Synopses & Reviews
War Culture and the Contest of Images analyzes the relationships among contemporary war, documentary practices, and democratic ideals. Dora Apel examines a wide variety of images and cultural representations of war in the United States and the Middle East, including photography, performance art, video games, reenactment, and social media images. Simultaneously, she explores the merging of photojournalism and artistic practices, the effects of visual framing, and the construction of both sanctioned and counter-hegemonic narratives in a global contest of images.
As a result of the global visual culture in which anyone may produce as well as consume public imagery, the wide variety of visual and documentary practices present realities that would otherwise be invisible or officially off-limits. In our digital era, the prohibition and control of images has become nearly impossible to maintain. Using carefully chosen case studiesandmdash;such as Krzysztof Wodiczkoandrsquo;s video projections and public works in response to 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the performance works of Coco Fusco and Regina Galindo, and the practices of Israeli and Palestinian artistsandmdash;Apel posits that contemporary war images serve as mediating agents in social relations and as a source of protection or refuge for those robbed of formal or state-sanctioned citizenship.
While never suggesting that documentary practices are objective translations of reality, Apel shows that they are powerful polemical tools both for legitimizing war and for making its devastating effects visible. In modern warfare and in the accompanying culture of war that capitalism produces as a permanent feature of modern society, she asserts that the contest of images is as critical as the war on the ground.
Review
andquot;Looking closely at the work of contemporary global photographers,and#160;Apel argues that art photography can powerfully counteract war'sand#160;official representations and, likewise, create a new kind of publicand#160;sphere in which war's meanings can be scrutinizedandhellip;a timely andand#160;necessary book.andquot;and#160;
Review
andquot;Strategically positioned between discussions of journalistic, vernacular images, and works of art, Apel significantly expands the contemporary conversation on the 'war of images.' This is an essential contribution to one of the major issues of our day.andquot;
Review
andquot;
War Culture and the Contest of Images is critical in its analysis of the politics of oppression shown through different perspectives. It will be helpful to filmmakers, modern and contemporary art historians, photojournalists, teachers, and students of visual communication.andquot;
Review
andquot;Powerful, thought-provoking, and at times haunting,
War Culture and the Context of Images is an unforgettable, original and valuable work.andquot;
Review
andquot;Perceptive and engaging, Eberwein's examination of depictions of masculinity in war films goes beyond the commonplace in criticism that merely conflates friendship with homoeroticismandmdash;an important topic that will command significant interest.andquot;
Review
"Robert Eberwein's compelling study, Armed Forces, offers and interesting case study of this cultural phenomenon of fluid gender in a context that is traditionally associated with hyper-masculinity. The overall impression of this excellent study is one of a much more complicated gender coded cinema than previously attributed to war films. Professor Eberwein revisits with close analysis many classic war films, enters the murky realm of gender, and yet allows us to understand and appreciate these films without the binary reductions that traditionally shape notions of gender and sexuality."
Review
andquot;Movie Migrationsand#160;offers insightful readings of the deep connections between Korean and foreign films. A model of transnational scholarship, it will revitalize genre studies.andquot;
Review
andquot;Essential reading for anyone interested in thinking through the transformative potential of image culture today.andquot;
Review
andquot;A magnificent service to the scholarly analysis of South Korean cinema. This book is insightful, eloquent, and fully engaged. It has been researched and written with tremendous rigour and commitment.andquot;
Review
andquot;Spence and Navarro create a beautiful, accessible synthesis of the ideas underpinning documentary thinking, the key scholars addressing these ideas, and a diverse filmography representing those texts. It sets the foundation for understanding the form as it has developed so far and provides a starting point for understanding the form as it will evolve in the future.andquot;
Review
andquot;Highly recommended. Perhaps mandatory for students of film, mass communication, and journalism.andquot;
Review
andquot;Crafting Truth delivers an intelligent and inspiring introduction to documentary studies through an original framework that powerfully attends to the complex politics, aesthetics, ideas, and forms at the heart of the genre.andquot;
Review
andquot;Crafting Truth introduces readers to some of the basic questions guiding contemporary discussions of the documentary. Authors Louise Spence and Vinicius Navarro structure their book around thoughtful considerations of general concepts like authenticity, evidence, and responsibility; structural organization of rhetoric and argument; and formal techniques like editing, camerawork, and sound in order to ask: how do documentaries proclaim themselves authentic?andquot;
Review
andquot;Crafting Truth addresses all the main issues involved in studying the documentary, cleverly illustrated by recent examples while not forgetting necessary consideration of the canonandmdash;a very valuable account.andquot;
Review
andquot;A novel and illuminating introduction to key concepts in documentary. The distinctive cast to the book makes it an extremely welcome contribution to the field.andquot;
Synopsis
War Culture and the Contest of Images analyzes the relationships among contemporary war, documentary practices, and democratic ideals. Dora Apel examines a wide variety of images and cultural representations of war in the United States and the Middle East, including photography, performance art, video games, reenactment, and social media images. Simultaneously, she explores the merging of photojournalism and artistic practices, the effects of visual framing, and the construction of both sanctioned and counter-hegemonic narratives in a global contest of images.
