Podcasts about bordwell

Hoyt pro Katelyn Bordwell talks about winning her first-ever pro title in the Women's Known Pro class at the ASA's TRU Ball Pro/Am in London, KY, in June 2024. She talks about the nerves she had to fight through to take the title, about how the shootdown was different for her because it was the first time she went into one with a lead, and about how her brother, Glen Bordwell, helped her get through the finals. Bordwell also talks about how she got started in competitive archery and about training hunting dogs.

"Kunstfilme" sind nur etwas für prätentiöse Kritiker und all jene, die sich auf Rücken unverständlicher Werke hervortun wollen, oder? Basierend auf dem Video "Ich und „Artsy-Fartsy“-Filme" vom YouTuber Forger widmen sich die Three Angry Men in ihrer ersten Themenfolge dem Filmgenre, das seit jeher die Kinobesucher spaltet. Ist eine Unterscheidung in "Kunstfilm" sinnig, gibt es universelle Gemeinsamkeiten, die Publikum und Autor:innen in vermeintlicher Einzigartigkeit entlarven, müssen die ewig langen Einstellungen in The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023) wirklich sein? Zwischen theoretischer Herleitung und persönlicher Haltung wagen die Three Angry Men eine Erörterung. Quellen: [1] Ich und „Artsy-Fartsy“-Filme, (4. April 2024). Zugegriffen: 12. Mai 2024. [Online Video]. Verfügbar unter: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS5Q42eq8PM⁠ [2] tttico, „Urban Dictionary: artsy-fartsy“, Urban Dictionary. Zugegriffen: 12. Mai 2024. [Online]. Verfügbar unter: ⁠https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=artsy-fartsy⁠ [3] „Cambridge Dictionary: arty-farty“, Cambridge Dictionary. Zugegriffen: 12. Mai 2024. [Online]. Verfügbar unter: ⁠https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-german/arty-farty⁠ [4]D. Bordwell, „The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice“, Film Criticism, Bd. 4, Nr. 1, S. 56–64, 1979. [5] „artsy-fartsy - Englisch-Deutsch Übersetzung | PONS“. Zugegriffen: 21. Mai 2024. [Online]. Verfügbar unter: https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/englisch-deutsch/artsy-fartsy [6] „Kunstfilm / film d'art [Das Lexikon der Filmbegriffe]“. Zugegriffen: 21. Mai 2024. [Online]. Verfügbar unter: https://filmlexikon.uni-kiel.de/doku.php/k:kunstfilmfilmdart-241 [7] „ARTSY-FARTSY Definition und Bedeutung | Collins Englisch Wörterbuch“. Zugegriffen: 21. Mai 2024. [Online]. Verfügbar unter: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/de/worterbuch/englisch/artsy-fartsy

We're back, and Ernst Lubitsch is now in Hollywood! It's been an exciting time for the podcast: we've traveled around the world or, more specifically, to Los Angeles and New York City, to record the next few seasons. We begin at the Margaret Herrick Library at Beverly Hills, in conversation with Peter Labuza as we discuss the history of early Hollywood, wherein Ernst Lubitsch is about to begin the second phase of his career. In this episode, we cover the landscape and economics of the studio system circa the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s including studios such as MGM, 20th Century, Universal, Paramount, and RKO, the interplay between capital and labor in this industry, the impact of synchronized sound, the great depression, the Hays code, JEWEL ROBBERY, and much more! Anna Citak-Scott was our recording engineer for this episode. Thanks to Matt Severson and the Margaret Herrick Library for letting us record in the Karl Malden room. We have a Discord! NEXT WEEK: Critic and friend of the show Tim Brayton returns to discuss Lubitsch's first American silent film, ROSITA. For details as to where to find this film, check out our resources page. WORKS CITED: Hard, Fast, and Brokerage: Irving H. Levin, the Filmmakers, and the Birth of Conglomerate in Hollywood by Peter Labuza For The Maintenance of the System: Institutional and Cultural Change within the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, 1922-1945 by Paul MacLusky Moticone The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 by Bordwell, Thompson, and Staiger. Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture by Laura Isabel Serna An Empire of Their Own by Niel Gabler Film Rhythm after Sound by Lea Jacobs Working in Hollywood by Ronnie Regev YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS: KAY FRANCIS

We discuss Katelyns switch to open pro this year for ASA archery, and about her podium finish at Foley, Alabama.

Our guests today included Captain Brad Bordwell, Minnesota State Patrol, and Tom Nixon, Regional Coordinator, Toward Zero Deaths.

Dave Bordwell Discusses:- More insight on Ron "8-0" Lang , the best diggers from that era, the best hitters from that era, several EPIC stories about the most FEARED guy on the beach, Steno Brunicardi, Dave's memories of winning the '62 Laguna Beach Open with partner Gordon Evans, and winning the '65 Corona Del Mar Open alongside partner Ron Von Hagen, and what transpired in his life after his playing career concluded. Support the show (https://godstoghosts.com/donate/)

Dave Bordwell Discusses:- His good friend Keith Erickson and some CLASSIC stories about him and his athletic prowess & some shenanigans' between them ( including the time they threw water balloons at people in San Diego) , the time Bordwell saw Peter Velasco hit at ball at State Beach that bounced on the restroom roof, his recollection of Ron Von Hagen and what made him so good and an amazing human, the BEST players from his era, his recollection of Gene Selznick, including how dominant Gene was on the beach, his amazing personality that drew crowds and followers, and some epic stories from the USVBA Indoor Nationals in '62 & '65, when Gene was a man amongst boys, including how Jack Jensen threw punches at Bordwell....Support the show (https://godstoghosts.com/donate/)

Dave Bordwell Discusses:- His start in the sport as a 18 year old kid in 1950 thanks to his girlfriend at the time who took him to State Beach and introduced him to Bernie Holtzman, who taught him the game, Bordwell's world class track & field talents ( running the 200 meter dash in 20.6 secs, and long jumping 25 feet 7"), his recollection of the prominent volleyball fixtures at State Beach in the 50's ( Bernie Holtzman, Gene Selznick, Ron Lang, Altie Cohen, Don McMahon, Dick Davis, etc..), a classic story about Pan Am games when he and Mike Bright got into a fight in the bathroom with some Canadian hockey players that tried to skip in front of them in line, and his recollection of legendary players Gene Selznick, Ron Lang, Mike Bright, & Mike O'Hara, including the "bad blood" rivalry between Selznick & O'Hara. Support the show (https://godstoghosts.com/donate/)

