Mapping Cinematic Norths ─ International Interpretations in Film and Television

Mapping Cinematic Norths presents an international range of research and enquiry into the significance, representation and manipulation of depictions of the ‘North’ in cinema and television. Northern landscapes, soundscapes, characters and narratives are defined and recognized as distinctive image-spaces within film and television. However, the ‘North’ is portrayed, exploited and interpreted in divergent ways by filmmakers and film audiences worldwide, and this volume sheds new light on these varying perspectives.

Bringing together the work of established and emerging academics as well as practising filmmakers, this collection offers new critical insights into the coalescence of North-ness on screen, exploring examples from Britain, Scandinavia, continental Europe, Australia and the United States. With contextual consideration and close readings, these essays investigate concepts of the North on film from generic, national, aesthetic, theoretical, institutional and archival perspectives, charting and challenging the representations and preconceptions of the idea of North-ness across cultural and cinematic heritages.

Julia Dobson is Reader in Contemporary French Film and Performance at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Helene Cixous and the Theatre: The Scene of Writing (2002) and Negotiating the Auteur: Cabrera, Masson, Lvovsky and Vernoux (2012) and an editor of Studies in French Cinema.

Jonathan Rayner is Reader in Film Studies in the School of English, University of Sheffield. He is co-editor, with Graeme Harper, of Cinema and Landscape (2010) and Film Landscapes (2013) and author of Contemporary Australian Cinema (2000), The Naval War Film (2007) and The Cinema of Michael Mann (2013).