Traditionally identified with screwball comedies, Frank Capra has seldom been considered a conduit for populist concerns and issues. In this book, Gehring examines the influence of both Will Rogers and Frank Capra on modern populist movies, providing important background on Capra's links to the crackerbarrel personality of Rogers. He follows this theme forward, examining the populist roots in such films as "The Electric Horseman," "Field of Dreams," "Dave," "Grand Canyon," and others. A final chapter is a close-up of the contemporary, Capra-like director, Ron Howard. The inclusion of a bibliography and selected filmography makes this book an important contribution to film studies, popular culture, and American humor.

"The main spine of this book stems from a comprehensive series of interviews with subjects recalling their experiences of 1930s cinemagoing. Your feel the breath of life in these spectators, a rarity in film studies, thanks to the painstaking work contracting the interview subjects and recording and tabulating their testimony."--"JUMPCUT"

In the 1930s, Britain had the highest annual per capita cinema attendance in the world, far surpassing ballroom dancing as the nation's favorite pastime. It was, as historian A.J.P. Taylor said, the "essential social habit of the age." And yet, although we know something about the demographics of British cinemagoers, we know almost nothing of their experience of film, how film affected them, how it fit into their daily lives, what role cinema played in the larger culture of the time, and in what ways cinemagoing shaped the generation that came of age in the 1930s.

In Dreaming of Fred and Ginger, Annette Kuhn draws upon contemporary publications, extensive interviews with cinemagoers themselves, and readings of selected film, to produce a provocative and perspective-altering ethno-historical study. Taking cinemagoers' accounts of their own experiences as both "the engine and product of investigation," Kuhn enters imaginatively into the world of 1930s cinema culture and analyzes its place in popular memory. Among the topics she examines are the physical space of the cinemas; the role film played in growing up; the experience of being a member of a cinema audience; film-inspired fantasies of American life; the importance of cinema to adolescence in offering role models, ideals of romance, as well as practical opportunities for courtship; and thesheer pleasure of watching such film stars as Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Nelson Eddy, Ronald Colman, and many others.

Engagingly written and painstakingly researched, with contributions to film history, cultural studies, and social history, Dreaming of Fred and Ginger offers an illuminating account of a key moment in British cultural memory.

What was it like to work behind the scenes, away from the spotlight's glare, in Hollywood's so-called Golden Age? The interviews in this book provide eye-witness accounts from the likes of Steven Spielberg and Terry Gilliam, to explore the creative decisions that have shaped some of Classical Hollywood's most-loved films.

Since the beginning of human history, stories have helped people make sense of their lives and their world. Today, an understanding of storytelling is invaluable as we seek to orient ourselves within a flood of raw information and an unprecedented variety of supposedly true accounts. In Stories Make the World, award-winning screenwriter Stephen Most offers a captivating, refreshingly heartfelt exploration of how documentary filmmakers and other storytellers come to understand their subjects and cast light on the world through their art. Drawing on the author's decades of experience behind the scenes of television and film documentaries, this is an indispensable account of the principles and paradoxes that attend the quest to represent reality truthfully.

Originally published in 1986 as 'Conversations with My Elders', this is a book of interviews with six men of the entertainment world: actors Sal Mineo and Rock Hudson, film directors George Cukor, Luchino Visconti and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and designer, photographer and author Cecil Beaton. Aside from their career successes, they had in common that they were gay and that during their lifetimes they managed to conceal their sexual orientation from the public. What makes these interviews so surprising is the fact that the subjects talk freely and frankly about their lives and their careers, and how their sexuality affected both. In his new preface, Hadleigh reflects on how attitudes towards homosexuality have and have not changed in the 15 years since the book's first publication.

The most popular film genre during the golden years of Italian cinema, the Comedy Italian Style emerged after the fall of the Facist regime, narrating the identity crisis of many Italian men. Exploring the birth, growth, and decline of this genre, Bini shows this notable style was the search for a new role in the shattered postwar middle class.

While the myth of a classless America endures in the American Dream, the very stratification that it denies unfairly affects the majority of Americans. Study after study shows that it's increasingly difficult for working class people to achieve upward mobility in the US - so how does the American Dream continue to thrive? J. Emmett Winn shows us that the American Dream continued glorification in contemporary Hollywood cinema should not be ignored. Through his thoughtful analysis of films as diverse as Working Girl, Titanic, Pretty Woman, Flashdance, The Firm, Good Will Hunting, Saturday Night Fever, Wall Street and many others, Winn shows that contemporary Hollywood is very much in the business of keeping the Dream alive.