Tune in to episode 18 as Nick and Tyler speak with Katelyn from the East side of the US. Listen in as Katelyn talks about training German Short Hair Pointers, using the GSP for Duck Hunting, competing in Archery Competitions and more!! Become a Patron for $5/Month to receive larger discounts and be included in giveaways. Find us here or search Ringnecks and Retrievers at patreon.com Check out our Sponsors Gun Dog Outdoors - gundogoutdoors.com use code "Ringnecks" to save 10% Dakota283 - dakota283.com use code "RNR10" to save 10% Cornerstone Gundog Academy - Save $50 - https://www.cornerstonegundogacademy.com/a/39346/oQ3aXZZf

This episode I end my journey with “A Most Violent Year” with my friend and fellow actor Michael Bordwell. We discuss the film and more so spoilers. You can reach Mike on Facebook with Cinephile Mike and Twitter as well as Instagram at CinephileMike. As always you can reach me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with Justin Younts. Thank you for listening and sit back and enjoy.

When The Sun Meets Culture © 2020 PodcastISBN978-976-96512-2-7 During my academic tenure at New Jersey State University I was exposed to theory and practical of analysis of film a wide, shot, very wide shot, extreme wide shot, established shot, master shot and closeup a student of film and a cinematographer as Media Arts Major. The aforesaid description can be characterized as a testimony which qualifies me too tightly frame and control this intellectual conversation When The Sun Meets Culture.At the outset When The Sun Meets Culture is not only a theoretical expression but a thought which was existing coupled together and an idea that underpins the citing of physical and concrete existence. The more that I analyse this construct in this space I decided to metaphorically through my lens as an author, license cultural practitioner and Media Arts Specialist navigate this conversation through several different camera angles because these cinematic techniques allowed for greater detail. Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thomson. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 . New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.Chapter 8 – Measurement of sunshine duration" (PDF). CIMO Guide. World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-10-02. Retrieved 2008-12-01.Gittens,William Anderson Author, Cinematographer,Dip., Com., Arts. B.A. Media Arts Specialists’ Editor-in-Chief License Cultural Practitioner, Publisher, Student of Film, CEO Devgro Media Arts ServicesHigham, Charles. Hollywood Cameramen: Sources of Light . Bloomington: University of Illinois Press, 1970.LoBrutto, Vincent. Principal Photography: Interviews with Feature Film Cinematographers . Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.Lowell, Ross. Matters of Light and Depth: Creating Memorable Images for Video, Film, and Stills through Lighting . Philadelphia: Broad Street Press, 1992.Madanjeet Singh: The Sun: Symbol of Power and Life, Harry N Abram, 1993. ISBN 9780810938380Malkiewicz, Kris. Film Lighting: Talks with Hollywood's Cinematographers and Gaffers . New York: Prenctice-Hall, 1986.Rasheed, Z., Y. Sheikh, and M. Shah, "On the Use of Computable Features for Film Classification." IEEE Transactions on Circuit and Systems for Video Technology 15, no. 1 (2005).Read more: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Lighting-LIGHTING-TECHNOLOGY-AND-FILM-STYLE.html#ixzz6VXw9agYmSalt, Barry, Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis. 2nd ed. London: Starword, 1992. Original edition published in 1983.http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/energy-sources/the-sun/http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/GreenSun.htmlhttp://webexhibits.org/http://www.differencebetween.net/object/difference-between-daylight-and-soft-white-led-bulbs/http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Sp-Tl/Sun.htmlhttps://biblehub.com/commentaries/deuteronomy/4-19.htmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-uphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_timekeepinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlighthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlighthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_in_culturehttps://sciencetrends.com/5-examples-of-abiotic-factors/https://sciencing.com/https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunhttps://space-facts.com/https://www.answers.com/https://www.biologydiscussion.com/https://www.builtbrooklyn.org/https://www.careersinfilm.com/https://www.careersinfilm.com/https://www.dw.com/en/tv/tomorrow-today/s-3062https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/2-Kings-Support the show (http://www.buzzsprout.com/429292)

Questo lunedì di Pasquetta vi deliziamo con una puntata monografica sul regista zen (Bordwell ci perdoni) giapponese per eccellenza: Yasujirō Ozu. Partecipanti: Marco Grifò Gianmaria Atzei Youtube: Logo creato da: Simone Malaspina Sigla e post-produzione a cura di: Alessandro Valenti Per il jingle della sigla si ringraziano: Alessandro Corti e Gianluca Nardo

Hoyt pro shooter Katelyn Bordwell made history as the first woman to compete in the Known Pro division at the 2019 ASA Classic in Metropolis, IL. Chuck Cooley talked to her afterward about her experience.

Hoyt pro shooter Katelyn Bordwell made history as the first woman to compete in the Known Pro division at the 2019 ASA Classic in Metropolis, IL. Chuck Cooley talked to her afterward about her experience.

