Cult Film as a Guide to Life investigates the world and experience of cult films, from well-loved classics to the worst movies ever made. Including comprehensive studies of cult phenomena such as trash films, exploitation versions, cult adaptations, and case studies of movies as different as Showgirls, Room 237 and The Lord of the G-Strings, this lively, provocative and original book shows why cult films may just be the perfect guide to making sense of the contemporary world. Using his expertise in two fields, I.Q. Hunter also explores the important overlap between cult film and adaptation studies. He argues that adaptation studies could learn a great deal from cult and fan studies about the importance of audiences' emotional investment not only in texts but also in the relationships between them, and how such bonds of caring are structured over time. The book's emergent theme is cult film as lived experience. With reference mostly to American cinema, Hunter explores how cultists, with their powerful emotional investment in films, care for them over time and across numerous intertexts in relationships of memory, nostalgia and anticipation.

This is an original investigation of how movies have reflected and helped to shape the values of a generation. From All the President's Men to Wall Street, US films of the 1970s and 80s were a kaleidoscope of shifting values and contrasting moral viewpoints. Knowing that movies mirror the way we think we are - or would like to be - O'Brien focuses on the key values (or their absence) found in films from this period in order to see more clearly what Americans really cherished in life, and how these values have evolved or changed. Comprehensive and thought provoking, this book addresses how and why movies glamorized and portrayed certain professions; the changing role of women; the targeting of religion for satire; the addressing of environmental issues and film's representation of and engagement with history.

This highly original and informative guide to the origins and development of film theory will be an indispensable tool for all students. It describes and contextualises the origins and development of film theory in the 20th century, and discusses all of the major movements and ideas. From the Lumiere brothers through to Tarantino and the postmodern movement, all of the major aspects of film will be analysed. Film theory will be distinguished from film criticism and all of the important theoretical movements that have influenced thinking about film will be explained.

We know a lot about the directors and stars of Italian cinema's heyday, from Roberto Rossellini to Sophia Loren. But what do we know about the Italian audiences that went to see their films? Based on the AHRC-funded project 'Italian Cinema Audiences 1945-60', Italian Cinema Audiences: Histories and Memories of Cinema-going in Post-war Italy draws upon the rich data collected by the project team (160 video interviews and 1000+ written questionnaires gathered from Italians aged 65 and over; archival material related to cinema distribution, exhibition and programming, box-office figures, and critical discussions of cinema from film journals and popular magazines of the period). For the first time, cinema's role in everyday Italian life, and its affective meaning when remembered by older people, are enriched with industrial analyses of the booming Italian film sector of the period, as well as contextual data from popular and specialized magazines.

How do we approach a figure like Mario Bava, a once obscure figure promoted to cult status? This book takes a new look at Italy's 'maestro of horror' but also uses his films to address a broader set of concerns. What issues do his films raise for film authorship, given that several of them were released in different versions and his contributions to others were not always credited? How might he be understood in relation to genre, one of which he is sometimes credited with having pioneered? This volume addresses these questions through a thorough analysis of Bava's shifting reputation as a stylist and genre pioneer and also discusses the formal and narrative properties of a filmography marked by an emphasis on spectacle and atmosphere over narrative coherence and the ways in which his lauded cinematic style intersects with different production contexts. Featuring new analysis of cult classics like Kill, Baby ... Kill (1966) and Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970), Mario Bava: The Artisan as Italian Horror Auteur sheds light on a body of films that were designed to be ephemeral but continue to fascinate us today.

