tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/movies-28203/articlesMovies – The Conversation2024-03-14T17:07:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2240652024-03-14T17:07:50Z2024-03-14T17:07:50ZNine years after #OscarsSoWhite, a look at what’s changed<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/6e95de91-d1cf-4295-804b-8236faeb66fc?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>On Sunday, nine years after #OscarsSoWhite, millions of us tuned into watch the 96th annual Academy Awards — some to simply take in the spectacle. And some to see how much had changed. </p>
<p>The hashtag <a href="https://www.essence.com/news/nine-years-after-oscars-so-white/">#OscarsSoWhite</a> started after many people noticed that, for a second year in a row, all nominees for four of five major categories were white. The movement called on Hollywood to do better: to better reflect America’s demographic realities and also to expand its depiction of our histories. </p>
<p>The reason: representation in Hollywood matters. What gets put on screens and by whom has reverberating impacts on how all of us see each other and see ourselves. </p>
<p>So …. how did the Oscars do this year?</p>
<p>Let’s take a brief look at the evening, which started with the anti-war protests outside the theatre slowing down traffic and delaying the broadcast by a full five minutes.</p>
<p>Although there were only seven racialized actors up for nominations, there were some notable wins in that arena.</p>
<p>Cord Jefferson accepted his award for best adapted screenplay for <em>American Fiction</em>. When at the podium, he talked about how many people passed over the project — a Black film with a primary Black cast. To the producers out there listening, he made a plea to acknowledge and recognize the many talented Black playwrights out there that deserve similar opportunities. He suggested one way would be that producers fund 10 small projects instead of one $200 million dollar film. </p>
<p>Lily Gladstone, though she didn’t win, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2317306947668">was the first North American Indigenous woman to be nominated for best actress in its 96-year history</a>. </p>
<p>And Da'Vine Joy Randolph won best supporting actress for her role in <em>The Holdovers</em>, and made a memorable appearance and acceptance speech. </p>
<p>But one night at the Oscars doesn’t paint the full picture.</p>
<p>Just a few months ago, award-winning actor, Taraji P. Henson, broke down in tears <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/news/taraji-p-henson-cries-quitting-acting-pay-disparity-hollywood-1235847420/">in an interview with journalist Gayle King</a>. She was exhausted from breaking glass ceilings as a Black woman in film. “I’m just tired of working so hard being gracious at what I do getting paid a fraction of the cost,” she said. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over.”</p>
<p>Henson explained that in 2008’s <em>The Curious Case of Benjamin Button</em>, she was paid significantly less than her co-stars despite having third billing on the call sheet. Henson nearly turned down her role in <em>The Colour Purple</em> for similar reasons.</p>
<p>The pay disparity for Black and Indigenous women in comparison to white women in Hollywood is nothing new.</p>
<p>Here in Canada, the problem is just as pervasive.</p>
<p>Despite some recent wins, a report from Telefilm Canada revealed that <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/report-shows-drop-in-number-of-canadian-women-in-film-tv-compared-to-pre-pandemic-times-exclusive/5185452.article">Black women have the least representation in TV and film</a>.</p>
<p>They also lead the fewest projects and receive the least funding overall.</p>
<p>To shed some light on the issue, we spoke to two women well versed on the challenges of Black, Indigenous and other women of colour in film and TV.</p>
<p>Naila Keleta-Mae, a playright, poet and singer as well as the Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender and Performance and associate professor of communication arts at the University of Waterloo said that while we need more voices at the table, Black female artists have not been waiting for scraps: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We have been making the work all this time and will continue to regardless. While we insist on eating at the table, we will also simultaneously continue to nourish and feast on what we’ve been doing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We also spoke with actor and director Mariah Inger, the chair of ACTRA National’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Committee.</p>
<p>Inger warned us to remember that the Oscars represent only one per cent of those working in the industry. And that while many working actors, writers, directors may look to the Oscars as a dream, the reality is that they show up every day because this is where they feel most called to contribute to the world. And she says, in that everyday world, things are shifting.</p>
<h2>Listen and follow</h2>
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It’s been nine years since #OscarsSoWhite called out a lack of diversity at the Oscars. Has anything changed? Prof. Naila Keleta-Mae and actress Mariah Inger unpack the progress.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientDannielle Piper, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The ConversationAteqah Khaki, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2253042024-03-11T20:05:54Z2024-03-11T20:05:54ZAs ‘Oppenheimer’ triumphs at the Oscars, we should ask how historical films frame our shared future<p><a href="https://variety.com/2024/film/news/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-post-franchise-movie-era-1235894688/">Box office</a> receipts for Christopher Nolan’s <em>Oppenheimer</em> had already approached the billion-dollar mark worldwide before the 2024 Oscars ceremony.</p>
<p>To this financial success, along with film awards for Best Director, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, <em>Oppenheimer</em> garnered Nolan his first Academy Award for Best Picture. </p>
<p>In larger Academy Award history, this raises the tally for historical film wins to 52 over 96 competitions, according to research by <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/historical-film-9781847884978">film scholar Jonathan Stubbs</a> and records at the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies">Oscars website</a>. There is a reason why people call big-budget historical <a href="https://collider.com/oscar-bait-movies/">films “Oscar bait</a>.” </p>
<p>The glossy spectacle of this genre often brings attention to its makers. And yet, as I argue in my new book, <em><a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/making-history-move/9781978829770">Making History Move: Five Principles of the Historical Film</a></em>,
because the genre has such an outsized effect on spectators and their sense of historical reality, it’s important to think about and understand how historical films are constructed.</p>
<p>With <em>Oppenheimer</em> having received so much commercial, critical and Academy success, we have an opportunity to think about critical criteria for viewing historical film — and what we are owed by historical filmmakers. </p>
<h2>Highly influential medium</h2>
<p>This genre of film represents much more than a bold quest to win the most sought-after prize at the most celebrated labour union awards in history. These films look to the past to offer us a story and argument in an effort to see ourselves in the present — and to make decisions toward the future. </p>
<p>The genre combines a bookish status, conveying data and the sense of learning about the real world. Facts are served up with a wallop of emotion, excitement, adventure, terror and tears, to large and diverse audiences. </p>
<p>Although far from the most trusted medium for history, a recent <a href="https://www.historians.org/history-culture-survey">large-scale survey</a> of Americans published by the American Historical Association found that historical documentaries and films are the top two sources for information about the past for the public.</p>
<p>Unlike with pure fiction, when we watch a historical film (such as other 2024 Best Picture nominees, <em>The Zone of Interest</em> and <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>) we have the sense that we are seeing and hearing the past as we learn details about historical people and events. </p>
<p>These films speak to shared intergenerational and foundational experiences and legacies. We interpret historical films in ways that feel personal. </p>
<h2>Partisan cultural bubbles</h2>
<p>We are well into the experiment of the internet age when social media platforms sort people into tribes. </p>
<p>In the words of Renée DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, people are living in discrete spheres operating with distinct media, norms and frameworks of facts — their own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/opinion/political-reality-algorithms.html">“bespoke realities</a>.”
These information silos spawn political convictions and perspectives that reinforce separate interpretations of present and past. </p>
<p>The result creates multiverses of meaning. We exist in partisan cultural bubbles, abandoning the tussle over an objective sense of the past in favour of
ever-expanding and contradictory subjective narratives. </p>
<p>As this happens, mass media platforms, like feature films, gain precedence. They cross boundaries impermeable to history books, museums, university lectures and social networks, speaking to a shared sense of identity at vast communal scales.</p>
<h2>Just a movie?</h2>
<p>Our ability to keep what we are watching at a critical distance is less robust than we may assume. Neuroscience illuminates a central aspect of film’s power to captivate, enchant and convince. </p>
<p>As professor of psychological and brain science Jeffrey Zacks writes in his book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/flicker-9780199982875?q=jeff%20zacks&lang=en&cc=ca"><em>Flicker: Your Brain on the Movies</em></a>, our brains operate by building neural models to understand our direct experience: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[W]hether we experience events in real life, watch them in a movie or hear about them in a story, we build perceptual and memory representations in the same format [in our brains].” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He further explains that “it does not take extra work to put together experiences from a film with experiences from our lives to draw inferences. On the contrary, what takes extra work is to keep these different event representations separate.”</p>
<p>Now consider what happens when we make models of the past that we code as historical and non-fiction.</p>
<h2>5 principles of historical films</h2>
<p>For these reasons it is critical that we engage these films as more than mere diversion and amusement. Drawing on philosophy of history, literary and film theory, I have isolated five key principles to grasp and understand their construction, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>narration, the stories they choose to tell and how they tell them;</p></li>
<li><p>evidence, the sources and use of data that represents the past;</p></li>
<li><p>reflexivity, the use of <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/engaging-the-past/9780231165754">rupture techniques</a> that pull the audience out of their immersion in the story, reminding them of the structuring process of history;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674008212">foreignness</a>, the extent to which a film shows the richness of differences in ideas, beliefs, and material realities of the past, rather than creating a pantomime of contemporary people in fancy dress;</p></li>
<li><p>plurality, whether a film presents us a range or new perspectives on the meaning of events through their selection of people as characters.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These principles help us consider the creation, role and impact of historical films. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/visiting-the-trinity-site-featured-in-oppenheimer-is-a-sobering-reminder-of-the-horror-of-nuclear-weapons-210248">Visiting the Trinity Site featured in 'Oppenheimer' is a sobering reminder of the horror of nuclear weapons</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>About envisioning futures</h2>
<p>What makes historical films so compelling and so difficult is they have to fictionalize and imagine narratives around real people and events.</p>
<p>Filmmakers working with realities of the past are charged with making an interpretation of historical data — and a judgment about what it means to us today, in a way that engages and entertains us as spectators. </p>
<p>To be true to that contract, such films should not simply make things up. They need to strive for accuracy and objectivity, while performing a deft sleight of hand to enthrall and captivate. </p>
<p>On top of box office success and critical success, <em>Oppenheimer</em> does an impressive job of translating <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/shopping/oppenheimer-movie-book-read-american-prometheus-online-1235539040/">biographical source material</a> into an engaging and thought-provoking feature film. As such, this functions as a clarion call in the present, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/annie-lennox-stars-sign-open-letter-warning-nuclear-threat-1235623118">sparking real questions about the meaning of the nuclear age today</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Nelson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Canadian Heritage under their Initiative for Digital Citizen Research.</span></em></p>The success of ‘Oppenheimer’ at the Academy Awards presents an opportunity to think about critical criteria for viewing historical film — and what we are owed by historical filmmakers.Kim Nelson, Associate Professor. Cinema Arts, School of Creative Arts, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225912024-03-08T13:35:55Z2024-03-08T13:35:55ZDespite its big night at the Oscars, ‘Oppenheimer’ is a disappointment and a lost opportunity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580022/original/file-20240305-24-oirj08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C6%2C4085%2C2150&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. detonates an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in Micronesia in the first underwater test of the device.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-detonating-an-atomic-bomb-at-bikini-atoll-in-news-photo/113493339?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With 13 Oscars nominations <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/oscars-2024-live-winners-list-academy-awards-oppenheimer-jimmy-kimmel-210004276.html">and seven wins</a> – including best picture – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk">Oppenheimer</a>” was the star of the 96th Academy Awards.</p>
<p>Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster, which told the story of the making of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, added to its awards season haul that includes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/07/movies/golden-globes-takeaways.html">five Golden Globes</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/britain-bafta-film-awards-oppenheimer-220af1ec73e47e6222abe2b0934cddc8">seven BAFTA awards</a>.</p>
<p>But as a historian <a href="https://academic.oup.com/whq/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/whq/whae016/7610040?redirectedFrom=fulltext">whose research has revolved around the survivors of the bombings</a>, I cannot help but be disappointed that, yet again, the dominant narrative of the bombs chugs along. </p>
<p>This narrative has long informed how Hollywood and the U.S. media have addressed nuclear weapons. It paints the bombs’ creation as a morally fraught but necessary project – an extraordinary invention by exceptional minds, a national project that was a matter of life or death for a country mired in a global conflict. To use the bombs was a difficult decision at a challenging time. Yet it’s important to remember that, above all, the bombs saved democracy.</p>
<p>There is something that strikes me as so inward-looking to this narrative – it is so focused on the stress over losing an arms race, on fears of making a mistake, on anxiety over what would happen if bombs were to one day be dropped on the U.S. – that it drowns out what actually did happen after the bombs were detonated. </p>
<h2>A barren cultural landscape</h2>
<p>When Nolan was pressed over why he chose not to show any images of Hiroshima, Nagasaki or the victims, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/11/movies/robert-downey-jr-christopher-nolan-oppenheimer.html?searchResultPosition=2">he said</a>, “less can be more” – that the subtext of what’s not shown is even more powerful, since it forces audiences to use their imaginations.</p>
<p>But what images from popular culture do audiences even have to pull from?</p>
<p>From the 1950s to the 1980s, many Hollywood films explored the fear of a nuclear apocalypse. Only a few depicted mass deaths on the ground – “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-time-for-a-21st-century-version-of-the-day-after-90270">The Day After</a>” comes to mind – but virtually none showed survivors who looked or sounded like real survivors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Middle-aged man in a tuxedo and an awards ceremony." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Oppenheimer’ director Christopher Nolan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-film-producer-and-director-christopher-nolan-poses-news-photo/2013546999?adppopup=true">Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/">Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</a>” simply showed mushroom clouds and bird’s-eye views of the bombs from above. When cameras did zoom in on the ground in films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056331/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_panic%2520in%2520year">Panic in Year Zero!</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_testament">Testament</a>,” they revealed Americans bracing for or panicking about the bomb being dropped on them. </p>
<p>Watching these films, it’s easy to believe that if a nuclear attack had ever occurred, it must have been in a U.S. city. </p>
<p>This genealogy of films also includes collective biopics of a sort, in which a nuclear drama unfolds among scientists, military officials and politicians.</p>
<p>In the 2024 book “<a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295752341/resisting-the-nuclear/">Resisting the Nuclear: Art and Activism across the Pacific</a>,” one chapter describes how Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein reenacted the Trinity test in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038312/">Atomic Power</a>,” a 1946 film that celebrates the role of science in U.S. military might. They note that in the film’s outtakes, Einstein seemed unfocused while Oppenheimer appeared stilted. </p>
<p>Clearly, the two scientists were uncomfortable with their newly assigned role as promoters of a mesmerizing, dangerous technology. If “Oppenheimer” expands on this personal discomfort, the film keeps firmly in place the disconnect between the bombs’ creators and the destruction they wrought.</p>
<h2>The bombs didn’t discriminate</h2>
<p>In the end, films like “Oppenheimer” offer few, if any, new insights about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their repercussions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-08-04/oppenheimer-movie-christopher-nolan-atomic-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-critics">More than 200,000 people perished</a>, and the lives lost included not only Japanese civilians but also Koreans who had been in Japan as forced laborers or military conscripts. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27017727#:%7E:text=It%20has%20been%20estimated%20that,stayed%20in%20Japan%20%5B2%5D.">1 in every 10 people who survived the bomb were Koreans</a>, but the U.S. government has never recognized them as survivors of U.S. military attacks. To this day they struggle to get access to medical treatment for their long-term radiation illness. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Elderly Korean women cry, shout and hold photos of lost loved ones during a protest march." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Relatives of conscripted Koreans killed in the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki protest at the Japanese embassy in Seoul in 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/korean-conscripted-victims-family-hold-victim-portrait-with-news-photo/1229624814?adppopup=true">Seung-il Ryu/NurPhoto via Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moreover, about 3,000 to 4,000 of those affected by the bombs were Americans of Japanese ancestry, as I have shown in my <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-survivors-trans-pacific-memories-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-naoko-wake/15472870?ean=9781108835275">book about Asian American survivors of the bombings</a>. Most of them were children who were staying with their families, or students who had enrolled in schools in Japan prior to the war because U.S. schools had become increasingly discriminatory to Asian American students.</p>
<p>These non-Japanese survivors – including many U.S.-born citizens – have been known to scholars and activists since at least the 1990s. So it feels surreal to watch a film that depicts the bombs’ effects purely in the context of the U.S. at war against its enemy, Japan. As my work shows, the bombs didn’t discriminate between friend and foe. </p>
<p>It is not that Christopher Nolan ignores the bombs’ power to destroy.</p>
<p>He gestures toward it when he depicts J. Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist played by Cillian Murphy, <a href="https://collider.com/oppenheimer-cillian-murphy-gymnasium-scene/">imagining a nuclear holocaust</a> when giving a celebratory speech to his colleagues after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.</p>
<p>But what Oppenheimer sees in this hallucination is the face of a young white woman peeling off – played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6898446/">Nolan’s daughter, Flora</a> – not those of the Japanese, Korean and Asian American people who actually experienced the bombs. Later in the film, Oppenheimer looks away from the images of Hiroshima’s ground zero when they’re shown to him and his Manhattan Project colleagues. </p>
<p>I wondered, as I watched this scene, whether this decision encourages the audience to look away, too.</p>
<h2>Global reverberations</h2>
<p>Even if this film is seen purely through the lens of entertainment, Nolan could have chosen to recognize why the bombs are such a galvanizing subject to begin with: They have done much, much more than make white, middle-class Americans feel anxious or guilty.</p>
<p>Their blasts reverberated across the globe, tearing apart not only America’s wartime enemies but also colonized peoples and racial minorities. </p>
<p>Cold War nuclear production disproportionately hurt Native and Indigenous Americans who worked at uranium mines and the residents of <a href="https://www.arcjournals.org/international-journal-of-research-in-sociology-and-anthropology/volume-3-issue-4/4">the Pacific Islands chosen as the sites of several dozens of U.S. nuclear tests</a>.</p>
<p>For those on the receiving end, the effects of the nuclear explosions are not a thing of the past. <a href="https://theconversation.com/bikini-islanders-still-deal-with-fallout-of-us-nuclear-tests-more-than-70-years-later-58567">They are a daily reality</a>. </p>
<p>And the effects of radiation continue to plague not just humans but the environment. Scientists still don’t know what to do with <a href="https://upittpress.org/books/9780822966128/">highly radioactive nuclear waste</a>, whether it’s from nuclear power plants or former nuclear test sites that remain off-limits <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4165831/">because they are too contaminated to inhabit</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/">As global conflicts increase the possibility of nuclear war</a>, it’s certainly important to talk about the ongoing legacies of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. </p>
<p>But to create a more balanced understanding of nuclear weapons, it would be helpful if talented filmmakers like Nolan made more of an effort to look beyond the narrow immediacy of a mushroom cloud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naoko Wake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For all its praise, the film furthers the dominant narrative of the bombs as a morally fraught but necessary project, with American anxieties playing a starring role.Naoko Wake, Professor of History, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2229532024-03-06T13:34:46Z2024-03-06T13:34:46ZReeling religion: From anime and sci-fi to rom-coms, films are full of faith in unexpected places<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579737/original/file-20240304-26-ehe5mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2305%2C1156&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Seeing the light − at the movies.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/people-in-the-cinema-auditorium-with-empty-white-royalty-free-image/1494642262?phrase=%22movie+theater%22&adppopup=true">igoriss/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In some movies, religion hits viewers over the head – including films that take home the industry’s biggest prizes. No one could miss religion’s importance in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Exorcist</a>” or “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070239/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Jesus Christ Superstar</a>,” both nominated for Oscars 50 years ago. Martin Scorsese, whose “Killers of the Flower Moon” is up for 10 at the 2024 Academy Awards, is working on a new project <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2024-01-08/martin-scorsese-killers-of-the-flower-moon-new-jesus-film">on the life of Jesus</a>. </p>
<p>Anyone can find a religious meaning <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119485/">in “Kundun</a>,” Scorsese’s epic about the Dalai Lama’s youth, or “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/">Fiddler on the Roof</a>,” the story of life in a Russian Jewish shtetl at the turn of the 20th century. Cinematic Christ figures <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Religion-and-Film/Lyden/p/book/9780415601870">are a dime a dozen</a>.</p>
<p>But for <a href="https://people.cal.msu.edu/stowed/">scholars of religion and popular culture</a> like myself, movies that engage religion less directly are often more intriguing. </p>
<h2>Free from illusion</h2>
<p>Take the hugely influential science fiction franchise “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=the%20matrix&ref_=nv_sr_sm">The Matrix</a>.” Depicting characters caught in a diabolical computer simulation, held prisoner to AI, the film feels particularly timely in 2024.</p>
<p>Seeing past illusions to a deeper cosmic reality, as the film’s protagonists must do, is of course a theme of many faiths. “The Matrix” is peppered with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9781904710165_017">many other allusions to religion</a> and mythology. Main character Neo, referred to as “the One,” is killed and resurrected. A hacker even tells him, “You’re my savior, man, my own personal Jesus Christ.” One central character is named Trinity. Another is called Morpheus, after the Greek god of dreams.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with short hair and a blue shirt touches the chin of a reclining man whose eyes are closed and whose head is almost touching a computer screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579329/original/file-20240302-30-et24uz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves as Trinity and Neo in ‘The Matrix.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/carrie-anne-moss-and-keanu-reeves-in-the-matrix-news-photo/590691556?adppopup=true">Ronald Siemoneit/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>More specifically, religion scholars see explicit <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/american-gnosis-9780197653210?cc=gb&lang=en&">themes of Gnosticism</a>, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-tiny-minority-of-iraqis-follows-an-ancient-gnostic-religion-and-theres-a-chance-they-could-be-your-neighbors-too-160838">variant of Christianity</a> that flourished during the faith’s first few centuries. A central focus of Gnostic texts is attaining liberation from worldly illusion through direct inner knowledge of truth. Its teachings include stark dualism – light vs. dark, mind vs. body, good vs. evil – and belief in a hidden God operating in a hostile cosmos, both of which have analogues in “The Matrix.”</p>
<p><a href="https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol5/iss2/4/">Buddhist themes</a> are also unmistakable. The film begins with Neo waking up, both literally and figuratively, as he discovers the truth: Machines have trapped humanity in pods to harvest their energy. The world in which humans believe they are living is actually “the matrix,” an illusory world created to distract them.</p>
<p>“Buddha” means “<a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/buda/hd_buda.htm">awakened one</a>,” and many viewers <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26975089?seq=1">have drawn comparisons</a> between Keanu Reeves’ character’s journey and Buddhism. Once <a href="https://library.scotch.wa.edu.au/ld.php?content_id=45331773">awakened to reality</a>, Neo is no longer bound to the illusions of ignorance and desire. Just as importantly, he must help other humans awaken and escape the cycle of suffering.</p>
<h2>Spirits on screen</h2>
<p>Even apart from specific allusions like these, cinema shares something important with religion. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/our-faculty/directory/faculty-detail/s-brent-plate">S. B. Rodriguez-Plate</a>, a religion scholar at Hamilton College, argues that <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-do-moviegoers-become-pilgrims-81016">films can function something like religions</a> in the lives of their audiences, “playing God” by <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Religion_and_Film/PeQvDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">creating imaginary worlds</a> – worlds that may make viewers see their real lives in a different light.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three children stare up at a large, very colorful structure that looks like a coral reef with clay characters on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579328/original/file-20240302-20-gruasj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Visitors gaze at a clay model of Hayao Miyazaki’s film ‘Ponyo’ at an exhibition in Tokyo in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/visitors-gaze-at-clay-model-of-the-animation-movie-ponyo-on-news-photo/81959495?adppopup=true">Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>That power is nowhere more evident than in animated films, which create vivid realms that live action can only dream of. In films like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Spirited Away</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347149/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Howl’s Moving Castle</a>,” legendary anime director Hayao Miyazaki <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Miyazaki_and_the_Hero_s_Journey/GUhpEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">creates his own mythic worlds</a> populated with fanciful “<a href="https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/yokai-fantastic-creatures-of-japanese-folklore#sthash.ghWYL1Ap.DkhdklQi.dpbs">yōkai</a>”: creatures that are inspired by Japanese legends but not quite Shinto or Buddhist.</p>
<p>Many of Miyazaki’s films also include spirits that inhabit inanimate objects, which he associates with Japanese tradition. “In my grandparents’ time … it was believed that spirits (kami) existed everywhere – in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Drawing_on_Tradition/gB_HDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">he once said</a>. “My own religion, if you can call it that, has no practice, no Bible, no saints, only a desire to keep certain places and my own self as pure and holy as possible.”</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119698/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Princess Mononoke</a>,” Miyazaki’s 1997 film set in medieval Japan, tells the story of a young prince drawn into an epic struggle between forest gods and humans who exploit natural resources. It’s a challenge religions have often ignored but are increasingly trying to engage: how to live responsibly in the natural world. </p>
<p>While the movie has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoZpCmcnM_s">an environmental message</a>, it avoids oversimplifying the struggle to “good nature” besieged by “bad humans.” San, a human girl who leads an army of wolves, tries to kill the prince, while Iron Town provides support for lepers and outcasts, even as it degrades the environment.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A.O. Scott reviews ‘Princess Mononoke,’ which highlights environmental themes.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Birth and rebirth – and groundhogs</h2>
