, prequels, and through the legal process to preserve reboots of older and well-established these films and give them a home in IPs. an archive. Additionally, the risks The most perplexing and seemingly involved with the admittedly overlooked legal acquisition of these films may detract consequence of either methodology private investors. To be sure, is the impact these laws and regardless of whether someone regulations have on content, like subscribes to utilitarian or natural public domain and orphan films, rights theory, or interprets copyright which exist within a liminal space. holdings in whichever way, it is no Films that fall under the umbrella term secret that the majority of media of or are considered "public domain" properties are being bought up and are often hard to acquire, despite the appropriated by monopolized notion that they can be freely used corporations. Bearing this in mind, it and distributed. Orphan films are a becomes increasingly important that unique case with an even more vulnerable works find themselves pronounced confusion and seemingly housed in an institution that will arbitrary legality metric. The willingly and enthusiastically facilitate complexity of the law surrounding ease of access for the general orphan films and public domain films population.

BIO KC Genualdo is a graduate student in the Screen Studies department. Her areas of interest are legal theory, copyright, intellectual property law, literary criticism, and humor studies. She currently works as a freelance comedy writer and spends her free time studying for the LSAT and making her cat, Mugen, do little dances.

Screen Studies Quarterly 43 The Dual Frame Apparatus of Headset Cinema Kyle Hand ABSTRACT “The Dual Frame Apparatus of Headset Cinema” sets out to define one of the medium- specific qualities of “headset cinema,” a relatively new format of 360-degree video viewed on a VR headset. The medium-specific quality analyzed is the “see-for-yourself effect,” which allows the viewer to maneuver the frame of their headset throughout the encompassing 360-degree frame. The paper argues that the see-for-yourself effect disrupts the manipulative editing techniques of mainstream media. The paper also likens this disruption to Orson Welles and Gregg Toland’s use of deep focus cinematography in Citizen Kane and draws upon Andre Bazin’s analysis of the film. The see-for-yourself effect relies on the dual frame apparatus of headset cinema, and this paper analyzes its technological structure and then explores its implications.

The 2010s have been met with and the world was irreversibly exponential growth in the world of changed. In the past five years, VR Virtual Reality Headset technology. In headset technology has disrupted 2009, motion-controlled gaming and major industries such as gaming, Wii Sports was all the rage. In 2011, education, career training, and co- the public became eager to working, among many others. Artists experience a deeper sense of have been making cinematic works immersion after reading Ernest for VR headsets at a rapid pace for the Cline’s Ready Player One. In 2012, past five years, and in 2017 a Google Oculus raised almost 2.5 million spotlight film called Pearl became the dollars from 10,000 Kickstarter first VR film to be nominated for an contributors to fund the Oculus Rift, a Academy Award.1 A handful of VR consumer-friendly PC-gaming documentaries, animated shorts, and headset. When it was finally released experimental works have won awards in 2016 alongside its competitor, the since then, and now most mainstream HTC Vive, the floodgates opened,

1 Throughout this essay, I use the term “VR to view the films. VR films are essentially the film” to refer to cinematic works made for a same as 360-degree videos, but while those Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display (HMD), can also be viewed on smart phones and or “headset.” I refer to the subject of VR films computers, a VR film is made expressly for the as “Headset Cinema” because it directly VR headset. acknowledges the change in technology used Screen Studies Quarterly 44 The Dual Frame Apparatus of Headset Cinema film festivals include a category for VR head” (Bazin 233), except, rather than films. the viewer moving the position of The biggest difference between their head, it is the camera changing theatrical cinema and headset cinema position. There is a crucially important directors need to adjust to is how the power dynamic at play here: the frame functions. The cinematic director does not merely align the tradition was practically founded on shots with the viewer’s interest—they the frame; past directors have decide what the viewer should deem borrowed from painting and interesting. photography to create beautiful Bazin outlined the manipulative compositions. While directors such as nature of cinema in the context of Ozu, Welles, and Renoir have used Orson Welles’ debut feature, Citizen the boundaries of a nearly square Kane (1941). Whereas the typical frame for aesthetic ends, the frame Hollywood feature would only show has also been an instrument of one object of interest on-screen at manipulation and control, exploited once, the amateur Welles and by directors of mainstream and state- experimental cinematographer sponsored cinema, modern Gregg Toland used deep focus advertisements, and news media. cinematography to place objects of André Bazin analyzed the inherently interest throughout the frame while manipulative nature of the frame in keeping them all in focus. This his essay, “The Technique of Citizen practicing of staging in depth was a Kane.” He points out that there are radical subversion of the dominant rarely ever two important things Hollywood style because it refused to shown on-screen at the same time in reveal what was “important” or “of a typical Hollywood feature. The interest.” The viewer can watch editors of 1930s Hollywood were something important in the trained to efface their cuts and align foreground and miss something the shots with the viewer’s interests. equally important in the background. For example, in typical dialogue A famous example of this is when scene, the editor will implement the Kane’s mother is giving her son away shot-reverse-shot technique because to Mr. Thatcher in the foreground, the the viewer wants to see each helpless father is standing in the character as they speak. As though midground, and the young Kane is one is watching a play, “the cutting of seen playing with a sled outside the the camera can be compared to the window in the background (Figure 1). compulsory movement of one’s In this long take, the viewer can

