| July 2005
Film & Television | Performing
Arts - Music | Popular Culture | Publishing Film & Television
G1 - Mobilizing the Museum: Film at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in the 1920s
Wasson, Haidee
Framework, Vol. 46, No.1, Spring 2005, pp.83-93
The 1920s are commonly understood as the period during which American
film business consolidated to become the dominant international
culture industry referred to as Hollywood cinema. Most well known
of the art museum's forays into film is the 1935 establishment
of the Museum of Modern Art's Film Library, a moment that boldly
announced film as a new and distinct modern art form. Wasson examines
the museum's film activities and considers their importance for
thinking about the impact of cinema on institutions of art and
the importance of these same institutions for thinking about the
history of the silent screen beyond the main street marquee. Haidee
Wasson is Assistant Professor in the MeI Hoppenheim School of
Cinema at Concordia University and McKnight Landgrant Professor
of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University
of Minnesota. Fulltext
G2 - Beyond Subtitles - Some Thoughts on Viewing Foreign
Language Films
Trbic, Boris
Bright Lights Film Journal, May 2005, #48
“One would argue that, even with the most accurate and perceptive
translation, the viewer is bound to miss out on the linguistic
subtleties in a foreign language film. In other cases, the viewer
can, in spite of the best intentions and abilities of the translator,
miss out on the specific cultural references in a foreign language
film. The key to viewing a foreign language film is the active
participation of the audience. Observing subtitled translation
in conjunction with other forms of verbal and nonverbal language
broadens the scope and assists the audience in grasping the core
of a filmmaker’s ideas.” Fulltext
G3 - Extreme Makeover: The Changing Face of Documentary
Arthur, Paul
Cineaste, Summer 2005, v 30, # 3, pp18-24 , 6p
From, 1996 to 2002, an average of fifteen documentaries were released
theatrically to the domestic market, usually for limited runs
in a couple of theaters in selected cities. Since documentary
budgets are, by industry standards, incredibly small, with advertising
costs almost nonexistent, a box-office gross of a million dollars
is generally considered boffo business; roughly four docs a year
reached that lofty plateau. Here, Arthur pinpoints the relationship
of recent nonfiction cinema to fictional strategies and focuses
on the major documentary subgenres that have emerged in the last
few years. Fulltext
G4 - The Political Documentary in America Today
Cineaste, Summr 2005, v30, # 3, p29-, 8p
Over the last few years, there has been a virtual renaissance
of the documentary in American, with many feature-length documentaries
enjoying unprecedented theatrical distribution and garnering numerous
awards. Here, several distributors, exhibitors, filmmakers, and
scholars share their views regarding the recent proliferation
of topical political documentaries in the US. Among others, Renov
argues that the new commercial life for documentary, the higher
profile of the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore deserve to
be considered in the light of history. Fulltext
Popular Culture
G5 - Goodwill Hunting
Bayles, Martha
The Wilson Quarterly. Summer 2005, v29, #3; p46-, 9p
"To walk through the Zoologischer Garten district of Berlin
is to experience a version of America, but just a block away,
on the relatively quiet Hardenbergstrasse, stands a small building
that between 1957 and 1998 represented the best of US cultural
diplomacy: Amerika Haus. Cultural diplomacy is a dimension of
public diplomacy, a term that covers an array of efforts to foster
goodwill toward America among foreign populations. But there is
scant encouragement in polls that in more than 20 countries, a
plurality of respondents see America's influence in the world
as 'mainly negative.' Bayles further expounds American pop culture's
ambiguous role abroad." Fulltext
G6 - Culture in the Age of Blogging
Teachout, Terry
Commentary, June 2005, v119, #6, pp39-49
According to recent surveys conducted by the Pew Internet &
American Life Project, 11 million American adults claim to have
started blogs and 27 percent of Internet users report that they
read them. Most of these are homemade and purely personal ventures
of interest mainly to friend and family. Here, Teachout discusses
the culture in the age of blogging.Terry Teachout is Commentary's
regular music critic and the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal.
Fulltext
G7 - Off Course
Massing, Michael
Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 2005, v 44, # 2, pp28-34
This article is about “how the hip and ambitious coverage of pop
culture at our most influential newspaper manages to miss half
the story.” The author primarily analyzes popular culture coverage
in the New York Times, but also compares it to pop culture presentation
in other media and portrays some of the research institutes that
deal with popular culture and its impact on society. He suggests
that the New York Times nearly 100 culture editors and reporters
should not only concentrate on New York coverage. Thus, “the Times
could help spark a debate about pop culture and its consequences…
Given its vast influence, the Times, by covering pop culture more
fully, could help get a national discussion going… That, in turn,
might give entertainment executives new incentives … to consider
the social effects of what they produce.” Michael Massing
is a contributing editor to Columbia Journalism Review and the
author of the book: “Now They Tell Us: the American Press and
Iraq.” Fulltext
Performing Arts - Music
G8 -Metal Faces, Rap Masks: Identity and Resistance in
Hip Hop's Persona Artist
Hess, Mickey
Popular Music & Society; July 2005, v28, #3, p297-, 15p
"This paper studies two specific examples of the rap artist
persona as resistance strategy, and builds upon several theories
of hip-hop identity and resistance. Using Tricia Rose's concept
of rap music as hidden transcript, and Russell A. Potter's idea
of rap's postmodern play-as-resistance, the author argues that
certain hip-hop acts intentionally split or obscure their artist
identities to subvert material conditions for the rap performer,
and to negotiate their own position within the conflicting standards
of authenticity and marketability put forth by the ghetto and
recording industry." Fulltext
Publishing
G9 - Exclusively Yours
Milliot, Jim
Publishers Weekly, June 20, 2005, v252, #25, pp28-29
The articles focuses on the growing interest in proprietary publishing
in the U.S. Proprietary publishing repurposes material, and the
books are made to be sold exclusively by a certain retailer. The
article compares proprietary and custom publishing and discusses
proprietary publishing employed by various companies to either
promote its books or to strengthen customer loyalty. Fulltext
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