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A Companion to the Gangster Film

 

 

Edited by

George S. Larke-Walsh

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Notes on Contributors

Imruh Bakari is a filmmaker and writer. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Winchester, United Kingdom. Born in St. Kitts, he has since the 1960s lived in the United Kingdom and East Africa, and has worked and researched in “culture and the creative industries.” Among his films are African Tales – Short Film Series (2005/2008), Blue Notes and Exiled Voices (1991), and The Mark of the Hand (1986). He has published work on Caribbean and African cinemas, including “Memory and Identity in Caribbean Cinema” in New Formations, Number 30 Winter 1996‐97, and the co‐edited African Experiences of Cinema (BFI, 1996). His most recent publications include “The Role and Function of Film Festivals in Africa” in African Film Cultures (Cambridge Scholars, 2017), and a collection of poems, Without Passport or Apology (Smokestack Books, 2017). From 1999 to 2004 he was Festival Director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF).

Amy E. Borden is an Assistant Professor of Film at Portland State University, United States. She specializes in silent film history, gender, and classical film theory. She is currently writing a book‐length study about the theorization of motion pictures in gilded age American magazines, including how publishing personnel were involved in film marketing during the 1900s. Her work argues that the popular discourse featured in magazines positions motion pictures alongside other amusements in creating the perception of anxiety about the stability of the corporeal limits of bodies that interact with image‐producing machines. Her interest in film cycles and silent cinema are combined in her most recent work that considers how the vaudeville prop of the sausage machine was featured in a group of films during the silent era. She has presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and at Domitor: The International Society for the Study of Early Cinema. Her work has appeared in Multiplicities: Cycles, Sequels, Remakes and Reboots in Film & Television, Jump Cut, and Beyond the Screen: Institutions, Networks and Publics of Early Cinema.

Ryan Calabretta‐Sajder is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, United States, where he teaches courses in Italian, Film, and Gender Studies. He is the author of Divergenze in celluloide: colore, migrazione e identità sessuale nei film gay di Ferzan Ozpetek with Mimesis Edizioni and editor of the forthcoming collections of essays, Pasolini’s Lasting Impressions: Death, Eros, and Literary Enterprise in the Opus of Pier Paolo Pasolini with Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. He was recently awarded one of four Fulbright Awards for the Foundation of the South to conduct research and teach at the University of Calabria, Arcavacata, for the Spring of 2017. He is currently working on two book‐length projects, one exploring the Italian American gay author Robert Ferro, who died of AIDS complications in 1988, and the second on the Algerian Italian author Amara Lakhous.

Elayne Chaplin is a freelance lecturer at several academic institutions, including the Open University and Newcastle University, United Kingdom. She won a national award for teaching excellence from the Open University in 2016. Her research interests include the horror genre, in particular the relationship between history, political ideology, and depictions of monstrousness in film; East Asian cinema, including the work of Kitano Takeshi; and more broadly, sociohistorical formulations of gendered identity in cinema.

Paul Elliott holds a PhD from the University of Essex and lectures at the University of Worcester, United Kingdom. He is the Author of Hitchcock and the Cinema of Sensations (IB Tauris, 2012), an introductory guide to the French psychoanalyst and activist Felix Guattari (IB Tauris, 2012), and a monograph on the British crime film (Auteur, 2013). He has also published articles on film theory, philosophy, and British cinema. He is currently researching a book on the essay film.

Lioudmila Fedorova is an Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages, Georgetown University, United States. Her area of expertise is Russian twentieth‐century literature (including its popular genres, such as sci‐fi and crime fiction), film, and Internet. She is especially interested in intertextual relations: in the texts she studies, she searches for patterns and unexpected connections that sometimes go beyond the twentieth century. She researched Hoffman’s subtexts in Dostoevsky, M.Bulgakov’s argument with Tolstoy, and Rousseau’s influence on Pushkin. Her book Yankees in Petrograd, Bolsheviks in New York (DeCalb: NIU Press, 2013) examines the myth of America as the Other World in Russian literature and film. Currently, she is working on a book about post‐Soviet film adaptations of Russian literature.

James Fenwick is a part‐time lecturer at De Montfort University, United Kingdom. He recently completed his PhD on the role of the producer on the films of Stanley Kubrick. He is the co‐editor of the special issue of Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television entitled “The Stanley Kubrick Archive: A Dossier of New Research” (37:3) and of a special issue of Cinergie, entitled “Stanley Kubrick: A Retrospective” (autumn 2017). He has published a number of articles on the career of Kubrick, including “Curating Kubrick: Constructing ‘New Perspective’ Narratives in Stanley Kubrick Exhibitions” in the online journal Screening the Past (autumn 2017). He was recently awarded a grant by the EAAS to conduct research at the Kirk Douglas Papers, and he is the editor of Understanding Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (2018). His research interests include media industries and the role of the producer.

