Film, like folklore, comes in a variety of types. The articles in Folklore/Cinema reflect that variety, at least as far as film is concerned. Its subtitle, “Popular Film as Vernacular Culture,” reveals a slant toward analysis of film over analysis of folklore, but folklorists will find much of interest here.

The editors, Mikel J. Koven and Sharon R. Sherman, have attempted to put together essays that will appeal to scholars on both sides of the title’s slash mark. The resulting collection consists of four sections: “Filmic Folklore and Authenticity,” “Transformation,” “Through Folklore’s Lenses,” and “Disruption and Incorporation.” These include essays about films as diverse as German mountain documentaries, French Canadian short films, Middle Eastern fantasy, and Hollywood horror. The folklore considered in this volume comes mainly from oral tradition--folktales, legends, and ballads. The first essay, “‘Il y avait un’fois’: Films as Folktales in Quebecois Cinema Direct,” treats cinematic depictions of the traditional evening entertainment, soirée de campagne, which includes games, feasts, and dancing as well as story and song. “Beyond Communities: Cinematic Food Events and the Negotiation of Power, Belonging, and Exclusion” analyzes the uses of food in several Hollywood films. Jinn, conjure women, and folk heroes are also topics considered by the many authors.

One of the most interesting essays is “From Jinn to Genies: Intertextuality, Media, and the Making of Global Folklore” by Mark Allen Peterson, which traces the figure of the jinn/genie through various incarnations in oral tradition, literature, cinema, and again in oral tradition. This last is fascinating, as it demonstrates that not only does mass media appropriate the types, motifs, and characteristics of folklore, but that the reverse is also true. Seldom do we see this type of analysis, of film’s influence on folklore. Peterson differentiates the jinn, a product of oral tradition, from the genie, which is its mass media transformation. Yet he complicates that differentiation in his demonstration that the two types of characters continually influence each other; they cannot be truly separated anymore, if ever they could have been.

This seems to be one of the themes of the collection: film and folklore are intertwined. They are treated here largely as different modes of storytelling, but those stories need not be radically different. The medium of delivery will necessarily inform the story, but it is apparent that storytellers deal with the same issues and concerns whatever their chosen mode.

Overall, however, the essays demonstrate how an understanding of folklore can contribute to the analysis of film. One methodological difficulty with the editors’ framing lies in the phrase “popular film.” At first, I thought the modifier “popular” indicated that the films lacked state sponsorship, but this was refuted by the first essay’s analysis of films produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The inclusion of Hollywood films, some of which qualify as blockbusters, means that the term does not denote “independent film” as it has come to be understood in the United States. The films discussed come from many different countries and timeframes. The one common characteristic seems to be that they are narrative (with the possible exception of some of the German documentaries). None of the films here can be considered experimental. Nonetheless, the lack of a specific definition of popular film does not detract from the volume’s usefulness.

The essays are uneven in their treatment of folkloric concepts. Rebecca Prime’s essay “A Strange and Foreign World,” about German Mountain Films, refers several times to the ethnographic qualities of these films, but Prime also characterizes some of the films as having a fairy tale structure. What this means, she does not explicitly reveal. Others provide a more solid folkloristic foundation, relying sometimes on specific motifs (such as Holly Blackford’s “PC Pinocchios”), tale types (Landwehr’s “Marchen as Trauma Narrative”), or ballad (K.A. Laity’s “The Virgin Victim”). Some of the essays explore oral narratives transformed into film plots; some find character types such as the folk hero present on the screen. Other essays apply the methods of folkloristics to the films, such as LuAnne Roth’s use of the study of foodways on three films in “Beyond Communities.”

Laity’s essay, which focuses on Ingmar Bergman’s film The Virgin Spring and Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, reveals an interesting phenomenon. Laity demonstrates Bergman’s familiarity with the ballad on which he based his plot--referred to in English as “Sisters murdered by brothers avenged by father”--but does not do the same for Craven. Instead, we learn that Craven based his film on his recollection of Bergman’s film, a recollection, Laity notes, which was not entirely accurate. Laity’s analysis of the film is insightful, but what the article tacitly calls for is a fuller understanding of influence and transformation as it occurs within an individual’s repertoire. Film studies eschews the fieldwork process so integral to folkloristics, but this seems one case where the analysis of the film and the dynamics of storytelling could have greatly benefited from interviews.

The collection of essays included in Folklore/Cinema attempts to demonstrate the many ways that film and folklore are united as vernacular expressions. Its editors set the bar high, and though the entries do not always live up to the standards, they do an able job of meeting the editors’ primary goal: “to broaden the dialogue between film and folklore studies in an environment where we can all learn from each other outside of the confines of our own discipline” (1).

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[Review length: 908 words • Review posted on April 2, 2008]