When Avatar was released in 2009, I was convinced not just that the film was doing really smart things with stereoscopic (3D) filmmaking, but that it was a master class in the possibilities of cinematic intensity. Intensity will strike many of you as an elusive and even fuzzy aesthetic and psychological term. Is the “too-muchness”…
AVATAR’s Transmedia Life (2017–2022)
I’ve been trying to follow the emergence of James Cameron’s Avatar as a transmedia property for a few years now. I posted about the narrative importance of DisneyWorld’s Valley of Mo’ara attraction in 2017. It was the first sequel we had to the 2009 film in any entertainment medium. The events we experience in the…
What to Look for in AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (Cameron, 2022): A Primer on 3D Aesthetics
James Cameron’s sequel Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) is set for release this coming week. (Here’s a trailer.) For those of us who care about the art of 3D filmmaking, this has all the makings of a big event indeed. So I wanted to take a moment to prime my readers to think about…
Seriality, 1896-Styles: On Christina Meyer’s PRODUCING MASS ENTERTAINMENT: THE SERIAL LIFE OF THE YELLOW KID (2019)
I’m really enjoying Christina Meyer’s Producing Mass Entertainment (2019), a study of the Yellow Kid comics (1895-1898). Two items caught my eye while reading. First, Meyer meticulously documents how legal circumstances–comic artist Richard Outcault’s failure to copyright Yellow Kid–led to two versions of the Yellow Kid comics for about a year, one in William Randolph…
The Making of Robert Lapoujade’s LE SOCRATE (1968): A Few Notes and Documents
“Lapoujade’s greatest strengths are his refusal to produce digestible cinema and his passionate effort to create a dialogue with the audience.” This is from the introduction to an 18 October 1968 episode of the TV show Cinéma critique (fig.1-2) devoted to the production of Le socrate (1968), avant-garde filmmaker Robert Lapoujade’s first feature. That episode…
Video Lecture: “The Rights of Intensity: Or, What Does 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007) ‘Say’ about Abortion?”
Quickly checking in to share a lecture I recently gave as part of the timely Politics of Reproduction “pop-up” course at Washington University in St. Louis. Thank you to Professor Rebecca Wanzo for organizing the course–and for inviting me to be a part of it! Below you’ll find a video recording of the lecture which…
Zato, Zato…: Singing the Praises of the First Four Zatoichi Films (1962–1963)
I’ve been asked the question many times throughout my research on James Bond and the media franchise: have you seen the original Zatoichi films starring Shintaro Katsu? Well, now I have–the first four, that is: The Tale of Zatoichi (Misumi, 1962), The Tale of Zatoichi Continues (Mori, 1962), New Tale of Zatoichi (Tanaka, 1963), and…
Defenders of Video Game Analysis–Assemble!
In preparation for a chapter in my James Bond book on the franchise’s analog and video games, I’ve been reading up on something called video game analysis. As readers of this blog know only too well, I am an advocate of close–indeed, very close–analysis of film and media. (I’ve tried my hand it at with…
The Poetics of Serial Narratives: An Interview with Czech Film and Media Scholar Radomír D. Kokeš
This installment of Moving Patterns is a first: an interview with a scholar about their work. Depending on how this little venture is received, I may turn interviews into a semi-regular feature. How do serial narratives in film and TV work? What makes a serial narrative hang together? Franchises and shows as distinct as the…
“The Invention of Robert Bresson” and Its Sequels: Free E-book and Links
A quick update: To celebrate the fifth anniversary of its publication, I have elected to make The Invention of Robert Bresson: The Auteur and His Market (2017) available as a free e-book here (click on “Download PDF” to open). Since its release, the book, I am happy to say, has been well received, with reviews…
Moving Patterns 