A Selection of this week’s cultural activites (27/09/10 - 03/10/10)

It’s important to see these activities in context with the work I am undertaking with the Open College of the Arts and the Open Studies Department at Warwick University.  

Films

Billy Rose’s Jumbo (Charles Walter, MGM, USA, 1962)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, RKO, USA, 1941)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Columbia Pictures,USA,2009)
Double Take (Johan Grimonprez, Nikovantastic Film, BE/GR/FR, 2009)
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, Universal International Pictures, USA, 1959)
Madame X (David Lowell Rich, Universal Pictures, USA, 1966)
Miller’s Crossing (Joel and Ethan Coen, Twentieth Century Fox, USA, 1990)
Soulboy (Shimmy Marcus, Ipso Facto Films, UK, 2010)

·         Double Take was a very interesting idea. Though fictional, it could be considered in the same arena as Adam Curtis’s films. I think the theme of doppelgangers was in line with Hitchcock’s the ‘wrong man’ theme but more specifically the doppelganger is present in Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, Universal Pictures, USA, 1943).  This is evident in mirroring of the characters, Uncle Charlie and his niece ‘Young Charlie’. It could be suggested, that ultimately they represent the two sides of human nature.

Television

‘The Rejected’, episode four, Mad Men, fourth series, USA, BBCHD, tx. 29.09.2010.
episode two, Downton Abbey, first series, UK, ITV, tx. 03.10.2010
‘Will’s Dilemma’, episode three, The Inbetweeners, third series, UK, E4, tx. 27.09.2010.
episode four, This is England ’86, first series, UK, Channel 4, tx. 28.09.2010

Radio

The Film Programme, 2010. [Radio programme] BBC, BBC Radio 4, 01 October 2010 16.30.

'Lora Meredith' (Lana Turner) poses for an advertisement in
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, Universal International Pictures, USA, 1959)

Reading

Mulvey, Laura. (1977). Notes on Sirk and Melodrama. Movie. 25 (Winter 1977/78) pp. 53-6
Wood Robin. (1989) Hitchcock’s Films Revisited. New York: Columbia University Press.

I’m not ashamed to say I’m a fan of melodrama. After being introduced to Douglas Sirk last year, I’ve developed a fixation on his work. I am also aware of the reconsideration of Sirk’s oeuvre in the 1970’s, in the light of feminism and psychoanalysis.

With the screening of Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, USA, 1959) this week, I decided to investigate Sirk a bit further, and dig out my copy of Mulvey’s ‘Notes on Sirk on Melodrama’’. Apart from now being able to understand the psychoanalytical analysis, I was surprised that it linked nicely in with my Open College of the Arts Project 5 (ideology and interpellation).

It states that 1950’s cinematic melodrama, through textual analysis, exposes ideological contradictions that undermine the film’s bourgeoise coherence. Specifically, having the ideological function to work these contradictions to the film’s surface and transforming them into an aesthetic form. 

This could be an example where ideology acts in an overt way in visual culture; especially in classical Hollywood cinema. Though, instead of reinforcing the hegemony of American culture it subverts it.
Image Source:
‘'Lora Meredith' (Lana Turner) poses for an advertisement ' [online] Available at: http://theartofmemory.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html/> [Accessed 09 November 2010]