Ithaca College

Dr. Matthew Holtmeier, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Screen Studies, recently presented research at the Power Dynamics: Media and the Environment conference at the University of California Santa Barbara. 

His paper, titled “Bioregionalism and the Phatic Shot in Reichardt's Old Joy and Night Moves,” discusses the integration of Reichardt's interest in the environments of her films with an aesthetic she develops over the course of her career centered on the phatic shot. This phatic, non-narrative cinematography creates a more equitable power dynamic between story and setting, countering the common trend where environment becomes backdrop. Dr. Holtmeier argues that this equitable power dynamic aestheticizes bioregional thinking through a form of eco-philosophy in which individual subject, social organization, and environment co-articulate a sense of place.