Listen to Nice

In describing Humphrey Jennings’ wartime documentary propaganda film, 'Listen to Britain' (1942), a film with an overtly poetic sensibility and dominantly musical soundtrack, John Corner asserts that ‘through listening to Britain, we are enabled to properly look at it'. This idea of sound leading our attention to the images has underpinned much of the collaborative work between composer and sound designer, Geoffrey Cox, and documentary filmmaker, Keith Marley. It is in this context that the article will analyse an extract of A Film About Nice (Marley and Cox 2010), a contemporary re-imagining of Jean Vigo’s silent documentary, 'A propos de Nice' (1930). Reference will be made throughout to the historical context, and the filmic and theoretical influences that have informed the way music and creative sound design have been used to place emphasis on hearing a place, as much as seeing it

Editorial introduction

This article frames the journal special issue by offering a broad reflection on the historical development of ideas that have informed debates concerning intermediality and its pedagogical contexts. It opens with a brief articulation of media and intermedial theory to inform the debate. The challenges of contemporary media hybridity are then set within an historical context by tracing the origins of current (perceived) knowledge dichotomies and hierarchies into the philosophical canons of western antiquity. In examining distinctions between the different types of knowledge and expression that form the constituent parts of contemporary intermedial theatres, the article considers philosophical debates, traces historical trajectories and probes social dynamics from Aristotle to the present. Moving on to the current historical and social context of intermedial practice and pedagogy, the article examines specific challenges and opportunities that emerge from our own intermedial age. This multifaceted and trans-historical approach leads the authors to suggest that old hierarchical and divisional structures impact upon contemporary practices, affecting how those are perceived, received and valued

L'occhio della rivoluzione

Edizione italiana dei principali scritti teorici sul cinema di Dziga Vertov. Introduzione del curatore, pp.9-25; Note ai testi, pp.253-69Italian edition of the major theoretical writings on cinema Dziga Vertov. Introduction by the editor, pp.9-2

Real versus ficção: criança, imagem e regimes de credibilidade no cinema-documentário Real versus fiction: child, image and credibility regimes in documentary motion pictures

O objetivo deste artigo é discutir a organização imagética do gênero documentário a partir de dois materiais que colocam em evidência a imagem da criança: Promessas de um Novo Mundo (2001), de Justine Shapiro e B. Z. Goldberg, e Nascidos em Bordéis (2004), de Ross Kauffman e Zana Briski. O que importa aqui é trazer para a educação um debate contemporâneo sobre as imagens que nos cercam cotidianamente, especialmente quando têm como mote a narrativa sobre a infância. Assim, num primeiro momento, são apresentados alguns elementos da constituição dessa linguagem específica. Em seguida, passase à análise dos filmes em questão e, em especial, à forma como são dadas as relações de veracidade a partir das imagens e da construção das respectivas narrativas. Paralelamente a isso, discutese, mais amplamente, sobre imagens que nos fazem pensar na medida em que colocam, lado a lado, crianças, abandono, miséria e morte.<br>The purpose of this article is to discuss the issues related to the image organization of the documentary genre based on two materials that emphasize the image of the child: Promises (2001), by Justine Shapiro and B. Z. Goldberg and Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004), by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski. Firstly, I expose some elements of the constitution of that particular language, as well as some of the changes that were and are being made in this film genre. Then I move on to the analysis of the aforementioned films and, in particular, the way the relations of credibility derived from the images and the construction of their corresponding narratives take place. Parallel to this, as I believe such materials offer us more than the real versus fiction dialogue, I discuss, more broadly, the images that make us think when they place, side by side, children, abandonment, poverty and death. This is about lives, unique stories that would certainly be destined to be forgotten and erased, but, captured by the motion picture camera, invite us to see that there is more to it, there is dignity and art