For forty years, Jackie Frame stood at the center of business, entertainment, and publicity in Classic Hollywood. This stunning collection of never before told vignettes reveals that lost world in all its splendor and with all its quirks. No scholar of the period will be able to reconstruct its dynamics, and no fan will be able to appreciate the film and music of those exciting times, without a careful consideration of these scintillating and revelatory memoirs by a true Hollywood insider. Jackie Frame's journey from suburban England to the entertainment capital of the world is itself a truly remarkable twentieth-century tale.

"For more than half a century now, scholars have debated over what comprises a genuinely religious film one that evinces an authentic manifestation of the sacred. Often these scholars do so by pitting the successful films against those which propagate an inauthentic spiritual experience with the biblical spectacular serving as their most notorious candidate. This book argues that what makes a filmic manifestation of the sacred true or authentic, may say more about a spectator or critics particular way of knowing, as influenced by alphabetic literacy, than it does about the aesthetic or philosophical and sometimes even faith-based dimensions of the sacred onscreen. Engaging with everything from Hollywood religious spectaculars, Hindu mythologicals, and an international array of films revered for their transcendental style, The Sacred and the Cinema unveils the epistemic pressures at the heart of engaging with the sacred onscreen. The book also provides a valuable summation of the history of the sacred as a field of study, particularly as that field intersects with film. "

Showcasing gorgeous concept art from Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film My Neighbor Totoro, this paperback journal provides note-taking inspiration for Studio Ghibli and Totoro fans of all ages. Incudes full-color artwork on the front and back covers, spot illustrations throughout―plus 4 full spreads of concept art.

My Neighbor Totoro © 1988 Studio Ghibli

Often identified as one of the most genuine and enduring American film genres, the road movie has never been explored in the context of experimental filmmaking. To fill this gap, Lost Highways, Embodied Travels provides the first book-length study of over eighty unique and often obscure films and videos and situates them within the corporeal turn in American avant-garde cinema, so far mostly associated with body genres and sexually explicit films. Drawing on unpublished archival materials, the book offers a fresh take on both past and current practices of the experimental film community for scholars, students, makers and film buffs.

Providing an indispensable resource for students and general readers, this book serves as an entry point for a conversation on America's favorite pastime, focusing in on generational differences and the evolution of American identity. In an age marked by tension and division, Americans of all ages and backgrounds have turned to film to escape the pressures of everyday life. Yet, beyond escapism, popular cinema is both a mirror and microscope for our collective psyche. Examining the films that have made billions of dollars through a new lens reveals that popular culture is a vital source for understanding what it means to be an American. This book is divided into four sections, each associated with a different generation. Featuring such era-defining hits as Jaws, Back to the Future, Avatar, and The Avengers, each section presents detailed film analyses that showcase the consistency of certain American values throughout generations as well as the constant renegotiation of others. Ideal for any cinephile, The American Blockbuster demonstrates how complex and meaningful even the summer blockbuster can be. Provides readers with a completely different take on their favorite films Extrapolates what "American" might mean and analyzes common values in the 21st century Locates film as a crucial element to the understanding of late modern aesthetics, culture, spirituality, politics, and economics Features a broad array of films spanning from the 1970s to today

Relive the magic of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through this retelling of the classic animated film, accompanied by paintings, sketches and concept art from the original Disney Studio artists. Also featured is a foreword by Eric Goldberg, a supervising animator and director at the Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Turn to the back of the book to learn more about the artists who worked on this iconic animated film.

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.

Few European male actors have been as iconic and influential for generations of filmgoers as Alain Delon. Emblematic of a modern, European masculinity, Delon's appeal spanned cultures and continents. From his breakthrough as the first on-screen Tom Ripley in Purple Noon in 1960, through two legendary performances in Rocco and His Brothers and The Leopard in the early 1960s, to his roles in some of Jean-Pierre Melville's most celebrated films noirs, Delon came to embody the flair and stylishness of the European thriller as one of France's most recognizable film stars. This collection examines the star's career, image and persona. Not only focusing on his spectacular early performances, the book also considers less well documented aspects of Delon's long career such as his time in Hollywood, his work as director, producer and screenwriter, his musical collaborations, his TV appearances, and his enduring role as a fashion icon in the 21st century. Whether the object of reverence or ridicule, of desire or disdain, Delon remains a unique figure who continues to court controversy and fascination more than five decades after he first achieved international fame.

Noel Carroll, a brilliant and provocative philosopher of film, has gathered in this book eighteen of his most recent essays on cinema and television--what Carroll calls "moving images." The essays discuss topics in philosophy, film theory, and film criticism. Drawing on concepts from cognitive psychology and analytic philosophy, Carroll examines a wide range of fascinating topics. These include film attention, the emotional address of the moving image, film and racism, the nature and epistemology of documentary film, the moral status of television, the concept of film style, the foundations of film evaluation, the film theory of Siegfried Kracauer, the ideology of the professional western, and films by Sergei Eisenstein and Yvonne Rainer. Carroll also assesses the state of contemporary film theory and speculates on its prospects. The book continues many of the themes of Carroll's earlier work Theorizing the Moving Image and develops them in new directions. A general introduction by George Wilson situates Carroll's essays in relation to his view of moving-image studies.

