The Big Picture Magazine Issue 18 by Intellect Ltd

Games

www.thebigpicturemagazine.com November/December 2012

Exploring Cinema's Subconscious

contents

Issue Eighteen. November/December 2012 Features

0 6 | Spotlight Pt.1 Masters of Disguise: Altered Identity in Film

1 0 | Spotlight Pt.2 Mind Games: Exploring Cinema's Subconscious

1 8 | Widescreen A Perfect Match: Chris Moloney's Unique Form of Filmography

2 2 | Architecture & Film Masterful Miniatures: The Art of Creating Believable Environments

2 6 | 1000 Words The Dream Team: Dali and Hitch Visualize the Subconscious

Regulars

cover image altered states (ÂŠ 1980 Warner Bros. Pictures)

'What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it.' R.P. McMurphy

0 4 | Reel World Fight Club

24 | Four Frames Altered States

3 0 | On Location Mumbai, India

3 5 | Screengem The Typewriter in Delirious

3 8 | Parting Shot Heads Up: Very Unusual Headgear

4 2 | Listings A Roundup of this Issue's Featured Films

The Big Picture ISSN 1759-0922 ÂŠ 2012 intellect Ltd. Published by Intellect Ltd. The Mill, Parnall Road. Bristol BS16 3JG / www.intellectbooks.com Editorial office Tel. 0117 9589910 / E: info@thebigpicturemagazine.com Publisher Masoud Yazdani Chief Editor & Art Direction Gabriel Solomons Editor Neil Mitchell Contributors Nicola Balkind, Rob Beames, Jez Conolly, Helen Cox, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Scott Jordan Harris, Neil Mitchell, Chris Rogers, Gabriel Solomons, Helio San Miguel Please send all email enquiries to: info@thebigpicturemagazine.com / www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

Published by

intellect

| www.intellectbooks.co.uk

November/December 2012

reel world f i l m b e yo n d t h e b o r d e r s o f t h e s c r e e n

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Heavy Hitters Sometimes life can imitate art in disturbing ways, he le n c ox breaks the first rule to look at Fight Club's offscreen copycats.

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dav i d fi nc her' s psychodrama Fight Club (1999) initially attracted critical attention for its perfectlyexecuted twist: that our suspiciously flaky narrator and the audacious Tyler Durden are in fact the same person; two split personalities in conflict within our protagonist. Though based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, and thus clearly a work of fiction the representation of Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID) within the narrative is deeply sympathetic to the experience of actual real-life sufferers. The narrator speaks about long periods of insomnia and life feeling like a “copy of a copy.” Indeed, an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality is often quoted as a symptom.

Fight Club’s real-life reflections do not, however, stop at a candid deconstruction of a complicated and much misunderstood mental illness. After the film’s release, several American communities saw fight clubs being founded on their doorsteps. USA Today reported in 2006 that “techies” in Menlo Park California had formed their own underground Fight Club in which they instigated violent street brawls. Even more shocking though was the 2009 report in The Washington Times that insinuated 17 year old Manhattanite Kyle Shaw was “mimicking Brad Pitt’s Fight Club character” after being arrested for planning an explosion outside a Starbucks Coffee Shop. Certainly, the behaviour of these individuals does mirror that of Durden who asks: “how much can you possibly know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?” Whether the film truly inspires such behaviour or just makes for a convenient scapegoat for those with antisocial tendencies however, is a divisive debate. [tbp]

[web ] 'Are there real-life fight clubs?' by Josh Clark » http://people.howstuffworks.com November/December 2012

Masters of Disguis� 6 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

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SPOTLIGHT pt.1 CINEM A ' S THEM ATIC STR A NDS

Does a change of body mean a change of self? C h r i s R o g e r s goes undercover to take a closer look at Altered identity in film.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT BRUCE WILLIS AND Joseph Gordon-Levitt ( LOOPER) HUMPHREY BOGART AND LAUREN BACALL ( DARK PASSAGE) NICHOLAS CAGE AND JOHN TRAVOLTA ( FACE OFF)

whom lack of face and body permits everything. Speaking with another’s voice can also be an effective mask, as Rick Rossovich finds in the gently comedic romantic Roxanne. A literal change of physical identity adds layers of meaning. The fugitive criminal undergoing plastic surgery is common to the point of cliché. The noir thriller Dark Passage, however, escapes the limitations of the trope and its purpose as a star vehicle for Lauren Bacall and her then husband. Teasingly, its first act is shot entirely from the point of view of Humphrey Bogart’s character, whose face is therefore never seen, up to the moment where he removes his bandages and looks in the mirror at his new self. Fifty years later Face/ Off audaciously subverted the same cliché to permit enjoyably grandstanding performances from its leads. Constructing another identity, almost always with the intent of freeing the self, is typically a decisive act by the protagonist, though the consequences are not always positive. As disturbing today as it was on release, John Frankenheimer’s Seconds savages the American dream, reinforced in the post-war boom, that a man can become whatever he wants to become.

identit y, the awareness of self is such a definitional part of what it is to be human that film-makers have explored the concept continuously and often inventively, although hidden or changed identity could be said to be fundamental to the creation of all dramatic film, involving as that does an actor assuming a persona. Since cinema and psychoanalysis arrived simultaneously in 1895-6, the presence of a psychological element in many of these films is unsurprising. Disguise – the masking of self – occurs in every genre and every style of film, from the war movie to the period drama. It may be presented simply, as with Douglas Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro, or more intricately, as with The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert or the orgy sequence in Eyes Wide Shut where every character is concealed (or perhaps revealed) morally as well as physically. Masked and costumed ‘superheroes’ are also cloaking differences in their skills and origins, underlined in Watchmen. A mask may be virtual yet still retain its power. H.G. Wells’s invisible man has had many screen incarnations, with Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow Man the most visceral and least restrained in its depiction of a man for

A literal change of physical identity adds layers of meaning. The fugitive criminal undergoing plastic surgery is common to the point of cliché.

November/December 2012

spotlight masters of disguise

above ROCK HUDSON SUFFERS( SECONDS) opposite natalie portman gets intense ( black swan)

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John Frankenheimer’s Seconds savages the American dream, reinforced in the post-war boom, that a man can become whatever he wants to become.

