The African-American cinema: Between protest and integration
Thesis - 4 pages - Film studies
The invention of cinema happened at the very same time as the establishment of the segregation in the South. This social and political system, which advocated prejudices and inequality of races, is definitely going to stigmatize the nature of the relationships between the American cinema and the...
The representation of American teenagers in films during the 1950s and 1990s
Thesis - 13 pages - Film studies
The ‘teen film', ‘teen flick' or ‘teenpic' has changed since the 1950s when it started to define itself through Juvenile delinquency films. As was recently commented, ‘the teen flick has lost its shiny innocence and become a cynical brute' (Maher; 2006: 13). Over the course of...
Representations of gender and sexuality in films
Thesis - 7 pages - Film studies
‘The street's getting worse everyday here. The whores were bad enough but the drags are wiping us out. I can't stand the drags. (…). They confuse transvestism with a circus. Worse, with mime'. In All About My Mother (Almodovar; 1999), the character Agrado stresses the importance of...
The X-files (1993-2002) - A cult text
Thesis - 7 pages - Film studies
The X-Files (1993-2002), about two government agents investigating unsolved cases relating to paranormal activities, was a quality drama which became a cult hit with audiences and subsequently an international cultural phenomenon, generating vast amounts of secondary texts including merchandise...
Postmodernism and cinema
Thesis - 7 pages - Film studies
‘It's about flights of fantasy, and the nightmare of reality, terrorist bombings, and late night shopping, true love, and creative plumbing.' (Gilliam; 1985). This tagline for the film Brazil highlights most of the concepts present in postmodernist criticism of cinema and television. Indeed,...
The Wicker Man: Challenging the Audience, Transcending the Genre
Thesis - 5 pages - Film studies
A horror movie does not work unless it is frightening. A meek horror film is as ineffective as an unfunny comedy or an uninteresting drama. If a horror film succeeds at being scary, then, by definition, the filmmakers behind it have accomplished what they set out to make. The difference between a...
Fellini's Otto e mezzo
Thesis - 5 pages - Film studies
Since the dawn of cinema, there have been numerous film directors who have garnered the reputation of innovator, auteur, even genius of the medium. Only three directors, however, have created such unmistakably identifiable styles as to warrant film terminologies based on their very names. Alfred...
American Psycho's Killer Gaze
Thesis - 3 pages - Film studies
Jacques Lacan's description of the Other is that which gazes on you or exerts power on you, yet does not truly exist; the Other is an imagined gaze that is constantly looking over you (Willemen, 216). In the film American Psycho (2000), screenwriter and director Mary Harron personifies the...
