Dear Steffen and Everyone Else,
My name is Prakash Younger and I’m a doing a Phd. in Film Studies at the
University of Iowa (now from Tallahassee, Florida). Though up to now I guess I
have only been “lurking” on this list, I haven’t felt that sinister: I have
enjoyed its liveliness tremendously and learned alot from the perspectives
expressed. I’m writing a dissertation on Jean Renoir. My main premise is that
Renoir’s films, when read closely, in sequence, and in terms of their cultural
and historical contexts, disclose a penetrating critique of certain
assumptions shared by the modern lineage in political philosophy running from
Rousseau through Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger. The argument will turn on
close readings of La Règle du jeu and The River. Some other areas of interest
include popular Indian films, classical film theory (especially Bazin) and
classical American cinema. My favourite auteurs include some of those often
mentioned on this list (Tarkovsky, Tarr, Antonioni) and others who I hope will
somehow return to the critical limelight (Renoir, Chaplin). My “cinephile’s
wish” is that all the films of Edward Yang and Ritwik Ghatak come out on
English-subtitled DVDs sometime soon. The films of the latter exemplify a side
of Bengali culture that is as radical (aesthetically and politically) as
Eisenstein and as lyrical as Tarkovsky.
best regards to you all, Prakash Younger
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