Its unsettling, psychedelic visual style drives the story of Arthur Hamilton’s desire toward an ending that is one of the most harrowing imaginable. Hamilton suffered from a decision to change that was not fully informed; Francis Dollarhyde, Jame Gumb and Bruce Wayne had no such excuse, though suffer equally haunting effects. Their attempts to attain new identities, as depicted in Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, are calculated and considered. Different motivations and methods are apparent, and strikingly all three employ creatures – dragon, moth, bat – as emblems or waypoints in that transition. A change of identity imposed by others is even more poignant, and the Cold War has been an obvious but effective backdrop for examining this idea. The term ‘brainwashing’ was first coined in 1950 during the Korean War. Richard Condon’s 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate examined the horrifying possibilities of this process, and three years later John Frankenheimer once more realised an exceptional film adaptation. Dazzling in its visual flair, remarkably assured sequences must come close to allowing us to know what brainwashing feels like. Similar scenes in The Ipcress File are somewhat more conventional in execution. In the little-seen but absorbing Who? a scientist from the West is involved in a car accident in Warsaw Pact territory. After weeks of surgery and recovery he is returned by his Red carers, but there is a catch – he was so seriously injured that his face has been replaced by a metal mask and his voice has altered. Is he who he says he is, or is he an imposter? Agent Elliot Gould is assigned to find out, and the extended conversations between him and his charge develop into a meditation on identity and the freedoms and constraints that concept imposes. The conclusion is teasing yet fulfilling, exploiting the ambiguity of a time when the population was struggling to comprehend the duplicity of Vietnam and Watergate. Inhabiting a different body – yours or someone else’s – brings its own concerns. The rash of

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undetected from their supposed pasts, in a collision of memory, age and doubt. Knowingly entering another world vicariously is often deemed healthy, at least initially. Whether fighting (Avatar, Avalon, Gamer), relaxing (Westworld, Futureworld) or merely living (Surrogates), participants project themselves into an alternate place that confers a new identity, as soldier, boxer, gunslinger or simply a better version of themselves. A reckoning is, as ever, not far away. Characters in The Matrix, on the other hand, were placed in simultaneous realities with simultaneous identities. Whatever the level of complexity or transparency, the question of whether a person retains their inner nature even as their outer body changes its form or location is usually being posed. The answer is for us to decide. [tbp]

‘body swap’ comedies of the 1970s and 80s, including Freaky Friday and Vice Versa, took a populist approach, albeit with no little pathos in the case of Big. Unsurprisingly, though, they found a more serious analogue in science fiction. The neat Xchange matter-offactly introduces a commercialised service for instant occupation of another’s body for business purposes, a hook for a standard thriller that is nevertheless laced with philosophical insights. Arising from the pen of Philip K. Dick, master of the uncertain reality, Imposter, Total Recall and Blade Runner all spin a web around impersonation. Physical identity is often layered in these films – Hauser is hidden within Doug Quaid who is in turn hidden within a woman’s body at one point; Rachael appears human but is in fact a replicant, though informed by the memories of Tyrell’s niece (who may herself be a replicant). Of the many anime that address bodily identity, Ghost in the Shell is the most reflective, as a cyborg special forces officer considers her remaining humanity. Science fiction has also looked at entering the mind of another for a shared experience and, perhaps, a shared identity. Films such as the underrated Brainstorm, the very powerful The Dead Zone and Dreamscape, made within a year of each other, plus The Cell and Inception. Eventual realisation in film of the simstim sequences in William Gibson’s Neuromancer in which Case rides in Molly’s head will no doubt add to this canon. Michael Mann’s non-genre Manhunter takes the subject metaphorically, though at correspondingly traumatic cost. Identity is further complicated by duality in films as varied as Dead Ringers, Bullitt and Black Swan, and the passage of time in Twelve Monkeys and Looper. This last is expanded in Project X and 36 Hours, a pair of outstanding yet virtually unknown thrillers from the late 1960s in which the lead characters are injected into an artificial present so that information might be extracted

Identity is further complicated by duality in films as varied as Dead Ringers, Bullitt and Black Swan, and the passage of time in Twelve Monkeys and Looper.

[BOOK] Identity: Sociological Perspectives by Stephanie Lawler (2007) November/December 2012

spotlight pt.2 c i n e m a ' s t h e m at i c s t r a n d s

Images: ÂŠ 1950 Universal International Pictures (UI)

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Games

Film-makers have long had a fascination with the inner workings of the mind. NICOLA BAL KIND and Rob be am e s put their heads together to explore cinema's subconscious. Harvey (1950) Dir. Henry Koster

above/opposite james stewart is not alone

Compassion and positive reactions to Elwood’s polite and wise storytelling manners bring out the best in his friends (many of them freshly acquired).

Mild manners outshine peculiar behaviour in Henry Koster’s Harvey. James Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd – a name with which you’ll become familiar. The film is, at its core, an odd couple friendship. Elwood enthusiastically squires his friend around town, introducing himself and his púca, Harvey, to everyone they meet. Soon it becomes clear why some run screaming: Harvey is an invisible friend in the form of a six foot, three and a half inch tall rabbit. This unconventional friendship is a source of stress for Elwood’s high-strung sister Veta (Josephine Hull) and her boyfriend-seeking daughter Myrtle Mae (Victoria Horne). Their decision to have Elwood committed results in a chase – a run-around of bodies and emotions. Compassion and positive reactions to Elwood’s polite and wise storytelling manners bring out the best in his friends (many of them freshly acquired). This theatre of the mind disregards psychoanalysis in favour of the discovery that genuine behaviour and the practice of overcoming others’ peculiarities are life’s greatest teachers. [Nicola Balkind]

November/December 2012

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Persona (1966) Dir. Ingmar Bergman Persona explores the element of choice in mental illness. When actress Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullmann) falls mute with no physical or mental explanation, she comes under the care of a young nurse named Alma (Bibi Andersson). Though she expresses concerns that she is too young and inexperienced to handle Elisabeth’s case, Alma begins caring for the silent patient – but soon finds that in sharing her secrets, her personality and Elisabeth’s persona are beginning to merge. Bergman’s stark lighting and bold composition of the hospital both outline and sharply contrast the complex exchange of emotions between Elisabeth’s nervous tension and Alma’s relaxed, caring conduct. In turn her kindness is complemented by the seeming ease of their countryside retreat. The film’s minimalist look also enhances the poetry of anxiety and abandonment, images of selfimmolation, revealing emotional moments, and dramatic actions: all playing into the psychological mysteries of the film which, Bergman claims, saved his life. [Nicola Balkind]

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The film’s minimalist look ... enhances the poetry of anxiety and abandonment, images of self-immolation, revealing emotional moments, and dramatic actions. above Jack Nicholson as McMurphy top left Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann

spotlight mind games

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Dir: Miloš Forman

McMurphy, though a criminal and certainly a disreputable character, is by contrast one of Nicholson's most amiable characters...

