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.

This book presents close-readings of seven post-millennial comedic films: Up in the Air, Tropic Thunder, JCVD, Winnebago Man, The Trotsky, Be Kind Rewind, and Hamlet 2. It is a sequel to Stanley Cavell's 1981 landmark study of the comedic genre, Pursuits of Happiness, where he examines seven comedies of Hollywood's "Golden Age." Khan puts forward the idea that comedies, once centred on the conventional "happy ending," are no longer interested in detailing the steps to any ending we might call happy. Instead, the agenda of most culturally serious comedies today is to "spoof," to make all that is fair foul. The seven films presented here risk a type of cultural nihilism-spoofing for the sake of spoofing and nothing else, indicative not of film's promise but its failure. By equating the failure of film with the failed national politics of Canada (or the failed politics of nationalism and community more generally), this study shows that comedy has less to do with happiness and more to do with the grotesque. The films analysed represent hyper-realized forms of comic irony and move towards what theatre knows as tragedy, or a tragic vision.

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.

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.

The idea of cinephilia is a crucial one for students of the cinema, but it is often associated with a bygone arthouse era. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, corporatism, public relations and bottom-line accounting seem to govern mainstream film-making. Formula-driven Hollywood blockbusters dominate the world marketplace. In times like these can 'the love of cinema' still flourish? In fact contemporary cinema is stunningly varied and rich. From Taiwan and Iran to Brazil and the Baltic states, it is flourishing and constantly mutating. Directors like Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang are making extraordinary films that are the equal of the great classics, previously unrecognised works from the past are being discovered, and new definitions and boundaries of genres are being formulated. Even when this work is not widely distributed it is seen at film festivals on every continent and available on DVD; and it is being discussed in a proliferating number of print and web publications. Those who follow and share such work, as contributors from around the world demonstrate in this book, are forming new kinds of critical communities that enable significant exchanges between cultures at a time when other forces seem bent on keeping them mutually isolated. In contrast to any talk of 'the death of cinema', Movie Mutations pronounces the art form alive, well, and still developing in new and unforeseen directions. In weaving together transnational discussions and debates, Movie Mutations shows why the idea of cinephilia is just as relevant today as it ever was.

This book maps father failure and redemption through three decades of Hollywood family films, revealing how libertarian notions that align agency with autonomy lead to new conflicts for the contemporary father. The films find resolution to these conflicts through a re-gendering of parenting as relationship. In their creation of a 'pure' fatherhood that is valorised as authentic for its lack of parental responsibilities, the films serve to challenge the perception that fathering enacted outside the nuclear family structure is fragile. McNulty Norton finds in the films a new essentialism that secures the pure relationship to the biological father, reinforcing his position in the face of changing family forms.

The pervasive image of New York's 42nd Street as a hub of sensational thrills, vice and excess, is from where "grindhouse cinema," the focus of this volume, stemmed. It is, arguably, an image that has remained unchanged in the mind's eye of many exploitation film fans and academics alike. Whether in the pages of fanzines or scholarly works, it is often recounted how, should one have walked down this street between the 1960s and the 1980s, one would have undergone a kaleidoscopic encounter with an array of disparate "exploitation" films from all over the world that were being offered cheaply to urbanites by a swathe of vibrant movie theatres. The contributors to Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42nd Street, and Beyond consider "grindhouse cinema" from a variety of cultural and methodological positions. Some seek to deconstruct the etymology of "grindhouse" itself, add flesh to the bones of its cadaverous history, or examine the term's contemporary relevance in the context of both media production and consumerism. Others offer new inroads into hitherto unexamined examples of exploitation film history, presenting snapshots of cultural moments that many of us thought we already knew.

This book provides a collection of Lacanian responses to Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 from leading theorists in the field. Like Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner film, its sequel is now poised to provoke philosophical and psychoanalytic arguments, and to provide illustrations and inspiration for questions of being and the self, for belief and knowledge, the human and the post-human, amongst others. This volume forms the vanguard of responses from a Lacanian perspective, satisfying the hunger to extend the theoretical considerations of the first film in the various new directions the second film invites. Here, the contributors revisit the implications of the human-replicant relationship but move beyond this to consider issues of ideology, politics, and spectatorship. This exciting collection will appeal to an educated film going public, in addition to students and scholars of Lacanian psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies, film theory, philosophy and applied psychoanalysis.

A perfect blend of characterization, action and poetic images, John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) made "A" Westerns a viable product for Hollywood in the sound era. By 1990, the Western had again been on a downswing when Dances with Wolves became both a critical and commercial success. This work examines these two films and twelve others--Red River, High Noon, Shane, The Searchers, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Alamo, The Magnificent Seven, Ride the High Country, How the West Was Won, The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Unforgiven--that hold unique spots in the genre's history. Full filmographic data are provided for each, along with an essay that blends plot synopsis, historical perspectives and the movie's place in the Western genre.