This week on The Spectator Film Podcast… Dial M for Murder (1954) 5.17.19 Featuring: Austin, Maxx Commentary begins at 13:17 — Notes — Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) edited by Slavoj Žižek — Here’s some of the better Lacanian criticism of Hitchcock, of which you can find a lot. I’d recommend this as a decent entry point for this type of scholarship – at least, as decent as you might find with Lacanian psychoanalysis. We relied upon some of the essays in this volume to better characterize the variety of Hitchcockian objects at play in Dial M for Murder and “Hitchcockian suspense.” The two most helpful essays for our conversation today were ‘Hitchcockian Suspense’ by Pascal Bonitzer and ‘Hitchcock’s Objects’ by Mladen Dolar – although we’ll borrow Žižek’s description of the “exchange objects” from the introduction here in the passages below: On Hitchcockian Suspense “Hitchcock’s films therefore work only if a natural order is presupposed. Everything is proceeding normally, according to routines that are ordinary, even humdrum and unthinking, until someone notices that an element in the whole, because of its inexplicable behavior, is a stain. The entire sequence of events unfolds from that point. The most characteristically Hitchcockian staging effects are always organized around such a stain. However, anything whatsoever may function as the stain inducing the gaze – the blood on the dress in Stage Fright; the glass of milk in Suspicion, ‘intensified’ by placing a small bulb inside of it; the black rectangle of the window in Rear Window and, within, that black rectangle, the red tip of the murderer’s cigarette, or, indeed, the plane in North by Northwest, which is at first no more than a speck in the sky” (20; Bonitzer). “Hitchcock’s films are full of decent, ordinary petty-bourgeois people. These are masks. Thus, in The Lady Vanishes, the good Miss Froy, with her tea and meaningless chatter, is really a spy. All the others have something else to hide, a concealed point of abjection, which the perverse element, the visible but barely perceptible stain of crime, will reveal” (21; Bonitzer). On Hitchcockian Objects “But in a series of Hitchcock’s films, we find another type of object which is decidedly not indifferent, not pure absence: what matters here is precisely its presence, the material presence of a fragment of reality – it is a leftover, remnants which cannot be reduced to a network of formal relations proper to the symbolic structure. We can define this object as an object of exchange circulating among subjects, serving as a kind of guarantee, pawn, on their symbolic relationship. It is the role of the key in Notorious and Dial M for Murder, the role of the wedding ring in Shadow of a Doubt and Rear Window, the role of the lighter in Strangers on a Train, and even the role of the child circulating between the two couples, in The Man Who Knew Too Much. It is unique, non-specular – that is, it has no double, it escapes the dual mirror-relation, which is why it plays a crucial role in those very films that are built on a whole series of dual relations, each element having its mirror-counterpart… it is the one which has no counterpart, and that is why it must circulate between the opposite elements, as if in search of its proper place, lost from the very beginning” (6; Žižek) ‘Dial M for Murder: Hitchcock frets not at his narrow room’ by David Bordwell from Observations on Film Art — Observations on Film Art, run by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, is without question one of the best, if not the best, film blog on the internet. It’s been active for years and has an incredible archive of articles and essays discussing all sorts of movies. This post on Dial M for Murder from Bordwell is characteristically insightful. Martin Scorsese on Dial M for Murder — The Academy recorded a brief video introduction from Martin Scorsese on Dial M for Murder and it’s pretty cool! Hitchcock by François Truffaut — Essential reading, despite the fact that all of two pages are dedicated to discussing Dial M for Murder. Hitchcock’s Films Revisited by Robin Wood — Robin Wood barely discusses Dial M for Murder in this book, but it remains one of the best books written about Hitchcock’s movies. Check out our Strangers on a Train episode for more resources on Alfred Hitchcock

Kate Bordwell leads design research at Skyscanner in Scotland. Yes, the website that helps you fly places for your Instagram feed. And in former lives she was an account planner and a digital strategist. So how do all these experiences inform her approach to design thinking? We discuss: - What design thinking is - Working across company silos and departments - Ways to approach ethnography - Common issues with research plans - Running workshops You can find Kate here https://twitter.com/kbordwell For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Strategy drawings: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard 3. Strategy Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard 4. Join 5,000+ strategists: http://www.sweathead.co New book "Strategy Is Your Words" out soon.