One of those extremely rare Best Picture Oscar winners that you could genuinely make a case for as that year's best movie, Miloš Forman's film is a career-best for nearly everybody involved, most notably star Jack Nicholson. His instantly iconic portrayal of unpredictable mental patient Randle McMurphy would loom large over the rest of his career informing his casting as dangerously insane people in such films as Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989). Yet McMurphy, though a criminal and certainly a disreputable character, is by contrast one of Nicholson's most amiable characters - doing his best to help his fellow inmates overcome their various inhibitions and take joy in life, bringing him into conflict with the notorious Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). There is some question as to whether or not McMurphy is genuinely insane, or whether he is simply crying insanity to escape regular prison and hard labour (as he claims). However, his many misdemeanours stiffen Ratched's resolve to get him in line - with tragic consequences - enabling the film to explore the perils of institutionalisation. [Rob Beames] November/December 2012

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Dir: Michel Gondry

Ultimately the film explores whether there is any meaningful difference between reality and our own perception of the world.

Abre los ojos (1997) Dir: Alejandro Amenábar Alejandro Amenábar's psychological sci-fi thriller explores identity, memory, sanity and the blurring of dream and reality to head-scratching effect. Eduardo Noriega stars as César, a beautiful and wealthy young man, whose carefree, womanising lifestyle is disrupted when he suffers serious facial disfigurement in a car crash. Having gone from a pretty boy with the world at his feet to a person most can barely look in the eye, César's demeanour and temperament irrevocably change. He soon becomes obsessed with Sofia, an enigmatic young woman he met the night before the accident – played by Penélope Cruz in her international breakout role (one she would reprise four years later in Cameron Crowe's US version, Vanilla Sky). From then on the question of what is real and what is imaginary is blurred, as contradictory memories and strange incidents suggest all is not well in the protagonist's head. Ultimately the film explores whether there is any meaningful difference between reality and our own perception of the world. [Rob Beames]

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In contemporary Hollywood few could lay claim to making more cerebral cinema than Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter whose thematic preoccupations - memory, identity and the workings of the mind in general can be found in everything from his celebrated collaborations with Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich [1999] and Adaptation [2002] ) to his own directorial masterpiece, Synecdoche, New York (2008). With Eternal Sunshine, his second feature with French director Michel Gondry following the under-appreciated Human Nature (2001), Kaufman explored the idea that painful memories are valuable (and even beautiful) by having two lovers - played by Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey - come to regret the decision to erase every trace of their relationship from memory following a break-up. Gondry and Kaufman use Joel Barish's (Carrey) experience of the memory-removal process, made possible by Dr. Mierzwiak's (Tom Wilkinson) unlikely band of misfit doctors at Lacuna Inc, as a way to imaginatively explore the fractal and unreliable nature of memory. [Rob Beames]

right kate winslet and jim carrey

Image: ÂŠ 2004 Focus Features, Anonymous Content

spotlight mind games

Gondry and Kaufman use Joel Barish's (Carrey) experience of the memoryremoval process, made possible by Dr. Mierzwiak's (Tom Wilkinson) unlikely band of misfit doctors at Lacuna Inc, as a way to imaginatively explore the fractal and unreliable nature of memory.

November/December 2012

A Dangerous Method (2011) Dir. David Cronenberg Is sex the root of all human psychology? David Cronenberg brings screenwriter Christopher Hampton’s 2002 stage play The Talking Cure to the screen in this chamber drama interpretation of the birth of psychoanalysis. Michael Fassbender’s Carl Jung and Viggo Mortensen’s Sigmund Freud face off in the field as Keira Knightley’s hysterical Sabina Spielrein brings an image of visceral and compulsive outer psychosexual anguish to the fore. The real patient of the piece is Yung, constantly manipulated by his peers and protégés alike as he navigates his ever-changing academic field. Constrained by Freud’s confident thinking and wishing to strike out on his own, Jung is nonetheless bent to the whim of a man who knows no restraint. He invites sexual deviance into his life and, quite literally, his study as he undergoes manipulation of a sort unseen in physicality but expertly outlined in actions. Inner anguish and outward suppression is the name of the game, within the screen and beyond it. [Nicola Balkind]

right keira knightley as sabina spielrein inset Viggo Motensen as Freud and michael fassbender as jung

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The real patient of the piece is Jung, constantly manipulated by his peers and protégés alike as he navigates his everchanging academic field.

[web] Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology at the cinema » tinyurl.com/c48n3j8

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Image: ÂŠ 2011 Lago Film, Prospero Pictures

spotlight mind games

November/December 2012

WIDESCREEN film in a wider context

APerfect Matcďż˝

gabri el solomons chats to Chris Moloney about his fascinating FILMography blog, which marries film photos to their locations as they are now.

The Fisher King (1991)

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Photos Chris Moloney

What inspired you to put together the FILMography blog? You seem to be following in the footsteps of Ken Josephson's 'images within images' project from the 1970s but were you aware of his work before starting your blog? One of my high school teachers was quite fond of Ken Josephson so he's always been on my radar but I'm not sure if I consciously used him as a model for my blog. The difference between Ken Josephson and myself is he is an artist and photographer, whereas I'm just a guy who takes pictures. There's a scene in Jane Wagner's "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe" where Lily Tomlin holds up a can of Campbell's and a Warhol and says, "This is soup. And this is art." I'm well aware I'm making soup. Does your working background have any relation to this project or was it simply a 'lightbulb moment' to pursue a personal interest? I've spent the past 15 years working in television as a writer and producer so I've trained myself to think visually but I have no real knowledge of photography. Most of the original pictures on my blog were snapped with a BlackBerry. People are horrified when I tell them that. Have you been surprised at the public reaction to the blog and why do you think the project resonates with people? Very surprised. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that thousands of people, from around the world, stop-by my blog and look at my photos every day. I think it speaks more to people's love for Hollywood and movies than my abilities though.

