The "organic" is by now a venerable concept within aesthetics, architecture, and art history, but what might such a term mean within the spatialities and temporalities of film? By way of an answer, this concise and innovative study locates organicity in the work of Bela Tarr, the renowned Hungarian filmmaker and pioneer of the "slow cinema" movement. Through a wholly original analysis of the long take and other signature features of Tarr's work, author Thorsten Botz-Bornstein establishes compelling links between the seemingly remote spheres of film and architecture, revealing shared organic principles that emphasize the transcendence of boundaries.

This book provides a comprehensive, critical overview of the turn to ethics in literature, film, and visual culture. It discusses the concept of a biovisual ethics, offering a new theory of the relation between film and ethics based on the premise that images are capable of generating their own ethical content. This ethics operates hermeneutically and materializes in cinema's unique power to show us other modes of being. The author considers a wealth of contemporary art films and documentaries that embody ethical issues through the very form of the text. The ethical imagination generated by films such as The Nine Muses, Post Tenebras Lux, Amour, and Nostalgia For the Light is crucially defined by openness, uncertainty, opacity, and the refusal of hegemonic practices of visual representation.

In their bold experimentation and bracing engagement with culture and politics, the "New Hollywood" films of the late 1960s and early 1970s are justly celebrated contributions to American cinematic history. Relatively unexplored, however, has been the profound environmental sensibility that characterized movies such as The Wild Bunch, Chinatown, and Nashville. This brisk and engaging study explores how many hallmarks of New Hollywood filmmaking, such as the increased reliance on location shooting and the rejection of American self-mythologizing, made the era such a vividly "grounded" cinematic moment. Synthesizing a range of narrative, aesthetic, and ecocritical theories, it offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of the most studied periods in film history.

What are the consequences of how Jews are depicted in movies and television series? Drawing on a host of movies and television series from the 1970s to present day, Jews in Contemporary Visual Entertainment explores how the media sexualize and racialize American Jews. Race and sexuality frequently intersect in the depiction of Jewish characters in such shows as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, UnREAL, The Expanse, and Breaking Bad, and in films such as Hester Street, Once Upon a Time in America, Casino, Radio Days, Inglourious Basterds, and Barton Fink. When they do, American sexual norms are invariably challenged or outright broken by these anti-Semitic representations of Jewishness. Insightful and provocative, Jews in Contemporary Visual Entertainment disturbingly reveals the far-reaching influence of popular visual media in shaping how American Jews are perceived today.

Ethical Encounters is an exploration of the intersection of feminism, human rights, and memory to illuminate how visual practices of recollecting violent legacies in Bangladeshi cinema can conjure a global cinematic imagination for the advancement of humanity. By examining contemporary, women-centered Muktijuddho cinema-features and documentaries that focus on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971-Elora Chowdhury shows how these films imagine, disrupt, and reinscribe a gendered nationalist landscape of trauma, freedom, and agency. Chowdhury analyzes Bangladeshi feminist films including Meherjaan, and Itihaash Konna (Daughters of History), as well as socially-engaged films by activist-filmmakers including Jonmo Shathi (Born Together), and Shadhinota (A Certain Liberation), to show how war films of Bangladesh can generate possibilities for gender justice. Chowdhury argues that justice-driven films are critical to understanding and negotiating the layered meanings and consequences of catastrophic human suffering yet at the same time they hint at subjectivities and identities that are not reducible to the politics of suffering. Rather, they are key to creating an alternative and disruptive archive of feminist knowledge-a sensitive witnessing, responsible spectatorship, and just responsibility across time, and space. Drawing on Black and transnational feminist critiques, Chowdhury explores questions around women's place, social roles, and modes of participation in war as well as the visual language through which they become legible as victims/subjects of violence and agents of the nation. Ethical Encounters illuminates the possibilities of film as a site to articulate an ethics that acknowledges a founding violence of the birth of a nation, recuperates it even if in fragments, and imagines differently the irreconcilable relationship between humanity, liberty, and justice.

In Vulgar Beauty Mila Zuo offers a new theorization of cinematic feminine beauty by showing how mediated encounters with Chinese film and popular culture stars produce feelings of Chineseness. To illustrate this, Zuo uses the vulgar as an analytic to trace how racial, gendered, and cultural identity is imagined and produced through affect. She frames the vulgar as a characteristic that is experienced through the Chinese concept of weidao, or flavor, in which bitter, salty, pungent, sweet, and sour performances of beauty produce non-Western forms of sexualized and racialized femininity. Analyzing contemporary film and media ranging from actress Gong Li's post-Mao movies of the late 1980s and 1990s to Joan Chen's performance in Twin Peaks to Ali Wong's stand-up comedy specials, Zuo shows how vulgar beauty disrupts Western and colonial notions of beauty. Vulgar beauty, then, becomes the taste of difference. By demonstrating how Chinese feminine beauty becomes a cinematic invention invested in forms of affective racialization, Zuo makes a critical reconsideration of aesthetic theory.

