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2007 AML Special Award: CriticismPresented to:Gideon Burton and Randy Astle For editing: | |
The Association for Mormon Letters is pleased to present a special award in criticism to Randy Astle and Gideon O. Burton for “Mormons and Film,” a special issue of BYU Studies. Mormons have been fascinated by the power of the moving image since the inception of the cinema. This special issue chronicles the history of Mormon involvement in the development, production, and use of motion pictures, as well as presenting a broad cross-section of scholarly commentary on and critical engagement with issues pertinent to helping us understand the successes and challenges of Mormon film. The backbone of the issue is Astle and Burton’s “A History of Mormon Cinema,” which performs the important service of organizing Mormon film history into five periods or “waves.” Each wave is defined by an important development in the world of cinema that clarifies or redefines the complex relationship between Mormon culture and film. The concept of waves will be useful for many years as scholars continue to analyze and categorize new information relating to this fascinating field. The history is amplified by the inclusion of remarkable and rarely seen photographs beautifully reproduced by the BYU Studies staff. Additionally, the issue presents critical analyses of specific films; theoretical discussions of the character of Mormon culture, Mormon aesthetics, and Mormon spirituality in film; and diverse articles suggesting business models, proposals for future films, and analyses of film styles. The issue also includes reviews of recent films by and about Mormons. With such a variety of articles and approaches, the BYU Studies film issue not only lays the foundation for future studies of Mormon cinema, it also suggests specific directions for scholarship in the near future. It is the most important contribution to the study of Mormons and film to date and suggests the need for a new journal devoted exclusively to the discipline. In short, it is groundbreaking scholarship that whets our appetite for exciting new approaches, theories, and knowledge about how film encourages ever more exciting ways of representing and understanding our culture and our faith.
© 2008 The Association for Mormon Letters