Stephen Gaunson is a Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Australia, where he is also the Head of Cinema Studies in the Media program. His research explores the subject of history on the screen, and the industries of film exhibition, marketing, and distribution. His principal research interest explores the intersection between cinema history and other disciplines such as literature, archiving, and adaptation. He is currently working on a number of book projects that investigate the production and exhibition of historical film adaptations.

Ana Rodríguez Granell holds a PhD in Art History (Universitat de Barcelona, 2012). Her dissertation title was Film Theory and Practice as a Critical Dispositif: The Achievement of Modernism and the Shape of Politics in the Cinema of the Thirties. Since 2009 she has worked as a lecturer in the Arts and Humanities Department at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain, where she has taught MA and BA courses such as Film Studies, History of Cinema, and Art History. Since 2006 she has been a member of research groups and R&D projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economics, devoted to culture and society, cinema, and history, and digital culture. In 2013 she joined the editorial team of the indexed journal Artnodes as executive manager. Her latest research articles and papers have been focused on the cultural history of modernism, and agency issues and opositional aesthetics in social documentary and film.

Karine Hildenbrand is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Nice‐Sophia Antipolis, which is part of the University of Cote D’Azur, France. She belongs to the LIRCES research laboratory, and her main fields of study are classic American cinema, filmic adaptations, genres, and narrative devices on screen. She is particularly interested in the reshaping of myths in Anglo‐Saxon cinema (notably the founding myth of the frontier, the question of transgression, and the mythification of evil).

Nithin Kalorth is Assistant Professor in School of Media and Liberal Arts at Bennett University, India. His research areas are film studies, visual culture, digital media, and South Asian culture. His PhD thesis explored the epistemology of Tamil New Wave cinema and its Dravidian connection. His research writings have been published in indexed journals and academic books. He is actively involved in documentary film making and digital photography projects. His documentary films have been screened in various national and international film festivals.

Kelvin Ke Jinde graduated from Monash University and Lasalle College of the Arts. He has interests in Asian Cinema, film aesthetics, and media practice as research.

Se Young Kim is Mellon Assistant Professor in the Program of Cinema and Media Arts at Vanderbilt University, United States. His research areas include contemporary East Asian and US cinema, with a focus on the representation of violence and its theoretical, philosophical, and ethical implications. He is also interested in new media and digital cultures, especially in relation to militarization in the twenty‐first century. His current book manuscript analyzes violent cinema produced in South Korea and Japan in the 1990s and 2000s, investigating how images of brutality can be understood in relation to the experience of neoliberal crisis in the region.

George S. Larke‐Walsh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Arts at the University of North Texas, United States. Current scholarly projects are focused on documentary history and theory as well as the gangster genre in international cinema. Her publishing history includes articles on authorship and performativity in documentary as well various articles and a book on the representation of the Mafia in Hollywood cinema.

Dominique Liao is an Assistant Professor in Center for General Education in National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan. Her research mainly focuses on gangster films, aesthetics of violence, avant‐garde theater, and cultural materialism. Her published academic works include Doom and Boom—Representations of Violence in Taiwan and Hong Kong Gangster Films (2004), Re‐constructing Modern Taiwaneseness—Modern Identity Crisis in the Films of Edward Yang (2009), Gangster, Nation and Masculinity: Gangster Men in Taiwanese Post‐Martial Law Films (2015), and Space and Memory in the Huashan Event (2015). She is now working on projects about the aesthetics of violence in East Asian gangster films.

Fran Mason is a Lecturer at the University of Winchester, United Kingdom, where he teaches Film Studies and American Studies. He teaches and researches in film and culture with particular interests in classical Hollywood cinema, crime films, cyborgs in representation, and postmodernism. He has published books on gangster movies (American Gangster Cinema: From ‘Little Caesar’ to ‘Pulp Fiction’), detective films (Hollywood’s Detectives: Crime Series in the 1930s and 1940s from the Whodunnit to Hard‐Boiled Noir), and on postmodernism. In addition, he has published articles on gangster films, cyborgs, zombies, postmodernist fiction, and conspiracy culture, and he is currently engaged in research on assassin films, The Godfather, and heist films.