Every film is both a product of its environment, and a rebellion against it. Artists (and audiences) search for something new and fresh, but cannot escape the world as it exists around them. Die Hard is no exception. While Die Hard is often marked as a turning point in American action cinema, we must first look at the state of action cinema as it existed before 1988. What does a “typical” 80s action movie look like? What artistic and societal pressures shaped that mold? And in what ways does Die Hard break it? As we kick off this limited series, let us know what you think! Drop us a line at diehardwithapodcast@gmail.com, or visit our site at www.diehardwithapodcast.com.   Source Links A/V Club, Die Hard humanized (and perfected) the action movie Creative Screenwriting, “There is no such thing as an action movie.” Steven E. de Souza on Screenwriting David Bordwell, It's the 80s, stupid Hollywood Suite, The French Connection and the gritty realism of the 70s IndieWire, 10 Defining 1970s Disaster Movies IndieWire, Cruel Summer: Die Hard (1988) James Kendrick, Hollywood Bloodshed: Violence in 1980s American Cinema Medium, New Hollywood: Why The 70's Were The Greatest Decade In America Cinema New York Times, How the American Action Movie Went Kablooey Oxford Bibliographies, Action Movies Slate, In The Parallax View, Conspiracy Goes All the Way to the Top—and Beyond Vulture, How Die Hard Changed the Action Game   Guests Shannon Hubbell Ed Grabionowski Adam Sternbergh Katie Walsh Scott Wampler   Get In Touch Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram Patreon   Full Episode Transcript Welcome to the podcast, pal. My name is Simone Chavoor, and thank you for joining me for Die Hard With a Podcast! The show that examines the best American action movie of all time: Die Hard. Thank you to everyone who listened to the first episode of the show! It’s been so fun to get this podcast off the ground. Everyone’s been really awesome and supportive, from the listeners to the experts I’ve been talking to for the show. Starting in this episode, we’ll hear from filmmakers, film critics, and pop culture writers to get their perspectives on Die Hard and what it means as a part of film history. I’m excited to introduce them to you later in the show. If you want to share your thoughts on Die Hard and the things brought up on the podcast, reach out! Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram I’ve been trying to post lots of additional photos and facts to the social media accounts in particular. My favorite so far was a Dungeons and Dragons character alignment chart I made for Die Hard. McClane is Chaotic Good, Al Powell is Lawful Good… You’ll have to visit the pages to see the rest of who’s who on the chart. And if you like this show, kick me a buck or two on Patreon. Patreon helps to offset the cost of doing this show, not just in pure dollars and cents, but for the sheer amount of time this podcast takes to put together. This is my first solo project, and although I have the wonderful, amazing support of my guests and fans, it still takes a lot of time researching, writing, recording, and editing. Patreon There are some cool bonuses you can get, everything from shout outs on the show, to stickers, ornaments, and the bonus episode – which is TBD, because you get to vote on! So check that out, and pitch in if you can. Shout out to our contributors… Rob T, Jason H, and Saint Even! I hope I’m saying that right. Anyone who’s listened to my other podcast knows that I can’t pronounce half the names I come across. It’s amazing how good you think you are at pronouncing things until you get in front of a mic... Thank you so much! You can also support Die Hard With a Podcast by leaving a review on iTunes. With more starred ratings and written reviews, the show becomes more visible to other potential listeners, so please share the love and let me know what you think! All right. On to our main topic. Every film is both a product of its environment, and a rebellion against it. Artists (and audiences) search for something new and fresh, but cannot escape the world as it exists around them. Die Hard is no exception. While Die Hard is often marked as a turning point in American action cinema, we must first look at the state of action cinema as it existed before 1988. What does a “typical” 80s action movie look like? What artistic and societal pressures shaped that mold? And in what ways does Die Hard break it? But before we talk about 80s films, let’s talk about… 70s films. 70s cinema was a time when shit started to get real. After years of glossy studio pictures, filmmakers wanted to show things as they really were. And with Vietnam, Watergate, the oil crisis, rising crime in cities, and so much more, things were… fucked up. And the movies made then reflected that. They were dark, pessimistic, gritty, bleak. No happy endings to be found here. Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver are two of the most 70s-ish depressing-ass movies that I like to point out as an example of this. [CLIP: MIDNIGHT COWBOY - I’M WALKING HERE] With that mood in mind, let’s drill down into some specifics. [INTERVIEW: ED GRABIANOWSKI I’m Ed Grabianowski, and I am a longtime writer; I’ve written for sites like io9 and How Stuff Works and a whole bunch of others, and I also write horror and fantasy fiction. If you go back to the 70s, there weren’t really movies in the 70s that were just like action movies, like that you would just define as action movies, to the extent there were later. You instead got sort of different sub-genres; you had sort of like cops and robbers movies with gunfights and car chases, and then you had like martial arts movies with lots of fist fights and sword fights.] Within this general movement, a few particular genres stand out. There was a lot going on in 70s film as the studios’ creative control was usurped by a new wave of auteur filmmakers. Now of course, there were lots of popular genres in this moment, all important in their own ways, like science fiction, horror, spaghetti Westerns, blaxploitation films, kung-fu movies. You can see some through lines from then, to the 80s, and into Die Hard in particular. But for our discussion today, we’re going to focus on three: disaster movies, paranoid political thrillers, and rogue cops and vigilantes. Let’s start with disaster movies. [INTERVIEW: ED GRABIANOWSKI And then you had the disaster movie subgenre, which was a huge trend for a while, and that was more based on spectacle and the visuals of a disaster happening. And also interestingly tended to be more ensemble casts.] After all, As we discussed in our first episode, Die Hard was directly inspired by one of the best-known disaster movies of the 70s: 1974’s The Towering Inferno. These movies featured people going about their business – attending a party, trying to catch a flight, taking a nice little cruise. Then BAM! A fire starts, a bomb goes off, a tsunami hits. These disasters, some natural, some natural-with-the-help-of-man’s-hubris, and some entirely man-made strike large groups of people, who we quickly learn are totally expendable. We follow these thinly written characters in multiple plot lines as they try to escape, survive, or stop whatever calamity is going on. In the process, the audience gets to experience their peril... which usually includes a bunch of explosions. The Towering Inferno boasts an all-star cast that includes Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, and Fred Astaire. Our main characters are at a dedication ceremony for the new Glass Tower, the now-tallest building in the world. (As an aside, I work quite close to Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, which is currently the tallest building in San Francisco and the second-tallest west of the Mississippi. The fictional Glass Tower in the movie is taller than both of those by 500 feet. And every time I look at it I think about either The Towering Inferno or Nakatomi Tower, and neither of those are things you want to think about on your lunch break.) While at the ceremony, a fire breaks out on the 81st floor, trapping the people above. A group makes it to the roof for an attempted helicopter rescue, but the copter crashes and sets the roof on fire. After many thwarted attempts to escape, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman use plastic explosives to blow up the water tanks on the top of the building, flooding the floors below and putting out the fire. [CLIP: THE TOWERING INFERNO TRAILER] It’s easy to see how novelist Roderick Thorp could see that movie, dream about it, throw in some terrorists, and come up with the seed of Die Hard. As the Watergate scandal unfolded, the paranoid political thriller came to the fore. We’re talking Three Days of the Condor, Parallax View, and obviously All the President’s Men. These are films mostly centered on an individual uncovering a government conspiracy, and trying to either expose it or just escape with their life. But, fitting with the general mood of American cinema at the time, things usually don’t work out too well for the protagonists. Spoiler alert – in these films, usually the big bad government conspiracy gets away with it, leaving the heroes either dead or defeated. The individual, no matter what knowledge they’re armed with, is helpless against the faceless cabal that keeps the populace in line. To put it bluntly, the government is all-powerful and all-knowing, and you, the lone citizen, are fucked if you go against them. [CLIP: ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN TRAILER ] The final 70s genre we’re looking at as a direct influence to Die Hard is the “rogue cop” or “vigilante” movie. The protagonists in these films are also lone individuals, but of a different stripe than what we’ll see later: they’re the anti-heroes. They’re deeply messed up in some way. They’re the cop who doesn’t play by the rules, or the everyman who gets pushed too far by society and turns to violence. Death Wish, Dirty Harry, The French Connection. These movies manifest the existential dread of audiences who feared social upheaval, economic instability, and rising crime in cities. And