Ethical Encounters is an exploration of the intersection of feminism, human rights, and memory to illuminate how visual practices of recollecting violent legacies in Bangladeshi cinema can conjure a global cinematic imagination for the advancement of humanity. By examining contemporary, women-centered Muktijuddho cinema-features and documentaries that focus on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971-Elora Chowdhury shows how these films imagine, disrupt, and reinscribe a gendered nationalist landscape of trauma, freedom, and agency. Chowdhury analyzes Bangladeshi feminist films including Meherjaan, and Itihaash Konna (Daughters of History), as well as socially-engaged films by activist-filmmakers including Jonmo Shathi (Born Together), and Shadhinota (A Certain Liberation), to show how war films of Bangladesh can generate possibilities for gender justice. Chowdhury argues that justice-driven films are critical to understanding and negotiating the layered meanings and consequences of catastrophic human suffering yet at the same time they hint at subjectivities and identities that are not reducible to the politics of suffering. Rather, they are key to creating an alternative and disruptive archive of feminist knowledge-a sensitive witnessing, responsible spectatorship, and just responsibility across time, and space. Drawing on Black and transnational feminist critiques, Chowdhury explores questions around women's place, social roles, and modes of participation in war as well as the visual language through which they become legible as victims/subjects of violence and agents of the nation. Ethical Encounters illuminates the possibilities of film as a site to articulate an ethics that acknowledges a founding violence of the birth of a nation, recuperates it even if in fragments, and imagines differently the irreconcilable relationship between humanity, liberty, and justice.

This collection explores the emergence of new spatialities and subjectivities in Brazilian films produced from the 1990s onwards, a period that became known as the retomada, but especially in the cinema of the new millennium. The chapters take spatiality as a powerful tool that can reveal aesthetic, political, social, and historical meanings of the cinematographic image instead of considering space as just a formal element of a film. From the rich cross-fertilization of different theories and disciplines, this edited collection engages with the connection between space and subjectivity in Brazilian cinema while raising new questions concerning spatiality and subjectivity in cinema and providing new models and tools for film analysis.

Maverick Slovenian cultural theorist, philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek has made his name elaborating the complexities of psychoanalytic and Marxist theory through the exotic use of examples from film and popular culture. But what if we were to take Zizek's pretensions to cinephilia and film criticism seriously? In this book, adopting Zizek's own tactic of counterintuitive observation, we shall read the corpus of Alfred Hitchcock's films ('one of the great achievements of Western civilization') and Zizek's idiosyncratic citation of them in order to arrive at a position where we can identify the core commitments that inform Zizek's own work. From the practice of Hitchcock we shall (hopefully) arrive at a theory of Zizek (just as Zizek in his collection Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) (Verso, 1992) arrives at a theory of Lacan from the practice of Hitchcock). To achieve this goal each chapter looks at a specific film by Hitchcock and explores a specific key concept crucial to the elaboration and core of Zizek's ideas.

This volume examines the significant increase in serial killer narratives in popular television post-9/11, making it a unique contribution to post-9/11 scholarship The authors ask: What is it about serial killers that incited such a boom in these types of narratives in popular television post-9/11? The chapters explore questions such as: What is it about serial killers that makes these characters deeply enlightening representations of the human condition that, although horrifically deviant, reflect complex elements of the human psyche? Why are serial killers intellectually fascinating to audiences? How do these characters so deeply affect us? Shedding new light on a contemporary phenomenon, this book will be a fascinating read for all those at the intersection of television studies, film studies, psychology, popular culture, media studies, philosophy, genre studies and horror studies

The 1960s on Film tells the narrative of the 1960s through the lens of the movie camera, analyzing ten films that focus on the people, events, and issues of the decade. Films create both an impression of and - at times for younger audiences - a primary definition of events, people, and issues of an era. The 1960s on Film examines the 1960s as the decade was presented in ten films that focused on that decade. Discussion will focus on both what the films have to say about the era and how close they come to accurately depicting it. For example, films such as Mississippi Burning and Selma tell the story of racial conflict and hope for reconciliation in the 1960s. Other films such as The Right Stuff and Hidden Figures show the deep fascination America had at that time with the burgeoning space program and NASA, while Easy Rider and The Doors analyze the role of rock music and drugs among young people of the decade. The Deer Hunter studies the controversies surround the war in Vietnam. Mad Men, JFK and Thirteen Days also receive significant treatment in this exciting volume. Provides a window into the 1960s by assessing how films about that decade portrayed people, events, and issues of the era Shows how movies can teach us about a given era's history and make that history more engaging through the dramatic arts and storytelling Provides a new perspective on the well-researched decade of the 1960s, through the lens of the movie camera Suggests areas of further exploration for students of popular culture