Narrative Theory and Adaptation offers a concise introduction to narrative theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Spike Jonze's critically acclaimed 2002 film Adaptation. Understanding narrative theory is crucial to make sense of the award-winning film Adaptation. The book explicates, in clear prose for beginners, four key facets important to the narrative theory of film: the distinction between practical vs. critical theory, the role of adaptation, the process of narrative comprehension, and notions of authorship. It then works to unlock Adaptation using these four keys in succession, considering how the film demands a theoretical understanding of the storytelling process. In using this unusual case study of a film, the author makes the case for the importance of narrative theory as a general perspective for filmmakers, critics, and viewers alike.

This book examines a spate of American films released around the turn of the millennium that differently address the actuality or possibility of domestic fascism within the USA. The films discussed span a diversity of forms, genres and production practices, and encompass low- and medium-budget studio and independent releases (such as American History X, Stir of Echoes and The Believer), star and/or auteur vehicles (such as The Siege, Fight Club and American Beauty), and high-budget, high-concept science-fiction films and franchises (such as Starship Troopers, Minority Report, the Matrix and X-Men trilogies and the Star Wars prequels). Central to the book is the detailed analysis of the films, which is contextualized historically in relation to a period that saw the significant rise of the far Right. The book concordantly affords a wider insight into fascism and its various manifestations and how such have been, and continue to be, registered within American cinema.

The purpose of this book, through its very creation, is to strengthen the dialogue between practitioner and theorist. To that end, a film academic and musicologist have collaborated as editors on this book, which is in turn comprised of interviews with composers alongside complementary chapters that focus on a particular feature of the composer's approach or style. These chapters are written by a fellow composer, musicologist, or film academic who specializes in that element of the composer's output. In the interview portions of this book, six major film composers discuss their work from the early 1980s to the present day: Carter Burwell, Mychael Danna, Dario Marianelli, Rachel Portman, Zbigniew Preisner, and A.R. Rahman. The focus is on the practical considerations of film composition, the relationship each composer has with the moving image, narrative, technical considerations, personal motivations in composing, the relationships composers have with their directors, and their own creative processes. Contemporary Film Music also explores the contemporary influence of electronic music, issues surrounding the mixing of soundtracks, music theory, and the evolution of each composer's musical voice.

India produces more films each year than any other country in the world. Yet, apart from the films of Sanjit Ray, the diverse and lavish output of Indian film-makers is largely unknown outside the Far East. This pioneering reference work features all major Indian film directors over an 80-year period. The book takes as its starting point D. G. Phalke's famous 1913 silent film "Raja Harishchandra," generally acknowledged as the first Indian feature. Original Indian language titles from the regional cinemas are transliterated - whether in Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malyayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu or other languages. Three Hundred Eighty-three directors are included alphabetically by surname. There is complete coverage of all periods and genres.

In this book, scholars from across the world explore the appearance, portrayal and significance of the suburb on film. By the mid-20th Century, supported by changes in transportation, suburbs became the primary location of entire national populations and films about the suburbs began to concertedly reflect those suburbs' significance as well as their increasingly lively cultures! Suburbia very soon became filmurbia, as films of the suburbs and those made in the suburbs reflected both the positive and the negative aspects of burgeoning suburban life. Film-makers explored the existences of new suburbanites, their interests, their newly emerging neighbourhood practices, their foibles, their fantasies and their hopes. Whether depicting love, ambition, commerce, family, home or horror, whether traveling to or living in suburban spaces, whether exhibiting beauty, brazenness or brutality, the films of suburbia capture human life in all its diverse guises.

Film and theatre director Tony Richardson's death in 1991, the publication of his memoirs in 1993, and the posthumous release of his final movie, Blue Sky in 1994 have resulted in the beginning of a critical reevaluation of Richardson's career. The first major reference on Richardson's life and work in British and American theatre and film, this book is a necessary first step in that reevaluation. Richardson's life and work are summarized in a brief opening biography. A chronology then outlines the major events in his career. The chapters that follow provide extensively annotated listings for all of his professional film, theatre, and television work. Entries provide plot summaries, cast and credit listings, review excerpts, and commentary. Also included is a list of awards and nominations given to Richardson and his productions. Of great significance is the annotated bibliography of books and articles by, about, or with significant references to Richardson.

From "Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western" is an original and compelling critical history of the American Western film.
Provides an insightful overview of the American Western genre
Covers the entire history of the Western, from 1939 to the present
Analyses Westerns as products of a genre, as well as expressions of political and social desires
Deepens an audience's understanding of the genre's most important works, including "Shane, Stagecoach," "The Searchers, Unforgiven," and "Kill Bill"
Contains numerous illustrations of the films and issues discussed.