then they offer the wish fulfillment of being able to buck the rules and do things your way – no matter what the police chief says. [CLIP: DIRTY HARRY] As Ed pointed out earlier, the 70s didn’t have what we consider a blanket “action movie” – as you can see, the genres we just talked about had action in them, but it wasn’t the defining characteristic of the movie. If the word “action” was used to describe a movie in generic terms at all, it was usually paired with the word “adventure” to convey something more fantastic and epic. But moreover, the action in these films was, well… kind of a bummer. Violence and destruction were used to emphasize the more troubling aspects of our society. Even if these scenes were exciting, they were heavy. They were serious. So what tipped these old genres over into a new kind of film at the start of the decade? [INTERVIEW: ED GRABIANOWSKI It just sort of happened. There’s – yes, people – there’s this sort of gestalt like, let’s take elements of all these things and make something that just embodies all of that. And that became the action movie.] Audiences were transforming from Steven and Elyse Keatons into Alex P. Keatons. But in addition to a transition from Carter and the recession to Reagan and a “greed is good” economy, the film industry in particular had new pressures and opportunities that ushered in a new era of filmmaking. David Bordwell, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, sums it up: “With the new attractiveness of the global market, the demands of home video, and increasingly sophisticated special effects, the 1980s brought the really violent action movie into its own.” Bordwell amusingly closes his exploration of 80s action movies with one, lone sentence: “I save for last the obligatory mention of Die Hard, the Jaws of the 1980s: a perfectly engineered entertainment.” Guess that statement stands on its own... The writer of Die Hard and Commando, Steven De Souza, expands on Bordwell’s point about the global market. He says, “I would argue that the genre of an ‘action movie’ is a completely false creature. There is no such thing as an action movie. All movies have action. ‘Action movie’ is a term that was invented in the ‘80s. I think Commando may have been the first one in 1985. They noticed for the first time that a handful of American movies were making more money overseas than in America. This had never happened before. Commando made 60% of its money overseas and 40% in the US. Action speaks louder than words. You don’t need to read the subtitles to know it was a bad idea to kidnap Arnold Schwarzenegger’s little girl. I disagree with the idea that there is such thing as an action movie, but we are stuck with that term now.” Well, if we’re stuck with that term, let’s go with it. So: what makes an action movie? In the 80s, “physical action and violence [became] the organizing principle, from the plot, to the dialogue, to the casting.” That’s according to academic reference site Oxford Bibliographies. Picture your typical action movie poster. There’s probably some kind of aircraft or ship or ground vehicle, maybe a hot lady kinda small and in the corner there… there’s definitely a bunch of fire… And standing tall in the middle, our hero. And he’s probably holding a gun. The lone hero is one of the defining characteristics of what we think of the stereotypical action movie. But he – and it’s almost always a “he” – is different than our “rogue cop” of the 1970s. The 80s action star was a one-man army, alone more powerful than the hordes of henchman thrown up against him. Our hero might have a sidekick or lead a small team, but in the end they’re either ineffectual and/or expendable – by the end of the film, it’s our protagonist who takes down the bad guy by himself. The action hero inhabits his body, not his mind. His powers come from physical strength (and firepower) instead of cleverness. I mean, when we meet Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, we see multiple shots of his biceps before we even see his face. As IndieWire put it, the heroes are “obscenely pumped-up one-man fighting machine[s]... outrageously entertaining comic-book depictions of outsized masculinity.” [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH My name is Adam Sternbergh. I’m a novelist and a contributing editor to New York Magazine and a pop culture journalist. 80s action films, as we think of them now, they’re very excessive, they’re all about a sort of oversized machismo and enormous guns and enormous muscles and enormous explosions. Which was very exhilarating, but I think even by the time Die Hard came out, was starting to feel a little bit tired, and there was a hunger for action film fans – certainly myself, I would have been about seventeen or eighteen, for something a little bit different.] [INTERVIEW: SCOTT WAMPLER My name is Scott Wampler, I’m the news editor at Birth. Movies. Death. I’m also the host of the Trying Times podcast. The first word that’s coming to mind is “sweaty.” When I think of action movies in the 80s I think of, you know, dudes that are super cut up, they look like condoms filled with walnuts, and they’re always glistening with sweat. And usually there’s a dirty tank top involved, or maybe some camo pants.] [INTERVIEW: SHANNON HUBBELL My name is Shannon Hubbell, I’m editor-in-chief of LewtonBus.net. I’d say action films of the 80s – I mean, it’s obviously dominated by Schwarzenegger and Stallone, and so a lot of the larger action films are centered around big, burly, unstoppable killing machines. Just barely human. Other than Terminator, that kinda thing doesn’t yank my chain. But also, you have things like, say, Escape from New York – smaller fare, different types of heroes, anti-heroes, instead of just hulking, machine-gun-spraying douchebags.] Matrix and Dutch, Rambo and Cobra – these guys were far from helpless. Once pulled into a conflict by circumstance, our hero is unstoppable. It’s a reclaiming of agency that had been taken away by faceless forces in the 70s. Our heroes’ incredible power is just that: incredible. I know this might be shocking news to you, but a lot of these 80s action movies are… unrealistic. After all, in Predator, Arnold escapes a thermo-nuclear explosion by just… running away. These guys are superheroes pretending to be regular dudes. Comic book movies weren’t so much a thing yet, although we did have that platonic ideal of a superhero – Superman – appear onscreen in ‘78, ‘81, ‘83, and ‘87. But invulnerability is okay. That’s part of the appeal. We want the heroes that fight for truth, justice, and the American way to be assured of victory. This leads into another characteristic of 80s action: patriotism. Now, of course, not all of our protagonists are American. Arnold definitely does not – er… can not – try to pass for an American, and neither can Jean Claude Van Damme. But most of our protagonists are not only American, but working-class, everymen Americans who are just trying to get by with an honest day’s work. Sometimes that honest day’s work involves special forces missions, but you know what I mean. Adam Sternbergh explains. [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH There was a sort of parallel ascent of the John Rambo paradigm, and Ronald Reagan. And Reagan was quite open about making references to Rambo, and I think Reagan at one point quoted the Dirty Harry line, “Make my day.” And there was a real sense in American culture that post the 1970s, post Jimmy Carter, post this national ennui or whatever people decided had overtaken the country, that America was being proud of being America again, and part of that was watching movies in which American POWs blow entire countries. And in fact the third Rambo movie is just sort of a ridiculous patriotism porn where he goes to Afghanistan and essentially single-handedly defeats the Russian Army in Afghanistan. That kind of action movie, I think if you look at it in a historical, sociological context, it made perfect sense for the national mood.] [CLIP: REAGAN AND RAMBO] In other words, if America was in fact a shining city on a hill, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Carl Weathers were there to guard its walls. Finally, the hallmark of an action movie is all the… [GUNSHOTS, EXPLOSIONS] If you’re having a celebration of American masculinity and strength, what else are you gonna do but blow shit up? There was certainly a fetishization of weapons in the preceding decade. Robert Blake’s character Beretta shared his name with that of a gun manufacturer, and Dirty Harry gives a whole soliloquy about his .45 Magnum. But the films that followed had to be bigger. Louder. If the 70s were the decade of the handgun, the 80s were the decade of the automatic weapon. [CLIP: NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN, HO HO HO] General explosions were also bigger and better, due to improved special effects technologies. The disaster movie of course had terrific destruction, but the buildings getting blown up were more obviously flimsy sets, if not just miniatures. And to me, the differentiating factor that separates 70s action from 80s action, was that 80s violence and destruction was… celebratory. It was fun. It was generally free of consequence. Our hero can’t die, remember? And the bad guys he’s blowing away are largely faceless cartoon characters, a dime a dozen. It was perfectly okay to sit in a theater and shove popcorn in your mouth while large-scale mayhem unfolded before your eyes. With these definitions in place, let’s go back and tick off the action movie characteristics that Die Hard shares. Lone hero? Check. John McClane is almost totally alone, with only a walkie-talkie as a tether to the outside world. The LAPD and FBI are ostensibly on his side, but they’re certainly not working with him. John must face a whole gang of terrorists by himself to rescue his wife. We’re confident that he’ll achieve his goal, even if things look dicey sometimes. [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH I mean, Die Hard was similar in the sense that it featured a sort of lone, male protagonist who’s battling against the odds, and if faced