<p>What about comedy, though? Can a religious film be funny? Could a romantic comedy have religious overtones? </p>
<p>Each February, many Americans <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-groundhogs-emerge-on-february-2-if-its-not-to-predict-the-weather-36376">celebrate Groundhog Day</a>, waiting to see if the famous Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow. But for some, Feb. 2 is a day to celebrate “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Groundhog Day</a>” – the film about the moral evolution of an arrogant Pittsburgh weatherman sent to report on the groundhog but forced to <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-each-pandemic-day-feels-the-same-phil-the-weatherman-in-groundhog-day-can-offer-a-lesson-in-embracing-life-mindfully-153605">live the same day over and over again</a> until he gets it right.</p>
<p>Given “Groundhog Day’s” cult-classic status, it evidently speaks to followers of many religions and none. But it’s hard to think of a film that better <a href="https://tricycle.org/article/groundhog-day/">captures the concept of samsara</a>: the Sanskrit term for the tedious human condition, with its endless cycles of birth and rebirth. Helping people find release from samsara is central to both Hinduism and Buddhism. Phil, the weatherman stuck reliving Feb. 2 over and over, is caught on such a treadmill. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark-haired main in a blue shirt and dark tie runs through a snowy street with his arms outstretched." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579327/original/file-20240302-24-2pk6ne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bill Murray, once again frozen in time on Feb. 2.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bill-murray-runs-through-the-snow-in-a-scene-from-the-film-news-photo/163063811?adppopup=true">Columbia Pictures/Archive Photos/Moviepix via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Only by gradually transforming himself into a more virtuous person – performing acts of merit among the people of Punxsutawney – does he finally escape from the nightmare of recurring Groundhog Days.</p>
<p>Director Harold Ramis was brought up Jewish but <a href="https://www.lionsroar.com/harold-ramis-profile-by-perry-garfinkel/">became a Buddhist</a> who carried a laminated card, “<a href="https://red40entertainment.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/THE-5-MINUTE-BUDDHIST.pdf">The 5 Minute Buddhist</a>”: a kind of cheat sheet of core ideas of Buddhism. So it’s not surprising to find them in his movie.</p>
<p>One is “pratītyasamutpāda,” another Sanskrit term: the idea that everything in the cosmos <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393521/obo-9780195393521-0027.xml">is linked by causal chains</a>. All causes and effects are connected; nothing stands wholly apart on its own. By the end of “Groundhog Day,” the prideful Phil has fully connected with people in the quaint Pennsylvania village – and won his love, Rita – having learned how his own well-being depends on the well-being of everyone around him. </p>
<h2>Close to awe</h2>
<p>There’s one more way to think about religion in film. Apart from specific spiritual themes, a powerful movie can offer an almost religious experience. </p>
<p>Nathaniel Dorsky, an experimental filmmaker <a href="https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/34777">influenced by Buddhism</a>, writes of <a href="https://nathanieldorsky.net/dv">cinema as a devotional experience</a>. The act of sitting in darkness, watching an illuminated world flicker by, Dorsky says, may be as close to approaching the transcendent as many of us will come – getting a glimpse of something beyond our normal range of experience.</p>
<p>Of course, all these films can be enjoyed fully without reading them on this religious level. Some movie fans would object that these interpretations spoil the fun, and they may have a point. But part of the excitement of studying religion in popular culture is to be aware of its many permutations, hidden in plain view.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the name of religion scholar S. B. Rodriguez-Plate.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David W. Stowe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Plenty of movies have explicitly religious themes, but some of the most interesting examples of faith or transcendence on screen are much more subtle.David W. Stowe, Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214772024-03-06T13:33:38Z2024-03-06T13:33:38ZHow the Academy Awards became ‘the biggest international fashion show free-for-all’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579696/original/file-20240304-26-fvllso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C2156%2C1539&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The dress actress Lupita Nyong'o wore to the 86th Academy Awards in 2014 became a story in and of itself.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/caactress-lupita-nyongo-poses-in-the-press-room-during-the-news-photo/478056305?adppopup=true">Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Oscars are no longer just a celebration of movies. They’ve also become a fashion show, with fans, designers and the media celebrating and critiquing Hollywood celebrities as they stroll, pause and pose on the red carpet of the annual awards ceremony.</p>
<p>A sharp look can be a story in and of itself.</p>
<p>Take actress <a href="https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/lupita-nyongo-best-red-carpet-fashion">Lupita Nyong’o</a>. After she wore a powder blue Prada dress to the 2014 Oscars, she became the new “It girl” overnight. She was named <a href="https://people.com/celebrity/lupita-nyongo-is-peoples-most-beautiful-2/">People magazine’s Most Beautiful Woman</a>, became the <a href="https://time.com/49612/lupita-nyongo-becomes-new-face-of-lancome/">first Black ambassador</a> for beauty giant Lancôme and landed on the covers of Vogue, Vanity Fair and Glamour.</p>
<p>But fashion wasn’t always so central to the ceremony.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1vtz84g.11">my book about the history of the Oscars red carpet</a>, I point to two essential figures that turned the Oscars into the fashion spectacle we know today.</p>
<h2>TV puts the Oscars in the spotlight</h2>
<p>At the end of the 1940s, the Hollywood film industry was facing economic headwinds. </p>
<p>More and more households <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/american-women-moving-image/television">were buying television sets</a>, which impacted movie-going. The studios also saw their revenues decline when they were forced to sell their theater chains <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/paramount-decrees-antitrust-hollywood-1235581215/">after losing an antitrust case in 1948</a>.</p>
<p>Financial struggles continued to mount when, in 1949, <a href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/photoplayjanjun100macf_4_0603">the motion picture companies refused to fund the Academy Awards</a> after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that puts on the awards, allowed British films to compete head-to-head with American productions. </p>
<p>The organization found temporary solutions to keep the event going. But when faced with the possibility of discontinuing the Oscars ceremony altogether due to financial constraints, the academy weighed the advantages and disadvantages of airing the program on television, which was seen as film’s main competitor. Eventually, the academy approached NBC and requested that the network cover the expenses to put on the event <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2022.2065079">in exchange for the rights to broadcast the show in 1953</a>.</p>
<p>Until then, the studios had carefully crafted and controlled their stars’ public image. Television was a new medium – and a more spontaneous one. Studio executives feared how their stars would appear on screen and behave during the broadcast. Furthermore, many nominees were skeptical of appearing at the event since there was no stipulation in their contracts about television appearances.</p>
<h2>Edith Head, guardian of glamour</h2>
<p>So the academy hired <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/27/obituaries/edith-head-fashion-designer-for-the-movies-dies.html">Edith Head</a> as a fashion consultant to supervise the stars’ appearance.</p>
<p>At the time, Head was Hollywood’s most famous costume designer. She’d been working since the days of silent cinema, and she was <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/900041/pdf">accustomed to the media spotlight through her promotional work for Paramount</a>.</p>
<p>Head was responsible for making sure that everyone dressed appropriately, abiding by the “decency and decorum” guidelines suggested by <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.39000007422830&seq=10">the Code of Practice for Television Broadcasters</a>. She also had to ensure that no two dresses were the same and that the outfits worn by presenters and nominees looked good on camera and complemented the set.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Elderly woman wearing sunglasses poses while sitting in a golf cart." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579228/original/file-20240301-16-un6izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579228/original/file-20240301-16-un6izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579228/original/file-20240301-16-un6izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579228/original/file-20240301-16-un6izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579228/original/file-20240301-16-un6izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579228/original/file-20240301-16-un6izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579228/original/file-20240301-16-un6izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edith Head was hired as the first fashion consultant for the Academy Awards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/edith-head-outside-her-office-on-the-lot-of-universal-news-photo/77695597?adppopup=true">Mark Sullivan/Contour via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>One of her most important roles ended up being talking up fashion in media interviews leading up to the Oscars, which she frequently referred to as a fashion show. </p>
<p>“This is a very competitive night from a fashion point of view because, as I said, the stars are presenting themselves as themselves,” Head explained on one of <a href="https://collections.new.oscars.org/Details/Collection/546">her radio shows</a>. “For me, as a fashion designer, the most exciting question is who will wear what.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1vtz84g.11">The postwar growth of the international fashion industry</a> paved the way for Hollywood stars to wear the latest creations by European designers, including Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy and Pierre Balmain.</p>
<p>However, by the mid-1960s, new fashion trends such as miniskirts, shapeless dresses, pants and bohemian styles threatened to upend the formal attire of the Oscars and the feminine ideals preferred by Head.</p>
<p>In 1968, she felt compelled to remind young actresses of the event’s stature with a <a href="https://www.oscars.org/collection-highlights/edith-head/?fid=33401">press release</a> after actress <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/65gNaXHLq9oCcbp99">Inger Stevens</a> wore a mini dress to the ceremony in 1967. To Head, this was no informal social gathering; it was a glamorous, upscale fashion parade.</p>
<p>Two years later, in 1970, she reiterated the importance of formal attire <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=xbMl6BHSMvA">while announcing the nominees</a> for the Oscar for best costume design. She reminded young actresses that the Oscars was “the most important time of the year in Hollywood” and advised them to avoid wearing “the freaky, far-out, unusual fashions.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xbMl6BHSMvA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Edith Head stresses the importance of formal attire at the Oscars.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fred Hayman rights the ship</h2>
<p>After Head said goodbye to her position at the conclusion of the 1971 ceremony, celebrities blew through the boundaries of decorum, inaugurating an era of questionable fashion choices: <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/VEmt61vyUeNku7mn7">Edy Williams’ shocking bikini looks</a>, Bob Mackie’s memorable <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/gallery/cher-oscars-outfits">transparencies for Cher</a> and Armani’s <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/cyLTjwV1Li1c2AbN7">over-the-top informality for Diane Keaton</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman in elegant black, spidery, see-through dress holds a gold statuette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579681/original/file-20240304-30-k64ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cher wears a transparent gown designed by Bob Mackie at the 60th Academy Awards in 1988.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/actress-cher-posing-in-the-press-room-at-the-1988-academy-news-photo/529485598?adppopup=true">Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Fashion order was restored in 1989 when Beverly Hills impresario <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/business/smallbusiness/fred-hayman-whose-giorgio-boutique-led-gilding-of-rodeo-drive-dies-at-90.html">Fred Hayman</a> became the event’s new fashion coordinator.</p>
<p>Lucky for him, in the 1990s, fashion was in fashion. </p>
<p>New successful designers such as Giorgio Armani, Thierry Mugler and Gianni Versace elbowed into the spotlight alongside established conglomerate brands like Louis Vuitton and Givenchy. <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-90s-supermodel/_gVRe27kG0w8LA?hl=en">Supermodels had become celebrities</a> on par with actors and actresses, and cable television launched specialized international networks dedicated entirely to fashion and celebrity culture. </p>
<p>Hayman was eager to capitalize on this momentum to promote Rodeo Drive as the luxury shopping mecca of the West Coast.</p>
<p>Hayman had begun his career in the hospitality industry. But in 1961, he switched to fashion after investing in a friend’s boutique, Giorgio Beverly Hills. Hayman would eventually become the boutique’s sole owner. In 1989, the same year he joined the Oscars as fashion coordinator, he rebranded his store as Fred Hayman Beverly Hills <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/08/business/company-news-avon-products-to-acquire-giorgio.html">after selling the Giorgio brand to cosmetics conglomerate Avon</a> to commercialize <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/02/style/marketing-a-perfume-the-story-of-giorgio.html">his perfume line</a>. </p>
<p>Giorgio Beverly Hills catered to the rich and famous by retailing garments from various designers and brands from Europe and New York City. As fashion coordinator of the Oscars, Hayman became the official go-to resource for what to wear to the event, attracting more celebrities, brands and media attention to Rodeo Drive.</p>
<p>Building off Head’s media strategy, Hayman <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=JjPhHwrgoAw">introduced the fashion previews</a>. These were runway shows for the press organized at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard to anticipate each year’s red-carpet trends.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Elegantly dressed women and men pose in front of tall, gold statues." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579682/original/file-20240304-22-xp7dri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C7%2C1010%2C668&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579682/original/file-20240304-22-xp7dri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579682/original/file-20240304-22-xp7dri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579682/original/file-20240304-22-xp7dri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579682/original/file-20240304-22-xp7dri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579682/original/file-20240304-22-xp7dri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579682/original/file-20240304-22-xp7dri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fashion retailer Fred Hayman – center, with white hair – served as the fashion coordinator for the Oscars from 1990 to 1999.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/designers-contribution-to-the-66th-oscars-news-photo/529810800?adppopup=true">Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fashion at the Oscars took a giant leap forward with Hayman. Thanks to his efforts, the West Coast enhanced its fashion profile, prompting luxury brands to open flagship stores along Rodeo Drive. </p>
<p>He continued in his role for a decade until he was replaced by stylist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/nyregion/lwren-scott-found-dead-in-manhattan-apartment.html">L’Wren Scott</a> for the ceremony in 2000. </p>
<p>Through their media savvy, Head and Hayman were able to recast the Academy Awards ceremony as a dazzling spectacle of glamour – what Head frequently described as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1vtz84g.11">the biggest international fashion show free-for-all</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221477/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through their media savvy, two consultants were able to make the Oscars as much about the attire as the gold statuettes.Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, Fulbright Scholar and Sweden-America Foundation Research Fellow, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236302024-03-05T13:59:33Z2024-03-05T13:59:33ZScorsese’s gods of the streets: From ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ to ‘Silence,’ faith is rarely far off in his films<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578959/original/file-20240229-26-vvk7wh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C744%2C447&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even in films where religion isn't front and center, Martin Scorsese's attention to ritual and devotion comes through. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Apple TV+</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A widely circulated still from the set of Martin Scorsese’s latest film, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5537002/">Killers of the Flower Moon</a>,” shows the director sitting in a church pew. Next to him is Lily Gladstone, who plays the role of Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman whose family is targeted as part of a broader conspiracy by white Americans to steal the tribe’s wealth, to the point of marrying and killing its members.</p>
<p>In the photograph, Scorsese appears to hold <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-rosary-why-a-set-of-beads-and-prayers-are-central-to-catholic-faith-192485">rosary beads</a>, a common devotional object for many Catholics. Mollie is Catholic, so the rosary makes sense as a prop. But as <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/religiousstudies/smith_anthony.php">a scholar</a> of <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700636150/the-look-of-catholics/">religion and film</a>, I’m struck by how it calls to mind the director’s own complex Catholicism and its imprint on his decades of filmmaking.</p>
<p>Scorsese stands in a long line of Catholic American filmmakers, stretching back to the 1930s and 1940s – one that includes Irish Americans <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/searcher">John Ford</a> and <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/julyweb-only/fof_mccarey.html">Leo McCarey</a>, and Italian immigrant <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/features/frank-capra-earned-his-wings-with-it-s-a-wonderful-life">Frank Capra</a>. At a time when Catholicism still seemed foreign to many Americans, those directors <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700636150/the-look-of-catholics/">helped normalize the faith</a>, making it seem like part of a shared American story. </p>
<p>Yet in his films, Scorsese has taken a much more personal approach to exploring Catholic faith and experience. He doesn’t feel the need to defend the religion or burnish its image. His movies are steeped in Catholic sensibilities, but embrace painful questions that often accompany belief: what it means to hold on to religious commitment in a world where God can seem absent.</p>
<h2>From altar boy to auteur</h2>
<p>Scorsese has often spoken of <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/filmmaker-martin-scorsese-talks-about-his-faith-upcoming-movie-silence?fbclid=IwAR1JWRy3irXQQlldezkIduAqJ3zH3iBUaU5qPh6Llr1v6ylXl1GnwlbyO48">his Catholic background</a>. Born in New York City’s Little Italy, he went to Catholic schools and served as an altar boy at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, which <a href="https://untappedcities.com/2014/04/03/monthofscorsese-nyc-film-locations-for-martin-scorsese-mean-streets/">appeared in his early masterpiece</a> “Mean Streets.” Scorsese even began seminary training, but he quickly realized the priesthood was not for him.</p>
<p>Yet the church proved influential. Scorsese has described St. Patrick’s as <a href="https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/martin-scorsese-s-trilogy-of-faith/">a spiritual alternative</a> to the violence in the streets around his neighborhood. A priest <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/filmmaker-martin-scorsese-talks-about-his-faith-upcoming-movie-silence?fbclid=IwAR1JWRy3irXQQlldezkIduAqJ3zH3iBUaU5qPh6Llr1v6ylXl1GnwlbyO48">introduced the young Scorsese</a> to classical music and books that widened his cultural horizons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The view of a sanctuary with stained-glass windows, seen from above with a man playing the organ in the foreground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578968/original/file-20240229-16-2fnzga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Organist Jared Lamenzo performs at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on June 21, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/organist-jared-lamenzo-perform-during-the-friends-of-the-news-photo/1151298772?adppopup=true">Kris Connor/Getty Images for NAMM</a></span>
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<p>A similar tension runs through many of his films: Catholic devotion, mystery and ritual interwoven with ruthless crime. Indeed, the struggle with faith amid brutality is a theme Scorsese returns to over and over, asking what religion might have to offer the world as it actually exists, with all its cruelties, greed and despair.</p>
<h2>Presence and absence</h2>
<p>That struggle can be described as one between “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674984592">presence” and “absence</a>,” to use the terms of <a href="https://history.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/affiliated-faculty/robert-orsi.html">religious studies scholar Robert A. Orsi</a>. </p>
<p>Religious presence refers to all the ways people experience their gods’ existence in the world and in their lives. For Catholics, for example, the Eucharist is not just a symbol of Christ; the consecrated bread and wine in Communion actually <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-communion-matters-in-catholic-life-and-what-it-means-to-be-denied-the-eucharist-163560">become Jesus’ flesh and blood</a>, according to Catholic teaching.</p>
<p>Orsi describes religious absence, on the other hand, as the experience of doubt and spiritual struggle about a god not felt directly on Earth.</p>
<p>Both presence and absence shape Scorsese’s rendering of religion. God’s absence takes the form of violence and greed in his films. But some characters also carry their gods with them in the world. This is most dramatically seen in “Silence,” released in 2016, which was based on the novel by <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2023/04/25/shusaku-endo-245116">Japanese Catholic writer Shusaku Endo</a>. </p>
<p>“Silence” is the story of two Jesuit missionaries who travel to 17th century Japan in search of their mentor, another Jesuit who is believed to have renounced the faith during a wave of violent persecutions. One of them, Father Rodrigues, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/10/silence-review-the-last-temptation-of-liam-neeson-in-scorseses-shattering-epic">profoundly questions his own faith</a> after witnessing the torture of Japanese Christians.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cuTjBL28l0U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Silence’ dramatically explores faith, doubt and suffering.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why, he wonders, does God allow such suffering? Eventually he himself will renounce his faith in order to save the lives of those to whom he ministers.</p>
<p>The silence of God is the film’s major preoccupation, yet it is filled with devotional imagery. At <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOX8-c-_uVY">the climax of the film</a>, Rodrigues tramples on an image of Christ in order to end the torture of other Christians. But just at that moment, he experiences the presence of his God.</p>
<p>The very final scene depicts his burial, years after the film’s main events – a small crucifix clasped in his hand.</p>
<h2>Penance ‘in the streets’</h2>
<p>This preoccupation with Catholicism stretches back to Scorsese’s 1973 breakthrough film, “Mean Streets.” Harvey Keitel plays a young Italian American man, Charlie, who <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/5130/film/his-catholic-conscience">grapples with his faith</a> in the unforgiving world of New York’s Lower East Side. </p>
<p>Presence, as Orsi points out, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674984592">is often as much a burden</a> as a solace. Indeed, part of the emotional power in “Mean Streets” lies in Charlie’s own impatience toward Catholic practices and rules. He wants the freedom to be Catholic in his own way.</p>
<p>“You don’t make up for your sins in the church,” he insists <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdQ4_AzBxXg">in the opening voice-over</a>. “You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit, and you know it.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a man in a jacket and sunglasses leaning against a lamppost on a street with graffiti." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578972/original/file-20240229-24-ca054r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Scorsese at the corner of Hester and Baxter streets in 1973, one of the locations he used in his New York film ‘Mean Streets.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/full-length-portrait-of-american-director-martin-scorsese-news-photo/3204086?adppopup=true">Jack Manning/New York Times Co./Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Over the years, Scorsese’s own ambitions have led him far beyond the streets of Little Italy. A number of his films have little to do with religion. Yet movies such as “Casino,” “The Aviator” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” elaborate the same basic question as “Mean Streets”: What is important in a world that so often feels dominated by absence, money and violence? Through a long career, Scorsese has framed both the sacred and profane as compelling but competing forces of human desire.</p>
<p>Shortly before the release of “Silence,” Scorsese <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/magazine/the-passion-of-martin-scorsese.html">visited St. Patrick’s</a> during an interview with The New York Times. “I never left,” he said. “In my mind, I am here every day.”</p>
<p>One might take him at his word. Even in his most recent movie, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2023/10/26/killers-flower-moon-osage-catholics-246377">a Catholic sensibility sneaks through in numerous ways</a>. Characters attend Mass at parish churches and bury their dead on consecrated Catholic ground. </p>
<p>Further, the film’s attention to Osage religious practices demonstrates Scorsese’s sensitivity to the power of ritual and devotion. The movie opens with the burial of a ceremonial pipe, highlighting how objects can assume sacred significance. As Mollie’s mother dies, she has a vision of the elders.</p>
<p>But the questions that haunt Scorsese hang over moments that hardly feel religious, too. </p>
<p>Toward the end of the film, when Mollie asks her duplicitous husband, Ernest, to come clean, his refusal to fully confess the harm he did to her and her family epitomizes the depths of his ethical emptiness. Her silence as she gets up and leaves, with an FBI agent standing quietly in the corner, offers a more powerful moral indictment than any legal sentence. The refusal to pay for one’s sins at home and in the streets has rarely looked so damning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223630/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though only a few of Scorsese’s films focus on religious stories, deeper questions about faith, doubt and living in a violent world tend to haunt his movies.Anthony Smith, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239332024-03-04T13:41:28Z2024-03-04T13:41:28ZStanley Kubrick redefined: recent research challenges myths to reveal the man behind the legend<p>Even 25 years after his death, Stanley Kubrick remains one of the most widely known directors of the 20th century. Many of the 13 films he made – including <a href="https://theconversation.com/2001-a-space-odyssey-still-leaves-an-indelible-mark-on-our-culture-55-years-on-209152">2001: A Space Odyssey</a> (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/kafka-is-the-real-ghost-of-kubricks-the-shining-41853">The Shining</a> (1980) – are still revered today and remembered as some of the best movies ever produced. </p>
<p>To coincide with the anniversary of his death on March 7 1999, I have co-authored the first full-length <a href="https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571370368-kubrick/">biography of Kubrick</a> in more than two decades. Based on the latest <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/898140">research</a> into Kubrick, access to his <a href="https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/library-services/special-collections-and-archives/archives-and-special-collections-centre/the-stanley-kubrick-archive">archive</a> at the University of Arts London, other repositories around the world, family members, cast and creatives, we have delved into his life in detail that few others have achieved.</p>
<h2>Shy but not reclusive</h2>
<p>During his life Kubrick was famously shy with the media, and frequently <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2010/04/kubrick-199908">interpreted</a> as reclusive. He granted very few interviews, and only when he had a film to publicise. He learned early on that he was not good at promoting his films personally. In the few interviews with Kubrick that survive, he comes across as nervous and ill at ease. </p>
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<p>Kubrick was so shy and protective of his private life that few people recognised him publicly. Though born and brought up in New York, he settled in England in the 1960s and remained there. He could wander into Rymans in St Albans and buy stationery (he loved paper, pens and the like) or get a new pair of spectacles and no one would recognise him. It helped that he often used his brother-in-law’s name when doing so. </p>
<p>In fact, Kubrick was such an unfamiliar figure that an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/mar/14/andrewanthony">imposter</a> went around London’s clubs and bars in the early 1990s pretending to be him. The imposter was only found out when Kubrick started receiving strange phone calls from spurned lovers and bars with huge unpaid drinks tabs. </p>
<h2>Kubrick archive</h2>
<p>His archive only opened in 2007, but it provides an insight into this extremely private director’s world as never before. Kubrick was a hoarder and held on to the miscellany and detritus of his personal and professional worlds. This included high school yearbooks, photographs he took for Look magazine, receipts, bills, invoices, as well as the voluminous amount of material a film production (especially a Kubrick production) generated.</p>
<p>Through studying this archival material, combined with our new interviews, we learned about the human being behind the mythology. Kubrick was a film director but he was also a son, brother, husband, father and friend. </p>
<p>He liked to entertain, chat, make jokes and cook. He loved making American-style fast food and huge sandwiches, often using a microwave as he was a lover of gadgets, adopting new technology as soon as it became available. This was as true of his private life (where he used car phones, pagers and computers) as his working life where he was an early adopter of Steadicam cameras and the Avid editing system. </p>
<p>He had a fear of flying, but it was based on his own knowledge as a trained pilot and frequent monitoring of radio traffic control. It’s not true that he never went over 30mph in a car, as has been <a href="http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index3.html">claimed</a>. Rather, he loved cars – fast German ones in particular – but frequently crashed them.</p>
<h2>Kubrick at work</h2>
