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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Films, cinema
This book examines the careers of three of Nazi cinema's preeminent
movie actresses, painting a unique portrait of mass entertainment
and stardom under Nazi rule. Bruns uses undiscovered sources and a
new approach, which integrates visual analysis within a thorough
political and social context, to trace how the Nazis tried to use
films and stars to build National Socialism. This analysis focuses
on female stars - an important but largely unexplored area -
because they were mostly responsible for Nazi cinema's spectacular
commercial success and political failure. Challenging earlier
studies, which view Nazi cinema as an effective propaganda
instrument that helped turn Germans into devoted "Aryan" mothers
and tough warriors, the book shows that the Nazi regime's liaison
with the cinema was ambivalent. Films failed to disseminate a
coherent political message and to Nazify German society. However,
they helped the regime maintain power by diverting people's
attention from the brutality of Hitler's rule and, eventually, from
impending defeat.
A full-colour illustrated compendium chronicling the magical
twenty-year journey of acclaimed art and design studio, MinaLima,
the creative genius behind the graphics for the Harry Potter film
series. "It all started with a letter . . ." Miraphora Mina and
Eduardo Lima began their extraordinary partnership in 2001 when
Warner Bros. invited them to realize the imaginative visual
universe of the Harry Potter film series. The two artists would
never have guessed that the graphic props they designed for the
films - including the Hogwarts acceptance letter, Marauder's Map,
Daily Prophet newspaper, The Quibbler and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
- would become cultural icons loved by Wizarding World fans around
the world. Eight years later, the pair formed their own design
studio, MinaLima, and expanded their work to include the graphics
for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Diagon Alley and
Hogsmeade at Universal Orlando Resort and the Fantastic Beasts film
series. To showcase their treasury of designs, the studio has
opened House of MinaLima, its immersive art galleries and shops in
London and across the world. The Magic of MinaLima is an
illustrated history and celebration of Mina and Lima's twenty-year
evolution and groundbreaking vision. Their wondrous creations
illuminate the Wizarding World as never before, and their
commentary offers insights into the imaginative thinking that
shaped their designs. This collection showcases the very best works
from the award-winning studio's two decades and includes
interactive elements such as the Marauder's Map, the Black Family
Tapestry, and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Designed to delight and
enchant, The Magic of MinaLima will be an invaluable resource for
Wizarding World and graphic art fans alike.
JOHN HUGHES AND EIGHTIES CINEMA
John Hughes is the acclaimed writer and director of Ferris
Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty In
Pink and many other classic movies of the 1980s.
This book is the first full-length analysis of all of John
Hughes's films throughout the 1980s; not only the features that he
directed, but also those for which he provided the screenplay. By
analysing these pictures and discussing their social and cultural
significance in the wider context of the decade, Hughes's
importance as a filmmaker will be considered, and his prominent
contribution to cinema assessed. The book concludes with a detailed
analysis of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a film which is considered to
be among Hughes's most critically successful works and also one of
his most structurally refined.
REVIEW ON AMAZON
If like me, you were fortunate enough to live through and grow
up during the 80's and early 90's, you'll remember just how rich
comedy was back then. This book on it's own puts most comedies of
the modern era to shame as it is a homage to one of the most
talented minds in the game. I am of course speaking of none other
than the late great John Hughes. This is a great book for getting
into the details of how a master of his art came about and created
such cinematic gems. Hughes will be sorely missed which is why
books like this keep his spirit and work alive
I'd say this book is for people who are nostalgic 20-somethings
or cinema buffs, but all-round a good book for just about anyone
who would like to know what made one of the funniest minds of
Hollywood tick.
EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION
Today John Hughes is just as well known for the scripts he
created for hugely popular family films throughout the 1990s,
including Chris Columbus's blockbuster Home Alone (1990), Brian
Levant's Beethoven (1992) and Nick Castle's Dennis the Menace
(1993), written under his pen-name of Edmond Dantes. But even these
accomplishments couldn't compare to the artistic diversity of his
output throughout the eighties. Although it is easy to remember
Hughes for his meteorically successful teen movies right the way
through the including The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ferris
Bueller's Day (1986), he was every bit as adroit in his handling of
suburban satires such as Mr Mom (1983) and Uncle Buck (1989), his
wry observations of the great American holiday in National
Lampoon's Vacation (1983) and The Great Outdoors (1988), the trials
of an exasperated everyman commuter in Planes, Trains and
Automobiles (1987), and the expectation of anxious new parents in
She's Having a Baby (1988). Throughout the course of Hughes's
career, there has rarely been a lack of variety in his choice of
subject matter.
From the 1950s to the 1980s the Children's Film Foundation made
films for Saturday morning cinema clubs across the UK -
entertaining and educating generations of British children. This
first history of this much-loved organisation provides an overview
of the CFF's films, interviews with key backstage personnel, and
memories of audience members.
Visions of England is a provocative and original exploration of
Englishness, in particular English class, in contemporary cinema.
Class has been a central part, whether consciously or not, of much
of English social analysis and artistic production for over a
century. But as a way of interpreting society, class has found
itself sidelined in a postmodern world. Visions of England presents
a detailed analysis of the changing landscape of English class and
culture. Visions of England explores a wide range of film
production - from gangster thrillers like Lock, Stock Two Smoking
Barrels to the period cinema of Elizabeth, from cult classics like
Performance and Trainspotting to the mainstream romantic comedy of
Notting Hill and Bridget Jones, from the social realist drama of
Billy Elliot and The Full Monty to the multicultural comedy of Bend
it like Beckham, and the experimentalism of films such as London
Orbital and Robinson in Space. An extraordinarily wide-ranging and
incisive study, Visions of England rewrites the relationship of
film and Englishness.
