DESIRE AND CONSENT IN REPRESENTATIONS OF ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY WITH ADULTS, 2023
At a time of heightened concerns about intergenerational sexual desire, this essay focuses on two... more At a time of heightened concerns about intergenerational sexual desire, this essay focuses on two films concerned with the dynamic of adolescents who express sexual desire for older mentors. Reviewing both the existing scholarship on a classic film, and the literary and cinematic genealogy of a virtually unknown motion picture, Daniel Humphrey argues that Leontine Sagan’s "Mädchen in Uniform" (Germany, 1931) and Eloy de la Iglesia’s "Otra vuelta de tuerca" (Spain, 1985) offer complex, nuanced explorations of adolescent sexual desire as well as the harm that can result from its panicky disavowal on the part of adults. While both films bring with them the potential for discomfort in the film studies and LGBTQ studies classroom Humphrey argues that the topic they forthrightly face is a vital one that must continue to be addressed within higher education.
This essay situates the film 1985 (Yen Tan, 2018) within American regional cinema, early LGBT ind... more This essay situates the film 1985 (Yen Tan, 2018) within American regional cinema, early LGBT indie film, and the New Queer Cinema movement that emerged in the late 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s respectively in American independent cinema. It posits that 1985’s sense of an historical consciousness about these and other film movements of that era increases the impact of Tan’s film, especially its evocation of the first decade of the AIDS pandemic. Applying the idea of a “Cinema of the Rejected” to early 1990s New Queer Cinema, the essay ultimately argues that 1985 embraces the long-forgotten regional and early LGBT films that preceded and were themselves implicitly rejected by New Queer Cinema, making 1985 a poignant memorial for a doubly rejected generation of departed gay men.
BOOKS TO FILM: CINEMATIC ADAPTIONS OF LITERARY WORKS, Vol 1., 2017
A brief comparison of Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES and the 1974 film adaptation by Pier Paolo Pasol... more A brief comparison of Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES and the 1974 film adaptation by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Introducing four essays and a stage play that make up the "Bergman World" special issue of Popula... more Introducing four essays and a stage play that make up the "Bergman World" special issue of Popular Communication, the authors argue for an expanded understanding of world cinema, one that attends to critical and scholarly voices beyond the hegemon of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western continental Europe, one that, indeed, attends to "their" (the non-West's) perspective on "us" (Western filmmakers, film scholars, and films) as much as what "we" think of "them." More specifically, the article asserts the profound global impact of the work of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman outside North America and Western Europe.
An analysis of two contemporaneous gay-themed films, Les oeufs de l'autruche [The Ostrich has Two... more An analysis of two contemporaneous gay-themed films, Les oeufs de l'autruche [The Ostrich has Two Eggs] (Denys de La Patellière, France 1957) and "Anders als du und ich (§ 175)" [Bewildered Youth/The Third Sex/Different from You and Me] (Viet Harlan, West Germany 1957), using Jacques Lacan's theory of "the gaze."
Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, Derridean deconstruction, and queer theory, this chapter explores ... more Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, Derridean deconstruction, and queer theory, this chapter explores the thematic ramifications of the three-frame shot of an erect penis in first few seconds of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. Ultimately arguing that the character of Elisabet, who rejects the false sincerity of speech for the productively duplicitous practice of writing, represents radical queer negativity, this study presents a new reading of Persona that celebrates its subversive power.
: This essay offers a close comparison the original “director’s cuts” of two Ingmar Bergman film... more : This essay offers a close comparison the original “director’s cuts” of two Ingmar Bergman films, Summer with Monika and Illicit Interlude, and their shortened and otherwise compromised exploitation market versions. Maintaining an open mind, it addresses the weaknesses of these compromised versions while also identifying surprising, potentially positive effects engendered by the changes to the original films. Considering these films in the context of mid-1950s Cold-War culture, it also identifies the parts they played as exploitation films in the political and ideological milieus of the era. In doing so, the essay ultimately contributes a new and valuable chapter to the discourse arguing for a deep connection between “exploitation cinema” and “art cinema” in the mid-twentieth century.
In "Archaic Modernism," Daniel Humphrey offers the first book-length, English-language examinatio... more In "Archaic Modernism," Daniel Humphrey offers the first book-length, English-language examination of three adaptations of Greek tragedy produced by the gay and Marxist Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini: "Oedipus Rex" (1967), "Medea" (1969), and "Notes Towards an African Orestes" (1970/1973). Considering Pasolini’s own theories of a "Cinema of Poetry" alongside Jacques Derrida’s concept of écriture, as well as more recent scholarship by queer theory scholars advocating for an antirelational and antisocial subjectivity, Humphrey maintains that Pasolini’s Greek tragedy films exemplify a paradoxical sense of "archaic modernism" that is at the very heart of the filmmaker’s project. More daringly, he contends that they ultimately reveal the queer roots of Western civilization’s formative texts.
Foregrounding a fundamental aspect of the Swedish auteur’s work that has been routinely ignored, ... more Foregrounding a fundamental aspect of the Swedish auteur’s work that has been routinely ignored, as well as the vibrant connection between postwar American queer culture and European art cinema, this book offers a pioneering reading of Bergman’s films as profoundly queer work.
