Film Matters Magazine

Holland Elana: What was the nature of the initial conversation that sparked the idea to embark on writing a book about The Godfather? Could you provide insights into the early discussions that laid the foundation for this project?

Joshua Heter + Richard Greene: We have both published a number of books on popular culture and philosophy. All told, there are dozens of these volumes (which have been published since around the year 2000), and we’ve been fortunate to work on a number of them in various capacities. Sometime about a year and a half ago, we began to wonder if there were any “big” pieces of intellectual property (i.e., television shows or movie franchises) that were overlooked; that never got the philosophy and pop culture treatment. And, as it turns out, inarguably, one of the most important pieces of popular storytelling in the twentieth century had been overlooked: The Godfather. With the anniversary of the first two films coming up, and with the release of The Offer (which recounts the making of The Godfather) on Paramount+, it seemed like now was a great time to correct that oversight. Thankfully, the good folks at Carus Books agreed, and we got to work.

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Sophie Barbour: My article looks at a character named Dounia from the film Divines and attempts to further other academic discussions of her gender identity—or rather, her gender performance. It is immediately obvious upon watching the film that it is interested in gender. It follows a female protagonist, her female best friend, and the female drug dealer against the backdrop of a violent male culture within the banlieue. Additionally, Dounia is North African and lives outside of the banlieue itself in a Roma camp. Her identity is, for lack of a better word, unrooted. There is no female-dominated space for her. She doesn’t live with other North Africans within the banlieue, and, of course, she lives in the periphery of the larger Parisian society and economy. With that in mind, she makes a space for herself as a drug dealer by performing certain traits that are attributed to men in order to partake in the banlieue economy. However, she also performs a type of hyper-femininity when it is required of her. These gendered performances then lead us to question her identity more largely. Where do the performances stop and Dounia start? I found that, really, there is no distinction. The performance of identity is the identity itself, and thus Dounia’s particular skill in acting becomes a powerful tool in being able to morph herself to the needs of the different roles she fulfills.

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Drew Meinecke: My article is about the Paradise Theater in Detroit, which existed between 1941 and 1951. It was opened initially as a mixed, or integrated, theater, which opted to use Black acts and performers to attract a multiracial audience. I point out the significance of this all-Black stage show, in which famous Black bandleaders such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong headlined, to argue that the Black moviegoing experience was not inherently inferior to the white moviegoing experience, as Black Detroiters saw quality performances at the Paradise Theater. That being said, I also make sure to include the fact that Black Detroiters faced discrimination, segregation, violence, and poverty, to ensure that the audience has no doubt that systemic racism permeated throughout the north during this period. My article also touches on the Paradise Theater’s transition from its distinction as a mixed theater to its distinction as a Black theater, a theater that is designated as a primarily Black space. Additionally, my article explores the close relationship between the Paradise Theater, and the nearby Black neighborhood of Paradise Valley. Specifically, I examine the efforts of the Paradise Theater which uplifted this local Black community, and I discuss how residents of this community reacted to these efforts. I also touch on the Paradise’s broader philanthropy which extended across the nation, with the intention of demonstrating that the Paradise did not fit the stereotype of exploitative Black movie theaters. In all, the goal of my article is to help shed light on an important, and often overlooked, part of Detroit’s history.

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Dylan O’Connell: “Nagisa Ōshima’s Essayistic Exploration of Japan’s ‘Korean Problem’” analyzes four films by Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Ōshima: Forgotten Soldiers (1963), Diary of Yunbogi (1965), Death by Hanging (1968), and Three Resurrected Drunkards (1968). The analysis of these films focuses on their use of essay film techniques to highlight various aspects of the “Korean problem.” The “Korean problem” refers to the animosity between the two countries that stems from Japan’s imperial legacy and contemporary exploitation of their neighbors. A summary of theorists’ descriptions on essay film is provided to serve as a foundation from which Ōshima’s films can be analyzed.

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Jacqueline Brady: My article is about Olivier Babinet’s 2016 film Swagger and explores how the film challenges reductive cinematic and media representations of the French banlieues, which often shape the banlieues into spaces of exclusion and Otherness and work to legitimize State violence against the population.

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Francesca Iucci: My article explores the symbolic role cigarettes take in Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai. Ever since watching the film, I was struck by the recurrence of cigarettes and smoking in scenes, which were essential to understand character dynamics. With my work, I strived to discover why and how cigarettes become relevant in characters’ interactions and obtain symbolic meaning that goes past their role as an object.

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Taylor Floyd: My article explores the core aspects of how the unique elements of clay molding impact the genre of claymation. This exploration was conducted using three of Australian filmmaker Adam Elliot’s films, with the focus primarily being on the elements of mise-en-scene in each film.

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Jack Zornado: This article is focused on Alfred Hitchcock’s use of sound and how he evolved as an experimental filmmaker, unafraid to experiment with new techniques, into an auteur that was renowned internationally for his films–and how his use of sound (informed by Soviet theories) changed through that evolution.