ECREA16-Abstract

272

Thursday, November 10

1 6 : 3 0 – 1 8 : 0 0

FIS04

National Cinemas, Representation and Auteurs

PP 228

Women in the Wave: Representation of Female Characters in the Black Wave Films

V. Vukovic

University of Antwerp, Film studies, Antwerpen, Belgium

This paper investigates how female characters were represented in films belonging to the Yugoslavian BlackWave Cinema movement, in terms of the visual

and narrative style. The movement’s auteurs oeuvre is explored through the lens of descriptive close reading as well as scene analysis methodology and

from a gender perspective grounded in feminist film theories: reflection theory and psychoanalysis. The initial term New Wave Cinemas refers to groups

of filmmakers and their artwork opus in a creative movement within film that emerged in the late 1950s and continued until the late 1960s or early

1970s, depending on the country of origin. The ex-Yugoslavian Black Wave, following the world-renowned French Nouvelle Vague, developed a bit later,

in the beginning of the 1960s and lasted longer, until the beginning of the 1970s. Unlike previous filmmakers, who perceived themselves as craftsmen,

the NewWave directors of post-WorldWar II former Yugoslavia: Dušan Makavejev, Aleksandar 'Saša' Petrović, Želimir Žilnik, Živojin Pavlović, Vojislav 'Kokan'

Rakonjac, Miodrag 'Mića' Popović, Lazar Stojanović, Marko Babac, Krsto Papić, Bahrudin 'Bato' Čengić, Boro Drašković, etc. saw themselves as artists. New

Wave movements explored a number of neglected themes in cinema: social outcasts as protagonists, antiheros, the critique of social structures, etc.The aim

of this study is to reveal the distinctive characteristics in audio-visual style of the ex-Yugoslavian Black Wave Cinema with which the movement’s films

were distinguished for. The question as to whether the female characters were portrayed as martyrs or survivors, passive bystanders or active participants

is central. Therefore, the main focus is detecting and dissecting the individual style of Black Wave directors in terms how they captured female sexuality

and the changing roles of women in patriarchal society. In regards to (dis)continuity with the past, the goal of this research is to analyse what the legacy is

of BlackWave in contemporary cinema.

PP 229

Colonial Past, Contesting Present, Neo-Colonial Future: Representations of the ‘China Factor’ in the Latest Hong Kong Cinema

T.Y. Lin

Goldsmiths- University of London, Media and Communications, London, United Kingdom

Hong Kong had its historical experience of colonialism in the twentieth century and has occupied a marginal position in relation to an increasingly he‑

gemonic China in the twenty-first century. After the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the PRC in 1997, alongside

late modernity and globalised capitalism, social conditions have been altered substantially in Hong Kong. In addition, with the PRC’s rising economic and

political power, being located at the intersection of hegemonic power relations and with marginalised voices, the society of Hong Kong has experienced

substantial upheaval in terms of political, social, cultural and media processes. Hong Kong’s conflicts with the hegemonic power from the PRC can be ex‑

emplified by the recent large-scale social movement, the Umbrella Revolution launched by Hong Kong citizens from September to December in 2014. Thus,

with regard to this context, using textual analysis as the main methodological approach, this paper aims to interrogate the ways in which Hong Kong-China

relations and the so-called ‘China factor’ have been represented in the latest Hong Kong cinema. Based on the analysis from sociocultural perspectives, I

firstly focus on JohnnieTo’s Election (2005) and Election 2 (2006), the gangster films seen as subtle analogies of Hong Kong’s political conditions in the post-

1997 era. Secondly, I highlight Vincent Chui’s Three Narrow Gates (2008), a film situated between the detective and gangster movie, which questions

the socio-political conditions imposed by the PRC’s inappropriate control and surveillance concerning Hong Kong’s economic, political and media processes.

I further examine Pang Ho-Cheung’s Vulgaria (2012), originally made as a comedy which can be read as a parody of Hong Kong-China relations vis-à-vis

the PRC’s economic and ideological manipulation in Hong Kong’s film industry. Subsequently, generally considered a sci-fi movie, Fruit Chan’s The Midnight

After (2014) can be used to investigate the issues of despair, anxiety and helplessness in the society of postcolonial Hong Kong. Finally, I argue that the rep‑

resentations of Hong Kong-China relations and the‘China factor’in the latest Hong Kong cinema can be shaped and developed as a discourse of resistance in

response to the city’s peculiar postcolonial conditions alongside the ongoing threats of neo-colonialism from the PRC for Hong Kong’s future.

PP 230

“Morning Again in America”: Mapping Political Themes and Enemy Images in the Reaganite Action Thriller

L. Soberon

Ghent University, Communication studies, Ghent, Belgium

Reaganite cinema occupies an interesting place in American film history. After the dust had settled from the New Hollywood counterculture, the 1980s

saw the dawn of a new type of hyper-commercial, ultra-violent cinema that coincided with the two presidential terms of president Ronald Reagan. John

Belton (1994) called it the cinema of reassurance, optimism and nostalgia; a triumphant return to the American exceptionalism of the 1950s that enhanced

Cold War paranoia. Whereas Stephen Prince (2007, p.12) has been sceptical towards the excessive mapping of Reaganite politics onto the era’s cinema, he

acknowledged that the ‘clearest correlations’can be found in the action thriller genre. As Reynolds (2009) pointed out, the years of Reaganomics provided

a suitable battleground for America’s culture wars; a cinematic ‘hot front’ or symbolic site of struggle. Many of these genre films were thought to have

the same jingoist attitudes as the 40

president of the United States, interlinking with Reagan’s resistance of ‘big government’ and jingoist foreign policy

(Jeffords, 1994), but to date no systematic analysis has been conducted into this enigmatic passage of American film history. In this article a concise map‑

ping will be provided by subjecting 80 American action films released during Reagan’s two presidential terms (1981–1989) to qualitative content analysis.