Archive for December 2019

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[Commlist] Frames Cinema Journal, Issue 16 "Magical Women, Witches & Healers" Published

Mon Dec 16 17:40:08 GMT 2019






*/Frames Cinema Journal/*

*Magical Women, Witches & Healers*

*Issue 16, Winter 2019*

Dear colleagues,

It is with great enthusiasm which we announce thatIssue 16 of Frames Cinema Journal, “Magical Women, Witches & Healers”Frames Cinema Journal, “Magical Women, Witches & Healers”, <https://framescinemajournal.com/>/Frames Cinema Journal,<https://framescinemajournal.com/>/“Magical Women, Witches & Healers”, <https://framescinemajournal.com/> has now been published!

Having taken inspiration from the current resurgence of witches in popular culture, the/FCJ/editorial team wanted the journal’s 16^th issue to acknowledge and celebrate the magical woman’s rich global onscreen history by investigating her manifestations in the 21^st century and revisiting those of the past century. Our mission with this issue was to unearth previously undiscussed cinematic witches and tease out the histories and representations of a variety of magical women.

We are pleased to announce that this issue is stocked with a diversity of articles that examine the magical woman from a myriad of perspectives and contexts, offering original and insightful writing on the topic.

Our*Features*section includes articles which examine the magical woman from a diversity of national and historical contexts. They each investigate how the magical woman is imbued with meaning by the culture and lore in which she exists, and how this affects her visual and narrative representation in film. More broadly, these articles are connected by their discussion of female sexuality, femininity, cultural function, power, and defiance of patriarchy.*Lilla Tőke*dissects the image of the fox-fairy in Károly Ujj Mészáros’s/Liza, a rókatündér///Liza, The Fox-Fairy/(2015) to argue how the figure of the witch or magical woman is a product of internalised patriarchy.By addressing the misogynistic doctrine of the/Malleus Maleficarum/(1487),*Chloe Carroll*offers a feminist analysis of/The Witch/(2016), which argues how film is returning to the roots of historical female persecution to reconstruct and restore this imagery and functions as a source of empowerment of women today.*Zahra Khosroshahi*examines how the diasporic Iranian horror films/A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night/(2014) and/Under the Shadow/(2016) use magical and monstrous elements to explore non-Western femininity – both as domestically understood and as stereotyped by the world’s media.*Amelia Crowther*focuses on the cinematic appropriation of the hag witch in the late-1960s, discussing its multitudes of meaning, from the monstrous incarnation of the female body to female resistance and liberation in films concerning patriarchal horror.*Sandra Huber*explores the treatment of vengeance, grief, and joy in/Midsommar/(2019), highlighting the excess of fluids in the film and their transformative potentials.*Christine Hui*refers to the concept of Shōjo to explore the politics of magical agency and girlhood present in the figures of contemporary animated fairy tale films, specifically/Tangled/(2010) and/Kaguya-hime no Monogatari///The Tale of Princess Kaguya/(2013).*Edmund Cueva*traces the historical descriptions of Medea in literature and the arts, and examines their influence of the filmic representation of Medea as a fearsome magical woman in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s/Medea/(1969), Jules Dassin’s/A Dream of Passion/(1978), Arturo Ripstein’s/Así es la vida/Such Is Life/(2000), and Lars von Trier’s/Medea/(1988).*Kwasu D. Tembo*reads/The Witch/(2015) and/Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse/(2017) in terms of Nietzsche’s discussion of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, approaching their folk-horror witches as figures of both excess and excrescence.

Our*POV*section includes articles which foreground the performativity of the witch, taking specific consideration of her appearance, materiality, and personification.*Teresa Castro*questions what it means to gaze at an onscreen witch, by exploring the representational politics of the feminine figure. She considers her modality in classic narrative filmographies and in the work of experimental female filmmakers, to argue how she is saddled between the law of feminised nature and western patriarchy.*Judith Noble*investigates Maya Deren’s ‘artist-magician’ persona, developed over the films/Meshes of the Afternoon/(1942),/At Land/(1944), and/Ritual in Transfigured Time/(1946), as a reflection of the artist’s own personal life-long commitment to magic and witchcraft, as well as to argue its influence on feminist artist-filmmakers working in the 1970s and 1980s. Drawing on the figure of Elaine from/The Love Witch/(2016) for inspiration,*Cathy Lomax*illuminates the connection between makeup and witchcraft, and recalls its subversive and scandalous onscreen history.*Ted Fisher*explores the concept of the choreographer as witch – born from the image of Mary Wigman’s “Witch Dance” – offering analyses of Pina Bausch in/Un jour Pina a demandé/…//On Tour with Pina Bausch/(1983), Mathilde Monnier in/Toward Mathilde/(2005), Bobbie Jene Smith in/Bobbi Jene/(2017), and Wigman’s reimagined Witch Dance in the recent remake of/Suspiria/(2018).*Lisa Duffy*develops a genealogy of Disney witches, focusing on how the camp characteristics that long signified the evilness of these characters have been reclaimed to more positive ends in recent titles, such as/Frozen/(2013).