Hülya Önal was born and raised in İstanbul, Turkey. She completed her undergraduate education at the Department of English Linguistics, Hacettepe University. She earned her master’s and PhD degrees at the Cinema –TV Department of Dokuz Eylül University. While completing her education, Önal worked as a director and a producer at various national and local television stations. She currently works as an academic at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, and has short films and documentaries besides her nationally and internationally published academic studies. Her films Mirage on Water, Five Angles, and Women in Ancient Aegean Coast have been shown in national and international festivals and biennials. The writer currently continues her academic research on Turkish cinema.

Vicente Rodríguez Ortega is Visiting Professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. He is the co‐editor of Contemporary Spanish Cinema & Genre and the author of La ciudad global en el cine contemporáneo: una perspectiva transnacional. He has published articles in New Media & Society, Studies in European Cinema, Transnational Cinemas, and Soccer & Society and has written chapters for A Companion to Spanish Cinema, A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar, Gender meets Genre in Postwar Film, Sampling Media, and Transnational Stardom: International Celebrity in Film and Popular Culture, among others. His interests include cinema and globalization, digital technologies, and representation and film genres. He is member of the research group “Cine y televisión: memoria, representación e industria” (TECMERIN).

Luca Peretti is a PhD candidate in the Department of Italian and in Film and Media Studies at Yale University, United States. He works on Italian cinema, industrial and ephemeral cinema, Italian Jewish culture, and on Italian modern history and culture. He has published for, among others, The Italianist: Film Issue, Cinema e storia, Comunicazioni Sociali, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, The Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, and Senses of Cinema.

John E. Petty is a Lecturer in Film at the University of Texas at Dallas, United States. He is the author of Capes, Crooks, and Cliffhangers: Heroic Serial Posters of the Golden Age (Ivy press, 2009) and the textbook Understanding Film, forthcoming from Great River Learning. John has also been published in a number of academic and popular journals and magazines, including Asian Cinema Journal, Films of the Golden Age, and Classic Movies.

Thomas Pillard is Associate Professor (Maître de conférences) of Film and Media studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle–Paris, France, and a member of the Institut de Recherche sur le Cinéma et l’Audiovisuel (IRCAV). He is the author of Le Film noir français face aux bouleversements de la France d’après‐guerre, 1946–1960 (Joseph K, 2014) and Bertrand Tavernier – Un dimanche à la campagne (Atlande, 2015). He has also co‐edited Le Film français (1945–1958): rôles, fonctions et identités d’une revue coporative (PSN, 2015). Currently he is working on the relationship between cinema and aviation in France.

Sony Jalarajan Raj is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada. Dr. Raj is a professional journalist turned academic who has worked in different demanding positions as reporter, special correspondent, and producer in several news media channels including BBC, Reuters, NDTV, Doordarshan, AIR, and Asianet News. Dr Raj served as the Graduate Coordinator and Assistant Professor of Communication Arts at the Institute for Communication, Entertainment and Media at St. Thomas University Florida, United States. He was full‐time faculty member in Journalism, Mass Communication, and Media Studies at Monash University, Australia; Curtin University; Mahatma Gandhi University; and University of Kerala. He is a three‐time winner of the Monash University PVC Award for excellence in teaching and learning. He has worked on the editorial board of five major international research journals, and he edits the Journal of Media Watch. He was the recipient of Reuters Fellowship and is a Thomson Foundation (UK) Fellow in Television Studies with the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Scholarship. He has extensively published his research works in international research journals and edited books.

Tom Ryall is Emeritus Professor of Film History at Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom. He is the author of Anthony Asquith (2005), Britain and the American Cinema (2001), and Alfred Hitchcock and the British Cinema (1996). He has contributed various articles on British and American cinema to collections such as British Rural Landscapes on Film (2016), Howard Hawks New Perspectives (2016), The Routledge Companion to British Media History (2015), Modern British Drama on Screen (2013), A Companion to Film Noir (2013), Film Noir The Directors (2012), A Companion to Hitchcock Studies (2011),The British Cinema Book (2009), The Cinema of Britain and Ireland (2005), and The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (Oxford University Press, 1998).

Valerie Soe is Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, United States. Since 1986 her experimental videos, installations, and documentary films have won dozens of awards, grants, and commissions, and have been exhibited around the world. Her latest film is the documentary Love Boat: Taiwan. Soe is the author of the blog beyondasiaphilia.com (recipient of a 2012 Art Writers’ Grant from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation), which looks at Asian and Asian American art, film, culture, and activism. She has published extensively on Asian/American representation and masculinity in Hollywood and Asian films.

