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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Films, cinema > Film theory & criticism
Addressing cultural representations of women's participation in the political violence and terrorism of the Italian anni di piombo ('years of lead', c. 1969-83), this book conceptualizes Italy's experience of political violence during those years as a form of cultural and collective trauma. The intermittent clustering of cultural representations that feminize terrorism is interrogated in close relation to the psychological, social and political purposes served by such feminization at distinct historical moments. Ruth Glynn analyzes a broad range of texts including press reports, memoir, literary fiction and film, dating from the 1970s to the present with attention paid to the recent re-emergence of domestic terrorism and to cultural representations of the women of the 'New Red Brigades'.
From their very inception, European cinemas undertook collaborative ventures in an attempt to cultivate a transnational "Film-Europe." In the postwar era, it was DEFA, the state cinema of East Germany, that emerged as a key site for cooperative practices. Despite the significant challenges that the Cold War created for collaboration, DEFA sought international prestige through various initiatives. These ranged from film exchange in occupied Germany to partnerships with Western producers, and from coproductions with Eastern European studios to strategies for film co-authorship. Uniquely positioned between East and West, DEFA proved a crucial mediator among European cinemas during a period of profound political division.
Like many Eastern European countries, Poland has seen a succession of divergent economic and political regimes over the last century, from prewar "embedded liberalism," through the state socialism of the Soviet era, to the present neoliberal moment. Its cinema has been inflected by these changing historical circumstances, both mirroring and resisting them. This volume is the first to analyze the entirety of the nation's film history-from the reemergence of an independent Poland in 1918 to the present day-through the lenses of political economy and social class, showing how Polish cinema documented ordinary life while bearing the hallmarks of specific ideologies.
Taking the turn of this century as a starting point, when new
legislation around detention, deportation and dispersal began to
take effect, "Contemporary Asylum Narratives" identifies an
emerging cultural engagement with asylum seekers and refugees in
twenty-first century Britain. Through a focus on authors,
playwrights and filmmakers this study brings literary and cultural
criticism to bear on asylum issues by exploring the
representational politics that determine our responses to the
stateless individuals whose numbers are certain to increase in line
with global economic and ecological crises.
Charlie Chaplin was a skilled comedian, filmmaker and composer, and the mission of this book is to educate readers on the wide variety of Chaplin's artistry: the subtlety of his mimetic satire, the sophistication of his film direction, his prodigious musical skill that resulted in some of film's greatest orchestral arrangements. The encyclopedia also emphasizes the singular nature of Chaplin's biography: his unprecedented renown, the wide list of notables in art and culture with whom he fraternized, the controversies that seemed to dog each stage of his life, perhaps most notably his run-ins with the FBI and the House Unamerican Activities committee, both of whom suspected him of communist leanings. Charlie Chaplin: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works captures his life, and legacy. It features a chronology, an introduction offers a brief account of his life, a dictionary section lists entries on Chaplin's childhood, career, family, and associates. The bibliography is one of the largest available bibliographies of works concerning Chaplin.
This interdisciplinary study offers an introduction to the relatively unexplored area of the form of cinematic space referred to as "the landscape of the mind." Exploring the psychological use of natural setting in both avant-garde and mainstream cinema, this study seeks to understand how these settings serve as outward manifestations of characters' inner subjective states. David Melbye traces cultural trajectories of landscape depiction as far back as the Middle Ages in painting and literature to nurture a greater awareness of visual allegory in the films of the silent era up through the present, focusing specifically on the prolific appearance of landscape allegory in films of the 1960s and '70s.
Widely regarded as one of the foundational 'Unholy Trinity' of folk horror film, The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) has been comparatively over-shadowed, if not maligned, when compared to Witchfinder General (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973). While those horror bedfellows are now accepted as classics of British cinema, Piers Haggard's film remains undervalued, ironically so, given that it was Haggard who coined the term 'folk horror' in relation to his film. In this Devil's Advocate, David Evans-Powell explores the place of the film in the wider context of the folk horror sub-genre; its use of a seventeenth-century setting (which it shares with contemporaries such as Witchfinder General and Cry of the Banshee) in contrast to the generic nineteenth-century locales of Hammer; the influences of contemporary counter-culture and youth movement on the film; the importance of localism and landscape; and the film as an expression of a wider contemporary crisis in English identity (which can also be perceived in Witchfinder General, and in contemporary TV serials such as Penda's Fen).