Screen Studies Quarterly 45 Hand

Figure 10: Representation of z-axis in Figure 9: Example of deep focus above Citizen Kane deep focus shot, cinematography in Citizen Kane, 1941 wherein 'A' marks closest point and 'B' marks furthest point. glance at whichever character they choose, as each actor remains in character regardless of whether they are the object of interest. This new life that Welles breathed into an invisible and controlling style of cinema lives on today in headset cinema, except Welles was restricted to a single, rectangular frame. The dual frame apparatus of headset cinema is structured upon three major departures from theatrical cinema. First, whereas Welles’ achievement in Citizen Kane Figure 11: Dimensions of the was staging in depth along the z-axis rectangular, theatrical frame versus the of a nearly square frame, the primary spherical, headset frame. frame of headset cinema is 360- degrees, allowing the director to stage objects along its extended x- and y-axes.

46 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 The Dual Frame Apparatus of Headset Cinema Third, whereas the entire frame remains visible while the viewer of Citizen Kane glances about the foreground, midground, and background of Toland’s deep focus shots, the majority of the 360-degree frame is not visible to the headset user at any given moment. This is Figure 12: Representation of because the viewer can only see a negative space in living room. portion of the encompassing 360- degree frame through the secondary Second, whereas the viewer of headset frame. This secondary frame Citizen Kane sits at a marked distance is marked by the natural borders of from the frame (separated by the the headset and controlled by the will negative space of a cinema or home of the viewer (Figure 6). theater), the viewer of headset cinema is positioned in the middle of the 360-degree, spherical frame, and therefore confronted by the image on all sides.

Figure 14: Representation of headset frame moving inside of the 360-degree frame, in The People's House (Felix and Paul Studios, 2017). What is outside the Figure 13: Representation of headset frame is not seen by the headset’s spherical frame. spectator.

Screen Studies Quarterly 47 Hand The primary 360-degree frame People’s House (Felix and Paul and the secondary headset frame Studios, 2017), the 360-degree constitute the dual frame apparatus camera is placed in a fixed position in of headset cinema. This apparatus various rooms of the White House, radically subverts the mainstream and the viewer can direct their gaze invisible style of editing with the same wherever they please as the outgoing spirit as Welles in Citizen Kane. As President and First Lady share facts Welles used deep focus shots in and stories about each room through reaction against Hollywood’s voice over. At the beginning and end manipulative editing style, which of the film, the viewer is seated decides what aspect of the scene is beside President Obama in the Oval important, the viewer of headset Office as he speaks directly to the cinema reclaims this authority by camera about what his two terms freely navigating the headset frame, meant to him. As President Obama thereby choosing for oneself what shares his stories, the viewer is free to aspects of the 360-degree frame are look at the trees outside the window, important. the bowl of apples on the table, or the There is a unique psychological president himself. Whatever aspect of phenomenon accompanied by the the spherical frame the viewer freedom to navigate the headset chooses to look at, it will surely make frame throughout the encompassing for a unique and unrepeatable spherical frame – it is the experience experience dictated by the of seeing for oneself. This individual’s interests. phenomenon, “the see-for-yourself Although the dual frame effect,” is the flagship feature of apparatus of headset cinema enables headset cinema, as it fundamentally the viewer to look freely throughout alters the relationship between the the frame, this neither implies that the viewer and the video. The see-for- best 360-degree shots are without yourself effect not only requires active focus nor that the best 360-degree rather than passive viewing, but it also films consist of the spectator imprints the role of co-creator of the randomly looking in every direction. artwork onto the viewer. The dual In fact, the opposite is true. Many frame apparatus allows the viewer to directors of headset cinema will utilize feel as though they are a camera objects of attraction to intentionally operator on set, witnessing the guide the viewer’s gaze throughout important moments as they play out. 360-degree frame. For example, For example, in the documentary The when President Obama shares a