Rohini Sreekumar successfully completed and defended her PhD research thesis from the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Monash University, Australia. In her doctoral thesis, Rohini explores the visual culture and receptional practices of Indian cinema among global nations. She gained her master’s degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Mahatma Gandhi University, India with a gold medal and first rank. Rohini is the recipient of National Merit Scholarship and Junior Research Fellowship from the University Grants Commission of India. Her research interests includes Indian film studies, Malayalam cinema, journalism practice, mediated public sphere and diaspora studies.

Philip Swanson is Hughes Professor of Spanish at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, where he is Director of Research and Innovation in Languages and Cultures. He has published extensively on Latin American literature, including books on the New Novel, José Donoso, Gabriel García Márquez, and other aspects of Latin American literature and culture. Titles include José Donoso: The Boom and Beyond, Cómo leer a Gabriel García Márquez, The New Novel in Latin America: Politics and Popular Culture after the Boom, Latin American Fiction, and the edited volumes Landmarks in Modern Latin American Fiction, The Companion to Latin American Studies, and The Cambridge Companion to Gabriel García Márquez. He has also published on North American representations of Latin America in film and fiction, and on the cinema of Spain. Professor Swanson is a member of various editorial boards and specialist professional advisory bodies, as well as former President of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland. He has taught in a number of universities in Europe and the United States.

Laura Treglia is an independent researcher in gender studies with specific reference to Japanese society and culture. She holds a PhD in gender studies (SOAS, University of London), MA in Japanese Studies (SOAS), and a Laurea Magistralis in Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy). Her main research interests encompass Japanese popular culture, film theory, genre and cult cinema, 1960s/1970s international cinemas, girl studies and postfeminism, and the construction of class, gender, sexuality, and violence in films and television. She has worked as lecturer at the University of Chester (United Kingdom) and is presently revising her doctoral dissertation for a book publication. Her latest conference papers address issues of sex and censorship, bodies, power and gaze dynamics, revenge and violence in Japanese grindhouse films from the early 1970s (Cine‐Excess X Cult Genres, Traditions and Bodies, Nov. 2016, Birmingham City University; Sex and the Cinema Conference, University of Kent, Dec. 2016). Forthcoming publications include a chapter contribution to an Issues in the Social Sciences series volume for Chester University Press and articles in peer‐reviewed academic journals in the field of film studies and contemporary Japanese studies.

Isolde Vanhee is an art and film scholar based in Belgium. She lectures on Film, Modernism, and Contemporary Art at LUCA School of Arts in Ghent. She obtained her master's degree in art history with a thesis on the paintings and drawings of the Polish‐French artist and dandy Balthus. She also holds a PhD in communication sciences. In her PhD, family representations in the American gangster cinema are observed and analyzed, using perspectives from both art and social sciences. She is an editor of Rekto:verso, a magazine on culture and criticism whose objective is to ensure that society pays more attention for the arts, and that the arts become more aware of society. She is Chair of the Board of Art Cinema OFFoff, and a member of the Center for Cinema and Media Studies (CIMS). From 2001 to 2005, she was a staff member of the Museum of Contemporary Art (SMAK) in Ghent. She has published in various magazines and books on film, painting, and the relationship between cinema and the fine arts. Recently, she has written about the public sculptures of Philip Aguirre Y Otegui, the revenge of Grace in Lars Von Trier’s Dogville, and the everyday in the films of Yasujiro Ozu.

Ron Wilson is a Lecturer in the Film and Media Studies Department at the University of Kansas, United States, where he teaches a variety of courses including film genres and popular culture, film theory, and film and video aesthetics. He is the author of The Gangster Film: Fatal Success in American Cinema (Columbia University Press). His most recent publication is a book chapter on the noir visual style of cinematographer Russell Metty that appears in Film Noir: Light and Shadow (Applause Theater and Cinema Books). He is presently conducting research for a book on filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the contributors for their time, effort, and scholarly expertise. Their work on this project has reminded me of the rich and varied nature of genre studies and its importance within the history of cinema. My thanks go as well to the Department of Media Arts at the University of North Texas. I could not have completed this book without all the support from my colleagues and staff there. Special thanks go to my old friends and colleagues Elayne Chaplin and Mel Gibson for their tireless support, which has meant so much to me over the years. I also wish to acknowledge the dedicated work from my research assistants, Stephanie Oliver, Bill Meeker, and Shaylynn Lesinski, who all provided invaluable editorial assistance along the way and Myriam Chihab for her expertize as a translator. I cannot thank them all enough for their support and knowledgeable insights. As always, this book is dedicated to my daughter, Jessica. I hope she will see that as well as hard work, there is also a great deal of satisfaction and joy involved when you get to contribute to a field of study you love.