Outline -- Capstone Patrick Russo

1) Purpose: investigate further the power of film in dissecting significant cultural

events/trends.
2) Thesis: Film can create a national cinema identity through its handling of source (i.e.
themes, plot, etc.) to demonstrate its citizens collective grievances or attitudes.

3) Rhetorical Strategies of Film

i. Semiotics the study of strictly cinematic and formal elements of a film
- What does the directors choice say about the topic?
- The Semiotic opacity implicit in sound cinemaas Ray put it, an
enormous step towards realism, and a consequent enrichment of the
medium as an expression of the ethos of a particular country (Selden).
- Deconstructing Rambo
ii. Multiculturalism interplay of representations and ideologies of class,
gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality in cultural texts, including media
culture (Kellner).
- its focus on representations of race, gender, sexuality, and class, and its
critique of ideologies that promote various forms of oppression, cultural
studies lends itself to a multiculturalist program that demonstrates how
culture reproduces certain forms of racism, sexism, and biases against
members of subordinate classes, social groups, or alternative lifestyles
(Kellner).
- Various critical methods have their own strengths and limitations, their
optics and blind spots
- From University of Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies
iii. General Way of Accepting Film - We can access [film] under the same
headings used for poetry and history: the subject matter or plot; the techniques
for narration and representation; and the truth states of the finished product
(Davis).
- These choices all have an impact on what is being stressed or
questioned in the film
- CAN PROVIDE EXAMPLE FROM SOURCE: The Battle of
Algiers Example
- Connection to Poets from Classical Roman Age
-
iv. In relation to National Identity - One of the modes of communication within
which cinema operates is the transmission of cultural and political values, and
films can also place a significant role in shaping national identities (ORegan,
1996, p. 19; Williams, 2002 p. 4) should get book OR look into it in some
form @ p. 19
 HOW DOES THIS HELP PROVE THESIS- Through acknowledging the ways
that film can create a voice, one can pinpoint instances that film speaks
through its text Then one can determine what it says about society

4) Film Theories/Trends
i. Italian Neorealism ordinary, usually working-class, people struggling with a
single large problem (Weinberger).
- From the very beginning, Nasim (The Cyclist) encounters only
coldness and formality. Even those one might expect to be
sympathetic to his plight are abrupt and dismissive
ii. Microhistory examining something specific in film to uncover social
processes that may be typical of their day or unusual (Davis). -----> shows a way
grievances or attitudes can be addressed.

5) Nations (w/evidence supported thesis)