48 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 The Dual Frame Apparatus of Headset Cinema personal story about reading the attraction is merely one tool in a handwritten speeches of Abraham bottomless toolbox. The technology Lincoln during challenging times in of 360-degree animation and virtual office, the President becomes the environments allow for amazing object of attraction. The apples and moments of surprise, misdirection, trees are still available to be seen. and magic. For example, in one scene Still, the engaged viewer will likely fix of an animated short called The his frame upon the President because Nature of Consciousness, a green, the emotional weight of this moment billowing flower sprouts on one side naturally compels the viewer’s of the 360-degree frame, attracting attention. This offers a remarkably the headset frame, as a transition- different experience than if the same wipe begins on the other side of the scene were in a typical, rectangularly 360-degree frame, thus surprising the framed documentary, even if the viewer when it reaches them. The director would have inserted a shot of mode of 360-degree video also President Obama at this moment allows for, and perhaps even anyway. Rather than being forced to encourages, a diversity of look at the President, it is the viewer perspectives and conclusions, as each who chooses to look at him. This type individual is bound to have a of seeing has a quality to it that has somewhat unique viewing previously been restricted to real life, experience. The director of headset and it only becomes noticeable when cinema can also decide to include presented in contrast to the option to multiple hidden objects of attraction look away. The see-for-yourself effect throughout the same shot, making of headset cinema embodies the their artwork best understood after psychological qualities of multiple viewings. While there is a engagement, agency, and sincere special quality to seeing when the interest, and these qualities are viewer intentionally follows an object wholly absent from a cinema which of attraction, there will still be imposes images upon the viewer. moments of disagreement between While the see-for-yourself effect the director’s wishes and the whims of allows for a newfound quality in the viewer. For the sake of innovation, intentional seeing, this does not this inevitable disagreement should mean that the director must always also be embraced. clearly signal where the viewer is From its very beginnings, the “supposed” to look. Luring the cinematic tradition has been built on headset frame with objects of the rectangular frame. Therefore, the

Screen Studies Quarterly 49 Hand director of headset cinema sacrifices desire. This new apparatus is bound a large portion of that tremendous to lead to all kinds of amount of art and tradition. But, in experimentation, as directors figure return for that one rectangular frame, out whether the two frames of they receive two radically new frames headset cinema ought to work in to work with: an encompassing and harmony, in dissonance, or a all-seeing 360-degree frame, and, combination of the two. The within that, the free headset frame, possibilities are truly endless. directed by the viewer’s whim and

BIO Kyle Hand is in the first year of the screen studies track at Feirstein. He graduated Loyola University Maryland in 2020 with an interdisciplinary major in philosophy and writing, and a minor in film studies. His academic interests are cinema history, movie palaces, and virtual reality immersive media. He creates VR films under the name "Really Virtual Films" and produces a podcast called "Notes on Headset Cinema."

50 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Aniara: Mankind’s Self-Destruction and False Hopes Xu Ke ABSTRACT A review of the film Aniara, placing it in conversation with science fiction works released between the original 1956 poem and the 2018 film adaptation.

Introduction the death of the Earth? What does Aniara is originally an epic poem technology bring us? Is it certainty written by Swedish author Harry always effective? What’s human’s Martinson from 1956, a response to position among the universe? What is the hydrogen bomb test at that time. killing our future? The story is set in a time when the Man’s Eternal Instinct for Destruction Earth has been destroyed and One of the most shocking scenes humans migrate to Mars. One of the in Aniara is when Mima, a high-tech transport spaceships, Aniara, is forced product which can access human’s off course by a piece of space trash memory banks and transports the on its way to Mars and loses all of its humans back to their most beautiful fuel. It then carries passengers to drift memory of Earth, blasts itself by toward the vast darkness of space poetically pouring out its sorrows: without any way of returning. Hugo “My conscience aches for the stones, Lilja and Pella Kagerman adapted it I’ve heard them cry their stonely cry, into a film and released it in 2018. The seen the granite’s white-hot weeping, film version of Aniara is delicately I’ve been troubled by their pains. In constructed into nine chapters all of the name of things, I want peace.” which are marked by timestamps, Mima is a substitute for the Earth— allowing spectators to observe how the lost paradise. According to time changes the passengers on Martinson, “Mima” is derived from board. The passengers suffer several the Latin word “Mimus,” which is the rounds of false hope “attacks,” when name of the mockingbird. It they think they can return to Mars, to represents human’s conscience— reunite with their families, but reality bringing comfort. However, when the soon puts out the flame of hope. In spaceship is off-course, passengers such a desperate situation, Ariana flock in to greedily use it, not even elicits the introspection of humans, thinking for a second about whether questioning humanity: what caused this will overstretch Mima. Without