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.

The Dark Mirror: Psychiatry and Film Noir probes the meanings behind the depiction of psychiatry and psychological illness in film noir, and how these depictions contribute to an overall understanding about the noir cycle itself. In this study, Marlisa Santos examines the role that the popularization of psychoanalysis in the 1940s and 1950s, beginning with the use of psychoanalytic techniques to treat World War II soldiers, had on writers and filmmakers of noir. This popularization had a lasting effect on American culture, especially as ideas such as introspection and a morally neutral universe became status quo, and thereby became reflected in the noir series. The films analyzed in this study reveal a distillation of such ideas, a bringing to the surface concerns and fears regarding the contradictory, yet thrilling nature of psychoanalysis: the ability of a "science of the mind" to eliminate the mysteries of the human psyche and the simultaneous nature of this science to expose the fundamental unknowability of the human psyche. Indeed, Santos argues that noir itself might not have existed without the introduction of psychoanalysis into American culture.

This book traces the development of investigative cinema, whose main characteristic lies in reconstructing actual events, political crises, and conspiracies. These documentary-like films refrain from a simplistic reconstruction of historical events and are mainly concerned with what does not immediately appear on the surface of events. Consequently, they raise questions about the nature of the "truth" promoted by institutions, newspapers, and media reports. By highlighting unanswered questions, they leave us with a lack of clarity, and the questioning of documentation becomes the actual narrative. Investigative cinema is examined in relation to the historical conjunctures of the "economic miracle" in Italy, the simultaneous decolonization and reordering of culture in France, the waves of globalization and neoliberalism in post-dictatorial Latin America, and the post-Watergate, post-9/11 climate in US society. Investigative cinema is exemplified by the films Salvatore Giuliano, The Battle of Algiers, The Parallax View, Gomorrah, Zero Dark Thirty, and Citizenfour.

This comprehensive revision guide contains everything students need to know to succeed on their A Level Film Studies course. Essential Revision for A Level Film Studies features engaging and accessible chapters to help learners develop a deeper understanding of the key elements of film form, including cinematography, mise en scene, performance, lighting, editing and sound. The book offers detailed explanations of the specialist study areas required for the A Level course, including auteur theory, spectatorship, genre, key critical debates, narrative and ideology, as well as overviews of key film movements like French New Wave cinema, German Expressionism and Soviet Montage. Also included are practical exercises designed to help students apply essential concepts to film set texts, sample exam responses for both Eduqas and OCR exam boards, and challenge activities designed to help students secure premium grades. With its practical approach and comprehensive scope, Essential Revision for A Level Film Studies is the ideal resource for students and teachers. The book also features a companion website at EssentialFilmRevision.com, which includes a wide range of supporting resources including revision flashcards and worksheets, a bank of film set text applications for exam questions for all film specifications, and classroom-ready worksheets that teachers can use alongside the book to help students master A Level Film exam content.

Philip D. Beidler, who served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam, sees less and less of the hard-won perspective of the common soldier in what America has made of that war. Each passing year, he says, dulls our sense of immediacy about Vietnam's costs, opening wider the temptation to make it something more necessary, neatly contained, and justifiable than it should ever become. Here Beidler draws on deeply personal memories to reflect on the war's lingering aftereffects and the shallow, evasive ways we deal with them. Beidler brings back the war he knew in chapters on its vocabulary, music, literature, and film. His catalog of soldier slang reveals how finely a tour of Vietnam could hone one's sense of absurdity. His survey of the war's pop hits looks for meaning in the soundtrack many veterans still hear in their heads. Beidler also explains how ""Viet Pulp"" literature about snipers, tunnel rats, and other hard-core types has pushed aside masterpieces like Duong Thu Huong's Novel without a Name. Likewise we learn why the movie The Deer Hunter doesn't ""get it"" about Vietnam but why Platoon and We Were Soldiers sometimes nearly do. As Beidler takes measure of his own wartime politics and morals, he ponders the divergent careers of such figures as William Calley, the army lieutenant whose name is synonymous with the civilian massacre at My Lai, and an old friend, poet John Balaban, a conscientious objector who performed alternative duty in Vietnam as a schoolteacher and hospital worker. Beidler also looks at Vietnam alongside other conflicts--including the war on international terrorism. He once hoped, he says, that Vietnam had fractured our sense of providential destiny and geopolitical invincibility but now realizes, with dismay, that those myths are still with us. ""Americans have always wanted their apocalypses,"" writes Beidler, ""and they have always wanted them now.

