In the beginning, cinema was an encounter between humans, images and machine technology, revealing a stream of staccato gestures, micrographic worlds, and landscapes seen from above and below. In this sense, cinema's potency was its ability to bring other, non-human modes of being into view, to forge an encounter between multiple realities that nonetheless co-exist. Yet the story of cinema became (through its institutionalization) one in which the human swiftly assumed centrality through the literary crafting of story, character and the expression of interiority. Ex-centric Cinema takes an archaeological approach to the study of cinema through the writings of philosopher Giorgio Agamben, arguing that whilst we have a century-long tradition of cinema, the possibility of what cinema may have become is not lost, but co-exists in the present as an unexcavated potential. The term given to this history is ex-centric cinema, describing a centre-less moving image culture where animals, children, ghosts and machines are privileged vectors, where film is always an incomplete project, and where audiences are a coming community of ephemeral connections and links. Discussing such filmmakers as Harun Farocki, the Lumiere Brothers, Guy Debord and Wong Kar-wai, Janet Harbord draws connections with Agamben to propose a radically different way of thinking about cinema.

In Feminist Film Theory and Pretty Woman, Mari Ruti traces the development of feminist film theory from its foundational concepts such as the male gaze, female spectatorship, and the masquerade of femininity to 21st-century analyses of neoliberal capitalism, consumerism, postfeminism, and the revival of "girly" femininity as a cultural ideal. By interpreting Pretty Woman as a movie that defies easy categorization as either feminist or antifeminist, the book counters the all-too-common critical dismissal of romantic comedies as mindless drivel preoccupied with trivial "feminine" concerns such as love and shopping. The book's lucid presentation of the key concerns of feminist film theory, along with its balanced reading of Pretty Woman, shed light on a Hollywood genre often overlooked by film critics: the romantic comedy.

This book offers a cross-cultural approach to cinematic representations of Alzheimer's disease in non-mainstream cinema. Even though Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is a global health issue, it is not perceived or represented homogenously around the world. Contrary to very well-known mainstream films, the films discussed do not focus on the negative aspects normally associated with Alzheimer's disease, but on the importance of portraying the perspective of the persons living with Alzheimer's and their personhood. Similarly, this book analyses how the films use Alzheimer's as a trope to address issues relating to different areas of life and society such as, for example, family matters, intergenerational relationships, gender issues, national traditions versus global modernity, and caring for people with dementia. By examining an array of films, from crime fiction to documentary, that each present non-stigmatising representations of Alzheimer's disease, this in-depth study ultimately demonstrates the power of culture in shaping meaning.

Unlike previous studies of the Soviet avant-garde during the silent era, which have regarded the works of the period as manifestations of directorial vision, this study emphasizes the collaborative principle at the heart of avant-garde filmmaking units and draws attention to the crucial role of camera operators in creating the visual style of the films, especially on the poetics of composition and lighting. In the Soviet Union of the 1920s and early 1930s, owing to the fetishization of the camera as an embodiment of modern technology, the cameraman was an iconic figure whose creative contribution was encouraged and respected. Drawing upon the film literature of the period, Philip Cavendish describes the culture of the camera operator, charts developments in the art of camera operation, and studies the mechanics of key director-cameraman partnerships. He offers detailed analysis of Soviet avant-garde films and draws comparisons between the visual aesthetics of these works and the modernist experiments taking place in the other spheres of the visual arts.

Theodore Dreiser's dissection of the American dream, An American Tragedy, was hailed as the greatest novel of its generation. Now a classic of American literature, the story is one to which Hollywood has repeatedly returned.Hollywood's obsession with this tale of American greed, justice, religion and sexual hypocrisy stretches across the history of cinema. Some of cinema's greatest directors - Sergei Eisenstein, Josef von Sternberg and George Stevens - have attempted to bring this classic story to the screen. Subsequently, both Jean-Luc Godard and Woody Allen have returned to the story and to these earlier adaptations.Hollywood's American Tragedies is the first detailed study of this extraordinary sequence of adaptations. What it reveals is a history of Hollywood - from its politics to its cinematography - and, much deeper, of American culture and the difficulty of telling an American tragedy in the land of the American dream.

The Musicality of Narrative Film is the first book to examine in depth the film/music analogy. Using comparative analysis, Kulezic-Wilson explores film's musical potential, arguing that film's musicality can be achieved through various cinematic devices, with or without music.

