The Seventh Seal is probably Bergman's best-known work and the film that most clearly bears the director's unmistakeable signature. The opening scene sets the tone: a stony beach under a leaden sky, the knight alone with his thoughts, then the approach of black-clad Death, whom the knight invites to play a game of chess. Bergman's medieval allegory of faith and doubt is dark with the horrors of witch-burnings and the plague. But it is also shot through with bright flashes of peace and joy, symbolised in the milk and wild strawberries offered to the knight by an innocent family of actors. In his compelling appreciation, Melvyn Bragg describes his own first encounter as a student with this extraordinary film, and how it revealed to him another cinema, quite different from the Hollywood he had grown up with. He recounts too his later meeting with Bergman himself, and how the marks of the director's powerful personality are everywhere in this troubling and inspiring masterpiece.

Psychoanalysis and Hidden Narrative in Film proposes a way of constructing hidden psychological narratives of popular film and novels. Instead of offering interpretations of classic films, Trevor C. Pederson recognizes that the psychoanalytic tradition began with making sense of the seemingly inconsequential. Here he turns his attention to popular films like Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (1987). While masterworks like Psycho (1960) are not the object of interpretation, Hitchcock's film is used as a skeleton key. The revelation that Norman Bates' character had been his mother all along, suggests a framework of reading a film as having symptom characters who are excised to create a latent plot. The symptom character's behavior or inter-relations are then transcribed to an ego character. This is a shift in the tradition of literary doubling from hermeneutic intuition to a formal methodology that generates data for the unconscious. Pederson continues the project of unifying competing schools into a single model of mind and offers clinical examples from his own practice for all its terms. Psychodynamic techniques that emphasize the importance of working with the body, the id, and the ubiquity of repetition are introduced. A return to Freud's structural theory, in which complexes are anchored in the stages of superego development, is used to carefully plot and explain the social nature of the superego and its relation to authority in society (secondary narcissism) and the otherworldly (primary narcissism). Discrete phases of superego development and their ties to both the social and the id revive the grand promises of classical psychoanalysis to link with every field in the humanities. Psychoanalysis and Hidden Narrative in Film will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as scholars of film studies and literature interested in using a psychoanalytic approach and ideas in their work.

The film industry was an important propaganda element during the Cold War. As with other conflicts, the Cold War was fought not just with weapons, but with words and images. Throughout the conflict, cinema was a reflection of the societies, the ideologies, and the political climates in which the films were produced. On both sides, great stars, major companies, famous scriptwriters, and filmmakers were enlisted to help the propaganda effort. It was not only propaganda that was created by the cinema of the Cold War - it also articulated criticism, and the movie industries were centres of the fabrication of modern myths. The cinema was undoubtedly a place of Cold War confrontation and rivalry, and yet there were aesthetic, technical, narrative exchanges between West and East. All genres of film contributed to the Cold War: thrillers, westerns, comedies, musicals, espionage films, documentaries, cartoons, science fiction, historical dramas, war films, and many more. These films shaped popular culture and national identities, creating vivid characters like James Bond, Alec Leamas, Harry Palmer, and Rambo. While the United States and the Soviet Union were the two main protagonists in this on-screen duel, other countries, such as Britain, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia, also played crucially important parts, and their prominent cinematographic contributions to the Cold War are all covered in this volume. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cold War History.

This monograph explores the way that the profile and the critical functions of the holy fool have developed in European cinema, allowing this traditional figure to capture the imagination of new generations in an age of religious pluralism and secularization. Alina Birzache traces the cultural origins of the figure of the holy fool across a variety of European traditions. In so doing, she examines the critical functions of the holy fool as well as how filmmakers have used the figure to respond to and critique aspects of the modern world. Using a comparative approach, this study for the first time offers a comprehensive explanation of the enduring appeal of this protean and fascinating cinematic character. Birzache examines the trope of holy foolishness in Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, French cinema, and Danish cinema, corresponding broadly to and permitting analysis of the three main orientations in European Christianity: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. This study will be of keen interest to scholars of religion and film, European cinema, and comparative religion.

