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Three Tales of Obsession: Crosscutting Boundaries in Middle Eastern Film
Author(s) -
Gordon Joel
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/hic3.12292
Subject(s) - trilogy , movie theater , modernity , theme (computing) , context (archaeology) , aesthetics , realism , national cinema , middle east , sociology , history , psychology , gender studies , literature , art , epistemology , philosophy , computer science , archaeology , operating system
By examining three classic neo‐realist films directed by three cineastes from three different countries between 1958 and 1970, I attempt to engage a dialogue across boundaries of Middle Eastern film. Each film has been discussed in contexts of national cinema traditions with references to Western and Third World film, but rarely if ever in the context of regional, multi‐lingual cinemas with which they share most in terms of theme and content. Representative of a national moment, the intersections of modernity and social dislocation, and centered on who loses his sanity, they constitute a not‐so‐accidental trilogy that blurs boundaries between realism and melodrama.