In a new section for the journal, our*Film Featurettes*provide historical and cultural discussions of their closely examined films.*Martin F. Norden*discusses the political forces that encumbered and eventually terminated Tod Browning’s film project/The Witch of Timbuctoo/, highlighting Hollywood’s white washing of, and colonial anxieties around, its voodoo subject. Drawing on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notion of the oneiric ability of film,*Anna Marta Marini*explores the visualisation of magic in/Bless Me, Ultima/(2013) as imagined in the Chicano 1972 novel of the same name by Rudolfo Anaya.

Our*Book Review*section features reviews of Heather Greene’s*/Bell, Book and Camera: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television/*//(2018), Thomas J. Connelly’s*/Cinema of Confinement/*//(2019), Steven Rawle’s*/Transnational Cinema: An Introduction/*//(2018), and*Auteur Publishing’s Devil’s Advocates*series.

*Issue 16: Table of Contents*

*Feature Articles*

Witch’s Curse: Hegemonic Narratives, Female Melancholy, and the Perseverance of Patriarchy in/Liza, the Fox-Fairy/

By Lilla Tőke

“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”: Female Persecution and Redemption in/The Witch/

By Chloe Carroll

Vampires, Jinn and the Magical in Iranian Horror Films

By Zahra Khosroshahi

Hag Witches and Women’s Liberation: Negotiations of Feminist Excess in the U.S. Horror Film, 1968-1972

By Amelia Crowther

Blood and Tears and Potions and Flame: Excesses of Transformation in Ari Aster’s/Midsommar/

By Sandra Huber

Sun Flowers and Moon Powers: Princesses and Magical Agency in/Tangled/and/The Tale of the Princess Kaguya/

By Christine Hui

Medea: The Magical Woman Since Antiquity

By Edmund Cueva

The Left-Hand Path: On the Dialectics of Witchery in/The Witch/and/Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse/

By Kwasu D. Tembo

*POV*

Gazing at the Witches: From Women on the Verge of a Breakdown to Reclaiming the Eco-Witch in 1960s-1970s Film

By Teresa Castro

Maya Deren: The Magical Woman as Filmmaker

By Judith Noble

Makeup as Dark Magic:/The Love Witch/and the Subversive Female Gaze

By Cathy Lomax

The Choreographer as a Witch in Contemporary Dance Documentaries

By Ted Fisher

 From the Evil Queen to Elsa: Camp Witches in Disney Films

By Lisa Duffy

*Film Featurettes*

The Witch Who Wasn’t: The Erasure of Afrocentric Sorcery in/The Witch of Timbuctoo/

By Martin F. Norden

/Bless me, Ultima/and the Representation of Social Relations in the Mexican-American Borderlands

By Anna Marta Marini

**

*Book Reviews*

/Bell, Book and Camera: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television/

Reviewed by Ana Maria Sapountzi

/Cinema of Confinement/

Reviewed by Cassice Last

/Transnational Cinema: An Introduction/

Reviewed by Sanghita Sen

/The Devils/and The Devil’s Advocates

Reviewed by Matthew Melia

With this issue, we hope to have provided a deserving spotlight in academic scholarship for the filmic and cinematic witch.

Happy reading!

Ana Maria Sapountzi and Peize Li

*Co-Editors-in-Chief of**/Frames Cinema Journal/*

**

*Thank you to:*Patrick Adamson,Jane Barnwell,Dr Fátima Chinita,Dr Jonathan Evans,Ke Fang,Dr Ruth Farrar,Dr James Fenwick,Andrea Gelardi,Frieda Gerhardt,Sophie Hopmeier,Darae Kim,Dr George S. Larke-Walsh,September Liu,Dr Shana MacDonald, Dr Connor McMorran,Maria Fernanda Miño Puga,Dr Matilde Nardelli,Forrest Pando,Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal,Dr Maria Velez-Serna,Lucy Szemetova,Kata Szita,Dr Kim Walden,Dr Jonathan Wroot.*Without your hard work this issue would have not been possible.*

**

*Follow us at @FramesJournal on Twitter!*

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