Altered Cinema: The Cultural Politics of Film Revision

Catalog description

Repetition and variation define contemporary cinema texts. Media producers create multiple “cuts” of the same picture for domestic/international theater, television and home video markets. Meanwhile, consumers use new technologies to create their own textual variations and share them using informal distribution channels. This is a primary concern of Altered Cinema, which examines the history and culture of film revision from multiple perspectives, including originality, authorship, censorship, globalization, preservation, translation, copyright, fandom, new media and piracy. Screenings compare and contrast different editions, including director and fan cuts, of Metropolis, Star Wars, Dune and Night Watch among others.