[top] Leon the Professional (1994) [above] Die Hard With A vengeance (1995) November/December 2012

widescreen filmography Photos Chris Moloney

Why do you think people are so affected when stumbling across a filming location - or when they seek out locations specifically? Does it go any deeper than mere filmic sightseeing? I can only speak from my own experience. I know when I stumble upon a spot where a movie that I love was filmed I get excited. The idea that someone like me can have a connection - even one this insignificant - to filmmakers like Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese is pretty unreal. Plus, it's fun to play movie director. "Where did they put the camera?" "Did this pole get in their way too?" What are the challenges when taking your photographs? There have been conflicting comments about the accuracy (or not) of the process, but do you have a particular criteria to follow when taking the snaps? My approach to my blog has changed since I began in June. When I started it (with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man) it was more of a tourism site. Accuracy wasn't important to me, I just wanted to show my friends and family "Hey, I work near the spot where they filmed that awesome movie." But now that more people have started coming, and the media has started throwing around words like "photographer," the expectations are higher and I try to take a bit more time with the shots. How do you choose the locations to photograph? iconic locations/scenes or is it dependent on 'chance'? I've seen a lot of movies and even before I started the blog I found myself making mental notes of where things were shot. New York is such an iconic city that you can always spot something in the background of the scenes that will tip you off to where they were shot. I'm also a big walker and occasionally I'll recognize a spot from a movie and go back with a photo later.

[top] Ghost (1990) [above] 25th Hour (2002)

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Photo Chris Moloney

Do you have future plans for the blog? There is a current trend for popular blogs such as yours to result in a published book - is this where you see the blog going or do you have grander plans for it? I'm Canadian and by nature we don't make grander plans. In the past couple of weeks I've seen my name and my work in dozens of newspapers and many of the magazines I grew up reading. I'm not really sure how I would take it beyond that or if I would even want to. That said, if someone wants to publish my photos in a book I'm not going to say no. It would just mean one less Christmas present I have to buy for my parents. Are you interested in opening up the project to the wider public in the same way that Taylor Jones' 'Dear Photograph' website does and what do you see as the benefits or downsides of this more inclusive approach? People compare my blog to 'Dear Photograph' all the time because of the similar approach. But that's totally unfair to 'Dear Photograph.' My site is a place where people come to see pictures of movie scenes. 'Dear Photograph' is so much bigger than that. People go there to reflect on their lives and remember their dead dogs. There's really no comparison. As for accepting submissions from people, I'm happy to publish someone else's photos. I get a lot of eyeballs on my site and I'm happy to share my audience with the work of others. But I'm not a gatekeeper. All FILMography doesn't need to pass through me. What has been the most promising or most interesting feedback to the blog that may have surprised you as to the impact and potential of the project? The best part of the whole thing is getting to connect with people that are just as nerdy and passionate about things as me. The other day I got a message through my site from a guy in Madrid. He laid out exactly what was wrong with my photos. He told me I was stupid and my blog was stupid. He was so angry. Then, at the very end, he writes: "I also like 'You've Got Mail.'" [tbp]

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The idea that someone like me can have a connection - even one this insignificant - to filmmakers like Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese is pretty unreal.

[above] Uptown Girls (2003)

[web ] Explore many more FILMography images at the official site Âť philmfotos.tumblr.com/ November/December 2012

architecture & film a dv e n t u r e s t h r o u g h t h e b u i lt a n d f i l m e d e n v i r o n m e n t s

Masterful Miniatures c h ris r oge r s continues our architecture and film series, this time casting an eye over the alchemy of models, matte paintings, photographs or computer-generated imagery used to create a believable environment.

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M u c h of the a r c hit ec t u re on show in films doesn’t actually exist, as a location or even a set. Instead, buildings are conjured through the alchemy of models, matte paintings, photographs or computer-generated imagery. Miniatures have been used to represent the unbuilt or unbuildable for many decades, either on their own or in combination with live action. Fritz Lang deployed both in his epic Metropolis, creating a dazzling vision of a future city in which aircraft and cars filled canyon-like streets between vast towers. Lang used the ingenious Schüfftan process, where the camera films through an angled mirror with part of its reflective coating removed, to insert actors into the models. Simply placing a miniature in front of the camera whilst it is filming a real scene is also highly effective; the encrustation within the atmosphere processing station in Aliens was achieved in this way, whilst the vertiginous bridge across a deep ravine in The Living Daylights is in fact a model carefully aligned with the top of the real bridge, which only crossed a shallow ditch. The Coen Brothers spent half a million dollars in today’s terms on a dozen very-large-scale (one inch to two feet) miniatures of selected New York skyscrapers for The Hudsucker Proxy. They were so effective that they were subsequently re-used in adapted form in Baby’s Day Out and The Shadow. Only one model was needed to bring the glass skyscraper that becomes The Towering Inferno to the screen,

Below/Middle Matte paintings used to create scale in Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain and North by Northwest

The Coen Brothers spent half a million dollars in today’s terms on a dozen very-large-scale (one inch to two feet) miniatures of selected New York skyscrapers for The Hudsucker Proxy. They were so effective that they were subsequently re-used in adapted form in Baby’s Day Out and The Shadow. but at over 70 feet high, itself equivalent to a five or six storey building, it was one of the largest ever constructed and had to be secured with guy ropes when not in use. Hitchcock’s delight in playing with artificiality has featured in previous instalments of Beyond the Frame, but there is much more to discover. The United Nations building as seen in North By North West comprises a series of paintings. Exteriors are matte paintings on glass, with interiors achieved through vast scenic backdrops. Both are dramatic but somewhat theatrical in their execution, subtly contributing to the nightmarish nature of Roger Thornhill’s situation. The nighttime exterior of the Vandamm house, though, is realised through exquisitely subtle matte paintings so convincing that many who see the film assume it to be a real structure. The director’s most audacious simulation of architecture occurs in Cold War thriller Torn Curtain when Paul Newman is shadowed whilst walking into and around one of Berlin’s great museums, the Alte Nationalegalerie. Opened in 1876, Friedrich August Stüler’s great neo-Classical temple stood in what was then East Berlin, beyond the reach of a Hollywood film production. Instead of seeking a substitute location or building elaborate sets, however,

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Hitchcock took an extraordinarily daring step. Emboldened by success on a smaller scale twenty years previously with The Paradine Case, he filmed the entire two-minute sequence using only matte paintings to replicate the museum. The actors were shot in a studio against minimal sets – often simply a decorated floor and a piece of wall – and optically composited into the paintings. The surprisingly powerful impact that the architecture of the suburban street can have on a film’s mood was explored in Beyond the Frame #2 (available online at www. thebigpicturemagazine.com). This is confirmed in a key scene from David Fincher’s Zodiac. In 1960s San Francisco, Detectives Toschi and Armstrong arrive at a crime scene, a crossroads in a quiet suburb late at night. The neighbourhood is cast in a sickly green glow. A taxi stands at the kerb, its driver lying dead within. A hand-held camera follows as they walk the area, point at house windows and converse with colleagues. And yet only a very small portion of this haunting scene existed in real life or was filmed at the real location; the majority was shot on a studio backlot against bluescreen, with the evening sky, street lighting and period-accurate buildings and vehicles all generated by computer. An architectural lie reveals the truth. [tbp]

