J.R.R. TOLKIEN: POCKET GUIDE

A new guide to the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien, the premier British fantasy author of the 20th century, and his great works: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. This guide is clearly written for the general reader, offering an all-round introduction to this hugely popular writer. The book is full of illuminating facts and details about Tolkien and his works.The text has been revised for this edition.

EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION

Philip Toynbee declared, in 1961, that Tolkien's 'childish books had passed into a merciful oblivion', a wonderful statement, just a tad inaccurate. In 1997, The Lord of the Rings was voted the top book of the 20th century by readers in a British bookstore's poll (Waterstone's). 104 out of 105 stores and 25,000 readers put The Lord of the Rings at the top (1984 was second).

Around 100 million copies of The Lord of the Rings had been sold by the end of the twentieth century, and 60 million copies of The Hobbit, with sales of around 3 million per year of the two books combined. Readers just love reading Tolkien's books. It's that simple. You can't force people to buy books or go see movies; there's isn't a magic formula (or ruling ring) to hypnotize readers and consumers (if there was, it'd be worth billions). And the Tolkien phenomenon began with readers. Back in 1937, 1954 and 1955, the publishers Allen & Unwin did their bit, of course, with reviews, blurbs, advertizing and so on, promoting The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as did the critics, but it was readers who first started the phenomenon that has become truly global. Tolkien's influence on literature has been considerable, too, and not just in the realm of fantasy, sci-fi, fairy tales and related genres. As fantasy author Terry Brooks said, Tolkien 'was the premier fantasy writer of the last century, and all of us writing today owe him a huge debt.' No other writer W.H. Auden reckoned had 'created an imaginary world and a history in such detail'. Colin Wilson agreed that only a few writers have concocted a total universe, and that Tolkien's was very impressive. Tolkien's mythological writings may be the 'largest body of invented mythology in the history of literature', according to David Day. Invented, that is, by one person. It's also 'certainly the most complex and detailed invented world in all literature'.

Jeremy Robinson has written many critical studies, including Steven Spielberg, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean-Luc Godard, and The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, plus literary monographs on: Samuel Beckett; Thomas Hardy; Andre Gide; Robert Graves; and Lawrence Durrell.

Includes bibliography, illustrations, appendices and notes. ISBN 9781861713797. 272 pages.

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Silent Films/Loud Music discusses contemporary scores for silent film as a rich vehicle for experimentation in the relationship between music, image, and narrative. Johnston offers an overview of the early history of music for silent film paired with his own first-hand view of the craft of creating new original scores for historical silent films: a unique form crossing musical boundaries of classical, jazz, rock, electronic, and folk. As the first book completely devoted to the study of contemporary scores for silent film, it tells the story of the historical and creative evolution of this art form and features an extended discussion and analysis of some of the most creative works of contemporary silent film scoring. Johnston draws upon his own career in both contemporary film music (working with directors Paul Mazursky, Henry Bean, Philip Haas and Doris Doerrie, among others) and in creating new scores for silent films by Browning, Melies, Kinugasa, Murnau & Reiniger. Through this book, Johnston presents a discussion of music for silent films that contradicts long-held assumptions about what silent film music is and must be, with thought-provoking implications for both historical and contemporary film music.

Film Phenomenology and Adaptation: Sensuous Elaboration argues that in order to make sense of film adaptation, we must first apprehend their sensual form. Across its chapters, this book brings the philosophy and research methodology of phenomenology into contact with adaptation studies, examining how vision, hearing, touch, and the structures of the embodied imagination and memory thicken and make tangible an adaptation's source. In doing so, this book not only conceives adaptation as an intertextual layering of source material and adaptation, but also an intersubjective and textural experience that includes the materiality of the body.

