English Literature/ Cultural studies

The new millennium is moving towards certain common inclinations that may be seen around the cinemas of the world. Through these inclinations it could be possible to look at the core concerns of cinema – the spatial and the temporal – to be challenged once more. For this purpose one has selected eight films that have been produced in the year 2018. These films are –Yomeddine from Egypt by A B Shawky; The Pluto Moment from China by Ming Zhang; Vision from Japan by Naomi Kawase; To the Desert from Argentina by Ulises Rosell.
This research will be divided into two major parts. The first part will consist of the films and detailed observations that rise from the film. This section will show us the films individually. Where they stand, what is the interrelationship between them and how they each have a journey of their own within themselves. While looking at the general inclinations that the world cinema is taking at the moment, in contemporary times, it is important to let these films flourish on their own first.
In the next section, one would be discussing a few trends that are seen in these films cumulatively. In this regard, it is not being stated that the films all have same similarities, but what is being stated is that there are some inclinations that are prominent in some of the films. These observations will be taken one after the other and explored through the films in which these observations are most prominent.
One will try to capture the proclivities that these films go through. Although differing in culture, space, and every possible other context, these films become a very accurate ground for our research to take place.

A film doesn't exist unless it is seen – if there are no eyes to look at the images, the images don't exist.
- Victor Erice
In cinema, not too many explorations have taken place into the possibility of the cinematic “eye” - the one who sees and whose subjectivity may offer to open up some blind spots otherwise unavailable to the viewers. One welcome exception to this is filmmaker Catherine Breillat. Specifically through few of her works, like Romance, Anatomy of Hell, Sex is Comedy, Fat Girl. This dissertation would explore the alleyways of “eyes” and seeing. Seeing a body transpiring through the paths of eroticism to beyond, though the body visiting one’s own sexuality and through the deep somatic embraces realizing the hidden cervices of gender identity will be the pivotal points around which this dissertation would evolve.
The idea of gaze is one of the core ideas that Breillat works with and she has developed an unique film language to do that. As a student of cinema one would want to look deeper into her technical prowess to see how she is using the same to develop her thesis.
What is interesting is that in Breillat’s films she has a tendency of turning the gaze towards oneself through her films. This is not only evident in the autobiobraphical nature of the work but also in the fictional arrangement of the actors into the filmic world. Maybe that is why the process of filmmaking can reveal intricacies of intimacy, vulgarity, disdain and attraction aloof to the naked eye.
Through the help of these “eyes” this dissertation will delve into deeper questions of sexuality and desire, vulgarity and vulnerability, nude and naked, pristine concept and the disdain of percept, female gaze on female sexuality.
The core intension of this project is to create a body of work that brings to the fore a synaesthetic relationship between cinema and its senses. One may take a step forward here and say that this leap is sometimes only possible through the body of cinema as it provides certain specific artistic tools that are beyond our reach in actuality.

Long take, Plan sequence, Mise-en-scene exercise – long have been used interchangeably for quite some time, even in the film school environment where in practice the distinctions are made aware of. Yet, glossing over the historical and practical distinctions of the three one would like to invest slightly in this mistake. Why is it that this dovetailing between the three takes place at all? Is there truly something in the three that in the larger arena of the art of film-practice, makes them intertwine?
In the body of this short paper one would study through some long takes produced by Film and Television Institute of India to explore the abovementioned questions further.

This short project is bringing together some observations and primary findings from the locations visited prior to my documentary film: Reality Without a Name (https://vimeo.com/303318113). Although each of these spaces has not found a place in the film, this structure of observations helped me to "see" in a better way.

If one would propose to formally look at cinema as a language, then beyond the scope of influence and effect there can be an imagination of affect in this relationship. The way language has its practitioners and audience (speakers predominantly, but one intends to use this word with caution here. The attribute of speech and its entanglement with creation becomes very specific in case of cinema. This paper intends to explore that relationship to some extent) and it is their act that keeps the language alive and changes its course in due time, this paper similarly would like to see cinema as the language which is perceived to be changing with its practitioners. Echoing the explorations of Deleuze one may try to look at language first, and then the language through a form of cinema, one may refer to it as an inescapable part of our lived experience. But this experience relays to the audience a sensation outside the realm of thought or recognizable empirical categories, a sensation that only has possibility of being felt or sensed. Thus media language recreates the audiences into its "speakers". If film can be considered a language, the very craft and form of it, then one may take a step forward to state that the person experiencing it, through "sensation" is turned into a bloc of "affects". Thus our being is not one. It is not one human being perceiving the language anymore, but a series of "becomings." Thus the whole idea that the change in language is brought forth by human usage can be challenged and upturned. Here we could see the language changer the human being. In this manner, a new gaze can be turned towards the scope of media linguistics and that is the intended focus of this paper.

is one of the many masterpieces that have been created by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock uses the idea of continuity here to not only maintain the narrative flow but also to connect to certain thematic motifs that keep returning in this body of work. Continuity as a method has been associated with classical Hollywood for a long time. It is not only a method through which a smoothness of image movement is retained, neither is it just an invisible progression of the narrative. Bordwell 1 even looks at continuity as a montage technique. Here, unlike the Soviet School, montage becomes a form through which a smooth visibility of the narrative world, at par with our human perception, takes place. Within the scope of this paper, one would look at Hitchcock, who, with the help of continuity method brought about a significant change in the world of cinema. In retrospect, when we look back at his films, we see that quite a few of them work with an interesting homoerotic undertone. In this regard, of course, Rope is the most famous example. Rope creates not only a homoerotic atmosphere but also explores the male erotic consciousness in different ways. In Rebecca, his explorations of the female erotic consciousness reache a more subtle, more specific position. Here for our purpose, we have selected a three-minutes sequence where Mr De Winter breaks the news of his engagement to Mrs Van Hopper. Previous to this sequence, we saw that Mrs Van Hopper has a sort of motherly (or step-motherly maybe) attitude towards the would-be-Mrs De Winter. In this sequence, we see a clear break of that pattern and she becomes clearly jealous of the protagonist. This jealousy is emerging from her inability to be with Mr De Winter, of course. But also there is an undertone of the fact that her close female companion has also chosen someone else over her.

