Looking from the border: a cosmopolitan approach to contemporary cinema. Issue 2 (3rd July 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Deleyto, Celestino
• Is Part Of: Transnational cinemas. Volume 8:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 95
• Page End: 112
• Publication Date: 2017-07-03
• Subjects: Cosmopolitanism -- space and place -- borders and borderwork -- cosmopolitan canopy; Motion pictures -- Periodicals; Motion pictures and globalization -- Periodicals; Motion picture industry -- Periodicals; Motion picture industry; Motion pictures and globalization; Periodicals; 791.43
• DOI: 10.1080/20403526.2016.1168117
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-3526

Abstract

Abstract: This article proposes a cosmopolitan approach to the study of contemporary cinema. The theoretical framework outlined here aims to acknowledge the impact of global processes on filmic narratives and the changes brought about in films by the new economic, social and cultural context. At the same time, it seeks to highlight the importance of space and place in films. Specifically, it focuses on the centrality of borders, borderlands, borderwork and looking from the border for a cosmopolitan study of cinema: a cosmopolitan perspective with the border at its centre, one that explores the ways in which borders structure our thoughts and they ways in which border thinking structures filmic narratives. As an illustration of this approach, I offer an analysis of the films Io sono Li/Shun Li and the Poet (2011) and Margaret (2011) with an emphasis on formal parameters, i.e., on how films produce meanings in our globalized societies.