Film International # 7 / 2004:1

EDITORIAL

By Michael Tapper, editor-in-chief

This is the beginning of our 31st year as a film journal and our second year as the all-English publication Film International. The name of the journal is not just another brand of a product but reflects the ambition to evolve into a truly international forum for texts on film, not just focusing on the traditional perspective of the West and, within this tradition, the canonized version of film history and its auteurs. We aim to be a journal produced by scholars and journalists from around the world to readers around the world.
The increasing popularity of film studies as an academic subject, fan culture, Internet video/DVD sales and film festivals formerly “exotic” cinemas are rapidly moving out of the subculture and into the cinemas both at the multiplex and at home. In the last decade documentaries and film classics – for a long period of post-war history marginalized at the cinemas – have found their way back thanks to some surprise hits (Bowling for Columbine, Touch of Evil in rerelease, Winged Migration) and the growing market of DVD.
But while these are vital signs of an international cineaste culture, there are also dark clouds at the horizon. The media empires are also growing, gobbling up competition. Film, TV, daily papers, journals, the Internet, computer games etc. are becoming products integrated within one and the same corporation, and lately the has been a number of disturbing signs of this huge corporations to control and limit the freedom of speech and artistic integrity. Silvio Berlusconi’s aim to control both the political system and the media in democratic Italy might be the most worrying sign of things that might come, but there are others – for instance Rupert Murdoch’s enforcement of a patriotic agenda at Fox TV in the U.S. during the war in Iraq.
Therefore it is of utmost importance to have publications that act independent of any political and/or corporate interest. This is another aim of Film International. We want to publish texts on film not only from a global perspective but also that reflects a wide, democratic spectrum of ideologies and opinions. In this issue you will find an essay on aspects of the booming video film industry of Nigeria by Onokoome Okome and a visual essay by experimental filmmaker Craig Baldwin together with Robin Wood’s close reading of Miike Takashi’s Audition, Robert Murphy’s exploration of the lesser-known, post-war British film noir, and a reevaluation of Otto Preminger’s work by Tag Gallagher.
By inviting guest editors and contributors from all over the world we hope to keep Film International as a forever experimenting and changing journal for everyone interested in in-depth essays on cinema written and published with an independent voice. In this case you, the reader, are one who decides if we are to exist or not. In short: Subscribe or, we die.

www.filmint.nu (click on “Subscribe”)


IN THIS ISSUE

3 EDITORIAL

4 WOMEN, RELIGION AND THE VIDEO FILM IN NIGERIA
Aspects of a new and booming film industry, by Onookome Okome.

14 CRAIG BALDWIN
A visual essay. Introduction by Patrik Sjöberg.

22 REVENGE IS SWEET: THE BITTERNESS OF AUDITION
Miike Takashi’s controversial film in a close reading by Robin Wood.

28 DARK SHADOWS AROUND PINEWOOD AND EALING
Robert Murphy explores the shadowlands of British film noir.

36 HEROES: OTTO PREMINGER
Tag Gallagher on one of Hollywood’s most challenging directors.

44 BOOK REVIEWS
44 Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan... and Beyond, by Arthur M. Eckstein
47 Atom Egoyan, by James Deutsch
47 British Horror Cinema, by Anna Arnman
49 Essential Brakhage, by Daniel Herbert
51 The Flash of Capital, by Eija Niskanen
51 The Invention of the Western Film, by Ronald W. Wilson
54 Jean-Pierre Melville, by Olof Hedling
55 How Film Theory Got Lost, by Ira Jaffe
58 Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip, by Paul Buhle
58 Mouse Morality, by Daniel Smith-Rowsey
60 Roy Orbison, by Dana Polan
61 The Shawshank Redemption, by Daniel Smith-Rowsey
62 Lars von Trier: Interviews, by Eija Niskanen
63 Transatlantic Crossings, by Ronald W. Wilson

64 DVD REVIEWS
64 By Brakhage, by Liza Palmer
65 Pépé le moko, by Tim Palmer
66 The Honeymoon Killers, by Michael Tapper

Michael Tapper

Publicerad: 2004-01-26

Köp Film International
Läs mer om Film International i katalogen
Fler artiklar knutna till Film International
Fler tidskrifter i kategori DANS, FILM, TEATER & UTSTÄLLNINGAR