Winner of the Surveillance Studies Network Book Award: 2017 Surveillance is a common feature of everyday life. But how are we to make sense of or understand what surveillance is, how we should feel about it, and what, if anything, can we do? Surveillance and Film is an engaging and accessible book that maps out important themes in how popular culture imagines surveillance by examining key feature films that prominently address the subject. Drawing on dozens of examples from around the world, J. Macgregor Wise analyzes films that focus on those who watch (like Rear Window, Peeping Tom, Disturbia, Gigante, and The Lives of Others), films that focus on those who are watched (like The Conversation, Cache, and Ed TV), films that feature surveillance societies (like 1984, THX 1138, V for Vendetta, The Handmaid's Tale, The Truman Show, and Minority Report), surveillance procedural films (from The Naked City, to Hong Kong's Eye in the Sky, The Infernal Affairs Trilogy, and the Overheard Trilogy of films), and films that interrogate the aesthetics of the surveillance image itself (like Sliver, Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries), Der Riese, and Look). Wise uses these films to describe key models of understanding surveillance (like Big Brother, Panopticism, or the Control Society) as well as to raise issues of voyeurism, trust, ethics, technology, visibility, identity, privacy, and control that are essential elements of today's culture of surveillance. The text features questions for further discussion as well as lists of additional films that engage these topics.

Queer Theory and Brokeback Mountain examines queer theory as it has emerged in the past three decades and discusses how Brokeback Mountain can be understood through the terms of this field of scholarship and activism. Organized into two parts, in the first half the author discusses key canonical texts within queer theory, including the work of writers as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. He provides an historical account of the questions these scholars have posed to our understanding of sexualities-both normative and non-normative-in the historical past and in contemporary life, as well as a discussion of the theories of sexuality and gender offered by these scholars as these phenomena shape the experiences of men and women in the genital, bodily, erotic, discursive, and cultural dimensions. The second part examines Ang Lee's 2005 feature film, Brokeback Mountain, in order to understand the claims and insights of queer theory. Tracing the film's adaptation by screenwriter Larry McMurtry of Annie Proulx's 1997 short story of the same title, this portion of the book examines the film's narrative about two working-class men in the rural mid-20th-century U.S. and the meanings of the sexual and emotional bond between the pair that develops over the course of two decades.

Matthew Flisfeder introduces readers to key concepts in postmodern theory and demonstrates how it can be used for a critical interpretation and analysis of Blade Runner, arguably 'the greatest science fiction film'. By contextualizing the film within the culture of late 20th and early 21st-century capitalism, Flisfeder provides a valuable guide for both students and scholars interested in learning more about one of the most significant, influential, and controversial concepts in film and cultural studies of the past 40 years. The "Film Theory in Practice" series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner offers a concise introduction to Postmodernism in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner.

Although precise definitions have not been agreed on, historical cinema tends to cut across existing genre categories and establishes an intimidatingly large group of films. In recent years, a lively body of work has developed around historical cinema, much of it proposing valuable new ways to consider the relationship between cinematic and historical representation. However, only a small proportion of this writing has paid attention to the issue of genre. In order to counter this omission, this book combines a critical analysis of the Hollywood historical film with an examination of its generic dimensions and a history of its development since the silent period. Historical Film: A Critical Introduction is concerned not simply with the formal properties of the films at hand, but also the ways in which they have been promoted, interpreted and discussed in relation to their engagement with the past.

An up-to-date and indispensable guide for film history buffs of all kind, this book surveys more than 500 major films based on true stories and historical subject matter. When a film is described as "based on a true story" or "inspired by true events," exactly how "true" is it? Which "factual" elements of the story were distorted for dramatic purposes, and what was added or omitted? Inspired by True Events: An Illustrated Guide to More Than 500 History-Based Films, Second Edition concisely surveys a wide range of major films, docudramas, biopics, and documentaries based on real events, addressing subject areas including military history and war, political figures, sports, and art. This book provides an up-to-date and indispensable guide for all film history buffs, students and scholars of history, and fans of the cinema. Clearly organized to facilitate quick location of specific films and topic areas Provides near-equal emphasis on both the films themselves and the historical events or persons on which they were based Presents carefully researched and highly informative coverage on a wide range of films that address military history, politics, sports, art, business and economics, and crime Offers pointed ideological assessments often avoided by more conventional treatments

