2013 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge (Book 6) Korean Film: History, Resistance, and Democratic Imagination

If I were to ask even the more seasoned of cinephiles in my circles of friends and colleague and even fellow bloggers about their experiences with South Korean cinema the likelihood of their awareness will only extend to, at most Oldboy and maybe The Host.  This is not entirely their fault as much of the knowledge around South Korean cinema specifically, is trapped under the weight of its contemporary Asian film predecessors with successful global offerings in the Hong Kong action cinema of the 90's and Japanese horror films of the early 2000's.  Running alongside these two movements was an emerging South Korean film world unfolding some of the most avant-garde and challenging films of the past two decades and has since garnered much more writing both academic and general interest, much of which I have read.  When figuring how I could possibly include a text on Korean cinema for this my final offering to Out of the Past and their 2013 Summer Reading Classic Film Book challenge, I was fortunate to stumble upon the text Korean Film: History, Resistance and Democratic imagination, which pulls deep into the traditions of Korean film, both before and after it divided into its respective North and South political spaces.  Co-authors Eungjun Min, Jinsook Joo, and Han Ju Kwak compile what proves to be not only the most detailed account of the century old tradition of filmmaking with Korea, but also manage to depict the troubled historical landscape of a country(ies) whose cinema invariably and irreversibly influenced by the presence of Chinese, Japanese, British and American occupations, noting the ways in which each foreign entity influenced the film of the Koreas both in highly positive, as well as problematic situations.  While the pinnacle of classic Asian cinema still proves to be the late Donald Richie's love letter to Japanese cinema, this text offers an astute, albeit, specialized set of voices on a country who has become both a point of revolutionary filmmaking in the past decade by showing that as a moviemaking entity the wild themes, challenging cinematic landscapes and inherent subversiveness of the work of the Koreas is nothing new and certainly only seems to be expanding beyond all other countries at an exponential rate

This co-authored text works, precisely because it is clearly influenced by film theorist, historians and even possesses a keen eye for the economics of filmmaking and distribution.  Despite it being authored by three distinct individuals, the narrative voice is that of a singular statement, pulling upon ideas inherent to Korean culture, lifting phrases that have contexts inexplicable to Western audiences using the moments in the countries storied history to develop this enigmatic concepts.  While, the book does often fall into the trap of listing every film possible from an era, particularly true for the post-Korean war film section, the authors do afford it a considerable amount of space to explain particularly important authors or ideas, both in terms of how they relate to the historical narrative of Korea and the various regulations of filmmaking from the prospective eras.  While it can prove a bit dense at times, it is refreshing to visit a text that does not feel it necessary to overexplain the ideas it is working with, making only brief notes on political factions and economic burdens from era, always remember that it is firstly a text about film, allowing discussions of Im Kown-taek to receive precedence than overly detailed accounts of the various student revolutions and failed political coups which occurred, and for awhile were still occurring, in the respective Koreas.  Furthermore, the authors do something that is often impossible in this kind of work, they manage to insert their opinions of certain films or filmmakers without it coming off as flippant, pretentious or worse, ill-informed.  This is perhaps most evocatively and engagingly done when discussing the melodramas of the fifties, wherein, the authors note the heavy degrees of exploitative politicized filmmaking that is neither subversive or well-executed making the works seem hokey and ill-conceived by a contemporary gaze.  Any opinion posited in this book is always reason, almost over analyzed as though the authors realize their text will serve as the only work of reference. Indeed, many of the works mentioned escape a global audience, but the optimism spouted within the various chapters only proves to make the case for their emergence on a global scale in the near future.

Best Film Discovery of the Book:  This is a bit tricky as much of this is unavailable, however, I will say that it has made me want to hunt down the early works of Cheol-su Park whose films seem as though they were wildly subversive well before his cerebral 301, 302.  It is worth noting that this book is quite expensive, I would suggest do like I did and rent it from a library, through the wonder of inter-library loans.