Taking its cue from Deleuze's definition of minor cinema as one which engages in a creative act of becoming, this collection explores the multifarious ways that music has been used in the cinemas of various countries in Australasia, Africa, Latin America and even in Europe that have hitherto received little attention, with a focus on the role it has played creating, problematizing, and sometimes contesting, the nation. Deleuze's lens suits these cinemas because they are precisely not like Hollywood, and the key issue is national identity."Film Music in 'Minor' National Cinemas "addresses the relationships between film music and the national cinemas beyond Hollywood and the European countries that comprise most of the literature in the field. Broad in scope, it includes chapters that analyze the contribution of specific composers and songwriters to their national cinemas, and the way music works in films dealing with national narratives or issues; the role of music in the shaping of national stars and specific use of genres; audience reception of films on national music traditions; and the use of music in emerging digital video industries.

The Frontier Club is Christine Bold's name for the network of eastern aristocrats who created the western as we now most commonly know it. At the turn of the twentieth century, they yoked this most popular formula to their own elite causes-from big-game hunting to conservation, immigration restriction to Jim Crow segregation-and aligned themselves with cattle kings and "quality" publishers. This book tells the story of that cultural sleight-of-hand. It delves into institutional archives and personal papers to excavate the hidden social, political, and financial interests in the making of the modern western. It re-reads frontier club fiction in relation to the federal policies and cultural spaces (from exclusive gentlemen's clubs to national parks to zoos) with which it was intimately connected; the centerpiece is Owen Wister's bestselling novel The Virginian. It casts new light on nine key clubmen, both the famous and the forgotten-in addition to Wister, the network included Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, Silas Weir Mitchell, Henry Cabot Lodge, Madison Grant, Caspar Whitney, Winthrop Chanler, and Frederic Remington-while recovering the women on whom these men depended and without whom this version of the popular West would not exist. Bold also considers some of the costs of the frontier club formula, in terms of its impact on Indigenous peoples and its marginalization of other popular voices, including western writings by African Americans, white women, and non-elite white men. The book ends by briefly charting the frontier club's enduring impression on western movies.

What makes a film a teen film? And why, when it represents such powerful and enduring ideas about youth and adolescence, is teen film usually viewed as culturally insignificant? Teen film is usually discussed as a representation of the changing American teenager, highlighting the institutions of high school and the nuclear family and experiments in sexual development and identity formation. But not every film featuring these components is a teen film, and not every teen film is American. Arguing that teen film is always a story about becoming a citizen and a subject, "Teen Film" presents a new history of the genre, surveys the existing body of scholarship, and introduces key critical tools for discussing teen film. Surveying a wide range of films including "The Wild One," "Heathers," "Donnie Darko" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the book's central focus is on what kind of adolescence teen film represents, and on teen film's capacity to produce new and influential images of adolescence.

ANDREI TARKOVSKY: POCKET GUIDE

A new pocket guide to Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), director of seven feature films, including Mirror, Andrei Roublyov, Solaris and The Sacrifice. This book explores every aspect of Andrei Tarkovsky's output, including scripts, budget, production, shooting, editing, camera, sound, music, acting, themes, symbols, motifs, and spirituality. Tarkovsky's films are analyzed in depth, with scene-by-scene discussions. Fully illustrated.

Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the most fascinating of filmmakers. He is supremely romantic, an old-fashioned, traditional artist - at home in the company Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Brueghel, Aleksandr Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoievsky andByzantine icon painters. Tarkovsky is a magician, no question, but argues for demystification (even while films celebrate mystery). His films are full of magical events, dreams, memory sequences, multiple viewpoints, multiple time zones and bizarre occurrences.

As genre films, Andrei Tarkovsky's movies are some of the most accomplished in cinema. As science fiction films, Stalker and Solaris have no superiors, and very few peers. Only the greatest sci-fi films can match them: Metropolis, King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Tarkovsky happily and methodically rewrote the rules of the sci-fi genre: Stalker and Solaris are definitely not routine genre outings. They don't have the monsters, the aliens, the visual effects, the battles, the laser guns, the stunts and action set-pieces of regular science fiction movies.

