More than a century after its emergence, classical Hollywood cinema remains popular today with cinephiles and scholars alike. Resetting the Scene: Classical Hollywood Revisited, edited by Philippa Gates and Katherine Spring, showcases cutting-edge work by renowned researchers of Hollywood filmmaking of the studio era and proposes new directions for classical Hollywood studies in the twenty-first century. Resetting the Scene includes twenty-six accessible chapters and an extensive bibliography. In Part 1, Katherine Spring's introduction and David Bordwell's chapter reflect on the newest methods, technological resources, and archival discoveries that have galvanized recent research of studio filmmaking. Part 2 brings together close analyses of film style both visual and sonic with case studies of shot composition, cinematography, and film music. Part 3 offers new approaches to genre, specifically the film musical, the backstudio picture, and the B-film. Part 4 focuses on industry operations, including the origins of Hollywood, cross-promotion, production planning, and talent management. Part 5 offers novel perspectives on the representation of race, in regard to censorship, musicals, film noir, and science fiction. Part 6 illuminates forgotten histories of women's labor in terms of wartime propaganda, below-the-line work, and the evolution of star persona. Part 7 explores the demise of the studio system but also the endurance of classical norms in auteur cinema and screenwriting in the post-classical era. Part 8 highlights new methods for studying Hollywood cinema, including digital resources as tools for writing history and analyzing films, and the intersection of film studies with emergent fields like media industry studies. Intended for scholars and students of Hollywood film history, Resetting the Scene intersects with numerous fields consonant with film studies, including star studies, media industry studies, and critical race theory.

By exploring a range of films about American women, this book offers readers an opportunity to engage in both history and film in a new way, embracing representation, diversity, and historical context. Throughout film history, stories of women achieving in American history appear few and far between compared to the many epic tales of male achievement. This book focuses largely on films written by women and about women who tackled the humanist issues of their day and mostly won. Films about women are important for all viewers of all genders because they remind us that the American Experience is not just male and white. This book examines 10 films, featuring diverse depictions of women and women's history, and encourages readers to discern how and where these films deviate from historical accuracy. Covering films from the 1950s all the way to the 2010s, this text is invaluable for students and general readers who wish to interrogate the way women's history appears on the big screen. Focuses on 10 films with an emphasis on racial and class diversity Explores where storytelling and historical accuracy diverge and clarifies the historical record around the events of the films Organized chronologically, emphasizing the progression of women's history as portrayed on film Accessible for general readers as well as students

Stars and Silhouettes traces the history of the cameo as it emerged in twentieth-century cinema. Although the cameo has existed in film culture for over a century, Joceline Andersen explains that this role cannot be strictly defined because it exists as a constellation of interactions between duration and recognition, dependent on who is watching and when. Even audiences of the twenty-first century who are inundated by the lives of movie stars and habituated to images of their personal friends on screens continue to find cameos surprising and engaging. Cameos reveal the links between our obsession with celebrity and our desire to participate in the powerful cultural industries within contemporary society. Chapter 1 begins with the cameo's precedents in visual culture and the portrait in particular-from the Vitagraph executives in the 1910s to the emergence of actors as movie stars shortly after. Chapter 2 explores the fan-centric desire for behind-the-scenes visions of Hollywood that accounted for the success of cameo-laden, Hollywood-set films that autocratic studios used to make their glamorous line-up of stars as visible as possible. Chapter 3 traces the development of the cameo in comedy, where cameos began to show not only glimpses of celebrities at their best but also of celebrities at their worst. Chapter 4 examines how the television guest spot became an important way for stars and studios to market both their films and stars from other media in trades that reflected an increasingly integrated mediascape. In Chapter 5, Andersen examines auteur cameos and the cameo as a sign of authorship. Director cameos reaffirm the fan's interest in the film not just as a stage for actors but as a forum for the visibility of the director. Cameos create a participatory space for viewers, where recognizing those singled out among extras and small roles allows fans to demonstrate their knowledge. Stars and Silhouettes belongs on the shelf of every scholar, student, and reader interested in film history and star studies.

Whether you judge by box office receipts, industry awards, or critical accolades, science fiction films are the most popular movies now being produced and distributed around the world. Nor is this phenomenon new. Sci-fi filmmakers and audiences have been exploring fantastic planets, forbidden zones, and lost continents ever since George Melies' 1902 film A Trip to the Moon. In this highly entertaining and knowledgeable book, film historian and pop culture expert Douglas Brode picks the one hundred greatest sci-fi films of all time. Brode's list ranges from today's blockbusters to forgotten gems, with surprises for even the most informed fans and scholars. He presents the movies in chronological order, which effectively makes this book a concise history of the sci-fi film genre. A striking (and in many cases rare) photograph accompanies each entry, for which Brode provides a numerical rating, key credits and cast members, brief plot summary, background on the film's creation, elements of the moviemaking process, analysis of the major theme(s), and trivia. He also includes fun outtakes, including his top ten lists of Fifties sci-fi movies, cult sci-fi, least necessary movie remakes, and "so bad they're great" classics-as well as the ten worst sci-fi movies ("those highly ambitious films that promised much and delivered nil"). So climb aboard spaceship Brode and journey to strange new worlds from Metropolis (1927) to Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).