<p>We uncovered much about Kubrick’s working practices too. Kubrick was a master of the insurance claim. He never hesitated to file one following an accident or fire on set. Not only did this help him to recoup his budget but it also gave him precious time to regroup and think about his options. </p>
<p>We also discovered how Kubrick had to beg, borrow and virtually steal to get most of his projects greenlit. It wasn’t until he signed with Warner Brothers in the 1970s – from A Clockwork Orange onwards – that he had a permanent financial backer. But even then he wasn’t guaranteed funding if the project wasn’t right. </p>
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<img alt="A black and white close up of Stanley Kubrick's face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577010/original/file-20240221-22-d3kke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1789%2C1078&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577010/original/file-20240221-22-d3kke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577010/original/file-20240221-22-d3kke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577010/original/file-20240221-22-d3kke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577010/original/file-20240221-22-d3kke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577010/original/file-20240221-22-d3kke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577010/original/file-20240221-22-d3kke5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kubrick was famously shy in public.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stanley_Kubrick_in_Dr._Strangelove_Trailer_(1).jpg">Mayimbú/Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>And those projects included the famously never made <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190808-was-napoleon-the-greatest-film-never-made">biopic of Napoleon</a> as the time wasn’t right, or his never-to-be-made Holocaust film, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/archive-fever-stanley-kubrick-and-the-aryan-papers">Aryan Papers</a>, which lacked a big star and came too close on the heels of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/2001-a-space-odyssey-still-leaves-an-indelible-mark-on-our-culture-55-years-on-209152">2001: A Space Odyssey still leaves an indelible mark on our culture 55 years on</a>
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<p>It is also tempting to wonder what would have happened had he made the film <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/15/stanley-kubrick-lost-screenplay-burning-secret-found">Burning Secret</a> in 1956, with MGM studios, with whom he had signed a contract. Would he have become another studio stooge or been fired for being too much of a maverick? What would have been the implications for his career?</p>
<p>While we can only imagine how those projects would have turned out, what remains is an extraordinary body of work that includes thousands of photographs, three documentaries and 13 feature films. Stanley Kubrick may have shunned the limelight, but his films have had a profound influence on the movie and television industries, as well as a lasting impact on popular and political culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Abrams receives and has previously received external funding, including charity and research council grants.</span></em></p>25 years after the death of the legendary director, a new book offers fresh insights into Stanley Kubrick’s personal and professional life.Nathan Abrams, Professor of Film Studies, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2224842024-03-04T13:38:53Z2024-03-04T13:38:53ZHow non-English language cinema is reshaping the Oscars landscape<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579014/original/file-20240229-28-jndcqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C1%2C1153%2C715&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Best picture nominee 'Past Lives' was directed by South Korean-Canadian filmmaker Celine Song and has scenes in Korean and English.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gq.com/photos/64ea9f7905e3a8acb2fa7700/16:9/w_2560%2Cc_limit/MCDPALI_EC043.jpeg">A24/Everett Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past few years, the Oscars have taken a decidedly international turn. </p>
<p>This year, of the 10 films nominated for an Academy Award for best picture, <a href="https://abc7news.com/oscars-2024-lily-gladstone-native-american-oppenheimer/14453217/">three of them</a> – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17009710/">Anatomy of a Fall</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13238346/">Past Lives</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7160372/">The Zone of Interest</a>” – are non-English language films. </p>
<p>In the first two decades of the Academy Awards, only three foreign films – all European – earned Oscar nominations: the 1938 French film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028950/">La Grande Illusion</a>,” which was <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/118332/world-war-i-film-la-grande-illusion">nominated for best picture</a>, or outstanding production, as it was then known; the 1944 Swiss film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037899/">Marie Louise</a>,” which was the <a href="https://collider.com/oscars-first-non-american-film-win-marie-louise/">first foreign film to win an Academy Award</a>, for best screenplay; and the 1932 French film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022599/">À nous la liberté</a>,” nominated for best production design.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://miamioh.edu/profiles/cas/kerry-hegarty.html">scholar of film history</a>, I see the recent recognition of non-English language films as the result of demographic changes in the industry and within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences itself. </p>
<h2>Hollywood’s dominance wanes</h2>
<p>During World War II, Hollywood experienced record financial success, with <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/motion-picture-industry-during-world-war-ii#Foreign_Markets">one-third of its revenue</a> coming from foreign markets – mainly the United Kingdom and Latin America. The industry leveraged the appeal of American movies to employ them as cultural ambassadors to promote democratic ideals. Notably, a popular film like “Casablanca” not only entertained audiences but also <a href="https://brightlightsfilm.com/casablanca-romance-propaganda/">served as potent anti-fascist propaganda</a>. </p>
<p>After the war, co-productions and distribution agreements with foreign studios opened new markets, <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/film-history-introduction-thompson-bordwell/M9781260837476.html">boosting Hollywood’s economic influence</a> and reinforcing English language cinema’s global dominance. </p>
<p>However, by the late 1940s, Hollywood experienced some challenges: Studios lost an anti-trust case that <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/paramount-decrees-antitrust-hollywood-1235581215/">challenged their monopoly</a> over producing, distributing and exhibiting films, while television threatened to siphon away theatergoers. With studios undergoing major budget and production cuts, a 1949 Fortune magazine article posed the question “<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/paramount-decrees-antitrust-hollywood-1235581215/">Movies: The End of an Era?</a>” </p>
<p>During that same period, <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/film-history-introduction-thompson-bordwell/M9781260837476.html">art film movements</a> in nations such as Sweden, France, Italy and Japan arose to contest Hollywood’s dominance, breathing new life into the cinematic arts. </p>
<p>These works <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/beyond/hollywood.html">contrasted sharply with Hollywood films</a>, many of which had become formulaic by the 1950s and were constrained by an outdated censorship code. </p>
<h2>A category of their own</h2>
<p>Between 1947 and 1956, foreign films received honorary Oscars, with <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/film-history-introduction-thompson-bordwell/M9781260837476.html">France and Italy dominating the accolades</a>. In 1956, the category of “best foreign language film” was officially established as an annual recognition, marking a pivotal moment in Oscars history. </p>
<p>However, any film nominated in that category is also <a href="https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/96o_complete_rules.pdf">eligible to be nominated</a> in the broader best picture category. The only stipulation is that it needs to have had a theatrical run in a Los Angeles County commercial movie theater for at least seven consecutive days. </p>
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<img alt="Black and white photo of a middle-aged man running his hands through his hair while sitting in a chair next to a large camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579017/original/file-20240229-25-5t3mij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579017/original/file-20240229-25-5t3mij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579017/original/file-20240229-25-5t3mij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579017/original/file-20240229-25-5t3mij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579017/original/file-20240229-25-5t3mij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579017/original/file-20240229-25-5t3mij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579017/original/file-20240229-25-5t3mij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Italian director Federico Fellini’s ‘La Strada’ won the first Academy Award for best foreign language film in 1957.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/federico-fellini-on-the-set-of-the-film-rome-shot-at-news-photo/956703168?adppopup=true">Louis Goldman/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Until this year, only 10 foreign films have garnered this dual nomination. </p>
<p>In 2020, the South Korean film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6751668/">Parasite</a>” became the first non-English language film to win both best international feature film – formerly known as best foreign language film – and best picture. Director Bong Joon-Ho also won the award for best director that year. Accompanied by an interpreter, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekMl5VHBH4I&ab_channel=Oscars">he gave his acceptance speech in Korean</a>. </p>
<p>During the 2019 Oscars, Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón – introduced in Spanish by actor Javier Bardem – accepted the Academy Award for what was then still called best foreign language film for his film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6155172/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_3_nm_4_q_roma">Roma</a>.” During his speech, he joked that he had grown up “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHk957dxJsI&ab_channel=Oscars">watching foreign language films</a> and learning so much from them. … Films like ‘Citizen Kane,’ ‘Jaws,’ ‘Rashomon,’ ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Breathless.’” </p>
<h2>Breathing new life into film</h2>
<p>Cuarón’s comments wryly question why English is considered the default language of a global industry. They also highlight how the categories of “Hollywood film” and “foreign film” aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.</p>
<p>As in the past, many of the filmmakers pushing the boundaries of the medium are from outside the U.S. This isn’t due to a lack of talent within the U.S.; instead, it’s <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cj.2020.0041">largely due to a lack of institutional funding</a> for independent productions. </p>
<p>On the other hand, in countries such as France, Germany, Canada, South Korea and Iran, there are state-sponsored programs to support filmmakers. These programs, which aim to promote national cultural expression, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjr014">allow for more experimentation</a>. </p>
<p>In recent decades, the cinematic landscape has been revitalized by movements from abroad, such as Denmark’s <a href="https://www.artforum.com/columns/dogma-95-201300/">Dogma 95 collective</a>, <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Arts/How-South-Korea-became-the-home-of-noir-film">South Korea’s IMF noir genre</a> and <a href="https://www.curzon.com/journal/greek-weird-wave/">Greek Weird Wave films</a>. Filmmakers associated with these movements often transition to making English language cinema.</p>
<p>Take Yorgos Lanthimos, director of the Best Picture nominee “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14230458/">Poor Things</a>.” Lanthimos <a href="https://collider.com/yorgos-lanthimos-greek-weird-wave/">first gained recognition</a> for his contributions to the Greek Weird Wave, a cinematic movement that uses absurdist humor to critique societal norms and power structures. It emerged during <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/24/greece-debt-crisis-timeline-it-all-started-in-2001.html">the country’s economic crisis in the 2010s</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6751668/">Parasite</a>” director Bong Joon-ho, known for his earlier Korean language films, is emblematic of the IMF noir movement, which explored the profound repercussions of <a href="https://courses.washington.edu/globfut/req%20readings/KimFinchKoreanStudies.pdf">the late 1990s financial crisis in South Korea</a> that was caused by policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund.</p>
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<img alt="Balding middle-aged man with beard and red jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579018/original/file-20240229-18-efk0yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579018/original/file-20240229-18-efk0yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579018/original/file-20240229-18-efk0yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579018/original/file-20240229-18-efk0yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579018/original/file-20240229-18-efk0yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579018/original/file-20240229-18-efk0yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579018/original/file-20240229-18-efk0yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/yorgos-lanthimos-attends-the-50th-telluride-film-festival-news-photo/1655989058?adppopup=true">Vivien Killilea/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The nomination process</h2>
<p>As Michael Schulman, author of “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/oscar-wars-michael-schulman?variant=41063519387682">Oscar Wars</a>,” argues, viewing the Academy Awards as a “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/oscar-wars-michael-schulman?variant=41063519387682">pure barometer of artistic merit or worth</a>” is a mistake. </p>
<p>Numerous factors, including the aggressiveness of Oscar campaign strategists and publicists working around the clock, as well as the composition of the awards committee, exert great influence over the outcome. </p>
<p>In the case of foreign films, the process is twofold. To secure an Oscar nomination as a country’s entry, a foreign film must first gain approval from a committee in its native country. It is then submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and subjected to a vote by the academy. Only one entry is allowed per country. </p>
<p>The intricate dynamics of this process are illustrated by the case of the French film “Anatomy of a Fall,” which was nominated for a best picture Academy Award but not best international feature from France. This decision was <a href="https://variety.com/2024/film/global/france-dysfunctional-oscar-committee-anatomy-of-a-fall-1235880857/">influenced by France’s small national nominating committee</a>, which, disconnected from the current climate of the U.S. academy, favored the nostalgic, culinary romance “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19760052/">The Taste of Things</a>,” starring Juliette Binoche. </p>
<h2>A more diverse academy</h2>
<p>The role of the voting committee in determining which films even reach consideration cannot be overstated. Over the last few years, this is what has most radically changed in the academy. In 2012, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-20120219-story.html">its composition was 94% white, 77% male</a> and had a median age of 62.</p>
<p>As highlighted by Schulman, the #Oscarssowhite controversy in 2015 <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/oscar-wars-michael-schulman?variant=41063519387682">spurred changes</a> to the academy’s makeup, in the hopes of addressing the industry’s under-recognition of the achievements of people of color. </p>
<p>There was also a concerted effort to enhance geographical diversity and infuse the awards with a more global perspective. In 2016, the new invitees to the academy <a href="https://press.oscars.org/news/96th-oscarsr-nominations-announced">were more diverse</a>: 46% were female, 41% were nonwhite, and they came from 59 different countries. This year, a groundbreaking 93 countries submitted nomination ballots, signifying unprecedented global participation in the Oscars. </p>
<p>Perhaps most significantly, beginning in 2024, the academy has required that, for a film to qualify for a Best Picture nomination, it must meet <a href="https://www.oscars.org/awards/representation-and-inclusion-standards">two out of four standards</a> established by the academy. </p>
<p>The criteria include having at least one lead or significant supporting actor from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, or centering the main storyline on an underrepresented group. They also require representation in creative leadership positions and crew roles, along with paid apprenticeships for underrepresented groups. Even senior marketing teams require representation. All of these requirements lend themselves to the inclusion of more international film nominees. </p>
<p>Streaming distribution has also <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/awards/oscar-international-film-category-name-change-1203393900/">democratized access</a> to non-English language cinema, which was previously limited only to niche audiences in art house theaters in large cities.</p>
<p>The distribution company Neon, established in 2017, has been another crucial factor in reshaping the Oscars landscape. Led by Elissa Federoff, Neon is <a href="https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/1369/432732/">committed to breaking industry barriers</a>, diversifying content, transcending language barriers and engaging with younger audiences through platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Neon distributed both “Parasite” and “Anatomy of a Fall.”</p>
<p>As the Oscars evolve into a more globally conscious platform, the future of film seems destined to be shaped by those who think beyond the limitations of what was once considered “foreign,” and remain advocates for the universal language of the cinema.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerry Hegarty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Non-English language cinema – previously seen by niche audiences – is increasingly finding acceptance and recognition, reflecting the many demographic changes taking place within the academy.Kerry Hegarty, Associate Professor of Film Studies, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226942024-03-04T13:38:26Z2024-03-04T13:38:26ZFrom ‘Jaws’ to ‘Schindler’s List,’ John Williams has infused movie scores with adventure and emotion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578158/original/file-20240227-30-vrbqen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C4%2C2973%2C2061&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Composer John Williams conducts at the Walt Disney Concert Hall opening gala, Oct. 25, 2003, in Los Angeles, Calif.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/composer-john-williams-performs-on-stage-at-the-walt-disney-news-photo/2650695">Carlo Allegri/Getty Images for LAPA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Harrison Ford <a href="https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-olympics-news-equestrian-news-as-year-old-hollywood-superstar-takes-one-last-ride-in-indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny-his-persistent-fondness-for-horse-riding-is-clearly-evident/">saddles up once again</a> in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” he has an invisible partner along for the ride: composer John Williams, who received his <a href="https://www.classicfm.com/composers/williams/john-every-oscar-nomination/">54th Academy Award nomination</a> for scoring the movie.</p>
<p>Reviews are mixed, but as <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny-movie-review-2023">one critic writes</a>, “When Indy and Helena (his goddaughter) get to actual treasure-hunting, and John Williams’ all-timer theme kicks in again, the movie clicks.” </p>
<p>At 92, Williams is the oldest Oscar nominee in Academy history – <a href="https://ew.com/john-williams-breaks-own-oscars-record-oldest-person-ever-nominated-8547953#:%7E:text=Of%20those%20nods%2C%20Williams%20has,and%20Schindler's%20List%20in%201994.">for the second time</a>. <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/john-williams-hollywood-s-maestro-goes-for-more-oscars-history-/6995194.html">The first time</a> was in 2023, when his score to “The Fabelmans” was nominated. Altogether, Williams has been nominated for more Oscars than anyone in movie history except Walt Disney and has won five.</p>
<p>Williams began working in television and film in the 1950s, first as a studio pianist and then as a composer for television and feature films. But it wasn’t until his music for 1975’s “Jaws,” with its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BePfzCOMRZQ">ominous two-note motif</a>, that he left his indelible stamp on Hollywood. </p>
<p>When Williams’ music for “Star Wars” poured out of cinema sound systems two years later, he single-handedly made the symphonic movie score respectable again, after a decade of <a href="https://archive.org/details/hollywoodrhapsod0000marm">rock ’n’ roll compilations and quirky uses</a> of regional material with limited instrumentation. If “Star Wars” hadn’t been a blockbuster, movies might never have returned to the use of big orchestras, which were standard from the advent of synchronized sound in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018037/">1927’s “The Jazz Singer</a>” into the 1960s.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">John Williams conducts a Vienna Philharmonic performance of the main title from ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ in 2021.</span></figcaption>
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<p>I am a <a href="https://www.arthurgottschalk.com/about/">music professor, composer of orchestral works</a> and lifelong student of film music. My admiration for John Williams has only deepened as he has continued to produce greatness.</p>
<p>Whether it’s disaster films like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069113/">The Poseidon Adventure</a>,” blockbusters such as the <a href="https://www.classicfm.com/composers/williams/harry-potter-soundtrack-famous-themes-composers/">first three “Harry Potter” films</a> or stirring dramas like “<a href="https://example83813.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/schindlers-list-john-williams/">Schindler’s List</a>,” Williams continues to prove that he can do it all, regardless of genre. His film scores owe much to his deep background in every aspect of music, from a young age.</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p>After a stint in the Air Force, during which he wrote his first film score, for a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/star-wars-composer-john-williams-first-score-a-1952-newfoundland-film-1.3241603">travelogue about Newfoundland</a>, Williams studied at the Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music. In 1956 he returned to Los Angeles, where he had once led dance bands as a high schooler under the name “<a href="https://www.metv.com/lists/listen-to-the-awesome-early-television-work-of-star-wars-composer-john-williams">Little Johnny Love</a>.”</p>
<p>He quickly found work as a film studio pianist and came to the attention of renowned Hollywood composer <a href="https://www.henrymancini.com/pages/biography">Henry Mancini</a>. Credited as Johnny Williams, he performed the iconic bass line ostinato – meaning “obstinate” in Italian – for Mancini’s <a href="https://variety.com/2022/artisans/news/peter-gunn-session-henry-mancini-centennial-celebration-john-williams-1235403949/">theme for the television detective classic</a> “Peter Gunn.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">John Williams played piano on the 1959 original recording of the theme song from ‘Peter Gunn.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>Williams became a sought-after studio keyboardist, playing on the <a href="https://www.wtju.net/apprenticeship-john-williams/">film soundtracks</a> for hits such as “West Side Story.” He augmented this work by arranging and orchestrating odd bits of music here and there for television and movies. </p>
<p>His first scores were for television shows such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048893/">Playhouse 90</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049996/">Bachelor Father</a>” and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx7A4sxJi7c">pilot episode of “Gilligan’s Island</a>.” Williams worked with producer Irwin Allen on shows such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058824/">Lost in Space</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062578/">Land of the Giants</a>.” His first feature film score was for <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052719/">1958’s “Daddy-O</a>.” </p>
<h2>The blockbusters</h2>
<p>For Williams’ score for “Star Wars” and many subsequent films, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. “Star Wars” reached the Billboard Top 10 in 1977 on both the Hot 100 and adult contemporary charts – an extraordinary crossover feat that has never been repeated.</p>
<p>His work on “Star Wars” showed that what amounted to an orchestral suite based on the score could sell extremely well as a soundtrack album. This made Williams <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/hearing-the-movies-9780199987719">an important source of revenue for a film</a>, and a highly valued collaborator. </p>
<p>But it was his score for <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/steven-spielberg-john-williams-50-year-collaboration-retirement-1235298681/">longtime associate</a> Steven Spielberg’s 1982 hit film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083866/">E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial</a>” that was Williams’ first score to be embraced by concert orchestras. It introduced audiences to his other side, as a composer of serious concert music. </p>
<p>The suite from “E.T.” was frequently performed by orchestras across the country, <a href="https://online.berklee.edu/store/product?product%5Fid=11222&usca%5Fp=t">to great acclaim</a>. Orchestral demand for Williams’ music rose to such a level that his career as a classical musician became almost as fruitful as his work with film music. Williams’ scores not only moved audiences but also provided each member of the orchestra a meaningful and satisfactory playing experience, thus increasing his appeal to performers of his music.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Danish National Symphony Orchestra performs the flying theme from ‘E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The “E.T.” music also soars, literally, on film. The scoring of the finale, in which protagonist Elliott and his friends help the alien escape captivity and return to his home planet, is so effective that Spielberg <a href="https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/4705/adventures-on-earth-from-et-the-extra-terrestrial">re-cut the end of the film</a> to match Williams’ music, inverting the normal relationship between director and composer.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">In the 1982 movie ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,’ schoolboys help E.T. elude human pursuit and rendezvous with his spaceship.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Williams has written concertos for almost every instrument, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grSuicpzxR8">one for superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma</a>; <a href="https://www.songhall.org/profile/John_Williams">two symphonies</a> and a <a href="http://www.jw-collection.de/classical/sinfonietta.htm">sinfonietta for wind instruments</a>; and a chamber quartet incorporating the Shaker song “Simple Gifts” for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzSmS5JRYdw">President Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration</a>. He is <a href="https://www.bso.org/exhibits/john-williams-and-the-boston-pops">emeritus conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra</a>, which he led from 1980 to 1993, succeeding the legendary Arthur Fiedler.</p>
<p>Williams’ classical education and abilities have played a huge role in the sound and success of his movie scores. George Lucas had reportedly entertained the idea of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-force-is-still-strong-with-john-williams">using classic works for his “Star Wars” soundtrack</a>. Williams successfully argued in favor of an original score, but one that suggested old-Hollywood atmosphere. </p>
<p>His music for “Star Wars” draws equally from the romantic-style work of European film-score pioneers like <a href="http://filmmusiccritics.org/ifmca-legends/max-steiner/">Max Steiner</a> and <a href="http://orelfoundation.org/composers/article/erich_wolfgang_korngold">Erich Korngold</a>; the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/leitmotif">operatic and leitmotif technique</a> of <a href="https://www.biography.com/musicians/richard-wagner">Richard Wagner</a>; and the lush and entrancing orchestration of <a href="https://fondation-igor-stravinsky.org/en/composer/biography/">Igor Stravinsky</a>. All of the “Star Wars” film scores also are informed, as much of his music is, by Williams’ work in jazz and popular music. </p>
<h2>Works with staying power</h2>
<p>Many of Williams’ film scores have become icons of popular culture. The American Film Institute ranks the score to “Star Wars” as <a href="https://www.afi.com/news/star-wars-afi-movie-club/">the greatest film score of all time</a>, and the Library of Congress has entered its recording into the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/Star%20Wars-AUDISSINO.pdf">National Recording Registry</a>, citing its cultural, historical and aesthetic significance. </p>
<p>Williams has been nominated for 76 Grammy Awards and won 26, most recently in 2024 for the “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” score. He has received numerous career honors, including the <a href="https://www.arts.gov/honors/medals/john-williams">National Medal of Arts in 2009</a>. But I believe a different honor most exemplifies his illustrious career.</p>
<p>In 2022, Williams received an <a href="https://deadline.com/2022/09/john-williams-knighthood-queen-elizabeth-ii-composer-steven-spielberg-1235126366/">honorary knighthood</a> from Queen Elizabeth II, one of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6p51x0lexdo">the final awards the queen approved</a> before her death. Perhaps a fitting title, cinematic as it is, for a life lived so fully and so creatively: The Last Knight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arthur Gottschalk is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.</span></em></p>Composer and conductor John Williams has shown for more than 60 years how music can take movies to new heights.Arthur Gottschalk, Professor of Music, Rice UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2202132024-02-05T19:39:15Z2024-02-05T19:39:15ZFrom rebel to retail − inside Bob Marley’s posthumous musical and merchandising empire<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571230/original/file-20240124-17-ohjhpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=456%2C130%2C4794%2C3343&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bob Marley performs at a 'Viva Zimbabwe' independence celebration in April 1980.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jamaican-reggae-musician-bob-marley-plays-guitar-as-he-news-photo/1369621696?adppopup=true">William F. Campbell/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The long-awaited <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajw425Kuvtw">Bob Marley biopic “One Love”</a> will highlight important moments in the musician’s life – his adolescence in Trench Town, his spiritual growth, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-night-bob-marley-got-shot-203370/">the attempt on his life</a>. <a href="https://w1.mtsu.edu/media/scholar/profile/18">But as a music industry scholar</a>, I wonder if the film is yet another extension of the Marley marketing machine.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/apr/24/bob-marley-funeral-richard-williams">Marley died in 1981</a> at the age of 36. He’d achieved a level of mainstream success unrivaled by other reggae acts, and he did so while challenging global capitalism and speaking to the oppressed.</p>
<p>This image, however, is fundamentally at odds with what has happened to Marley’s name and likeness since his death. </p>