2013 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge (Book 5) Mining The Home Movie: Excavations In Histories And Memories

When one considers a notion of classic film they often find themselves looking back with great fondness upon Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman sharing an ill-fated kiss in Casablanca or a maniacal Charles Foster Kane uttering the seemingly incoherent phrase Rosebud.  These are sentimental favorites for cinephiles the world over, yet movies, or more specifically their function in our daily lives, at one time took on a layer of the personal through the home movie.  The home movie, often shot by a father hoping with great aspiration to capture the fleeting memories of his children and wife at Christmas, during the first day of school or moments of sheer wonder which occur during a first snowfall, are equally cinematic, to the previously mentioned attachment to an loaded phrase that turns out to be nothing more than a sled.  Home movies, much like Kane's Rosebud represent something lost that can never truly be reclaimed, or so it would appear.  The anthology, which discusses the nature of home movies, as well as where the major collections of such film are held within The United States and a handful of European countries that is Mining the Home Movie is nothing short of a revelation.  Edited by Karen Ishizuka and Patricia Zimmerman, Mining the Home Movie takes one one of the more enigmatic pieces in the catchall world of "orphan" films (all those cinematic works that fall outside of traditional realm of commercial filmmaking.  Indeed, as the editors and the many contributors to this text point out, the home movie takes on a very important cultural level in an era prior to the movement towards digitization, wherein anyone with an Iphone could become a chronicler of events, the recent inception of Vine making that a much more condensed and non-engaging endeavor.  Indeed, the home movie in all its personal appeal to the original recorder of the events, nonetheless, transcends the private space and often serves as a larger commentary for a social setting, images of gender during eras or as a few of the articles suggest detailed and rarefied considerations of what a racial minority might have experienced during an era of heightened segregation in various settings.  Mining the Home Movie is a wonderful text, because it takes something that has become almost antiquated in popular culture and breathes new life into its existence, suggesting that these decade old pieces of amateur documentary filmmaking are more pertinent than ever both in a artistic and social sense, demanding that the works, may of which have fallen into ill-repair receive equal if not greater attention than their commercial counterparts, because while it is amazing that Metropolis continues to obtain new sections of film when discovered in South American film warehouses, it is also worth noting that an entire filmed documentation of one families experiences in a Japanese internment camp continue to go unseen by large audiences.

As noted, Mining the Home Movie makes certain to draw upon both the artistic and social relevance of the home movie, first noting that as a frame of cultural production, the home movie does exist in a rather problematic state.  First off, as multiple authors note, the home movie exists in a state of hyper-fabrication.  Despite the amateur filmmakers intending to capture their family at their most intimate, the movie image in this context is quite similar to the photograph in that those filming sought to create an idyllic version of family life, only allowing the camera to roll when all parties involved were smiling and willing to engage with camera.  As such, many a home movie take on an ethereal state of impossibility, wherein domesticity seems far too perfect and children always in a state of perfect behavior.  Nonetheless, it is in this performance of reality that the collective of the book suggests that our understanding of a social reality is best drawn, not because it is true, but because it was the expectation.  Authors like Ishizuka, however, take this idea a step further and suggest that the reuse of this footage can help artists to challenge the establishment or canonical understanding of history by reconfiguring the images and narratives of home movies to draw out previously silenced voices and rework misunderstandings in the historical narrative. This is perhaps most true with the footage captured by one family during their time in a Japanese internment camp, which might seem quite arbitrary were one not given the context of the film.  Aside from one passing shot of a guard tower the footage, Ishizuka discusses takes on no level more than a family enjoying one another's company, however, not that it has been verified that it was captured during their time in the camp, when projected with this preface each work takes on a layer of meaning that was previously invisible.  To a degree this can only happen in the non-fiction film, although I will admit their are fictive exceptions and with each home movie that is uncovered one cannot help but hope that a cloud of uncertainty floats over the work, perhaps waiting to be uncovered and pieced together to reconsider the entire understanding of a moment in history.  In an era of over saturated documentation, things have lost a degree of sincerity and meaning that may never return and a work like Mining the Home Movie demands that we look back to what is being tossed to the way side in hopes that it will helps us not only reflect on the past, but also carefully navigate our future before it becomes far too detached to ever narratively reassemble.