with a sort of intractable situation where he’s trying to fight his way out using his brains and brawn. An interesting parallel is the movie Commando, which came out just a couple years earlier with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he basically has 24 or 48 hours save his daughter from these evil military types. And he goes about breaking everyone’s neck and shooting a bunch of people and blowing things up, and spoiler: he saves the daughter at the end. And so in that sense, Die Hard was sort of a very familiar setup. It obviously was kind of ingenious setup because it launched its own mini-genre of movies, which was the “Die Hard in a blankity-blank movie.”] Physical prowess? Mmm, not as much. John McClane isn’t in bad shape, not at all. He’s a cop, he can brawl. But he’s not one of those guys with “gleaming sweat [and] bulging muscles that couldn’t possibly exist without chemical enhancement... A bodybuilder’s fever dream, the sort of thing he might imagine after doing a mountain of blow and watching nothing but early MTV for 48 hours,” as the AV Club puts it. [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH Everything else was moving in that direction, toward more invulnerable, more muscular, more explosive. And then Die Hard came along and said, what if a real, normal guy found himself in this situation? What would he do, and how would he prevail?] Bruce Willis’s embodiment of a wisecracking cop caught in an extraordinary situation was a key factor in John McClane’s believability. [INTERVIEW: SHANNON HUBBELL On paper, just like describing Die Hard to someone, you can totally imagine Schwarzenegger playing that role, or Stallone playing that role. It’s the details and execution that makes it different. You have a character who is fallible, and hurtable and emotionally vulnerable, which is not something that comes across in a paragraph synopsis of Die Hard.] John is a pretty regular guy. He gets tired, he gets hurt. In fact, his physical vulnerability in the original Die Hard is famous. [CLIP: SHOOT THE GLASS] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH From the very beginning of the movie, when he takes his shoes off at the beginning of the movie, you know, he’s in bare feet, he’s incredibly vulnerable and there’s this real sense that he’s this regular guy, who, there’s no way he’s going to accomplish this. He doesn’t even seem to believe it at the beginning. And it makes it so much more satisfying at the end of the movie when he does; he’s bloodied and he’s broken and his feet are bleeding. And that was just so different from that kind of Rambo, Schwarzenegger paradigm that had been established that had been so successful.] When you watch an action movie, you get the thrill of watching a superman executing a perfect plan. But watching a normal guy making it up as he goes along in Die Hard, you start to wonder – what would I do in this situation? We’ll get more into McClane’s physical and emotional vulnerability in our next episode. Patriotism? Die Hard isn’t an explicitly jingoistic film. There aren’t American flags waving as soldiers fight to defend American values. But we do have John, a white, heterosexual, working-class dude as our hero. See, not only is John representative of the American way of life, he also reflects a tension between classes within America, as well as in relationship to other world powers. Our bad guys are an International House of Terrorists, including what Ellis calls… [CLIP: ELLIS EUROTRASH] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH I think there’s definitely some quintessential American ideas of class in the movie, and it’s not a mistake that the terrorists are not just Europeans but they’re all wearing turtlenecks and sort of beautiful European clothes and then there is a whole conversation in the elevator between Hans and Mr. Takagi about their suits and their respective tailors. And John McClane’s just a guy with a singlet on, running around like Johnny Lunchbucket. And I think at that particular moment in American history, that was a very resonant idea, again because there was this sense of America’s influence in the world being undermined – in particular by Japan, but just in general. American industry and this sort of notion of the blue-collar American economy was faltering in coming out of the 1970s. There was a sense that that was changing. So McClane is interesting, and I wonder if you made Die Hard now, if he would still be a New York cop, or if they would try to make him even more of a kind of heartland hero.] It’s also worth noting the presence of another foreign “threat” in Die Hard. The Nakatomi Corporation represents a very real American fear in the 80s that the Japanese wouldn’t so much invade as they would conduct a hostile takeover. Richard Brody of The New Yorker explains: “There’s another ethnic anxiety that the movie represents—the film is centered on the Nakatomi Corporation, headed by a Japanese-American man named Joseph Takagi, which is an emblem of the then widely stoked fear that Japanese high-tech businesses were threatening to dominate the American economy.” At the time, the Japanese economy was booming thanks to post-World War II reconstruction and a strong manufacturing industry. Japanese corporations began buying American companies, starting with car factories, steel works, and media companies – industries that are held as quintessentially American. [CLIP: TAKAGI TAPE DECKS] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH It also has interesting strains of things that were happening in politics at the time, you know, the whole idea of a Japanese corporation that’s come to America and is a powerful corporation, and then the American inevitably has to save them. There’s a little mini-genre of 80s-era films that were sort of about America’s anxiety about Japan’s rising influence in the world. So I think a little bit of that is in Die Hard. You know, this sort of twist of having the terrorists be political terrorists who just turn out to be greedy robbers, was a little bit of a wink at the notion that all the other movies were about politics.] As Adam points out, American fear of this so-called threat can be seen in more than just Die Hard. 1986’s Gung Ho is specifically about a Japanese company buying Michael Keaton’s character’s auto plant. The Back to the Future series (which kicked off in 1985) also has a few telling moments. [CLIP: BACK TO THE FUTURE ALL THE BEST STUFF IS MADE IN JAPAN] [CLIP: BACK TO THE FUTURE II McFLY’S BOSS] In Die Hard, Nakatomi is positioned as not just another Japanese mega-corporation with more money than they know what to do with, but it’s also the company that is threatening to take Holly away from John. Okay, onto our last action movie qualifier: [CLIP: GUNSHOTS, EXPLOSIONS] Welp, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Die Hard has big explosions and over-the-top stunts. Lots of ‘em – and really good ones, too. They’re well choreographed and a pleasure to watch. Plus, they keep their own sense of fun. Having your hero dispatch a bad guy and follow it with a quippy remark is a classic action movie cliche. [CLIP: FEET SMALLER THAN MY SISTER] But the difference is that Bruce Willis has the comedy acting chops to actually pull it off. Look, Arnold’s great at a lot of things, but line delivery ain’t one of ‘em. [CLIP: LET OFF SOME STEAM] In the end, Die Hard is very much in the mold of traditional 80s action movies – and where it breaks that mold, is where it improves upon it. Hollywood’s been trying to recapture that magic ever since. [INTERVIEW: SCOTT WAMPLER I would say that it probably broke a general mold that had a hold on Hollywood for at least a decade. Outside of the work of say, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, who – you know, Schwarzenegger did a lot of sci-fi stuff, and Stallone – Stallone’s always been pretty ‘oo-rah American.’ But I think Hollywood as a whole, it definitely reformed the template, you know? There were shock waves coming off of Die Hard for at least a decade. You can still feel them.] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH I remember sitting in the theater and watching the movie and just being completely blown away by how great it was and how fresh it felt. That is really the thing I wonder if people watching it now can appreciate, is just how it felt like this gust of fresh air, given all the films that had come before. And those action films again, they were all tightly packed in in just like six or seven years in the 80s. It was a very sort of young genre itself. But this kinda came in and it was just a complete reinvention of what an action film could be, and John McClane was a completely different kind of hero, and it was so exhilarating.] The elevated craft of Die Hard, from the airtight script to McTiernan’s direction to De Bont’s cinematography, to the performances of Willis and Rickman, took what could have been an unremarkable summer flick and turned it into a classic. [INTERVIEW: KATIE WALSH My name’s Katie Walsh. I am a film critic for the Tribune News Service and LA Times. You know, you see enough bad action movies, and then you watch Die Hard, and you’re like, “This is so impeccably made.” The cinematography is gorgeous, there’s these amazing camera movements, and the lighting and all of the stuff that’s going on is just so perfect. And then you’re like, “Okay, this is a perfect movie.” I think cinephiles now are saying John McTiernan’s an amazing director, Jan De Bont is an amazing cinematographer, the craft that goes into this movie is impeccable, and it’s a very well-made movie; I think people are recognizing that.] In our next episode, we’ll dig in to arguably the most important contributor to Die Hard’s success: the character of John McClane, and Bruce Willis’s portrayal of him. So get ready, take off your shoes, make some fists with your toes, and join us next time. Thank you to our guests Adam Sternbergh, Scott Wampler, Shannon Hubbell, Ed Grabionowski, and Katie Walsh. Be sure to check the show notes on the website to learn more about them. Thanks again for joining me, and yippee-kai-yay, motherfuckers!  