<p>Now you can buy <a href="https://shop.bobmarley.com/collections/bags/products/cannabis-print-backpack">Bob Marley backpacks</a>, <a href="https://shop.bobmarley.com/collections/accessories/products/bob-marley-collage-jigsaw-puzzle">Bob Marley jigsaw puzzles</a> – even <a href="https://shop.bobmarley.com/collections/misc/products/song-pattern-flip-flops">Bob Marley flip-flops</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘One Love.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The accusation of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/sellout-how-political-corruption-shaped-an-american-insult-220520">selling out</a>” could once seriously threaten an artist’s credibility; the insult <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/26/why-is-selling-out-ok-now">wields far less power</a> in an era when an artist’s survival <a href="https://www.gemtracks.com/guides/view.php?title=what-is-a-music-endorsement-deal&id=1011">often depends on sponsorship and licensing deals</a>. Meanwhile, a deceased artist’s ongoing earnings are left in the hands of others.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, when a musician as revered as Marley – and whose songs were suffused with messages of liberation, anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism – becomes so commercialized, it’s worth wondering how this happened and whether it threatens his artistic legacy.</p>
<h2>On and off the record</h2>
<p>In its 2023 list of highest-paid dead celebrities, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/10/30/highest-paid-dead-celebrities-2023-michael-jackson-elvis-presley-whitney-houston/?sh=2f411dd1504b">Forbes placed Marley in the ninth slot</a>, right behind former Beatles front man John Lennon. According to the publication, Marley earned US$16 million – or rather, his estate did. </p>
<p>Marley’s business affairs are now <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz/us-showbiz/inside-bob-marleys-fortune-huge-29112952">controlled by family members</a> – the estate – who have made deals with various merchandising and marketing partners, with all parties sharing in the profits. The commercial power of Bob Marley’s name generates the royalties earned by the estate, though precise percentages are not publicly available.</p>
<p>One posthumous musical release, in particular, has been a gold mine: Marley’s “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/4qsXcmAgPNSliu6oMQGOQ9">Legend</a>” compilation album. </p>
<p>Released in 1984 and featuring mainstays like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRkfqH1r714">Could You Be Loved</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7SYBk-nRiQ">Three Little Birds</a>,” it’s the most successful reggae album of all time. It has sold over 15 million copies in the U.S and has spent more than 800 nonconsecutive weeks on the <a href="https://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200/">Billboard 200</a>. Collectively, its tracks have accounted for well over <a href="https://worldmusicviews.com/bob-marley-the-wailers-lead-spotifys-most-streamed-reggae-artist-for-2023-three-years-in-a-row/">4 billion Spotify streams</a>, and its phenomenal success is a key reason that the private music publishing company Primary Wave, which is backed by investors such as BlackRock, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/primary-wave-acquires-share-bob-marley-publishing-catalog-blackrock-blue-mountain-music-8094231/">spent over $50 million</a> to buy a share of Marley’s publishing catalog in 2018. </p>
<p>A series of other albums have been released after Marley’s death. These include “Natural Mystic” (1995); the pop and hip-hop crossover “Chant Down Babylon” (1999); “Africa Unite” (2005); “Uprising Live!” (2014), which features his final concert appearance; the polarizing electronic mashup “Legend Remixed” (2013); “Easy Skanking in Boston ’78” (2015); and the curious “Bob Marley & the Chineke! Orchestra” (2022). </p>
<p>The “Legend” album has earned more than these later releases combined. But the material absent from that record speaks volumes.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/arts/music/chris-blackwell-the-islander.html">his 2022 autobiography</a>, Chris Blackwell, the former head of Island Records, the label that brought Marley’s music to mainstream listeners, revealed that “Legend” had been carefully tailored for white mainstream audiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A red, yellow and green record featuring the face of a contemplative man with dreadlocks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571216/original/file-20240124-27-7nwrye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571216/original/file-20240124-27-7nwrye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571216/original/file-20240124-27-7nwrye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571216/original/file-20240124-27-7nwrye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571216/original/file-20240124-27-7nwrye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571216/original/file-20240124-27-7nwrye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571216/original/file-20240124-27-7nwrye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Legend’ is the most successful reggae album of all time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/still-life-of-a-of-a-limited-edition-record-of-bob-marley-news-photo/78869226?adppopup=true">Bob Berg/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>It achieved this by prioritizing songs centered on themes of love and peace, rather than those about Marley’s revolutionary Afrocentric politics and Rastafarian worldview, which appear on records such as 1979’s “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_(Bob_Marley_and_the_Wailers_album)">Survival</a>.”</p>
<p>On that album’s second track, “<a href="https://genius.com/Bob-marley-and-the-wailers-zimbabwe-lyrics">Zimbabwe</a>,” Marley commends the country’s freedom fighters in their battle against the oppressive Rhodesian regime, declaring, “Every man got a right to decide his own destiny”; he rails against the forces of exploitation and division in “<a href="https://genius.com/Bob-marley-and-the-wailers-top-rankin-lyrics">Top Rankin’</a>” and “<a href="https://genius.com/Bob-marley-and-the-wailers-babylon-system-lyrics">Babylon System</a>”; in “<a href="https://genius.com/Bob-marley-and-the-wailers-survival-lyrics">Survival</a>,” he hails the African world’s “hopes and dreams” and “ways and means”; and “<a href="https://genius.com/Bob-marley-and-the-wailers-wake-up-and-live-lyrics">Wake Up and Live</a>” is a clarion call to spiritual and political awakening.</p>
<p>These tracks don’t appear on “Legend.” In fact, none of the tracks from “Survival” do.</p>
<p>And so four decades after his death, Bob Marley remains the world’s top reggae artist. But it’s his lighter, less controversial fare that’s established him as a global superstar.</p>
<h2>Merchandising a mystic</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/02/04/spotify-grammys-songwriters-payment-musicians/">In an era of minuscule music royalties</a>, a large portion of that $16 million in earnings also comes from merchandising, which has further watered down Marley’s revolutionary politics and spiritualism. </p>
<p>Thanks to what two writers called “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/22/marley-natural-legacy-marley-debate">the Disneyfication of all matters Marley</a>,” you can now buy <a href="https://marleycoffee.com/">Bob Marley-themed coffee</a>, <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/news/ben-and-jerrys-one-love-ice-cream">ice cream</a> and <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/bob-marley-marley-natural-beauty-botanicals-jamaica">body wash</a>. There’s <a href="https://www.thehouseofmarley.com/">sustainably sourced, Bob Marley-branded audio equipment</a>, in addition to <a href="https://primitiveskate.com/collections/bob-marley">a line of Bob Marley skateboard decks</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Colorful boxes featuring cartoon drawings of Black men smoking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571217/original/file-20240124-25-woxyjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571217/original/file-20240124-25-woxyjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571217/original/file-20240124-25-woxyjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571217/original/file-20240124-25-woxyjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571217/original/file-20240124-25-woxyjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571217/original/file-20240124-25-woxyjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571217/original/file-20240124-25-woxyjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marley-branded nicotine vape cartridges are displayed next to Snoop Dogg vape cartridges at the 2022 Vaper Expo in Birmingham, England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/disposable-flie-vapes-featuring-snoop-dogg-and-bob-marley-news-photo/1431608678?adppopup=true">John Keeble/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The cannabis brand <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/marley-cannabis-brand-launch-6866955/#!">Marley Natural</a> shows how the Marley name has become commercially intertwined with corporate America.</p>
<p>It’s funded by the American private equity company <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-30110235">Privateer Holdings</a>, which the Marley family had approached to gauge their interest in collaboration for the product’s release. The creators of the Starbucks logo <a href="https://www.hecklerbranding.com/names-by-ha">were hired to design the logo</a> for Marley Natural, further underlining the venture’s commercial ties. </p>
<p>Aside from the obvious fact that these associations pay no heed to Bob Marley’s anti-capitalist messages, I find it bitterly ironic that the private equity firm calls itself “Privateer.” <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/golden-age-piracy">Privateers</a> were commissioned ships involved in plundering and murder across the Caribbean. They are among the “old pirates” Marley sang about in his mournful “<a href="https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/4003768/Bob+Marley/Redemption+Song">Redemption Song</a>.”</p>
<p>While the Marley family <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210607005453/en/Marley-Natural%C2%AE-Flagship-Cannabis-Retail-Store-to-Open-at-the-Bob-Marley-Museum-in-Jamaica">claims that Bob would have approved</a> of the cannabis enterprise, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/22/marley-natural-legacy-marley-debate">critics see indiscriminate mass-marketing</a>.</p>
<p>The artist’s popular songs and lyrics have also been adopted as marketing tools to sell products that bear little relation to Marley’s music and message. </p>
<p>In 2001, his daughter Cedella, who runs parts of the estate, released a fashion line called Catch a Fire. The name comes from the Wailers’ first international album, which the group released in 1973. On it, tracks like “Slave Driver,” “Concrete Jungle” and “400 Years” connect the poverty of the present to the injustices of the past.</p>
<p>Can T-shirts and other apparel help spread these messages? Perhaps. </p>
<p>But it’s hard to argue that Marley-themed <a href="https://www.cedellamarley.com/portfolio/2015/11/23/cedella-marley-launches-a-new-sauce-line">hot sauce</a> does.</p>
<h2>The reel situation of ‘One Love’</h2>
<p>Critiquing any aspect of Bob Marley’s legacy can elicit defensive responses. The estate <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/bob-marley-75th-birthday-billboard-cover-story-interview-2020-9363748/#!">has long portrayed</a> the rampant commercialization of the Marley name and image as an important way to sustain and spread the artist’s ideals.</p>
<p>However, I think it’s important to ensure that the artistic and cultural values embedded in his music do not become clouded in a haze of consumerism. </p>
<p>While many of the commercial enterprises tied to his name reportedly raise <a href="https://bobmarleyfoundation.org/">money for Jamaican youth</a>, I’d hesitate to say that this serves as a complete counterbalance to the erosion of Marley’s messages.</p>
<p>The “One Love” movie backed by Paramount Pictures – <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8521778/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm">with four Marleys listed as producers</a> – will certainly extend the mythologies and harsh realities of Bob Marley’s all-too-brief life, which was <a href="https://www.skincancer.org/blog/bob-marley-should-not-have-died-from-melanoma">cut short by melanoma</a>. But it’s also a massive international marketing vehicle for the sale of even more officially branded merchandise.</p>
<p>On the one hand, the fact that people so eagerly buy products plastered with Marley’s face and words reflects the profound connection he continues to have with his listeners. But on the other hand, it’s difficult squaring Marley – a symbol of post-colonialism and anti-capitalism – with branding collaborations and private equity firms. </p>
<p>His music means so much more. And his anti-imperialist messages, as warmongers threaten basic human rights around the world, are perhaps needed now more than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220213/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Alleyne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How did a musician whose songs were suffused with messages of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism become so commercialized?Mike Alleyne, Professor Emeritus of Recording Industry (Popular Music Studies & Music Business), Middle Tennessee State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220992024-02-01T13:30:27Z2024-02-01T13:30:27ZNorman Jewison’s ‘Rollerball’ depicted a world in which corporations controlled all information – is this dystopian vision becoming reality?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572218/original/file-20240130-21-2dwwbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=87%2C1%2C1007%2C670&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jonathan E., played by James Caan, competes as the owners watch from the stands.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://silverscreenings.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/rollerball-1975.jpg">MGM</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If the films of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/movies/norman-jewison-dead.html">Norman Jewison</a>, who died on Jan. 22, 2024, had a unifying theme, it was how his characters searched for meaning and questioned the rules of their worlds.</p>
<p>No matter the genre of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0422484/">the scores of films he directed</a> – from “In the Heat of the Night” to “Fiddler on the Roof” – his characters grew by confronting their own biases and preconceptions, even if it meant sacrificing things they once held dear. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZiqctEkAAAAJ&hl=en">And as a media scholar</a>, I see the Canadian director’s 1975 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073631/?ref_=tt_ch">Rollerball</a>” as one of his most underrated works. In it, the film’s hero, Jonathan E., is a star athlete who’s willing to risk his own life to avoid being a pawn for his corporate overlords. </p>
<p>Set in a dystopian 2018, the film helps make sense of today’s political and cultural struggles, which are taking places as corporations and the wealthy consolidate their control over the information systems, newspapers and media outlets that once served democracy. </p>
<h2>Comfort in exchange for subservience</h2>
<p>In “Rollerball,” Jewison depicts a future in which corporate feudalism has replaced democratic nations, with entire sectors of the economy consolidated under single corporations. Instead of citizens governing themselves, subjects live in cities ruled by corporations that demand unwavering fealty.</p>
<p>The corporations provide for their vassals, giving them material comforts and entertainment, which work to assuage resentments fueled by rigid social inequality. Jewison’s glassy-eyed characters pop pleasure pills like Tic Tacs to zone out and dream of being executives making decisions, even as they can’t even approach that sort of agency, power and control. </p>
<p>The oligopoly asks only that no one interfere with corporate imperatives. </p>
<p>Unable to find meaning as individuals, people instead seek it out in media spectacles like Rollerball, a kind of motorcycle roller derby meets football meets basketball. </p>
<p>Each major city has a Rollerball team that helps residents channel their aggression and cultivate a sense of belonging. Jonathan E., played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001001/">James Caan</a>, competes for Houston, a city owned by the Energy Corporation. </p>
<p>Rollerball serves an enormous social purpose, because it acts as a form of entertainment while also reinforcing the idea that corporate society, as one executive says, “is an inevitability.” </p>
<p>Though it allows for rare individuals to rise out of poverty to fame when chosen by the corporation, all of them are eventually sacrificed to the brutality of the game or to shifting corporate priorities. The audience learns that corporations make all decisions and that strength is power. </p>
<p>According to Bartholomew, the head of the Energy Corporation, “the game is designed to break men,” revealing people to be as disposable and fungible as pistons or rods in a machine. </p>
<p>Jonathan E. is the one player who can’t be broken; he starts to resent the executives telling him what to do, and he wants to know how corporate decisions are made. Who decided to take his wife from him one day and reassign her to serve as the wife of an executive in Rome? Why can’t he choose the path his life will take?</p>
<p>The owners eventually decide that Jonathan E. is getting bigger than the game, and that his popularity as a player is a threat to their control. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe1NTpPIyEs">They want him gone and order him to retire</a>. When Jonathan refuses, the executives change the rules of the game so he’ll be killed. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oe1NTpPIyEs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The corporation asks Jonathan E. to retire.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He survives and keeps investigating. But he can’t find any information.</p>
<p>There are no newspapers serving the public – no libraries or books to consult. The only people allowed to answer questions are “corporate teachers,” who impart information based upon instruction from executives.</p>
<p>Jonathan E. eventually travels to the oligopoly’s database, an artificial intelligence named Zero, or the “world’s brain,” as its chief computer scientist calls it. All human knowledge is stored on it. But because Zero’s <a href="https://youtu.be/QjYvdURv3Zw?si=gIUHI_DHXpxl9yZB">interpretations, analyses and outputs</a> must constantly realign with the whims of the executives, there is no shared sense of truth or reality.</p>
<h2>Journalistic phlebotomy</h2>
<p>I can’t help but think of “Rollerball” as the journalism industry continues to crater. Like most sectors of the economy, the news sector is controlled by a handful of owners, and most of them have prioritized profits over serving the public interest. </p>
<p>If the media layoffs, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-death-of-pitchfork-is-worrying-news-for-music-journalism-and-the-women-who-read-it-221702">mergers and acquisitions</a> of January 2024 are any indication, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/27/is-the-journalism-death-spasm-finally-here-00138187">it’s shaping up to be another brutal year for the industry</a>. </p>
<p>Researchers at the Medill School’s Local News Initiative predict that one-third of community newspapers that operated in 2005 <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/16/newspapers-decline-hedge-funds-research">will be gone by the end of 2024</a>. In January 2024, the owners of two venerable legacy news reorganizations, The Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun, decided the bottom line was more important than their ability to gather news.</p>
<p>The Baltimore Sun has suffered through the sort of ownership malpractice affecting local papers everywhere – a kind of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlebotomy">phlebotomy where corporate owners buy newspapers</a> and, in the name of “saving” them, bleed them dry. </p>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/alden-global-capital-killing-americas-newspapers/620171/">the private equity fund Alden Global Capital</a> acquired the Sun and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/178181/baltimore-sun-new-owner-smith-sinclair-insult-everyone-staff">200 other newspapers across the country from Tribune Publishing</a>. Then, they drained newsrooms of resources, leaving them as shells of their former selves – places that cheaply churned out syndicated content, rather than focus on the issues important to the communities where they were located. </p>
<p>The Sun’s new owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s David Smith, made his fortune plundering local broadcast news, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc">draining their local community value and turning them into</a> outlets centered on national politics, rather than local issues, with a right-wing slant that mirrored his own. Smith is <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/178181/baltimore-sun-new-owner-smith-sinclair-insult-everyone-staff">signaling he’ll do the same thing with The Baltimore Sun</a>. I won’t be surprised if he ends up morphing what’s left of the paper into another mouthpiece for his pet issues, rather than one that serves Baltimore’s public interest. </p>
<p>The Los Angeles Times has suffered a slow bleed by a succession of owners. It, too, was owned briefly by Tribune Publishing <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-patrick-soon-shiong-latimes-sold-20180616-story.html">before being acquired</a> by billionaire doctor and pharmaceutical executive Patrick Soon-Shiong in 2018. </p>
<p>On Jan. 23, 2024, Soon-Shiong decided that <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/01/the-la-times-lays-off-115-people-with-the-de-los-and-washington-d-c-teams-especially-hard-hit/">the LA Times should fire 23% of its reporters</a> and close parts of its multimedia portfolio <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/journalists-color-hit-hard-l-layoffs-rcna135351">that served the city’s marginalized residents</a>.</p>
<h2>Owners versus the public good</h2>
<p>The oligopoly of owners who are consolidating and liquidating media outlets are asking citizens to be satisfied with the information they provide – much like the corporate overlords of “Rollerball.” </p>
<p>People can spend hours entertained by thrilling bowl games, experience outrage and schadenfreude on social media, and get sucked into AI-boosted infotainment at their pleasure. All they have to do is acquiesce to the sovereignty of private corporations and give up their freedom to govern themselves. </p>
<p>A half-century ago, Jewison warned that a corporate-owned world would threaten the democratic world. In “Rollerball,” Jonathan E. remains unsatisfied that all knowledge communicated through the media is determined by hidden executives. With black box algorithms choosing what content appears on news feeds and social media feeds, it’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-media-algorithms-warp-how-people-learn-from-each-other-research-shows-211172">eerily similar to the predicament society faces today</a>. </p>
<p>“Why argue about decisions you are not powerful enough to make yourself,” the executives point out to Jonathan E. “Just enjoy your ‘privilege card.’” </p>
<p>And yet when asked to choose between “comfort and freedom,” Jonathan chooses freedom. </p>
<p>Resisting corporate domination of media won’t be easy, either. But it’s necessary in order to prevent U.S. democracy from slipping into plutocracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Jordan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the journalism industry continues to crater, wealthy plutocrats are consolidating their control over information systems.Matthew Jordan, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206292024-01-31T13:36:25Z2024-01-31T13:36:25Z‘Jaws’ portrayed sharks as monsters 50 years ago, but it also inspired a generation of shark scientists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572002/original/file-20240129-17-8m3oe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=37%2C0%2C4952%2C3261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A paleontologist wears a T-shirt showing _Strophodus rebecae_, a shark species with flat teeth that lived millions of years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/palaeontologist-edwin-cadena-shows-a-t-shirt-with-an-image-news-photo/1241210531">Juan Pablo Pino/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Human fear of sharks has deep roots. Written works and art from the ancient world contain references to <a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/en/magazine/5-art-history/sharks-in-art/331942">sharks preying on sailors</a> as early as the eighth century B.C.E. </p>
<p>Relayed back to land, stories about shark encounters have been <a href="https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-dick/747/chapter-66-the-shark-massacre/">embellished and amplified</a>. Together with the fact that from time to time – very rarely – sharks bite humans, people have been primed for centuries to imagine terrifying situations at sea.</p>
<p>In 1974, Peter Benchley’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/11203/jaws-by-peter-benchley/9780345544148/excerpt">bestselling novel “Jaws</a>” fanned this fear into a wildfire that spread around the world. The book sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S. within a year and was quickly followed by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/">Steven Spielberg’s 1975 movie</a>, which became the highest-grossing film in history at that time. Virtually all audiences embraced the idea, depicted vividly in the movie and its sequels, that sharks were malevolent, vindictive creatures that prowled coastal waters seeking to feed on unsuspecting bathers. </p>
<p>But “Jaws” also spawned widespread interest in better understanding sharks. </p>
<p>Previously, shark research had largely been the esoteric domain of a handful of academic specialists. Thanks to interest sparked by “Jaws,” we now know that there are many more kinds of sharks than scientists were aware of in 1974, and that sharks do more interesting things than researchers ever anticipated. Benchley himself became an avid <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-13-me-benchley13-story.html">spokesman for shark protection and marine conservation</a>.</p>
<p>In my own 30-year career studying <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FKrC4FYAAAAJ&hl=en">sharks and their close relatives, skates and rays</a>, I’ve seen attitudes evolve and interest in understanding sharks expand enormously. Here’s how things have changed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C8%2C5434%2C3630&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man stands on the prow of a boat, extending a pole into the water toward a large dark shape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C8%2C5434%2C3630&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572000/original/file-20240129-27-l4g7ei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marine biologist Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries captures video footage of a white shark off Cape Cod, Oct. 21, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-greg-skomal-shark-researcher-for-massachusetts-marine-news-photo/1244267691">Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Swimming into the spotlight</h2>
<p>Before the mid-1970s, much of what was known about sharks came via people who went to sea. In 1958, the U.S. Navy established the <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/">International Shark Attack File</a> – the world’s only scientifically documented, comprehensive database of all known shark attacks – to reduce wartime risks to sailors stranded at sea when their ships sank. </p>
<p>Today the file is managed by the <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/">Florida Museum of Natural History</a> and the <a href="https://elasmo.org/">American Elasmobranch Society</a>, a professional organization for shark researchers. It works to inform the public about shark-human interactions and ways to reduce the risk of shark bites.</p>
<p>In 1962, <a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/john-jack-casey-internationally-recognized-shark-researcher-mentor-and-narragansett">Jack Casey</a>, a pioneer of modern shark research, initiated the <a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/document/cooperative-shark-tagging-program">Cooperative Shark Tagging Program</a>. This initiative, which is still running today, relied on Atlantic commercial fishermen to report and return tags they found on sharks, so that government scientists could calculate how far the sharks had moved after being tagged. </p>
<p>After “Jaws,” shark research quickly went mainstream. The American Elasmobranch Society was founded in 1982. Graduate students lined up to study shark behavior, and the number of published shark studies <a href="https://thefisheriesblog.com/2015/06/15/thank-you-jaws-the-upside-for-sharks-40-years-later/">sharply increased</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz6muU6u3Mn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\u0026igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Field research on sharks expanded in parallel with growing interest in extreme outdoor sports like surfing, parasailing and scuba diving. Electronic tags enabled researchers to monitor sharks’ movements in real time. DNA sequencing technologies provided cost-effective ways to determine how different species were related to one another, what they were eating and how populations were structured.</p>
<p>This interest also had a sensational side, embodied in the Discovery Channel’s launch in 1988 of <a href="https://www.discovery.com/shark-week">Shark Week</a>. This annual block of programming, ostensibly designed to educate the public about shark biology and counter negative publicity about sharks, was a commercial venture that exploited the tension between people’s deep-seated fear of sharks and their yearning to understand what made these animals tick. </p>
<p>Shark Week featured made-for-TV stories that focused on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2018/07/26/a-fake-shark-week-documentary-about-megalodons-caused-controversy-why-is-discovery-bringing-it-up-again/">fictional scientific research projects</a>. It was wildly successful and remains so today, in spite of critiques from some researchers who call it <a href="https://theconversation.com/beware-of-shark-week-scientists-watched-202-episodes-and-found-them-filled-with-junk-science-misinformation-and-white-male-experts-named-mike-195180">a major source of misinformation</a> about sharks and shark science.</p>
<h2>Physical, social and genetic insights</h2>
<p>Contrary to the long-held notion that sharks are mindless killers, they exhibit a wide range of traits and behavior. For example, the velvet belly lantern shark communicates through flashes of light from <a href="https://doi.org/10.4161/cib.4.3.14888">organs on the sides of its body</a>. Female hammerhead sharks can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2007.0189">clone perfect replicas of themselves</a> without male sperm. </p>
<p>Sharks have the most sensitive electrical detectors thus far discovered in the natural world – networks of pores and nerves in their heads, known as <a href="https://www.scienceandthesea.org/program/201105/ampullae-lorenzini">ampullae of Lorenzini</a>, after Italian scientist Stefano Lorenzini, who first described these features in the 17th century. Sharks use these networks to navigate in the open ocean, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.03.103">using Earth’s magnetic field for orientation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three snorkelers swim above a large spotted shark." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572016/original/file-20240129-17-i6lyza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Snorkelers swim above a whale shark near the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The largest fish in the sea, whale sharks are filter feeders that prey on plankton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/gTntz7">Tchami/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Another intriguing discovery is that some shark species, including makos and blue sharks, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0761">segregate by both sex and size</a>. Among these species, cohorts of males and females of different sizes are often found in distinct groups. This finding suggests that some sharks may have <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/hierarchy-social-science">social hierarchies</a>, like those seen in some primates and hoofed mammals. </p>
<p>Genetic studies have helped researchers explore questions such as why some sharks <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-hammerhead-sharks-have-hammer-shaped-heads-184372">have heads shaped like hammers or shovels</a>. They also show that sharks have the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42238-x">lowest mutation rate of any vertebrate animal</a>. This is notable because mutations are the raw material for evolution: The higher the mutation rate, the better a species can adapt to environmental change. </p>