No one could deny that Andrei Roublyov is one of the greatest historical films to explore the Middle Ages, up there with The Seventh Seal, El Cid, The Navigator and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Life' trilogy. If you judge Andrei Roublyov in terms of historical accuracy, epic spectacle, serious themes, or cinematic poetry, it comes out at the top. Finally, in the religious film genre, The Sacrifice and Nostalghia are among the finest in cinema, the equals of the best of Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Robert Bresson and Carl-Theodor Dreyer. The text for this new edition has been updated and revised.

Includes illustrations, bibliography and notes. ISBN 978186171834.

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"Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema" is the first book-length study of the Hollywood boxing film, a popular movie entertainment since the 1930s, that includes such classics as "Million Dollar Baby," "Rocky," and "Raging Bull." The boxer stands alongside the cowboy, the gangster, and the detective as a character that shaped America's ideas of manhood. Leger Grindon relates the Hollywood boxing film to the literature of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Clifford Odets; the influence of ring champions, particularly Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali; and controversies surrounding masculinity, race, and sports.

"Knockout" breaks new ground in film genre study by focusing on the fundamental dramatic conflicts uniting both documentary and fictional films with compelling social concerns. The boxing film portrays more than the rise and fall of a champion; it exposes the body in order to reveal the spirit. Not simply a brute, the screen boxer dramatizes conflicts and aspirations central to an American audience's experience. This book features chapters on the conventions of the boxing film, the history of the genre and its relationship to famous ring champions, and self-contained treatments of thirty-two individual films including a chapter devoted to Raging Bull.

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.

Margarethe von Trotta (b. 1942) entered the film industry in the only way she could in the 1960s-as an actress. Throughout her career, von Trotta added thirty-two acting credits to her name; however, these credits came to a halt in 1975. Her ambition had always been to be a movie director. Though she viewed acting as a detour, it allowed her to be in the right place at the right time, and through her line of work she met such important directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schloendorff. The latter would eventually provide her with the opportunity to codirect her first film, Die Verlohrene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum) in 1975. The debut's success ensured von Trotta's future in the film industry and launched her accomplished film directing career. In Margarethe von Trotta: Interviews, volume editor Monika Raesch furnishes twenty-four illuminating interviews with the auteur. Spanning three decades, from the mid-1980s until today, the interviews reveal not only von Trotta's life in the film industry, but also evolving roles of and opportunities provided to women over that time period. This collection of interviews presents the different dimensions of von Trotta through the lenses of film critics, scholars, and journalists. The volume offers essential reading for anyone seeking a better understanding of an iconic female movie director at a time when this possibility for women just emerged.

The Film Theory in Practice series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of a film theory with the interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. Feminist Film Theory and Cleo from 5 to 7 offers a concise introduction to feminist film theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Agnes Varda's critically acclaimed 1962 film Cleo from 5 to 7. Hilary Neroni employs the methodology of looking for a feminist alternative among female-oriented films. Through three key concepts-identification, framing the woman's body, and the female auteur-Neroni lays bare the debates and approaches within the vibrant history of feminist film theory, providing a point of entry to feminist film theory from its inception to today. Picking up one of the currents in feminist film theory - that of looking for feminist alternatives among female-oriented films - Neroni traces feminist responses to the contradictions inherent in most representations of women in film, and she details how their responses have intervened in changing what we see on the screen.

Framing the Nation: Documentary Film in Interwar France argues that, between World Wars I and II, documentary film made a substantial contribution to the rewriting of the French national narrative to include rural France and the colonies. The book mines a significant body of virtually unknown films and manuscripts for their insight into revisions of French national identity in the aftermath of the Great War. From 1918 onwards, government institutions sought to advance social programs they believed were crucial to national regeneration. They turned to documentary film, a new form of mass communication, to do so.

Many scholars of French film state that the French made no significant contribution to documentary film prior to the Vichy period. Using until now overlooked films, Framing the Nation refutes this misconception and shows that the French were early and active believers in the uses of documentary film for social change - and these films reached audiences far beyond the confines of commercial cinema circuits in urban areas.