DESIRE AND CONSENT IN REPRESENTATIONS OF ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY WITH ADULTS, 2023
At a time of heightened concerns about intergenerational sexual desire, this essay focuses on two... more At a time of heightened concerns about intergenerational sexual desire, this essay focuses on two films concerned with the dynamic of adolescents who express sexual desire for older mentors. Reviewing both the existing scholarship on a classic film, and the literary and cinematic genealogy of a virtually unknown motion picture, Daniel Humphrey argues that Leontine Sagan’s "Mädchen in Uniform" (Germany, 1931) and Eloy de la Iglesia’s "Otra vuelta de tuerca" (Spain, 1985) offer complex, nuanced explorations of adolescent sexual desire as well as the harm that can result from its panicky disavowal on the part of adults. While both films bring with them the potential for discomfort in the film studies and LGBTQ studies classroom Humphrey argues that the topic they forthrightly face is a vital one that must continue to be addressed within higher education.
This essay situates the film 1985 (Yen Tan, 2018) within American regional cinema, early LGBT ind... more This essay situates the film 1985 (Yen Tan, 2018) within American regional cinema, early LGBT indie film, and the New Queer Cinema movement that emerged in the late 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s respectively in American independent cinema. It posits that 1985’s sense of an historical consciousness about these and other film movements of that era increases the impact of Tan’s film, especially its evocation of the first decade of the AIDS pandemic. Applying the idea of a “Cinema of the Rejected” to early 1990s New Queer Cinema, the essay ultimately argues that 1985 embraces the long-forgotten regional and early LGBT films that preceded and were themselves implicitly rejected by New Queer Cinema, making 1985 a poignant memorial for a doubly rejected generation of departed gay men.
BOOKS TO FILM: CINEMATIC ADAPTIONS OF LITERARY WORKS, Vol 1., 2017
A brief comparison of Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES and the 1974 film adaptation by Pier Paolo Pasol... more A brief comparison of Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES and the 1974 film adaptation by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Introducing four essays and a stage play that make up the "Bergman World" special issue of Popula... more Introducing four essays and a stage play that make up the "Bergman World" special issue of Popular Communication, the authors argue for an expanded understanding of world cinema, one that attends to critical and scholarly voices beyond the hegemon of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western continental Europe, one that, indeed, attends to "their" (the non-West's) perspective on "us" (Western filmmakers, film scholars, and films) as much as what "we" think of "them." More specifically, the article asserts the profound global impact of the work of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman outside North America and Western Europe.
An analysis of two contemporaneous gay-themed films, Les oeufs de l'autruche [The Ostrich has Two... more An analysis of two contemporaneous gay-themed films, Les oeufs de l'autruche [The Ostrich has Two Eggs] (Denys de La Patellière, France 1957) and "Anders als du und ich (§ 175)" [Bewildered Youth/The Third Sex/Different from You and Me] (Viet Harlan, West Germany 1957), using Jacques Lacan's theory of "the gaze."
Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, Derridean deconstruction, and queer theory, this chapter explores ... more Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, Derridean deconstruction, and queer theory, this chapter explores the thematic ramifications of the three-frame shot of an erect penis in first few seconds of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. Ultimately arguing that the character of Elisabet, who rejects the false sincerity of speech for the productively duplicitous practice of writing, represents radical queer negativity, this study presents a new reading of Persona that celebrates its subversive power.
: This essay offers a close comparison the original “director’s cuts” of two Ingmar Bergman film... more : This essay offers a close comparison the original “director’s cuts” of two Ingmar Bergman films, Summer with Monika and Illicit Interlude, and their shortened and otherwise compromised exploitation market versions. Maintaining an open mind, it addresses the weaknesses of these compromised versions while also identifying surprising, potentially positive effects engendered by the changes to the original films. Considering these films in the context of mid-1950s Cold-War culture, it also identifies the parts they played as exploitation films in the political and ideological milieus of the era. In doing so, the essay ultimately contributes a new and valuable chapter to the discourse arguing for a deep connection between “exploitation cinema” and “art cinema” in the mid-twentieth century.
In "Archaic Modernism," Daniel Humphrey offers the first book-length, English-language examinatio... more In "Archaic Modernism," Daniel Humphrey offers the first book-length, English-language examination of three adaptations of Greek tragedy produced by the gay and Marxist Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini: "Oedipus Rex" (1967), "Medea" (1969), and "Notes Towards an African Orestes" (1970/1973). Considering Pasolini’s own theories of a "Cinema of Poetry" alongside Jacques Derrida’s concept of écriture, as well as more recent scholarship by queer theory scholars advocating for an antirelational and antisocial subjectivity, Humphrey maintains that Pasolini’s Greek tragedy films exemplify a paradoxical sense of "archaic modernism" that is at the very heart of the filmmaker’s project. More daringly, he contends that they ultimately reveal the queer roots of Western civilization’s formative texts.
Foregrounding a fundamental aspect of the Swedish auteur’s work that has been routinely ignored, ... more Foregrounding a fundamental aspect of the Swedish auteur’s work that has been routinely ignored, as well as the vibrant connection between postwar American queer culture and European art cinema, this book offers a pioneering reading of Bergman’s films as profoundly queer work.
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