<p>However, sharks have been around for 400 million years and have been through some of the most extreme environmental changes on earth. It’s not known yet how they have persisted so successfully with such a low mutation rate.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/punSQuf-ZwQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, describes how DNA analysis provides insights into shark science.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The marquee species</h2>
<p>White sharks, the focal species of “Jaws,” attract enormous public interest, although much about them is still unknown. They can live to age 70, and they routinely swim thousands of miles every year. Those in the Western North Atlantic tend to move north-south between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico; white sharks on the U.S. west coast move east-west between California and the Central Pacific. </p>
<p>We now know that juvenile white sharks feed almost exclusively on fishes and stingrays, and don’t start incorporating seals and other marine mammals into their diets until they are the equivalent of teenagers and have grown to about 12 feet long. Most confirmed white shark bites on humans seem to be by animals that are between 12 and 15 feet long. This supports the theory that almost all bites by white sharks on humans are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0533">cases of mistaken identity</a>, where humans resemble the seals that sharks prey on.</p>
<p><iframe id="9y7JJ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/9y7JJ/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Still in the water</h2>
<p>Although “Jaws” had a <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/jaws-took-chomp-out-pop-culture-40-years-ago-1d79919594">widespread cultural impact</a>, it didn’t keep surfers and bathers from enjoying the ocean. </p>
<p>Data from the International Shark Attack File on confirmed unprovoked bites by white sharks from the 1960s to the present day shows a continuous increase, although the number of incidents yearly is quite low. This pattern is consistent with growing numbers of people <a href="https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/tourism-and-recreation.html">pursuing recreational activities at the coasts</a>. </p>
<p>Around the world, there have been 363 <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/maps/world-interactive/">confirmed, unprovoked bites by white sharks</a> since 1960. Of these, 73 were fatal. The World Health Organization estimates that there are <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning">236,000 deaths yearly due to drowning</a>, which translates to around 15 million drowning deaths over the same time period. </p>
<p>In other words, people are roughly 200,000 times more likely to drown than to die from a white shark bite. Indeed, surfers are more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the beach than they are to be bitten by a shark.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Naylor receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Lenfest Foundation.</span></em></p>‘Jaws,’ published in 1974, terrified the public of sharks, but it also brought shark research into the scientific mainstream.Gavin Naylor, Director of Florida Program for Shark Research, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2221022024-01-29T12:51:02Z2024-01-29T12:51:02ZThe Color Purple is an emotional, joyful exploration of black womanhood in the deep south<p><em>Warning: this article includes spoilers.</em> </p>
<p>Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, tells the story of Celie, an African-American woman living in rural Georgia, over 40 years as she survives and heals following abuse.</p>
<p>I research black feminism in contemporary fiction, so I was intrigued by how director Blitz Bazawule would adapt Walker’s novel into a musical film while retaining the intimate exploration of black women’s agency the book is famed for.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for The Color Purple.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Walker’s novel comprises personal and tender letters from Celie (played at different ages by Phylicia Pearl Mpasi and Fantasia Barrino) to God, and later to her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey/Ciara). The film moves away from this solely first-person perspective, creating space for the more spirited, strong-willed characters Nettie and Sofia (Danielle Brooks) to tell their story. This means that Celie’s story takes more of a backseat in the first part of the film. </p>
<p>But what the adaptation loses in its move away from a single protagonist, it makes up for with song. When Celie does find her voice, gradually taking up more space, we truly feel her pain, refusal and eventual joy.</p>
<p>There was a risk that contemporary viewers might interpret the rural, majority-black communities depicted in the film as living comfortable lives. Particularly through scenes that show Harpo’s (Corey Hawkins) affluent juke joint and the local lively jazz scene. But an opening song featuring domestic and field labourers shows how the characters found community despite the harsh realities surrounding them. </p>
<p>Racism rears its ugly head later on, in a brutal scene in which Sofia is beaten and jailed for refusing to become a maid to the mayor’s wife. This will strike a chord with viewers because it speaks to police brutality today.</p>
<p>Some might recognise Whoopi Goldberg’s cameo as Celie’s midwife (Goldberg played Celie in the 1985 film), a moment that shows the lineage between the adaptations and speaks to black women’s care practices, passed down through generations.</p>
<h2>Sisterhood and solidarity</h2>
<p>Celie suffers sexual abuse at the hands of her father and is married off at a young age to a violent husband known only as “Mister” (Colman Domingo). She doesn’t know her worth until she meets the glamorous, self-assured blues singer Shug Avery. </p>
<p>Shug, whose previous relationship with Celie’s husband ended because she refused to be tied down, forms a deep connection with Celie. While their intimate moments can be read more explicitly as queer in Walker’s novel, the tenderness between the women is clear. The moment they give in to desire is subtle, perhaps speaking to the clandestine way that same-sex love was expressed in this era. </p>
<p>Through Shug, Celie finds her own beauty and inner strength and regains her faith. This echoes the line from the book that gives the novel its title: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” </p>
<p>Similarly to Walker’s novel, black female sisterhood and solidarity rings true in the film. What differs is the space Sofia is given. In Bazawule’s film, she takes centre stage as a flawed yet complex character, strong (physically) and prone to violence, but openly vulnerable, complicating the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Black-Feminist-Thought-Knowledge-Consciousness-and-the-Politics-of-Empowerment/Hill-Collins/p/book/9780415964722">“strong black woman”</a> trope.</p>
<p>However, less progressive is Shug’s casting as a light-skinned black woman, Taraji P. Henson. Though Henson’s performance is captivating, this casting decision contradicts Walker’s explicitly dark-skinned description of Shug and misses an opportunity to challenge colourism in the film industry. </p>
<h2>Black masculinity in The Color Purple</h2>
<p>The Color Purple centres black women’s voices and challenges patriarchy and abuse in black communities. Yet, according to <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/">black feminist movements</a>, we can challenge abusive men and also understand that patriarchy harms them too. </p>
<p>Films and TV shows such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-moonlights-oscar-win-hollywood-begins-to-right-old-wrongs-73843">Moonlight</a> (2017) and Top Boy (2011-2023) have prompted questions about how both black and queer masculinity are represented on screen. I wondered how Bazawule would stay true to Walker’s story and also portray black men with complexity. </p>
<p>While Mister and Alfonso are indeed brutal characters, Mister tries to redeem himself at the end by selling his land to help Nettie return to the US following her time as a missionary in Africa. This differs from the book, where Nettie’s return is sudden.</p>
<p>Although Celie doesn’t openly forgive him, this is a moment of closure sealed with gospel-inspired music that echoes the self-belief, faith and community Celie finds at the end of Walker’s novel.</p>
<p>The dance sequences bring joy to the film. But they bring problems too. One scene depicts Nettie’s travels to Africa as a “return” to a place where “we were kings and queens”. This makes Africa, a diverse continent, seem like a homogeneous place, acting only as a backdrop for African-Americans to understand their blackness. </p>
<p>Nettie’s vague references to a “village in Africa” are problematic and paternalistic in a world in which the continent is increasingly the centre of black creative and cultural production. Perhaps Bazawule could have stayed less true to Walker’s novel here, which was critiqued by Nigerian feminist scholar <a href="https://africaworldpressbooks.com/african-women-and-feminism-reflecting-on-the-politics-of-sisterhood-edited-by-oyeronke-oyewumi-hardcover/">Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí</a> for its “western imperialist” perspective, which uses “stock images and ideas about Africa” to assume unrealistic commonality. </p>
<p>Ultimately, The Color Purple shows that black joy can be cultivated even through the most painful experiences. The film’s emotional depth centres black womanhood, and its continued universal appeal will connect deeply with many audiences – especially black women.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Lascelles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This adaption of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel is an emotional yet joyful exploration of black womanhood in the early 20th century South.Amber Lascelles, Lecturer in Global Anglophone Literature, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217322024-01-23T21:54:31Z2024-01-23T21:54:31ZMaking emotional films: The enticing contradictions of Norman Jewison’s movies<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/making-emotional-films-the-enticing-contradictions-of-norman-jewisons-movies" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>How should we think about the late <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R7_sTeR6AA">Canadian filmmaker</a> Norman Jewison’s legacy?</p>
<p>Cinema studies professor Bart Testa’s opening for his insightful chapter “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9780888645289-009">Norman Jewison: Homecoming for a ‘Canadian Pinko’</a>” argues that “Jewison has not been highly regarded or carefully discussed by film critics, Canadian or American.” </p>
<p>This statement could not ring more true than on <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/norman-jewison-obit-1.7091304">the occasion of Jewison’s death</a>. </p>
<p>Although there are numerous obituaries listing Jewison’s high-profile films, including <em>Fiddler on the Roof</em>, <em>Moonstruck</em> and <em>In the Heat of the Night</em>, not all discuss <a href="https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2024-01-22/la-me-norman-jewison-dead-obit-moonstruck-director">the prolific nature and significance of Jewison’s career</a>. </p>
<p>With more than <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/norman-jewison-obit-1.7091304#">40 films and television shows</a>, <a href="https://deadline.com/2024/01/norman-jewison-dead-fiddler-on-the-roof-moonstruck-1235800983/">Oscar, BAFTA and </a> <a href="https://goldenglobes.com/person/norman-jewison/">Golden Globe</a> nominations and awards — and <a href="https://cfccreates.com/about/norman-jewison/">his establishment of the Canadian Film Centre</a> — Jewison’s legacy is notable. </p>
<p>And yet, as Testa’s analysis suggests, scholarly and critical attitudes towards Jewison have sometimes been marked by indifference or even dismissal for his blend of commercial and populist success. </p>
<p>Jewison has always been seen as a good director who made many enjoyable, socially pertinent films. But he should also receive his due as a varied filmmaker who succeeded in multiple genres, focused on actors and scripts and was innovative in musical and social justice genres. </p>
<h2>Effective writing, strong performances</h2>
<p>A Torontonian by birth who got his start in Canadian television, Jewison honed his skills <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057069/">working on Tony Curtis</a> and United Artists comedies. </p>
<p>He quickly turned to serious drama with <em>In the Heat of the Night</em> before making hit musicals <em>Fiddler on the Roof</em> and <em>Jesus Christ Superstar</em>. </p>
<p>Canadian cultural historian George Melnyk characterized Jewison’s work as “<a href="https://utorontopress.com/9780802084446/one-hundred-years-of-canadian-cinema/">generally indistinguishable from other well-made mainstream American cinema</a>,” commenting on a perceived lack of an auteurist signature. </p>
<p>Director Quentin Tarantino assessed <em>F.I.S.T.</em> as a <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/cinema-speculation-quentin-tarantino?variant=40461820756002">“bland epic” that plays like “a truncated ‘70s television miniseries</a>.” </p>
<p>In director Douglas Jackson’s National Film Board of Canada documentary <a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/norman-jewison-filmmaker"><em>Norman Jewison, Film Maker</em> (1971)</a>, Jewison notes that he is “not an intellectual filmmaker” but an “emotional one.” </p>
<p>Although this description might seem self-evident to anyone familiar with Jewison’s many emotionally resonant films, it indicates an approach to film-making that focused on effective writing (many of his films were based on plays or Broadway adaptations) and strong performances. </p>
<p>As is evident in the Jackson documentary, filmed during the making of <em>Fiddler on the Roof</em>, Jewison was hyper-focused on the nuances, details and impact of actors’ performances. The documentary shows Jewison revelling in the minutiae of performance — where the pause, breath or accent hits in a line delivery. </p>
<p>This focus perhaps comes from his <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jewison-norman-frederick">early training as an actor</a> or his entry into comedy film-making, where timing is always everything. It’s a detail we see throughout Jewison’s films. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Big stars, film newcomers</h2>
<p>Jewison was able to manage big-star personalities such as Rod Steiger, Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, Nicholas Cage, Denzel Washington, Danny DeVito, Steve McQueen, Carl Reiner and Cher and direct them to more nuance. </p>
<p>At the same time, he was able to draw out strong performances from actors who were cinematic newcomers (like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/1162126272/chaim-topol-tevye-dies">Chaim Topol</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/TedNeeley?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Ted Neeley</a>). </p>
<p>Testa focuses on Jewison’s politics (liberal, anti-establishment, leftist) and his place in the industry of film-making at such a crucial time in cinematic history when the studio era was ending and independent filmmaking was on the rise. </p>
<p>Often working as both producer and director, Jewison had artistic freedom but also anxieties about budget. In the Jackson documentary, Jewison describes these as particularly “Canadian” concerns, but they were considerable for a director who worked in international locations and took risks on unknown actors the way he did.</p>
<p>Although award-winning and popular, Jewison was also on the edge of Hollywood: he was not American and not part of <a href="https://www.films.com/ecTitleDetail.aspx?TitleID=162936">the film-school generation</a> <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=anon%7E64c2bc61&id=GALE%7CA695169545&v=2.1&it=r&sid=googleScholar&asid=57a84e2e.">or Hollywood renaissance (1967-74)</a>.</p>
<p>The title of his 2004 autobiography in some ways says it all: <a href="https://variety.com/2005/more/reviews/this-terrible-business-has-been-good-to-me-1200521491/"><em>This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me</em></a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’</span></figcaption>
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<h2><em>Jesus Christ Superstar</em>’s cult fandom</h2>
<p>Although only passingly mentioned in some obituaries, I believe <em>Jesus Christ Superstar</em> most clearly represents these contradictory strands of Jewison as a director. </p>
<p>At the time of the movie’s filming, Jewison had been nominated for and won key awards, making a name for himself in American cinema. </p>
<p>It was nonetheless a risky project: a rock opera starring unknowns, filmed on location in Israel and featuring a cast of actors with no or very little film experience. </p>
<p>It was also plagued by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/08/archives/superstar-film-renews-disputesjewish-groups-say-opening-could-stir.html">budget issues and controversy</a>. Surprisingly, it was not only a box-office success at the time, but continues to have a cult <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijpt-2018-0013/html">following that extends to the star of the film as well</a>. </p>
<p>The fandom for a film like <em>Jesus Christ Superstar</em> show that assessments of Jewison as an indistinct but adequate filmmaker are misguided. </p>
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<p>My early exposure to the film was a chance viewing on TV with my father when I was about 11. My parents were not religious, not intellectuals and not cinephiles, but <em>Jesus Christ Superstar</em> quickly became a family favourite. </p>
<p>At a time when theatres host <a href="https://riotheatre.ca/movie/grease/">group sing-alongs</a> for films like <em>Grease</em> and <a href="https://tiff.net/events/sing-a-long-a-the-sound-of-music"><em>The Sound of Music</em></a>, my particular set of friends opt for sing-along parties for <em>Jesus Christ Superstar</em>. </p>
<h2>Jewison’s ultimate legacy</h2>
<p>This tension between cult, critical and popular appeal alongside a scholarly disregard is in fact Jewison’s most prominent legacy. </p>
<p>Bridging American, Canadian and English systems and industry cultures, Jewison can be viewed less as a merely skilled, socially minded filmmaker, and more as an enticing contradiction. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-look-back-at-norman-jewisons-stellar-directing-career-and-commitment-to-canadian-filmmakers-221742">A look back at Norman Jewison's stellar directing career and commitment to Canadian filmmakers</a>
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<p>He was both an insider and an outsider in terms of the industry, both Canadian and American in terms of sensibilities, both mainstream and progressive in terms of politics and independent and commercial in terms of film-making. </p>
<p>Perhaps Jewison’s distinctive indistinction is precisely his legacy. These contradictions allow for what Jewison notes in the Jackson documentary as an essential directorial quality — a lack of ego. </p>
<p>And in an industry full of ego, this distinction allowed him to be, as Denzel Washington says, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2024-01-22/la-me-norman-jewison-dead-obit-moonstruck-director">“a real actor’s director</a>,” shaping and nudging star performances in subtle and effective ways, drawing out what he saw as the emotional core of his films.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Coulthard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A tension between cult, critical and popular appeal is part of Norman Jewison’s most prominent legacy.Lisa Coulthard, Professor, Department of Theatre and Film, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215742024-01-23T20:19:59Z2024-01-23T20:19:59ZOscar nominees 2024: ‘Past Lives’ spotlights the pull of first love alongside the yearning for glory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570722/original/file-20240122-18-cb4bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=477%2C57%2C2253%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Greta Lee in a scene from 'Past Lives.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jon Pack/A24 via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/oscar-nominees-2024-past-lives-spotlights-the-pull-of-first-love-alongside-the-yearning-for-glory" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><strong><em>This story contains spoilers about ‘Past Lives’</em>.</strong></p>
<p>The merit of the film <em>Past Lives</em>, written and directed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hs-Drc4hjI">by Korean Canadian Celine Song</a>, is not its grandiose scale or beautiful scenery, but in its astutely controlled plot and action. </p>
<p>The movie, now nominated for <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/awards-insider-oscar-nominations-2024">2024 Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay</a>, portrays two people whose lives intertwine between the past and the present by using the <a href="https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/06/06/korean-canadian-filmmaker-celine-songs-past-lives-is-not-your-typical-romance/">theme of <em>inyeon</em>.</a></p>
<p><em>Inyeon</em> is popularly understood to mean something like fate or destiny, referring to the ties between people over the course of their lives. As Korean studies professor Sarah Son explains, <a href="https://theconversation.com/past-lives-inyeon-is-a-korean-philosophy-of-how-relationships-form-over-many-lifetimes-213289">inyeon “in Korean Buddhism, in (因) refers to ‘direct cause’ and yeon (緣) to ‘indirect cause,’ or the conditions that make an outcome possible</a>.”</p>
<p>As a scholar who <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-the-Korean-Wave-Transnational-Korean-Pop-Culture-and-Digital/Jin/p/book/9781032492957">has examined digital technologies and transnational Korean culture</a> and Korean film, and a person who immigrated twice with two daughters as Song’s family did (the U.S. first and later to Canada), I was immersed in the movie. </p>
<p>I found myself reflecting on how the film stands in comparison to other films by Korean or Korean American directors depicting Korean immigrants to the Americas —and sympathizing with the personal decisions portrayed in the film. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kA244xewjcI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Past Lives.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Korean immigrant stories</h2>
<p>A variety of previous movies, either directed by Korean directors or Korean American directors, such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297915/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl"><em>The Deep Blue Night</em></a> (1985), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817544/"><em>Never Forever</em></a> (2007), and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10633456/_"><em>Minari</em></a> (2020), touched on Korean immigrants who came to the U.S. </p>
<p>These movies <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/transnational-korean-cinema">represented transnational struggles of</a> Koreans who immigrated to the U.S. to fulfill American dreams.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/minari-part-of-a-wave-of-2nd-generation-storytelling-about-what-it-means-to-participate-in-america-158740">'Minari': Part of a wave of 2nd-generation storytelling about what it means to participate in America</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Unlike these films, <em>Past Lives</em> <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/celine-song-past-lives-profile.html">shows a middle-class</a> family in South Korea who decides to pursue a different life in Canada. </p>
<p>The protagonist, Na Young/Nora (acted by Greta Lee), has a father who is a filmmaker, while her mother is an artist. This movie shows a modern-day diaspora family story: the family leaves South Korea not for survival, but for the achievement of their ambitions.</p>
<p>The film depicts lesser-seen stories of <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/transnational-korean-cinema">Koreans in the late 20th and early 21st centuries who have</a> pursued immigration to be successful as professionals in various fields, including in cultural areas.</p>
<h2>Digital diasporas</h2>
<p>Na Young, who takes the western name Nora, later moves to the U.S. to major in literature, as she wants to be a writer. </p>
<p>Twelve years later, she reconnects with her childhood friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) on Facebook, symbolizing <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Digital-Media-and-Globalization/Jin/p/book/9780367415792">the kind of modern-day communication</a> possible for people living diaspora lives.</p>
<p>The advent of social media, <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211215000870">including the now-defunct South Korean platform Cyworld</a>, Facebook and Instagram, have facilitated inter-continental communications, and therefore, the formation of inter-continental communities. </p>
<p>Immigrants, particularly younger generations, use digital technologies to connect with their families, relatives and friends back home, therefore shrinking the distance and time difference. </p>
<p>Greta Lee and Teo Yoo delicately act their roles as Na Young/Nora and Hae Sung, and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/past-lives-teo-yoo-used-own-experiences-loneliness-inform-character-1235683583">as actors with personal experience of transcontinental life and diaspora cultures</a> their seemingly imperfect Korean accents make them modern-day immigrants. </p>
<h2>Limits of online connection</h2>
<p>Na Young and Hae Sung could not fulfill their first destiny (<em>inyeon</em>) when they were elementary school students due to Na Young’s family immigrating to Canada. </p>
<p>Eventually, they start dating online. They continuously talk, laugh and spend time, as if they want to talk as much as possible. However, <a href="https://press.umich.edu/Books/S/Smartland-Korea2">their online networks</a> don’t provide enough momentum for them to continue dating, and potentially their next move. </p>
<p>When Nora asks Hae Sung to come to New York, Hae Sung is hesitant because he plans to learn Chinese for a year or two, and Nora is not able to wait for him. She doesn’t want to continue her online dating with Hae Sung and goes to an artist residency. There, she meets Arthur (John Magaro) and they sense a mutual attraction and the possibility of love.</p>
<h2>Another twist of fate?</h2>
<p>At that moment, the movie astutely introduces another fateful development between Nora and Arthur. One beautiful night, Nora and Arthur have dinner in a garden at the artist residency, and Nora starts to explain what <em>inyeon</em> means in Korea to Arthur: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There is a word in Korean, <em>inyeon</em>. It’s specifically about relationships between people … If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of <em>inyeon</em> over 8,000 lifetimes.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As writers and <em>inyeon</em>-guided spouses, they move back to New York.</p>
<h2>First and second loves</h2>
<p>Twelve years later, Hae Sung still wants to check his <em>inyeon</em> with Na Young and finally visits New York. Hae Sung has continued to love her. </p>
<p>In New York, Na Young guides Hae Sung to a few tourist places, and she invites Hae Sung home to introduce him to Arthur. When they eat out and drink together at a bar, the movie provides its climax, in a calm, but sorrowful tone. </p>
<p>Na Young and Hae Sung talk to each other in Korean while Arthur is sitting next to her. Arthur looks worried, because he does not understand Korean but can read their feelings.</p>
<h2>‘Something in our past lives’</h2>
<p>Hae Sung finally expresses his mind in front of Na Young’s husband, saying to Na Young: “When you stopped talking 12 years ago, I really missed you.” </p>
<p>However, Na Young replies:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I think there was something in our past lives. But in this life, we don’t have the <em>inyeon</em> to be that kind of person to each other.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>From this moment, Nora is not Na Young anymore, but Hae Sung may continue to remember her as Na Young, his childhood friend and crush.</p>
<h2>Accepting the end of some fates</h2>
<p><em>Past Lives</em> is a beautiful story of lost love and childhood crushes. The two final scenes are touching because of the unfulfilled love between two people. </p>
<p>When people’s destiny together (their <em>inyeon</em>) ends, one party sends another party away with sorrow and agony, while the leaving party moves to another stage of his or her life. </p>
<p>Nora’s crying to her husband Arthur after saying goodbye to Hae Sung, and Hae Sung’s departure to the airport via Uber, dexterously portrays the end of Na Young and Hae Sung’s connection.</p>
<p>This is a must-see, heart-wrenching movie that leaves viewers with a tranquil mind about the sadness of endings — because these exist alongside the beautiful possibility of multiple loves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221574/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dal Yong Jin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Past Lives’ is a beautiful story of childhood crushes, and the sorrow and agony that ensues when one party sends another party away to move to another stage of his or her life.Dal Yong Jin, Professor, School of Communication, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217422024-01-23T19:16:59Z2024-01-23T19:16:59ZA look back at Norman Jewison’s stellar directing career and commitment to Canadian filmmakers<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/a-look-back-at-norman-jewisons-stellar-directing-career-and-commitment-to-canadian-filmmakers" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Norman Jewison, who <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/norman-jewison-obit-1.7091304">passed away Jan. 20 at age 97</a>, had a cottage in Ontario, and was a cottage neighbour of supporters of the <a href="https://windsorfilmfestival.com/">Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF)</a>, where I am <a href="https://windsorfilmfestival.com/executive-director-and-chief-programmer-of-the-windsor-international-film-festival-wiff-appointed-to-the-ontario-creates-board/">executive director and chief programmer</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, this lead to numerous conversations over a three-year time period about bringing the legend himself down to the festival for a celebration of his talents. </p>
<p>Ultimately, a few prominent friends of WIFF helped make the stars align for the 10th anniversary of <a href="https://windsorfilmfestival.com/festival/awards/">WIFF in 2014, and we created the inaugural WIFF Lifetime Achievement Award</a>. </p>
<p>To kick off this new prize with <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/norman-jewison-dead-at-97-1234951659/">a seven-time Oscar nominee</a>, a <a href="https://www.oscars.org/governors/thalberg">Thalberg Memorial Award winner</a> (presented at the Academy Awards to distinguished creative producers) and one of the most influential and successful filmmakers Canada had ever produced — well, the award deliberations weren’t lengthy.</p>
<p>Did you know the seminal race relations drama <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061811/">In the Heat of the Night</a></em>, the effervescent Jewish musical <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/">Fiddler on the Roof</a></em>, the Italian American rom-com classic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093565/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1"><em>Moonstruck</em></a> and the inspiring boxing drama <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174856/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1"><em>The Hurricane</em></a> were all directed by the same man? </p>
<p>What was so impressive about Jewison’s career is that he was a master filmmaker above any single genre or style. He was genre-proof. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2R7_sTeR6AA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC News looks back on the career of Norman Jewison.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Could not be pigeon-holed</h2>
<p>I would argue his closest <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ang-Lee">current-day contemporary would be Ang Lee</a>, director of <em>Sense and Sensibility</em>, <em>Brokeback Mountain</em> and <em>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</em>. Filmmakers this adept at seamlessly pointing their cameras at such a diaspora of stories and esthetics are rare birds. </p>
<p>Jewison’s films, and film-making style, could not be pigeon-holed. It’s what kept his career so interesting for audiences, critics and the industry alike. </p>
<p>In working on what a tribute to Jewison looked like, I delved into his career from numerous vantage points. </p>
<h2>Supporting Canadian film</h2>
