Matching Items (22)
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- All Subjects: Film
- Creators: School of Politics and Global Studies
- Creators: Department of Psychology
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
The depiction of mental illness, schizophrenia in particular, within film is a unique phenomenon that film directors have decided to undertake more so in the last 20 years than ever before in cinematic history (Wedding & Niemic, 2014; Robinson, 2004; Gabbard & Gabbard, 1999; Wahl, 1997). Countless filmmakers have taken on the challenge of depicting this complex, yet degenerative condition that entails auditory and visual hallucinations, disorganized thought and speech, and delusions. Its portrayals are usually exaggerated and romanticized, and convey a sense of separate "Otherness" with those who have a mental disorder. And while filmmakers try to encapsulate the schizophrenic experience, it is not without psychiatric error and regarding the person who has schizophrenia as a spectacle. This unfair and ostracizing view of people who have schizophrenia is fueled by films like A Beautiful Mind and The Shining where the film either creates impossibly high standards for schizophrenics to perform at, or the film paints the character as a violent savage. In either case, the end result is the marking and, usually, denouncement of the schizophrenic for their illness. What filmmakers tend to overlook is how much the public learns from the cinematic portrayals of these disorders, and that their films are contributing to an overarching issue of public presumptions of actual schizophrenia and how it is perceived. While the Hollywood approach offers a depiction that is usually more tangible and enjoyable for masses of audiences, spectators should recognize that these are artistic interpretations that take liberties in their depictions of schizophrenia. Viewing these films with an objective mindset to better understand the inner workings of schizophrenia is absolutely crucial in arriving anything close to the truth behind this mental illness that has been demonized long enough.
ContributorsFraga, Nicholas Andrew (Author) / Miller, April (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In this paper, I analyze representations of nature in popular film, using the feminist / deconstructionist concept of a dualism to structure my critique. Using Val Plumwood’s analysis of the logical structure of dualism and the 5 ‘features of a dualism’ that she identifies, I critique 5 popular movies – Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Brave, Grizzly Man, and Planet Earth – by locating within each of them one of the 5 features and explaining how the movie functions to reinforce the Nature/Culture dualism . By showing how the Nature/Culture dualism shapes and is shaped by popular cinema, I show how “Nature” is a social construct, created as part of this very dualism, and reified through popular culture. I conclude with the introduction of a number of ‘subversive’ pieces of visual art that undermine and actively deconstruct the Nature/Culture dualism and show to the viewer a more honest presentation of the non-human world.
ContributorsBarton, Christopher Joseph (Author) / Broglio, Ron (Thesis director) / Minteer, Ben (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The purpose of this thesis will be to compare and contrast films made by German and American directors about World War II and the Vietnam War, respectively. First, we will provide a list of the films including a brief summary and the reasons why that specific film was chosen for this analysis. Next, we will give background information about the two wars and the time period in the respective nations. The next steps are the actual project. First, we will list the criteria for analysis and why we chose those specific items to focus on. Lastly, we will provide an analysis of each film individually; going through the criteria previously provided. After reading the thesis the reader will be able to understand how filmmaking can show the feelings and sentiments of a nation during a specific time period, like war.
ContributorsRen, Haimo (Co-author) / Ahern, Jared (Co-author) / Bradley, Christopher (Thesis director) / Forss, Brennan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
My name is Adriana Becerra and I am a student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. In hoping to combine my two passions of journalism and film, for my Honors Undergraduate Thesis project I created my own film review website. My website is a complete review of the films that were nominated for the 2015 Oscars in the following categories: Best Picture, Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, Foreign Language, and Short Film Live Action. In all, I watched and reviewed a total of twenty-eight films based on acting, lighting, music, cinematography, costume/makeup/set design, writing, and visual effects. Over the course of nine months, I have watched, reviewed, and talked extensively about each film that I have reviewed. Though tedious at times, I thoroughly enjoyed completing my Undergraduate Thesis Project. I hope to continue critically looking at films, and possibly even incorporating film in my journalistic career.