John Ford's masterpiece The Searchers (1956) was voted the seventh greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound's most recent poll of critics. Its influence on many of America's most distinguished contemporary filmmakers, among them Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, and John Milius, is enormous. John Wayne's portrait of the vengeful Confederate Ethan Edwards gives the film a truly epic dimension, as does his long and lonely journey into the dark heart of America. Edward Buscombe's insightful study provides a detailed commentary on all aspects of the film, drawing on material in the John Ford archive at Indiana University, including Ford's own memos and the original script, which differs in vital respects from the film he made, to offer new insights into the film's production history.
In the early twentieth century, the art world was captivated by the imaginative, totally original paintings of Henri Rousseau, who, seemingly without formal art training, produced works that astonished not only the public but great artists such as Pablo Picasso. Samuel Fuller (1912-1997) is known as the ""Rousseau of the cinema,"" a mostly ""B"" genre Hollywood moviemaker deeply admired by ""A"" filmmakers as diverse as Jim Jarmusch, Martin Scorsese, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and John Cassavetes, all of them dazzled by Fuller's wildly idiosyncratic primitivist style. A high-school dropout who became a New York City tabloid crime reporter in his teens, Fuller went to Hollywood and made movies post-World War II that were totally in line with his exploitative newspaper work: bold, blunt, pulpy, excitable. The images were as shocking, impolite, and in-your-face as a Weegee photograph of a gangster bleeding on a sidewalk. Fuller, who made twenty-three features between 1949 and 1989, is the very definition of a ""cult"" director, appreciated by those with a certain bent of subterranean taste, a penchant for what critic Manny Farber famously labeled as ""termite art."" Here are some of the crazy, lurid, comic-book titles of his movies: Shock Corridor, The Naked Kiss, Verboten!, Pickup on South Street. Fuller isn't for everybody. His fans have to appreciate low-budget genre films, including westerns and war movies, and make room for some hard-knuckle, ugly bursts of violence. They also have to make allowance for lots of broad, crass acting, and scripts (all Fuller-written) that can be stiff, sometimes campy, often laboriously didactic. Fuller is for those who love cinema--images that jump, shout, dance. As he put it in his famous cigar-chomping cameo, acting in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou (1965): ""Film is like a battleground . . . love, hate, violence, death. In a single word: emotion."" After directing, Sam Fuller's greatest skill was conversation. He could talk, talk, talk, from his amazing experiences fighting in World War II to the time his brother-in-law dated Marilyn Monroe, and vivid stories about his moviemaking. Samuel Fuller: Interviews, edited by Gerald Peary, is not only informative about the filmmaker's career but sheer fun, following the wild, totally uninhibited stream of Fuller's chatter. He was an incredible storyteller, and, no matter the interview, he had stories galore for all sorts of readers, not just academics and film historians.
Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke is an extended dialogue between film scholar Michael Berry and the internationally acclaimed Chinese filmmaker. Drawing from extensive interviews and public talks, this volume offers a portrait of Jia's life, art, and approach to filmmaking. Jia and Berry's conversations range from Jia's childhood and formative years to extensive discussions of his major narrative films, including the classics Xiao Wu, Platform, The World, Still Life, and A Touch of Sin. Jia gives a firsthand account of his influences, analyzes the Chinese film industry, and offers his thoughts on subjects such as film music, working with actors, cinematography, and screenwriting. From industry and economics to art and politics, Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke represents the single most comprehensive document of the director's candid thoughts on the art and challenges of filmmaking.
Writing Australian History on Screen reveals the depths in Australian history from convict times to the present day. The essays in this book are thematically driven and take a rounded historical-cultural-sociological-psychological approach in analyzing the various selected productions. In their analyses and interpretations of the topic, the contributors interrogate the intricacies in Australian history as represented in Australian filmic period drama, taken from an Australian perspective. Individually, and together as a body of authors, they highlight past issues that, despite the society's changing attitudes over time, still have relevance for the Australia of today. In speaking to the subject, the contributing writers show a keen awareness that addressing new areas arising from the humanities is key to learning; and hence to developing an understanding of the Australian culture, the society, and sense of the ever-unfurling flag of an Australian something that is not yet a national identity.
De-centering queer theory seeks to reorient queer theory to a different conception of bodies and sexuality derived from Eastern European Marxism. The book articulates a contrast between the concept of the productive body, which draws its epistemology from Soviet and avant-garde theorists, and Cold War gender, which is defined as the social construction of the body. The first part of the book concentrates on the theoretical and visual production of Eastern European Marxism, which proposed an alternative version of sexuality to that of western liberalism. In doing so it offers a historical angle to understand the emergence not only of an alternative epistemology, but also of queer theory's vocabulary. The second part of the book provides a Marxist, anti-capitalist archive for queer studies, which often neglects to engage critically with its liberal and Cold War underpinnings. -- .