<p>Jewison had five Best Picture Oscar nominations to his credit, including <a href="https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1968">1968 winner <em>In the Heat of the Night</em>.</a></p>
<p>But he also had a sincere and trailblazing commitment to the development of filmmakers in Canada <a href="https://cfccreates.com/about/norman-jewison/">via his establishment</a> of the <a href="https://cfccreates.com/">Canadian Film Centre (CFC)</a>, a now iconic and sought-after filmmaker residence, education and training fantasy land that has been seminial in incubating established and emerging filmmakers.</p>
<p>Right up to this past <a href="https://www.tiff.net/">Toronto International Film Festival</a>, the Canadian Film Centre’s annual barbecue is a tradition that burns bright. It’s attended by several hundred people, but what’s most noteworthy is that it’s the only TIFF-adjacent bash I can think of that is truly multi-generational. </p>
<p>Student filmmakers, those just launching their careers, mid-career climbers, established filmmakers and long-retired big names all gather on the lawns of the CFC in the same spirit: for the love of and future of film. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZKUPL49QCd0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The 2023 Norman Jewison Film Program Showcase from the Canadian Film Centre.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Directed his own tribute</h2>
<p>When the big night at WIFF came in 2014 and it was time to meet and interview Jewison, he did not disappoint. The historic Capitol Theatre in Windsor was sold out for this one-night-only rare appearance. </p>
<p>Ever the director, he live directed me even during our on-stage interview. I’m not kidding. </p>
<p>He would give me subtle hand signals on where we wanted to continue talking about something, when he wanted to move on to the next topic and what kind of pacing he wanted. Like an invisible hand behind my back, he even directed his own on-stage tribute. </p>
<p>He was engaged, friendly and had so many warm but insightful things to say about both his stars and longtime collaborators. </p>
<h2>Gave beautiful credit to collaborators</h2>
<p>We were regaled with stories of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, Cher and Nicolas Cage, with a stopover on Michael Caine. He gave beautiful credit to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/lynn-stalmaster-dead-legendary-casting-760716/">his longtime casting director, the legendary Lynn Stalmaster</a>. </p>
<p>He spoke with love about his wife <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/norman-jewison-obit-1.7091304">Lynne St. David-Jewison</a>, who beamed with pride as he was celebrated and accepted his award. Posters of his films were autographed, there were lobby anecdotes and conversations among fans about his musicals and a constant refrain of: “Mr. Jewison, if you wouldn’t mind …”. </p>
<p>We escaped to a private dinner in Windsor’s Little Italy where the regaling (Danny DeVito! Denzel Washington! Marisa Tomei!) continued all night long. It could have been a scene from <em>Moonstruck</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vincent Georgie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jewison had a trailblazing commitment to the development of film in Canada, seen both in his founding of the Canadian Film Centre and when he visited us at the Windsor International Film Festival.Vincent Georgie, Marketing Faculty, Odette School of Business, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191382023-12-27T15:48:36Z2023-12-27T15:48:36ZWhere do all of James Bond’s gadgets come from? A geologist tells the raw truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563295/original/file-20230713-15-u5em9p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C1880%2C804&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Spectre (2015), Daniel Craig and Ben Whishaw respectively play the world's most famous secret agent and his gadget supplier.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzvxegcZzPU">Spectre</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Laser watches, fingerprint guns, explosives and, of course, over-equipped cars: the list of gadgets flaunted by James Bond is as bewildering as the mind of their inventor, Q. While some of these gadgets actually exist (laser, fingerprint recognition, back reactor), others, as we shall see, are more fanciful. </p>
<p>But they all have one thing in common: the raw materials needed to make them, and in particular the <a href="https://mineralinfo.fr/fr">mineral resources</a> that geologists are helping to extract from the earth’s crust. Below are some that jumped out of the screen for me. </p>
<h2>The fast, inconspicuous cars of the world’s most famous secret agent</h2>
<p>In 1964’s Goldfinger, James Bond (Sean Connery) has to give up his Bentley for an Aston Martin DB5 modified by Q (the unforgettable Desmond Llewelyn). This is the first of eight appearances of a car that will go on to become inseparable from 007.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Aston Martin DB5, James Bond's historic car" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537729/original/file-20230717-138681-wy16lv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537729/original/file-20230717-138681-wy16lv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537729/original/file-20230717-138681-wy16lv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537729/original/file-20230717-138681-wy16lv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537729/original/file-20230717-138681-wy16lv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537729/original/file-20230717-138681-wy16lv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537729/original/file-20230717-138681-wy16lv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Aston Martin DB5, which first appeared in Goldfinger in 1964. This car is made from aluminium extracted from bauxite ore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">N. Charles</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The auto is a good example of how products have become more complex and incorporated a greater diversity of raw materials over time. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="zoom on a pink mineral with pinkish and whitish spots" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537731/original/file-20230717-248129-ixx1gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bauxite : the main ore of aluminium, the metal used in 007’s DB5, which takes its name from Baux-de-Provence, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">N. Charles</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The DB5 contains an array of minerals, starting with aluminium, a metal known to make cars lighter. The latter is derived from bauxite, an ore mined in Jamaica near Ocho Rios, which, incidentally, served as the setting for Crab Key Island, Dr No’s hideout, in 1962.</p>
<p>The body of the DB5 is made of aluminium and magnesium alloy plates resting on a tubular steel structure. The engine block is aluminium, as are the pistons and cylinder head. The connecting rods and crankshaft are made of steel doped with chromium and molybdenum for greater strength. The aluminium rims are mounted on chromed steel hubs, as are the spokes.</p>
<p>Of course, we mustn’t forget the <a href="https://mineralinfo.fr/sites/default/files/documents/2021-03/silice_industrielle_rp-66167-fr_2016revise2020.pdf">silica in the windows</a>, the <a href="http://infoterre.brgm.fr/rapports/RP-69037-FR.pdf">copper in the electrical wiring</a>, the lead in the battery or the carbonates and <a href="https://mineralinfo.fr/sites/default/files/documents/2021-03/kaolin_argiles_kaoliniques_rp-67334-fr_2018.pdf">kaolin in the paint</a>, and the petrol to make the whole thing run at top speed.</p>
<p>The automotive industry has come a long way since 1964, and one innovation follows another, each bringing its new share of unique materials. Several dozen are needed today for a standard vehicle - and what can we say about the latest racing cars driven by 007 since 2000, such as the BMW Z3 or the Aston Martin Valhalla? </p>
<p>This goes on with electric vehicles, whose batteries rely on <a href="https://theconversation.com/relocaliser-lextraction-des-ressources-minerales-en-europe-les-defis-du-lithium-138581">lithium</a>, cobalt, graphite, <a href="https://mineralinfo.fr/fr/ecomine/sulfate-de-nickel-un-ingredient-cle-des-batteries-li-ion">nickel</a> and <a href="https://mineralinfo.fr/fr/ecomine/marche-des-terres-rares-2022-filieres-dapprovisionnement-aimants-permanents">rare earths</a>. In 1971 <em>Diamonds Are Forever</em>, James Bond can be seen flying and driving around in no less than an electric lunar module. More recently, in <em>Dying Can Wait</em> (2021), the Aston Martin Valhalla is a plug-in hybrid, but James Bond has not yet gone all-electric.</p>
<h2>Golden guns that would melt in real life</h2>
<p>Another cult item is the Walther PPK, the German pistol used by 007 in many of the Bond films. It’s a weapon made from a stainless steel alloy. Although the steel is mainly iron, it also contains other elements depending on its use and the properties required: chromium, molybdenum, nickel, manganese, carbon, silicon, copper, sulphur, nitrogen, phosphorus, boron, titanium, niobium, tungsten, vanadium, and cerium.</p>
<p>Much more precious, Francisco Scaramanga’s (Christopher Lee) pistol is made of solid gold and assembles everyday objects to go unnoticed during checks: lighter, cufflinks, fountain pen as well as a cigar case. Limited to one shot, the pistol fires bullets of 4.2 mm calibre, weighs 30 g and is made of 23-carat gold with traces of nickel. So much for fiction.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="gold pistol at the museum" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537734/original/file-20230717-129345-k99hdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537734/original/file-20230717-129345-k99hdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537734/original/file-20230717-129345-k99hdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537734/original/file-20230717-129345-k99hdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537734/original/file-20230717-129345-k99hdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537734/original/file-20230717-129345-k99hdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537734/original/file-20230717-129345-k99hdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Francisco Scaramanga’s gold pistol, solid gold here being unrealistic for dedicated use… The bullet, also in gold, is engraved</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/66857806@N02/14592496766">Gareth Milner, Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In reality, it’s hard to imagine a gun made entirely of gold, a very dense and, above all, very soft metal, which wouldn’t withstand the repeated power of a gunshot for very long. In jewellery, gold is often combined with silver, copper or zinc to make it wearable. On 4 December 2023, one kilogram of gold was trading at around €66,000, an all-time record (<a href="https://www.gold.org/">World Gold Council</a>). It’s hardly surprising, given that gold has been a precious, unalterable, shiny metal with a deep yellow colour since Antiquity, arousing covetousness and serving as a safe haven.</p>
<p>In <em>Love from Russia</em> (1963), James Bond receives 50 gold British sovereigns in a briefcase brimming with gadgets. Attracted to the gold coins, the enemy Grant opens the booby-trapped case while holding 007 at gunpoint. Tear gas escapes, saving Bond’s life.</p>
<h2>James Bond and his high-tech enemies</h2>
<p>The saga has also always been about surprising the general public with cutting-edge technology, which may be little known at the time of the film’s release.</p>
<p>What better example than the <a href="https://www.sfpnet.fr/le-laser-principe-de-fonctionnement">laser</a>, which, should we be reminded, stands short for <em>Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.</em> The saga likes to beam it as often as possible, alternatively adding it to pistols, watches, cars, and satellites.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="plastic laser gun" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537736/original/file-20230717-243941-ymm8xc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537736/original/file-20230717-243941-ymm8xc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537736/original/file-20230717-243941-ymm8xc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537736/original/file-20230717-243941-ymm8xc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537736/original/file-20230717-243941-ymm8xc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537736/original/file-20230717-243941-ymm8xc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537736/original/file-20230717-243941-ymm8xc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laser guns (plastic !) from the space base in Moonraker, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicolas Charles</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <em>Goldfinger</em> (1964), film director Guy Hamilton chooses to bypass Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name by threatening James Bond not with a chainsaw, but a laser.
The latter were also used in other Bond films: satellites in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Murder Another Day (2002); laser pistols in Moonraker (1979); laser watches in Never Again (1983) and Goldeneye (1995); laser-equipped cars in Killing Is No Game (1987), etc.</p>
<p>Lasers can be used to a variety of ends. For one, telemetry: from the Greek “tel” (“remote”) and “metros” (“to measure”), this practice consists in remotely measuring physical and electrical data. Other uses include cutting objects and projecting light.</p>
<p>Physicist Théodore Maiman introduced the first operational laser in the real world in May 1960 (<a href="https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201005/physicshistory.cfm">American Physical Society</a>), right before James Bond. </p>
<p>This first laser used a ruby, a mineral in the corundum (aluminium oxide) family, like sapphire. But this is a <a href="https://www.gemsociety.org/article/understanding-gem-synthetics-treatments-imitations-part-4-synthetic-gemstone-guide/">synthetic ruby</a> created from aluminium oxide (<a href="https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/13/aluminium">from bauxite</a>) mixed with a tiny amount of <a href="https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/24/chromium">chromium</a> (mainly produced from chromite). There are different types of laser, depending on the application:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Crystalline lasers: made of silica glass (from very pure quartz) or synthetic ruby or sapphire crystals (aluminium oxide doped with <a href="https://mineralinfo.fr/sites/default/files/documents/2020-12/fichecriticitetitane171017.pdf">titanium</a>, <a href="https://mineralinfo.fr/sites/default/files/documents/2020-12/fichecriticitechrome171003.pdf">chromium</a> or rare earths : neodymium, ytterbium, praseodymium, erbium or thulium) ;</p></li>
<li><p>Fibre lasers : composed of optical fibres based on silica (derived from ultra-pure quartz) and doped with <a href="http://infoterre.brgm.fr/rapports/RP-65330-FR.pdf">rare earths</a> (metals extracted mainly from minerals such as bastnaesite, monazite or xenotime) ;</p></li>
<li><p>Gas lasers: using helium (extracted from natural gas deposits) and neon (extracted from atmospheric air gases) or CO<sub>2</sub> ;</p></li>
<li><p>Organic dye lasers.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The red light beam in <em>Goldfinger</em> was emitted from a laser (probably ruby) whose brightness was amplified by special effects.</p>
<p>However, the destructive nature of the laser is pure fiction. During filming, an operator used an acetylene torch under the pre-cut table even though Sean Connery was lying on it !</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537735/original/file-20230717-210016-ygo2ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537735/original/file-20230717-210016-ygo2ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537735/original/file-20230717-210016-ygo2ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537735/original/file-20230717-210016-ygo2ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537735/original/file-20230717-210016-ygo2ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537735/original/file-20230717-210016-ygo2ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537735/original/file-20230717-210016-ygo2ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shark’s teeth (</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/111748974@N02/26039238632/">Shaun Versey, Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, since we all know the bad guys like to bare their teeth, let’s mention the surgical steel jaw of the impressive Shark (Richard Kiel) in <em>The Spy Who Loved Me</em> (1977) and <em>Moonraker</em> (1979). It’s a stainless and corrosion-resistant steel that limits the risk of allergic reactions when it comes into contact with the skin. Its composition includes iron, nickel, chromium, manganese and molybdenum.</p>
<p>James Bond is like many other citizens, he consumes mineral raw materials on a daily basis. At a time of energy, ecological and digital transition, mineral resources are essential elements in the decarbonisation of our activities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolas Charles ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>At Q’s of course! But he doesn’t pull them out of his sleeve. In Spectre (2015), Daniel Craig and Ben Whishaw play the famous spy and his gadget supplier.Nicolas Charles, Géologue, PhD, BRGMLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195612023-12-22T19:34:33Z2023-12-22T19:34:33ZChristmas movies always show us that being single sucks — but that’s not true<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565628/original/file-20231213-21-oa2mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C98%2C5946%2C3889&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite the Hollywood stereotype, many single people are happy and not desperate for a romantic partner.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/christmas-movies-always-show-us-that-being-single-sucks-but-thats-not-true" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Being single sucks. At least that’s the impression you get when watching Christmas movies. So many of these films focus on finding love during the holiday season. But, can you name one about being happily single during the holidays? Probably not.</p>
<p><em>Love Actually, The Holiday, Falling for Christmas, Last Christmas, Single All The Way, How to Fall in Love by Christmas, Inn Love by Christmas</em> — there are numerous Christmas movies about finding love. So many, in fact, that Netflix has dedicated an entire genre to them.</p>
<p>Christmas and holiday movies usually tend to centre around a key belief: that people need a romantic partner to live “happily ever after.” Characters in these movies are often desperate to find a partner before Christmas. Even when people aren’t looking for love, someone usually comes along to “fix” the single person’s problems.</p>
<p>The flip side of this messaging is that being single sucks, especially during the holiday season. But, as a <a href="https://secureresearchlab.com/people">relationship and singlehood scientist</a>, I can tell you that this is a lie.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-christmas-movies-so-popular-127972">What makes Christmas movies so popular</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Singlehood on the rise</h2>
<p>Hollywood’s preoccupation with couples is surprising given how common the single lifestyle is becoming. There are more single adults in society now than there have ever been in modern history.</p>
<p>In Canada, the number of adults who live alone has more than <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/1908-living-solo">doubled over the last 35 years</a>. Among 25-to-29-year olds, the number of people who were single increased from <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220713/dq220713b-eng.htm">32 per cent in 1981 to 61 per cent in 2021</a>.</p>
<p>Singlehood isn’t just for young people. In 2021, as many as <a href="https://www.cardus.ca/research/family/reports/the-canadian-marriage-map/">32 per cent of adults aged 35-74</a> reported that they were not involved in a married or common law relationship.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young Black couple sit on a couch with popcorn watching a movie. A christmas tree and decorations can be seen behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565631/original/file-20231213-29-8t3gsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While most people do enter into romantic relationships at some point in their lives, the number of single people has been rising among people of all ages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Are singles desperate for a relationship?</h2>
<p>I lead the <a href="https://secureresearchlab.com">Singlehood Experiences and Complexities Underlying Relationships lab</a> at Simon Fraser University. My research focuses on understanding when single and coupled people are happy and thriving, and when people may find their lives and relationships challenging.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17456916221136119">recently reviewed studies about single people</a>. Our research highlights that societal views of single people are outdated and narrow.</p>
<p>We found that while some people do struggle with being single, many singles are also happy and thriving. Happy singles often have <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550620988460">strong connections with family and friends</a>, are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146167220942361">sexually satisfied</a>, may want to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550615599828">avoid the drama that can come with dating</a> or <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-017-9921-7">live in societies that are more accepting</a> of singledom. But their stories are rarely told.</p>
<p>The rise in singlehood can be attributed to many changes in society. People are <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED575480">delaying marriage</a>, focusing on career or travel goals, going through <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00287.x">separation or divorce</a>, or <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520299146/happy-singlehood">choosing a single life</a> over a coupled life.</p>
<p>Of course, wanting a romantic partner is still a common and perfectly valid goal. As many as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1791946">80 per cent of people enter into stable romantic relationships</a> at some point in their lives. But that doesn’t mean that single people who would like a partner are moping around or desperate to find one.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smiling woman sitting on a couch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565058/original/file-20231212-27-3ieaql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While some people do struggle with being single, many singles are also happy and thriving.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Singles still face pressure to partner up</h2>
<p>Hollywood’s preoccupation with trying to “fix” single people by getting them to partner up is a reflection of the social pressures many single people continue to face.</p>
<p>The cliché of the sad, lonely and desperate single can leave single people feeling marginalized. Along with research colleagues, I examined the experiences of over 4,000 New Zealanders and 800 Canadian and American adults. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211030102">Our study</a> found single people often feel like they are “pitied,” “treated unfairly” and “discriminated against” by the very people that they might turn to for support.</p>
<p>For example, calling their mum for advice may also mean dealing with comments about settling down. Invitations to office holiday parties may mean attending solo, even though coupled colleagues get to bring their partners. Family holiday gatherings may lead to dealing with unwanted questions about their dating life or attempts to be set up on dates.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/netflixs-indian-matchmaking-at-the-emmys-the-problems-with-nominating-this-indian-reality-167011">Netflix’s 'Indian Matchmaking' at the Emmys: The problems with nominating this Indian ‘reality’</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>So, as you cozy up to watch re-runs of your favourite Christmas romcoms this holiday season, imagine an alternative ending — one where the single person enjoys their holidays surrounded by their friends and family, without lingering alone around the mistletoe.</p>
<p>And, as you gather with your loved ones, consider resisting the urge to ask your single friends and family about whether they are dating or when they will settle down. Many single people will be celebrating this holiday season with cheer, even without a romantic partner.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yuthika Girme receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Many Christmas-themed movies centre around single people searching for love. But many people are increasingly happy being single and in no rush to find a partner.Yuthika Girme, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183142023-12-22T19:00:18Z2023-12-22T19:00:18ZSkip ‘Die Hard’ this Christmas and watch these 5 films to better understand the climate crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566748/original/file-20231219-19-k72k4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C81%2C1433%2C892&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ethan Hawke plays a minister in 'First Reformed,' (2017) a film that prompts viewers to rethink what they assume they already know, from politics to religion to the climate crisis.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(A24)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/skip-die-hard-this-christmas-and-watch-these-5-films-to-better-understand-the-climate-crisis" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The holiday season is, for many, a time for cherished rituals and down time, including watching movies like <em>It’s a Wonderful Life</em>, <em>Elf</em> or <em>Die Hard</em>.</p>
<p>But this season is also a time for reflection on our lives and the world around us beset by conflict — and the worsening climate crisis. </p>
<p>Here are five film recommendations to help combine ritual and reflection. These films are analyzed in a forthcoming <a href="https://www.filmstudies.ca/2022/02/cjfs-special-issue-cfp-climate-change-and-cinema">special issue</a> of the <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/loi/cjfs"><em>Canadian Journal of Film Studies</em></a> on “Climate Change and Cinema” that I co-edited with my colleague <a href="https://www.stu.ca/english/andre-loiselle/">André Loiselle</a>, a professor of film studies at St. Thomas University.</p>
<p><strong>1. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6053438/"><em>First Reformed</em></a> (2017)</strong></p>
<p>This film, chronicling the spiritual troubles of Rev. Ernst Toller, played by Ethan Hawke, supports understanding and communion with others in responding to the climate crisis. </p>
<p>So explains <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/communication-arts/people-profiles/anders-bergstrom">Anders Bergstrom</a>, a University of Waterloo film and media scholar, in his article “Well Somebody Has to Do Something! <em>First Reformed</em> and Conceptualizing the Climate Crisis.” </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://offscreen.com/view/revisiting-paul-schraders-transcendental-style-in-film">transcendental film style</a> used by writer and director Paul Schrader, unadorned dialogue, slow pacing and plain images are used, not to convey realism, but to present a heightened, unified and spiritual picture of existence. This style prompts viewers to rethink what they assume they already know, from politics to religion to the climate crisis.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘First Reformed.’</span></figcaption>
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<p><em>First Reformed</em> sees Toller, in a small congregation in upstate New York, grappling with mounting self-pity brought on partly by a tormented past. Early in the film, he counsels a young — and possibly violent — environmental activist in despair. </p>
<p>Toller explains: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Courage is the solution to despair. Reason provides no answers. I can’t know what the future will bring. We have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later, Toller confronts a church philanthropist whose wealth derives from his company, a major polluter. Toller asks him: “Will God forgive us for what we’re doing to His creation?” </p>
<p>But the corporate philanthropist dismisses this. He turns the conversation back to the fact that the environmentalist whom Toller counselled killed himself. “You need to look at yourself before counselling others,” he warns the minister.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-stay-hopeful-in-a-world-seemingly-beyond-saving-210415">How to stay hopeful in a world seemingly beyond saving</a>
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<p>Bergstrom explains how, for the rest of the film, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/movies/first-reformed-review-paul-schrader-ethan-hawke.html">the directness</a> of its slow and spare style compels us to imagine for ourselves, not only how Toller will respond, but also our own responses. </p>
<p>As the film builds toward its shocking denouement, the minister rejects despair and puts his faith in gathering up what he has and perhaps starting again. His choice recalls the teaching of St. Augustine: “<a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/5129/columns/draw-near">Love, and do as you will</a>.” No spoilers here: you’ll have to watch to see what happens. </p>
<p><strong>2. <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8399690/">Anthropocene: The Human Epoch</a></em> (2018)</strong></p>
<p>There is a scene in <em>First Reformed</em> where the camera slowly pans up and over funeral mourners to an endless sea of rubber tires. It then cuts to factory smokestacks, piles of plastic bottles, burning landscapes and barges polluting lifeless waterways. </p>
<p>This scene is remarkably similar to the Canadian documentary film <em>Anthropocene: The Human Epoch</em>, featuring the work of renowned landscape photographer <a href="https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/">Edward Burtynsky</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Anthropocene: The Human Epoch’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In <em>Anthropocene</em>, we see static forms, slow-tracking shots, little-to-no dialogue and repeated compositions. <a href="https://brocku.ca/social-sciences/cpcf/people-in-the-department/christie-milliken/">Christie Milliken</a>, a film studies professor at Brock University, writes in “Documenting the Anthropocene: Scale, Magnitude and Obfuscation in the Burtynsky Trilogy” that the film’s images “have had a haunting, mobilizing and protracted impact on me as a viewer, as a critic, and as a scholar.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-lake-holds-the-key-to-the-beginning-of-the-anthropocene-a-new-geological-epoch-209576">A Canadian lake holds the key to the beginning of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch</a>
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<p><em>Anthropocene’s</em> creators sought to make climate-change research accessible by weaving together iconic examples. They travelled to six continents to document humans’ impact on the planet.</p>
<p><em>Anthropocene</em> challenges viewers to confront the uncomfortable fact that as a species on this earth, “we’ve been <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terraform">terraforming</a> since the dawn of civilization … but this doesn’t make us all equally implicated.” </p>
<p><strong>3. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4449576/"><em>Demain</em> (<em>Tomorrow</em>)</a> (2015)</strong></p>
<p><em>Demain</em> (<em>Tomorrow</em>) is a French documentary that begins with a group of the filmmakers’ friends in a lively discussion. “We weren’t green freaks or activists,” one explains, “but most of us had kids, and none of us could just stand by after hearing this terrifying news.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Demain’ with English subtitles.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The group decides to make a film about solutions to the climate crisis. The filmmakers embody the behaviour they seek to inspire in viewers, explains <a href="https://scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/profile/sabine_von_mering/overview?institution=01BRAND_INST">Sabine von Mering</a>, a professor of German and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Brandeis University, in “Promise Motivation: Films with Good News About Climate Change.” These behaviours include educating oneself about climate science, talking about it, joining with others and getting active. </p>
<p>Von Mering argues the film succeeds by providing a glimpse into climate solutions from several angles, including agriculture, energy, the economy, education and democracy. </p>
<p>She calls this “promise motivation,” contrasted with “risk motivation.” Of the film’s 116 minutes, 96 minutes (83 per cent) are devoted to climate solutions.</p>