[web ] Read more 'Beyond the Frame' pieces on www.thebigpicturemagazine.com November/December 2012

four frames t h e a r t o f a b b r e v i at e d s t o r y t e l l i n g

WEIR D SCIENCE 1

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Altered States, Dir. Ken Russell, 1980 2

Je z Conolly explores the hallucinatory consequences that a meeting of an ancient ceremony with Ken Russell's wild imagination brought forth. i n h i s q u e s t to explore altered states of consciousness, neuroscientist Edward Jessup (William Hurt) travels to Mexico to take part in an Ayahuasca Ceremony conducted by a remote tribe. During the ceremony an elder slices Jessup’s hand open and drips blood into a strange brew containing Amanita muscaria mushrooms and Banisteriopsis caapi root that the tribesmen and Jessup then drink. As a result he experiences a series of bizarre, surrealistic hallucinations that seem linked to his intense relationship with fellow scientist and wife-to-be Emily (Blair Brown). At one point he sees himself and Emily walking towards a mushroom cloud, a vision that appears to originate from a brilliant point of light emerging from the wound on his hand, from which then crawls a small lizard. Part chin-stroking talk-fest on existentialism, part Eighties bodyhorror silliness, Ken Russell’s wild, hallucinogenic take on Paddy Chayefsky's breathlessly cerebral script boasts enough chemically-induced ‘bad trip’ dreamscapes to boggle the mind and put you off cream-of-mushroom soup for life. Read More f o u r f r a m e s online at www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

November/December 2012

1000 words m o m e n t s t h at c h a n g e d c i n e m a f o r e v e r

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Below The Surrealist dream seqeunce in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound

The Dream Team

When Hitchcock wanted to explore the subconscious onscreen he turned to Surrealist Salvador Dali. Unsurprisingly, their collaboration was memorable and highly influential. By Ale xandra He lle r- Nichol as

“ The only pl ace I've seen dwarves in dreams is in stupid movies like this!” yells Peter Dinklage as dwarf actor Tito in Tom DiCillo’s black comedy Living in Oblivion (1995), highlighting the sometime absurd and fantastic lengths filmmakers can go to in the creation of a memorable dream sequence. Whether allowing a space for creative indulgence or providing backstory or other crucial narrative information, dream sequences in film have their own logic and rely on their own distinct set of technical features to flag their status as not-quitereality. Movies themselves are often compared with dreams – Hollywood is a ‘dream factory’, and horror movies are regularly described as ‘nightmares’ – and in this sense psychoanalysis has offered a ready-made approach for not only understanding how we engage with film but also, through dream sequences and the appearance of psychiatric patients and professionals, as a popular narrative element in its own right. Image: © 1945 Selznick International Pictures, Vanguard Films

One of the earliest films to employ psychoanalysis as an explicit element in its plot, Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) explores Dr Constance Peterson's (Ingrid Bergman) romance with and investigation of the mysterious John Ballantine (Gregory Peck), a man whose amnesia leads him to take on another man’s identity. Psychoanalysis is purported to be the tool with which Constance not only assists John in regaining his memory, but also helps them solve the murder of the man whose identity Ballantine has adopted. Key to this is a dream the as-yet unidentified Ballantine has, which Constance and her mentor, the Sigmund Freud-like Dr Brulov (Michael Chekov), analyse in the hope of discovering clues. Ballantine’s dream begins in a gambling house where curtains with painted eyes are cut with giant scissors. A man with a beard is accused of cheating and threatened by a faceless proprietor. The bearded man falls off the edge of a building as the proprietor – who has been November/December 2012

➜

1000 words the dream team

Below/Right/Far Right Salvador Dali taps the subconscious in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound

Cinematic dream sequences such as Dalí/Hitchcock’s in Spellbound offer modern examples of the literary tradition of the dream allegory, sometimes called the dream vision.

go further...

hiding behind a chimney – reveals himself and drops a small wheel. The dream finishes with Ballantine running down an abstracted, sloped space chased by giant shadowy wings. As Brulov and Constance explain to Ballantine, from a psychoanalytic perspective this dream is crucial: once they can unlock its secrets, they will solve the mystery that plagues him. Famously based on paintings by renowned surrealist Salvador Dalí, tensions between producer David O. Selznick and the artist resulted in a scene substantially reduced in both length and intensity: even Hitchcock himself winced at Dalí’s oft-quoted suggestion to include a sequence showing Ingrid Bergman covered in ants. Despite being one of Hitchcock’s least favourite of his works, it was a huge commercial success and critic Thomas Hyde rightly considers it a precursor to later efforts such as Psycho (1960), Marnie (1964) and Vertigo (1958). Loosely based on the 1927 novel House of Doctor Edwardes by Francis Beeding, the script emphasises its quasiclinical fascination with the guilt complex and its impact on the unconscious. At the time of the film’s release Freud’s theories were far from obscure in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, and the publication of “Some Elementary Lessons in Psychoanalysis” in 1938 highlighted that his ideas about an active, decipherable unconscious mind were still very much in the public eye. Selznick was drawn to the story because of his own personal, positive experience with psychoanalysis and he accurately judged that audiences would readily understand that in Spellbound this dream was to function as a primary source of clues to its mysteries, rather than simply as a colourful aside.

