Favorite Books on Cinema - Part 3

I came across The Language of New Media in a film theory course I took when I was working toward my Ph.D. It is not a book exclusively on cinema, but there are a lot of great sections on the intersection of film and new media.

 

 

When I teach digital media, the first thing I ask students is what makes new media new? Manovich takes up this question in the beginning of his book. For Manovich, how new media became new is binary code (0s and 1s), "all existing media into numerical data accessible through computers (20). His answer may seem simple, but it has a major role in his overall argument, particularly for the history of cinema.

One of his claims is that cinema, now more than ever, is a painterly medium due to the digital tools at filmmaker’s disposal. He sees live action filmmaking as raw material that will later be digitally manipulated. Just to give you an idea of what he means, check out this VFX video for The Wolf of Wall Street--

 

But Manovich notes that cinema was a painterly medium from the start, which can be traced to the silent short films of Georges Méliès, such as A Trip to the Moon.

 

Another topic he takes up is photorealism: “The ability to simulate any object in such a way that its computer image is indistinguishable from a photograph” (184). He argues that computer graphics are too real and need imperfections.

For Manovich, the computer is NOT trying to mimic our "bodily experience of reality" but "reality as seen by the camera lens." It is not a "faked reality" the computer generates but "a film-based image" (200).

This was a significant point for me which I explored in my book Capturing Digital Media. I went further with this notion to explore it psychical effects, looking at purposely and unconsciously inserted imperfections into the moving image.

There are lots of interesting sections in The Language of New Media, such as his reading of interactivity and database narratives. I highly recommend it for those interested in both digital media studies and film theory.

 

Favorite Books on Cinema - Part 2

Looking Awry is one I always go to when I'm working with Lacanian concepts. 

 

Looking Awry was significant for me when I wrote Cinema of Confinement. I recommend it if you want to learn more about the intersection of psychoanalytic theory and cinema.

There are lots of great examples from movies and books to help understand these complex concepts. Žižek is not suggesting that using examples from popular culture avoids the complexity of theory. Rather, it is a way of exploring theoretical concepts, but looking at them from a different perspective--thus looking awry.

One example that stuck with me is Patricia Highsmith's "The Black House," a story about a group of men who get together at a bar and reminisce about an old house in the town that is associated with nostalgia and memories. A young engineer, who just moved into town, hears about the myth of the old house and decides to visit it. Finding nothing mysterious about it, he tells the men that it is just an old, filthy ruined house. The men freak out and attack the young engineer and windup killing him.

 

As Žižek explains, the young intruder reduced their fantasy space to an everyday, common reality. "He annulled the difference between reality and fantasy space, depriving the men of the place in which they were able to articulate their desires” (9). 

The old house is an empty screen for the men to project their nostalgic desires and memories upon, which was then reduced to nothing by the engineer. Here, Žižek draws our attention to the fantasy screen, the protective screen from the Lacanian Real, the "thing" that haunts and disrupts the symbolic order. A point Žižek makes over and over is that if you remove the fantasy screen, you don't get "reality." Instead, you get a nightmarish form of reality. The fantasy screen provides a sense of reality, keeping the Real at a distance. In the case of the engineer, he unplugs the men's fantasy screen.

In Cinema of Confinement, I discuss the ending of Rope (1948), how the penthouse becomes a strange and distorted space after Rupert (James Stewart) discovers the corpse Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Granger) had hidden throughout the dinner party. 

The big window acts as a sort of fantasy screen for Brandon and Phillip, which keeps danger at a distance. But when their secret is exposed, Rupert opens the window and fires a gun, calling attention to the authorities. The space then becomes flooded with lights from a nearby neon sign, the sounds of the city amplify. The characters movements are suddenly protracted and creaturely. The orderliness of space becomes distorted as an the fantasy screen collapses.

 

There are lots of great examples in Looking Awry from cinema and worth checking out. Also see Enjoy Your Symptom and Žižek's book on Krzysztof Kieslowski. Of course, there is his collection of essays on Alfred Hitchcock. I also recommend Matthew Flisfeder's excellent book on Žižek's work on film. 