Documents the rich allusiveness and intellectual probity of experimental filmmaking-a form that thrived despite having been officially banned-in East German socialism's final years. In the German Democratic Republic during the 1970s and 1980s, more than two hundred films and videos, many of them experimental, were made outside government-run institutions despite legal restrictions on independent filmmaking, and despite the state-owned DEFA studio system's resistance to experimental film. Many were by professional artists who incorporated their painted, sculpted, and performed works in their films and then re-integrated their films into their other artistic endeavors. In addition to showing and debating their films informally in private, these artists worked within existing institutions, establishing annual meetings at Dresden's Academy of Fine Arts, publishing on experimental film in official journals, and even exhibiting films at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Though pursued as political subversives by the Stasi and dismissed as dilettantes by older critics, these artists frequently engaged their detractors in open debate, advancing their creative itineraries by exposing conceptual problems lurking in the histories of art and cinema. Through extensive archival research, formal analyses of over a dozen films, and interpretation of their relation to their creators' work in other media, Seth Howes documents the rich allusiveness and intellectual probity of experimental filmmaking in East German socialism's final years. Individual chapters examine Lutz Dammbeck's incorporation of painting, dance, literature, and experimental film into a critique of the (mass-)mediation of experience; the Autoperforationsartisten's use of film to problematize the notion of the "performance document"; Greifswald-based artists' integration of film into mail-art projects that crossed political borders and boundaries between media; and Yana Milev's blending of film and installation art to theorize the organization and segmentation of urban spaces. Seth Howes is Assistant Professor of German in the Department of German and Russian Studies at the University of Missouri.

This includes a brilliant line-up of international contributors that examine the implications of the portrayals of Nazis in low-brow culture and that culture's re-emergence today. "Nazisploitation!" examines past intersections of National Socialism and popular cinema and the recent reemergence of this imagery in contemporary visual culture. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, films such as "Love Camp 7" and "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" introduced and reinforced the image of Nazis as master paradigms of evil in what film theorists deem the "sleaze" film. More recently, Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds", as well as video games such as "Call of Duty: World at War", have reinvented this iconography for new audiences. In these works, the violent Nazi becomes the hyperbolic caricature of the "monstrous feminine" or the masculine sadist. Power-hungry scientists seek to clone the Fuhrer, and Nazi zombies rise from the grave. The history, aesthetic strategies, and political implications of such translations of National Socialism into the realm of commercial, low brow, and "sleaze" visual culture are the focus of this book. The contributors examine when and why the Nazisploitation genre emerged as it did, how it establishes and violates taboos, and why this iconography resonates with contemporary audiences.

Largely forgotten over the years, the seminal work of French poet, novelist and camp survivor Jean Cayrol has experienced a revival in the French-speaking world since his death in 2005. His concept of a concentrationary art-the need for an urgent and constant aesthetic resistance to the continuing effects of the concentrationary universe-proved to be a major influence for Hannah Arendt and other writers and theorists across a number of disciplines. Concentrationary Art presents the first translation into English of Jean Cayrol's key essays on the subject, as well as the first book-length study of how we might situate and elaborate his concept of a Lazarean aesthetic in cultural theory, literature, cinema, music and contemporary art.

A HISTORY OF THE MOST CONTROVERSAL MOTION PICTURE EVERY MADE A hundred years have passed since the masterpiece of David Wark Griffith, The Birth of a Nation, first appeared on the screens of America, in the winter of 1915. It demonstrated that the cinema, no less than literature and no less than the stage, could become a topic of serious critical, esthetic, intellectual, political, social, and technical discussion. In this way it brought the motion picture into a position of commanding influence in the social life of the American nation. The denunciation continues, and the storm over the film serves as a barometer of the global conflict, involving forces and issues set in motion by, but no means limited to, race. From the beginning it touched off several emotionally and politically explosive, interrelated, parallel controversies-controversy over Griffith; controversy over the film; controversy over the subject-matter and its treatment; controversy over the controversy. As Griffith's official biographer Seymour Sterns main purpose of his book was to assemble, as extensively as possible, the rapidly vanishing record of what happened. You'll find Stern's writing on the subject as controversial as the film itself.

