Film Matters Magazine

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

George Turner: This article explores, from various angles, the ethical questions concerning the representation of judicial systems in three documentary films. More specifically, I examine three documentaries’ publicizing of private matters, and the dilemmas that arise as a result. Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Kim Longinotto’s Sisters in Law (2005) and Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967), inter alia, all document judicial processes to some degree and can accordingly be said to be publicizing private affairs. The article, upon analyzing each film’s representation of these affairs with regard to certain psychological phenomena, concludes that the dubious nature of legality in nonfiction film is too seldom acknowledged and is thus too often tactlessly represented. Ultimately, I argue for a revision of the discourses surrounding documentary, contending that an apolitical discourse on the medium’s ability to elicit social change can promise a more productive appreciation of its aesthetic and sociopolitical potential.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Ben Werdegar: My article is an analysis of Elia Suleiman’s 2002 film Divine Intervention and the bold statement the film makes about the effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the people of Palestine. As a filmmaker, Suleiman uses a wide variety of methods to achieve this goal, ranging from the frequent use of stationary shots from a distance, the considerable lack of character dialogue, and mise-en-scene that is frequently loaded with metaphor, just to name a few examples. The film is an act of providing a voice to the voiceless Palestinians by chronicling their struggle and their loss in a somberly artistic fashion.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Andrew Lewis: This article describes the use of diegetic music in Aki Kaurismäki’s 2017 film The Other Side of Hope. Portraying how music can make a meaningful connection with individuals facing oppression, the director’s films have always relied on music as a tool for political narration. Dealing with the 2010s refugee crisis in Europe, this film sees the director’s use of music take on a new shape, demonstrating a communion between characters in a globalized, post-national condition.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Ashley R. Spillane: “Iranian Essay Film Practice: A Blind Spot in Film History” aims to prove, through research and analysis, that essay film practice is present in Iranian cinema, using Taxi Tehran (2015), Persepolis (2007), Close-Up (1990), A Moment of Innocence (1996), and The House is Black (1963) as case studies. The article focuses on the essayistic tendencies of these films and investigates the ways in which these traits are reapplied in Iranian contexts, influenced by Iranian culture, history, social norms, and politics.

Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.

Lauren Mattice: My article focuses on starlet Clara Bow and her once lost film It (1927) and demonstrates how both stars and studios have navigated the sexual identities of women. The essay looks to the original release of It and its reevaluation after a single surviving copy was discovered in Prague in the 1960s to illustrate how scholars have explored beyond its initial commercial and critical success to examine how Bow’s embodiment of the young, vivacious flapper girl uncovers the ideal image of the 1920s new woman as desired by growing female audiences.