Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinemas uses a range of analytical approaches to interrogate how the traditional socio-political rhetoric of national cinema can be rethought through ecosystemic concerns, by exploring a range of Nordic films as national and transnational, regional and local texts--all with significant global implications. By synergizing transnational theories with ecological approaches, the study considers the planetary implications of nation-based cultural production.

This book relates the unique experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ+) people in Australian Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian churches. Grounded in the theoretical contributions of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Lewis Coser, and others, the book exposes the discursive 'battleground' over the 'truth' of sex which underlies the participants' stories. These rich and complex narratives reveal the stakes of this conflict, manifested in 'the line' - a barrier restricting out LGBTQ+ people from full participation in ministry and service. Although some participants related stories of supportive-if typically conservative-congregations where they felt able to live out an authentic, integrated faith, others found they could only leave their formerly close and supportive communities behind, 'counter-rejecting' the churches and often the faith that they felt had rejected them.

Considered by critics to be Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, "Barry Lyndon" has suffered from scholarly and popular neglect. Maria Pramaggiore argues that one key reason that this film remains unappreciated, even by Kubrick aficionados, is that its transnational and intermedial contexts have not been fully explored. Taking a novel approach, she looks at the film from a transnational perspective -- as a foreign production shot in Ireland and an adaptation of a British novel by an American director about an Irish subject. Pramaggiore argues that, in "Barry Lyndon," Kubrick develops his richest philosophical mediation on cinema's capacity to mediate the real and foregrounds film's relationship to other technologies of visuality, including painting, photography, and digital media. By combining extensive research into the film's source novel, production and reception with systematic textual analysis and an engagement with several key issues in contemporary academic debate, this work promises not only to make a huge impact in the field of Kubrick studies, but also in 1970s filmmaking, cultural history and transnational film practice.

Challenging established views and assumptions about traditions and practices of filmmaking in the African diaspora, this three-volume set offers readers a researched critique on black film. Volume Three of this landmark series on African cinema spans the past century and is devoted to the documentation of decoloniality in cultural policy in both Africa and the Black diaspora worldwide. A compendium of formal resolutions, declarations, manifestos, and programmatic statements, it chronologically maps the long history and trajectories of cultural policy in Africa and the Black Atlantic. Beginning with the 1920 declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, which anticipates cinema as we know it today, and the formal oppositional assertions—aspirational and practical. The first part of this work references formal statements that pertain directly to cultural policy and cinematic formations in Africa, while the next part addresses the Black diaspora. Each entry is chronologically ordered to account for when the statement was created, followed by where and in what context it was enunciated.

Over the past decade, as digital media has expanded and print outlets have declined, pundits have bemoaned a "crisis of criticism" and mourned the "death of the critic". Now that well-paying jobs in film criticism have largely evaporated, while blogs, message boards, and social media have given new meaning to the saying that "everyone's a critic" urgent questions have emerged about the status and purpose of film criticism in the twenty-first century. Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the start of its rebirth in a new form. Drawing from a wide variety of case studies and methodological perspectives, the book's contributors find many signs of the film critic's declining clout, but they also locate surprising examples of how critics - whether moonlighting bloggers or salaried writers - have been able to intervene in current popular discourse about arts and culture. In addition to collecting a plethora of scholarly perspectives, Film Criticism in the Digital Age includes statements from key bloggers and print critics, like Armond White and Nick James. Neither an uncritical celebration of digital culture nor a jeremiad against it, this anthology offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and possibilities that the Internet brings to the evaluation, promotion, and explanation of artistic works.

American filmmaker John Cassavetes (1929-1989) made only nine independent films during a quarter century, but those films have affected the cinema culture of the 1960s to the 1980s in unprecedented ways. With a close nucleus of actors and crew members on his team, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes created films that explored the gritty side of human relationships. He staunchly advocated the right of actors and filmmakers to full artistic freedom over their work. Attracting both fervent admirers and harsh critics, Cassavetes's films have garnered prestigious awards in the US and Europe and continue to evoke strong reactions. Starting in New York with his first film Shadows (1959), Cassavetes moved on to the West Coast with Faces (1968), Husbands (1970), Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Opening Night (1977), Gloria (1980), and Love Streams (1984). He also directed several studio films, which often rankled his independent streak that rebelled against a loss of artistic freedom. Cassavetes's work in the theater and his performances in numerous television programs and films, including The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), made him, as a director, fiercely protective of his actors' right to self-expression. Cassavetes's contributions to film as actor, writer, director, producer, and cinematographer at a time of radical changes in cinema history continue to inspire independent filmmakers to challenge creative restrictions and celebrate actors' artistic contributions. John Cassavetes: Interviews captures this ""maverick"" streak of an intensely personal filmmaker who was passionate about his art.

