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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Films, cinema
How do we identify the "queer auteur" and their queer imaginings?
Is it possible to account for such a figure when the very terms
"queer" and "auteur" invoke aesthetic surprises and
disorientations, disconcerting ironies and paradoxes, and
biographical deceits and ambiguities? In eighteen eloquent
chapters, David A. Gerstner traces a history of ideas that
spotlight an ever-shifting terrain associated with auteur theory
and, in particular, queer-auteur theory. Engaging with the likes of
Oscar Wilde, Walter Benjamin, James Baldwin, Jean Louis Baudry,
Linda Nochlin, Jane Gallop, Cael Keegan, Luce Irigaray, and other
prominent critical thinkers, Gerstner contemplates how the queer
auteur in film theory might open us to the work of desire. Queer
Imaginings argues for a queer-auteur in which critical theory is
reenabled to reconceptualize the auteur in relation to race,
gender, sexuality, and desire. Gerstner succinctly defines the
contours of a history and the ongoing discussions that situate
queer and auteur theories in film studies. Ultimately, Queer
Imaginings is a journey in shared pleasures in which writing for
and about cinema makes way for unanticipated cinematic friendships.
The first films were shorts. Most leading filmmakers made shorts,
including Chaplin, Keaton, Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Lindsay
Anderson, and--more recently--Lynne Ramsey and Damian O' Donnell.
Though a standard and much-loved part of the cinemagoing experience
for decades, short films are now rarely seen, even though more are
made than ever. Hundreds of student films are made annually and
television stations use shorts as fillers. Dotcom companies fight
to secure rights and short film festivals take place all over the
world. There is even the beginning of a comeback for the cinema
short.
This book traces the history of the short film and its current
role. Focusing on short-film producers and directors, it looks at
the short film as a training opportunity for new talent. It covers
issues of distribution, funding (including the lottery boom),
exhibition, festivals, training, and publications.
Why did Edwardian novelists portray journalists as swashbuckling,
truth-seeking super-heroes whereas post-WW2 depictions present the
journalist as alienated outsider? Why are contemporary fictional
journalists often deranged, murderous or intensely vulnerable? As
newspaper journalism faces the double crisis of a lack of trust
post-Leveson, and a lack of influence in the fragmented internet
age, how do cultural producers view journalists and their role in
society today? In The Journalist in British Fiction and Film Sarah
Lonsdale traces the ways in which journalists and newspapers have
been depicted in fiction, theatre and film from the dawn of the
mass popular press to the present day. The book asks first how
journalists were represented in various distinct periods of the
20th century and then attempts to explain why these representations
vary so widely. This is a history of the British press, told not by
historians and sociologists, but by writers and directors as well
as journalists themselves. In uncovering dozens of forgotten
fictions, Sarah Lonsdale explores the bare-knuckled literary combat
conducted by writers contesting the disputed boundaries between
literature and journalism. Within these texts and films there is
perhaps also a clue as to how the best aspects of 'Fourth estate'
journalism can survive in the digital age. Authors covered in the
volume include: Martin Amis, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Pat
Barker, Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, Arnold Wesker and Rudyard
Kipling. Television and films covered include House of Cards (US
and UK versions), Spotlight, Defence of the Realm, Secret State and
State of Play.
The definitive visual history of the thrilling make-up artistry of
the legendary Rick Baker, a must-have for collectors and special
effects afficionados. From the gory zombies of Michael Jackson's
Thriller to the staggeringly lifelike results of Bigfoot in Harry
and the Hendersons to the groundbreaking effects in An American
Werewolf in London, Baker's special effects, makeup, and
prosthetics are some of Hollywood's most enduring legacies. This
deluxe, two-volume set is replete with more than 1000 four-colour
images and original sketches. It covers the makeup artist's
40-plus-year journey, from his early days as a young "monster
maker", creating body parts in his parents' kitchen, to his more
than 70 film and television credits--that earned seven Academy
Awards, one Emmy, and three BAFTAs, among numerous other awards.
