A Supernatural Spectacle: Film Style Within the Prologue of Black Swan

Derek Dubois's article for the peer-reviewed journal Supernatural Studies entitled "A Supernatural Spectacle: Film Style Within the Prologue of Black Swan" has just been published in the journal's latest issue.

Article Abstract: Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky is well-known for a dynamic film style that showcases characters who self-destruct in visceral, kinetic ways. His Black Swan (2010) concerns a talented but infantilized ballet dancer whose quest for perfection in her renowned company's performance of Swan Lake leads her down a darkened path of self-mutilation. The film externalizes this threat through the introduction of supernatural elements—most specifically—through the emergence of the double. This essay argues that Aronofsky establishes his key themes and genre elements through the techniques of art cinema immediately within the film’s prologue.

You can read the article in full HERE

Link to Supernatural Studies journal HERE

Peer-Reviewed Publication Update

Derek Dubois' essay, "Imposition to Sight: Sign's Visual Technique" will be appearing in upcoming issue 2.1 of the peer-reviewed film journal Mise-en-Scene.

Article Abstract: M. Night Shyamalan’s film Signs regularly creates obstacles that impair – or deny – vision to both the film’s characters and to spectators. This motif functions as both a way of generating immense suspense as well as creating a more subjective spectatorial experience that conflates lack-of-sight with the inner turmoil of the film’s protagonist.

More information on Mise-en-Scene | The Journal of Film & Visual Narration as taken from their website: "Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration (MSJ) is the first of its kind: an international, peer-reviewed journal focused exclusively on the artistry of frame composition as a storytelling technique. With its open-access, open-review publishing model, MSJ strives to be a synergistic, community-building hub for discourse that begins at the level of the frame. Scholarly analysis of lighting, set design, costuming, camera angles, camera proximities, depth of field, and character placement are just some of the topics that the journal covers. While primarily concerned with discourse in and around the film frame, MSJ also includes narratological analysis at the scene and sequence level of related media (television and online) within its scope."

Please visit the journal's website HERE

September Updates

This month I am pleased to announce the following:

1) Lucid has been named an official selection of the 2013 Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival. This will be considered its world-premiere event.

2) The essay, The Ideal Candidate: Solaris as Philosophical Riddle Box has been published in issue 68 of the film journal Senses of Cinema. The article can be read here:

http://sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/the-ideal-candidate-solaris-as-philosophical-riddle-box/