Table Of ContentExploring Seriality on Screen
This collective book analyzes seriality as a major phenomenon increasingly
connecting audiovisual narratives (cinematic films and television series) in
the 20th and 21st centuries.
The book historicizes and contextualizes the notion of seriality, combin-
ing narratological, aesthetic, industrial, philosophical, and political per-
spectives, showing how seriality as a paradigm informs media convergence
and resides at the core of cinema and television history. By associating
theoretical considerations and close readings of specific works, as well as
diachronic and synchronic approaches, this volume offers a complex pan-
orama of issues related to seriality including audience engagement, inter-
textuality and transmediality, cultural legitimacy, authorship, and medium
specificity in remakes, adaptations, sequels, and reboots.
Written by a team of international scholars, this book highlights a di-
versity of methodologies that will be of interest to scholars and doctoral
students across disciplinary areas such as media studies, film studies, litera-
ture, aesthetics, and cultural studies. It will also interest students attending
classes on serial audiovisual narratives and will appeal to fans of the series
it addresses, such as Fargo, Twin Peaks, The Hunger Games, Bates Motel,
and Sherlock.
Ariane Hudelet is Professor of Visual Culture at Université de Paris
(LARCA/CNRS). After working on film adaptations, she has devoted her
most recent research to contemporary TV dramas, from an aesthetic and
cultural perspective, and is co-editor of the online journal TV/Series.
Anne Crémieux is Professor of American studies at Université Paris 8 –
Vincennes-Saint Denis. She has published books, articles and book chap-
ters on the representation of minorities in cinema and television.
Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies
Media Cultures in Latin America
Key Concepts and New Debates
Edited by Anna Cristina Pertierra and Juan Francisco Salazar
Cultures of participation
Arts, digital media and cultural institutions
Edited by Birgit Eriksson, Carsten Stage and Bjarki Valtysson
Adapting Endings from Book to Screen
Last Pages, Last Shots
Edited by Armelle Parey and Shannon Wells-Lassagne
Migration, Identity, and Belonging
Defining Borders and Boundaries of the Homeland
Edited by Margaret Franz and Kumarini Silva
Exploring Seriality on Screen
Audiovisual Narratives in Film and Television
Edited by Ariane Hudelet and Anne Crémieux
Locating Imagination in Popular Culture
Place, Tourism and Belonging
Edited by Nicky van Es, Stijn Reijnders, Leonieke Bolderman,
and Abby Waysdorf
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com
Exploring Seriality on Screen
Audiovisual Narratives in Film and
Television
Edited by
Ariane Hudelet and
Anne Crémieux
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Taylor & Francis
The right of Ariane Hudelet and Anne Crémieux to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-49148-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-04477-2 (ebk)
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Contents
List of illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
List of contributors xi
Introduction: cinematic, televisual, or post- serialities 1
ARIANE HUDELET AND ANNE CRÉMIEUX
PART I
Serial specificities 17
1.1 Opening gambits: cross- media self- reflexivity and audience
engagement in serial cinema, 1936–2008 19
ILKA BRASCH AND FELIX BRINKER
1.2 Ensemble storytelling: dramatic television seriality, the
melodramatic mode, and emotions 37
E. DEIDRE PRIBRAM
1.3 The cinematic- televisual: rethinking medium specificity in
television’s new Golden Age 53
C.E. HARRIS
PART II
Marketing seriality 77
2.1 A forgotten episode in the history of Hollywood cinema,
television, and seriality: the case of the Mirisch Company 79
PAUL KERR
vi Contents
2.2 Diversions in the Hunger Games film series: the fragmented
narrative of hijacked images 103
CHLOÉ MONASTEROLO
2.3 Raising Caine: Hollywood remakes of Michael Caine’s
Cockney cycle 122
AGNIESZKA RASMUS
PART III
Seriality and the cinematic/televisual convergence 137
3.1 The (re)making of a serial killer: replaying, “preplaying,”
and rewriting Hitchcock’s Psycho in the series Bates Motel 139
DENNIS TREDY
3.2 Fargo (FX, 2014–) and cinema: “just like in the movie”? 159
SYLVAINE BATAILLE
3.3 Screening dreams: Twin Peaks, from the series to the film,
back again and beyond 177
SARAH HATCHUEL
PART IV
Meta-s erialities 197
4.1 In- between still and moving pictures: series and seriality in
Stephen Poliakoff’s serial drama Shooting the Past (1999) 199
NICOLE CLOAREC
4.2 “The abominable bride”: Sherlock and seriality 213
CHRISTOPHE GELLY
4.3 Subject positions and seriality in The Good Wife 233
SAMUEL A. CHAMBERS
Index 259
Illustrations
Figures
3.1.1 Starting Over: The idyllic shot of Norma Bates (Vera
Farmiga) that bookends the entire Bates Motel series
(S01E01, S05E10) 147
3.1.2 The Gradual Decline of Norman Bates: this chart
indicates episodes over all four “prequel” seasons which
stage the progressive symptoms of Norman’s descent into
madness. Higher bars indicate episodes that give more
intense focus on that trait 154
4.2.1 The initial stage in the train travel 217
4.2.2 The same image turning around with the Carmichael
mansion in the background 218
4.2.3 The superimposition of both images upside down 218
4.2.4 The Carmichael mansion 219
4.2.5 Holmes as a second Jeremy Brett 226
4.2.6 The famous Granada credit sequence 226
4.2.7 The narrative as metafictional 228
4.2.8 21st- century Watson appearing in the 19th- century narrative 230
Table
2.3.1 Theatrical and DVD release dates of Michael Caine’s
British originals and their Hollywood remakes 128
Acknowledgments
Ariane Hudelet and Anne Crémieux would like to thank the LARCA (Uni-
versité de Paris/CNRS), CREA (Université Paris Nanterre), and CERILAC
(Université de Paris), for their financial and institutional help during the
completion of this project.
Our warmest thanks as well to the SERCIA (Société d’étude et de re-
cherche sur les cinémas anglophones) and to the GUEST consortium, which
made it possible to organize the 2016 conference on “Cinema and Seriality”
that led to this publication.