Screen Studies Quarterly 51 Xu permission to rest, Mima (through its Defend the Uncertainty: Ambiguous human agent) kills herself. Memory and False Hope In Aniara, we learn that humans Eric O. Johannesson reviews destroyed their home planet once, Harry Martinson’s original epic poem and through Mima’s death, they Aniara and states: destroyed the Earth again, which The great enemy of life is the hints at the dark ending of human tendency to encompass life in a extinction on Aniara. The formula...The picture it paints of the accentuation of human’s desire to universe in which man lives is cold and destroy themselves is so prominent mathematical, a world of concepts in that it can be further reflected in one which human wishes and dreams have of the characters—the astronomer. no place. The airplane has given man Notably, she has her own a contempt for the art of travel and desperation, as spectators first know robbed him of anticipations that her as a divorced woman who does slower means of locomotion afforded. not have a care in the world. She is Thus, the sense of adventure is lost: a always the first one to spread bad journey is a mere routine (1960). news, which then causes panic and Johannesson notes that exactness, suicides on the spaceship. She is an precision and clarity have alienated us alcoholic, which can also be seen as a from life and the world, we humans way of self-destruction. A similar have no mysteries, no imagination, as concern is delivered in the film everything is being explained. In Annihilation (2018), when the Aniara, it is only when the Earth psychologist discusses with the becomes a lost paradise do humans protagonist Lena that human realize the wonder of it. They cherish behaviors such as smoking, their memory of the Earth, partly alcoholism, and being unsettled in a because “memory” itself is indeed an relationship (like marriage) are the unreliable source. As it is interwoven most common representations of with various subjective feelings, it mankind’s desire towards self- becomes unclear and can be destruction. Based on this, later on, modified to some extent. The we consider the pursuit of high intellectuals on Aniara have to suffer technology, the search for scientific more as they are educated to believe exactness as another part of human’s in the data, and they trust in the desire for self-destruction. certainties instead of their own feelings. So, we see the astronomer

52 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Aniara suffering a nervous breakdown and the future can bring hope. The becoming an alcoholic, as she is controversy is mostly placed in the unable to forego expectation, and is character, Captain Chefone. He is haunted by the “nightmare of clarity.” described as the darkest thing on A similar concern is displayed in Earth, the most evil person in Ted Chiang’s short story The Truth of Martinson’s original epic poem, as he Fact, the Truth of Feeling (2013), keeps lying to the passengers, giving where the characters live in a not so them false hope to maintain his far away future where they wear absolute control in Aniara. The “Remem” to keep lifelogs. The captain’s actor Arvin Kananian jokes equipment records all the things they in an interview saying that: “I thought see and hear, and when one of the about, say, Trump or Putin.” “memories” is mentioned, Remem (Kananian, Ross) brings up relevant videos. With the On the one hand, the equipment everything seems certain, uncertainties do bring hope. A similar but in fact, people lose their feelings, scene can be seen in the film Ikarie XB which is maybe the most precious 1 (1963), when the spaceship crew part of memory. For instance, suffers unknown radiation from a someone may have a blurry, warm mystery black celestial body, falling memory from their childhood, when into a state of unconsciousness one their mother held them tight in her by one; they have no idea whether arms while singing lullabies with a they will awake after the spaceship warm smile. However, with the auto-navigates them away from the equipment recording the “correct black star. The captain expresses his past” like Remem, upon reviewing optimistic attitude stating: this memory, he may find that his “Fortunately, man is not as perfect as mother was simply holding him, while a machine. Therefore, he has nothing she was busy doing other things. left than to hope and believe.” He Perhaps, the weather that day was praises “uncertainty” as the bad, which makes the scene look peculiarity of mankind, as it reminds grey, so his warm feeling about his us that there is always a bright side. mother is destroyed. On the other hand, the uncertainties Besides representing the benefits allow false hopes to slip in. In Aniara, of the memory’s uncertainty, the film Captain Chefone keeps making up Aniara also attempts to elicit the lies to maintain order on the question of whether uncertainty of spaceship, in doing so, he even kills the astronomer. The passengers who