Classic American Films explores the origin and development of many of the most influential and revered films in cinema history, and does so with the aid and insight of the people who actually wrote the screenplays. These lively, candid, in-depth interviews are filled with fascinating new material (details, anecdotes, judgments, and opinions) about the creative and collaborative processes that went into the making of these extraordinary films. In the past, Hollywood screenwriters--the original artists-- have often been overlooked. This book is a special tribute to the invaluable contributions of these cinematic visionaries, many of whom are considered among the greatest screenwriters in American film history. As Orson Welles once said, "In my opinion, the writer should have the first and last word in filmmaking." This book allows them to have that exciting opportunity. Some of the highlights from these interviews include: Betty Comden and Adolph Green's explaining how a nightclub skit became the premise for Singin' in the Rain; Ernest Lehman's description of how, while in conversation with Hitchcock, his "unconscious" suddenly solved the plot problems in North by Northwest; Carl Gottlieb's remembrance of the terrible pressure involved with writing the script for Jaws while shooting was already underway; and Sylvester Stallone's account of how he received final approval to star in Rocky from studio executives who thought he was just another actor.

Poetic Cinema and the Spirit of the Gift in the Films of Pabst, Parajanov, Kubrick and Ruiz explores the poetic thinking of these master filmmakers. It examines theoretical ideas, including Maori anthropology of the gift and Sufi philosophy of the image, to conceive film as abundant gift. Elaborating on how this gift may be received, this book imagines film as our indispensable mentor - a wild mentor who teaches us how to think with moving images by learning to perceive evanescent forms that simply appear and disappear.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIES: POCKET GUIDE

A pocket guide to the Hollywood adaptions of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. The book tells you everything you need to know about these very popular films, from writing the script through casting and financing, to shooting and performances, to visual effects, editing and theatrical distribution.

The pocket guide includes discussions of every single scene in the three movies, including the Special Extended Editions (some scenes are explored in great detail, as well as some key individual shots). There are sections on the all of the important differences between The Lord of the Ring book and the Hollywood movies (including numerous details), as well as a chapter exploring the additions and the omissions. Looks at behind the scenes stories, and also the critical response to the movies.

There are chapters on the visual effects, on the casting and key personnel of the movies, on the studio and the financing of the films, on the music and sound, and the marketing and release of the movies in 2001-2003 (including the home entertainment releases on DVD and video). There is also a chapter on the critical response to the movies.

There is also an appendix on other adaptions of J.R.R. Tolkien's books.

Jeremy Robinson has written many critical studies, including Steven Spielberg, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean-Luc Godard, Hayao Miyazaki, Ken Russell, Walerian Borowczyk, and The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, plus literary monographs on: J.R.R. Tolkien; J.M.W. Turner; Samuel Beckett; Thomas Hardy; Arthur Rimbaud; Andre Gide; John Cowper Powys; Robert Graves; and Lawrence Durrell.

Includes bibliography, illustrations, appendices and notes. ISBN 9781861713780. 496 pages.

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Politics in the Middle East is now 'seen' and the image is playing a central part in processes of political struggle. This is the first book in the literature to engage directly with these changing ways of communicating politics in the region - and particularly with the politics of the image, its power as a political tool. Lina Khatib presents a cross-country examination of emerging trends in the use of visuals in political struggles in the Middle East, from the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon to the Green Movement in Iran, to the Arab Spring in Egypt, Syria and Libya. She demonstrates how states, activists, artists and people 'on the street' are making use of television, the social media and mobile phones, as well as non-electronic forms, including posters, cartoons, billboards and graffiti to convey and mediate political messages. She also draws attention to politics as a visual performance by leaders and citizens alike. With a particular focus on the visual dynamics of the Arab Spring, and based on case studies on the visual dimension of political protest as well as of political campaigning and image management by political parties and political leaders, Image Politics in the Middle East shows how visual expression is at the heart of political struggle in the Middle East today. It is a hard-hitting, enjoyable, groundbreaking book, challenging the traditional ways in which politics in the Middle East is conceived of and analysed.