Recentemente popularizou-se um formato de vídeo no youtube com títulos como “Final Explicado”, “Tal Filme Explicado”, “Explicando tal filme” e assim por diante. Esses vídeos têm atingido um número expressivo de visualizações o que mostra um interesse do público em analisar mais profundamente uma obra, ou simplesmente entender o que talvez não tenha ficado muito claro ao assisti-la. Segundo David Borwell e Kristen Thompson no livro “A Arte de Cinema”, um filme pode conter até 4 tipo de significados. Entende-los é fundamental para uma melhor apreciação de filme. Referências Bibliográficas: BORDWELL, David. THOMPSON, Kristen. A Arte do Cinema - Uma Introdução. EDUSP; Edição: 1ª (10 de maio de 2014)

Happy four year anniversary of Flixwise! I hope you'll find that the fundamental things still apply, as time goes by. On this milestone episode, Lady P is joined by an esteemed film scholar and all-around snappy dresser, David Bordwell to discuss none other than Casablanca. They see if it lives up to its reputation as the quintessential Hollywood movie, not just of the 1940s but of all time, and consider if it's worth of its 78th spot on the Sight & Sound List. For a second topic they turn to the subject of David Bordwell's book, Reinventing Hollywood; How 1940s filmmakers changed movie storytelling. Mostly it's just an excuse to talk Joan Crawford. 

