Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Dialogic Cinephilia - December 13, 2017

1. A meaningful or entertaining story, worth the proverbial price of admission. 
2. A cinematic language appropriate for the tale being told and, in the best of cases, a stretching of form that widens cinematic storytelling. 
3. A resonance that continues after the film is over - a philosophical or spiritual illumination of behavior that ... makes us better human beings.  -- Innsdorf, Annette. Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes. Columbia University Press, 2017: 11.  [Criteria used at the Berlin International Film Festival when she was on the judging panel.]

Cultural Theory/Humanities Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Eisen, Arnold. "The Opposite of Good is Indifference." On Being (September 21, 2017) ["'In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.' A mystic, a 20th-century religious intellectual, a social change agent, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., famously saying afterwards that he felt his legs were praying. Heschel’s poetic theological writings are still read and widely studied today. His faith was as much about 'radical amazement' as it was about certainty. And he embodied the passionate social engagement of the prophets, drawing on wisdom at once provocative and nourishing."]

Guevara, Marina Walker. "Paradise Found." On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["A year and a half after the explosive leak of the Panama Papers revealed the shady, yet entirely legal, offshore banking practices of world's richest people and companies, a new trove of documents was announced: the Paradise Papers. This time, the leak discloses the financial dealings of some familiar names and faces, including members of the Trump Administration. The public officials acknowledge and defend the practice of skirting taxes through the use of havens, and deny any possible conflicts of interest. Bob speaks with Marina Walker Guevara, Deputy Director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which facilitated reporting on the documents along with hundreds of reporters around the globe. She shares how reporters from such a large network collaborate and explores what kinds of questions we should all be asking after learning that the rich and powerful play by a different set of rules than the rest of us."]

Harrington, Brooke. "Lifestyles of the Rich and Hidden." On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["A year and a half after the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers have again thrown back the curtain on the vast world of wealth that exists in offshore tax havens. But even after the two largest data leaks in history, those in the know say that we have still barely glimpsed the extent of this ecosystem. And according to Brooke Harrington, Professor of Economic Sociology at Copenhagen Business School and author of Capital Without Borders, if we really want to understand the situation, we need to look beyond the wealthy themselves and toward the industry devoted to keeping them rich and hidden. Bob talks to Harrington about the profession of "wealth management," why it's a threat to democracy and what can be done."]

Loewinger, Micah, et al. "Swedish Cowboys & Syrian Refugees." On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["In the middle of nowhere southern Sweden, there’s a popular Wild West theme park called High Chaparral, where Scandinavian tourists relive the action of the old American cowboy films. For over a year, the park served another function: a refugee camp for some 500 of the 163,000 migrants – many from Syria – who applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015. That Syrians would find refuge here actually jibes with High Chaparral’s interpretation of the Old West, which emphasizes the new life that the frontier offered to beleaguered pioneers, and the community that was required to survive there. Americans tend to ignore this history, instead lionizing the gritty traits of the cowboy, the cultural basis for our obsession with rugged individualism. OTM producer Micah Loewinger traveled to High Chaparral last summer, where he met Abood Alghzzawi, a Syrian asylum-seeker, who embarked on an incredible journey to the Wild West of Sweden. This piece explores how politicians seized the cowboy image to further their agendas, and how questioning the narrative of the Old West might influence immigration policy."]

Lyman, Stuart. "Consequences: In a Post-Truth World, Scientific Progress Goes Boink." Lymann BioPharma Consulting LLC (January 17, 2017) 

Miller, Daniel. "Is Disney Paying Its Share in Anaheim?: The Money Battle Outside the Happiest Place on Earth." The Los Angeles Times (September 24, 2017) [Bob Garfield reports on Disney's unsuccessful retaliation against The Los Angeles Times for this article in "Who Won the Disney Boycott."]

Traister, Rebecca. "'The Anger Window' is Open." On the Media (November 14, 2017) ["New York Magazine writer Rebecca Traister says that every new revelation about sexual harassment confirms what women have always known. In her most recent article she asks "as stories about abuse, assault, and complicity come flooding out, how do we think about the culprits in our lives? Including, sometimes, ourselves.""]

Wick, Julia. "When a Billionaire Buys Your Publication." On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["For the last 20 years, the news industry has been crumbling. In an effort to stay solvent, both legacy media and digital newbies have increasingly looked toward deep-pocketed ownership to stay alive – with mixed results. One such example came last week with the sudden closure of DNAinfo and the Gothamist blog network, hyperlocal digital news outlets that provided vital reporting for the cities in which they operated. For employees, it smacked of retaliation: the closure came just one week after the NYC editorial staff had voted to unionize. When the sites came down, so did their archives, replaced with a note from billionaire owner Joe Rickettsstating that "businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure." Bob speaks with Julia Wick who, up until that moment, served as editor-in-chief of LAist, the Los Angeles outlet in the Gothamist network."]

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