<p><strong>4. <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093488/">The Man Who Planted Trees</a></em> (1987)</strong></p>
<p><em>The Man Who Planted Trees</em> is a Canadian, Academy Award-winning 30-minute animated film about a fictional shepherd’s single-handed quest to re-forest a barren valley. </p>
<p>This film illustrates the causes and misery of climate change, but also how humans can change the climate for the better, explains <a href="https://as.vanderbilt.edu/french-italian/faculty/graduate-faculty/susan-kevra-2/">Susan Kevra</a>, a lecturer in French and American studies at Vanderbilt University, in her article “The Man Who Changed the Climate: Frederic Back’s Film Adaption of The Man Who Planted Trees.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The Man Who Planted Trees.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>Kevra cautions us not to scoff at the achievement of this deceptively simple film and its single-minded fictional shepherd. She shares the words of <a href="https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai">Wangarĩ Muta Maathai</a>, the Kenyan founder of the Green Belt movement and winner of the <a href="https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai/the-nobel-peace-prize">2004 Nobel Peace Prize</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Tree planting became a natural choice to address some of the initial needs identified by women. Also, tree planting is simple, attainable and guarantees quick, successful results within a reasonable amount of time … So, together, we have planted over 30 million trees to provide fuel, food, shelter and income to support their children’s education and household needs. The activity also creates employment and improves soils and watersheds.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>5. <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709536/">Angry Inuk</a></em> (2016)</strong></p>
<p>Inuk filmmaker <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3410237/?ref_=tt_ov_dr">Alethea Arnaquq-Baril</a> examines the central role of seal hunting in the lives of the Inuit, the importance of the revenue earned from sale of seal skins — and the negative impacts international campaigns against the seal hunt have had on their lives.</p>
<p>In “Angry Inuk, Listening to Science, and the Perpetuation of Climate Crisis in Film,” Carleton University film studies professor <a href="https://carleton.ca/filmstudies/people/kester-dyer/">Kester Dyer</a> explains the film’s argument for the right to trade seal products for consumption beyond local subsistence. This “simultaneously exposes viewers to the ecological logic of Indigenous value systems” and the need for non-Indigenous people to accept these.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Angry Inuk’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The film, Dyer explains, initiates a dialogue with animal-protection groups through depicting how the Inuit have learned to understand the “language of anti-sealers and southern lawmakers,” and have “started to co-opt some of their visual strategies” in their own counter-protests, including through creative use of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/28/inuit-seal-sealfies-selfie-degeneres-oscars">social media</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRPEz57_l_M">YouTube</a>. </p>
<p>Arnaquq-Baril summarizes her film as “a call for westerners to listen a little harder, and a call for Inuit to speak a little louder.”</p>
<p>When it comes to the climate crisis, many of us, especially non-Indigenous audiences in the Global North, need to listen and look a little harder. These five films are a good place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason MacLean is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation (CELL).</span></em></p>‘Somebody has to do something’: Top feature film and documentary picks from scholars examining climate change and cinema offer courage to hold contradictory truths and pursue climate solutions.Jason MacLean, Adjunct professor, Environment and Sustainability, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195552023-12-19T20:38:38Z2023-12-19T20:38:38Z‘Godzilla Minus One’: Finding paradise of shared co-operation through environmental disaster<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/godzilla-minus-one-finding-paradise-of-shared-co-operation-through-environmental-disaster" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><em>Godzilla Minus One</em>, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7DqccP1Q_4">brings viewers back to post-war Japan</a> and to the wholly belligerent monster of the original 1954 <em>Godzilla</em> — a beast bereft of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/05/godzilla-movies-king-of-the-monsters-history/590545/">friendly connotations</a> accrued in the later <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls027620105/">Toho Studios Japanese installments</a>.</p>
<p>This original Godzilla represented what its director, Ishiro Honda, <a href="https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6649-reign-of-destruction">described</a> as the “invisible fear” of the nuclear contamination of our planet. </p>
<p>Historian William Tsutsui asserts in <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781403964748/godzillaonmymind">his book dedicated to the series</a> that the film allows us to neutralize our fears of potential annihilation. Cathartic or not, this <a href="https://bigthink.com/thinking/apocalypse-philosophy-science-fiction-teaches-existence/">apocalyptic trend</a> remains a staple of science-fiction movies and series to this day. </p>
<p><em>Minus One</em> returns to that fear, once perhaps invisible but <a href="https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/ipcc-report/117241/">now undeniable</a>, of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58073295">the disasters incurred by damage</a> to our environment. </p>
<p>At the same time, the film asks how individuals and communities can tackle disaster while embracing an ethos of mutual aid that sidesteps nostalgia for nationalist policies that lead to even more harm.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Godzilla Minus One’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Disaster response</h2>
<p>In the two most recent instalments in the Godzilla franchise, 2016’s <em>Shin Godzilla</em> and 2023’s <em>Godzilla Minus One</em>, the monster can be read as a personification of a diminished belief in governmental abilities to prevent or respond adequately to disaster. </p>
<p><em>Shin Godzilla</em>, directed by Hideaki Anno, dealt satirically with the <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/shin-godzilla-review-hideaki-anno-1201735981/">limp governmental response to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami</a>. As the threat of the monster escalates to catastrophic levels, the politicians in the film are more concerned with optics and in which board room they should be conducting their meetings. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Shin Godzilla’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In contrast, 2023’s <em>Minus One</em> captures ire for a nationalistic government that guided Japan into imperial campaigns <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Japan/World-War-II-and-defeat">in Asia and finally to a total defeat with a devastating human cost</a>.</p>
<p>When Godzilla arrives <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-22HvCNfU">to further compound post-war misery</a>, harried survivors don’t rely on the same government that has led them astray. </p>
<h2>Putting aside ideological differences</h2>
<p>Instead, as some reviews of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/dec/13/godzilla-minus-one-review-rageful-monster-is-one-of-the-best-in-the-series">the film</a> have noted, they turn <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23981319/godzilla-minus-one-review">to a community with the power</a> to act outside of official bodies, making use of technological skills earned through wartime experience. </p>
<p>While the state lends them a few ships, citizens are otherwise left to their own devices, relying on old and decommissioned machinery. They rise to face the monster not by developing a new weapon of destruction but by using what is already at hand. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman's face seen through a window and a giant lizard is reflected." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C734%2C431&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Facing the monster requires collaboration in ‘Godzilla Minus One.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(TOHO Co. Ltd.)</span></span>
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<p>The characters in <em>Minus One</em> create a shared purpose in light of their wartime experience. As engineer Noda notes, their lives have been undervalued. This realization leads them to turn away from the government and the nationalist policies that led to the war, and to rely instead on one another.</p>
<p>To do this they must put aside ideological differences to achieve the common goal of stopping Godzilla. This is best illustrated by the co-operation of Koichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot who questions the value of his death amid imminent defeat yet is dogged by the shame of his desertion, and an engineer, Sosaku Tachibana, who initially deems Shikishima a coward. </p>
<h2>Revisiting values, alliances</h2>
<p>These plotlines reflect contemporary interest in the local and political communities we should be forging in light of serious environmental threats.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ecological-grief-and-uncontrollable-reality-in-wes-andersons-asteroid-city-211419">Ecological grief and uncontrollable reality in Wes Anderson's 'Asteroid City'</a>
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<p>Writer Rebecca Solnit laments <a href="https://therumpus.net/2009/08/07/a-paradise-built-in-hell-the-rumpus-interview-with-rebecca-solnit/">self-serving governmental responses</a> to disaster. But her <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070/a-paradise-built-in-hell-by-rebecca-solnit/">A Paradise Built in Hell</a></em> focuses on the positives that can come from disaster at the communal level. </p>
<p>She concludes that in enhancing social cohesion and bringing out the humanitarian in each of us, disaster “reveals what else the world could be like.” In short, a paradise of shared purpose and co-operation. </p>
<p>The key, however, is distinguishing between a benign social cohesion, like the aforementioned networks of mutual care, and a malignant one, as seen in destructive forms of nationalism and war. </p>
<p>In <em>Godzilla Minus One</em>, Shikishima and Tachibana band together to save lives. Their wider group insists on a victory <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/11/29/godzilla-minus-one-offers-a-profound-critique-of-war-and-american-pop-culture/">without the sacrifice of human life</a>, an ethos made possible by adopting a communal view in which humans are not statistics. </p>
<h2>Dream together or die alone</h2>
<p>At a time of an <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/are-yasukuni-shrine-visits-a-sign-of-rising-nationalism-in-japan/">increasingly nationalist Japanese government</a> that has been criticized for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-japan-ranks-poorly-in-press-freedom/a-65549778">undermining freedom of the press</a>, the film suggests how a nostalgic dream for a return to a time of stronger social ties and a sense of unified purpose is one easily manipulated by nationalist governments. </p>
<p>This has been seen in a host of recent examples including <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-has-made-america-nostalgic-again-for-a-past-that-never-existed-149449">Donald Trump</a>, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/brexit-britain-and-nostalgia-for-fantasy-past/">Brexit</a> and, as mentioned above, the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2014/02/shinzo-abes-nationalist-strategy/">policies of Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party</a>. </p>
<p>On the global scale, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2019/mar/06/revealed-the-rise-and-rise-of-populist-rhetoric">rise of populism</a>, diplomatic spats and outright conflict sees much of the world drawing away from their neighbours. This is happening when, to counteract the effects of climate change and face the exponential <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2017/11/16/climate-change-will-bring-more-frequent-natural-disasters-weigh-on-economic-growth">increase in disaster</a>, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/10/04/humanitys-greatest-challenge-coming-together-fight-climate-emergency">we must unite</a>. </p>
<p><em>Godzilla Minus One</em> shows how we must rely on a fondness — even a nostalgia — for times of togetherness that do not mix with a nationalist sentiment that encourages isolationism and aggression towards others. </p>
<p>To do so really would be to go from zero to minus one. From there, there is little guarantee we can recover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Corker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The film asks how individuals and communities can tackle disaster while embracing an ethos of mutual aid that sidesteps yearning for nationalist policies that lead to even more harm.Chris Corker, PhD Student, Humanities, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2167502023-12-14T19:19:58Z2023-12-14T19:19:58ZFriday essay: do readers dream of running a bookshop? Books about booksellers are having a moment – the reality can be less romantic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559208/original/file-20231114-25-gsa01.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C7916%2C5297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/paris-france-23-dec-2018-view-1268337910">EQRoy/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>My mother and I wanted to open a bookshop. We signed up for a CAE course, which was cancelled when the bookseller who ran it went out of business. I learnt this later because I went on to work in a bookshop and the book business is a small world.</p>
<p>As are bookshops. And books. Worlds within worlds within worlds.</p>
<p>My first job was in hospitality. It was hard work; physical labour. I cased city bookshops, handing out my CV, dreaming of a different life. My new boss saw me coming: I spent my first day unpacking box after box. Stacking, shelving – book after book. He tried to teach me they might as well be bricks, albeit in pretty packaging. Not-so-fast-moving, never-moving-as-fast-as-booksellers-might-like consumer goods.</p>
<p>But “handselling”, that mainstay of the independent “High Street” book trade, was everything I hoped it would be. I loved – love – the aesthetic object of the book. The artefact at the heart of an exchange that is rarely as simple as a commercial transaction. (Except, you might say, when someone is buying something as a gift that says “I spent this much. I know this much about you.” But even then, it seemed we were engaged in a storytelling exchange. Swapping literary histories. Imagining reading futures.)</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-hail-the-bookshop-survivor-against-the-odds-63758">All hail the bookshop: survivor against the odds</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It wasn’t only the book-based conversations with customers and colleagues that fulfilled my expectations. Part of the pleasure of bookselling was the sense of satisfaction I got in being a <a href="https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/bibliotherapy#:%7E:text=What%20is%20bibliotherapy%3F,comforts%20us%20during%20challenging%20times">bibliotherapeutic matchmaker</a>. Reader, I had been training for this my whole life. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photograph of an old fashioned bookshop sign" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559185/original/file-20231113-19-h5ug4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The artefact at the heart of a book sale is rarely as simple as a commercial transaction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bookshop-sign-on-steel-plate-vintage-1807258558">sylv1rob1/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Given the sense of community that coalesces around bookstores and the connection between people books can be a conduit for, it’s not surprising books about bookshops are popular. These stories are a genre unto themselves. They are invariably romantic, offering a different kind of (infinite) world within a (finite) world.</p>
<p>There are famous examples from fantasy, such as the wildly popular <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1232.The_Shadow_of_the_Wind?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=WSSOSeTRe6&rank=1">The Shadow of the Wind</a> (2001), and closer to home, the wonderful adventure that is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45712581-from-here-on-monsters?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=YRktTZ2rbS&rank=1">From Here on, Monsters</a> (2020), both featuring antiquarian booksellers. Nonfiction books such as the 1970 classic <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368916.84_Charing_Cross_Road?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16">84 Charing Cross Road</a>, a tale told in letters between a New York writer and a used book dealer in London, rub spines with historical novels such as <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-bookseller-of-florence-9781784709372">The Bookseller of Florence: Vespasiano da Bisticci and the Manuscripts that Illuminated the Renaissance</a> (2021).</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover: Bookseller of Kabul" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565633/original/file-20231213-15-uckt07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1186&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>More recently there has been a spate of translations. From <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9838.The_Bookseller_of_Kabul?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_23">The Bookseller of Kabul</a>, first published in Norwegian in 2002, to <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62047992-days-at-the-morisaki-bookshop?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=P4yzPqbsMp&rank=1">Days at the Morisaki Bookshop</a>, by Japanese author Satoshi Yagisawa, to <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/welcome-to-the-hyunamdong-bookshop-9781526662279/">Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop</a>, Shanna Tan’s 2023 translation of Hwang Bo-Reum’s 2022 Korean bestseller.</p>
<p>These tales are not only set in bookshops, but revolve around bookselling itself. They describe the day-to-day work in detail, as meaningful: life sustaining and life-changing. A longed-for return to authenticity and more-than-economic exchange.</p>
<p>The reality is a little different. </p>
<p>In a 2019 <a href="https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-237/retain-therapist/">essay for Overland</a> aptly titled “Retail Therapist”, bookseller and writer Freya Howarth articulated the “desirable, intellectual, even romantic” perception of working in a bookshop and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-emotional-labour-and-how-do-we-get-it-wrong-185773">emotional labour</a> at its heart.</p>
<p>This non-unionised, highly educated, usually part-time and often under-employed workforce provided a particular service, she wrote. Booksellers care for customers: smile, listen, suggest. And retail work, Howarth argued, has historically been feminised. </p>
<p>The industry’s working conditions have made the news as a result of pay disputes such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/24/renowned-melbourne-bookstore-in-war-of-words-with-authors-over-traumatic-pay-dispute">a recent one at Melbourne’s Readings bookstores</a> during negotiations over an enterprise bargaining agreement.</p>
<p>After a heated dispute, in which authors sent a letter to Readings calling for “a living wage” for staff, the bookseller became the second Australian bookshop to <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/culture/books/one-of-the-world-s-great-booksellers-ends-a-long-chapter-at-readings-20230727-p5drp1.html">negotiate an EBA</a>. It was hailed by the staff union as “one of the best retail agreements in Australia”. </p>
<p>Still, what was it <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/02/job-love/">some old-timer once said</a>? Find a job you love and you never have to work a day in your life. Howarth’s point is that finding a job you love – such as bookselling, or publishing; or I would add academia – may mean you work unpaid overtime for the rest of your life.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/saturday-is-love-your-bookshop-day-5-reasons-why-readers-keep-coming-back-to-independent-book-stores-169445">Saturday is Love your Bookshop Day. 5 reasons why readers keep coming back to independent book stores</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Contradictory worlds</h2>
<p>One of the most famous contemporary books about bookselling is undoubtedly the Norwegian bestseller The Bookseller of Kabul. Published in English in 2003 (translated by Ingrid Christophersen), this nonfiction narrative by journalist Asne Seierstad tells the story of self-made small businessman Shah Muhammad Rais and his family, with whom the author stayed for four months. </p>
<p>Rais’s store, which opened in 1974, was a gathering place for intellectuals, housing a vast collection of books on Afghanistan, as well as foreign titles – when he wasn’t hiding them around the city.</p>
<p>Rais was repeatedly arrested, interrogated and imprisoned for his views on censorship. Seierstad makes clear her subject’s belief in the power of books and the important role they play in education and liberation. Meanwhile, however, the eponymous bookseller’s two wives were confined to their homes. </p>
<p>Seierstad was in a unique position: as a Westerner she had an outsider’s perspective and was able to move between public and private, male and female domains. She made the unusual decision to write some chapters from different characters’ perspectives, which somewhat compromised the book’s status as nonfiction, but there was no mistaking her political point of view.</p>
<p>This real-life story took a turn when the family later brought legal action against the author. A Norwegian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/13/bookseller-of-kabul-author-cleared">court cleared Seierstad of any invasion of privacy</a> in 2011 and concluded the facts of the book were accurate. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cover of Shah Muhammad Rais's book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559202/original/file-20231114-15-titmu6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>But Rais is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/04/bookseller-of-kabul-becomes-asylum-seeker-in-london">claiming asylum in the UK </a>, with his family scattered across the globe. He has published his own version of his story: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2240160.Once_Upon_a_Time_There_Was_a_Bookseller_in_Kabul">Once Upon a Time There Was a Bookseller in Kabul</a>. </p>
<p>Books about bookselling in translation may be the ultimate escapism. They are not literary; they are about literature. (Though too over-the-top an affirmation of the value of books and reading risks the medium contradicting the message.) We read for insight into a world that is usually worlds away from “ours”.</p>
<p>However, there is a sparseness to the prose of these international titles that makes it hard to parse. Is the baldness of the language a stylistic or cultural characteristic of the original? Is it an aspect (intentional? accidental?) of the translation? Certainly, for me, it adds to their foreignness.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cover of Carsten Henn's book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565632/original/file-20231213-17-tjeu1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>In Carsten Henn’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62192261-the-door-to-door-bookstore?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=8XonUolGwM&rank=1">The Door-to-Door Bookstore</a> (2020), translated from German by Melody Shaw and published in English this year, Carl Kollhoff delivers book requests direct to his reclusive customers – whose reading styles are humorously described and readily recognisable. Hares race through pages while tortoises fall asleep while reading.</p>
<p>When a young girl tags along on Carl’s rounds, playing havoc with his system of choosing books for customers, the message is clear: what we want to read is not always what we need. The friendship that develops is charming and heartwarming, with the oddball pair and their worthy work pitted against big, bad business when the boss’s daughter takes over the family bookshop. </p>
<p>(His book also reminded me of a dear friend who used to say there are courtly readers – who, like chaste lovers, never abandoned a book face down, stained it with wine, scribbled in the margins or dog-eared pages. And then there are those like me. Let’s just say my books have lived a life.)</p>
<p>It may be no coincidence that these newer additions to the genre emerged during, or soon after, the world’s long lockdowns. Many of us experienced a desperate desire to find <a href="https://www.window-swap.com/">windows onto a world beyond our own backyards</a>. Invalids are often avid readers (perhaps most famously, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-louis-stevenson">Robert Louis Stevenson</a>) and COVID made patients, prisoners of us all. I would go as far as to say my pre-teen learnt to read, really lose himself in a book, during quarantine. Even when screen time was limited, his Kindle was always available – though the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12109-022-09899-w">lack of access to physical libraries</a> disadvantaged others.</p>
<p>What better place to escape to – through the pages of a book – than an overseas bookshop? A key feature of The Door-to-Door Bookstore and the titles that follow are their to-be-read lists – which are interspersed throughout, often discussed in conversations between characters. The books themselves might even be seen as portable libraries – or old-fashioned indexes, at least. Annotated bibliographies of what we should read; summaries of what we did, once, but may have forgotten.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557675/original/file-20231106-21-jj3a4s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Days+at+the+Morisaki+Bookshop&ref=nav_sb_noss_l_29">Goodreads</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Days+at+the+Morisaki+Bookshop&ref=nav_sb_noss_l_29">Days at the Morisaki Bookshop</a>, translated from Japanese by Eric Ozawa this year, was written by Satoshi Yagisawa in 2010. Twenty-year-old Takako quits her job and takes to her bed when her boyfriend announces, out of the blue, he is marrying someone else. Facing the prospect of moving home, she instead moves into the flat above her eccentric uncle’s bookshop.</p>
<p>A proud non-reader, Takako gradually returns to books as her heart heals.</p>
<p>This book rather heavy-handedly makes the case for great literature as a doorway not only into other worlds, but onto other selves. Or back to a true self for damaged salary-workers like Takako who have been swept off course. The shop is repeatedly described as a “safe harbour”. A place to shelter, regather and regroup – for bookseller and buyers alike. </p>
<p>Books about bookshops may be read as “heterotopias”, a concept Michel Foucault uses <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23696520-of-other-spaces-heterotopias?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=DEWYFL5fsK&rank=1">to describe</a> cultural and discursive spaces that are contradictory or transformative. Worlds within worlds. Parallel spaces such as museums and botanic gardens that mirror the “real” world but are artfully, artificially created curations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-ideas-of-foucault-99758">Explainer: the ideas of Foucault</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Bookshops are similarly contradictory: though they may be idealised as places of escape and reading may be romanticised as transformative, both are intrinsically bound up with capitalism. They offer solace, but ultimately exist to sell. </p>
<p>Still, the opposite is true too. Books are commercial products but their content escapes the covers. Like <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27712.The_Neverending_Story">The Neverending Story</a>, the “other” world we read about bleeds into our own. Even if a book is banned or burned, once read it is out in the world.</p>
<h2>A love letter and pause for thought</h2>
<p>Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is an even more explicit love letter to bookselling. Running a bookshop enables the novel’s main character to get out of the rat race and eventually even find her soulmate. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559210/original/file-20231114-21-ul1ah1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>“I must open a bookshop,” Yeongju says. Throwing herself headlong into this task as a way to change her life, she reinvents her relationship with work. Her story is a blow-by-blow account of her building the business, making conscious choices about employee relations, carving out personal reading time and nurturing a local community in an out-of-the-way neighbourhood.</p>
<p>Given my own early experience in the secondhand and antiquarian trade, along with a short stint at the BooksEtc chain in the UK, it’s hard to argue against the idea of bookselling as an alternate way of making a living. </p>
<p>But it’s not necessarily an alternative one. A bookshop is, after all, a business. One that is battling the behemoth Amazon, as well as an ever-increasing number of entertainment alternatives and ever-diminishing attention spans. Even reluctant booksellers embraced social media and e-commerce during COVID – as Yeongju learns to do.</p>
<p>If bookshops are to survive and thrive, perhaps they do well to “sell” the idea theirs is a different kind of career. A calling.</p>
<p>Robbie Egan, CEO of BookPeople (previously the Australian Booksellers Association), has described bookshops as “third-places”, engaging with their customers in meaningful ways that <a href="https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2022/10/21/222118/what-does-the-future-look-like-for-bookselling/">can’t be reduced to a commercial transaction</a>. It’s about community, he tells me, pointing out how many Australian writers have been – or still are – booksellers, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/fat-people-are-taught-to-hate-themselves-but-kris-kneens-intimate-book-could-create-change-206518">Kris Kneen</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-will-not-hide-helen-garners-radical-gift-is-the-shock-of-plain-speaking-179090">Sean O’Beirne</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-melbourne-bookshop-that-ignited-australian-modernism-138300">Friday essay: the Melbourne bookshop that ignited Australian modernism</a>
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<p>In a note to readers in Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, Bo-Reum reflects on writing her debut novel. She describes how she sat at her desk every day not knowing what to write, until the bookshop appeared. “Everything else fell in place.” This letter perpetuates ideas about writing (immersive, inspirational, enjoyable) that are every bit as romantic as the world of bookselling she describes.</p>
<p>Yet of all these recent books, The Bookseller of Kabul is the one I return to. I cannot forget Seierstad’s imagined account of Aimal, Sultan’s youngest son, in a chapter called The Dreary Room. He is 12 years old and works 12 hours a day, seven days a week “in a little booth in the dark lobby of one of Kabul’s hotels”. </p>
<p>Aimal longs to go to school. He wails that his father, a rich bookseller “passionate about words and history”, has him working in a sweet shop as the best way to learn the family business.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216750/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rose Michael was previously the editor of Books + Publishing magazine.</span></em></p>From Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, to The Door-to-Door Bookstore, a variety of new novels present bookselling as a source of solace, meaning and escape. What’s going on here?Rose Michael, Senior Lecturer, Writing & Publishing, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197042023-12-14T15:54:12Z2023-12-14T15:54:12Z‘American Fiction’ asks who gets to decide Blackness<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/american-fiction-asks-who-gets-to-decide-blackness" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The much-anticipated <em>American Fiction</em> comes to theatres this month. As a long-time scholar of Percival Everett, the author whose 2001 novel, <a href="https://www.ctpublic.org/2023-12-12/advice-from-a-critic-read-erasure-before-seeing-american-fiction"><em>Erasure</em></a>, was adapted for this critically praised film I am curious how the main themes of the book will be explored.</p>