Eye of the Taika: New Zealand Comedy and the Films of Taika Waititi is the first book-length study of comic film director and media celebrity Taika Waititi. Author Matthew Bannister analyses Waititi's feature films and places his other works and performances-short films, TV series, advertisements, music videos, and media appearances-in the fabric of popular culture. The book's thesis is that Waititi's playful comic style draws on an ironic reading of NZ identity as Antipodean camp, a style which reflects NZ's historic status as colonial underdog. The first four chapters of Eye of the Taika explore Waititi's early life and career, the history of New Zealand and its film industry, the history of local comedy and its undervaluation in favor of more ""serious"" art, and ethnicity in New Zealand comedy. Bannister then focuses on Waititi's films, beginning with Eagle vs Shark (2007) and its place in ""New Geek Cinema,"" despite being an outsider even in this realm. Bannister uses Boy (2010) to address the ""comedian comedy,"" arguing that Waititi is a comedic entertainer before being a director. With What We Do in The Shadows (2014), Bannister explores Waititi's use of the vampire as the archetypal immigrant struggling to fit into mainstream society, under the guise of a mockumentary. Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), Bannister argues, is a family-friendly, rural-based romp that plays on and ironizes aspects of Aotearoa/New Zealand identity. Thor: Ragnarok (2017) launched Waititi into the Hollywood realm, while introducing a Polynesian perspective on Western superhero ideology. Finally, Bannister addresses Jojo Rabbit (2019) as an ""anti-hate satire"" and questions its quality versus its topicality and timeliness in Hollywood. By viewing Waititi's career and filmography as a series of pranks, Bannister identifies Waititi's playful balance between dominant art worlds and emergent postcolonial innovations, New Zealand national identity and indigenous Aotearoan (and Jewish) roots, and masculinity and androgyny. Eye of the Taika is intended for film scholars and film lovers alike.

In early-twentieth-century motion picture houses, offensive stereotypes of African Americans were as predictable as they were prevalent. Watermelon eating, chicken thievery, savages with uncontrollable appetites, Sambo and Zip Coon were all representations associated with African American people. Most of these caricatures were rendered by whites in blackface.

Few people realize that from 1915 through 1929 a number of African American film directors worked diligently to counter such racist definitions of black manhood found in films like D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, the 1915 epic that glorified the Ku Klux Klan. In the wake of the film's phenomenal success, African American filmmakers sought to defend and redefine black manhood through motion pictures.

Gerald Butters's comprehensive study of the African American cinematic vision in silent film concentrates on works largely ignored by most contemporary film scholars: African American-produced and -directed films and white independent productions of all-black features. Using these "race movies" to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race in popular culture, he separates cinematic myth from historical reality: the myth of the Euro American-controlled cinematic portrayal of black men versus the actual black male experience.

Through intense archival research, Butters reconstructs many lost films, expanding the discussion of race and representation beyond the debate about "good" and "bad" imagery to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race as device in the context of Western popular culture. He particularly examines the filmmaking of Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific and controversial of all African American silent film directors and creator of the recently rediscovered Within Our Gates-the legendary film that exposed a virtual litany of white abuses toward blacks.

"Black Manhood on the Silent Screen" is unique in that it takes contemporary and original film theory, applies it to the distinctive body of African American independent films in the silent era, and relates the meaning of these films to larger political, social, and intellectual events in American society. By showing how both white and black men have defined their own sense of manhood through cinema, it examines the intersection of race and gender in the movies and offers a deft interweaving of film theory, American history, and film history.

Creating Musical Theatre features interviews with the directors and choreographers that make up today's Broadway elite. From Susan Stroman and Kathleen Marshall to newcomers Andy Blankenbuehler and Christopher Gattelli, this book features twelve creative artists, mostly director/choreographers, many of whom have also crossed over into film and television, opera and ballet. To the researcher, this book will deliver specific information on how these artists work; for the performer, it will serve as insight into exactly what these artists are looking for in the audition process and the rehearsal environment; and for the director/choreographer, this book will serve as an inspiration detailing each artist's pursuit of his or her dream and the path to success, offering new insight and a deeper understanding of Broadway today. Creating Musical Theatre includes a foreword by four-time Tony nominee Kelli O'Hara, one of the most elegant and talented leading ladies gracing the Broadway and concert stage today, as well as interviews with award-winning directors and choreographers, including: Rob Ashford (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying); Andy Blankenbuehler (In the Heights); Jeff Calhoun (Newsies); Warren Carlyle (Follies); Christopher Gattelli (Newsies); Kathleen Marshall (Anything Goes); Jerry Mitchell (Legally Blonde); Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon); Randy Skinner (White Christmas); Susan Stroman (The Scottsboro Boys); Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys); and Anthony Van Laast (Sister Act).