This book discusses the collapse and transformation of the Hollywood movie machine in the twenty-first century, and the concomitant social collapse being felt in nearly every aspect of society. Wheeler Winston Dixon examines key works in cinema from the era of late-stage capitalists, analyzing Hollywood films and the current wave of cinema developed outside of the Hollywood system alike. Dixon illustrates how movies and television programs across these spaces have adopted, reflected, and generated a society in crisis, and with it, a crisis for the cinematic industry itself.

American director Robert Altman (1925-2006) first came to national attention with the surprise blockbuster M*A*S*H (1970), and he directed more than thirty feature films in the subsequent decades. Critics and scholars have noted that music is central to Altman's films, and in addition to his feature films, Altman worked in theater, opera, and the emerging field of cable television. His treatment of sound is a hallmark of his films, alongside overlapping dialogue, improvisation, and large ensemble casts. Several of his best-known films integrate musical performances into the central plot, including Nashville (1975), Popeye (1980), Short Cuts (1993), Kansas City (1996), The Company (2003) and A Prairie Home Companion (2006), his final film. Even such non-musicals as McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) have been described as, in fellow director and protege Paul Thomas Anderson's evocative phrase, as "musicals without people singing." Robert Altman's Soundtracks considers Altman's celebrated, innovative uses of music and sound in several of his most acclaimed and lesser-known works. In so doing, these case studies serve as a window not only into Altman's considerable and varied output, but also the changing film industry over nearly four decades, from the heyday of the New Hollywood in the late 1960s through the "Indiewood" boom of the 1990s and its bust in the early 2000s. As its frame, the book will consider the continuing attractions of auteurism inside and outside of scholarly discourse, by considering Altman's career in terms of the director's own self-promotion as a visionary and artist; the film industry's promotion of Altman the auteur; the emphasis on Altman's individual style, including his use of music, by the director, critics, scholars, and within the industry; and the processes, tensions, and boundaries of collaboration.

This book investigates the ways in which Charles Dickens's mature fiction, prison novels of the twentieth century, and prison films narrate the prison. To begin with, this study illustrates how fictional narratives occasionally depart from the realities of prison life, and interprets these narrations of the prison against the foil of historical analyses of the experience of imprisonment in Britain and America. Second, this book addresses the significance of prison metaphors in novels and films, and uses them as starting points for new interpretations of the narratives of its corpus. Finally, this study investigates the ideological underpinnings of prison narratives by addressing the question of whether they generate cultural understandings of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the prison. While Dickens's mature fiction primarily represents the prison experience in terms of the unjust suffering of many sympathetic inmates, prison narratives of the twentieth century tend to focus on one newcomer who is sent to prison because he committed a trivial crime and then suffers under a brutal system. And while the fate of this unique character is represented as being terrible and unjust, the attitude towards the mass of ordinary prisoners is complicit with the common view that 'real' criminals have to be imprisoned. Such prison narratives invite us to sympathize with the quasi-innocent prisoner-hero but do not allow us to empathize with the 'deviant' rest of the prison population and thus implicitly sanction the existence of prisons. These delimitations are linked to wider cultural demarcations: the newcomer is typically a member of the white, male, and heterosexual middle class, and has to go through a process of symbolic 'feminization' in prison that threatens his masculinity (violent and sadistic guards, 'homosexual' rapes and time in the 'hole' normally play an important role). The ill-treatment of this prisoner-hero is then usually countered by means of his escape so that the manliness of our hero and, by extension, the phallic power of the white middle class are restored. Such narratives do not address the actual situation in British and American prisons. Rather, they primarily present us with stories about the unjust victimization of 'innocent' members of the white and heterosexual middle class, and they additionally code coloured and homosexual inmates as 'real' criminals who belong where they are. Furthermore, Dickens's mature fiction focuses on 'negative' metaphors of imprisonment that describe the prison as a tomb, a cage, or in terms of hell. By means of these metaphors, which highlight the inmates' agony, Dickens condemns the prison system as such. Twentieth-century narratives, on the other hand, only critique discipline-based institutions but argue in favour of rehabilitative penal styles. More specifically, they describe the former by using 'negative' metaphors and the latter through positive ones that invite us to see the prison as a womb, a matrix of spiritual rebirth, a catalyst of intense friendship or as an 'academy'. Prison narratives of the twentieth century suggest that society primarily needs such reformative prisons for coloured and homosexual inmates.

