Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic

Description

A comprehensive study of films made in and about one of the world's most breathtaking landscapes †“ the Arctic The first book to address the vast diversity of Northern circumpolar cinemas from a transnational perspective, Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic presents the region as one of great and previously overlooked cinematic diversity. With chapters on polar explorer films, silent cinema, documentaries, ethnographic and indigenous film, gender and ecology, as well as Hollywood and the USSR's uses and abuses of the Arctic, this book provides a groundbreaking account of Arctic cinemas from 1898 to the present. Challenging dominant notions of the region in popular and political culture, it demonstrates how moving images (cinema, television, video, and digital media) have been central to the very definition of the Arctic since the end of the nineteenth century. Bringing together an international array of European, Russian, Nordic, and North American scholars, Films on Ice radically alters stereotypical views of the Arctic region, and therefore of film history itself. Title page Copyright CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TRADITIONS IN WORLD CINEMA INTRODUCTION: WHAT ARE ARCTIC CINEMAS? PART 1 GLOBAL INDIGENEITY 1. ‘WHO WERE WE? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO US?’ INUIT MEMORY AND ARCTIC FUTURES IN IGLOOLIK ISUMA FILM AND VIDEO 2. NORTHERN EXPOSURES AND MARGINAL CRITIQUES: THE POLITICS OF SOVEREIGNTY IN SÁMI CINEMA 3. FROZEN FRAMES: ALASKA ESKIMOS IN THE MOVIES 4. CULTURAL STEREOTYPES AND NEGOTIATIONS IN SÁMI CINEMA 5. CINEMA OF EMANCIPATION AND ZACHARIAS KUNUK’S ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER 6. COSMOPOLITAN INUIT: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON GREENLANDIC FILM 7. ARCTIC CARNIVALESQUE: ETHNICITY, GENDER AND TRANSNATIONALITY IN THE FILMS OF TOMMY WIRKOLA PART II HOLLYWOOD HEGEMONY 8. FACT AND FICTION IN ‘NORTHERNS’ AND EARLY ‘ARCTIC’ FILMS 9. CALIFORNIA’S YUKON AS COMIC SPACE 10. ‘SEE THE CRASHING MASSES OF WHITE DEATH . . .’: GREENLAND, GERMANY AND THE SUBLIME IN THE ‘BERGFILM' SOS EISBERG 11. THE THREAT OF THE THAW: THE COLD WAR ON THE SCREEN 12. HOLLYWOOD DOES ICELAND: AUTHENTICITY, GENERICITY AND THE PICTURESQUE 13. WHITE ON WHITE: TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY NORWEGIAN HORROR FILMS NEGOTIATE MASCULINIST ARCTIC IMAGINARIES PART III ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE DOCUMENTARY DILEMMA 14. THE CREATIVE TREATMENT OF ALTERITY: NANOOK AS THE NORTH 15. FROM OBJECTS TO ACTORS: KNUD RASMUSSEN’S ETHNOGRAPHIC FEATURE FILM THE WEDDING OF PALO 16. ARCTIC TRAVELOGUES: CONQUERING THE SOVIET NORTH 17. A GENTLE GAZE ON THE COLONY: JETTE BANG’S DOCUMENTARY FILMING IN GREENLAND 1938-9 18. EXERCISE MUSK-OX: THE CHALLENGES OF FILMING A MILITARY EXPEDITION IN CANADA’S ARCTIC 19. THE TOUR: A FILM ABOUT LONGYEARBYEN, SVALBARD. AN INTERVIEW WITH EVA LA COUR PART IV. MYTHS AND MODES OF POLAR EXPLORATION 20. THE CHANGING POLAR FILMS: SILENT FILMS FROM ARCTIC EXPLORATION 1900-30 21. THE ATTRACTIONS OF THE NORTH: EARLY FILM EXPEDITIONS TO THE EXOTIC SNOWSCAPE 22. FROZEN IN MOTION: ETHNOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION IN DONALD B. MACMILLAN’S ARCTIC FILMS 23. ‘MY HEART BEAT FOR THE WILDERNESS’: ISOBEL WYLIE HUTCHISON, JENNY GILBERTSON, MARGARET TAIT AND OTHER TWENTIETH-CENTURY SCOTTISH WOMEN FILMMAKERS 24. ‘HERE WILL BE A GARDEN-CITY’: SOVIET MAN ON AN ARCTIC CONSTRUCTION SITE 25. TRANSCENDING THE SUBLIME: ARCTIC CREOLISATION IN THE WORKS OF ISAAC JULIEN AND JOHN AKOMFRAH 26. DJ SPOOKY AND DZIGA VERTOV: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA MEETS DIGITAL ART IN EXPLORING THE POLAR REGIONS NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS iNDEX