ContributorsBecerra, Adriana Justina (Author) / Dodge, Nancie (Thesis director) / Russell, Dennis (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The Soviet Union suffered immensely as a result of World War II. When the dust settled and Soviet citizens began to rebuild their lives, the memory of the social, economic, and human costs of the war still remained. The Soviet state sought to frame the conflict in a way that provided meaning to the chaos that so drastically shaped the lives of its citizens. Film was one such way. Film, heavily censored until the Gorbachev period, provided the state with an easily malleable and distributable means of sharing official history and official memory. However, as time went on, film began to blur the lines between official memory and real history, providing opportunities for directors to create stories that challenged the regime's official war mythology. This project examines seven Soviet war films (The Fall of Berlin (1949), The Cranes are Flying (1957), Ballad of a Soldier (1959), Ivan's Childhood (1962), Liberation (1970-1971), The Ascent (1977), and Come and See (1985)) in the context of the regimes under which they were released. I examine the themes present within these films, comparing and contrasting them across multiple generations of Soviet post-war memory.
ContributorsScribner, Quinton Donald (Author) / Benkert, Volker (Thesis director) / Von Hagen, Mark (Committee member) / Manchester, Laurie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The Soviet Union suffered immensely as a result of World War II. When the dust settled and Soviet citizens began to rebuild their lives, the memory of the social, economic, and human costs of the war still remained. The Soviet state sought to frame the conflict in a way that provided meaning to the chaos that so drastically shaped the lives of its citizens. Film was one such way. Film, heavily censored until the Gorbachev period, provided the state with an easily malleable and distributable means of sharing official history and official memory. However, as time went on, film began to blur the lines between official memory and real history, providing opportunities for directors to create stories that challenged the regime's official war mythology. This project examines seven Soviet war films (The Fall of Berlin (1949), The Cranes are Flying (1957), Ballad of a Soldier (1959), Ivan's Childhood (1962), Liberation (1970-1971), The Ascent (1977), and Come and See (1985)) in the context of the regimes under which they were released. I examine the themes present within these films, comparing and contrasting them across multiple generations of Soviet post-war memory.
ContributorsScribner, Quinton Donald (Author) / Benkert, Volker (Thesis director) / Von Hagen, Mark (Committee member) / Manchester, Laurie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Japanese animated film director Hayao Miyazaki is famous for his numerous film featuring female protagonists. These protagonists have been examined for their conformance and deviance with regard to widespread stereotypes of masculine and feminine traits. Miyazaki's female characters tend to exhibit nuanced and varied traits, with a balance of traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics. They also tend to demonstrate and moralize on larger social issues such as environmentalism and gender equality, advancing ideals for both Japanese and Western feminism. The status of these female protagonists as cultural icons is contrary to wider film trends that exclude women from the spotlight except when they conform to rigid gender roles.
ContributorsNevitt, Stephanie Nicole (Author) / Facinelli, Diane (Thesis director) / Creamer, John (Committee member) / Whitesman, Linda (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Whether fights to the death, or a masked murderer chasing an unwilling teen, viewers are seemingly drawn to human suffering. This thesis will examine the blurring of lines between traditional horror and crime films to better understand how both films provide a similar experience, as well as apply traditional film theories on pleasurable viewership to both genres, in an attempt to discover viewers’ attraction to the perverse.