Best Film Discovery of the Book:  I currently intern in a film archive and had been reluctant to get behind working with the home movie collections available, this work single-handedly made me reconsider how I should and could engage with such works.  It does not have a single filmic discovery, but exists as a call to look for a "new" type of film to discuss by reflecting on things considered extremely outdated.  This text is a necessity for any cinephile, even those strictly attached to the world of commercial narrative film.

2013 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge (Book 4) Licence To Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films

Bond. James Bond.  Even those iconic words came as a sort of accident in the franchise as a means to properly introduce the cinematic Sean Connery version of James Bond to the world, as he playfully engages with the overlooked Bond girl Sylvia Trench.  These are the types of things you learn when you read way to many texts about James Bond, some completely academic, using Lacanian psychoanalysis and high level political theory to consider the image of Bond, while always pulling back to understand that he is entirely a creation of the late Ian Fleming.  I will admit that I do not mind this approach in the slightest, but on repeat, as it has been pretty much all summer can get a bit daunting and a fresh alternative is always welcome.  Thankfully, James Chapman's A Cultural History of the James Bond Films provides the perfect way to approach the fifty plus year franchise, while also considering the ways in which it has influenced film studies, political landscapes and the general manner with which moviegoers see the action film.  Furthermore, where works often lack in an ambition to paint in the most minute of details the initial encounters in the filmic inception of one of the world's highest grossing franchises, Chapman picks out ever possible piece of key evidence, without it ever appearing nauseating or excessive.  It is also in this very commitment to exactitude that Chapman's narrative becomes important, precisely because other "dossiers" on the evolution of James Bon have come out under the very watchful and critical eyes of EON productions, whose narrative reflects one that tries its best to vilify all participants whose involvement was either stifled financially, or in the case of poor George Lazenby completely removed as a result of backdoor politics.  Indeed, as great a documentary as Everything or Nothing proves to be, it is great to see the larger story of the James Bond film franchise depicted, acknowledging that famous names like Bruccoli and Saltzman carry an iconography about them, while also remembering that since making the films were very much a business, sometimes financial strong arming happened, allowing for Chapman to make some absolutely astute suggestions between the quality of work in certain films and the pros and cons of the respective production experiences of each.

Another benefit of Chapman's particular reading is that despite it affording an occasional critical and theoretical reading of the films, it does not fall into the trap of kowtowing to the contemporary works in the genre, as a means to draw in young, non-Bond fanatics into the mix.  As the title suggests, it is a history of the film franchise and as such most of the text does center on the first decade of films, which Chapman makes expressly career proved integral, if not outright necessary, to the success of more recent works like the backwards looking Casino Royale.  The section that Chapman provides for the great Sean Connery could almost double as a mini-biography for the actor, in its detailed accounts of his discovery, implementation and eventually cementing as the image of James Bond.  This is particularly key to discussing the James Bond films because Connery over the recent years has come to disdain talking on the subject of Bond, partially due to his eventual falling out with the producers and his own retirement from acting.  In fact, if it were not for the laboriously researched audio commentaries on the recent release of James Bond blurays, I would be willing to call Chapman's writing on Connery the most detailed available.  Of course, as a clear fan of the films, Chapman also has opinions about the works that cloud how he considers their importance and presence, yet, where other others would be overly embracing of bad movies or dismissively flippant towards decent works, Chapman tempers his opinions with grounded arguments and factual evidence.  Indeed, he comes down quite hard on You Only Live Twice, which has become wildly dated and highly offensive by contemporary standards of race and gender identity.  Similarly, he is an advocate of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Moonarker (my personal favorite in the series) despite their being dismissed by fans.  For the first, he explains how shifting attitudes in cinematic narrative and a push for a darker film, based entirely off of Fleming's book no less, resulted in the poor success of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Lazenby was indeed fine in the role.  As for Moonraker, he embraces the excess and absurdity of the film, noting that it fell in line with the style of Bond films of the era, while also drawing attention to the larger implausibility of an old-school Bond existing in the increasingly globalized and post-colonized world.

Best Film Discovery of the Book:  While I had seen the entire series by the time I encountered this book, I do agree with Chapman on his defense of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which has become vilified by many for what they see as a complete misstep in the franchise's image and style.  Chapman argues the opposite and instead suggests that it was an attempt to make Bond more adult and realistic, which occurs to much success in the contemporary films.  If anything Lazenby's Bond was well ahead of its time.  If I cannot sell you on it, I would suggest reading it in Chapman's words.

