Category: Essay
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Reconstructing Memories: Intimacy and Silence in Aftersun
Written by Élise Léger for Justine McLellan’s Cinema Styles course Aftersun (2022) is a film acting as intimate memories reminisced by daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) about a vacation spent with her father (Paul Mescal) in the 1990s. Directed by Charlotte Wells, the film deals with themes of depression, connection, and detachment. These themes are well…
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Anthropocentrism in Grizzly Man and La Pieuvre
Written by Dorothée Gingras-Bernardin for Magdalena Olszanowski’s Cinema and Communications: Selected Topics course Winner of the Cheryl Simon Writing Award for Subtext’s Fall 2024 issue Is it possible to perceive nature without projecting human values onto it? How can cinema reinforce our anthropocentric mentality or, on the contrary, contribute to a reconceptualization of nature and…
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Interstellar & Greenland: Beyond Human Nature
Written by Aylu Girard for Magdalena Olszanowski’s Cinema and Communications: Selected Topics course “We used to look up at the sky and wonder about our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” – Interstellar Interstellar directed by Christopher Nolan (2014) and Greenland directed by Ric…
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Denis Villeneuve’s Memorial: Honoring or Deceiving?
Written by Aïyana Faye-Giard for Kim Simard’s … class At the end of the 20th century, just as the world was slowly recovering from two World Wars, a violent tragedy shook the province of Quebec. On December 6, 1989, fourteen women were brutally murdered on the Polytechnique campus, in response to a young man’s anti-feminist…
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Love Without Borders: The Parental Relationship Between Theodore and Samantha in Spike Jonze’s Her
Written by Elliot King for Justine McLellan’s Cinema Styles course Spike Jonze’s Her (2014) is set in a futuristic world where technology has been fully integrated into everyday life, even more than today. This is clear when the protagonist Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with an operating system named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Regardless of…
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Cinematic Transformations: Exploring the Evolution of Violence in Film Narratives
Written by Eva Sivilla and Noa Druker for Michael Filtz’s Cinema Styles course In its primitive form, the use of violence in cinema ranged from portraying moral consciousness to simply serving as a form of entertainment. Yet, through the evolution of characterization, the advancement of modern-day cinematography, and a societal desensitization to violence, Hollywood and the film…
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Do the Right Thing Love/Hate Scene Analysis
By Imogen Prince, written for Kim Simard’s Explorations in Cinema and Communications class Winner of the Cheryl Simon Writing Award for Subtext’s Winter 2024 issue Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) takes place in the span of one day in a predominantly Black New York neighborhood during a heatwave. The film centers on a…
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An Analysis of Midsommar: Burning Men and May Queens
Written by Michaela Charbonneau for Dr. Magdalena Olszanowski Cinema & Communications: Selected Topics course *This text contains spoilers to the film Midsommar The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass. And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass; There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the…
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Toxic Masculinity & Moose Hunting in Pierre Perrault’s The Shimmering Beast
Written by Markus Falk and Juniper McKenzie for Justine McLellan’s Cinema and Culture course The film La Bête Lumineuse (Pierre Perrault, 1982) centers around a group of middle-aged men who go on a hunting trip in search of moose. During this trip, the social dynamics of the group, compared to that of a wolfpack, gets…
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Shifting Identities
A scene analysis from Robert Altman’s 3 Women Written by Kayliya Phongsavath Sananikone for Justine McLellan’s Cinema Styles course 3 Women (1977), directed by Robert Altman, is a fever dream of a film that follows the otherwise mundane lives of Millie, Pinky, and Willie. The film focuses on their identities and how those are shaped…
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