Deviant Dames: Researching Celluloid Transgressions

Deviant Dames: Researching Celluloid Transgressions Gary Handman ghandman@library.berkeley.edu 3-8666 Call Her Savage Dir. John Francis Dillon, 1932

Morocco, Dir. J. Von Sternberg, 1930 The point of all this... • Describe the types and sources of information available related to film studies and other media research • Discuss how to find this stuff in the library, using print and online resources • 3. Introduce a group of basic moves and features common to many online catalogs and indexes. • 4. Practice using these features in selected databases.

Writing About Film… Scholarly/ In-depth Current Pop and fan Historical Industry

Sources for Film & TV Scholarship and Research • Journals, Magazines, Newspapers • Reviews • Critical/ScholarlyArticles • Books • Web Sites (more about this later…) • Other online databases Scarlet Street, Dir. Fritz Lang, 1945

Journal Articles:Reviews? Critical Writing? What’s the Diff? • Reviews: • Found in popular periodicals, film periodicals, and (less often) in more scholarly journals • Web sites (fan, commercial, academic) • Assessment of aesthetic and content merits of a film • Usually cover current releases, more pop theatrical releases • Tend to be relatively short and relatively superficial (with some exceptions and depending on the publication and who’s doing the writing) Behind the Screen, Charlie Chaplin, 1916

Critical analysis: • Found in books and scholarly or film-related journals • Discuss films in: • broader historical, cultural, political, artistic context and/or • Focus on a specific aspect of a film, film genre, or filmmaker • Tend to be longer, more substantive than reviews (with some exceptions and depending on the publication and who’s doing the writing) • Often include notes, bibliographies, other scholarly apparatus Reviews? Critical Writing? What’s the Diff? Dorothy Arzner

Critical/Scholarly Articles • Who’s Writing About Film?: • Film studies & scholarly journals in other disciplines—eg: • Language & Lit • Women’s studies (representations of women and issues of gender) • Gay/Lesbian studies (issues of masculinity and gender) • Area studies…etc. (noir from other countries) Sylvia Scarlett Geo. Cukor, 1935

Books • Scholarly/authoritative works • Pop schlock and fan works • How Do You Tell em’ apart? • Author’s credentials/affiliations • Publisher (e.g. BFI, AFI, University Presses vs pop press) • Scholarly apparatus and sources: notes, bibliographies, other documentation • If they’ve been widely cited by other scholars Rebecca A. Hitchcock, 1940

…But how do you locate this stuff? Library Catalog(s) Journal/Newspaper Indexes (article databases) Mae West

Library Catalog(s) • OskiCat: UCB Library holdings only • MELVYL (CDL cat): All 9 UC Campuses • An inventory of what the library owns (books, journals, newspapers, media, maps, manuscripts, govt documents…etc. etc. etc. etc. • Search by Author, Title, Subject • Whole books and print and electronic journals, NOT what’s inside of those publications

Call # Get da Book in da Stax A Hitchcock reader / edited by Marshall Deutelbaum and Leland Poague Chichester, U.K. ; Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Location(s): PN1998.3.H58 H574 2009

Queen Christina, R. Mamoulian, 1934 Articles/Reviews (how do you find this stuff?) Article databases (aka Indexes) • Library subscribes to hundreds of them in all disciplines • Can’t find what’s in the by using Google • Often look/feel/behave differently from each other (proprietary products from diff commercial vendors) • Need to come in from berkeley.edu account or use Proxy Server (more later)

Articles/Reviews (how do you find this stuff?) Article Database (aka Indexes) Jumping Off point for Finding Online Indexes: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ Find Information / Articles / Blonde Venus, J. Von Sternberg, 1932 General Databases are often good places to start – Multidisciplinary (lots of film)

Gary’s Desert Island Index/Article Database List No Now Playing

GH Desert Island Film Index/Article Database List • EBSCO dbs: Academic Search Complete and others • MLA Bibliography • FIAF Index • International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) No Now Playing • Don’t forget to check databases devoted to other disciplines!

The Information Universe • Remember: • Not every topic has lots written about it, either in books or journal lit. • --Research on very current topics • --Research on radically specific topics • --Research on topics off the beaten academic track or off the pop culture radar

Try it out, Sweetheart

The Letter, William Wyler, 1940 • Two possibilities: • Links you to full-text in ANOTHER article database • Or • Flips you over to MELVYL so you can locate a physical copy of the journal at UCB or elsewhere.

How to Begin? Before you click: THINK Formulate your search in terms of keyword and key phrases: Sex [women, love, relationships] and Death[dying, mortality, fate] in the films [cinema, movie*] of Robert Siodmak and Edward Dmytryk. The representation [reflect* portray*] of gender [sex*] and masculinity[masculin*, male, men] in film noir **** Truncation varies from db to db: * # ? emigra* = emigrant, emigrants, emigrate, emigration

Whatta ya do if nuthin’ ain’t turning up? …Or too Much? Bound Dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1997

Tweak your topic: Broaden it / select a different angle • Rethink your search strategy (new keywords, new concepts, etc.) • Bail out completely and choose another topic

A few cautionary words about research on the Net The Net Google Rocks! Google Scholar google.scholar.com LibraryLand

Forty Guns Dir. Sam Fuller, 1957 • http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/FilmBibMenu.html • a growing listing of bibliographies on various film topics and individual films compiled by MRC (includes bibs for genres, filmmakers, national cinemas, and individual film).

PROXY! Johnny Guitar Dir. Nicholas Ray, 1954

…being driven totally over the edge by your research? Call me: Gary Handman 643-8566 ghandman@library.berkeley.edu Fatal Attraction Dir. Adrian Lyne, 1987

Deviant Dames: Researching Celluloid Transgressions