Noel Carroll, a brilliant and provocative philosopher of film, has gathered in this book eighteen of his most recent essays on cinema and television--what Carroll calls "moving images." The essays discuss topics in philosophy, film theory, and film criticism. Drawing on concepts from cognitive psychology and analytic philosophy, Carroll examines a wide range of fascinating topics. These include film attention, the emotional address of the moving image, film and racism, the nature and epistemology of documentary film, the moral status of television, the concept of film style, the foundations of film evaluation, the film theory of Siegfried Kracauer, the ideology of the professional western, and films by Sergei Eisenstein and Yvonne Rainer. Carroll also assesses the state of contemporary film theory and speculates on its prospects. The book continues many of the themes of Carroll's earlier work Theorizing the Moving Image and develops them in new directions. A general introduction by George Wilson situates Carroll's essays in relation to his view of moving-image studies.

Providing an indispensable resource for students and general readers, this book serves as an entry point for a conversation on America's favorite pastime, focusing in on generational differences and the evolution of American identity. In an age marked by tension and division, Americans of all ages and backgrounds have turned to film to escape the pressures of everyday life. Yet, beyond escapism, popular cinema is both a mirror and microscope for our collective psyche. Examining the films that have made billions of dollars through a new lens reveals that popular culture is a vital source for understanding what it means to be an American. This book is divided into four sections, each associated with a different generation. Featuring such era-defining hits as Jaws, Back to the Future, Avatar, and The Avengers, each section presents detailed film analyses that showcase the consistency of certain American values throughout generations as well as the constant renegotiation of others. Ideal for any cinephile, The American Blockbuster demonstrates how complex and meaningful even the summer blockbuster can be. Provides readers with a completely different take on their favorite films Extrapolates what "American" might mean and analyzes common values in the 21st century Locates film as a crucial element to the understanding of late modern aesthetics, culture, spirituality, politics, and economics Features a broad array of films spanning from the 1970s to today

From the precocious charms of Shirley Temple to the box-office behemoth Frozen and its two young female leads, Anna and Elsa, the girl has long been a figure of fascination for cinema. The symbol of (imagined) childhood innocence, the site of intrigue and nostalgia for adults, a metaphor for the precarious nature of subjectivity itself, the girl is caught between infancy and adulthood, between objectification and power. She speaks to many strands of interest for film studies: feminist questions of cinematic representation of female subjects; historical accounts of shifting images of girls and childhood in the cinema; and philosophical engagements with the possibilities for the subject in film. This collection considers the specificity of girls' experiences and their cinematic articulation through a multicultural feminist lens which cuts across the divides of popular/art-house, Western/non Western, and north/south. Drawing on examples from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, the contributors bring a new understanding of the global/local nature of girlhood and its relation to contemporary phenomena such as post-feminism, neoliberalism and queer subcultures. Containing work by established and emerging scholars, this volume explodes the narrow post-feminist canon and expands existing geographical, ethnic, and historical accounts of cinematic cultures and girlhood.

Pleasures of Horror is a stimulating and insightful exploration of horror fictions--literary, cinematic and televisual--and the emotions they engender in their audiences. The text is divided into three sections. The first examines how horror is valued and devalued in different cultural fields; the second investigates the cultural politics of the contemporary horror film; while the final part considers horror fandom in relation to its embodied practices (film festivals), its "reading formations" (commercial fan magazines and fanzines) and the role of special effects. Pleasures of Horror combines a wide range of media and textual examples with highly detailed and closely focused exposition of theory. It is a fascinating and engaging look at responses to a hugely popular genre and an invaluable resource for students of media, cultural and film, studies and fans of horror.

What is 'fun' about the Hollywood version of girlhood? Through re-evaluating notions of pleasure and fun, The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film forms a study of Hollywood girl teen films between 2000-2010. By tracing the aesthetic connections between films such as Mean Girls (Waters, 2004), Hairspray (Shankman, 2007), and Easy A (Gluck, 2010), the book articulates the specific types of pleasure these films offer as a means to understand how Hollywood creates gendered ideas of fun. Rather than condemn these films as 'guilty pleasures' this book sets out to understand how they are designed to create experiences that feel as though they express desires, memories, or fantasies that girls supposedly share in common. Providing a practical model for a new approach to cinematic pleasures The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film proposes that these films offer a limited version of girlhood that feels like potential and promise but is restricted within prescribed parameters.

This is a superb new study of Japanese culture in the post-war period, focusing on a handful of filmmakers who created movies for a politically conscious audience. Out of a background of war, occupation and the legacies of Japan's post-defeat politics there emerged a dissentient group of avant-garde filmmakers who created a counter-cinema that addressed a newly constituted, politically conscious audience. While there was no formal manifesto for this movement and the various key filmmakers of the period (Oshima Nagisa, Imamura Shohei, Yoshida Yoshishige, Hani Susumu, Wakamatsu Koji and Okamoto Kihachi) experimented with very different conceptions of visual style, it is possible to identify a sensibility that motivated many of these filmmakers: a generational consciousness based on political opposition that was intimately linked to the student movements of the 1950s, and shared experiences as Japan's first generation of post-war filmmakers artistically stifled by a monopolistic and hierarchal commercial studio system that had emerged reinvigorated in the wake of the 'red purges' of the late-1940s. "Politics, Porn and Protest: Japanese Avant-Garde Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s" provides a much needed overview of these filmmakers and reconsiders the question of dissent in the cultural landscape of Japan in the post-war period.

