David Klafkowski’s Post

Photo X – Episode Three

If it's been more than ten years since you were in an academic setting where you had to read critical analysis on the topic of your study, and you've recently come across an essay that takes you warmly back to those days of lab work or class discussion of an artistic text, this one's for you. Bonus points if you've seen this film, have been trying to get a friend to watch it, or it's your first time and spoilers are not bothersome. Pauline Chen on Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine" (1993): "Farewell My Concubine continues this examination of the tension between tradition and modernity, but on a more lavish and ambitious scale, facilitated by international funding and Chen’s collaboration with Hong Kong artists (notably source-novel author Lilian Lee and actor Leslie Cheung), made possible by Deng Xiaoping’s liberal reforms and openness to the outside world. The film tells the story of Douzi (as an adult called Cheng Dieyi and played by Cheung), left at a Beijing-opera school by his mother, who can no longer raise him at the brothel where she works. The timid, sensitive boy befriends a brawnier schoolmate, Shitou (as an adult called Duan Xiaolou and played by Zhang Fengyi). In the face of cruelty and physical abuse from their teachers, the boys’ care and affection for each other is the only thing that keeps them human." #movies #criticalanalysis

#ThrowBackThursday This week, we've dug into the JPH collection and located another excellent film analysis; Hank Nelson's 'Kokoda: Pushing the Front Line', https://buff.ly/3Yj8asa Abstract: From the release of Damien Parer's Kokoda Frontline in 1942, there have been several high quality documentary films and many popular and scholarly histories on the battles on the Kokoda Track, but until Alister Grierson's Kokoda of 2006 there was no feature film. Initially well received by an Australian public, Kokoda raises several important questions for historians. Makers of films on historical events properly draw on contemporary images: they are evocative of a time and place, guides to all that detail of dress, manners and possessions that take a crew so long to get right and that the pedantic delight in criticising, and they provide templates for shot composition. But the images in films are not subjected to the same scrutiny that historians apply to written sources. In Grierson's Kokoda, images are drawn from somewhere on the Track and relocated and, in one case, taken from another battle and another place. Film critics were concerned with placing Kokoda within the history of war films and evaluating it against other war films. When film critics considered whether Kokoda was ‘real’ or ‘convincing’, they were judging whether the behaviour of soldiers in battle moved and engaged an audience. Almost no film critics considered the film's accuracy as history, and it does repeat many popular errors about the Kokoda battles. Finally, it is interesting to consider what has been omitted and whether this has been the inevitable consequence of reducing an event spread over 100 kilometres of Track and several months to 92 minutes of film time, and whether the choices have diminished the end product as film or as history. More historians need to make themselves familiar with film and engage more readily in the public evaluation of those films claimed to be based on ‘true’ stories and illuminating what have come to be accepted as determining events in national histories. You can watch Kokoda Front Line (1942) here> https://buff.ly/4flEOiT #PacificHistory #Film #Cinema #Nationalism #WorldWar #MissedInHistory #History

📽️ Transfer your old films to digital formats today. 🌐 Visit our website and preserve memories: leavealegacytoday.com #LeaveALegacy #DigitalRestoration #Memories #Preservaion #Digitisation #HistoryReserved #PreserveYourMemories #QualityMemories #AnalogToDigital #ColoradoStation

I am thinking a lot about maps these days: how we create them, how they represent certain ideas and legacies. How by creating our own visual maps we can reclaim our power, through creative visualisation and imagination. How deeper visions in mapping, creating maps and presenting them amongst our communities can also reconnect us with the land, nature. Enjoyed watching this film about the power of maps and Zuni culture claiming their culture through the art of visual mapping https://lnkd.in/dhTp-2xp

Raastha Review | Unni Vlogs Cinephile #unnivlogs #unnivlogscinephile #unnivlog #unnivlogsreview #raastha #aneeshanwar #sarjanokhalid #anaghanarayanan

Essential session tomorrow at #GettingReal - more conversations about Independence and why it matters. Virtual attendance also possible!

IN GOD WE TRUST, ALL OTHERS MUST BRING DATA (INCLUDING YOU!) Its no new news that the entertainment industry is going through a massive pivot. The value chain is going from producer centric to creator/audience centric (kudos Doug Shapiro for outlining it very clearly). Streaming landscape is ultra competitive (as Evan Shapīro has pointed out in his recent excellent writings). Add European elections, economic pressures, conflicts and reverberations of COVID and SAG strikes. In this enviroment executives, ecosystem leaders, and policymakers (either straight in governments, film and media orgs or elswhere) have to make some tough decisions. And gut feeling does not help (always). Our colleagues Jakob Isak Nielsen, @Cathrin Bengesser, @Ivana Kostovska, Marius Øfsti & et al at CresCine have put together a remarkable dossier on the State of small European (film) markets. Its comprehensive, solid, interactive and easy to explore - a total must read for anyone in this business. Dive in, it will help you to make better decisions and bring you the data-> AC Coppens Manu Guddait, Tine Fischer, Edith Sepp, Rolandas Kvietkauskas Laimonas Ubavičius, Dita Rietuma, Ene Katrine Rasmussen, Roosa Toivonen, Ross Keane, Luís Chaby Vaz, Virginie Nouvelle Heidy Purga Karlo Funk Sarah Geeroms Ezra Eeman Sofie Hvitved Loïc De Visscher Anssi Komulainen Eleni Sharp, Rafaël Huybrechts, Ricardo Tomé, Wouter Quartier, Matthijs Wouter Knol.

📽️ Transfer your old films to digital formats today. 🌐 Visit our website and preserve memories: leavealegacytoday.com #LeaveALegacy #DigitalRestoration #Memories #Preservaion #Digitisation #HistoryReserved #PreserveYourMemories #QualityMemories #AnalogToDigital #ColoradoStation

I have a new journal article in Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, called 'On Writing the Anarchist Cinema'. You can read it here: https://lnkd.in/edMvthsW