Screen Studies Quarterly 53 Xu are being given false hope are in human’s abilities. Meanwhile, she is cheered up for a short time, but they subdued by the vastness of the then fall into deeper desperation universe and considers human’s again and again, and some even existence to be meaningless. When commit suicide. Similar false hope is she explains to Mimarobe about the commonly seen in our daily life, these impossibility of relying on a celestial are the propaganda slogans, the body’s gravity to turn them back on advertisements, and the perfect the original track, she says: “It’s so images on social media. Lost in the peripheral, what we’re doing, It’s so abundant information on the Internet, futile, so meaningless. You see this people in this era keep losing their bubble? If you think of it as Aniara, ability to admire uncertainties. There maybe you will understand the is a formula of being beautiful, vastness of space. Even if we move at successful, and happy, and they are an incredible speed, it’s as if we’re so concrete that all we have to do is standing perfectly still.” When they follow them. Humans have become encounter a possible fuel probe, and more like machines, who are neat and it later turns out that it is some alien uniform, however, we have lost a technology that humans are too wider sense of what exactly happens backward to understand, it further around us. There are weather crises destroys her beliefs, and causes her to on the news discussed on the have a breakdown. It is like two Internet, but take-out service pop-up possibilities of The Fermi Paradox are advertisements seem closer to us. combined in this one character. This is also a pivotal theme in Aniara A similar transition process can be as we see the horrible scenes of the seen in Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Earth being destroyed in the Problem Trilogy (2008-2010). Liu’s passengers’ memory and how first and second books depict a mankind laments the Earth’s death. variety of dazzling advanced Powerful or Impotent: Two Poles of technologies that future mankind Future Human Imaginations creates as a means to defend the In terms of uncertainty, the Earth from the threat of a belligerent desperate astronomer in Aniara is a extraterrestrial civilization. This fully very interesting ambivalent figure. On illustrates human’s confidence and the one hand, she represents the complacency in controlling intellects who are trapped in their everything. As the story progresses, persistence of certainty, who believe Liu proposes the hypothesis of the “Dark Forest” through one character

54 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Aniara Luo Ji, explaining that “the universe is life and how this affects our vision of a Dark Forest in which every the future. civilization is a hunter armed with a Cults, Motherhood and the Vision of rifle.” If the earth is not being hunted, Future that is because it is far too backward Aniara is composed of nine to be a threat to other civilizations. chapters, with each having a This is proved in the third book, timestamp. It begins in fairly small where mankind finally becomes a time jumps, which then turn threat; they are too complacent and exponentially larger. When they drift foolishly expose the exact position of along and see only the vast darkness the Solar system. This causes the from the window, hope is urgently Solar System to be targeted by the needed to continue living. As a result, “hunter” and it eventually collapses in year 4, when 48 suicides occur in into two dimensions. one month, the passengers create a Humans in science fiction works cult. The ritual of the cult includes wander between a sense of being kneeling on the ground pleading for powerful and impotent. There are God to show them light, huddling films such as Starship Troopers (1997) around a blind poetess in the corridor and Edge of Tomorrow (2014) which yelling incantation-like words, and accentuate how powerful human having group sex in front of mirrors. beings can be. Meanwhile other films As the past realities deteriorate in the such as Ikarie XB 1 (1963), Denis spaceship, humans seem to re-rely on Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) and Arthur their imagination. The women who Charles Clarke’s novel Rendezvous lead the cult dress themselves up as with Rama (2018), assume that witches. They encourage Mimarobe humans are too undeveloped to and her lover Isagel to join their understand alien technology and are group sex ritual, in the name of in need of their protection. It is memorizing Mima. Isagel then gets brilliant to see that Aniara blends pregnant. The instigation from both tendencies into its small witches always implies tragedy. In spaceship society, presenting the Shakespeare's Macbeth, the three conflict and contradictory nature witches’ prophesy prompted him to between the two tendencies. murder his king, Macbeth becomes a Through these conflicts, layer upon usurper, which results in his own layer, it further explores human’s death. In Aniara, Isagel gets pregnant perception of time, the meaning of in the ritual and she ends up killing