Many global film industries fail in expanding the role of Muslims on screen. Too often they produce a dichotomy between "good" and "bad" Muslims, limiting the narrative domain to issues of national security, war, and terrorism. Naturally, much of the previous scholarship on Muslims in film focused on stereotypes and the politics of representation. This collection of essays, from an international panel of contributors, significantly expands the boundaries of discussion around Muslims in film, asking new questions of the archive and magnifying analyses of particular cultural productions. The volume includes the exploration of regional cinemas, detailed analysis of auteurs and individual films, comparison across global cinema, and new explorations that have not yet entered the conversation. The interdisciplinary collection provides an examination of the multiple roles Islam plays in film and the various ways Muslims are depicted. Across the chapters, key intersecting themes arise that push the limits of how we currently approach issues of Muslims in cinema and ventures to lead us in new directions for future scholarship. This book adds new depth to the matrix of previous scholarship by revisiting methodological structures and sources, as well as exploring new visual geographies, transnational circuits, and approaches. It reframes the presiding scholarly conventions in five novel trajectories: considering new sources, exploring new communities, probing new perspectives, charting new theoretical directions, and offering new ways of understanding conflict in cinema. As such, it will be of great use to scholars working in Islamic Studies, Film Studies, Religious Studies, and Media.
Reframing remembrance examines films about the Nazi Occupation of France, charting how this period has been commemorated and how it has affected the articulation of French national identity. The book proposes that 1995 marked the beginning of a new approach to commemoration, reflected by socio-political acts, such as Jacques Chirac's July 1995 Vel' d'Hiv speech, and artistic acts, most notably films set during the Occupation. This is an approach that embraces critical engagement with history and its retelling. With relevance to countries beyond France and events far removed from the Second World War, Reframing remembrance highlights the need for ongoing, honest remembrance and self-reflection as cultural representations of history continue to shape contemporary views about nations' identities and their global responsibilities. -- .
Oscar-winning actor, translator of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo, and director of the iconoclastic The Night of the Hunter, Charles Laughton's name alone commanded box office and theatre acclaim. This book is the first to offer an intimate examination of his 54 films produced in Britain and Hollywood from 1928 to 1962. Each has technical credits and cast lists, as well as publicity taglines, a plot synopsis, selected dialogue, Oscars won or nominated, and production commentaries. Also provided are listings of Laughton's miscellaneous shorts and feature films, abandoned film projects, amateur and professional stage appearances, select radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, and audio recordings. Appendices detail the studios, performers and cinematographers of the Laughton films.
Make sense of the world of cinema Want to pull back the curtain on film? This hands-on, friendly guide unravels the complexities of film and helps you put cinema into a cultural context. You'll get an easy-to-follow introduction to different film genres and styles, learn about the history of cinema, get to know who makes up a filmmaking team, explore global cinema from Hollywood to Bollywood and much more. Film Studies For Dummies will open your mind to how the film industry works and help you to discover the impact of film on popular culture. You'll get easy-to-read information on analyzing and critiquing film from a range of theoretical, historical and critical perspectives, and learn how people communicate ideas in film. You'll also be able to shine a light on how stories are developed in movies, understand how a storyline is related to broader issues in society and become a well-versed and insightful film student. * Covers the narrative, artistic, cultural, economic and political implications of cinema * Provides conceptual frameworks for understanding a film's relationship to reality * Explores how people tell stories and communicate ideas in film * Helps you excel as a student of film Whether you're planning to study film, a humanities student with a forthcoming module on film or a film enthusiast wondering if this might be the future for you, Film Studies For Dummies has you covered.
Despite the recent explosion of scholarly interest in "star studies," Brazilian film has received comparatively little attention. As this volume demonstrates, however, the richness of Brazilian stardom extends well beyond the ubiquitous Carmen Miranda. Among the studies assembled here are fascinating explorations of figures such as Eliane Lage (the star attraction of Sao Paulo's Vera Cruz studios), cult horror movie auteur Coffin Joe, and Lazaro Ramos, the most visible Afro-Brazilian actor today. At the same time, contributors interrogate the inner workings of the star system in Brazil, from the pioneering efforts of silent-era actresses to the recent advent of the non-professional movie star.
'Shakespeare, Cinema and Desire' explores the desires and the futures of Shakespeare's language and cinematographic adaptations of Shakespeare. Tracing ways that film offers us a rich new understanding of Shakespeare, it highlights issues such as media technology, mourning, loss, the voice, narrative territories and flows, sexuality and gender.