From the silent era through the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was the preeminent government filmmaking organization. In the United States, USDA films were shown in movie theaters, public and private schools at all educational levels, churches, libraries and even in open fields. For many Americans in the early 1900s, the USDA films were the first motion pictures they watched. And yet USDA documentaries have received little serious scholarly attention. The lack of serious study is especially concerning since the films chronicle over half a century of American farm life and agricultural work and, in so doing, also chronicle the social, cultural, and political changes in the United States at a crucial time in its development into a global superpower.

Focusing specifically on four key films, Winn explicates the representation of African Americans in these films within the socio-political context of their times. The book provides a clearer understanding of how politics and filmmaking converged to promote a governmentally sanctioned view of racism in the U.S. in the early 20th century.

There are many books on the technical aspects of film and video editing. Much rarer are books on how editors think and make creative decisions. Filled with timeless principles and thought-provoking examples from a variety of international films, the second edition of Karen Pearlman's Cutting Rhythms offers an in-depth study of the film editor's rhythmic creativity and intuition, the processes and tools editors use to shape rhythms, and how rhythm works to engage audiences in film. While respecting the importance of intuitive flow in the cutting room, this book offers processes for understanding what editing intuition is and how to develop it. This fully revised and updated edition contains: New chapters on collaboration and "editing thinking"; Advice on making onscreen drafts before finalizing your story Tips on how to create and sustain audience empathy and engagement; Explanations of how rhythm is perceived, learned, practiced and applied in editing; Updated discussions of intuition, structure and dynamics; An all-new companion website (www.focalpress.com/cw/pearlman) with video examples and links for expanding and illustrating the principles of key chapters in the book.

This book analyzes Walt Disney's impact on entertainment, new media, and consumer culture in terms of a materialist, psychoanalytic approach to fantasy. The study opens with a taxonomy of narrative fantasy along with a discussion of fantasy as a key concept within psychoanalytic discourse. Zornado reads Disney's full-length animated features of the "golden era" as symbolic responses to cultural and personal catastrophe, and presents Disneyland as a monument to Disney fantasy and one man's singular, perverse desire. What follows after is a discussion of the "second golden age" of Disney and the rise of Pixar Animation as neoliberal nostalgia in crisis. The study ends with a reading of George Lucas as latter-day Disney and Star Wars as Disney fantasy. This study should appeal to film and media studies college undergraduates, graduates students and scholars interested in Disney.

From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre's obession with death and the characters' failure to be shocked by it. Movies discussed include: Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22, Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Heathers, and Natural Born Killers.

A key collection of essays that looks at the specific issues related to the documentary form. Questions addressed include `What is documentary?' and `How fictional is nonfiction?'

The flashback is a crucial moment in a film narrative, one that captures the cinematic expression of memory, and history. This author's wide-ranging account of this single device reveals it to be an important way of creating cinematic meaning. Taking as her subject all of film history, the author traces out the history of the flashback, illuminating that history through structuralist narrative theory, psychoanalytic theories of subjectivity, and theories of ideology. From the American silent film era and the European and Japanese avant-garde of the twenties, from film noir and the psychological melodrama of the forties and fifties to 1980s art and Third World cinema, the flashback has interrogated time and memory, making it a nexus for ideology, representations of the psyche, and shifting cultural attitudes.

Until his early retirement at age 50, Hasse Ekman was one of the leading lights of Swedish cinema, an actor, writer, and director of prodigious talents. Yet today his work is virtually unknown outside of Sweden, eclipsed by the filmography of his occasional collaborator (and frequent rival) Ingmar Bergman. This comprehensive introduction-the first ever in English-follows Ekman's career from his early days as a film journalist, through landmark films such as Girl with Hyacinths (1950), to his retirement amid exhaustion and disillusionment. Combining historical context with insightful analyses of Ekman's styles and themes, this long overdue study considerably enriches our understanding of Swedish film history.

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.

In the wake of the remarkable success of Film Noir Reader, this new collection further explores a genre of limitless fascination -- and one that continues to inspire and galvanise the latest generation of film-makers. Again heavily illustrated, with close to 150 stills, Film Noir Reader 2 is organised much like the earlier volume. It begins with 'More Seminal Essays', including a New York Times attack on crime pictures, written more than half a century ago, before the French had even given the genre its name; a look at its early development by the noted French director Claude Chabrol; and an analysis, by the American critic Stephen Farber, of how film noir reflects the violence and 'Bitch Goddess' values of contemporary society.

