February 2020: On Fire

Media International Australia , 2011

Most scholars interested in movie-going have focused their attention on the early twentieth century, when going to the cinema was a common part of public life. More recently, however, sites of film consumption have become increasingly dispersed, encompassing both communal and private spaces. Examining ‘movie night’ – an informal, ritualised event in which contemporary families watch a film together at home or at the theatre – this article aims to broaden our understanding of the phenomenon of movie-going by recovering its present day practices. This analysis draws on the experiences of university students who recall movie nights as a set of comforting and enriching performances that had particular meanings within the complex network of their families. This essay argues that while contemporary movie-going practices are far less public than they once were, many of the fundamental elements of cinema’s sociability that existed in cinema’s classic era persist into the present.

2017

This empirical study of contemporary film watching motivations and cinema-going experiences was set up to come to an understanding of the nature of the sociality of cinema-going, in an age when watching film is absorbed in convergence culture. The open question survey questioned 472 young moviegoers on their consumption of films, in both past and present. The identification of specific (extra-)theatrical practices results in perceptible patterns and understandings of cinematic experiences. At first, the notion of the embodied place comes to the foreground as a key factor of the cinematic experience. The discourse of the respondents aligns with theories on immersiveness and the technological superiority of the cinema experience over other modes of watching film. But respondents also construct a non-technologically centered (remembered) social engagement. The social site of cinema-going is constructed through social activities (companionship and leisure), contacts (unique heterogeneit...

Popular Communication

What is so eventful about an event movie's arrival to the multiplex, and how does this eventfulness function as both an industry strategy and audience experience? Synthesizing an analysis of trade discourses, promotional campaigns, and manually-curated box office data, this article considers how the concept of eventfulness emerged as a discursive construction and spatiotemporal formation used by the industry to promote moviegoing as more meaningful than other forms of media experience in today's "anywhere-anytime" and "on-demand" culture. Eventfulness situates the movie theater at the center of a specific, layered structure of time-a stretched sense of promotional anticipation and cultural nostalgia which climaxes during an ephemeral moment-and space-a discursive space of cultural buzz leading up to the event, a local experience community marked by fan participation, and an imagined global audience which takes shape through the synchronization of the event as it simulates "live" broadcasting and connects audiences in time.

Binx Bolling, the hero and narrator of Walker Percy’s first published novel, says early on: The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair. They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place — but what does he do? He takes up with the local librarian, sets about proving to the local children what a nice fellow he is, and settles down with a vengeance. In two weeks’ time he is so sunk in everydayness that he might just as well be dead. What do you seek — God? you ask with a smile. [MG, p. 13] While many commentators have picked up on the movies screwing it up, few seem to have noticed the straightforward declaration of the first clause: “The movies are onto the search.” Nor has there been much notice paid to Binx’s description of just how that occurs in the movies: “They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place.” My first question, then, will be: Just how does the search work in the movies. The second: If the movies do envision, initiate, or complete such searches, how do they apply to Binx’s search? Third: If Binx’s marriage to Kate is the culmination of his search, how is it not just his version of “tak[ing] up with the local librarian”? And finally, given the last sentence about seeking God: “What's [God, or] love got to do with it”? [Turner]

Aether: The Journal of Media Geography, Vol. 1, pp. 63-67

Il saggio usa come pretesto la previsioni sulla futura condizione del cinema per interrrogarsi su alcune delle sue specificità rispetto al più ampio contesto mediale. Una specificità che sembra derivare il proprio codice genetico anche dall'essere stata predetta come invenzione senza futuro. Un futuro, ancora oggi inteso come continua possibilità di reviviscenza o di resistenza alle innovazioni tecnologiche contingenti, che risiede anche (forse soprattutto) in questo consapevole carattere precario, di perpetuo morituro: un malato immaginario che, almeno fino ad ora, ha saputo trovare il modo di radunare tutti i suoi assassini o presunti eredi al proprio capezzale. In questo contributo vengono ripercorse alcune tappe di estrema unzione del medium cinema come pure frenesie e febbri allucinatorie di un suo futuro radioso e illimitato si propongono una lettura e un commento critico aggiornato dello stato dell'arte traguardando il cinema con alcune delle ottiche intercambiabili e multifocali offerte dalle pratiche intercettate all'interno del sistema dei media.