 

 

Favorite Books on Cinema - Part 1

I'm current writing a new article and was returning to some of the books that had the most impact on me. Not a top ten list - just some books I often find myself citing and thought I would share.

The one I always keep returning to is Laura Mulvey's Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image (2006).

 

 

I discovered this book when researching my MA thesis on Abbas Kiarostami. Then I was assigned to read it for a film theory course I took when I was working toward my Ph.D. 

Mulvey is mostly know for her article on the male gaze in Narrative Cinema and Visual Pleasure. There are some great chapters in that book. But 24x is the one that I constantly return to. 

I love the chapter on Roland Barthes and Andre Bazin, where she compares their writings on photography and film, respectively. The last two chapters on the possessive and pensive spectator are also really good and provide some very interesting insights into new technologies and cinema. 

I think one of the key points of her book is that cinema has a ghostly secret - the still frame. Digital media has changed our relationship to cinema because we now have the technologies to halt the flow of images which "opens a space for consciousness" (186).

 

 

Images for Ebooks - Amazon KDP Publishing

My first book, THE POSTCARD, has a bunch of images, and I had a hard time figuring out how to incorporate them into my kindle book when I published it on KDP in 2011. So I thought I would share the steps.

 

FIRST: You must save your Word document as a Web page (.htm)

 

When you create a Web file, it automatically creates a folder (fld). See below:

 

SECOND: Insert your images into the Web file you just created. DO NOT COPY and PASTE the images in your manuscript. You MUST insert them. The images are automatically stored in the folder file (fld). I inserted my book cover at the end of my book, Zworsky's Children, as an example.

 

THIRD: Once you are done inserting the images and are reading to upload your manuscript to KDP, COMPRESS the file. 

This is the tricky part. You must select BOTH the folder associated with the html file and the html file itself. You are compressing two files into one.

Right click on your mouse and a new window will pop up. Select COMPRESS.

 

After you compress the two files, a ZIP file will be created. You can rename the zip file if you want.

 

Now you are ready to upload your manuscript. Upload the zip file as your manuscript on KDP. When the file is process, you will see the images in your manuscript preview.

Random note: you can switch back and forth from different views of the file such as Print Layout, Web, etc.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your book.

Thrash Metal Hardcore Project - 2023

I'm guessing you're here because you clicked the link on my YouTube video for song 10, or maybe you stumbled across my site. Either way.... welcome! Thank you for checking out my blog about my Thrash Metal Hardcore music project (I need to come up with a proper name for it!)

This project started this past winter when I showed song three to my friend and writing partner when I was in All Out War, Jim Antonelli. He liked the song, and we even thought about writing some music together. My talk with Jim got me motivated to record the song and some other ones I'd written. 

The other source was Rick Rubin's new book, The Creative Act. Reading his book really inspired me to go forth with this project. Great book.

The music is informed by a lot of bands I love.

Song 1

This was a recent one I wrote. It has a quick Quicksand style, fused with Black Sabbath!

 

Song 2

One of my favorites. I channeled a lot of Slayer into this one. I also love the band Forced Entry from Seattle. If you like old school Thrash, definitely check them out.

 

Song 3

This one seemed to have resonated the most with listeners, and the one I got the most response. I wrote it a couple of years ago during lock down. It's a straight up hardcore song, with a little bit of Helmet at the end.

Song 4

The first section and the fast riff were written about 10 or 12 years ago but never came together. I couldn't come up with a transition into the fast section. One day I was listening to Power Trip's "Soul Sacrifice" from Nightmare Logic. That's when I came up with the bridge for the second half of the song. I added a few new riffs and the song was complete.

Song 5

Just a straight up double bass, metal song. The last section was informed by Dissolve. They are incredible hardcore band from the Hudson Valley. 

 

Song 6

This is a recent one. It has a little bit of Nuclear Assault fused with Cro-Mags.