As a result of the global visual culture in which anyone may produce as well as consume public imagery, the wide variety of visual and documentary practices present realities that would otherwise be invisible or officially off-limits. In our digital era, the prohibition and control of images has become nearly impossible to maintain. Using carefully chosen case studies--such as Krzysztof Wodiczko's video projections and public works in response to 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the performance works of Coco Fusco and Regina Galindo, and the practices of Israeli and Palestinian artists--Apel posits that contemporary war images serve as mediating agents in social relations and as a source of protection or refuge for those robbed of formal or state-sanctioned citizenship.
While never suggesting that documentary practices are objective translations of reality, Apel shows that they are powerful polemical tools both for legitimizing war and for making its devastating effects visible. In modern warfare and in the accompanying culture of war that capitalism produces as a permanent feature of modern society, she asserts that the contest of images is as critical as the war on the ground.
Synopsis
War Culture and the Contest of Images analyzes the relationships among contemporary war, documentary practices, and democratic ideals. Using carefully chosen case studies, Dora Apel examines a wide variety of images and cultural representations of war in the United States and the Middle East, including photography, performance art, video games, reenactment, and social media images. Simultaneously, she explores the merging of photojournalism and artistic practices, the effects of visual framing, and the construction of both sanctioned and counter-hegemonic narratives in a global contest of images.
Synopsis
In war films, the portrayal of deep friendships between men is commonplace. Given the sexually anxious nature of the American imagination, such bonds are often interpreted as carrying a homoerotic subtext. In Armed Forces , Robert Eberwein argues that an expanded conception of masculinity and sexuality is necessary in order to understand more fully the intricacy of these intense and emotional human relationships. Drawing on a range of examples from silent films such as What Price Glory and Wings to sound era works like The Deer Hunter, Platoon, Three Kings, and Pearl Harbor , he shows how close readings of war films, particularly in relation to their cultural contexts, demonstrate that depictions of heterosexual love, including those in romantic triangles, actually help to define and clarify the nonsexual nature of male love. The book also explores the problematic aspects of masculinity and sexuality when threatened by wounds, as in The Best Years of Our Lives, and considers the complex and persistent analogy between weapons and the male body, as in Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan .
