Seth Barry Watter
@sbwatter.bsky.social
new york, ny | author of The Human Figure on Film (SUNY, 2023) and of articles on film, media, the human sciences, psychiatry
scholarly writing here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seth-Watter
scholarly writing here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seth-Watter
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Seth Barry Watter
@sbwatter.bsky.social
· Sep 22
Seth WATTER | New York University, New York City | NYU | Department of Media, Culture, and Communication | Research profile
Seth WATTER of New York University, New York City (NYU) | Read 14 publications | Contact Seth WATTER
www.researchgate.net
I'm in the process of porting all my stuff over from Academia dot edu to ResearchGate, at least until I can get my own website back up and running: you can now find most of my writing (academic or otherwise) over at www.researchgate.net/profile/Seth...
RIP to the great Jimmy Cliff. I never cared much for his work after Harder, but his soundtrack for the film and his performance in it have been a major part of my imaginative life for at least 15 years. The energy, the intensity, the ecstasy and also the inwardness of this scene are unparalleled.
Jimmy Cliff Recording The Harder They Come In Studio Session
YouTube video by Perry Henzell
youtube.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:15 PM
RIP to the great Jimmy Cliff. I never cared much for his work after Harder, but his soundtrack for the film and his performance in it have been a major part of my imaginative life for at least 15 years. The energy, the intensity, the ecstasy and also the inwardness of this scene are unparalleled.
While everyone else is enjoying Noirvember, I'm still basically in the throes of a long October. (from I Walked With a Zombie)
November 23, 2025 at 10:54 PM
While everyone else is enjoying Noirvember, I'm still basically in the throes of a long October. (from I Walked With a Zombie)
It's amazing that people still write books that are just summaries of films. This approach might have made sense in the twentieth century when many films were hard to see—and the author's main achievement was simply having seen them—but with today's easy availability it should be analysis or bust.
November 23, 2025 at 9:06 PM
It's amazing that people still write books that are just summaries of films. This approach might have made sense in the twentieth century when many films were hard to see—and the author's main achievement was simply having seen them—but with today's easy availability it should be analysis or bust.
My reading aloud of Justin Chang's delightfully witty takedown of the new Wicked has only succeeded in my child insisting we re-watch the first Wicked sooner than later
November 23, 2025 at 2:10 PM
My reading aloud of Justin Chang's delightfully witty takedown of the new Wicked has only succeeded in my child insisting we re-watch the first Wicked sooner than later
I don't know what to make of Sirat. Very effective in its own way as a sort of L'Avventura + Wages of Fear + Squid Game experience, but like so many other films released by Neon, it feels wrapped around a core of emptiness.
November 22, 2025 at 1:57 PM
I don't know what to make of Sirat. Very effective in its own way as a sort of L'Avventura + Wages of Fear + Squid Game experience, but like so many other films released by Neon, it feels wrapped around a core of emptiness.
Yesterday, while highlighting passages in a very dull book about neurology, a waiter asked me if I was an actor studying a script. I am going to interpret this as meaning that I am extremely attractive and should appear on TV
November 21, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Yesterday, while highlighting passages in a very dull book about neurology, a waiter asked me if I was an actor studying a script. I am going to interpret this as meaning that I am extremely attractive and should appear on TV
Is there any especially good writing on film and "persuasion," in the rhetorical sense? It seems to have a presence in research on documentary, but as a theme it is largely absent from the nontheatrical field.
November 21, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Is there any especially good writing on film and "persuasion," in the rhetorical sense? It seems to have a presence in research on documentary, but as a theme it is largely absent from the nontheatrical field.
Remember when Michael Rapaport was really funny in Spike Lee's Bamboozled? If there's anything I've learned from Facebook reels recently, those days are long over
November 21, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Remember when Michael Rapaport was really funny in Spike Lee's Bamboozled? If there's anything I've learned from Facebook reels recently, those days are long over
People who know about Bollywood: Can you think of any films that specifically thematize psychiatry in some way? I recently came across a statement in a history of shock therapy to the effect that Indian films often depict ECT inaccurately, but the authors gave no film titles or examples.
November 19, 2025 at 6:42 PM
People who know about Bollywood: Can you think of any films that specifically thematize psychiatry in some way? I recently came across a statement in a history of shock therapy to the effect that Indian films often depict ECT inaccurately, but the authors gave no film titles or examples.
Gaslighting starts earlier than I realized. Apparently a contingent of boys in my daughter's first-grade class has started telling the girls, "Ladies, ladies, calm down." The speakers include a boy notorious this year for breaking open a can of paint and permanently defacing the schoolyard with it.