Examines the role that parenting, as a theme and practice, plays in film and media cultures. Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor constructs a feminist genealogy that foregrounds the relationship between acts of production on the one hand and reproduction on the other. In this interdisciplinary collection, editors So Mayer and Corinn Columpar bring together film and media studies with parenting studies to stake out a field, or at least a conversation, that is thick with historical and theoretical dimension and invested in cultural and methodological plurality. In four sections and sixteen contributions, the manuscript reflects on how caregiving shapes the work of filmmakers, how parenting is portrayed on screen, and how media contributes to radical new forms of care and expansive definitions of mothering. Featuring an exciting array of approaches-including textual analysis, industry studies, ethnographic research, production histories, and personal reflection-Mothers of Invention is a multifaceted collection of feminist work that draws on the methods of both the humanities and the social sciences, as well as the insights borne of both scholarship and lived experience. Grounding this inquiry is analysis of a broad range of texts with global reach-from the films Bashu, The Little Stranger (Bahram Beyzai, 1989), Prevenge (Alice Lowe, 2016), and A Deal with the Universe (Jason Barker, 2018) to the television series Top of the Lake(2013-2017) and Jane the Virgin (2014-2019), among others-as well as discussion of the creative practices, be they related to production, pedagogy, curation, or critique, employed by a wide variety of film and media artists and/or scholars. Mothers of Invention demonstrates how the discourse of parenting and caregiving allows the discipline to expand its discursive frameworks to address, and redress, current theoretical, political, and social debates about the interlinked futures of work and the world. This collection belongs on the bookshelves of students and scholars of cinema and media studies, feminist and queer media studies, labor studies, filmmaking and production, and cultural studies.

Skepticism Films: Knowing and Doubting the World in Contemporary Cinema introduces skepticism films as updated configurations of skepticist thought experiments which exemplify the pervasiveness of philosophical ideas in popular culture. Philipp Schmerheim defends a pluralistic film-philosophical position according to which films can be, but need not be, expressions of philosophical thought in their own right. It critically investigates the influence of ideas of skepticism on film-philosophical theories and develops a typology of skepticism films by analyzing The Truman Show, Inception, The Matrix, Vanilla Sky, The Thirteenth Floor, Moon and other contemporary skepticism films. With its focus on skepticism as one of the most significant philosophical problems, Skepticism Films provides a better understanding of the dynamic interplay between film, theories of film and philosophy.

There are a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to researching how film spectators make sense of film texts, from the film text itself, the psychological traits and sociocultural group memberships of the viewer, or even the location and surroundings of the viewer. However, we can only understand the agency of film spectators in situations of film spectatorship by studying actual spectators' interactions with specific film texts in specific contexts of engagement. Making Sense of Cinema: Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship uses a number of empirical approaches (ethnography, focus groups, interviews, historical, qualitative experiment and physiological experiment) to consider how the film spectator makes sense of the text itself or the ways in which the text fits into his or her everyday life. With case studies ranging from preoccupations of queer and ageing men in Spanish and French cinema and comparative eye-tracking studies based on the two completely different soundscapes of Monsters Inc. and Saving Private Ryan to cult fanbase of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and attachment theory to its fictional characters, Making Sense of Cinema aligns this subset of film studies with the larger fields of media reception studies, allowing for dialogue with the broader audience and reception studies field.

One of the most influential thrillers in media history, Jaws first surfaced as a best-selling novel by first-time novelist Peter Benchley in 1974, followed by the 1975 feature film directed by Steven Spielberg at the beginning of his storied career. Jaws is often considered the first "blockbuster," and successive generations of filmmakers have cited it as formative in their own creative development. For nearly 50 years, critics and scholars have studied how and why this seemingly straightforward thriller holds such mass appeal. This book of original essays assembles a range of critical thought on the impact and legacy of the film, employing new perspectives--historical, cinematic, literary, scientific and environmental--while building on the insights of previous writers. While varying in focus, the essays in this volume all explore why Jaws was so successful in its time and how it remains a prominent storytelling influence well into the 21st century.

Contributions by Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth, Marc DiPaolo, Emine Akkulah Do?fan, Caroline Eades, Noelle Hedgcock, Tina Olsin Lent, Rashmila Maiti, Jack Ryan, Larry T. Shillock, Richard Vela, and Geoffrey Wilson In Next Generation Adaptation: Spectatorship and Process, editor Allen H. Redmon brings together eleven essays from a range of voices in adaptation studies. This anthology explores the political and ethical contexts of specific adaptations and, by extension, the act of adaptation itself. Grounded in questions of gender, genre, and race, these investigations focus on the ways attention to these categories renegotiates the rules of power, privilege, and principle that shape the contexts that seemingly produce and reproduce them. Contributors to the volume examine such adaptations as Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past, Taylor Sheridan's Sicario and Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Jean-Jacques Annaud's Wolf Totem, Spike Lee's He's Got Game, and Jim Jarmusch's Paterson. Each chapter considers the expansive dialogue adaptations accelerate when they realize their capacity to bring together two or more texts, two or more peoples, two or more ideologies without allowing one expression to erase another. Building on the growing trends in adaptation studies, these essays explore the ways filmic texts experienced as adaptations highlight ethical or political concerns and argue that spectators are empowered to explore implications being raised by the adaptations.