2013 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge (Book 3) Killer Kaiju Monsters

The previous two texts for this wonderful Classic Film Book Challenge have been decidedly academic, focusing on theoretical readings of a historical and cultural nature.  Admittedly this is my ideal point of film reading, but since it is the summer and I needed a bit of a breather, I decided to chase down a copy of Killer Kaiju Monsters, which may not seem to fit within the parameters of the Classic Film Book guidelines, but considering that much of the classic kaiju works exist within the years 1956-1968 it does indeed suffice, and the book focuses precisely on these years, while also looking at the extensive cultural influences of the unique genre.  For those of you who are uncertain about what exactly a kaiju is, might have caught the name in this summer's big blockbuster Pacific Rim and now associate it with huge sea monsters.  To a considerable degree this is precisely what they are, although they include the likes of Godzilla and his various frenemies.  In essence a kaiju is any sort of large monster that has its eyes set on destroying things, although in recent years it has evolved to be post-genre and highly revisionist.  Nonetheless, it still proves to be one of the more adored genres for many cinephiles, who either love the works in all their nonsensical glory, or simply, like myself, have a major nostalgia for the works.  The kaiju film is distinct, bizarre and in some cases quite trippy, so it should be no surprise that what one finds in Ivan Vartanian's Killer Kaiju Monsters is nothing short of unusual.  The film is split into various sections some introducing new readers to the genre, while others focus on the various creatures that occupy the screens of the still lively genre, but Vartanian also incorporates posters and screenshots as a means to push the visual elements of the genre as well.  In fact, one could almost argue that Killer Kaiju Monsters is far more a coffee table book than a piece of academic writing, but  the same argument could be made working in the opposite direction, because somebody just expecting to look at cool pictures and sketches, will come away with a great understanding of the cinematic history of kaiju and a whole new compendium of monsters with which to impress their nerdy friends.  Also, if all of these elements fail to draw out your curiosity, the text also includes a cutout to make your very own kaiju paper doll, which is one of many cool asides in this highly engaging text.

I know that this is a highly specialized read and one that is not wholly academic, but being somebody who has read, or is either currently working through the other texts available on this topic, I can attest to  the simplicity of Killer Kaiju Monsters as being its selling point.  Indeed, it will be somewhat impossible to learn the minutia of production or the nuclear warfare implications latent within the films, particularly the first Godzilla film, but it is not also preachy and absurdly personalized like say Godzilla on My Mind, which to date is my biggest disappointment in film based reading.  Other kaiju texts, make foolish assumptions that since they are working within a distinct field that their personal opinion suffices for academic grounding.  Between the humorous images of cartoon Godzilla offspring and full page spreads of Mothra shooting beams upon Tokyo, one has a better time coming to watch the evolution of kaiju cinema through Vartanian's work than any other text availabe on the subject.  Again, I will admit that some of my adoration for this particular book comes from its quirkiness, but that is not intended to dismiss its value.  Considering that many of the major kaiju films have yet to make their American release in any format, some of the research done for this text is the first of its kind, yet avoids all the pretense of more high-minded approaches to the same subject.  Yet, I still feel it necessary to remind readers that this work is anything but distancing, Vartanian wants both the newcomers to kaiju as well as the diehard fanatics to take something away from his book, which perhaps helps explain its decidedly post-modern structure, wherein a fully academic text would be derailed by a drawn-out description of Gidorah's special powers and theoretical weight versus that of Rodan, it is well at home in Killer Kaiju Monsters.  Similarly, if this text were solely a coffee table book the extensive looks at political themes in the films would be off-putting to the casual reader.  Much like the kaiju films themselves, Killer Kaiju Monsters exists in a perfect space between low culture schlock and high theory cinema.