To unfold the paradoxes and complications that lie within the form of documentary, the writer takes the film 'RaatKata Holo' as a prime example that creates the allusion that documentary is dead. But, in its death, the film, with fractured poor images, lays bare the forgotten art of revival, an awakening.

Acclaimed for its unique gaze at the shift in "Subject"-hood of man, the film 'Video Game' is an imagination of a posthuman future, where the mind of a human being, coupled with that of an inanimate object, creates a new subjective identity. The short film renders the subject and memory certain fragility, as one is trying to ascertain his or her subjectivity, and anxieties are left open-ended for the viewers to think about.

The creation of the image is thus a powerful poetic means, and we should not be astonished by the major role it plays in poetry of creation.
Pierre Reverdy, 1918
The Proposed paper comprehend, align and communicate between subaltern experiences and power of expressivity. Subaltern experience has been extensively studied through the lenses of hegemony, social hierarchy and oppression. Here, the focus will be on the often-overlooked lived-experience of the marginal, and the power of the aesthetic imagination emerging from this perspective. The exploration of Adwaita Mallabarman’s Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Named Titas) would help trace the self-driven journey of the author to assert the power that lies hidden within the marginal identities.
Image is a plain for associations of ideas, where two or more realities may co-relate cerebrally. Thus, ‘image’ is always in flux, intermediation. This quality makes it a medium onto which the perception of the marginal may be sketched. This identification of aesthetic ‘patterns’ may lead to a renewed sense of societal structure beyond hegemonic dictation. In other words, the lived-experience of the subaltern can open up new aesthetic possibility, which in turn acts as a position of power for the community.
Some prominent examples of this parallel image creations to be explored are – (i) anti-perspectival form of description (layering of one clear image with another); (ii) subject-object fusion (the distinction between the subject and object merged or interchanged); (iii) the narrative flow is not guided by a ‘story’, but by a natural flow of gaze (this often leads to the story being stalled for a long period of time. The importance is given on experiencing the space and the people, not following a narrative to the end); (iv) the lack of metaphor; (v) creative imagination of the unseen.
The method to be followed here are threefold - collection of key images from the primary text, visiting scholarly literature for theoretical context in order to read the images collected from the primary text and finally revisiting the primary source again, as texts of possible imaginings of the subaltern and open a discussion about the politics of aesthetics.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s re-reading of Derrida into subaltern question and consequetive exploration of subaltern world is possibly the most important reference for this paper. Another reference for this paper is Standpoint (an achieved collective consciousness) Theory, by which there is an acknowledgement of the marginal existence not only as a position of acute awareness of societal structures, but also the perspective of the marginalized is rendered crucial to study a better, less distorted version of the world order. Rancière’s Phrase Image and Latour’s idea of Knowledge-Construction would also be important reference.
The chequered history of subaltern in Bengal, and the general perception of “lacuna” that is attached with this identity position together does not allow us to accept the position of power that lay within the identity. This paper aspires to take a step ahead in that direction by studying a position of knowledge-creation.

Since Hugo Munstenberg there has been an approach towards understading cinema as a parallel to human mind's consious experience. The best examples were with the techniques like close-up, flashback, flash forward. Munstenberg states that these devices are related to human phases like attention, memory and imagination. From here, with the help of this film, this short research would try to see if there can be a parallel created with the human unconscious and the structure of cinema.

Sanskriti Chattopadhyay is born and brought up in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Interested in the cultural heritage of the landscape she has been born into, often her work is informed by the same. Currently, she is a doctoral researcher in Artistic Research in HDK Valand Academy for Arts and Design, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

‘ইমেজ’ ধারণার মাধ্যমে, (এই ‘ইমেজ’ চিত্র বা ছবি নয়, বরং এক সহজাত মানবিক প্রবৃত্তি যার ছাপ পাওয়া যায় শিল্পে ও সাহিত্যের নানা স্তরে) এই প্রবন্ধটি জ্ঞান-সৃষ্টির এক সমান্তরাল প্রবাহ অধ্যয়ন করবে। এক দৃশ্যবহুল  সংস্কৃতিতে বসবাস করা সত্ত্বেও, এই চাক্ষুষ জগতের মূল (যা আমাদের সংস্কৃতির বোধকে অনেকাংশে অবহিত করে)— ‘ইমেজ’— সময়, চেতনা ও ধারণার সঙ্গে পরিবর্তনসাপেক্ষ নয়। ভিসুয়াল আর্টকে একটি সমান্তরাল জ্ঞান-প্রবাহক ব্যবস্থা হিসাবে যদি ভাবা সম্ভব হয়, তবে ‘ইমেজ’ কি এই দুইয়ের মধ্যে কথোপকথনের পথ প্রশস্ত করতে পারে যা ঔপনিবেশিকতা এবং সামাজিক শ্রেণিবিন্যাসজাত ‘সাবঅল্টার্ন’ অবস্থানকে এক নতুন আলোয় দেখতে পারে?

Lecturer: Sanskriti Chattopadhyay

Groundwork - addressing key terms
Introduce colonialism briefly as a system, more than just oppression
What is postcolonialism and why the need
What is decolonialism and from postcolonialism how is it arising?
What is reading art through decolonial lens?