<p>Directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright, the film presents an opportunity to talk about race, power and white supremacy within intellectual and cultural spaces, including higher education. Specifically, what version of Blackness is acceptable or saleable within American culture? </p>
<p>Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, the protagonist of <em>American Fiction</em>, is a novelist and an English professor. He struggles with the power that determines which versions of Blackness “count” and who makes these determinations. </p>
<p>In <em>Erasure</em>, Monk is constantly told that his work is not “Black enough.” But the determination of his Blackness is most often decided by people who are not themselves racialized within American society. </p>
<p>He finally gets so fed-up by the lack of sales for his literary novels, that he decides to write a satirical novel as a joke. </p>
<p>To his complete surprise, his ghetto novel, <em>My Pafology</em>, becomes a bestselling, award-winning novel. The film rights eventually sell for millions. But Monk’s ambivalence is unavoidable, since his work’s “success” is based entirely on terms set by other people. </p>
<p>And now, a novel satirizing how stereotypical versions of Blackness are often preferred by and sold to American culture has been made into <em>American Fiction</em>, a major motion picture, with wide cinematic release. It’s difficult not to feel ambivalent.</p>
<p>As a scholar who has written two books and given numerous interviews and talks on Black identity and race in Canada and as a longtime university English professor and now a university administrator, I am not Monk. But I get Monk. Like him, I have been frustrated and confused by the disjunctions between theory and practice so characteristic of life in the academy, especially in those moments when race — and particularly Blackness — is being discussed. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/american-fiction-is-a-scathing-satire-that-challenges-pop-culture-stereotypes-of-blackness-217988">'American Fiction' is a scathing satire that challenges pop-culture stereotypes of Blackness</a>
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<h2>Questions of power</h2>
<p>In my own setting, as a Black man born in Canada, working and teaching at an American college, I too am asking which versions of diversity matter and who decides how and when it matters.</p>
<p>Everett’s novel highlights racist mechanisms within society, many of which appear so natural that we no longer think of them as mechanisms at all.</p>
<p>In her 2019 book, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook"><em>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</em></a>, American philosopher and scholar Shoshana Zuboff analyzes power through the role that giant tech companies play in our lives, often without our noticing them. Her book asks a question crucial to the understanding of how power works: “Who knows? Who decides? Who decides who decides?” </p>
<p>I find Zuboff’s questions useful in thinking about how power in relation to race works in colleges and universities, especially as institutions emphasize their commitment to “diversity,” on the one hand, while maintaining a glacial pace of change, on the other. </p>
<h2>Diversity needs a wholesale renovation</h2>
<p>Recently, someone at the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences <a href="https://www.ccas.net/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3940&pageid=1">(CCAS)</a> conference said the most effective way to diversify university faculties is through hiring. But the idea of hiring for diversity has led to a backlash in some quarters. </p>
<p>Recent attacks against <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/the-diversity-backlash-here-s-how-to-resist-it/">“diversity, equity and inclusion” policies</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/what-critical-race-theory-means-why-its-igniting-debate-2021-09-21/">misunderstandings of critical race theory</a> have pitted historical holders of power against those usually only spoken about. Controversies like these do not promise speedy progress where race is concerned.</p>
<p>I’m often equally perplexed by those who purport to be on my side. </p>
<p>Like Monk, the sources of much misunderstanding among my academic peers are people who say they want to help members of underrepresented groups on their campuses. </p>
<p>The expression “underrepresented groups” is another of these natural-looking expressions, now quite prominent in diversity policies. It actually obscures the important questions about the mechanisms and decisions that have resulted in these particular groups becoming underrepresented in universities in the first place. </p>
<p>The way that progress within a culture looks depends on who is doing the looking. At the CCAS conference, sociologist Nicole Stokes, interim vice-chancellor of student affairs at Pennsylvania State University (Abington), put all of this very well. She said a lot of the diversity work she sees looks a lot like surface remodelling, like putting new doors on old kitchen cabinets for example. But diversity work needs to be a wholesale renovation: when you take your kitchen down to the studs and start again.</p>
<p>In a way similar to who decides what is a saleable artifact from a minority culture, those deciding whether to remodel or to renovate are usually not those most directly affected by the history that has brought the need for such policies into being.</p>
<p>I’ve been a college professor for 28 years, and I’m currently an associate dean. If I feel this way, then how do you suppose junior colleagues of colour, or, more importantly, students of colour might feel? </p>
<p>For diversity policies to be taken seriously, we need to come clean on who has always decided their direction and value, and then work from there.</p>
<p>In the end, power dynamics don’t change in <em>American Fiction</em>, but at least Monk gets a bestseller and a movie deal.</p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/edde9889-d430-40cb-b879-4b21d58d2936?dark=true"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The release of ‘American Fiction’ presents an opportunity to talk about race, power and white supremacy: What version of Blackness is acceptable or saleable within American culture?Anthony Stewart, Associate Dean (Arts and Humanities), Bucknell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2179882023-12-14T15:54:09Z2023-12-14T15:54:09Z‘American Fiction’ is a scathing satire that challenges pop-culture stereotypes of Blackness<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563028/original/file-20231201-27-tecr8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=134%2C0%2C4250%2C2910&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Erika Alexander is Coraline and Jeffrey Wright is Monk in 'American Fiction.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Claire Folger/Orion)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In this episode, Vinita sits down with two experts to break down the many layers — and Black stereotypes — in the much anticipated new film, American Fiction.</em></p>
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<p>The lead character of the new movie <em>American Fiction</em> is Monk. He’s a Black man but never feels ‘Black’ enough: he graduated from Harvard, his siblings are doctors, he doesn’t play basketball and he writes literary novels. </p>
<p>Directed and written by former journalist Cord Jefferson, <em>American Fiction</em> won this year’s People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it has its much anticipated North American release in theatres this month. It’s been called an “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/sep/10/american-fiction-review-cord-jefferson-jeffrey-wright">incisive literary satire</a>” by the <em>Guardian</em>. </p>
<p>The film, starring Jeffrey Wright, is an adaption of the 2001 novel <em>Erasure</em> by Percival Everett. The book and the film are centred on Monk, a novelist who’s fed up with a white-led publishing industry that profits from Black entertainment and tired tropes. As a Black man who thinks about race but also rages against having to talk about it, Monk gets so frustrated that he decides to poke fun of those who uncritically consume what they are sold as “Black culture.”</p>
<p>He uses a pen name to write an outlandish “Black” book of his own. It’s about “thug life” and is called “My Pafology.” But plot twist: his attempt at satire is lost on his audience and the book ends up becoming wildly successful. Suddenly, Monk is among those profiting off the stereotypes he so despises. The rest of the story explores “<a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/american-fiction-review-jeffrey-wright-1235718392/">the unfairness of asking individual artists to represent the entire Black experience</a>.”</p>
<p>In this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em>, Prof. Vershawn Ashanti Young of University of Waterloo and Prof. Anthony Stewart of Bucknell University join forces to break down the many layers of Monk’s story and why Black stereotypes remain so persistent in pop culture.</p>
<h2>Read more in The Conversation</h2>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-7-165933">How stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future: Don't Call Me Resilient EP 7</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cultural-appropriation-and-the-whiteness-of-book-publishing-79095">Cultural appropriation and the whiteness of book publishing</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blackkklansman-a-deadly-serious-comedy-101432">'BlacKkKlansman' -- a deadly serious comedy</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harriet-tubman-film-does-not-deserve-the-twitter-hate-127493">Harriet Tubman film does not deserve the Twitter hate</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/american-fiction-asks-who-gets-to-decide-blackness-219704">'American Fiction' asks who gets to decide Blackness</a>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
<p><a href="https://lsupress.org/9780807172643/"><em>Approximate Gestures: Infinite Spaces in the Fiction of Percival Everett</em></a> by Anthony Stewart</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/08/awards-insider-first-look-american-fiction">First Look: American Fiction Challenges Hollywood’s “Poverty of Imagination” About Black People </a> (<em>Vanity Fair</em>)</p>
<p>“<a href="https://slate.com/culture/2016/09/how-amos-n-andy-paved-the-way-for-black-stars-on-tv.html">How Amos ’n’ Andy paved the way for Black Stars on TV</a>” (<em>Slate</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/native-son-richard-wright?variant=41224345419810"><em>Native Son</em></a> by Richard Wright</p>
<h2>Listen and follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_mJBLBznANz6ID9rBCUk7gv_ZRC4Og9-">YouTube</a> or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts. </p>
<p><a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dontcallmeresilientpodcast/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘American Fiction’ (Orion)</span></figcaption>
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In this episode, Vinita sits down with two experts to break down the many layers — and Black stereotypes — in the much anticipated new film, ‘American Fiction.’Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientDannielle Piper, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188622023-12-13T12:41:17Z2023-12-13T12:41:17ZDie Hard is a Christmas (terrorism) movie<p><em>The following article contains spoilers for Die Hard.</em></p>
<p>‘Tis the season – for office holiday parties, being jolly and the annual battle over whether Die Hard is a <a href="https://www.radiox.co.uk/news/tv-film/is-die-hard-a-christmas-film/">Christmas movie</a>. For years, a tongue-in-cheek debate has swirled around the violent action film, which was released in the US in July 1988, 35 years ago this year.</p>
<p>The movie is set on Christmas Eve at a skyscraper in Los Angeles, where Japanese conglomerate the Nakatomi Corporation is holding an office party for its staff and their family members. Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) is a New York City cop whose spouse, Holly Gennaro, works for Nakatomi. </p>
<p>A group of apparent terrorists takes over the building and seizes the partygoers as hostages. Their leader, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), demands the release of several members of terrorist groups held prisoner around the world and safe passage from the US. </p>
<p>The twist that soon emerges is that Gruber, an East German and one-time terrorist himself, is really leading a group of thieves. They are using the hostage taking as cover to carry out a heist of several hundred million dollars in bearer bonds, intending to make off with the bonds while sacrificing the hostages in the process. McClane intervenes to save the day.</p>
<p>Forgotten in the “is it a Christmas film?” debate is the terrorism angle in the movie’s plot and what it has to say about the subject. </p>
<h2>Fact and fiction</h2>
<p>In 1988, the cold war was still on, although on the wane. It was years before September 11 2001, after which terrorism would dominate international agendas, as well as receive greater attention in films. </p>
<p>In Die Hard, Gruber demands that prisoners from the New Provo Front, Liberte de Quebec and the Asian Dawn Movement be released in exchange for the hostages. Although the three terrorist groups are fictional, all are clearly modelled after real entities. </p>
<p>The New Provo Front is the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49299060">Provisional Irish Republican Army</a>, Liberte de Quebec is a stand in for <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/front-de-liberation-du-quebec">Front de libération du Québec</a> and the Asian Dawn Movement resembles the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, often referred to as the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/17/death-of-the-tiger">Tamil Tigers</a>. Gruber himself is mentioned as having once been a member of the Volksfrei, an apparent allusion to the Red Army Faction also known as the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35354812">Baader-Meinhof Group</a>. </p>
<p>While the pretend terrorists in Die Hard are clearly versions of real ones, they were somewhat out-of-date depictions. The film’s terrorists more readily resemble those active in the 1960s and 1970s, at least in relation to their motivation. </p>
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<p>Political scientist David C. Rapoport, in his <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2015.1112277">frequently challenged</a> article <a href="https://www.icct.nl/sites/default/files/import/publication/Rapoport-Four-Waves-of-Modern-Terrorism.pdf">The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism</a> referred to international terrorism in this era as the New Left wave, because of the far-left ideological motivation of many of those engaged in political violence. </p>
<p>In that sense, Die Hard in 1988 served up one last taste of the 1970s. But why? The answer lies in the source material. The screenplay is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp called <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nothing-Lasts-Forever-inspired-movie-ebook/dp/B006NZWXO2">Nothing Lasts Forever</a>.</p>
<p>In the novel, the terrorists, whose ranks include (in 1970s fashion) several women, are targeting a large corporate headquarters not because of greed but to expose the fictional Klaxon oil company’s support for the right-wing dictatorship in Chile, damaging the company in the process. These themes clearly had less resonance by the late 1980s when Die Hard was made, and the plot changed to transform the villains from far-left terrorists to an all-male collection of thieves. </p>
<h2>Terrorism of the 1980s</h2>
<p>By the time Die Hard first appeared in July 1988, the international terrorism landscape had become more varied and deadlier compared to the 1970s. Groups such as Shining Path and Hezbollah appeared earlier in the decade, and several high-profile and high-casualty attacks would occur throughout the 1980s. </p>
<p>The year Die Hard premiered, a terrorist group that would eventually become known as al-Qaeda was being organised in Afghanistan. This was part of what Rapoport viewed as a fourth terrorism wave connected to a religious motivation. Adding to the diverse and violent mix was state terrorism – political and ideological violence carried out by state agencies and often ignored in the focus on violence by non-state actors. </p>
<p>Indeed, just four days before Christmas 1988, a horrendous act of terrorism occurred: the bombing by Libyan government agents of <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/pan-am-flight-103-terrorist-suspect-custody-1988-bombing-over-lockerbie-scotland">Pan American Flight 103</a> over <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPZVoHt5nTc">Lockerbie, Scotland</a> in which 270 people, including 11 on the ground, died.</p>
<p>Actual terrorism may not have been present in the film, but it was in the world outside of the cinema at the time. In that sense, it is somewhat confounding that the film is now considered by many to be a Christmas classic. More than reminding viewers of the meaning of Christmas, Die Hard and the book it is based on remind us that political violence was enough of an ongoing reality to influence popular culture well before 9/11.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218862/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Hewitt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the film’s terrorists may have been fake, the message about the political climate of the time is real.Steve Hewitt, Associate Professor in North American History, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188782023-12-11T13:13:40Z2023-12-11T13:13:40ZThe Napoléon that Ridley Scott and Hollywood won’t let you see<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564552/original/file-20231208-29-g15j8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C6%2C1388%2C1023&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 1802 Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot was part of Napoléon's effort to retake Haiti − then known as Saint-Domingue − and reestablish slavery in the colony.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Haitian_Revolution.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Critics have been raking Ridley Scott’s new movie about Napoléon Bonaparte over the coals for its many <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/heres-why-historians-are-not-a-fan-of-ridley-scotts-napoleon/articleshow/105540885.cms">historical inaccuracies</a>.</p>
<p>As a scholar of French colonialism and slavery who studies <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tropics-of-haiti-9781781381854">historical fiction</a>, or the fictionalization of real events, I was much less bothered by most of the liberties taken in “Napoleon” – although shooting cannons at the pyramids <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/science/napoleon-movie-ridley-scott-egypt-pyramid.html">did seem like one indulgence too far</a>. </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5292/">argued elsewhere</a> that historical fictions need not necessarily be judged by adherence to facts. Instead, inventiveness, creativity, ideology and, ultimately, storytelling power are what matter most.</p>
<p>But in lieu of offering a fresh and imaginative take on Napoléon, Scott’s film rehearsed the well-known <a href="https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/12/04/battle-of-austerlitz-reenactment-draws-record-numbers-of-participants">battles of Austerlitz</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Wagram">Wagram</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/world/europe/200-years-after-battle-some-hard-feelings-remain.html">Waterloo</a>, while erasing perhaps the most momentous – and consequential – of Bonaparte’s military campaigns. </p>
<p>As with <a href="https://collider.com/great-napoleon-movies/#39-love-and-death-39-1975">every other Napoléon movie</a>, Scott’s version will leave viewers with no understanding of the <a href="https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/all-devils-are-here">genocidal war to restore slavery</a> that Bonaparte waged against Black revolutionaries in the French colony of Saint-Domingue – what’s known as Haiti today. </p>
<p>To me, leaving out this history is akin to making a movie about Hitler without mentioning the Holocaust. </p>
<h2>‘I am for the whites, because I am white’</h2>
<p>France’s seemingly eternal on-again, off-again war with Great Britain did not change the immediate boundaries of either country. These wars were often fought over land in the American hemisphere and included a historic contest over Martinique, a small island in the Caribbean, whose fate had far-reaching repercussions for slavery.</p>
<p>In 1794, following three years of slave rebellions in Saint-Domingue – events now known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-kingdom-of-haiti-the-wakanda-of-the-western-hemisphere-108250">the Haitian Revolution</a> – the French government <a href="https://revolution.chnm.org/d/291">abolished slavery</a> in all French overseas territories. </p>
<p>Martinique, however, was not included: The French had recently lost the island to the British <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/martinique-british-occupation-1794-1802">in battle</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/L_Europe_pendant_le_consulat_et_l_empire/9MROAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA234&printsec=frontcover">a 1799 speech to the French government</a>, Bonaparte explained that if he had been in Martinique at the time the French lost the colony, he would have been on the side of the British – because they never dared to abolish slavery. </p>
<p>“I am for the whites, because I am white,” Bonaparte said. “I have no other reason, and this is the right one. How could anyone have granted freedom to Africans, to men who had no civilization.” </p>
<p>Once he rose to power, Bonaparte signed the 1802 <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/treaty-amiens">Treaty of Amiens</a> with the British, which returned Martinique to French rule. Afterward, he passed a law permitting slavery to continue in Martinique. And in <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9tablissement_de_l%27esclavage_par_Napol%C3%A9on_Bonaparte">July 1802</a>, Bonaparte formally reinstated slavery on Guadeloupe, another French colony in the Caribbean. Slavery then persisted in France’s overseas empire until 1848, long after his death in 1821.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Saint-Domingue, Bonaparte <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62963447/f210.item">authorized</a> his <a href="https://unsansculotte.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/repression_revolt_and_racial_politics_ma.pdf">generals</a> to <a href="http://www.manioc.org/gsdl/collect/patrimon/tmp/NAN13043.html">eliminate the majority</a> of the adult Black population, and he signed a law to <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62963462/f457.image">reinstate the slave trade</a> to the island.</p>
<h2>A Black general’s rise</h2>
<p>For the mission to succeed, Bonaparte’s troops would have to contend with a formerly enslaved man called <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/loverture-toussaint-1743-1803/">Toussaint Louverture</a>, who had become a prominent leader during the early years of the Haitian Revolution. </p>
<p>After general emancipation, when the Black population had become citizens – rather than slaves – of France, Louverture joined the French army. He went on to play a key role in helping France combat and eventually defeat Spanish and British forces, who had since invaded the colony in an attempt to take it over.</p>
<p>Recognizing his military prowess, the French consistently promoted Louverture until he became the second Black general in a French army – after <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/people-global-african-history/dumas-thomas-alexandre-1762-1806/">General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas</a>, father of the famous French novelist Alexandre Dumas. (Thomas-Alexandre Dumas incidentally appears in the film as a character with a nonspeaking part.) </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Illustration of Black man dressed in military regalia opposite a man in religious garb. They are surrounded by soldiers and citizens, and a god-like figure looks over them from the clouds." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564546/original/file-20231208-18-oomc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A print of Toussaint Louverture holding a copy of the Constitution of 1801.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.31021/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1801, as a testament to his growing authority, Louverture issued a <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/haiti/1801/constitution.htm">famous constitution</a> that appointed him governor-general of the whole island. Yet he still professed fealty to France even as the colony became semi-autonomous. </p>
<p>By then, however, Bonaparte had assumed power as first consul of France – and had made it his mission to “<a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62963462/f330.image">annihilate the government of the Blacks</a>” in Saint-Domingue so he could bring back slavery.</p>
<p>In January 1802, Bonaparte sent his brother-in-law Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc to Saint-Domingue with tens of thousands of French troops. </p>
<p><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62963462/f424.image">Bonaparte’s instructions</a>? </p>
<p>Arrest Louverture and reinstate slavery. </p>
<h2>The fall of Louverture</h2>
<p>One of the film’s writers, <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/awards/consider-this/ridley-scott-napoleon-writer-david-scarpa-true-false-1234931486/#:%7E:text=There's%20a%20dangerous%20allure%20to,affair%20with%20his%20wife%2C%20right%3F">David Scarpa</a>, said Napoléon represents for him “the classic example of the benevolent dictator.” </p>
<p>If that Napoléon ever did exist, Louverture never met him.</p>
<p>In June 1802, Napoléon’s army arrested Louverture and deported him to France. As Louverture wasted away in a French prison, Bonaparte refused to put Louverture on trial. Throughout his incarceration, the guards at the jail denied Louverture food, water, heat and medical care. Louverture subsequently <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/wrongful-death-toussaint-louverture#:%7E:text=On%20the%20morning%20of%207,captive%20for%20nearly%20eight%20months.">starved and froze to death</a>.</p>
<p>With Louverture gone, Napoléon’s army operated with more bloodlust than ever before. In addition to conventional weapons, his troops fought the freedom fighters with <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Historical_Account_of_the_Black_Empir/CTpAAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22assumed+a+complexion+more+sanguinary+and+terrible+than+can+be+conceived+among+civilized+people%22&pg=PA326&printsec=frontcover">floating gas chambers</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Literary_Magazine_and_American_Regis/9BwAAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%E2%80%9CSeven+or+eight+hundred+blacks,+and+men+of+colour,+were+seized+upon+in+the+streets,+in+the+public+places,+in+the+very+houses%22&pg=PA447&printsec=frontcover">mass drownings</a> and <a href="https://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Ecavitch/pdf-library/Johnson_dogs_and_torture.pdf">dog attacks</a> – all in the name of restoring slavery.</p>
<p>The Black freedom fighters, now calling themselves the armée indigène, led by Haiti’s founder <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-haitis-founding-father-whose-black-revolution-was-too-radical-for-thomas-jefferson-101963">General Jean-Jacques Dessalines</a>, definitively defeated French forces in the historic <a href="https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/the-battle-of-vertieres/">Battle of Vertières</a> on Nov. 18, 1803. On Jan. 1, 1804, they <a href="https://haitidoi.com/doi/#:%7E:text=IT%20is%20not%20enough%20to,act%20of%20national%20authority%2C%20to">officially declared independence</a> from France and changed the name of the island to Haiti.</p>
<h2>‘A fatal move’</h2>
<p>If the filmmakers had included Napoléon’s failed mission to restore slavery in Saint-Domingue, it could have served as a propitious moment to tie the movie back to one of its only coherent arcs: Napoléon’s undying love for <a href="https://www.history.com/news/napoleon-josephine-bonaparte-love-story-marriage-divorce">Joséphine de Beauharnais</a>, his first wife.</p>
<p>In one memorable scene in the film, Joséphine tells Bonaparte that he is nothing without her, and he agrees.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Painting of woman with short brown hair wearing two necklackes and a white ruffled blouse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564547/original/file-20231208-29-3a2n46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564547/original/file-20231208-29-3a2n46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564547/original/file-20231208-29-3a2n46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564547/original/file-20231208-29-3a2n46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564547/original/file-20231208-29-3a2n46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564547/original/file-20231208-29-3a2n46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564547/original/file-20231208-29-3a2n46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joséphine de Beauharnais advised Napoléon to let Saint-Domingue operate as a semi-autonomous colony.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Jos%C3%A9phine_de_Beauharnais_vers_1809_Gros.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, Joséphine’s posthumously published memoir suggests that Bonaparte disregarded his wife’s most prescient counsel. Joséphine wrote that she urged her husband not to send an expedition to Saint-Domingue, prophesying this as a “fatal move” that “would forever take this beautiful colony away from France.” She <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9636609r/f112.image">advised Bonaparte</a>, alternatively, to “keep Toussaint Louverture there. That is the man required to govern the Blacks.” </p>
<p>She subsequently asked him, “What complaints could you have against this leader of the Blacks? He has always maintained correspondence with you; he has done even more, he has given you, in some sense, his children for hostages.” </p>
<p>Louverture’s children had attended Paris’ storied <a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/dhs_0070-6760_2000_num_32_1_2364">Collège de la Marche</a>, alongside the children of other prominent Black Saint-Domingue officials. Although Bonaparte ended up sending Louverture’s children back to the colony with Leclerc, another Black general from Saint-Domingue who fought to oppose slavery’s reinstatement was not so lucky. </p>
<p>Just before Bonaparte’s troops began their genocidal war in the name of restoring slavery, Haiti’s future king, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-king-of-haiti-and-the-dilemmas-of-freedom-in-a-colonised-world">General Henry Christophe</a>, sent his son, François Ferdinand, to the Collège de la Marche. </p>
<p>After the Haitian revolutionaries defeated France and declared the island independent in 1804, Bonaparte ordered the school closed. Many of its Black students, like young Ferdinand, were then thrown into orphanages. The abandoned child <a href="https://archive.org/details/rflexionspolitiq00vast/page/6/mode/2up?q=Ferdinand">died alone in July 1805</a> at the age of 11.</p>
<p>Only at the end of his life, during his second exile on the remote island of St. Helena, did Napoléon express remorse for any of this. </p>
<p>“I can only reproach myself for the attempt on that colony,” the <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4710580&seq=533&q1=Toussaint">defunct emperor</a> said. “I should have contented myself with governing it through Toussaint.”</p>
<h2>A missed opportunity</h2>
<p>By including some of this rich material, Ridley Scott could have made a truly original film with historical and contemporary relevance. </p>
<p>After all, Napoléon’s history of trying to stop the Haitian Revolution – the most significant revolution for freedom the modern world has ever seen – has never been depicted on a Hollywood screen.</p>
<p>Instead, hiding behind beautiful cinematography, magnificent costuming and Vanessa Kirby’s masterful portrayal of Joséphine, Scott ultimately produced an unimaginative film about the already well-trodden military successes and failures of the man depicted as having literally crowned himself France’s emperor.</p>
<p>If “Napoleon” doesn’t exactly glorify its main subject, its creators certainly seemed to sympathize with the man whose wars were responsible for more than 3,000,000 deaths, as the film’s final caption reads. </p>
<p>The film did not say whether that number includes the tens of thousands of Black people Napoléon’s army killed in Saint-Domingue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218878/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlene Daut does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leaving out the history of Napoléon’s brutal subjugation of Haiti is akin to making a movie about Hitler without mentioning the Holocaust.Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African American Studies, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.