Footnote #26 - The Cinema of Attractions
The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!
The tension between spectacle and narrative is investigated through the seminal work of Tom Gunning and his formulation of the “cinema of attractions” in this latest Footnote episode, in which Chris and Alex hold cinema’s propensity for exhibitionist visual display and its later development of story in delicate balance. Listen as they reflect on the emergence of actuality shorts, travelogues, and the ‘trick’ films of Georges Méliès; the acquisition and integration of narrative by cinema that challenged earlier modes of presentationalism; the role of technological innovation in the default myths of silent cinema; and how Gunning’s “cinema of attractions” model defining early film spectatorship and style intersects with both the screen histories and creative figures of fantasy and animation.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
Suggested Readings
Brown, Tom. 2008. “Spectacle/Gender/History: the case of Gone with the Wind.” Screen 49, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 157-178.
Gunning, Tom. 1990. “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Cinema, Its Spectator and the Avant Garde.” In Early Cinema: Space Frame Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser, 56-62. London: BFI Publishing.
Mulvey, Laura, 1975. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16, no. 3: 6-18.
Holliday, Christopher, and Alexander Sergeant. 2018. “Introduction: Approaching Fantasy/Animation.” In Fantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums and Genres, eds. Christopher Holliday and Alexander Sergeant, 1-20. London: Routledge.
Strauven, Wanda, ed. 2006. The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.