Category: Articles
Mythology and Hollywood: Gods, Legends and the Need for Better Movies
I have one thing to say to those who keep churning out movies along the lines of Thor (2011) and Wrath of the Titans (2012), and it takes a page out of Pink Floyd’s book: Hey! Directors! Leave those myths alone! The fact is, we do need an education – an education on how to…
Film as thesis: 3 Depictions of the Nature of History
As a history graduate and a film lover I’ve long been aware of the complex relationship between cinema and the past. Films can reflect our history, the way we reconstruct a story of the past from the evidence around us. They can also shape popular understanding of history, as shown by both Hollywood blockbusters and…
Charlie Kaufman and the Art of Adaptation
Adapting a novel into a film is a sensitive and hazardous process, especially if the novel has already garnered a following of avid readers. When adapting an already existing work the screenwriter may have the leisure of not having to come up with everything from scratch, but they must endure the added stress of wanting…
Subjectivity and Objectivity in Film: Kagemusha, Booze and the Boundaries of Cinema
There’s a great scene in the Kurosawa movie Kagemusha (1980) where two of the three unifiers of Japan, Oda Nobunaga and Ieyasu Tokugawa, meet to discuss business. Nobunaga, who has been Westernised all the way down to his armour, offers Tokugawa a glass of European wine. His comrade takes it and has a sip ……
Horror Cinema and the Female Villain: The Perpetuation of Female Victimisation
Monsters have long dominated the realms of the gothic and horrific, both in literature and the cinema. What’s more, these monsters are often male, seeking out women to overtake or destroy. Subsequently, the most common image of women in horror has been a pose of utter victimisation – the scream. In a seminal article entitled…