[web] Alfred Hitchcock discusses his collaboration with Dali on Spellbound » tinyurl.com/9ljk5xb

28 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

Below Cob and Mal build their dream reality in Christopher Nolan's Inception Cinematic dream sequences such as Dalí/Hitchcock’s in Spellbound offer modern examples of the literary tradition of the dream allegory, sometimes called the dream vision. These tales were popular during the Middle Ages, appearing in works such as Geoffrey Chaucer’s Book of the Duchesse (1368-72). With some accounts tracing the origins of the fictional dream sequence back as far as Aeschylus’ play The Persians (472BC), its heritage on film stems from examples as diverse as Sherlock Jr (Buster Keaton, 1942), the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise (1984-2010), Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963) and the work of postmodern auteur David Lynch, a director frequently linked to surrealism through films such as Eraserhead (1977). While a fractured movement from its earliest days, key surrealists such as Dalí sought to express the ideas of psychoanalysis creatively through art, charmed in many instances by the randomness and absurdity of the unconscious mind and its dreams. The Spellbound dream sequence contains many of Dalí’s signature surreal images: his melted wheels, strange landscapes and of course the cut eyeball sequence, which refers explicitly to his earlier short film collaboration with Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou (1929). But the finished product was far from the dream product Dalí or Hitchcock had imagined, despite its commercial success. While some critics have in retrospect held the simplicity of the film’s treatment of psychoanalysis responsible for this perceived failure, it is perhaps fairer to suggest that at its heart Freud and his theories –and the creative links to them – were little

Similarly to Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) and its shared fascination with the fantastic possibilities of the unconscious mind, it is love not science that drives their protagonists and our interest in them.

more than a surface gimmick pasted onto Spellbound’s real source of interest: romance. For all the attention lavished upon Freud’s ‘talking cure’ in the film, it is not psychoanalysis but love that conquers all. Constance is the central character, not Ballantine, and as such it is a story about rejecting the clinical and the professional, and surrendering instead to the hyperbolic heterosexual romance Selznick celebrated only a few years before in Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939). Similarly to Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) and its shared fascination with the fantastic possibilities of the unconscious mind, it is love not science that drives their protagonists and our interest in them. [tbp]

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on location

Mumbai t h e p l a c e s t h at m a k e t h e m o v i e s

DEEWAAR (1975) Dir. Yash Chopra IND, 174 minutes Starring: Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan and Neetu Singh

left Amitabh bachchan

30 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

Deewaar (The Wall), directed by the recently deceased Yash Chopra, is classical Bollywood at its best and most melodramatic. It also offers Mumbai in its purest cinematic form, served up as a cocktail of familiar ingredients: a husband forced to betray his ideals; an honest wife pushed to leave her village to make a new life in the City of Dreams; two fatherless brothers, Ravi and Vijay, who grow up in opposing ways, policeman and gangster. Deewaar recounts the story of Vijay, a worker at the Mumbai port who becomes a mafia don and climbs to the top of the luxury skyscrapers on Marine Drive from where he feels he owns the city. Deewaar cemented Amitabh Bachchanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s superstar status and transformed the nature of the Bollywood hero into the angry young man that he initiated with Zanjeer (1973). Deewaarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s echoes reverberate through Bollywood and beyond, all the way up to Slumdog Millionaire.

Mumbai, a megalopolis of almost 20 million people is the home of Bollywood, the beating heart of the Indian film industry, and the film set of thousands of fictions that can’t be confined to a few stereotypes. h el io san m ig u el , editor of World Film Locations: Mumbai takes us on a whistlestop tour of a city rich in cinematic heritage and buzzing with energy.

opposite nirupa roy as the poor single mother below jackie shroff and anil kapoor

PARINDA (1989) Dir. Vidhu Vinod Chopra IND, 154 minutes Starring: Jackie Shroff, Kamal Chopra and Madhuri Dixit Parinda’s realistic depiction of gangster life found critical and popular success despite its untraditional tragic ending, and ushered in a new era of Bollywood cinema. Karan, just back in Mumbai after completing his studies abroad, witnesses the killing of his childhood friend Prakash, who became a policeman and is the brother of beautiful Paro, the object of his affection. Mumbai’s urban landscape –the Dadar fountain where they grew up and Prakash gets killed, Babulnath temple, abandoned factories, fancy hotels, the imposing Gateway of India where the climactic scene takes place— all serve as the theatre for a calculated revenge, but also as a lost haven filled with childhood memories. Karan’s downward spiral from naïve college graduate to the depths of the underworld, also made Parinda the precursor of Mumbai Noir, the successful genre that delves into the city’s underbelly, paving the way for other movies like Ram Gopal Varma’s acclaimed Satya (1998). Images: (opposite) © 1975 Trimurti Films Pvt. Ltd. / (Above) © 1989 Natraj Production, Vinod Chopra Productions

November/December 2012

on location t h e p l a c e s t h at m a k e t h e m o v i e s

MUMBAI DIARIES/ DHOBI GHAT (2010)

Dir. Kiran Rao IND, 100 minutes Starring: Prateik, Monica Dogra and Kriti Malhotra In Mumbai Diaries, Kiran Rao’s debut feature, the thread that weaves the different stories together is Munna, a dhobi who delivers clothes from Mumbai’s iconic outdoor laundry called Dhobi Ghat, and who dreams of becoming a Bollywood star. Through his daily routine we get a glimpse into the life of the slums, an existence mired in poverty and gangster extortion that deprives slum dwellers of much of their dignity and hope. Munna also befriends upper-class Shai, accompanies her around the city to take pictures, and even poses for her. She in turn is infatuated with painter Arun, who is captivated by videos left behind by Yasmin, the previous tenant of his apartment. Through their eyes we explore other sides of the city, the ones of cafés, art shows, fancy clubs, tourist sites… And in the middle of it all lies Mumbai, the multifaceted megalopolis that becomes the muse that daily weaves millions of such threads together.

Through Munna's daily routine we get a glimpse into the life of the slums, an existence mired in poverty and gangster extortion that deprives slum dwellers of much of their dignity and hope. go further... [book ] To order your copy of World Film Locations: Mumbai »

32 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

NO SMOKING (2007)

MAMMO (1994)

Dir. Anurag Kashyap IND, 128 minutes Starring: John Abraham, Ayesha Takia and Paresh Waral

Dir. Shyam Benegal IND, 124 minutes Starring: Farida Jalal, Surekha Sikri and Amit Phalke

No Smoking is a quirky and disconcerting movie, written and directed by enfant terrible Anurag Kashyap, the leading director of what we can call Neo-Bollywood, a group of film-makers that in the last two decades is expanding the boundaries of Bollywood and by extension of commercial Indian cinema. Here a wealthy and goodlooking executive embarks on a program to quit smoking. Kafkian reminiscences are hinted in his name, simply K. His journey takes him from the top of his posh apartment in a high-rise building and from Mumbai’s fanciest clubs, to an underground inferno shot between the slums of Dharavi and the Mukesh Mills in South Mumbai, where the surreal detox program takes place. Although bordering on the implausible at times, No Smoking is nonetheless a genius film that turns upside down the idealizations of upper class habitats that are all too frequent in current Bollywood mainstream movies.