Bringing together the human story of care with its representation in film, fiction and memoir, this book combines an analysis of care narratives to inform and inspire ideas about this major role in life. Alongside analysis of narratives drawn from literature and film, the author sensitively interweaves the story of his wife's illness and care to illuminate perspectives on dealing with human decline. Examining texts from a diverse range of authors such as Leo Tolstoy, Edith Wharton and Alice Munro, and filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman and Michael Haneke, it addresses questions such as why caregiving is a dangerous activity, the ethical problems of writing about caregiving, the challenges of reading about caregiving, and why caregiving is so important. It serves as a fire starter on the subject of how we can gain insight into the challenges and opportunities of caregiving through the creative arts.

The Film Theory in Practice series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. The third book in the series, Critical Race Theory and Bamboozled, offers a concise introduction to Critical Race Theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Spike Lee's critically acclaimed 2000 film Bamboozled. The most common approach to issues of "race" and "otherness" continues to focus primarily on questions of positive vs. negative representations and stereotype analysis. Critical Race Theory, instead, designates a much deeper reflection on the constitutive role of race in the legal, social, and aesthetic formations of US culture, including the cinema, where Bamboozled provides endless examples for discussion and analysis. Alessandra Raengo's Critical Race Theory and Bamboozled is the first to connect usually specialized considerations of race to established fields of inquiry in the humanities, particularly those concerned with issues of representation, capital, power, affect, and desire.

How does one read across cultural boundaries? The multitude of creative texts, performance practices, and artworks produced by Indigenous writers and artists in contemporary Australia calls upon Anglo-European academic readers, viewers, and critics to respond to this critical question. Contributors address a plethora of creative works by Indigenous writers, poets, playwrights, filmmakers, and painters, including Richard Frankland, Lionel Fogarty, Lin Onus, Kim Scott, Sam Watson, and Alexis Wright, as well as Durrudiya song cycles and works by Western Desert artists. The complexity of these creative works transcends categorical boundaries of Western art, aesthetics, and literature, demanding new processes of reading and response. Other contributors address works by non-Indigenous writers and filmmakers such as Stephen Muecke, Katrina Schlunke, Margaret Somerville, and Jeni Thornley, all of whom actively engage in questioning their complicity with the past in order to challenge Western modes of knowledge and understanding and to enter into a more self-critical and authentically ethical dialogue with the Other. In probing the limitations of Anglo-European knowledge-systems, essays in this volume lay the groundwork for entering into a more authentic dialogue with Indigenous writers and critics.

Place, Setting, Perspective examines the films of the Italian filmmaker, Nanni Moretti, from a fresh viewpoint, employing the increasingly significant research area of space within a filmic text. The book is conceived with the awareness that space cannot be studied only in aesthetic or narrative terms: social, political, and cultural aspects of narrated spaces are equally important if a thorough appraisal is to be achieved of an oeuvre such as Moretti's, which is profoundly associated with socio-political commentary and analysis. After an exploration of various existing frameworks of narrative space in film, the book offers a particular definition of the term based on the notions of Place, Setting, and Perspective. Place relates to the physical aspect of narrative space and specifically involves cityscapes, landscapes, interiors, and exteriors in the real world. Setting concerns genre characteristics of narrative space, notably its differentiated use in melodrama, detective stories, fantasy narratives, and gender based scenarios. Perspective encompasses the point of view taken optically by the camera which supports the standpoint of Moretti's personal philosophy expressed through the aesthetic aspects which he employs to create narrative space. The study is based on a close textual analysis of Moretti's eleven major feature films to date, using the formal film language of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound. The aim is to show how Moretti selects, organizes, constructs, assembles, and manipulates the many elements of narrative space into an entire work of art, to enable meanings and pleasures for the spectator.

