A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value presents a cross-disciplinary investigation of the past, present, and possible future contributions of the moving image to the public good. This unique volume explores the direct and indirect public value developed through motion pictures of different types, genres, and screening sites. Essays by world-renowned scholars from diverse disciplines present original conceptual work, philosophical arguments, historical discussion, empirical research, and specific case studies.
Divided into seven thematically organized sections, the Companion identifies the various kinds of values that motion pictures can deliver, amongst them artistic, ethical, environmental, cultural, political, cognitive, and spiritual value. Each section includes an introduction in which the editors outline main themes and highlight connections between individual chapters. Throughout the text, probing essays interrogate the issue of public value as it relates to the cinema and provide insight into how motion pictures play a positive role in human life and society. Featuring original research essays on a pioneering topic, this innovative reference text: - Brings together work by expert authors in disciplines such as Philosophy, Political Science, Cultural Studies, Film Studies, Sociology, and Environmental Studies - Discusses a variety of institutional landscapes, policy formations, and types and styles of filmmaking - Provides wide and inclusive coverage of cinema’s relation to public value in Africa, Asia, China, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas - Explores the role of motion pictures in community formation, nation building, and the construction of good societies - Covers new and emerging topics such as cinema-based fields focused on health and wellbeing
A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, and is a valuable resource for scholars across a variety of disciplines
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Biographical Notes xii
General Introduction 1
Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli
Part I Artistic and Aesthetic Value 23
Introduction 25
Ted Nannicelli and Mette Hjort
1 A Plurality of Values: Art, Fine Art, and Motion Pictures 30
Paisley Livingston
2 Public Aesthetics and Artistic Value in Iranian Cinema 46
Khatereh Sheibani
3 Appreciating Nature through Film: A Defense of Mediated Appreciation 69
Glenn Parsons
4 Reframing the Director: Distributed Creativity in Filmmaking Practice 86
Karen Pearlman and John Sutton
Part II Moral Value/Ethical Value 107
Introduction 109
Ted Nannicelli and Mette Hjort
5 Screen Stories as “Imaginative Ecology”: A Thought Experiment 113
Carl Plantinga
6 Interactive Documentary and Ethics: Toward an Ethics of Representativeness 130
Willemien Sanders
7 The Ethics of Filmmaking: How the Genetic History of Works Affects Their Value 148
Mette Hjort
8 Film Production and Ethical Criticism 171
Ted Nannicelli
9 Emotion and the Cultivation of Ethical Attention in Narrative Cinema 190
Jane Stadler
Part III Spiritual Value 209
Introduction 211
Ted Nannicelli and Mette Hjort
10 Abundant, at Ease and Expansive?: The Influence of Māori and Polynesian Spirituality on 21st Century New Zealand Motion Pictures 213
Ann Hardy
11 Secularity, Transcendence, and Film 235
Roy M. Anker
12 The Poetics of Karma: Reincarnation and Romance 254
Richard Allen
Part IV Environmental /Ecological Value 279
Introduction 281
Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli
13 Ecocinema and Ecological Value 285
Robert Sinnerbrink
14 From Content to Context (and Back Again): New Industrial Strategies for Environmental Sustainability in the Media 308
Pietari Kääpä and Hunter Vaughan
15 Jordnar Creative: A Danish Case Study of Green Filmmaking and Sustainable Production 327
Anne Ahn Lund, Josefine Madsen, and Meryl Shriver-Rice
Part V Cultural, Social and Political Value 351
Introduction 353
Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli
16 Color Charts: A Cultural Chronicle of Non-Chinese Ethnic Images in Hong Kong Cinema 357
John Nguyet Erni
17 Film Policy, Social Value, and the Mediating Role of Screen Agencies 382
Ruth McElroy and Caitriona Noonan
18 Cinema as Ceilidh and Hui: The Place of the Audience within Emergent Perspectives upon a Folk Cinema 401
Jamie Chambers
19 The Past and Future of Public Value: The End of an Illustrious Career or Its Reinvention? 427
Tom O’Regan and Anna Potter
Part VI Cognitive, Educational, and Developmental Value 445
Introduction 447
Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli
20 Representing the Redacted: Depicting the “Torture Archetype” in Film 450
Jared Del Rosso
21 Negotiating Power through Art: Participatory Video and Public Value 469
Paul Cooke
22 Virtual Reality and the Rhetoric of Empathy 488
Dooley Murphy
Part VII The Value of Health 509
Introduction 511
Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli
23 Narrative Sense-Making in the Service of Health - A Neurocinematic Approach 515
Pia Tikka
24 The Smoking Machine: Public Health Films and Public Value in Britain and Denmark, 1950-1964 536
C. Claire Thomson
25 The Benefits of Genre: Feel-Good Films as a Path to Health and Well-Being 558
Mette Hjort
26 Movies in the Closed Wards: Instruments of Mental Health in Military Psychiatry 576
Kaia Scott
Index 597