Michel Gondry's directorial work buzzes with playfulness and invention: in a body of work that includes feature films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep, to music videos, commercials, television episodes, and documentaries, he has experimented with blending animation and live action, complex narrative structures, and philosophical subject matter. Central to that experimentation is Gondry's use of music and sound, which this book addresses in a new detailed study. Kate McQuiston examines the hybrid nature of Gondry's work, his process of collaboration, how he uses sound and music to create a highly stylized reinforcement of often-elusive subjects such as psychology, dreams, the loss of memory, and the fraught relationship between humans and the environment. This concise volume provides new insight into Gondry's richly creative multimedia productions, and their distinctive use of the soundtrack.

When is it OK to lie about the past? If history is a story, then everyone knows that the 'official story' is told by the winners. No matter what we may know about how the past really happened, history is as it is recorded: this is what George Orwell called doublethink. But what happens to all the lost, forgotten, censored, and disappeared pasts of world history? Cinema Against Doublethink uncovers how a world of cinemas acts as a giant archive of these lost pasts, a vast virtual store of the world's memories. The most enchanting and disturbing films of recent years - Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives, Nostalgia for the Light, Even the Rain, The Act of Killing, Carancho, Lady Vengeance - create ethical encounters with these lost pasts, covering vast swathes of the planet and crossing huge eras of time. Analysed using the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze (the time-image) and Enrique Dussel (transmodern ethics), the multitudinous cinemas of the world are shown to speak out against doublethink, countering this biggest lie of all with their myriad 'false' versions of world history. Cinema, acting against doublethink, remains a powerful agent for reclaiming the truth of history for the 'post-truth' era.

Images of southern Italy as a place of arrival for migrants with different origins and backgrounds have in recent years proliferated in Italian media as well as in contemporary Italian literature and cinema. The unprecedented perspective which presents the mezzogiorno as a place where people arrive, and not only as a place of departure, constitutes a major change in the collective imaginary on the region and fosters new engagements with its migratory histories. This book presents one of the first studies to focus entirely, through in-depth readings of a range of contemporary literary and cinematic texts, on the representation of contemporary migration to southern Italy, and on the concomitant changes in the tradition of representation of the region. Informed by translation theory, and by decolonial, queer and feminist critique, this innovative study zeroes in on the mutual construction of race, gender and sexuality, and on the translation and hybridization of languages and cultures at the southern border. By giving a rich and compelling account of texts which tell multiple stories of mobility from, to and through the South, this book traces the emergence of a transnational imaginary of the mezzogiorno which offers useful tools for an urgent reconfiguration of collective and individual identities.

David O. Selznick (1902–1965) was one of the most prominent film producers of the Hollywood studio era, responsible for such artistic and commercial triumphs as King Kong, David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, A Star Is Born, Gone with the Wind, Rebecca, Spellbound, and The Third Man. However, film production was not his only domain. Starting in the late 1930s, he built an impressive stable of stars within his own independent company, including Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh, Joan Fontaine, Jennifer Jones, and Gregory Peck. In Starmaker: David O. Selznick and the Production of Stars in the Hollywood Studio System, author Milan Hain reveals the mechanisms by which Selznick and his collaborators discovered and promoted new stars and describes how these personalities were marketed, whether for financial gain or symbolic recognition and prestige. Using a wide range of archival materials, the book significantly complements and reshapes our understanding of Selznick’s celebrated career by focusing on heretofore neglected aspects of his creative and business activities. It also sheds light on the US film industry during the Golden Age of Hollywood studios and in the postwar period when the established order began to break down. By structuring the book around Selznick and his role as a starmaker, Hain demonstrates that star production and development in the Hollywood studio system was a highly organized and systematic activity, though the respective strategies and procedures were often hidden from the public eye.