Subjective Realist Cinema looks at the fragmented narratives and multiple realities of a wide range of films that depict subjective experience and employ "subjective realist" narration, including recent examples such as Mulholland Drive, Memento, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The author proposes that an understanding of the narrative structures of these films, particularly their use of mixed and multiple realities, enhances viewers' enjoyment and comprehension of such films, and that such comprehension offers a key to understanding contemporary filmmaking.
Recounts the life and career of Croatian filmmaker Rajko Grlic in the form of a lexicon of film terms tied to anecdotes spanning Grlic's life. "I read a lot this year. Old, new, borrowed, blue. This was the best. The paradox of reading something so avidly that you can't put it down and then I got to the last 20 pages slowing down to a snail's pace and reading so slowly so that it wouldn't be over so quickly."-Mike Downey, European Film Academy From his post-Nazi-era childhood in Yugoslavia to his college years during the 1968 invasion of Prague, the Yugoslav dissolution wars, and his subsequent exile in the United States, these personal stories combine to provide insight into socialist film industries, contextualizing south Slavic film while also highlighting its contacts with Western filmmakers and film industry. From the introduction by Aida Vidan: The one hundred and seventy-seven film terms provide sometimes a direct and at other times a metaphoric path to Grlic's stories and concurrently serve as a self-referential mechanism to comment on a series of film attributes. The entries can be read in any order, allowing for the reader's own "montage" of the book's universe.... Grlic adroitly captures the absurdities and paradoxes in one's life resulting from the sort of tectonic shifts with which East European history abounds.
1) This book analyses the role of cosmopolitan ideals in the science fiction cinemas of twenty-first century. 2) It deals with diverse topics like economic precarity, climate change, kinship, romance, networks, and colonialism through films like Elysium and Cloud Atlas, among others. 3) This book will be of interest to departments of film & media studies and cultural studies across UK.
This book examines issues of censorship, publicity and teenage fandom in 1950s Britain surrounding a series of controversial Hollywood films: The Wild One, Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause, Rock Around the Clock and Jailhouse Rock. It also explores British cinema's commentary on juvenile delinquency through a re-examination of such British films as The Blue Lamp, Spare the Rod and Serious Charge. Taking a multi-dimensional approach, the book intersects with star studies and social history while reappraising the stardom of Marlon Brando, James Dean and Elvis Presley. By looking at the specific meanings, pleasures and uses British fans derived from these films, it provides a logical and sustained narrative for how Hollywood star images fed into and disrupted British cultural life during a period of unprecedented teenage consumerism. -- .
James Baldwin Review (JBR) is an annual journal that brings together a wide array of peer-reviewed critical and creative work on the life, writings, and legacy of James Baldwin. In addition to these cutting-edge contributions, each issue contains a review of recent Baldwin scholarship and an award-winning graduate student essay. James Baldwin Review publishes essays that invigorate scholarship on James Baldwin; catalyze explorations of the literary, political, and cultural influence of Baldwin's writing and political activism; and deepen our understanding and appreciation of this complex and luminary figure. -- .
Best known for powerful 1950s melodramas like All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, The Tarnished Angels, and Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk (1897-1987) brought to all his work a distinctive style that led to his reputation as one of twentieth-century film's great directors. Sirk worked in Europe during the 1930s, mainly for Germany's UFA studios, and then in America in the 1940s and '50s. The Films of Douglas Sirk: Exquisite Ironies and Magnificent Obsessions provides an overview of his entire career, including Sirk's work on musicals, comedies, thrillers, war movies, and westerns. One of the great ironists of the cinema, Sirk believed rules were there to be broken. Whether defying the decrees of Nazi authorities trying to turn film into propaganda or arguing with studios that insisted characters' problems should always be solved and that endings should always restore order, what Sirk called "emergency exits" for audiences, Sirk always fought for his vision. Offering fresh insights into all of the director's films and situating them in the culture of their times, critic Tom Ryan also incorporates extensive interview material drawn from a variety of sources, including his own conversations with the director. Furthermore, his enlightening study undertakes a detailed reconsideration of the generally overlooked novels and plays that served as sources for Sirk's films, as well as providing a critical survey of previous Sirk commentary, from the time of the director's "rediscovery" in the late 1960s up to the present day.
Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time-fun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet, as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing them-and still living them-today. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called "modern myths." But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did. Through the medium of narratives that all of us know in their basic outline and which have no clear moral or resolution, these modern myths explore some of our deepest fears, dreams, and anxieties. We keep returning to these tales, reinventing them endlessly for new uses. But what are they really about, and why do we need them? What myths are still taking shape today? And what makes a story become a modern myth? In The Modern Myths, Ball takes us on a wide-ranging tour of our collective imagination, asking what some of its most popular stories reveal about the nature of being human in the modern age. |
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