Aether: The Journal of Media Geography, 2007

Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, 2019

During the New Year countdown, looking back on the old year, we normally indulge in reverie about the year to come. Trying to forget all the bad things, to leave all the failures behind, hoping the coming year will be better and more successful than the one we leave behind. 2019 was decreed the “Year of Theatre” in Russia, so I shall be thinking first and foremost about theatre as I listen to “Couranty”—the Kremlin Clock, housed in the Spasskaya Tower of Moscow’s Kremlin—as it chimes in the New Year. We have a saying in Russia, “If he beats you, it means he loves you.” In Russia, the theatre is an object of great love, which must be the reason why it gets such a sound flogging so often, thanks to the efforts of our inventive bureaucracy—and, sometimes, the public. The Year of Theatre is intended to encompass the entire country: St. Petersburg is to host the Theatre Olympics in 2019; the A.P. Chekhov International Theatre Festival is to be held as usual; the National Theatre Award and the Golden Mask festival will celebrate their 25th anniversary—the winners of both contests will go on a regional tour; the Arlekin festival will showcase theatre productions for children; and, as usual, young actors from all over the world will gather at the international summer school for advanced studies in theatrical arts, run by the Union of Theatre Workers of Russia. One of the central features of the programme is the Theatrical Marathon, an event which is to travel over all the regions. It will start in March 2019, in Vladivostok, to finish in Kaliningrad, in November. For the local public, it means the best shows of recent years will be brought to their own cities. They will have an opportunity to meet leading actors, directors and other theatre makers at public events, master classes and educational seminars. Besides, there will be plenary sessions, where it will be possible to discuss vital theatrical issues and projects related to the Strategy of Development of the theatrical business up until 2030. How I wish the coming year could bring Russian theatre up to a completely new level, away from the firing line where it is a sitting target, not for art critics, but for the authorities, with their legislative experiments, quite disastrous at times. So, at the approach of the festive midnight, during the New Year countdown, I will, according to Russian custom, be making wishes—a wish for each of the 12 chimes of the clock. I am not at all hesitant to make my wishes out loud. I do not fear that, if I reveal my wishes, they may never come true; on the contrary, I strongly believe that the collective will may contribute to the implementation of what I have envisioned. So, here are my twelve theatrical wishes

Significação: Revista de Cultura Audiovisual, 2010

The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in the early months of 2020 unleashed a domino effect that impacted a wide variety of sectors. Among others, the film industry registered critical detriments, with thousands of cinema theatres closed around the world and film productions, major releases and some of the most important events in the field, such as festivals and awards postponed, temporarily suspended or definitively cancelled. The aim of this thesis is to outline an extensive picture of the Covid-19 effects on the world of cinema, starting from the analysis of the pre-existing challenges that were affecting the business and that have been exacerbated by the health crisis, namely the impact of digital technologies on the film value chain, the enhancement of OTT and VOD platforms and the consequent “streaming war”, the constant need for original contents, the overload of franchises and sequels and the predominance of blockbusters at the expenses of small and mid-budget productions. The research will therefore focus on film festivals that, being the quintessential node of intersection between trade and artistic interests can be regarded as an ideal “microcosm” from which to develop a reflection on cinema and the processes in which it is involved. In this respect, the analysis of the 34th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato was deemed an emblematic case study to investigate the extent in which the outbreak of the virus impacted the industry of cinema, providing interesting insights on the implementation and management of an unprecedented festival configuration involving the co-existence of live and digital events. The study will thus highlight the pivotal role played by the pandemic hiatus in accelerating a process of change in spaces, times and means of consumption, eventually giving the opportunity to re-think the way in which audiences and professional approach and define cinema.