This entertaining and insightful book is the first devoted exclusively to the films that have earned a special place in motion picture history by pushing the 'cinematic envelope' with their treatment of provocative subjects and themes. "Obscene, Indecent, Immoral & Offensive: 100+ Years of Censored, Banned and Controversial Films" chronicles the history of Hollywood censorship and the films that were banned, censored, and condemned by the Production Code Administration and the Legion of Decency. Stephen Tropiano offers readers insightful and accessible analysis of films that were branded 'controversial' at the time of their release due to explicit language, nudity, graphic sex, violence, and their treatment of 'adult' subject matter and themes.The films profiled include "The Birth of a Nation", "Anatomy of a Murder", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", "Baby Doll", "Blackboard Jungle", "Bonnie and Clyde", "The Wild Bunch", "A Clockwork Orange", "Natural Born Killers", "Caligula", "Rosemary's Baby", "Life of Brian", "The Last Temptation of Christ", and "The Passion of the Christ".

Let the spooky citizens of Halloween Town guide your tarot practice with this sumptuously illustrated tarot deck inspired by Tim Burton's classic animated film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Disney's iconic holiday film The Nightmare Before Christmas is now an enchanting tarot set, offering a frightful-but-friendly take on the traditional 78-card deck. This set features all your favorite characters from Jack Skellington to Mr. Oogie Boogie to Sandy Claws himself in gorgeous original illustrations based on classic tarot iconography. Featuring both major and minor arcana, the set also comes with a helpful guidebook explaining each card's meaning, as well as simple spreads for easy readings. Packaged in a sturdy, decorative gift box, this hauntingly charming tarot deck is the perfect gift for the The Nightmare Before Christmas fan or tarot enthusiast in your life.

Since its completion in 1955, Alain Resnais's Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard) has been considered one of the most important films to confront the catastrophe and atrocities of the Nazi era. But was it a film about the Holocaust that failed to recognize the racist genocide? Or was the film not about the Holocaust as we know it today but a political and aesthetic response to what David Rousset, the French political prisoner from Buchenwald, identified on his return in 1945 as the 'concentrationary universe' which, now actualized, might release its totalitarian plague any time and anywhere? What kind of memory does the film create to warn us of the continued presence of this concentrationary universe? This international collection re-examines Resnais's benchmark film in terms of both its political and historical context of representation of the camps and of other instances of the concentrationary in contemporary cinema. Through a range of critical readings, Concentrationary Cinema explores the cinematic aesthetics of political resistance not to the Holocaust as such but to the political novelty of absolute power represented by the concentrationary system and its assault on the human condition.

"The Moving Picture World" magazine was the industry standard during the silent cinema era. This is the first index compiled for all the films reviewed in the early volumes of this journal. In 1916, the magazine itself began providing an index to film reviews. Until now, researchers and scholars had to scour page-by-page through each weekly issue from 1907-1915 to find a desired review. This new index, focusing on this period, lists films alphabetically by title, identifies manufacturers/distributors with their films, and provides full dates and page locations for reviews. The index provides easy access to reviews of theatrical films, news pictorials, series and serials, and early travelogues.

Many of the films included in this index are no longer extant; thus, contemporary reviews may be the only means for analysis of these pioneering cinematic efforts. The reviews contain valuable information about the standards and tastes of film in its infancy, and shed light on story content in those early days. Some of the titles in this index will shock the user; many will cause laughter; all are worthy of remembrance for their historical value. Over 27,000 films are listed; the preface chronicles the history of the journal and explains clearly how to use the book. No reviews are included--the index is designed to encourage and guide the user towards an increased familiarity with the "Moving Picture World," which is currently available on microfilm through the Library of Congress

A central character in legends and histories of the Old West, Billy the Kid rivals such western icons as Jesse James and General George Armstrong Custer for the number of books and movies his brief, violent life inspired. Billy the Kid: A Reader's Guide introduces readers to the most significant of these written and filmed works. Compiled and written by a respected historian of the Old West and author of a masterful new biography of Billy the Kid, this reader's guide includes summaries and evaluations of biographies, histories, novels, and movies, as well as archival sources and research collections. Surveying newspaper articles, books, pamphlets, essays, and book chapters, Richard W. Etulain traces the shifting views of Billy the Kid from his own era to the present. Etulain's discussion of novels and movies reveals a similar shift, even as it points out both the historical inaccuracies and the literary and cinematic achievements of these works. A brief section on the authentic and supposed photographs of the Kid demonstrates the difficulties specialists and collectors have encountered in locating dependable photographic sources. This discerning overview will guide readers through the plethora of words and images generated by Billy the Kid's life and legend over more than a century. It will prove invaluable to those interested in the demigods of the Old West - and in the ever-changing cultural landscape in which they appear to us.