The Future of Lao Cinema: The New Wave

The debut work of Mattie Do and Anysay Keola attests to the manner in which Lao cinema is being shaped by a new wave of young filmmakers determined to build a viable movie industry in the Lao PDR. With Chantaly, the first Lao horror movie, Mattie Do conjures up a world that cannot be fully explained rationally. She relies on the phi figure, and the belief of Lao people in supernatural beings, to raise serious questions about the traditional position occupied by women in the Lao family. Another film, Anysay Keola’s At the Horizon, the first Lao thriller, provides an edgy vision of contemporary Laos. The divide between the poor and the rich, tradition and modernity, is conveyed most originally via the soundtrack. Mattie Do and Anysay Keola are part of a new wave of promising young Lao directors who are fashioning a modern film industry in Laos.     

Life on the Outside: The Tamil Diaspora and Long-Distance Nationalism

Life on the Outside: The Tamil Diaspora and Long-Distance Nationalism. Øivind Fuglerud. Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 1999.203 pp.     

The Authoring of Observational Cinema: Conversations with Colin Young

Based on a series of conversations with Colin Young that have taken place over more than thirty years, this article explores how a certain set of practical and institutional circumstances, in combination with a series of philosophical and aesthetic ideas about the nature of cinema, first led to the emergence over the late 1960s and early 1970s of the approach to ethnographic filmmaking that would become known as “Observational Cinema.” Although it was those whom Colin Young trained, inspired or simply influenced who worked out the practical filmmaking applications of his ideas, it was he who initially formulated the foundational concepts underpinning this approach to ethnographic filmmaking. As such, although he has been a “filmmaker-maker” rather than a filmmaker himself, Colin Young has a rightful claim to be considered, in the sense defined by Roland Barthes, as the original “author” of Observational Cinema.     

John Marshall: the making of true spectacles.

In 1693 John Marshall of London devised a novel method of grinding batches of identical, good quality, lenses of a specified focal length. Its commendation by the Royal Society led to a trade war between Marshall and rivals in the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers. Despite initial opposition the method was rapidly adopted by London opticians and, though much modified, it forms the unrecognised basis of present day practice.     

The Lighter Side of Grief: Loss in Contemporary American Cinema

This article focuses on the current trend towards the combination of grief and humor in American cinema. These representations reflect a society built upon capitalism, competitiveness, and success. But nowadays the American culture seeks to cope with loss of direction and identity. Psychology, sociology and film studies expose these filmic depictions as a social representation of a generation in American social structure rather than as narratives of grief. The question remains, why now? Why at this particular point in history is Hollywood accepting of such humorous films in place of many of the more seriously dramatic works?     

The fate of released histamine: reception, response and termination.

Histamine released from ECL cells elicits responses from a variety of cellular targets in the vicinity. Three sets of receptors are involved (H1, H2 and H3). Receptor occupation is promptly transduced into cellular responses. The responses, in turn, are terminated by diverse mechanisms: enzymatic inactivation, cellular uptake and desensitization at the receptor level. Under specific pathological conditions, histamine effects could be exaggerated by the presence of derivatives that may be of marginal relevance under physiological conditions.     

In Darkest Hollywood: Cinema and Apartheid/In Darkest Hollywood: Exploring the Jungles of South Africa's Cinema

In Darkest Hollywood: Cinema and Apartheid. 1993. 112 minutes, color. video by Daniel Riesenfeld and Peter Davis. For more information contact Nightingale Films, 5214 N. Lakewood Ave. Chicago, IL 60640.
In Darkest Hollywood: Exploring the Jungles of South Africa's Cinema. Peter Davis. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1996.214 pp.     

Word, Sound, Image: The Life of the Tamil Text

Word, Sound, Image: The Life of the Tamil Text. Saskia Kersenboom. Washington, DC: Berg Publishers, 1995. 259 pp. (Includes "Bairavi Varnam" CD-i.)     

