Au Revoir!

As we wrap up another school year, the FIU film studies program thanks you for following along with us and for your support! We’ll be taking a break from the newsletter for the summer but will be back in the fall with another school year of films, features, and fun. Our interns Joan, Laura, and Marcos hope you listen to some Dylan this summer and catch Barbie and Oppenheimer. Gootbye!

How Fleabag Reimagines Fourth Wall Breaks

When Godard made Breathless (1960) he set out to break every cinematic rule that he could. Legend has it that he would ask his assistants what cinematographic techniques would work best for a certain scene only to do the complete opposite. So, it should come as no surprise that in the opening sequence of the film, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s character looks directly at the camera and speaks to us the viewer as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. But fourth wall breaks were not a common thing back then, especially not in serious movies. Continue reading How Fleabag Reimagines Fourth Wall Breaks

McLuhan, Twin Peaks, and Lynch’s Attempt to Save Television

Even if you don’t know who Marshall McLuhan was, you’ve probably heard the phrase “the medium is the message.” McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher whose theories about media were influential in 20th century thought and crucial for the development of media studies. But what did he mean by this cryptic phrase? There was a time in the 60’s and early 70’s when you would turn on the TV and see a whole table of people debating what McLuhan meant by a “cool” or “hot” medium, or the term “global village”, or entire phrases like “Heidegger surf-boards along on the electronic wave as triumphantly as Descartes rode the mechanical wave.” However, after fifty minutes or so it was decided that no one could understand what went through this man’s head and it was left at that. So, at the risk of becoming that one annoying media professor spitting gibberish behind Woody Allen’s ear in line for a movie theater, I will try to explain what McLuhan meant by “the medium is the message.” Continue reading McLuhan, Twin Peaks, and Lynch’s Attempt to Save Television