Synopsis
This timely new study reveals that, though South Korean popular culture might be enjoying new prominence on the global stage, the nationandrsquo;s film industry has long been a hub for creative appropriations across national borders. Movie Migrations explores how Korean filmmakers have put a unique spin on familiar genres, while influencing world cinema from Hollywood to Bollywood.and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
As the two billion YouTube views for andldquo;Gangnam Styleandrdquo; would indicate, South Korean popular culture has begun to enjoy new prominence on the global stage. Yet, as this timely new study reveals, the nationandrsquo;s film industry has long been a hub for transnational exchange, producing movies that put a unique spin on familiar genres, while influencing world cinema from Hollywood to Bollywood.and#160;and#160;
Movie Migrations is not only an introduction to one of the worldandrsquo;s most vibrant national cinemas, but also a provocative call to reimagine the very concepts of andldquo;national cinemasandrdquo; and andldquo;film genre.andrdquo; Challenging traditional critical assumptions that place Hollywood at the center of genre production, Hye Seung Chung and David Scott Diffrient bring South Korean cinema to the forefront of recent and ongoing debates about globalization and transnationalism. In each chapter they track a different way that South Korean filmmakers have adapted material from foreign sources, resulting in everything from the Manchurian Western to
The Hostandrsquo;s reinvention of the Godzilla mythos.and#160;and#160;Spanning a wide range of genres, the book introduces readers to classics from the 1950s and 1960s Golden Age of South Korean cinema, while offering fresh perspectives on recent favorites like
Oldboy and
Thirst. Perfect not only for fans of Korean film, but for anyone curious about media in an era of globalization,
Movie Migrations will give readers a new appreciation for the creative act of cross-cultural adaptation.and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
Outside of the classroom and scholarly publications, lynching has long been a taboo subject. Nice people, it is felt, do not talk about it, and they certainly do not look at images representing the atrocity.
In Imagery of Lynching, Dora Apel contests this adopted stance of ignorance. Through a careful and compelling analysis of over one hundred representations of lynching, she shows how the visual documentation of such crimes can be a central vehicle for both constructing and challenging racial hierarchies. She examines how lynching was often orchestrated explicitly for the camera and how these images circulated on postcards, but also how they eventually were appropriated by antilynching forces and artists from the 1930s to the present. She further investigates how photographs were used to construct ideologies of andquot;whitenessandquot; and andquot;blackness,andquot; the role that gender played in these visual representations, and how interracial desire became part of the imagery.
Offering the fullest and most systematic discussion of the depiction of lynching in diverse visual forms, this book addresses questions about race, class, gender, and dissent in the shaping of American society. Although we may want to avert our gaze, Apel holds it with her sophisticated interpretations of traumatic images and the uses to which they have been put.
Synopsis
A documentary's sounds and images are always the product of selection and choice, and often underscore points the filmmaker wishes to make. Crafting Truth illuminates the ways these films tell their stories; how they use the camera, editing, sound, and performance; what rhetorical devices they employ; and what the theoretical, practical, and ethical implications of these choices are. Complex documentary concepts are presented through easily accessible language, images, and a discussion of a wide range of films and videos to encourage new ways of thinking about and seeing nonfiction film.
Synopsis
Documentaries such as Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's
Born into Brothels, Michael Moore's
Fahrenheit 9/11, Jeffrey Blitz's
Spellbound, along with
March of the Penguins and
An Inconvenient Truth have achieved critical as well as popular success. Although nonfiction film may have captured imaginations, many viewers enter and leave theaters with a nanve concept of "truth" and "reality"-for them, documentaries are information sources. But is truth or reality readily available, easily acquired, or undisputed? Or do documentaries convey illusions of truth and reality? What aesthetic means are used to build these illusions?
A documentary's sounds and images are always the product of selection and choice, and often underscore points the filmmaker wishes to make. Crafting Truth illuminates the ways these films tell their stories; how they use the camera, editing, sound, and performance; what rhetorical devices they employ; and what the theoretical, practical, and ethical implications of these choices are. Complex documentary concepts are presented through easily accessible language, images, and a discussion of a wide range of films and videos to encourage new ways of thinking about and seeing nonfiction film.
About the Author
HYE SEUNG CHUNG is an associate professor of film and media studies in the department of communication studies at Colorado State University. She is the author of Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance and Kim Ki-duk.and#160;DAVID SCOTT DIFFRIENT is the William E. Morgan Endowed Chair of Liberal Arts and associate professor of film and media studies in the department of communication studies at Colorado State University. He is the author of Omnibus Films: Theorizing Transauthorial Cinema.and#160;
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction
PART ONE. GENERAL CONCEPTS
1. Authenticity
2. Evidence
3. Authority
4. Responsibility
PART TWO. STRUCTURAL ORGANIZATION
5. Argument
6. Dramatic Stories, Poetic and Essay Documentaries
PART THREE. FORMAL TECHNIQUES
7. Editing
8. Camerawork
9. The Profilmic
10. Sounds (coauthored with Carl Lewis)
Index