This book uses popular films to understand the convergence of crime control and the ideology of repression in contemporary capitalism. It focuses on the cinematic figure of the fallen guardian, a protagonist who, in the course of a narrative, falls from grace and becomes an enemy of the established social order. The fallen guardian is a figure that allows for the analysis of a particular crime control measure through the perspective of both an enforcer and a target. The very notion of 'justice' is challenged, and questions are posed in relation to the role that films assume in the reproduction of policing as it is. In doing so, the book combines a historical far-reaching perspective with popular culture analysis. At the core remains the value of the cinematic figure of the fallen guardian for contemporary understandings of urban space and urban crime control and how films are clear examples of the ways in which the ideology of repression is reproduced. This book questions the justifications that are often given for social control in cities and understands cinema as a medium for offering critique of such processes and justifications. Explored are the crime control measures of private policing in relation to RoboCop (1987), preventative policing and Minority Report (2002), mass incarceration in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and extra-judicial killing in Blade Runner 2049 (2017). The book speaks to those interested in crime control in critical criminology, cultural criminology, urban studies, and beyond.

Hamlet is the most often produced play in the western literary canon, and a fertile global source for film adaptation. Samuel Crowl, a noted scholar of Shakespeare on film, unpacks the process of adapting from text to screen through concentrating on two sharply contrasting film versions of Hamlet by Laurence Olivier (1948) and Kenneth Branagh (1996). The films' socio-political contexts are explored, and the importance of their screenplay, film score, setting, cinematography and editing examined. Offering an analysis of two of the most important figures in the history of film adaptations of Shakespeare, this study seeks to understand a variety of cinematic approaches to translating Shakespeare's "words, words, words" into film's particular grammar and rhetoric

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

The Film Theory in Practice Series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. The first book in the series, Psychoanalytic Film Theory and The Rules of the Game, offers a concise introduction to psychoanalytic film theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Jean Renoir's classic film. It traces the development of psychoanalytic film theory through its foundation in the thought of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan through its contemporary manifestation in the work of theorists like Slavoj Zizek and Joan Copjec. This history will help students and scholars who are eager to learn more about this important area of film theory and bring the concepts of psychoanalytic film theory into practice through a detailed interpretation of the film.

Women's filmmaking in France has been a source of both delight and despair. On the one hand, the numbers are impressive - over 250 feature-length films were made by over 100 women directors in France in the 1980s and 1990s. On the other hand, despite the heritage of French feminism, French women directors characteristically disclaim their gender as a significant factor in their filmmaking. This incisive study provides an informative, critical guide to this major body of work, exploring the boundaries between personal films (intimate psychological dramas relating to key stages in life) and genre films (which demonstrate women's ability to appropriate and rework popular genres). It analyzes the effects of postfeminism, women's desire to enter the mainstream, and the impact of a new generation of filmmakers, enabling readers to take stock of the wealth and diversity of women's contribution to French cinema during the 1980s and 1990s.

The first collection of its kind, The Continental Philosophy of Film Reader is the essential anthology of writings by continental philosophers on cinema, representing the last century of film-making and thinking about film, as well as all of the major schools of Continental thought: phenomenology and existentialism, Marxism and critical theory, semiotics and hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism. Included here are not only the classic texts in continental philosophy of film, from Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" to extracts of Deleuze's Cinema and Barthes's Mythologies, but also the earliest works of Continental philosophy of film, from thinkers such as Georg Lukacs, and little-read gems by philosophical giants such as Sartre and Beauvoir. The book demonstrates both the philosophical significance of these thinkers' ideas about film, as well their influence on filmmakers in Europe and across the globe. In addition, however, this wide-ranging collection also teaches us how important film is to the last century of European philosophical thought. Almost every major continental European thinker of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has had something to say-sometimes, quite a lot to say-about cinema: as an art form, as a social or political phenomenon, as a linguistic device and conveyor of information, as a projection of our fears and desires, as a site for oppression and resistance, or as a model on the basis of which some of us, at least, learn how to live. Purpose built for classroom use, with pedagogical features introducing and contextualizing the extracts, this reader is an indispensable tool for students and researchers in philosophy of film, film studies and the history of cinema.