Film Genres in Hungarian and Romanian Cinema: History, Theory, and Reception discusses how the Hungarian and Romanian film industries show signs of becoming a regional hub within the Eastern European canon, a process occasionally facilitated by the cultural overlap through the historical province of Transylvania. Andrea Virginás employs a film historical overview to merge the study of small national cinemas with film genre theory and cultural theory and posits that Hollywood-originated classical film genres have been important fields of reference for the development of these Eastern European cinemas. Furthermore, Virginás argues that Hungarian and Romanian genre films demonstrate a valid evolution within the given genre’s standards, and thus need to be incorporated into the global discourse on this subject. Scholars of film studies, Eastern European studies, cultural studies, and history will find this book particularly useful.
“A stellar representative of the New Romanian Cinema, Radu Jude also belongs to a select group of politically-minded East European filmmakers who have taken as their subject the nature of the media and the circulation of images (Vertov and Eisenstein, Dušan Makavejev, the Ukrainian documentari- an Sergei Loznitsa). For that reason, Andrei Gorzo and Veronica Lazăr’s Beyond the New Romanian Cinema: Romanian Culture, History, and the Films of Radu Jude is both welcome and essential.” / J. Hoberman, author of The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism “Beyond the New Romanian Cinema: Romanian Culture, History, and the Films of Radu Jude delivers what it promises in its title, and offers more. It locates Radu Jude’s films against the backdrop of the New Romanian Cinema, a phenomenon which put Romanian cinema on the map of European and world cinema, arguing that Jude overcame a certain sterility and timidity of this movement by creating a very rich and versatile body of work, comprising films of different genres and formats. At the same time as offering a meticulous and thought-provoking analysis of Jude’s films, the authors use them to explore the strengths and limitations of the auteurist paradigm, both in Romania and more widely.” / Ewa Mazierska, Professor of Film Studies, University of Central Lancashire “This impressive study of filmmaker Radu Jude is invaluable not only for its acute critical observations, but also for its intelligent, informed commentary on Romanian cinema, culture, and society in general. I learned something impor- tant on virtually every page. Highly recommended.” / James Naremore, author of The Magic World of Orson Welles, Acting in the Cinema, and On Kubrick “Andrei Gorzo and Veronica Lazăr offer a comprehensive and refined analysis of the films of Radu Jude, a filmmaker who has emerged with one of the most uncompromising voices ranging from the farcical macabre political satire to a philosophical interrogation of representation, and who has addressed the most daring topics after the first wave of the so-called New Romanian Cinema. The monograph manages to combine a wide-angle film-historical and cultural perspective with an in-depth investigation unravelling the ways in which Jude’s cinema is ‘updating’ the legacy of European modernism in order to engage with pressing issues of Romanian culture and history.” / Ágnes Pethő, Professor of Film Studies, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania
This book examines the structuring of space in Romanian and Hungarian cinema, and particularly how space is used to express the deep imprint of a socialist past on a post-socialist present. It considers this legacy of the Eastern European socialist regimes by interrogating the suffocating, tyrannical and enclosing structures that are presented in film. By tracing such paradigmatic models as horizontal and vertical enclosure, this book aims to show how enclosed spatial structuring restages the post-socialist era to produce an implicit and collective form of remembrance. While closely scrutinizing the interplay of location and image, Space in Romanian and Hungarian Cinema offers a new approach to the cinema of the region, which unites the filmic productions under a defined, post-socialist Eastern European spatial umbrella. By simultaneously portraying the gloom of a socialist past, while also conveying a sense of longing for a pre-capitalist era, these films convey how sense of unity and also ambivalence is a defining hallmark of Eastern European cinema.
Covering more than forty films made since 2001 - including The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The Paper will be Blue, Police, Adjective and Beyond the Hills - this pioneering collection of essays on New Romanian Cinema is the first to contextualise it aesthetically, theoretically and historically. Scholars from across Europe and North America are brought together, reflecting on the realism, minimalism and intermedial artifice of New Romanian cinemas, on its approaches to issues of national and gender identity, and on its unique convergence of ethics and aesthetics. With its thorough bibliographic and filmographic references, and a comprehensive historical overview, the anthology represents a systematic guide to New Romanian Cinema as a consolidated cinematic movement, and highlights its potential as a rich interdisciplinary field of study.
This book rethinks the study of European Cinema in a way that centres on students and their needs, in a comprehensive volume introducing undergraduates to the main discourses, directions and genres of twenty-first-century European film. Importantly, this collection is the first of its kind to apply a transversal approach to European Cinema, bringing together the East and the West, while providing a broad picture of key trends, aesthetics, genres, national identities, and transnational concerns. Lewis and Canning’s collection effectively addresses some of the most pressing questions in contemporary European film, such as ecology, migration, industry, identity, disability, memory, auteurship, genre, small cinemas, and the national and international frameworks which underpin them. Combining accessible original research with a thorough grounding in recent histories and contexts, each chapter includes key definitions, reflective group questions, and a summative case study. Overall, this book makes a strong contribution to our understanding of recent European Cinema, making it an invaluable resource for lecturers and students across a variety of film-centred modules.