Screen Studies Quarterly 55 Xu her own child and committing suicide. ironically, when Mimarobe finds out Notably, this echoes the detriment of that Isagel is breaking down, her false hope that I mentioned above. counterplan is to develop a new The child for Isagel represents a form machine that “display[s] images like of false hope, which can be confirmed Mima... so we are shielded off... from right after the birth as they encounter space.” Through doing this, a possible fuel probe but it soon Mimarobe is not only joining Captain proves to be useless. Isagel is Chefone in creating false hope, but distressed in the eternal dark also escaping further away from universe, she is helpless, stating: Isagel. In the name of helping Isagel, “There are no possibilities here. I’ll Mimarobe leaves her to fall deeper give birth to a prisoner.” Similar into desperate darkness alone. questions raised in the film created in Mimarobe/Mankind actually sees the the same year, Claire Denis’s High Earth destruct three times during the Life (2018), “What is right? To be film. The first time is through the killed immediately or to wait on an passengers’ memory, where she sees uncertain hope?” (Pinkerton, 2019) the explosions and the flames of war. Furthermore, the relationship The second time is when Mima blasts between Mimarobe and Isagel herself, and the third time is Isagel’s corresponds to the entanglement suicide. between humans and the Earth. In A newborn baby is a symbol of Martinson’s original poem, Mimarobe the future, and of everyone’s past, a is a man, but in the film Aniara, hope of human continuity, it is a more Mimarobe is a woman. However, this spiritual sense of rebirth. The classic woman is a “him” in her relationship scene of infants in space comes from with Isagel. Specifically, Isagel is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space wordless and tolerant, but whenever Odyssey (1968), which is interpreted Mimarobe runs into a crisis, she as a metaphor of human’s stands up to defend her. Mimarobe is “impossibility of escaping from the more hedonistic, as she has a cradle” (Chion 2019), implying that relationship with both Isagel and humans are in need of nurturing by an Daisi, constantly overlooking Isagel’s alien civilization. In Aniara, the alien feelings. If Mimarobe represents probe comes right after Isagel gives humans, then this is an example of birth to a baby, where it is interpreted humans enjoying protection from the as false hope by the current Earth, while at the same time ignoring passengers, but what if it is real hope the needs of the Earth. More for the next generation? As we can

56 April 2021 Vol. 1.4 Aniara see, Mimarobe is assigned to teach Conclusion the smartest kids tensor theory, All the plights in Aniara together however, she ignores this assignment return to the eternal question of and concentrates on building the humanity. Aniara is, without a doubt, hallucinogenic beam-screen, which a dystopian film. The atrophy of performs similar function to the huge humanity is clearly pictured, as time wall-screen televisions in Ray passes by, the passengers on Aniara, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, or one by one, lose their ability to Instagram today, which takes our perceive others emotions, to attention and kills lots of our time. In experience things through their Aniara, when the beam-screen is senses, to dream, to imagine and to successfully built, Isagel kills the child, create. They are no longer willing to erasing the chance of a future. The nurture the next generation. Instead, beam-screen, which represents a they indulge themselves in the fetish of illusion, is just another false meaningless nostalgia, in alcohol, in hope that only leads to desperation. screens, in all kinds of self- Humans should take note of their destruction. Considering the current tendency for self-destruction. aging society and climate crisis, it seems difficult to tell whether the imagination of Aniara’s society is science fiction or an ongoing reality.

BIO Xu Ke is a graduate student in the Screen Studies track at Feirstein.

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Filmography Aniara. Directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja. 2018; Stockhom, Sweden: SF Studios, 2019. Chico y Rita. Directed by Fernando Trueda, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando. 2011; London, England: Amazon Video, 2020. Citizen Kane. Directed by Orson Welles. 1941; New York, NY: RKO Pictures. The Flintstones. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbara. First aired 1960; Burbank, CA : ABC. Ghost in the Shell. Directed by Mamoru Oshii. 1995; Tokyo, Japan: Shochiku. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Directed by Mamoru Oshii. 2004; Tokyo, Japan: Toho. The Jetsons. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbara. First aired 1962; Burbank, CA : ABC. No Justice, No Peace! Young, Black, ImMEDIAte! Directed by Portia Cobb. 1992; Vimeo, 2016. The People’s House: Inside the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama. Directed by Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël. 2017; Felix & Paul Studios. Singin' in the Rain. Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. 1952; Burbank, CA : HBO Max, 2020. West Side Story. Directed by Jerome Robbins. 1961; Santa Monica: MGM/UA Home Entertainment. Under Four Flags. Directed by Samuel L. Rothafel. Washington D.C.: Committee on Public Information, 1918.

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