Translation of a text supposedly written by Eva Perâon on her deathbed, but not published until 1987. The authenticity of the work has been questioned and it is highly unlikely that she wrote all of it. If it is hers, it displays the sharper aspects of her personality that are missing from the works that she claimed to author. Includes a useful introduction"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

What does the portrayal of gender in film reveal about Spanish society? To what extent and in what ways does cinema contribute to constructions of national and regional identity? How does gender interact with ethnicity, class, politics and history?Gender and Spanish Cinema addresses these questions and more in its examination of twentieth-century film. Defining 'gender' in its broadest sense, the authors discuss topics such as body, performance, desire and fantasy. Gender is not considered in isolation, but is discussed in relation to nationalism, race, memory, psychoanalyisis and historical context. The chapters are wide-ranging, dealing with subjects such as Buuel, cinema under Franco, 1950s melodrama and Pedro Almodvar.Bringing together leading academics from the UK, US and Spain, this volume examines the diversity of gender representation in Spanish cinema through a range of genres. A filmography and illustrations enhance the text.

America has always attempted to define itself through a network of invented myths and national narratives. Historically, this national mythmaking has focused on the building of the nation itself as a sort of grand adventure, as in the notion of manifest destiny, or the taming of the western frontier. This project has also naturally led to a focus on individual heroes, often playing the role of savior and redeemer in ways with clear religious resonances: Christ and "Shane" and Superman, for instance, all share key characteristics. At the same time, these superheroes have often been adolescents, designed to appeal to younger audiences as well. Other hero myths have been more down-to-earth, focusing on heroes who fight against evil, but in a more modest way, as in the case of the hardboiled detective. "Red, White, and Spooked" details the development of our national myths in an effort to try and see what these fantasies can reveal about what it means to be American today, and what we want it to mean.

Beginning with John Winthrop's city upon a hill sermon in 1630, American culture has been informed by a sense of its own exceptional nature. The notion of the Western hemisphere as a new world, a place filled with possibility and even magic, goes back to the initial voyages of Columbus, while the American Revolution gave even more impetus to the idea that the United States was a special place with a unique mission. As a result, America has always attempted to define itself through a network of invented myths and national narratives. "Red, White, and Spooked" details the development of our national myths which can be seen underlying the genres of country and film noir, the characters of Superman, Batman, and Spiderman, television hits like "Deadwood" and "NYPD Blue," and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Lord of the Rings" franchises as well.

This culture-spanning investigation begins with a historical survey of supernatural and superhuman themes in American culture, concluding with the recent upsurge that began in the 1990s. It then turns to a number of thematic chapters that discuss various works of recent popular culture with supernatural and superhuman themes - such as "The X-Files, Smallville, The 4400, Medium, Heroes, Lost," and "The Dead Zone" - organized according to the desires to which these works commonly respond. The object here is to try and see what these fantasies can reveal about what it means to be American today, and what we still want it to mean.

Includes bibliographical references (p.[435]-441) and index.

As with many aspects of European cultural life, film was galvanized and transformed by the revolutionary fervor of 1968. This groundbreaking study provides a full account of the era's cinematic crises, innovations, and provocations, as well as the social and aesthetic contexts in which they appeared. The author mounts a genuinely fresh analysis of a contested period in which everything from the avant-garde experiments of Godard, Pasolini, Schroeter, and Fassbinder to the "low" cinematic genres of horror, pornography, and the Western reflected the cultural upheaval of youth in revolt-a cinema for the barricades.

Writer, producer, and director Wes Craven has successfully tapped into the horror vein for over forty years, serving up scary, funny, cutting-edge thrillers that have become classics in the genre. His films have been both critical and commercial successes, most notably Nightmare on Elm Street, which spawned a series of sequels and made Craven (and his creation, Freddy Kruger) an international sensation. He then created a second indelible series in the horror movie trope with Scream. In Screams & Nightmares, Brian J. Robb examines Craven's entire career, from his low-budget beginnings to his most recent box office hits, from the banned thriller The Last House on the Left and the cult classic The Hills Have Eyes to the outrageous Shocker and The People Under the Stairs. Through exclusive interviews with Craven, Robb provides in-depth accounts of the making of each of the films - including the final instalments of the Scream series - Craven's foray into writing novels, and his numerous television projects.

This is the first book to examine the various uses of the Arthurian legend in Hollywood film, covering films from the 1920s to the present. The authors use five representational categories: intertextual collage (or "cult" film); melodrama, which focuses on the love triangle; conservative propaganda, pervasive during the Cold War; the Hollywood epic; and the postmodern quest, which commonly employs the grail portion of the legend. Arguing that filmmakers rely on the audience's rudimentary familiarity with the legend, the authors show that only certain features of the legend are activated at any particular time. This fascinating study shows us how the legend has been adapted and how through the popular medium of Hollywood films, the Arthurian legend has survived and flourished.

The cinematic tale of Harrison Marks' nudist feature "Naked As Nature Intended, the iconic naturist film that brought us bare breasts on Porthcurno beach, donkey-stroking in Clovelly and Pamela Green in her birthday suit. Behind the scenes exclusives and never before seen pictures.

Redirecting the Gaze is primarily concerned with the cinematic portrayals of women by women directors working outside corporate America and Europe. The book examines cinematic works of the 1980s and 1990s by women filmmakers from Argentina, Bolivia, China, Cuba, India, Mexico, Senegal, Tanzania, and Venezuela, as well as by independent Black American and Chicano women, most of whom are scarcely known in the United States and Europe.