Snuff (1976) occupies a unique place in cinematic history, as the first commercially successful film to capitalise upon the myth of the 'snuff' movie. By blending cinema verite styling with a media moral panic, savvy producer Allan Shackleton's blending of a long-forgotten exploitation film with a newly filmed bloody, if unconvincing conclusion, only served to consolidate the belief that somewhere, at some time, someone was killed on camera in an attack that was as much about the sexual gratification of the film's intended audience, as it was about the commercial rewards for those producing the film. In the years since its release, the film has been routinely cited as 'evidence' of the snuff movie's existence, contributing to a cultural history that exists outside of the film. This book explores the production, distribution and exhibition of the film Snuff, alongside that cultural history, considering how a scarcely seen exploitation film contributed to a popular understanding of the snuff movie. It assesses the cultural, cinematic and political legacy of the film and asks whether the established definition of what might constitute a snuff movie, that was defined 45 years ago, is sufficient in an attention economy that is based upon participatory culture.

Fully updated and expanded throughout, this second edition of Film Theory: The Basics provides an accessible introduction to the key theorists, concepts, and debates that have shaped the study of moving images. The book examines film theory from its emergence in the early twentieth century to its study in the present day, and explores why film has drawn special attention as a medium, as a form of representation, and as a focal point in the rise of modern visual culture. It also emphasizes how film theory has developed as a historically contingent discourse, one that has evolved and changed in conjunction with different social, political, and intellectual factors. This second edition offers a detailed account of new theoretical directions at the forefront of film studies in the twenty-first century, and draws additional attention to how theory engages with today's most pressing questions about digital technologies, the environment, and racial justice. Complete with questions for discussion and a glossary of both key terms and key theorists, this book in an invaluable resource for those new to film theory and for anyone else interested in the history and significance of critical thinking in relation to the moving image.

Spectacle is not often considered to be a significant part of the style of 'classical' cinema. Indeed, some of the most influential accounts of cinematic classicism define it virtually by the supposed absence of spectacle. Spectacle in 'Classical' Cinemas: Musicality and Historicity in the 1930s brings a fresh perspective on the role of the spectacular in classical sound cinema by focusing on one decade of cinema (the 1930s), in two 'modes' of filmmaking (musical and historical films), and in two national cinemas (the US and France). This not only brings to light the special rhetorical and affective possibilities offered by spectacular images but refines our understanding of what 'classical' cinema is and was.

This volume is part of the recent interest in the study of religion and popular media culture (cinema in particular), but it strongly differs from most of this work in this maturing discipline. Contrary to most other edited volumes and monographs on film and religion, Moralizing Cinema will not focus upon films (cf. the representation of biblical figures, religious themes in films, the fidelity question in movies), but rather look beyond the film text, content or aesthetics, by concentrating on the cinema-related actions, strategies and policies developed by the Catholic Church and Catholic organizations in order to influence cinema. Whereas the key role of Catholics in cinema has been well studied in the USA (cf. literature on the Legion of Decency and on the Catholic influenced Production Code Administration), the issue remains unexplored for other parts of the world. The book includes case studies on Argentina, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and the USA.

An iconic filmmaker and inheritor of the legendary Satyajit Ray's legacy, Rituparno Ghosh was one of the finest auteurs to emerge out of contemporary Bengal. His films, though rooted firmly in middle-class values, desires and aspirations, are highly critical of hetero-patriarchal power structures. From the very outset, Ghosh displayed a strong feminist sensibility which later evolved into radical queer politics. This volume analyses his films, his craft, his stardom and his contribution to sexual identity politics. In this first scholarly study undertaken on Rituparno Ghosh, the essays discuss the cultural import of his work within the dynamics of a rapidly evolving film industry in Bengal and more largely the cinematic landscape of India. The anthology also contains a conversation section (interviews with the filmmaker and with industry cast and crew) drawing a critical and personal portrait of this remarkable filmmaker.

