Sunday, March 10, 2013

SCMS Conference Notes, Friday (3/8), Post 3

Presenters of Panel L5 "Mapping Transitions The History and Geography of Urban Change in Cinema after WWII"

Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Chicago, 2013

On Friday I attended the excellent "Mapping Transitions The History and Geography of Urban Change in Cinema after WWII" panel chaired by Sabine Haenni from Cornell University, and sponsored by the Urban Studies Scholarly Interest Group. Highlights and notes included the following:

Jon Lewis - Oregon State University
“Mapping the Hollywood Transition, 1947–1962”
Jon Lewis -- my Master's Thesis advisor at Oregon State University :) -- presented on a new project that takes a look at three films in terms of space, gender, and narrative in order to map Hollywood's transition post-WWII. I look forward to seeing how this paper fits into Lewis's work as a whole.

Mark Shiel - King’s College London
“Some Unnatural Stillness: Los Angeles and Hollywood in Transition in The Christian Licorice Store (1971) and Play It As It Lays (1972)”
Mark Shiel analyzes two films from the early 1970s in order to trace representations of Los Angeles during this transitional period in Hollywood history.  Play It As It Lays is based on a Joan Didion novel, and the screenplay was written by Didion and her husband.  Shield's use of print publications from the concurrent time period, including a number of references to Variety, serves to frame the vibe/tone/atmospere of Los Angeles, film critic's responses to the films, and the values of Hollywood pre-The Godfather.

Sabine Haenni - Cornell University
“Urban Transition in an Age of Globalization: The French and American Crime Film Waves of the 1970s”
Sabine Haenni's work locates connections between colonialism, U.S. neo-liberal/economic imperialism, and the gangster film as it reveals the psychology of the late 1960s/ early 1970s in interesting ways.

Martha Shearer - King’s College London
“‘Don’t You Realize a Big City Like this Changes All the Time?’: The Hollywood Musical and the Rise of Cold War New York”
Couldn't travel due to Homeland Security, apparently.

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