Global Cinema Studies in Landscape Allegory

Global Cinema Studies in Landscape Allegory explores the narrative and stylistic approaches to imbuing natural settings in audiovisual media with a psychological dimension – or, in other words, configuring a ‘landscape’ to function beyond its typical role as a backdrop – and the cultural contexts for this aesthetic impulse. Contributors argue that while audiovisual allegory can be understood as inherently avant-garde, certain kinds of stories – and the ways in which they are presented – can be categorized as a ‘landscape allegory.’ Focusing on the idea of a ‘landscape’ in the most concrete and literal form, contributions drawing from a global spectrum of cultural contexts work toward establishing a fuller and more culturally diverse understanding of landscape allegory in cinema.

Table of Contents:
Introduction David Melbye Chapter One: Vacation Landscapes and Interpersonal Crisis in Argentine Film Rocío Gordon Chapter Two: Landscapes of Loss and Guilt in Post-Socialist Hungarian and Romanian Cinema Hajnal Király Chapter Three: Allegorizing Socialist China: Landscape in Chung Kuo, Cina and A Brilliant Spectacle Sabrina Y. Tao Chapter Four: An Alternative Sublime: Filming a Contemporary Gold Rush at The Top of The World Filipa Rosário Chapter Five: Landscape Allegory in Nacer Khemir’s Desert Trilogy Ebrahim Barzegar & Fatemeh Gholami Chapter Six: High Ground, Level Ground, and Underground: Dynamics of the Colonized Australian Landscape Susan Barber Chapter Seven: Emergence of the Cinematographer: Landscape Allegory in Soviet Thaw Films David Melbye About the Editor and Contributors

About the Author :
David Melbye is currently a UKRI/Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions senior research fellow in the Department of Music and Design Arts at the University of Huddersfield.

Review :
Global Cinema Studies in Landscape Allegory explores how cinematic landscapes, often invested with psychological dimensions, play key roles in their films’ moral universes. Its seven chapters, alongside its informative introduction, deal with both older films and very new ones from Argentina, Hungary, Romania, China, Peru, North Africa, Australia, and Russia. Whether as scholars or students, anyone who is interested in landscapes that are idyllic, transformative, or ‘guilty,’ ones that evoke memories of vanished peoples, or ones that could best be described as domains of love with the potential for hope, is sure find something of interest in this worthwhile collection. Since its advent in western art, landscape is by nature allegorical. In concert with Angus Fletcher, and attesting to what Henri Lefebvre calls a production of space, the contributions to this collection show how cinematic landscapes intensify and even call in question the narratives in which they are shown. On the part of its eight authors Global Studies in Landscape Allegory is a lasting contribution.