"American Science Fiction Film and Television" presents a critical history of late 20th Century SF together with an analysis of the cultural and thematic concerns of this popular genre. Science fiction film and television were initially inspired by the classic literature of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. The potential and fears born with the Atomic age fuelled the popularity of the genre, upping the stakes for both technology and apocalypse. From the Cold War through to America's current War on Terror, science fiction has proved a subtle vehicle for the hopes, fears and preoccupations of a nation at war.The definitive introduction to American science fiction, this book is also the first study to analyze SF across both film and TV. Throughout, the discussion is illustrated with critical case studies of key films and television series, including "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Planet of the Apes," "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "The X-Files," and "Battlestar Galactica."

Highlights the trailers, merchandising and cultural conversations that shape our experiences of film and television It is virtually impossible to watch a movie or TV show without preconceived notions because of the hype that precedes them, while a host of media extensions guarantees them a life long past their air dates. An onslaught of information from print media, trailers, internet discussion, merchandising, podcasts, and guerilla marketing, we generally know something about upcoming movies and TV shows well before they are even released or aired. The extras, or "paratexts," that surround viewing experiences are far from peripheral, shaping our understanding of them and informing our decisions about what to watch or not watch and even how to watch before we even sit down for a show. Show Sold Separately gives critical attention to this ubiquitous but often overlooked phenomenon, examining paratexts like DVD bonus materials for The Lord of the Rings, spoilers for Lost, the opening credits of The Simpsons, Star Wars actions figures, press reviews for Friday Night Lights, the framing of Batman Begins, the videogame of The Thing, and the trailers for The Sweet Hereafter. Plucking these extra materials from the wings and giving them the spotlight they deserve, Jonathan Gray examines the world of film and television that exists before and after the show.

Edited by leading authorities on the subject, and bringing together a stellar cast of contributors, this detailed appraisal of Pedro Almodovar's unique cinematic art examines the themes, style, and aesthetics of his "oeuvre" and locates it in the context of the profound cultural transformations in Spain since the 1970s.Brings together a stellar cast of contributors from across the globe including recognized and established specialists as well as talented younger scholars Features contributions by Spanish film historians, where studies of Almodovar's work have been underrepresented in the academic literatureDeploys new approaches to the analysis of film authorship by exploring contextual issues such as Almodovar's transnational appeal and the political dimensions of his worksTraces the director's fruitful collaborations in the areas of art and design, fashion and music

Analyzing Film: A Student Casebook is a film textbook containing fifteen essays about sixteen historically and artistically significant films made between 1920 and 1990. This casebook is geographically diverse, with sixteen countries represented: Germany, Russia, Spain, France, the United States, Denmark, Japan, India, England, Italy, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Hungary, Australia, and China. The essays in Analyzing Film are clear and readable-sophisticated and weighty, yet not overly technical or jargon-heavy. The book's critical apparatus features credits, images, and bibliographies for all films discussed, filmographies for all the directors, a chronology of film theory and criticism, a glossary of film terms, a guide to film analysis, and a list of topics for writing and discussion, together with a comprehensive index.

"A History of Visual Culture" is a history of ideas. The recent explosion of interest in visual culture suggests the phenomenon is very recent. But visual culture has a history. Knowledge began to be systematically grounded in observation and display from the Enlightenment. Since them, from the age of industrialization and colonialism to today's globalized world, visual culture has continued to shape our ways of thinking and of interpreting the world. Carefully structured to cover a wide history and geography, "A History of Visual Culture" is divided into themed sections: Revolt and Revolution; Science and Empiricism; Gaze and Spectacle; Acquisition, Display, and Desire; Conquest, Colonialism, and Globalization; Image and Reality; Media and Visual Technologies. Each section presents a carefully selected range of case studies from across the last 250 years, designed to illustrate how all kinds of visual media have shaped our technology, aesthetics, politics and culture.

The film theories of Jean Epstein, Dziga Vertov, Bela Balazs, and Siegfried Kracauer have long been studied separately from each other. In Doubting Vision, film scholar Malcolm Turvey argues that their work constitutes a distinct, hitherto neglected tradition, which he calls revelationism, and which differs in important ways from modernism and realism. For these four theorists and filmmakers, the cinema is an art of mass enlightenment because it escapes the limits of human sight and reveals the true nature of reality. Turvey provides a detailed exegesis of this tradition, pointing to its sources in Romanticism, the philosophy of Henri Bergson, modern science, and other intellectual currents. He also shows how profoundly it has influenced contemporary film theory by examining the work of psychoanalytical-semiotic theorists of the 1970s, Stanley Cavell, the modern-day followers of Kracauer and Walter Benjamin, and Gilles Deleuze.
Throughout, Turvey offers a trenchant critique of revelationism and its descendants. Combining the close analysis of theoretical texts with the philosophical method of conceptual clarification pioneered by the later Wittgenstein, he shows how the arguments theorists and filmmakers have made about human vision and the cinema's revelatory powers often traffic in conceptual confusion. Having identified and extricated these confusions, Turvey builds on the work of Epstein, Vertov, Balazs, and Kracauer as well as contemporary philosophers of film to clarify some legitimate senses in which the cinema is a revelatory art using examples from the films of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Jacques Tati.