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) was one of the great poets of world cinema. A fiercely independent artist, Tarkovsky crafted poignantly beautiful films that have proven inscrutable and been bitterly disputed. These qualities are present in abundance in "Andrei Rublev "(1966), Tarkovsky's first fully mature film. Ostensibly a biographical study of Russia's most famous medieval icon-painter, "Andrei Rublev "is both lyrical and epic, starkly naturalistic and allegorical, authentically historical and urgently topical. While much remains mysterious in "Andrei Rublev, "critics have recently begun to reappraise it as a groundbreaking film that undermines comfortable notions of life and spirituality.
Robert Bird's multifaceted account of "Andrei Rublev "extends this reevaluation of Tarkovsky's radical aesthetic by establishing the film's historical context and presenting a substantially new reading of key scenes. Bird definitively establishes the film's tortured textual history, which has resulted in two vastly different versions. He relates the film to traditions in Russian art and intellectual history, but finally his analysis focuses on "Andrei Rublev "as a visual and narrative artwork that treats profound existential questions by challenging conventional notions of representation and vision.

This book illuminates and explores the representation of women in Soviet cinema from the late 1950s, through the 1960s, and into the 1970s, a period when Soviet culture shifted away, to varying degrees, from the well-established conventions of socialist realism. Covering films about working class women, rural and urban women, and women from the intelligentsia, it probes various cinematic genres and approaches to film aesthetics, while it also highlights how Soviet cinema depicted the ambiguity of emerging gender roles, pressing social issues, and evolving relationships between men and women. It thereby casts a penetrating light on society and culture in this crucial period of the Soviet Union's development.

Writer and film-maker Laura Mulvey is widely regarded as one of the most challenging and incisive contemporary cultural theorists, credited for incorporating film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism. Part of the pathbeating 1970s generation of British film theorists and independent film-makers, she came to prominence with her classic essay on the pleasures - and displeasures - of narrative cinema, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'. She went on to make her own avant-garde films, co-directed with Peter Wollen, and to write further, greatly influential works - including this one. Fetishism and Curiosity contains writings which range from analyses of Xala, Citizen Kane and Blue Velvet, to an extended engagement with the creations of Native American artist Jimmie Durham and the feminist photographer Cindy Sherman. Essays explore the concept of fetishism as developed by Marx and Freud, and how it relates to the ways in which artistic texts work. Mulvey returns to some of the knottier issues in contemporary cultural theory, especially the links between looking, fantasy and theorisation on the one hand, and the processes of historical change on the other. What are the modes of address that characterise 'societies of the spectacle'? How might 'curiosity' be directed towards deciphering the politics of popular culture? These are just some of the questions raised in this brilliant and subtle collection. Published as part of the BFI Silver series, this new edition of Mulvey's classic work of feminist theory features a new, specially commissioned introduction and stills from the films discussed.

1) This is a comprehensive volume discussing various facets of one of the highest grossing Chinese science fiction film ever made, 'The Wandering Earth'. 2) This translated volume provides step by step idea of the production process of a science fiction movie. 3) This book will be of interest to departments of literature and film studies globally.

Writer and film-maker Laura Mulvey is widely regarded as one of the most challenging and incisive contemporary cultural theorists, credited for incorporating film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism. Part of the pathbeating 1970s generation of British film theorists and independent film-makers, she came to prominence with her classic essay on the pleasures - and displeasures - of
narrative cinema, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'. She went on to make her own avant-garde films, co-directed with Peter Wollen, and to write further, greatly influential works - including this one.
"Fetishism and Curiosity" contains writings which range from analyses of "Xala," "Citizen Kane" and "Blue Velvet," to an extended engagement with the creations of Native American artist Jimmie Durham and the feminist photographer Cindy Sherman. Essays explore the concept of fetishism as developed by Marx and Freud, and how it relates to the ways in which artistic texts work.
Mulvey returns to some of the knottier issues in contemporary cultural theory, especially the links between looking, fantasy and theorisation on the one hand, and the processes of historical change on the other. What are the modes of address that characterise 'societies of the spectacle'? How might 'curiosity' be directed towards deciphering the politics of popular culture? These are just some of the questions raised in this brilliant and subtle collection.
Published as part of the BFI Silver series, this new edition of Mulvey's classic work of feminist theory features a new, specially commissioned introduction and stills from the films discussed.