 

Song 7

The "slow one" as I call it. It just all came together with this tune. I wanted to write something in the style of Typo-O-Negative and Black Sabbath. I was very happy with it. I was glad to see this one had a good response.

Song 8

The first two riffs were written about three years ago. Again, I didn't have a bridge for the next section. Then I was listening to "Piece by Piece" by Slayer - that gave me the idea. This one got a nice response as well.

 

Song 9

I wrote this a long time ago. It's definitely old school hardcore in the vein of Sick of it All and Rest in Pieces. 

 

Song 10

The hardest one for me to play and to record. It has elements of Tool, Slayer, Alice in Chains, and Faith No More. This is probably one of my favorites as well. 

Recording and Video process

I recorded all the song using Garageband. I interfaced the bass and guitar through a Scarlet Focusrite.

The drums were recorded on AKAI. Then I had to play along with the drum track when I recorded the videos. Personally, if I had the ability to mic my drums, I would have played the drums a little different for each songs. But I am happy with what I could do with the AKAI. 

I plan to release the songs for streaming. But I have to come up with a band name - and also a name for each song. Thanks for checking out my blog and my music. 

 

Realist Film Theory and Bicycle Thieves

A central claim of Andre Bazin is that the power of cinema can render the mysteriousness of reality on film--to capture and embalm the structures of reality. 

 

Hilary Neroni's excellent new book builds upon Bazin’s theory, arguing that those structures (or mysteriousness of reality) is mediation—language, unwritten rules of communication, systems of signification. Her other point is that what is "new" about neorealism is the combination of realism and melodrama. The two work together to bring forth (mediation) to draw attention to the workings of the social order. In this case, it is early post WWII, Italy. Those two key points (mediation and melodrama) make this a very interesting and engaging analysis of De Sica’s landmark film, Bicycle Thieves.

 

Movies often try to avoid showing us mediation (the forms that create the story world). But neorealism wants to draw our attention to them. But it also wants us involved in the story, to feel the emotions of the characters, to experience the melodrama, to make us aware of the systems that are working against these characters. 

 

 

I am so happy this is book is available. I teach this movie and agree with Neroni that Bazin should not be left in the dustbin of film theory. 

 

 

Realist film theory has a lot to offer for current cinema. Just think how much digital effects have developed over the past thirty years, how they have gotten more and more realistic. This is just one example that demonstrates the importance of Bazin and realist film theory. This book is definitely worth checking out.

Zworsky's Children

My new novel, Zworsky's Children, will be available on July 11. 

It was an idea I had since 2017. It started with a 60 Minutes segment on antibiotic resistance. Then I watched a PBS Nova episode (I won't say what it's about because that would spoil the novel). But I didn't have a story, just some ideas. It wasn't until I read Stephen King's On Writing when I started writing the book. I had written two novels before this and a bunch of screenplays. But King's book gave me the courage to write without an outline.

In On Writing, King says to write 1000 words a day until the novel is finished. (I think he might have said at least 6 days a week). But I wrote everyday.

The first few days of writing were fun. But when I got to the third day, I started to panic because I didn't know if I could write 1000 words each day.  What do I say? What am I writing? Then I remembered what King said: Write with the door shut. Even if these 1000 words suck, no one will read it. I always think that when I write. It is okay to be messy and to experiment. Ernest Hemingway famously said the first draft of anything is shit. So I just plowed ahead until I finished the first draft, which I completed in the summer of 2019 and was over 100,000 words.

Writing without an outline might not be everyone's method. I read James Patterson outlines his novels, which is amazing given how many books he's written. But for me, once I have a spark of an idea, I dive into the unknown and see where I end up. I keep the door shut until I am ready to share it.

I have written the Zworsky's Children series (three books total). The second book will be available next year, and I just wrote the first draft of the third book. For those of you who decide to read it, I do hope you enjoy the story. I wrote it with a lot of heart. See the review from Kirkus Reviews.