Best Film Discovery of the Book: While it lists all of the films in the genre, it decides to give some discussion to more than others, particularly when they relate to Godzilla.  One such film was Godzilla vs. Megalon, which also featured the first onscreen presence of Jet Jaguar, whose theme song is enough to make the entire movie worth viewing.  I suggest it as a discovery, because I had avoided it under the misguidance of it being a lesser kaiju work, indeed it is one of my favorites, now third only to the original Godzilla movie and the psychedelic Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster.  For what this book offers, it is insanely cheap.  If you find yourself in the market for something to flip through or have as a conversation piece, I would suggest looking no further than this wonderful text.

2013 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge (Book 2) British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda and Consensus

I recall earlier on in my academic career giving a presentation on the image of Latin America in Hollywood from the forties through the seventies, which meant that I had to discuss the effect of Cold War ideology on a particular set of films released from the fifties through the sixties.  After I had completed my presentation a former professor of mine asked my thoughts on what "caused the Cold War" to which I do not recall my exact response, but I am certain it was something along the lines of suggesting that is impossible to pinpoint all the complexities of what started and to another degree what ended the war of ideals.  I figured that by entrenching myself behind the purely filmic I would never have to deal with such analysis, or could at least pass it off with vague indifference.  I used to think that, but then I read Tony Shaw's magnificent study of British cinema during the era titled British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda and Consensus.  Where many historians will occasionally throw a piece of culture or two into their political breakdowns as a means to show that they are not stuffy intellectuals, Shaw does not bend under the pressures of historical exactitude and manages to draw out the necessary information about British involvement between East and West opposition.  Furthermore, when doing histories of cinema, it is often the case that the film historian working on the piece will make sweeping brush strokes about rather detailed historical moments, hoping that by doing so the reader will glean only enough to make their argument worthwhile.  Shaw does neither, he works with intimate care to assure that both the history and the cultural product receive an equal degree of mention, making sure to acknowledge the moments when an event led to a cultural product, just as he notes moments when a film, or a series of films lead to a political movement or were used in a propagandistic manner to affirm or discredit a cause.  I can say with absolute certainty that there is not a better text written about Cold War culture available and would even argue that Shaw's text stands to be one of the best works on history of film in general, holding such importance as Haskell's From Reverence to Rape or pretty much any text released by the late Roger Ebert.  Simply put, there are few texts with such cohesion as Shaw's, and it only helps that he choses absolutely enthralling films to discuss.

The Cold War and cinema does, admittedly, seem like a highly specialized topic and one that would be relevant to only those doing research.  Indeed, I came to it by the way of looking for information about masculinity in the era and while Shaw's book does not provide much in the way of that topic, it did prove quite informative in my understanding of studio systems, production and the process of British filmmaking that will invariably help me undertake at least two different imminent projects.  As noted earlier, this serves a hybrid text that intersects two areas of academia flawlessly allowing for unison to form.  When this is unsuccessful the result can be unflattering, as is the case with Jeremy Black's incredibly well-researched buy dry and unreadable The Politics of James Bond.  I would go so far as to suggest that Shaw's book is the ideal place to start if a person were interested in looking at the way in which politics influence film, regardless of era or locale.  Similarly, Shaw handles the equally complex topic of propaganda with such grace and poise that were it not for the seminal text by Edward Bernays I would say that this would be the place to begin such a quest for understanding.  Fortunately, even with his ability to attract the most general of readership, Shaw's text provides moments of insight and hidden gems for the more seasoned reader, tackling more experimental and non-mainstream texts alongside the important franchise works of the time, given brief but necessary credit to both the Carry On series, as well as James Bond.  Furthermore, in his understanding of the global nature of Cold War cinema, Shaw occasionally taps into the wealth of American films made during the time to draw upon ones that would extend metaphorically to Britain as well.  His reading of Dr. Strangelove is spot on and refreshing in comparison to its usual entrenchment within the psychoanalytic.  For those who have a preconceived notion of British cinema existing in a stuffy vaccuum of period piece melodramas and quip heavy comedies should take a glance at British Cinema and the Cold War, it will cause you not only to reconsider an entire nationhood's film history, but it will inspire you to branch your research beyond just the cinematic texts.