a. Germany
i. BIG: Heritage cinema German focuses on dark past while other nations
[France and GB may focus on positive past]
- Films continuing the anti-fascist tradition after German Unification
are few and far between. They include films for children, such as
Die Sprungdeckeluhr (Gunther Friedrich, 1991) and Krucke (Jorg
Grunler, co-production with WDR, 1994) as well as reappraisals of
state-ordained anti-fascism such as Ester Verlust (Maxim Dessau,
1990) and Der Fall O (Rainer Simo, co-producetion with ZDF).
Close to 190 films from 2000 to 2010 about Holocaust
- Germany & The Holocaust (Berghahn)
- Nazi Retro cinema a morbid fascination for a time and place that
scarred a nations psyche [basically exploiting the suffering of
Nazism for entertainment]
- GDR (East Germany) began, after division, upset over the
Holocaust but not in a true manner didnt even associate with the
Nazis.
o They accepted partial responsibility in 1990
o Make a lot of anti-facist films [one hundred between 1946
and 1992]
o A bad way of looking at the holocaust
- Tones of the holocaust are represented in other films Starship
Troopers (1997) glorifies the extermination of the giant insects on a
distant planet to implicate the audience in the rhetoric of genocide,
militarism, and xenophobia.
- Films like The White Rose and Hotel Rwanda have real world
implications calling to order desires to ease punishment of anti-
 Nazis and attack the Darfur genocide respectively (could be used as
support for how movies affect the country)
- The particular choice of songs from Schuberts Schwanengesang is
highly significant.
- move away from a historical focus on the past and towards ethical
concerns directed at future generations
- MOVIES USED TO SUPPORT:
- Schindlers List (USA, 1993)
- The Pianist
- Sonderweg
ii. HOW DOES THIS HELP PROVE THESIS: There are instances where the
actual films are brought up with specific reasons of how they address the
Holocaust and what they say? There are also specifics of division between
East and West German Films that demonstrate a split national conscious
and how film represents it.
b. United States
i. National Fear Conscious headshot image has a distinct genealogy,
one that intimately linked to the social and cultural upheavals of the post-
1960s America (Quinlan)
- due to: major events of 1960s (JFK assassination) and new
anxieties about the human brain
- MOVIES USED TO SUPPORT:
- The Godfather (1969)
- Magnum Force (1973)
ii. Racism in America A Geography of Racism
- Movie audiences have been presented with visions of the South that
have ranged from a sleepy, congenial Old South to a viciously racist
and violent New South (Jannson)
- all of these [the depictions above] representations are part of a
larger discourse in the United States, that of internal orientalism,
which characterizes the South as fundamentally different from the
rest of the country, thus separating the imagined space of the South
from that of America. In doing so, representations of the South can
then be used to inform an American national identity. DIRECT
CONNECTION TO THESIS
- The Orient must be represented as fundamentally different from
the Occident; this process is commonly referred to as the
othering.
- Orientalism produces national and supranational identities; the
othering of a geographic space external to the state helps to
(re)create a national identity.
 - One must not assume that the identities called Southern and
American are timeless essences that have not changed over time
(Jansson).
iii. HOW DOES THIS HELP PROVE THESIS: Although more diverse
information is needed, this idea basically attacks National Identity straight
on, making virtually the same assertion as I am. Translating the
relationships and examples described in this points above will be
beneficial in defining what a national identity is and how film plays a
role?
c. China NEED AT LEAST ONE MORE SOURCE
i. it is not so much China that makes movies, but movies that help to make
China.
ii. Chinese cinema from 1949-79 was influenced by Hollywood
iii. the making of China as a national agency is an ongoing, dynamic, and
contested project.
- All above is Berry, If China can say no
iv. While it has been observed that there are some people [who will] do
some lower-budget movies [and] work with new filmmakers It is
uncommon without stars ------> demonstrates how Hong Kongs industry
can represent a hesitance within creative expression of China
v. SARFT imposes a strict jacket on creativity and openness (Kong).
- Concepts of Chinese Culture Shifts
- The hegemonic and paradoxical Chinse market, which couples tight
ideological censorship with selective market liberalization results in
unique adaptation and resistance in the Hong Kong industry, in terms
of creative content and industry behavior (Chen).
- Mainlandization is a key term for China, the mainland taking over
Hong Kong culture
- 1990s: Hong Kong films 40% of the Hong Kong market and at least
10% of the China Market.
- 2005: top 10 box-office list in Hong King is monopolized by 80%
Hollywood and 20% co-production films (Chen).
vi. HOW DOES THIS HELP TO PROVE THESIS: The way that film is
received and produced in China gives a look into the cultural patterns that
are dominating Hong Kong from China?
d. France
i. Sepia Tinted Cinema referring to the burnished quality which
old photographs acquire with time (Fevry)
- They hold a retrospective aura that manifests itself most notably in
the composition of images in their somewhat faded colors (Fevry).
- It represents the French national conscious as holding the past in
high regards
- Common since the 2000s - STC
 - Fictions Patrimoniales close but distinct from the British
heritage film, a more apt term than costume drama, it designates a
new genre in the French Cinema [sepia tinted cinema] seek[s] to
to propose the staging of a collective heritage, constituting a
community of spectators, unified by a common past (Fevry).
- Trente Glorieuses a period [in French History -1950s-60s]
characterized by economic prosperity (Fevry).
- MOVIES USED TO SUPPORT:
Ricky treatment of strong cultural taboos, such as cannibalism,
alongside the enduring critical taboo of being a horror film
(Hartford).
` HOW DOES THIS HELP PROVE THESIS: Takes into account Frances
national opinion and how it is brought out through film, especially
sepia tinted cinema.

6) Conclusion
i. The Four nations introduced hold their own national conscious, and in some
instances, their national conscious can be shown in film. Film can thus be an
outlet of representing a Nations sentiments through various methods looking at
film multicultural and examining semiotics.