Following a previous international conference at the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and the subsequent publication of a volume of studies with the title Film in the Post-Media Age (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), which insisted, citing the words of Jacques Rancière, that the ecosystem of contemporary moving images should be understood not as a unified digital environment, but as a highly diversified, “multisensory milieu,” another conference was organised, focusing this time directly on the “multisensory” nature of moving images. Pairing the keywords “cinema” and “sensation”, an invitation was extended for presentations offering a closer examination of the sensual aspects of moving images in order to identify and map out at least some of the possible new directions perceived as taking shape as “sensuous” film studies. The questions contributors addressed included: What kind of paradigms, authors, and styles can be identified in the practice of a cinema exploring the palpable presence of bodies in film history? How can sensory, audiovisual perception and cognitive knowledge be connected when watching moving images? What does the experience of so-called haptic images entail in film and video art? How does an emphasis on sensations and the body relate to representations of social issues and cultural difference? How are representations of other arts in films, or the filmic image appearing as a painterly tableau perceived? How can new images incorporate a sensation of “old” images? What is the difference between haptic images and “hyper” cinema in the form of 3D movies? How can the new naturalistic trends in contemporary cinema be interpreted? What kind of sensual forms are devised for what is unrepresentable or impalpable? The conference took place between the 25th and 27th of May 2012, with the title The Cinema of Sensations, and attracted researchers from all over the world for what turned out to be three days of presentations on extremely varied subjects and lively discussions conducted in a memorably cheerful atmosphere. The present volume is the palpable outcome of these debates, and publishes a selection of articles that have been written for, or after, this conference.
The “spatial”, the “bodily”, and the “memory turn” in the humanities and cultural studies are well-canonized developments. These features of our being in the world are fundamental in the medium of cinema, which is an art of spaces, bodies, and memories, increasingly so today when the analogue platform has been running parallel with the digitalized method of filmmaking. The three nodal concepts define the tripartite structure of this volume, composed of an overview study and twelve case-studies of post-1989 Eastern European film and cinema. The overarching questions of space representation and construction, bodies on screen, issues of national identification in a postcolonial framework, and cinema as a form of cultural memory are explored through the lens of specific national cinemas or contemporary Croatian, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, and Romanian films. In addition to investigating the cohesive forces that mark the postcommunist Eastern European region as a coherent cultural entity in its cinematic representations, the volume also stands as a witness to the importance of transnational approaches.
Between 1929 and 1942, Hungary's motion picture industry experienced meteoric growth. It leapt into Europe's top echelon, trailing only Nazi Germany and Italy in feature output. Yet by 1944, Hungary's cinema was in shambles, internal and external forces having destroyed its unification experiments and productive capacity. This original cultural and political history examines the birth, unexpected ascendance, and wartime collapse of Hungary's early sound cinema by placing it within a complex international nexus. Detailing the interplay of Hungarian cultural and political elites, Jewish film professionals and financiers, Nazi officials, and global film moguls, David Frey demonstrates how the transnational process of forging an industry designed to define a national culture proved particularly contentious and surprisingly contradictory in the heyday of racial nationalism and antisemitism.
Global Cinema Studies in Landscape Allegory explores the narrative and stylistic approaches to imbuing natural settings in audiovisual media with a psychological dimension – or, in other words, configuring a ‘landscape’ to function beyond its typical role as a backdrop – and the cultural contexts for this aesthetic impulse. Contributors argue that while audiovisual allegory can be understood as inherently avant-garde, certain kinds of stories – and the ways in which they are presented – can be categorized as a ‘landscape allegory.’ Focusing on the idea of a ‘landscape’ in the most concrete and literal form, contributions drawing from a global spectrum of cultural contexts work toward establishing a fuller and more culturally diverse understanding of landscape allegory in cinema.
The continued interest in the social and cultural life of the former Warsaw pact countries – looking at but also beyond their socialist pasts – encompasses a desire to know more about their national cinemas. Yet, despite the increasing consumption of films from these countries – via DVD, VOD platforms and other alternative channels – there is a lack of comprehensive information on this key aspect of visual culture. This important book rectifies the glaring gap and provides both a history and a contemporary account of East Central European cinema in the pre-WW2, socialist, and post-socialist periods. Demonstrating how at different historical moments popular cinema fulfilled various roles, for example in the capacity of nation-building, and adapted to the changing markets of a morphing political landscape, chapters bring together experts in the field for the definitive analysis of mainstream cinema in the region. Celebrating the unique contribution of films from Hungary, the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia and Poland, from the award-winning Cosy Dens to cult favourite Lemonade Joe, and from 1960s Polish Westerns to Hollywood-influenced Hungarian movies, the book addresses the major themes of popular cinema. By looking closely at genre, stardom, cinema exhibition, production strategies and the relationship between the popular and the national, it charts the remarkable evolution and transformation of popular cinema over time. The continued interest in the social and cultural life of the former Warsaw pact countries – looking at but also beyond their socialist pasts – encompasses a desire to know more about their national cinemas. Yet, despite the increasing consumption of films from these countries – via DVD, VOD platforms and other alternative channels – there is a lack of comprehensive information on this key aspect of visual culture. This important book rectifies the glaring gap and provides both a history and a contemporary account of East Central European cinema in the pre-WW2, socialist, and post-socialist periods. Demonstrating how at different historical moments popular cinema fulfilled various roles, for example in the capacity of nation-building, and adapted to the changing markets of a morphing political landscape, chapters bring together experts in the field for the definitive analysis of mainstream cinema in the region. Celebrating the unique contribution of films from Hungary, the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia and Poland, from the award-winning Cosy Dens to cult favourite Lemonade Joe, and from 1960s Polish Westerns to Hollywood-influenced Hungarian movies, the book addresses the major themes of popular cinema. By looking closely at genre, stardom, cinema exhibition, production strategies and the relationship between the popular and the national, it charts the remarkable evolution and transformation of popular cinema over time.
