Zimbabwean Indigenisation and the Shadow Economy of Cinematic Production

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Zimbabwe has suffered a political and economic crisis, which has generated impulses that have traumatised the country's film industry, among many other sectors. Resultantly, Zimbabwe's cinematic context of production has been reimagined and reconfigured in recent years. The southern African country's ruling elite, during former president Robert Mugabe's tenure, championed controversial policies of indigenisation in economic sectors, partly as a way of countering external economic and political hostilities. This article explores how the Zimbabwean film economy has responded to postcolonial indigenisation impulses and how the production context has developed parallel to or in tandem with this reality. It teases out the challenges and prospects posed by impulses of indigenisation in Zimbabwe to the country's fledgling film production industry by analysing the video-film production value chain post-2000, when the indigenisation agenda emerged and was consolidated. Informed by the theorisation of the shadow economies of cinema, the study employed in-depth interviews to collect data from purposively selected Zimbabwean filmmakers and policymakers. Thematic analysis was used to analyse this data. The study shows that indigenisation has been a pragmatic response to the economic trauma facing the film industry, although it has, in turn, sent out its own traumatic impulses that continue to affect the industry's structure and aesthetic.     

美国影视作品著作权担保融资制度的新发展

很难想象在国产电影屡创佳绩的今天,家底丰厚的制片方华谊兄弟也被迫选择了著作权质押融资之路。这本可成为我国文化创意产业融通资金的最佳案例,却因法律环境以及相关中介机构的缺失使得此次值得惊喜的融资实践异化成一个令招商银行揪心的风险管理之旅,凸显出我国著作权担保融资体系的诸多不足。美国有效且成熟的著作权担保融资制度为美国电影制品的全球性成功输出提供了强大助力,其做法值得我国借鉴。     

毛笔书法作品的著作权保护——以《刑法修正案(八)》为视角

毛笔书法是中华文化宝库中的瑰宝。当前,随着国家对发展文化事业的不断重视,中华文化也在不断的复兴和崛起,并一天天的走向国际化。因此,为了方便国际间的文化保护和交流,我国近些年对著作权法及其实施条例做了多次修订。可见,我国对于文化产业的保护也在不断的加强。因此,在这样的时代背景下,对于传统文化著作权保护的研究就显得尤为重要。笔者旨在结合毛笔书法的艺术特性和我国著作权法的相关规定,对其著作权保护的理论进行初步研究。     

Analysing characters' interactions in filmic text: a functional semiotic approach

This paper presents an analytical tool for constructing characters' action patterns in film. Understanding characters in moving images has been regarded as one of the most significant elements of narrative comprehension and interpretation because spectators' inferences of narrative structures are substantially mediated by characters. The social semiotic method presented in this paper shows how characters' actions and interactions can be systematically constructed based on the co-patterning of textual elements in film and how the patterns provide an analytical foundation for understanding and interpreting characters. In addition, this paper also reviews the previous explorations of the more fine-grained approaches to character analysis and then demonstrates how the method the paper suggests can support and strengthen the accounts provided to date. Most importantly, by comparing scenes within and across two war films, The Thin Red Line (1998) and Black Hawk Down (2001), the article will show the potential of this method for effectively constraining hypotheses for empirical investigations of filmic meaning.     

The aesthetic public sphere and the transformation of criticism

This article argues that criticism is fundamental for understanding how culture and politics shape the ambiguous self-interpretation of society. An initial exploration of Habermas's theory of the public sphere reveals that it is inadequately cultural. An alternative is thus offered by discussing the work of Jacobs, and especially his concept of an “aesthetic public sphere”. His insight that nothing is too trivial when it comes to broadening the limits of the public sphere prompts scholars to take into consideration the positive as well as negative aspects of criticism. As a cultural mediation, criticism is shaped by a struggle for recognition that gives rise to the interpretation of its own crisis. The purpose of the article, however, is to propose a more balance account of such predicament. By discussing online criticism, the rise of the “prosumer” and user-generated content, it is argued that there is now a new battle for authority and legitimacy undergoing. This creates the potential for the democratization of criticism, even though this potential has great chance to remain within an inescapable democratic tension.     

Towards a Critical Theory of Cultural Pragmatics: The Márkus Road

ABSTRACT

At the time of his death in 2016 György Márkus’s magnum opus on the culture of modernity that he laboured on throughout his post-Budapest period remained unfinished. This paper attempts to reconstruct the theory of Cultural Pragmatics that lay at the core of this immense project. The intention is to retrieve the key ideas of Márkus’s understanding of modern cultural relations by reviewing the terms of his critique of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault on the issue of authorship. A distinctive Márkus road in the study of cultural modernity offers itself as a rich contemporary research programme for the future.     

我国著作权法取消作品合法性要件探析

2010年修改后的著作权法第四条取消了原法对作品合法性要件的规定,只涉及对作者行使权力的违法规制。原法第四条虽存在立法瑕疵,但其对作品合法性要件的规定并无错误,修订中可对原法模糊之处作技术性处理而不应全盘否定。此次修法有违宪法精神和著作权法的立法宗旨,同时也造成与现行行政法规的不协调等诸多弊端。建议著作权法恢复作品合法性要件的规定,在此前提下加以修改完善。     

毛笔书法作品的著作权保护

为了方便国际问的文化交流和保护,我国近些年对著作权法及其实施条例做了多次修订。可见,我国对于文化产业的保护也在不断地加强。因此,在这样的时代背景下,对于传统文化著作权保护的研究就显得尤为重要。毛笔书法是中华文化宝库中的瑰宝。结合毛笔书法的艺术特性和我国著作权法的相关规定,对其著作权保护的理论进行初步研究。     

Apartheid,Jim Crow,and Comparative Literature

This article examines John Greyson’s film, Proteus, for the way it figures queer masculinity and race in South Africa’s national historical narrative. The film offers an esthetic rendering of an eighteenth century interracial sodomy trial set on Robben Island. Drawing on contemporary queer theory and recent South African narratives of masculinity that privilege heternormativity and nationalism, this paper argues that the film carves out a space for queer identity within national history where it had previously been denied. The paper traces the way that the film interjects queer narratives into South Africa’s national identity, disrupts the heteronormalization of various sites of national iconography on South Africa’s historical terrain (such as Robben Island), and offers a queer masculinity that resists racial segregation. Moreover, this paper traces the ways that the film has implications for contemporary queer communities within South Africa.