The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies charts the interdisciplinary activity around music in visual media, addressing the primary areas of inquiry: history, genre and medium, analysis and criticism, and interpretation. Chapters in Part I cover the range most broadly, from the relations of music and the soundtrack to opera and film, textual representation of film sound, film music as studied by cognitive scientists, and Hanns Eisler's work as film composer and co-author of the foundational text Composing for the Films (1947). Part II addresses genre and medium with chapters focusing on cartoons and animated films, the film musical, music in arcade and early video games, and the interplay of film, music, and recording over the past half century. The chapters in Part III offer case studies in interpretation along with extended critical surveys of theoretical models of gender, sexuality, and subjectivity as they impinge on music and sound. The three chapters on analysis in Part IV are diverse: one systematically models harmonies used in recent films, a second looks at issues of music and film temporality, and a third focuses on television. Chapters on history (Part V) cover topics including musical antecedents in nineteenth-century theater, the complex issues in sychronization of music in performance of early (silent) films, international practices in early film exhibition, and the symphony orchestra in film.

This book proposes an interpretive strategy by which religious film-analysts can develop the kind of analysis that engages with and critiques both cultural and religious practice. In their study of religion and film, religious film-analysts have tended to privilege religion. Uniquely, this study treats the two disciplines as genuine equals, by regarding both liturgy and film as representational media. Steve Nolan argues that, in each case, subjects identify with a represented 'other' which joins them into a narrative where they become participants in an ideological 'reality'. Finding many current approaches to religious film-analysis lacking, "Film, Lacan and the Subject of Film" explores the film theory other writers ignore, particularly that mix of psychoanalysis, Marxism and semiotics - often termed Screen theory - that attempts to understand how cinematic representation shapes spectator identity. Using translations and commentary on Lacan not originally available to Screen theorists, Nolan returns to Lacan's contribution to psychoanalytic film theory and offers a sustained application to religious practice, examining several 'priest films' and real-life case study to expose the way liturgical representation shapes religious identity. "Film, Lacan and the Subject of Film" proposes an interpretive strategy by which religious film-analysts can develop the kind of analysis that engages with and critiques both cultural and religious practice.

This first comprehensive and most in-depth history of cinematic pornography details sex in film from 100 years ago to today, concentrating on the quarter-century since Deep Throat, when pornography became a subject of popular culture.
Luke Ford is the best-known source on the porn film world today-the only journalist writing about the industry who is not also employed by it. This unique position gives Ford the objectivity to report without bias, and he is often consulted as a trusted news source on the porn industry by many major news publications.
Insightful, entertaining, and bold, A History of X takes us from the primitive film studios of the 1900s, where porn got its start as a daring experiment in sexual freedom, to the closed-door, multi-million-dollar porn-film corporations of today. Ford includes exclusive interviews with the stars, the producers, and the distributors as well as detailed data on censorship attempts from the early days to the present. He documents the controversial careers of top porn stars Marilyn Chambers, John Holmes, Linda Lovelace, Harry Reems, Gerard Damiano, Georgina Spelvin, Traci Lords, Max Hardcore, Ginger Lynn, and others, revealing both the great benefits and the tragic consequences that often come from fame and fortune in the porn industry.
He also discusses the many controversial aspects to the business, including Mafia influences, the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the industry, and the myths and realities behind child pornography.
Extensively researched and documented, A History of X is a fascinating expose of a business few dare to touch.

Canadian film director David Cronenberg has long been a figure of artistic acclaim and public controversy. Bursting into view with a trio of shocking horror films in the 1970s, Cronenbergs work has become increasingly complex in its sensibilities and inward-looking in its concerns and themes. This trajectory culminates in the multiplex successes of his most recent films, which appear to conclude a straightforward evolutionary arc that begins in the cold outside of shock-horror and arrives in the warm embrace of commercial and critical success.Scott Wilsonargues persuasivelythat Cronenbergs career can be divided into broad thematic stages and instead offers a complex examination of the relationship between three inter-related terms: the director as auteur; the industry that support or denies commercial opportunity; and the audience who receive, interpret and support (or decry) the vision represented on screen. The Politics of Insects provides an opportunity to explore Cronenbergs films in relation to each other in terms of their thematic continuity, and in terms of their relationship to industrial concerns and audience responses.