What is 'fun' about the Hollywood version of girlhood? Through
re-evaluating notions of pleasure and fun, The Aesthetic Pleasures
of Girl Teen Film forms a study of Hollywood girl teen films
between 2000-2010. By tracing the aesthetic connections between
films such as Mean Girls (Waters, 2004), Hairspray (Shankman,
2007), and Easy A (Gluck, 2010), the book articulates the specific
types of pleasure these films offer as a means to understand how
Hollywood creates gendered ideas of fun. Rather than condemn these
films as 'guilty pleasures' this book sets out to understand how
they are designed to create experiences that feel as though they
express desires, memories, or fantasies that girls supposedly share
in common. Providing a practical model for a new approach to
cinematic pleasures The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film
proposes that these films offer a limited version of girlhood that
feels like potential and promise but is restricted within
prescribed parameters.
This book begins with seminal essays, several dating back to the
1950s, that uncover the roots of the genre and explain its
wide-ranging, indestructible appeal. These writings include, among
many others, 'The Horror of It All' by Hollis Alpert and Charles
Beaumont, 'The Subconscious: From Pleasure Castle to Libido Motel'
by Raymond Durgnat and 'Satisfaction: A Most Unpleasant Feeling' by
Roman Polanski. The second part of the book, New Perspectives,
focuses on such specific films as Tod Browning's Freaks and The
Devil Doll, The Haunting, in both its 1963 and 1999 incarnations,
and The Devil and Daniel Webster; and on such sequel-driven
characters as Frankenstein's monster and Freddy Kruegar and the
Candyman. The scope of the collection is thus surprisingly broad
considering as it does the horror film genre from different times,
different perspectives, different angles. But the book's purpose is
unvarying: to increase our understanding of how these movies
succeed (or do not) in making our flesh creep, our skin turn pale
and our hair stand on end. Indeed, the stills alone -- about 100 of
them -- may occasionally do that.
Translation of a text supposedly written by Eva Perâon on her deathbed, but not published until 1987. The authenticity of the work has been questioned and it is highly unlikely that she wrote all of it. If it is hers, it displays the sharper aspects of her personality that are missing from the works that she claimed to author. Includes a useful introduction"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.
Global in scope and a practical tool for students and teachers of
history, Filmography of World History: A Select, Critical Guide To
Feature Films That Engage The Past includes description and
analysis of over 300 historical films. A companion to Grant
Tracey's Filmography of American History, this critical reference
book selects movies that represent aspects of world history from
the middle ages through the twentieth century. These films adopt as
their subject a wide range of historical events, people and
societies of Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Canada, and Latin
America. Films are arranged alphabetically, with cross referencing
by geographic area, time period, and five themes: History as
Biography; Crossing Cultures; Civil, International and Sectarian
Conflict; Society: Modernization and Tradition; and Redefining
Historical Narrative. Each film entry includes production data,
current U.S. home video distributors, geographical and time
setting, plot description, and references to critical literature.
Over half of the entries provide extended analysis of the
historical interpretation the film brings to the screen.
Filmography of World History argues for the potential of feature
films to teach us about the past and its reconstruction in academe
and popular culture. The book offers an historian's perspective on
films as varied as Ararat, Black Rain, Lin Zexu, Saladin,
Winstanley, Judgment at Nuremberg, Distant Thunder, The Official
Story, Cabeza de Vaca, Newsfront, Lumumba, Daresalam, and The Great
White Man of Lambarene.
The Theory of Love: Ideals, Limits, Futures explores stories about
love that recuperate a vision of intimate life as a resource for
creating bonds beyond heterosexual coupledom. This book offers a
variety of ethical frames through which to understand changing
definitions of love, intimacy, and interdependency in the context
of struggles for marriage equality and the increasing recognition
of post-nuclear forms of kinship and care. It commits to these
post-nuclear arrangements, while pushing beyond the false choice
between a politics of collective action and the celebration of
deeply personal and incommunicable pleasures. In exploring the
vicissitudes of love across contemporary philosophy, politics,
film, new media, and literature, The Theory of Love: Ideals,
Limits, Futures develops an original post-sentimental concept of
love as a way to explain emergent intimacies and affiliations
beyond the binary couple. This book will appeal to academics and
postgraduate students across the humanities and social sciences, as
well as being a teachable resource for undergraduate students. It
will appeal to a wide range of academics and students in literary
and film studies, philosophy, gender and sexuality studies, and
critical and cultural studies.