Fertile Visions conceptualises the uterus as a narrative space so that the female reproductive body can be understood beyond the constraints of a gendered analysis. Unravelling pregnancy from notions of maternity and mothering demands that we think differently about narratives of reproduction. This is crucial in the current global political climate wherein the gender-specificity of pregnancy contributes to how bodies that reproduce are marginalised, controlled, and criminalised. Anne Carruthers demonstrates fascinating and insightful close analyses of films such as Juno, Birth, Ixcanul and Arrival as examples of the uterus as a narrative space. Fertile Visions engages with research on the foetal ultrasound scan as well as phenomenologies, affect and spectatorship in film studies to offer a new way to look, think and analyse pregnancy and the pregnant body in cinema from the Americas.

Girls in French and Francophone Literature and Film is a collection of essays focusing on constructions of girlhood in French and Francophone Literature and Film from the late-Nineteenth to the early-Twenty-First centuries. The volume is firmly anchored at the intersection of French and Francophone studies and the bourgeoning field of girls' studies. Collectively, the articles demonstrate that girls' experience, historically viewed as a mere deviation from the "normative" male model, is a product of diverse ideological, cultural and economic factors, and is deserving of its own field of inquiry.

In this pioneering work, sixteen historians analyse individual films for deeper insight into US institutions, values and lifestyles. Linking all of the essays is the belief that film holds much of value for the historian seeking to understand and interpret American history and culture. This title will be equally valuable for students and scholars in history using film for analysis as well as film students and scholars exploring the way social and historical circumstances are reflected and represented in film.

This wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection-the first of its kind-invites us to reconsider the politics and scope of the Roots phenomenon of the 1970s. Alex Haley's 1976 book was a publishing sensation, selling over a million copies in its first year and winning a National Book Award and a special Pulitzer Prize. The 1977 television adaptation was more than a blockbuster miniseries-it was a galvanizing national event, drawing a record-shattering viewership, earning thirty-eight Emmy nominations, and changing overnight the discourse on race, civil rights, and slavery. These essays-from emerging and established scholars in history, sociology, film, and media studies-interrogate Roots, assessing the ways that the book and its dramatization recast representations of slavery, labor, and the black family; reflected on the promise of freedom and civil rights; and engaged discourses of race, gender, violence, and power in the United States and abroad. Taken together, the essays ask us to reconsider the limitations and possibilities of this work, which, although dogged by controversy, must be understood as one of the most extraordinary media events of the late twentieth century, a cultural touchstone of enduring significance.

This book argues for a durational cinema that is distinct from slow cinema, and outlines the history of its three main waves: the New York avant-garde of the 1960s, the European art cinema in the years after 1968, and the international cinema of gallery spaces as well as film festivals since the 1990s. Figures studied include Andy Warhol, Ken Jacobs, Chantal Akerman, Marguerite Duras, Claude Lanzmann, James Benning, Kevin Jerome Everson, Lav Diaz, and Wang Bing.Durational cinema is predominantly minimal, but has from the beginning also included a more encompassing or encyclopedic kind of filmmaking. Durational cinema is characteristically representational, and converges on certain topics (the Holocaust, deindustrialization, the experience of the working class and other marginalized people), but has no one meaning, signifying differently at different moments and in different hands. Warhol's durational cinema of subtraction is quite different from Jacobs's durational cinema of social disgust, while Lav Diaz' durational sublime is quite different from Kevin Jerome Everson's unblinking studies of African-American working people.