After the tragic riots and ensuing terrorist attacks that tore Mumbai apart between December 1992 and March 1993, many filmmakers turned their cameras towards that pressing reality. Shyam Benegal, one of the top filmmakers of the parallel cinema movement and (along with Mrinal Sen), the most respected Indian filmmaker alive, decided instead to focus on the recent past. Recruiting critic and film-maker Khalid Mohamed as screenwriter, they together made three movies about the situation of Muslims in India. Mammo is a moving coming of age film about Riyaz, a middleclass Muslim teenager who loves Western cinema and The Beatles, plays classical music to his fish, and secretly smokes. Set in 1970s Mumbai against the backdrop of the still resonating Partition, and made in the aftermath of the 19921993 devastating events, Benegal and Mohamed's Mammo tellingly portrayed normal middle-class lives lived within a diverse and inclusive city.

Simply visit www.Intellectbooks.com for further information [web ] 'Like' World Film Locations on Facebook November/December 2012

WORLD FILM LOCATIONS exploring the city onscreen A new film book series from Intellect / www.intellectbooks.com

MUMBAI Edited by HELIO SAN MIGUEL

ISBN 9781841506326 Paperback £9.95

Fascinating, incommensurable, and chaotic, Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is a megalopolis of dramatic diversity and heartbreaking extremes, where immense wealth is just steps away from the searing poverty of its huge slums. The home of Bollywood, Mumbai is also the epicenter of India’s film industry and its foremost film location. Through the lens of Mumbai’s manifold cinematic representations, World Film Locations: Mumbai explores the sheer complexity of this incomparable city. This volume comprises insightful essays and beautifully illustrated scene analyses by leading scholars and film critics who explore the ways filmmakers from India and abroad have represented Mumbai’s astonishing urban and human landscape. Their contributions show how movies have created in the imaginations of billions of spectators the vivid image of a city that constantly tempts people to escape their dreary existence and offers them a chance to fulfill their dreams. World Film Locations: Mumbai will be necessary reading for scholars and film buffs alike.

BEIJING Edited by john berra

ISBN 9781841506777 Paperback £9.95

£9.95 Y

PAPERBACK

ALSO available LOS ANGELES madrid

NEW ORLEANS VIENNA

£9.95 Y

PAPERBACK

The title of Li Yu’s film Lost in Beijing evokes the experience of many firsttime visitors to China’s bustling capital. The city’s sprawling structure and rapid redevelopment—embodied by the high-rise apartments taking over historic districts—render Beijing’s streets hard to navigate and its culture just as difficult to penetrate. World Film Locations: Beijing is a revealing and engrossing introduction to both. In a series of spotlight essays and illustrated scene reviews, a cast of seasoned scholars and fresh new voices explore the vast range of films—encompassing drama, madcap comedy, martial arts escapism, and magical realism—that have been set in Beijing. Unveiling a city of hidden courtyards, looming skyscrapers, and traditional Hutong neighborhoods, these contributors depict a distinctive urban culture that reflects the conflict and tumult of a nation in transition. With considerations of everything from the back streets of Beijing Bicycle to the forbidden palace of The Last Emperor to the tourist park of The World, this volume is a definitive cinematic guide to an ever-changing and endlessly fascinating capital city.

for further information about the WFL series visit www.intellectbooks.com

Intellect is an independent academic publisher of books and journals, to view our catalogue or order our titles visit www.intellectbooks.com or E-mail: orders@intellectbooks.com. Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, UK, BS16 3JG. | Telephone: +44 (0) 117 9589910 | Fax: +44 (0) 117 9589911

screengem e vo c at i v e o b j e c t s o n s c r e e n

The Typewriter in Delirious (1991)

Sco t t Jo rda n H a r r i s ponders the fantastical, love/ hate relationship a writer has with the tool of his trade.

gofurther

Cinema has seen many noteworthy typewriters – from those that clack out the articles that bring down the corrupt Nixon administration in All The President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976), to the insane, insectile machine that is easily the most memorable character in David Cronenburg’s Naked Lunch (1991) – but none has quite the power of the one belonging to Jack Gable, the struggling soap opera writer played by John Candy in Tom Mankiewicz's Delirious. After Gable is knocked unconscious, he wakes up inside the TV show he created and learns he can control it simply by typing. When he wants a pastrami sandwich, he writes a Jewish deli into being. When his beloved Rachel (Emma Samms) is carried off by a runaway horse, he types a scenario in which he heroically dashes to her rescue. But, when he catches himself writing sex scenes Rachel will have to act out, he becomes disgusted at his addiction to his typewriter and angrily smashes it. Soon, though, he has to race to repair it in order to regain influence over his life and to save the life of a friend. Gable can control reality with his typewriter, but his typewriter can also control him. When it works, he feels omnipotent. When it doesn’t, he feels impotent. As such, it is the ideal metaphor for a writer’s talent. [tbp]

[web ] Read about the ‘top 5 typewriters in movies’ at ManILoveFilms.com » tinyurl.com/9cljell November/December 2012

DIRECTORY OF

WORLD

CINEMA Directory of World Cinema: Britain Edited by Emma Bell and Neil Mitchell Paperback Price £15.95 ISBN 9781841505572 eBook Price £6 ISBN 9781841506074 To view our catalogue or order our books and journals visit www. intellectbooks.com.

EXPERIENCE GLOBAL CULTURE THROUGH THE MAGIC OF FILM The Directory of World Cinema aims to play a part in moving intelligent, scholarly criticism beyond the academy. Each volume of the Directory provides a culturally representative insight into a national or regional cinema through a collection of reviews, essays, resources, and film stills highlighting significant films and players. Over time, new editions are being published for each volume, gradually building a comprehensive guide to the cinema of each region. To contribute to the project or purchase copies please visit the website.

WWW.WORLDCINEMADIRECTORY.ORG

parting shot i m i tat i o n i s t h e s i n c e r e s t f o r m o f f l at t e r y

Heads Up

Science fiction movies are by design replete with outlandish visual images, here ne il m itch e ll doffs his cap in honour of some very unusual headgear.

h o w d o yo u c o n t r o l , manipulate, explore or capture what is going on in someone else's mind? In movie-land, the intangibility of thoughts, memories and emotions hasn't stopped governments, scientists (sane or otherwise) and various underworld figures from literally plugging into the brain in an effort to conquer inner space. To counter the insubstantiality of what is being sought, film-makers often opt for including visually arresting headgear in scenes during which invasions of the subconscious occur.