Peter Jackson's epic trilogy, the biggest film event of the 21st century, turned the best-selling book of the 20th century into a popular, critical and financial success all over again. This comprehensive collection draws together twenty-five essays on the making, the meaning and the reception of The Lord of the Rings. There is a section on the business of the 'event film', critical chapters on techniques and meanings ranging from music to spirituality, essays on the multimedia products associated with the films, observations on the trilogy's global audience, and an informative dossier of reviews, interviews, production details and box-office returns. More closely integrated, and more attuned to the global marketplace than the older blockbusters, the event film, with its attention-grabbing pitch for the status of news, will be one of the most influential media forms of the coming years. These meticulous essays combine with Peter Jackson's remarkable trilogy to form a unique entry to the study of 21st century media. -- .

This book brings together recent Spanish fictions and films that point to individualism as the root problem driving diverse circumstances of social, economic, and psychological suffering in the present and recent past. The works privilege sensation, movement, and emotion-rather than identity-as the core elements of existential experience. However, the works also problematize notions of intersubjectivity, confronting ideals of affective immersion and cultural nomadism with the concrete contexts that shape particular lives and social formations. This confrontation underlies a series of 'crossroads', or productive engagements, that guide the book's five main chapters: locally rooted identity and global cultural circuits; historical contexts and universal modes of being; personal authenticity and consumer culture; migration and cultural identity; Spain's historical underdevelopment and impending future crises. All of these issues make affective connection and attachment the greatest existential challenge facing individuals and collectives in the contemporary world, both in Spain and elsewhere.

What could there possibly be about Christmas that needs to be ""saved""? Christmas isn't dead, not by a long shot. But when in the movies Santa Claus is in trouble, Christmas is in trouble and must be ""saved."" If bogeys or other circumstances prevent Santa from delivering the presents on Christmas Eve, there will be no Christmas because, as far as the movies are concerned, generally speaking, Santa IS Christmas. Explore 53 reasons for saving Christmas in this lighthearted collection of 228 films (over half of which are animated) from theatrical releases to television movies and specials to episodes of television series. The reasons for saving Christmas just may surprise you.

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.

Immigration is an important and much-discussed topic throughout the world, and its depiction on screen helps shape the way we perceive this issue. In Migration in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema, Thomas G. Deveny looks at film and immigration with a global perspective, examining emigration and immigration films from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Central America, and the Hispanic Caribbean. In this volume, Deveny approaches each movie with a close textual analysis, keeping in mind the sociological theories regarding migration, as well as incorporating criticism on the film. Recurring themes, such as the depiction of the "Other," individual identity, and social and cultural contextualization (stereotypes, rejection, acceptance, and change) are identified and discussed. Films such as Flowers from Another World, Return to Hansala, El Camino, 14 Kilometers, Maria Full of Grace, and others are carefully studied. Additional chapters analyze films about Colombian "mules" coming to the United States and Uruguayan prostitutes in Spain, and the final chapter examines Al otro Lado (To the Other Side), a film with narratives involving three nationalities and three destinations, thus showing the global nature of the phenomenon. Through the analyses of immigration and emigration depictions in film, this book enables readers to comprehend the universal nature of migration. Like the films it analyzes, Migration in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema will provide a deeper understanding of people who leave their homeland for a better life.

Becoming Vampire is an interdisciplinary study of how the figure of the vampire in the twenty-first century has been used to create and define difference, not as either a positive or negative attribute, but as a catalyst for change and the exploration of new identity positions. Whilst focusing on the films Let Me In and Let the Right One In to highlight the referential and intertextual nature of the genre itself, it utilises a broad spectrum of methodological approaches to show how the many facets of the vampire can destabilise traditional categories of who we are and what we might become. This volume then provides a timely examination of the multifaceted and multivalent character of the vampire and the possibilities inherent within our interactions with them, making this study a consideration of what we might term 'vampiric becomings' and an exploration of why the undead 'creatures of the night' remain so fascinating to Western culture.