ContributorsBenavidez, Markus A (Author) / Miller, April (Thesis director) / Mack, Robert (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
“Loose Lace Baby” is a multimedia creative project that includes the creation of a song, a music video, and cover art. The project began with the songwriting process, which became the inspiration for the video concept. The final cover art is based on the themes and aesthetics of the song and video combined. This project’s purpose was to explore the creative process across multiple media forms and how those forms can work to inspire and enhance one another. The first stage of the project was the songwriting and recording stage. The song is a simple love song about feeling insecure in a relationship and is centered on the metaphor of “tripping over loose shoelaces”. The process in this stage included creative idea exchange, songwriting, music production, and research in different methods of song creation. This portion of the project was then used to inspire the second stage, which was the music video. The music video is about a young boy’s first major crush and follows him on his journey to tell her how he feels, which ultimately ends poorly for him, but goes to show that love can be a divisive but also binding force. The caveat to this boy’s crush is that it ends up being his babysitter, who is much older than him and therefore does not reciprocate his feeling despite having a meaningful connection of a different nature with him. This portion of the project involved many elements, namely using sound as a source of inspiration for moving visual art, production and design, learning about camera work, directing, scripting, screenplay, acting, editing, and most of all, collaboration. Finally, Once these stages of the project came together, the final stage was to draw on the core ideas of the two to create a piece of cover art that represented the messages from both the song and the music video, cohesively binding the multiple media forms into one final product. This stage involved photography, image editing, and pulling from the two other media forms to create a cohesive representative image The final product is a music video and song that are approximately four minutes long each, and a single cover art image. The main software used for music production was Ableton Live. The camera used was a Sony A6300 and the main video editing software used was Adobe Premiere. Many learning outcomes were reached, including multiple filming and editing techniques, video production and the work that goes into organizing and directing a film project, music production methods such as vocal recording and processing, live instrument recording, song arrangement and the use of a Digital Audio Workstation for production and mixing. An in-depth analysis of the entire process is given in detail in the following pages.
"Loose Lace Baby" music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5uPf7Psht8&feature=youtu.be
"Loose Lace Baby" music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5uPf7Psht8&feature=youtu.be
ContributorsMazaheri, Thaddeus Mohammed (Author) / Kaplan, Robert (Thesis director) / Ganssle, Gene (Committee member) / Caves, Larry (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Horror films are typically comprised of three specific features: jump scares, gore, and suspense shots of a shadowy figure creeping up on an unaware victim. These three elements are some of the hallmarks of what defines the horror genre as they are methods that have proven successful in eliciting a bodily response within audience members, which is crucial to a horror movie being considered successful. However, these elements are also very polarizing. Individuals that enjoy horror often like these three things, while those who don’t appreciate the genre often cite over the top gore, distain for jump scares, and the anxiety that accompanies those suspenseful shots as primary reasons for avoiding horror. Due to the fact that those spectators who like horror tend to be in the minority, horror tends to have a very weak crossover appeal, thus limiting the audience interest while also being very unpopular among critics as well.
Interestingly, three recent horror films have achieved both critical acclaim and popularity among all audiences, horror and non-horror fans alike. Get Out, A Quiet Place, and It Follows are all noticeably lacking in the three features that commonly make a horror film “successful”, and yet it would be difficult to argue that they aren't successful horror films given that they have received critical acclaim, impressive box office returns, and have a strong crossover appeal. Therefore, they must use alternative methods to achieve the bodily response of fear that is necessary to be successful in the genre. I argue that these films put the audience member in a position that mirrors what Forced Lacanian Hysteric Neurosis and that this positioning produces the bodily response that is necessary for a horror movie to be successful. This manifestation has the additional benefit of allowing those spectators who do not like the fundamental aspects of horror (jump scares, gore, and suspenseful shots) to find the pleasure of horror without experiencing on-screen events that might cause them notable distress.
Interestingly, three recent horror films have achieved both critical acclaim and popularity among all audiences, horror and non-horror fans alike. Get Out, A Quiet Place, and It Follows are all noticeably lacking in the three features that commonly make a horror film “successful”, and yet it would be difficult to argue that they aren't successful horror films given that they have received critical acclaim, impressive box office returns, and have a strong crossover appeal. Therefore, they must use alternative methods to achieve the bodily response of fear that is necessary to be successful in the genre. I argue that these films put the audience member in a position that mirrors what Forced Lacanian Hysteric Neurosis and that this positioning produces the bodily response that is necessary for a horror movie to be successful. This manifestation has the additional benefit of allowing those spectators who do not like the fundamental aspects of horror (jump scares, gore, and suspenseful shots) to find the pleasure of horror without experiencing on-screen events that might cause them notable distress.
ContributorsStevens, Summer Charis (Author) / Mack, Robert (Thesis director) / Miller, April (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05