R. Bruce Elder’s films have been presented in solo screenings at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Berlin’s Kino Arsenal, and Paris’ Centre Pompidou and in retrospectives by Anthology Film Archives, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Cinémathèque québécoise. His book, Harmony & Dissent: Film and Avant-Garde Art in the Early Twentieth Century was awarded the prestigious Robert Motherwell Book Prize, named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book, and shortlisted for the Raymond Klibansky Award (now Canada Humanities Prize). His most recent book is DADA, Surrealism, and the Cinematic Effect(2013). He is currently completing a volume on the cinema’s impact on Futurism.
Authors | R. Bruce Elder
Articles on Amodern by R. Bruce Elder
MYTH AND THE CINEMATIC EFFECT IN HARLEY PARKER AND MARSHALL MCLUHAN
In this paper, I probe Parker’s and McLuhan’s ideas on a new mentality they believed was emerging, first by relating these ideas to a revival they believed was occurring, of a forma mentis associated with orality and with mythic thinking (they shared this belief with other members of the Toronto School of Communication). I then turn to explore relations between film and this oral/mythic mentality, by considering Labyrinth, Spiral, and Picnic in Space, works that were, in one way or another associated with the members of the Toronto School and raise issues around the history of mentalities.