In the early 1980s, serious American independent films including "Stranger Than Paradise," "Blood Simple," and "She's Gotta Have It" attracted ever-widening audiences, culminating with Steven Soderbergh's award-winning "sex, lies, and videotape." This film, which won the Cannes Film Festival's top award and took more than $30 million at the box office in the United States alone, capped a remarkable decade for off-Hollywood filmmakers. "Outsider Features" takes an in-depth look at 10 of the most successful independent feature films made during this decade, from John Sayles's seminal and groundbreaking "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" to Michael Moore's wry and irreverent "Roger & Me," the most lucrative non-music documentary ever made. "Outsider Features" offers accounts of the genesis of each film, complete synopses and critical analyses, and biographies of each filmmaker.

The Stepford Wives (1975) occupies an unusual position in cinematic history. As is often the case with cult texts, the film was both a box office flop and widely misunderstood on release. Intended as a feminist diatribe, it was derided by Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique it literalised. Even Ira Levin, author of the novel from which the film was adapted, concedes he was less than enthused with the filmed version. Despite this, the term 'Stepford wife' has become idiolect for a particular kind of one-dimensional, upper-middle class woman who is figuratively, and to some extent literally, an automation. Indeed, one does not need to have seen or even heard of the film or Levin's book to be familiar with the concept. This timely study finally gives The Stepford Wives the serious scholarly attention it deserves. In doing so, the significance of the film as a socio-cultural and socio-political document in its own right is underscored. While the intention of this book is to pay homage to Bryan Forbes' film, it goes far beyond this, locating it in the traditions of the gothic, the histories of feminism and fictional imaginings about artificial women, and the futures of social robots and AI, both real and imagined.

This book explores the transformative power of comedy to help connect a wider audience to films that explore environmental concerns and issues. This book offers a space in which to explore the complex ways environmental comedies present their eco-arguments. With an organizational structure that reveals the evolution of both eco-comedy films and theoretical approaches, this book project aims to fill a gap in ecocinema scholarship. It does so by exploring three sections arranged to highlight the breadth of eco-comedy: I. Comic Genres and the Green World: Pastoral, Anti-Pastoral, and Post-Pastoral Visions; II. Laughter, Eco-Heroes, and Evolutionary Narratives of Consumption; and III. Environmental Nostalgia, Fuel, and the Carnivalesque. Examining everything from Hollywood classics, Oscar winners, and animation to independent and international films, Murray and Heumann exemplify how the use of comedy can expose and amplify environmental issues to a wider audience than more traditional ecocinema genres and can help provide a path towards positive action and change. Ideal for students and scholars of film studies, ecocriticism, and environmental studies, especially those with a particular interest in ecocinema and/or ecocritical readings of popular films.

Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience uses the philosophy of Martin Heidegger as a framework for addressing key issues in the philosophy of film. This study grapples with the question of how we can reconcile film as a popular entertainment medium with Heidegger's own various critiques of popular media and culture throughout his career. Shawn Loht also explores topics such as the ontology of film and moving images; the phenomenological character of the viewer experience; film conceived as an art medium; and the function of films as vehicles for philosophical thought. He further discusses important concepts from Heidegger's philosophy--Dasein, existentiality, world, art and poetry, and the nature of philosophy. The first four chapters take up these issues from a theoretical perspective. The remaining chapters provide robust application of the theoretical material to the films of three contemporary filmmakers: Terrence Malick, Michael Haneke, and David Gordon Green. As the first single-author monograph that takes up Heidegger's relevance to film, Phenomenology of Film will be of particular interest to philosophers of film and specialists of film and media studies working in the intersection of phenomenology and film or phenomenological approaches to issues in popular culture.

Directed by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer, The Omen (1976) is perhaps the best in the devil-child cycle of movies that followed in the wake of Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. Released to a highly suggestible public, The Omen became a major commercial success, in no small part due to an elaborate pre-sell campaign that played and preyed on apocalyptic fears and a renewed belief in the Devil and the supernatural. Since polarising critics and religious groups upon its release, The Omen has earned its place in the horror film canon. It's a film that works on different levels, is imbued with nuance, ambiguity and subtext, and is open to opposing interpretations. Reflecting the film's cultural impact and legacy, the name 'Damien' has since become a pop culture byword for an evil child. Adrian Schober's Devil's Advocate entry covers the genesis, authorship, production history, marketing and reception of The Omen, before going on to examine the overarching theme of paranoia that drives the narrative: paranoia about the 'end times'; paranoia about government and conspiracy; paranoia about child rearing (especially, if one strips away the layer of Satanism); and paranoia about imagined threats to the right-wing Establishment from liberal and post-countercultural forces of the 1970s.