Film and theory have always gone hand in hand. In many ways, the professional academic study of cinema grew out of the revolutionary surges in literary and cultural theory in Europe. Since the 1970s, film theory has predominantly been a lens through which to wage philosophical and cultural war (in increasingly abstract terms), and cinema was in the right place at the right time. "Toward a New Film Aesthetic" argues that such an approach to film studies ultimately debilitates the study of film.How does film theory connect with an audience that experiences film far beyond the confines of the academy? How can film scholars remain relevant to film culture? These are the fundamental question that film scholars seem to have neglected. Film theory, simply put, has detached itself from meaningful discussions of cinema undertaken with mainstream audiences."Toward a New Film Aesthetic" is a radical attempt to connect the study of film with the actual viewing and consumption practices of mainstream cinematic culture. Isaacs argues that theory has rendered the majority of approaches to film insular, self-reflective, obtuse, and - in its worst incarnation - elitist. He redefines cinema aesthetics in terms of the obsessive consumption of cinematic texts that is the hallmark of contemporary film viewing.

From David Lean's big screen Great Expectations to Alejandro Amenabar's reinvention of The Turn of the Screw as The Others, adaptations of literary classics are a constant feature of popular culture today. The Bloomsbury Introduction to Adaptation Studies helps students master the history, theory and practice of analysing literary adaptations. Following an introductory overview of major debates and concepts, each chapter focuses on a canonical text and features: - Case study readings of adaptations in a variety of media, from film to opera, televised drama to animated comedy show, YA fiction to novel/graphic novel. - Coverage of popular appropriations and re-imaginings of the text. - Discussion questions and creative exercises throughout to guide students through their own analyses. - Annotated guides to further reading and viewing plus online resources. - The book also includes chapter overviews and a glossary of critical terms to give students quick access to key information for further study, reference and revision. The Bloomsbury Introduction to Adaptation Studies covers adaptations of: Jane Eyre; Great Expectations; The Turn of the Screw; The Great Gatsby.

The notion of evil- does it exist? what forms does it take? -has always fascinated humankind. The evil underlying such atrocities as the Holocaust, Communist China's Tibetan abattoir, and the murderous ethnic cleansing undertaken by the Serbs and Croats seems beyond explanations or analysis. In this powerfully original work, Oppenheimer analyzes the phenomenon of evil in a mental behavior that emerges in particular conditions. Oppenheimer argues that evil contains specific, predictable ingredients. By understanding its nature, we can diagnose its specific manifestations in mass murder, genocide, and serial killings. Utilizing a variety of cinematic and literary genres in developing its evidence, the book considers such familiar films as "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Brazil," and draws upon such literary works as Richard III, Oedipus the King and the Picture of Dorian Gray. Evil and the Demonic takes a bold first step, providing a framework in which to place the horrors of human existence.

First published in 2002, Marek Haltof's seminal volume was the first comprehensive English-language study of Polish cinema, providing a much-needed survey of one of Europe's most distinguished-yet unjustly neglected-film cultures. Since then, seismic changes have reshaped Polish society, European politics, and the global film industry. This thoroughly revised and updated edition takes stock of these dramatic shifts to provide an essential account of Polish cinema from the nineteenth century to today, covering such renowned figures as Kieslowski, Skolimowski, and Wajda along with vastly expanded coverage of documentaries, animation, and television, all set against the backdrop of an ever-more transnational film culture.

This book offers a new approach to film studies by showing how our brains use our interpretations of various other films in order to understand Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Borrowing from behavioral psychology, cognitive science and philosophy, author Robert J. Belton seeks to explain differences of critical opinion as inevitable. The book begins by introducing the hermeneutic spiral, a cognitive processing model that categorizes responses to Vertigo's meaning, ranging from wide consensus to wild speculations of critical "outliers." Belton then provides an overview of the film, arguing that different interpreters literally see and attend to different things. The fourth chapter builds on this conclusion, arguing that because people see different things, one can force the production of new meanings by deliberately drawing attention to unusual comparisons. The latter chapters outline a number of such comparisons-including avant-garde films and the works of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch-to shed new light on the meanings of Vertigo.

Parody is the least appreciated of all film comedy genres and receives little serious attention, even among film fans. This study elevates parody to mainstream significance. A historical overview places the genre in context, and a number of basic parody components, which better define the genre and celebrate its value, are examined. Parody is differentiated from satire, and the two parody types, traditional and reaffirmation, are explained. Chapters study the most spoofed genre in American parody history, the Western; pantheon members of American Film Comedy such as The Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, Mae West, and Laurel and Hardy; pivotal parody artists, Bob Hope and Woody Allen; Mel Brooks, whose name is often synonymous with parody; and finally, parody in the 1990s. Films discussed include Destry Rides Again (1939), The Road to Utopia (1945), My Favorite Brunette (1947), The Paleface (1948), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Hot Shots Part Deux (1993) and Scream (1996).

This examination of parody will appeal to scholars and students of American film and film comedy, as well as those interested in the specific comedians discussed and the Western genre. Gehring's work will also find a place in American pop culture studies and sociological studies of the period from the 1920s to the 1990s. The book is carefully documented and includes a selected bibliography and filmography.