Cinema and Theology: The Case of Heaven Over the Marshes

André Bazins impact, as theorist and critic, is widely considered to be greater than that of any single director, actor, or producer, despite his early death (at only 40) of leukemia in 1958. He is credited with almost single-handedly establishing the study of film as an accepted intellectual pursuit, as well as with being the spiritual father of the French New Wave. In 1951 Bazin co-founded and became editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinéma, the single most influential critical periodical in the history of the cinema. Bazin can also be considered the principal instigator of the equally influential auteur theory: the idea that, since film is an art form, the director of a movie must be perceived as the chief creator of its unique cinematic style. In this review-essay, Bazin reveals that he was also the most religious of film critics and theorists. He is fundamentally holistic in his Catholicism, however, not remotely doctrinal. Spiritual sensitivity and its enablement through cinema are central to Bazins view of film as obligated to God, to honor Gods universe by rendering its reality and, by means of its reality, its mystery. Thus Bazin believes that Augusto Geninas’ Heaven over the Marshes (1949) is a good Catholic film Precisely because it rejects religious ornament and the supernatural element of traditional hagiographies, in favor of creating a phenomenology of sainthood. Genina, that is, looks at sainthood from the outside, as the ambiguous yet tangible manifestation of a spiritual reality that is absolutely impossible to prove. Hence Heaven over the Marshes confers sainthood on the murdered Maria Goretti not a priori, like most cinematic hagiographies, but only after the fact

La profondeur de champ et la crise du sujet en débat (1945-1949)

1. L’équivalent du montage moderne (1945 et 1947) [par Georges Sadoul] […] La poursuite dramatique avait apparu, sous une forme assez élémentaire dans un film de Williamson l’Attaque d’une mission en Chine, actualité reconstituée au moment de la guerre des Boxers (1900). Dans ce film, Williamson emploie le montage, et utilise les décors naturels dans toute leur profondeur ; ce dernier point est essentiel. Car en règle générale, les films de Méliès, imités du théâtre, se déroulent dans deux di..

Therapy modifies cystine kidney stones at the macroscopic scale. Do such alterations exist at the mesoscopic and nanometre scale?

International audienceWith an incidence of 1:7000 births, cystinuria, the most frequent cause of stone formation among genetic diseases, represents a major medical problem. Twentyfive cystine stones randomly selected from cystinuric patients were investigated. From a crystallographic point of view, cystine stones are composed of micrometre size crystallites, which are made up of an aggregation of nanocrystals. Through scanning electron microscopy, the morphology and size of the crystallites have been described, while the size of the nanocrystals was investigated by means of powder neutron diffraction. Powder neutron diffraction analysis and/or scanning electron microscopy examination of cystine stones provide evidence that usual alkalinization by sodium bicarbonate associated with high diuresis significantly reduces the size of both nanocrystals and crystallites, while for other treatments, including alkalinizing drugs and thiol derivatives, the data suggest mainly changes in the topology of crystallites. Alkalinization with sodium bicarbonate affects cystine kidney stones at the mesoscopic and nanoscopic scales, while other medical treatments only alter their surface. Such an approach may help to assess the interaction between drugs and cystine stones in cystinuric patients

Multimodal Affect and Aesthetic Experience

The term “aesthetic experience” corresponds to the inner state of a person exposed to form and content of artistic objects. Exploring certain aesthetic values of artistic objects, as well as interpreting the aesthetic experience of people when exposed to art can contribute towards understanding (a) art and (b) people’s affective reactions to artwork. Focusing on different types of artistic content, such as movies, music, urban art and other artwork, the goal of this workshop is to enhance the interdisciplinary collaboration between affective computing and aesthetics researchers