Ontogenetic integration between force production and force reception: a case study in Ctenomys (Rodentia: Caviomorpha)

During ontogeny, complex adaptations undergo changes that sometimes entail different functional capabilities. This fact constrains the behaviour of organisms at each developmental stage. Rodents have ever‐growing incisors for gnawing, and a powerful jaw musculature. The incisors are long enough, relative to their diameter, to be affected by bending stresses. This is particularly true in the subterranean Ctenomys that uses its incisors for digging. We measured bite force (BF) in individuals of different ages using a force transducer. We estimated incisor section modulus Z, a geometrical parameter proportional to bending strength. A relative strength indicator was calculated as S = Z/BF incisor length. We found that ontogenetic BF scales to body mass with positive allometry. However, an anova showed non‐significant differences in S, neither between sexes nor among age classes. This result implies that during growth, incisors might have a rather similar ability to withstand bending stresses from increasing masticatory forces, what may be considered evidence of ontogenetic integration of force production (by muscles) and force reception (by the incisors). This fact well correlates with the observation that pups and juveniles of C. talarum incorporate solid foods shortly after birth, and they are able to dig burrows early in life.     

The enzymology of visual reception: phosphodiesterase cascade of signal amplification

According to present-day concepts an important and, presumably, a key role in signal transmission in photoreceptor cells is ascribed to a system containing the photosensitive protein rhodopsin, GTP-binding protein transducin and cyclic GMP phosphodiesterase which in many features is similar to the adenylate cyclase system from other eukaryotic cells. The experimental and literary data concerning the already established and hypothetical mechanisms of transmission, enhancement and switch-off of the signal in the rhodopsin----transducin----phosphodiesterase chain are reviewed.     

Renovated: Gender and Cinema in Contemporary Vietnam

This article discusses the changes in Vietnamese cinema from the Socialist to the contemporary period from the viewpoint of gender representation. Under socialist conditions of cultural production, films were made by state-funded studios, with a clear mandate to provide the population with film material appropriate to the state's ideals. Since Doi moi (“Renovation”) in the late 1980s, Vietnam was opened up to market forces and cinematic practices have responded. Issues of gender have come into focus, and films exploring these themes have emerged from both state studios and private investors. Nevertheless conservative social values remain strong, and gender remains an area of dynamic uncertainty.     

Media for hybridoma growth and monoclonal antibody production

For the economical production of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), the cell-culture medium must be optimized for three different phases: growth of the hybridomas, MAb productivity of the hybridomas, and MAb purification or downstream processing. Medium improvements are necessary to meet these requirements for large-scale MAb production. Information bearing on this issue is being addressed in two research areas, cell biology and biochemical engineering, and is reviewed in this article.     

The shaping of Gujarati Cinema: Recognizing the new in traditional cultures

The study of ethnographic film has turned to the study of indigenous productions, primarily nonfictional videos made by native persons for internal and external consumption. This study was prompted by the need to locate alternate ways of seeing that Nonwestern peoples may have. This paper suggests that it is important to study local genius by studying their fictional films as well, and suggests that newness may not be found at first encounter but later after native groups domesticate foreign technology and make it their own tool. In citing this, the paper describes the various genres of films within contemporary Gujarati cinema and how the hybridity of its present forms has been procured from several sources that make for a distinctiveness which underlines emergent creative social forces at play.     

The temperature dependence of receptor structures and temperature-related reception]

In acute experiments on rats, studies have been made on impulse activity of single fibres of n. ischiadicus evoked by stimulation of the receptive fields of the sole by focused ultrasound. Mechanical effects were produced by rectangular ultrasonic stimuli, thermal ones--by trapezoid ones. With respect to the magnitude of a threshold response to a rectangular stimuli, the receptor structures were divided into three groups, i.e. low, mean and high threshold ones. Low and mean threshold receptor units responded to local thermal stimulation. Mean threshold units exhibited an increase of the threshold to mechanical stimulation after local thermal one. In human subjects, the structures which are functionally similar to mean threshold units, evoke thermal sensations, and may be classified not only as temperature dependent, but also as temperature sensitive.