The femme fatale occupies a precarious yet highly visible space in contemporary cinema. From sci-fi alien women to teenage bad girls, filmmakers continue to draw on the notion of the sexy deadly woman in ways which traverse boundaries of genre and narrative. This book charts the articulations of the femme fatale in American cinema of the past twenty years, and contends that, despite her problematic relationship with feminism, she offers a vital means for reading the connections between mainstream cinema and representations of female agency. The films discussed raise questions about the limits and potential of positioning women who meet highly normative standards of beauty as powerful icons of female agency. They point towards the constant shifting between patriarchal appropriation and feminist recuperation that inevitably accompanies such representations within mainstream media contexts.

Clueless: American Youth in the 1990s is a timely contribution to the increasingly prominent academic field of youth film studies. The book draws on the social context to the film's release, a range of film industry perspectives including marketing, audience reception and franchising, as well as postmodern theory and feminist film theory to assert the cultural and historical significance of Amy Heckerling's film and reaffirm its reputation as one of the defining teen films of the 1990s. Lesley Speed examines how the film channels aspects of Anita Loos' 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the 1960s television series Gidget and Jane Austen's Emma, to present a heightened, optimistic view of contemporary American teenage life. Although seemingly apolitical, Speed makes the case for Clueless as a feminist exploration of relationships between gender, comedy and consumer culture, centring on a contemporary version of the 'dumb blonde' type. The film is also proved to embrace diversity in its depiction of African American characters and contributing to an increase in gay teenagers on screen. Lesley Speed concludes her analysis by tracking the rise of the Clueless franchise and cult following. Both helped to cement the film in popular consciousness, inviting fans to inhabit its fantasy world through spinoff narratives on television and in print, public viewing rituals, revivalism and vintage fashion.

Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist Perspective is the first sustained study of gender-consciousness in the Palestinian creative imagination. Drawing on concepts from postcolonial feminist theory, Ball analyses a range of literary and filmic works by major creative practitioners including Michel Khleifi , Liana Badr, Annemarie Jacir, Elia Suleiman, Mona Hatoum and Suheir Hammad, and reveals a hitherto unrecognized trajectory in gender-consciousness under development in the Palestinian imagination from the start of the twentieth century. The book explores how these works resonate with questions of power, identity, nation, resistance, and self-representation in the Palestinian imagination more broadly, and asks how these gender-conscious narratives transform our understanding of Palestine's struggle for postcoloniality. Working at the cusp of postcolonial, feminist and cultural enquiry, Ball seeks to open up vital new directions in the interdisciplinary study of Palestine.

The making of the Star Trek movies, as told by the cast and crew! As Star Trek Beyond heads into movie theaters and the Star Trek franchise celebrates its 50th Anniversary, this jam-packed volume celebrates Star Trek on the silver screen in all its incarnations - from the J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek and Into Darkness to the classic The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country - with a stellar array of big name cast and crew interviews. In this unparalleled collection of interviews and behind the scenes features, all true Star Trek fans can learn of J.J. Abrams' challenges in revitalising Star Trek for the big screen. Experience the late, great Leonard Nimoy's reflections on the life of Spock and his own directorial experiences on Star Trek. Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, and Zachary Quinto reveal their secrets behind reinterpreting classic Trek characters, while Benedict Cumberbatch, Eric Bana, Peter Weller and Malcolm McDowell reveal all about creating some of the most memorable Star Trek villains. Packed with in-depth features and interviews with the casts and crews of the Star Trek movies, plus an exclusive inside story on making Star Trek: The Motion Picture, this is a must for all true Trek fans!

Ideas of national identity, nationalism and transnationalism are now a central feature of contemporary film studies, as well as primary concerns for film-makers themselves. Embracing a range of national cinemas including Scotland, Poland, France, Turkey, Indonesia, India, Germany and America, Cinema and Nation considers the ways in which film production and reception are shaped by ideas of national belonging and examines the implications of globalisation for the concept of national cinema.
In the first three Parts, contributors explore sociological approaches to nationalism, challenge the established definitions of 'national cinema', and consider the ways in which states - from the old Soviet Union to contemporary Scotland - aim to create a national culture through cinema. The final two Parts address the diverse strategies involved in the production of national cinema and consider how images of the nation are used and understood by audiences both at home and abroad.