Above A painful process of rehabilitation for Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971) Opposite An unusual recording device: Brainstorm (1983)

38 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

In a movie containing numerous disturbing images, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) saves perhaps the most unsettling one for its central protagonist, ultra-violent Droog Alex (Malcolm McDowell). Imprisoned and subjected to The Ludovico Technique, an extreme form of aversion therapy, Alex is strapped to a chair and bombarded with images of rape, murder and war. Like the neural connections dotted around his brain, a network of electrodes is studded across his head, the bizarre sight compounded by the metal clamps that keep his eyes open. Over a decade later, Douglas Trumbull's Brainstorm (1983) posited a world in which other people's experiences and sensations could be recorded and

Below A brilliant failure: Doc Brown's brain wave-analyzer in Back to the Future (1985)

Shiny, angular and bedecked with light bulbs, the brain-wave analyzer, an invention that doesn't actually work, is fittingly as wild as Doc's hair and imagination.

viewed; ostensibly for pleasure or education but co-opted for nefarious reasons by the military industrial complex. A number of prototype versions of what becomes 'the hat' (itself a forerunner of the 'Squid' in Strange Days (Kathryn Bigelow,1995) are seen during the movie, all of them physical entry points into previously unattainable, ephemeral universes. Sometimes, the headgear on show works as an extension of the personality of the person wearing it, with Doc Brown's (Christoper Lloyd) brain-wave analyzer in Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985) a prime example. Shiny, angular and bedecked with light bulbs, the brain-wave analyzer, an invention that doesn't actually work, is fittingly as wild as Doc's hair and imagination. Intrusive and bizarre, frightening or funny, headgear that affects the mind, be it in Terry Gillam's Brazil (1986), Johnny Mnemonic (Robert Longo,1995) or Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002), occupies a relatively small but visually distinct part of the iconography of science fiction cinema. [tbp]

go further... [web ] Science fiction becomes science fact? The EPOC neuroheadset » tinyurl.com/ycfs37k November/December 2012

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Film Index

intellect

So you’ve read about the films, now go watch ‘em!

Plublishers of this here magazine...

Fight Club (1999) Dir. David Fincher

Altered States (1980) Dir. Ken Russell

g see page 4/5

g see page 24/25

Looper (2012) Dir. Ryan Johnson

Inception (2010) Dir. Christopher Nolan

g see page 6

g see page 29

Dark Passage (1947) Dir. Delmer Daves

Deewar (1975) Dir. Yash Chopra

g see page 7

g see page 30

Face/Off (1997) Dir. John Woo

Parinda (1989) Dir. Vidhu Vinod Chopra

g see page 7

g see page 31

Seconds (1966) Dir. John Frankenheimer

Mammo (1994) Dir. Shyam Benegal

g see page 8

g see page 32

Black Swan (2010) Dir. Darren Aronofsky

No Smoking (2007) Dir. Anurag Kashyap

g see page 9

g see page 33

Harvey (1950) Dir. Henry Koster

Mumbai Diaries/ Dhobi Gat (2010) Dir. Kiran Rhao

g see page 10/11

Persona (1966) Dir. Ingmar Bergman g see page 12

g see page 33

Delirious (1991) Dir. Tom Mankiewicz g see page 35

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Dir. Milos Forman

A Clockwork Orange (1971) Dir. Stanley Kubrick

g see page 13

g see page 38

Abre Los Ojos (1997) Brainstorm (1983) Dir. Douglas Trumbull Dir. Alejandro Amenábar g see page 39 g see page 14 Eternal Sunshine... (2004) Dir.Michel Gondry

Back to the Future (1985) Dir.Robert Zemeckis

g see page 14/15

g see page 39

A Dangerous Method (2011) Dir. David Cronenberg g see page 16/17

Remember to follow thebigpicture on

42 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

Each issue of The Big Picture is produced by Bristol based publisher, intellect.

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Intellect is an independent academic publisher in the fields of creative practice and popular culture, publishing scholarly books and journals that exemplify their mission as publishers of original thinking. Theyaim to provide a vital space for widening critical debate in new and emerging subjects, and in this way they differ from other publishers by campaigning for the author rather than producing a book or journal to fill a gap in the market. Intellect publish in four distinct subject areas: visual arts, film studies, cultural and media studies, and performing arts. These categories host Intellect’s ever-expanding topics of enquiry, which include photography, drawing, curation, community music, gaming and scenography. Intellect titles are often multidisciplinary, presenting scholarly work at the cross section of arts, media and creative practice. For further information about the company and to browse their catalogue of titles simply visit: www.intellectbooks.co.uk

thebigpicture disclaimer The views and opinions of all texts, including editorial and regular columns, are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect those of the editors or publishers.

intellect Journals publishers of original thinking | www.intellectbooks.com

NEW

Journal of Curatorial Studies

Film, Fashion & Consumption

Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty

ISSN: 20455836 | Online ISSN: 20455844

ISSN: 20442823 | Online ISSN: 20442831

ISSN: 20404417 | Online ISSN: 20404425

Editors Jim Drobnick Ontario College of Art & Design jim@displaycult.com

Principal Editor Pamela Church Gibson London College of Fashion p.church-gibson@fashion.arts.ac.uk

Principal Editor Efrat Tseëlon University of Leeds e.tseelon@leeds.ac.uk

Jennifer Fisher, York University jefish@yorku.ca

Associate Editor Alistair O’Neill Central St Martin’s School Of Art And Design alistaironeill@hotmail.com

Editors Diane Crane University of Pennsylvania craneher@sas.upenn.edu

The Journal of Curatorial Studies is an international, peer-reviewed publication that explores the cultural functioning of curating and its relation to exhibitions, institutions, audiences, aesthetics and display culture. The journal takes a wide perspective in the inquiry into what constitutes “the curatorial.” Curating has evolved considerably from the connoisseurship model of arranging objects to now encompass performative, virtual and interventionist strategies.

Film, Fashion & Consumption is a peer-reviewed journal designed to provide an arena for the discussion of research, methods and practice within and between the fields of film, fashion, design, history, art history and heritage. The journal seeks to stimulate ongoing research on these topics and to attract contributions not only from scholars researching in these areas, but also from practitioners.

Susan Kaiser University of California Davis sbkaiser@ucdavis.edu Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty is the first journal dedicated to the critical examination of the fashion and the beauty systems as symbolic spaces of production and reproduction, representation and communication of artifacts, meanings, social practices, and visual or textual renditions of cloth, clothing and appearance.