November 17, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Gaslighting starts earlier than I realized. Apparently a contingent of boys in my daughter's first-grade class has started telling the girls, "Ladies, ladies, calm down." The speakers include a boy notorious this year for breaking open a can of paint and permanently defacing the schoolyard with it.
I just saw that the great Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai has passed away. Ichikawa's Conflagration, while a mediocre film, has one of Nakadai's finest performances as the disabled student Togari. His halting, twisted walk in the schoolyard has to be one of the most striking entrances in cinema.
November 11, 2025 at 12:14 PM
I just saw that the great Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai has passed away. Ichikawa's Conflagration, while a mediocre film, has one of Nakadai's finest performances as the disabled student Togari. His halting, twisted walk in the schoolyard has to be one of the most striking entrances in cinema.
If I had to live in any American city other than New York, I'm starting to think it should be Baltimore
November 10, 2025 at 9:08 PM
If I had to live in any American city other than New York, I'm starting to think it should be Baltimore
I don't know if it ever occurred to the writer of this that older editions are just nicer, feel better in the hands, have better covers, heavier type, etc. I would prefer a Penguin Classics from my childhood over a recent printing any day, even if the pages are a bit yellowed.
Hang on, when did reading become so performative (and the latest ick)?
Whether its highly curated Instagram accounts or the new interior trend for ‘book nooks’, reading show offs are everywhere. But, maybe in our post-literate society, we could turn something cringe int...
www.the-independent.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:43 PM
I don't know if it ever occurred to the writer of this that older editions are just nicer, feel better in the hands, have better covers, heavier type, etc. I would prefer a Penguin Classics from my childhood over a recent printing any day, even if the pages are a bit yellowed.
Because the two really do belong together
November 8, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Because the two really do belong together
Reposted by Seth Barry Watter
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
November 5, 2025 at 12:45 PM
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
This is already impossible to find in Manhattan. A colleague appears to have bought the last copy at the nearest Gristedes (appropriately enough, one of the businesses that has vowed to leave New York if Mamdani won the election)
November 5, 2025 at 6:33 PM
This is already impossible to find in Manhattan. A colleague appears to have bought the last copy at the nearest Gristedes (appropriately enough, one of the businesses that has vowed to leave New York if Mamdani won the election)
Reposted by Seth Barry Watter
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
November 5, 2025 at 12:21 AM
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
Mamdani has so completely changed the horizon of expectations this year that I'm struggling to recapture a moment in my life when I still thought that Ramos would be a great candidate
November 5, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Mamdani has so completely changed the horizon of expectations this year that I'm struggling to recapture a moment in my life when I still thought that Ramos would be a great candidate
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
November 5, 2025 at 12:45 PM
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
November 5, 2025 at 12:21 AM
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
Now that Tetsuya Yamagami is on trial for killing Shinzo Abe, I highly recommend Masao Adachi's film Revolution+1, which I wrote about back in 2023 for Tribune:
A Ball of Resentment
<cite>Revolution+1</cite> cleverly uses the story of Shinzo Abe’s assassin to chronicle the ills of contemporary Japan.
tribunemag.co.uk
October 30, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Now that Tetsuya Yamagami is on trial for killing Shinzo Abe, I highly recommend Masao Adachi's film Revolution+1, which I wrote about back in 2023 for Tribune:
A new twist in the AI wars: Has anyone had the experience of reading handwritten answers on an exam, yet still feeling as if they were composed by GPT? I am wondering if students would go through the trouble of generating answers to hypothetical questions in advance and memorizing them for a test...
October 27, 2025 at 4:57 PM
A new twist in the AI wars: Has anyone had the experience of reading handwritten answers on an exam, yet still feeling as if they were composed by GPT? I am wondering if students would go through the trouble of generating answers to hypothetical questions in advance and memorizing them for a test...
We're all set for Halloween here with some origami models courtesy of Oriol Esteve and Jo Nakashima
October 23, 2025 at 6:14 PM
We're all set for Halloween here with some origami models courtesy of Oriol Esteve and Jo Nakashima
Reposted by Seth Barry Watter
The White House movie theater over the years. In the East Wing, demolition imminent. The first film screened there was D. W. Griffith's racist epic Birth of a Nation in 1915. Jimmy Carter watched 480 films there, the most of any president: letterboxd.com/jfrankenstei...
October 23, 2025 at 4:14 AM
The White House movie theater over the years. In the East Wing, demolition imminent. The first film screened there was D. W. Griffith's racist epic Birth of a Nation in 1915. Jimmy Carter watched 480 films there, the most of any president: letterboxd.com/jfrankenstei...