Type 2 diabetes and uric acid stones: A powder neutron diffraction investigation

International audienceBackground: Recent epidemiologic investigations have identified an association between type 2 diabetes and uric acid kidney stones. This association was more apparent in women than in men. However, male patients are more prone than women to form uric acid stones in upper and lower urinary tract. In addition, uric acid stone morphology may be different according to stone location. Finally, it was shown that uric acid stone prevalence is increasing with the patient’s age. Aim of the study: To compare uric acid crystal size as determined by powder neutron diffraction with clinical data and the gender of patients. Material and methods: Uric acid stones from 43 patients (24 males, 19 females) identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were investigated using Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy and Powder neutron diffraction.Results: Uric acid anhydrous was the main crystalline form of the stones. The mean size of the crystals was 91.3 ± 28.5 nm. No significant differences were found regarding uric acid crystal size in the stones by comparison to the stone location or the patient’s age. However, particle sizes of uric acid kidney stones were significantly different between male and female patients (84.7 ± 5.3 vs. 140.2 ± 6.7 nm, p < 0.000003) in the absence of diabetes mellitus. Interestingly, when type 2 diabetes appeared, this structural difference between male and female vanished (76.1 ± 3.9 vs. 78.8 ± 4.2 nm, not significant). Thus, the complete set of structural data is in line with observations regarding epidemiological data. Some explanations based on supersaturation are discussed

HER3 as biomarker and therapeutic target in pancreatic cancer: new insights in pertuzumab therapy in preclinical models.

International audienceThe anti-HER2 antibody pertuzumab inhibits HER2 dimerization and affects HER2/HER3 dimer formation and signaling. As HER3 and its ligand neuregulin are implicated in pancreatic tumorigenesis, we investigated whether HER3 expression could be a predictive biomarker of pertuzumab efficacy in HER2low-expressing pancreatic cancer. We correlated in vitro and in vivo HER3 expression and neuregulin dependency with the inhibitory effect of pertuzumab on cell viability and tumor progression. HER3 knockdown in BxPC-3 cells led to resistance to pertuzumab therapy. Pertuzumab treatment of HER3-expressing pancreatic cancer cells increased HER3 at the cell membrane, whereas the anti-HER3 monoclonal antibody 9F7-F11 down-regulated it. Both antibodies blocked HER3 and AKT phosphorylation and inhibited HER2/HER3 heterodimerization but affected differently HER2 and HER3 homodimers. The pertuzumab/9F7-F11 combination enhanced tumor inhibition and the median survival time in mice xenografted with HER3-expressing pancreatic cancer cells. Finally, HER2 and HER3 were co-expressed in 11% and HER3 alone in 27% of the 45 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas analyzed by immunohistochemistry. HER3 is essential for pertuzumab efficacy in HER2low-expressing pancreatic cancer and HER3 expression might be a predictive biomarker of pertuzumab efficacy in such cancers. Further studies in clinical samples are required to confirm these findings and the interest of combining anti-HER2 and anti-HER3 therapeutic antibodies

Diffraction techniques and vibrational spectroscopy opportunities to characterise bones

From a histological point of view, bones that allow body mobility and protection of internal organs consist not only of different organic and inorganic tissues but include vascular and nervous elements as well. Moreover, due to its ability to host different ions and cations, its mineral part represents an important reservoir, playing a key role in the metabolic activity of the organism. From a structural point of view, bones can be considered as a composite material displaying a hierarchical structure at different scales. At the nanometre scale, an organic part, i.e. collagen fibrils and an inorganic part, i.e. calcium phosphate nanocrystals are intimately mixed to assure particular mechanical properties

Dominance of Objects over Context in a Mediotemporal Lobe Model of Schizophrenia

Background: A large body of evidence suggests impaired context processing in schizophrenia. Here we propose that this impairment arises from defective integration of mediotemporal ‘what ’ and ‘where ’ routes, carrying object and spatial information to the hippocampus. Methodology and Findings: We have previously shown, in a mediotemporal lobe (MTL) model, that the abnormal connectivity between MTL regions observed in schizophrenia can explain the episodic memory deficits associated with the disorder. Here we show that the same neuropathology leads to several context processing deficits observed in patients with schizophrenia: 1) failure to choose subordinate stimuli over dominant ones when the former fit the context, 2) decreased contextual constraints in memory retrieval, as reflected in increased false alarm rates and 3) impaired retrieval of contextual information in source monitoring. Model analyses show that these deficits occur because the ‘schizophrenic MTL ’ forms fragmented episodic representations, in which objects are overrepresented at the expense of spatial contextual information. Conclusions and Significance: These findings highlight the importance of MTL neuropathology in schizophrenia, demonstrating that it may underlie a broad spectrum of deficits, including context processing and memory impairments. It is argued that these processing deficits may contribute to central schizophrenia symptoms such as contextuall