Best film discovery of the book:  While it is technically a rediscovery, because I know I watched it at least once as a kid, Shaw's discussion of the 1954 animated version of Animal Farm speaks to it as being one of the highlights of Cold War cinema, despite its seemingly specified audience.  A bit baffled by its inclusion, I decided to catch up with it only to realize that it is a creepy and thematically dark text that does wonders to metaphorically comment upon the Cold War, as well as existing as a solid adaptation.  You can find relatively cheap copies of the text readily available on Amazon, for which the cool cover helps.

2013 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge (Book 1) Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films

When an author sets out to compose a text that concerns itself with as complex of themes as how gender is performed within cinema, particularly genre films no less, which come with their own set of contested definitions, a reader might be hesitant to follow the complex threads argued by the author.  However, Barry Keith Grant's Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films is an exception to such a rule.  While, at times it reads much more like a genre revisionist piece than a critique of how masculinity has evolved, altered and deconstructed itself within American film, Grant infuses the piece with such realized close readings of both prolific films and lesser known classics that both the casual reader and the die-hard film theorist can find points of intrigue.  While the text does expand beyond the seventies briefly, more as a point of conclusion than study, Shadows of Doubt takes into consideration the elements of masculinity at play both in front of and behind the camera, discussing everything from D.W. Griffith's important work Broken Blossoms, to a gendered analysis of Stanley Kubrick's enigmatic ending in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  At no point during his varied analysis does Grant become self-agrandizing in his argument, although he is not above dismissing what he feels to be ill-conceived analysis, taking a particular stance in his defense of horror as not only a genre of films worth critical discussion, but, perhaps, the ideal point of criticism both in their mass appeal to moviegoers and in their inherent counter-cinema nature.  In particular, Grant tackles George A. Romero's early zombie classic Night of the Living Dead, a film I have written about critically in the past, and, where I thought I had pulled and prodded at all its gendered commentaries, Grant manages to strip away the layers of gory cult status, to truly paint a picture of not only a film genre (and arguably larger industry) on its last breaths of classic life, but a society crumbling under its own foolish clutching to antiquated ideals of culture.

The text is highly valuable to film theory, because while it does entrench itself within American film entirely, some of the themes are somewhat universal, affording the same argument to be applied to Red River (for which Grant's write-up is a revelation) that could be extended to something like Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, with a minor altering of archetypes here and there.  Indeed, masculinity in film has been discussed ad nauseum since film theory moved away from a purely structuralist frame of referecne, however, it has not been delivered with such poise and diligence has it occurs here in Shadows of Doubt.  In fact, Grant is keen enough to avoid the trap that befalls many film theorist, myself included, where once you make the decision to include particular work in your narrative, you convince yourself of it being a masterpiece, as to justify its continual acknowledgement.  Grant is above such frivolous approachs, instead, when he is aware that the film proves only a cultural or critical value he mentions its less than stellar cinematic value, this is evident in his extended discussion of The Delicate Delinquents, for which, he seems to only enjoy on a moderate cinematic level, but, nonetheless, deconstructs for its seminal place in the discussion of an evolving masculinity in the work of American genre filmmaking.  Another benefit of Grant's work is that while he is considerably critical of misguided opinions about work, he does seem willing to the keep the dialogue open, neither claiming the final say in a matter, nor a single answer to any one cinematic masculine presence, indeed I found myself wonder, what his thought were on some of the more complex male figures in the history of American film, such as Robert Mitchum's maniacal priest in The Night of the Hunter or the tense, yet relatively humorous engagements of The Rat Pack.  At times, Grant purposefully chooses lesser known, or critically dismissed movies as a point of reference to their gender dynamics, in some cases, arguing that their unique portrayal of new versions of masculinity, in some ways led to their timely demise (refer to his magnficent analysis of Elvis, rock'n'roll and a reconsideration of the musical for the best example).  Ultimately, Grant lays a groundwork for the hybrid discussion of genre and gender, one that has, as mentioned before, existed in varying degrees prior, but never with this much tenacity and possibility.

Best film discovery of the book:  Being a huge fan of counter-cinema, Grant's entire chapter devoted to Shirley Clarke's The Cool World opened my eyes up to a film that I was unaware of prior, and one made by an African-American woman no less.  It is a stellar work in cinema verite and a clear through line to the hip works of Jarmusch and Tarantino, which is yet another reason to check out Shadows of Doubt, available here.