Cavernous, often cold, always dark, with the lingering smell of
popcorn in the air: the experience of movie-going is universal. The
cinematic experience in Mexico is no less profound, and has evolved
in complex ways in recent years. Films like "Y Tu Mama Tambien, El
Mariachi, Amores Perros," and the work of icons like Guillermo del
Toro and Salma Hayek represent much more than resurgent interest in
the cinema of Mexico. In "Screening Neoliberalism," Ignacio Sanchez
Prado explores precisely what happened to Mexico's film industry in
recent decades. Far from just a history of the period, "Screening
Neoliberalism" explores four deep transformations in the Mexican
film industry: the decline of nationalism, the new focus on
middle-class audiences, the redefinition of political cinema, and
the impact of globalization. This analysis considers the directors
and films that have found international notoriety as well as those
that have been instrumental in building a domestic market.
"Screening Neoliberalism" exposes the consequences of a film
industry forced to find new audiences in Mexico's middle-class in
order to achieve economic and cultural viability.
Martial Culture, Silver Screen analyzes war movies, one of the most
popular genres in American cinema, for what they reveal about the
narratives and ideologies that shape U.S. national identity. Edited
by Matthew Christopher Hulbert and Matthew E. Stanley, this volume
explores the extent to which the motion picture industry,
particularly Hollywood, has played an outsized role in the
construction and evolution of American self-definition. Moving
chronologically, eleven essays highlight cinematic versions of
military and cultural conflicts spanning from the American
Revolution to the War on Terror. Each focuses on a selection of
films about a specific war or historical period, often
foregrounding recent productions that remain understudied in the
critical literature on cinema, history, and cultural memory.
Scrutinizing cinema through the lens of nationalism and its
"invention of tradition", Martial Culture, Silver Screen considers
how movies possess the power to frame ideologies, provide social
coherence, betray collective neuroses and fears, construct
narratives of victimhood or heroism, forge communities of
remembrance, and cement tradition and convention. Hollywood war
films routinely present broad, identifiable narratives such as that
of the rugged pioneer or the "good war" through which filmmakers
invent representations of the past, establishing narratives that
advance discrete social and political functions in the present. As
a result, cinematic versions of wartime conflicts condition and
reinforce popular understandings of American national character as
it relates to violence, individualism, democracy, militarism,
capitalism, masculinity, race, class, and empire. Approaching war
movies as identity-forging apparatuses and tools of social power,
Martial Culture, Silver Screen lays bare how cinematic versions of
warfare have helped define for audiences what it means to be
American.
Neo-Noir as Post-Classical Hollywood Cinema suggests the terms
"noir" and "neo-noir" have been rendered almost meaningless by
overuse. The book seeks to re-establish a purpose for neo-noir
films and re-consider the organization of 60 years of neo-noir
films. Using the notion of post-classical, the book establishes how
neo-noir breaks into many movements, some based on time and others
based on thematic similarities. The combined movements then form a
mosaic of neo-noir. The time-based movements examine Transitional
Noir (1960s-early 1970s), Hollywood Renaissance Noir in the 1970s,
Eighties Noir, Nineties Noir, and Digital Noir of the 2000s. The
thematic movements explore Nostalgia Noir, Hybrid Noir, and Remake
and Homage Noir. Academics as well as film buffs will find this
book appealing as it deconstructs popular films and places them
within new contexts.
Ninety-nine years ago, a new form of storytelling emerged from the
ruins of World War I. Different in scope and power from theater or
literature, and unlike any film that had come before, F. W.
Murnau's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari addressed a direct challenge
to its audience, demanding to be viewed as something other than
what was immediately presented. Unfortunately, criticism has not
risen to the challenge. Relegating the film condescendingly to the
horror genre, or treating it merely as a case study in style,
critics have failed to look at it with due seriousness. On the
other hand, the film's ambiguity, structural devices, and
psychological depth gave cinema a number of tools that other
filmmakers were quick to start using. This book examines a spectrum
of narrative films that can be seen in new ways with methods
derived and evolved from the techniques of Caligari. The intention
is not only to offer new interpretations of classic and neglected
films, but to open further discussion and exploration. It is
written with optimism that movie lovers will see more in the movies
they love, that critics will find new paths of investigation, and
that filmmakers will benefit from greater awareness of what movies
can do. Secrets of Cinema began in 1994, in discussions among
friends after weekly movie nights hosted by the late Lawrence N.
Fox on the 73rd floor of the John Hancock Center in Chicago. The
movies selected are not necessarily the greatest ever made
(although some of them surely are), but rather movies that offer
new and useful lessons in how movies work. Among the secrets of
cinema revealed in this book are at least three movies that are
stealth remakes of The Wizard of Oz, hidden meanings behind films
made under political repression, and why Hitchcock's Psycho is a
remake of his Vertigo. Persistent enigmas are clarified, including
the logic of Persona, the riddle of Last Year at Marienbad, and the
endings of Blow-Up and The Shining. More importantly, by showing
how much there is to discover in movies, the book encourages its
readers to continue in their own ways the quest to see movies
whole.
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