This week, The Film Comment Podcast welcomes back seminal critic David Bordwell to discuss his new book Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling. Instead of approaching the decade through the lens of one genre or auteur, Bordwell thinks about the stylistic hallmarks that distinguished the decade—for example, screenwriting conventions like flashbacks—and how they paved the way for the classical Hollywood form we might take for granted today. Bordwell joins Imogen Sara Smith, frequent FC and Criterion contributor, and Violet Lucca, FC Digital Producer and podcast moderator, for a journey into (and even Out of) the cinematic past.

Mitch Brian returns to talk about Bordwell's theory of intensified continuity, Hudson's heroic death, and Cameron's love of the closeup. 

Before anything else, films are objects that present a sensorial experience. To understand how they function—as industrial products, as societal mirrors, as ideological machines—we must understand how they interact with our minds and make us think. For the five year anniversary of The Cinephiliacs, Manohla Dargis joins the cast to talk exactly that. The New York Times critic discusses her childhood movie love of watching objects without inhibition and her writing as a form of translating the way of watching films. She also chats about the past and future of the Times, and how the institutional changes have affected the practice of criticism in a digital age. Finally, Manohla and Peter examine Charles Burnett's independent masterpiece Killer of Sheep, examining how the filmmaker's stark portrayal of impoverished black life resonates to today through poetic realism. Plus, a brief chat with James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, whose new film, The Republic, is currently streaming on MUBI. 0:00-3:09 Opening 4:23-14:00 Establishing Shots — Five Years of The Cinephiliacs 14:46-47:15 Deep Focus — Manohla Dargis 48:28-1:07:42 Sponsorship Section — An Interview with The Republic team, James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir 1:09:00-1:23:28 Double Exposure — Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett) 1:23:32-1:28:38 Close / Outtake

In his recently published book The Rhapsodes, seminal critic and film historian David Bordwell pays tribute to four groundbreaking film critics who were writing in the 1940s: Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber, and Parker Tyler. Through meticulous examinations of their rarely read, multidisciplinary writings and moving biographical accounts, Bordwell paints a vivid portrait of their cultural milieux and makes the case for the uniqueness and importance of their work. Digital Editor Violet Lucca spoke with Bordwell about the genesis of his book and the unparalleled legacy of his “rhapsodes,” in the company of regular FILM COMMENT contributor Nick Pinkerton.

Truffaut remarked there was cinema before Godard and cinema after Godard. The academic discipline of Film Studies could be said to have its own Godard in David Bordwell, the author of some of the most influential books in understanding the history of film style. In this sprawling conversation, David discusses his upbringing that led him to movies and his first steps in helping spearhead the neo-formalist movement of film criticism. He looks back at the formation of poetics, his role in thinking about the conventions that tell us a film story, the role of auteurism as problem-solvers, and how popular film criticism has influenced in his more recent work. They swing through conversations on art history, Jean-Luc Godard, new media, Hong Kong filmmaking, and Robin Wood. Finally, David and Peter discuss Daisy Kenyon, a 1947 Joan Crawford-Dana Andrews-Henry Fonda melodrama from Otto Preminger with so many radical choices in its delivery of narrative one might mistake it for being a subversive text, even if it's all convention. 0:00-2:40 Opening3:27-10:22 Establishing Shots - Texture and Claire Denis11:07-1:27:05 Deep Focus - David Bordwell1:28:10-1:30:37 Mubi Sponsorship1:32:20-1:52:00 Double Exposure - Daisy Kenyon (Otto Preminger)1:52:02-1:56:23 Close

If you've taken a film studies course in the last couple decades, you likely came across Film Art on the required book purchases. Chances are you first learned how to investigate the structure of a film (narrative, editing, mise-en-scene, sound, etc) before learning how to recognize ideology, or apply psychoanalytic theories. Wherever one's interest lie in looking at cinema, the work by film scholar Kristin Thompson over the last four decades has provided intensive groundwork into looking at Hollywood cinema's most intuitive principles and beyond. Kristin sits down to traces her entrance into academic film studies and developing a method for understanding form as adapted from Russian theories, the history of classical structure as developed by Hollywood and its legacy both abroad in the silent era and continuing into even today's so-called "VFX-driven" movies, and her work on The Lord of the Rings franchise and its game-changing success in the new century. Finally, the two sit down to look at John Ford's How Green Was My Valley, which employs unique methods of narrative strategy and compositional staging to create a poetic "three-hankie picture" (and well deserving of its 1941 Oscar). 0:00-3:03 Opening4:21-11:36 Establishing Shots - Manhunter12:21-58:18 Deep Focus - Kristin Thompson59:27-1:02:07 Mubi Sponsorship1:03:49-1:22:27 Double Exposure - How Green Was My Valley (John Ford)1:22:31-1:24:09 Close

So often we spend our time thinking about what we see in movies, that it can be easy to forget that cinema is experienced through time, and that experience depends on a tempo. Professor Lea Jacobs at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has been curious about how rhythm creates film, and her new book, Film Rhythm After Sound, attempts to answer what it meant for movies to not just take on sound in the 1930s, but work through new types of interactions between shots, gestures, edits, sounds, speeds, and more. Jacobs also discusses her work on theatrical stage acting in the 1910s, understanding the Production Code as an industry as opposed to just a censor board, and the importance of historical research as part of Madison's legendary film department. Finally, the two dive into Howard Hawks's masterpiece, Only Angels Have Wings, and theorize a relationship between the film's rhythmic patterns and its unique relationship to sentiment. 0:00-2:19 Opening2:58-8:31 Establishing Shots - Bojack Horseman, Season 29:16-1:02:36 Deep Focus - Lea Jacobs1:03:16-1:05:31 Mubi Sponsorship1:06:45-1:20:14 Double Exposure - Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)1:20:19-1:21:57 Close

Close reading is a classic humanities methodology for the analysis and understanding of texts across a variety of media. It’s a rigorous discipline — in the words of van Looy and Baetans: “The text is never trusted at face value, but is torn to pieces and reconstituted by a reader who is at the same time a demolisher and a constructor.” This is a difficult task — the practice of close reading requires that the scholar immerse herself in the experience of the text on its own terms, and at the same time maintain a critical distance in order to observe and understand the construction and the effects of the text. Bizzocchi relies on close reading for his own scholarly work and uses various strategies to reconcile the contradictory states of experience and analysis. Close reading can be used to explicate works across a variety of dimensions: thematic, cultural, historical, sociological, and others. Bizzocchi’s goal is to understand the poetics — the creative decisions — embedded in media works. Bordwell describes poetics as “inquiry into the fundamental principles by which artifacts in any representational medium are constructed, and the effects that flow from these principles”. Bizzocchi has always loved the magic of immersion in the experience of the moving image. As a scholar, he says his role is “to seek within that immersive experience the details of how the magic is created”. He will present his analyses of Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair, Tom Tykwer’s Run, Lola, Run, and Gerrie Villon and Alex Mayhew’s Ceremony of Innocence (an interactive adaptation of The Griffin and Sabine trilogy by Nick Bantock). Jim Bizzocchi is an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. His research includes work on narrative, interactive narrative, and the evolution of the moving image. He teaches classes in these areas, and is a recipient of the University Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a practicing video artist, creating award-winning works in a genre he calls “Ambient Video”. Jim is a graduate of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program (2001).