Although films affect and reflect the way Americans look at
politics, they have received far less attention than television or
newspapers. This is changing, particularly on college campuses,
where courses on politics and film are growing in popularity. This
book consists of short essays on approximately fifty American
political films. It is distinctive in two ways. Firstly, it defines
politics broadly enough to include a range of films, not only on
obviously political topics such as the presidency, congress, and
elections, but also on the media, law and courts, war and peace,
and a variety of policy issues. Secondly, it goes beyond plot and
dialogue to discuss the language of film, including visual aspects,
sound, mise-en-scene, and other ways that films communicate their
messages to audiences. Each chapter begins with a brief
introduction to the films included. The essays also explain the
political context of each film and, when films are based on
historical events, discuss the accuracy of their depictions.
References to additional sources are included at the end of each
essay. This book explores the extent to which films take on the
political issues of the day and their influence on public
perceptions of politics. Do films support the status quo or do they
challenge it?
This book provides coverage of the diversity of Australian film and
television production between 2000 and 2015. In this period,
Australian film and television have been transformed by new
international engagements, the emergence of major new talents and a
movement away with earlier films' preoccupation with what it means
to be Australian. With original contributions from leading scholars
in the field, the collection contains chapters on particular genres
(horror, blockbusters and comedy), Indigenous Australian film and
television, women's filmmaking, queer cinema, representations of
history, Australian characters in non-Australian films and films
about Australians in Asia, as well as chapters on sound in
Australian cinema and the distribution of screen content. The book
is both scholarly and accessible to the general reader. It will be
of particular relevance to students and scholars of Anglophone film
and television, as well as to anyone with an interest in Australian
culture and creativity.
This provocative book reveals how Hollywood films reflect our
deepest fears and anxieties as a country, often recording our
political beliefs and cultural conditions while underscoring the
darker side of the American way of life. Long before the war in
Iraq and the economic crises of the early 21st century, Hollywood
has depicted a grim view of life in the United States, one that
belies the prosperity and abundance of the so-called American
Dream. While the country emerged from World War II as a world
power, collectively our sense of security had been threatened. The
result is a cinematic body of work that has America's decline and
ruin as a central theme. The author draws from popular films across
all genres and six decades to illustrate how the political climate
of the times influenced their creation. Projecting the End of the
American Dream: Hollywood's Visions of U.S. Decline combines film
history, social history, and political history to reveal important
themes in the unfolding American narrative. Discussions focus on a
wide variety of films, including Rambo, Planet of the Apes, and
Easy Rider.
Tagline: We watch the same movies, but we don't see the same
movies. Hollywood Values makes a heroic effort to show that
Hollywood bashing doesn't have it right. Good things are coming out
of Hollywood. This book proves it.
Cyndy Hendershot argues that 1950s science fiction films open a
window on the cultural paranoia that characterized 1950s America, a
phenomenon largely triggered by use of nuclear weapons during World
War II. This study uses psychoanalytic theory to examine the
various monsters that inhabit 1950s sci-fi movies giant insects,
prehistoric creatures, mutants, uncanny doubles, to name a few
which serve as metaphorical embodiments of a varied and complex
cultural paranoia. Postwar paranoia may have stemmed from the bomb,
but it came to correlate with a wider range of issues such as
anti-communism, internal totalitarianism, scientific progress,
domestic problems, gender roles, and sexuality."
As with many aspects of European cultural life, film was galvanized
and transformed by the revolutionary fervor of 1968. This
groundbreaking study provides a full account of the era's cinematic
crises, innovations, and provocations, as well as the social and
aesthetic contexts in which they appeared. The author mounts a
genuinely fresh analysis of a contested period in which everything
from the avant-garde experiments of Godard, Pasolini, Schroeter,
and Fassbinder to the "low" cinematic genres of horror,
pornography, and the Western reflected the cultural upheaval of
youth in revolt-a cinema for the barricades.
What does the portrayal of gender in film reveal about Spanish
society? To what extent and in what ways does cinema contribute to
constructions of national and regional identity? How does gender
interact with ethnicity, class, politics and history?Gender and
Spanish Cinema addresses these questions and more in its
examination of twentieth-century film. Defining 'gender' in its
broadest sense, the authors discuss topics such as body,
performance, desire and fantasy. Gender is not considered in
isolation, but is discussed in relation to nationalism, race,
memory, psychoanalyisis and historical context. The chapters are
wide-ranging, dealing with subjects such as Buuel, cinema under
Franco, 1950s melodrama and Pedro Almodvar.Bringing together
leading academics from the UK, US and Spain, this volume examines
the diversity of gender representation in Spanish cinema through a
range of genres. A filmography and illustrations enhance the text.
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