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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Films, cinema
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.
South Korea is home to one of the most vibrant film industries in
the world today, producing movies for a strong domestic market that
are also drawing the attention of audiences worldwide. This book
presents a comprehensive analysis of some of the most well-known
and incendiary South Korean films of the millennial decade from
nine major directors. Building his analysis on contemporary film
theory and philosophy, as well as interviews and other primary
sources, Steve Choe makes a case that these often violent films
pose urgent ethical dilemmas central to life in the age of
neoliberal globalization.
The major essays of the distinguished and prolific Australian-born
film critic Adrian Martin have long been difficult to access, so
this anthology, which collects highlights of his work in one
volume, will be welcomed throughout film studies. Martin offers
indepth analysis of many genres of films while providing a broad
understanding of the history of cinema and the history of film
criticism and culture. These vibrant, highly personal essays,
written between 1982 and 2016, balance breadth across cinema theory
with almost encyclopedic detail, ranging between aesthetics,
cinephilia, film genre, criticism, philosophy, and cultural
politics. Mysteries of Cinema circumscribes a special cultural
period that began with the dream of critique as a form of poetic
writing, and today arrives at collaborative experiments in
audiovisual essays. Throughout these essays, Martin pursues a
particular vision of what cinema has been, what it is, and what it
still could be.
aBlending cinematic, literary, historical, and political analyses,
Watching Rape demonstrates that filmic representations of rape are
never only about gender and sexual violence, but are narrative
devices that also attempt to regulate such conflicts and boundaries
of power as race, nationality, and social class. Projansky makes
good on her bold claim that representations of rape are ubiquitous,
versatile, and utterly central to the history of cinema itself. A
scholarly tour de force, a feminist triumph. Two thumbs up!a
--Judith Stacey, University of Southern California
aExciting and original. Sarah Projanskyas work on rape and
postfeminism is an important contribution to scholarship in film
and cultural studies, as well as womenas studies.a
--Richard Slotkin, author of "Gunfighter Nation"
a"Watching Rape" is a compelling account of the role of the rape
in making meaning and re-inscribing inequalities within visual
media, and as such it is a necessary and valuable research
contribution. a
--Leslie Kern, School of Womenas Studies, York University
aSarah Projanskyas work is distinctive for its theoretical
clarity and interdisciplinary feminist framework. She urges us to
think deeply about the ways in which media shape our understandings
of sexual violence. Watching Rape is a powerful, historically
grounded, incisive analysis of the representation of sexual
violence.a
--Rosa Linda Fregoso, University of California-Santa Cruz
Looking at popular culture from 1980 to the present, feminism
appears to be "over": that is, according to popular critics we are
in an era of "postfeminism" in which feminism has supposedly
already achieved equality for women.
Not so, saysSarah Projansky. In Watching Rape, Projansky
undermines this complacent view in her fascinating and thorough
analysis of depictions of rape in U.S. film, television, and
independent video. Through a cultural studies analysis of such
films as Thelma and Louise, Daughters of the Dust, and She's Gotta
Have It, and television shows like ER, Ally McBeal, Beverly Hills
90210, and various made-for-tv movies, Projansky challenges us to
see popular culture as a part of our everyday lives and practices,
and to view that culture critically. How have media defined rape
and feminism differently over time? How do popular narratives about
rape also communicate ideas about gender, race, class, nationality,
and sexuality? And, what is the future of feminist politics,
theory, and criticism with regard to issues of sexual violence,
postfeminism, and popular media?
The first study to address the relationship between rape and
postfeminism, and one of the most detailed and thorough analyses of
rape in 25 years, Watching Rape is a crucial contribution to
contemporary feminism.
Writer, producer, and director Wes Craven has successfully tapped
into the horror vein for over forty years, serving up scary, funny,
cutting-edge thrillers that have become classics in the genre. His
films have been both critical and commercial successes, most
notably Nightmare on Elm Street, which spawned a series of sequels
and made Craven (and his creation, Freddy Kruger) an international
sensation. He then created a second indelible series in the horror
movie trope with Scream. In Screams & Nightmares, Brian J. Robb
examines Craven's entire career, from his low-budget beginnings to
his most recent box office hits, from the banned thriller The Last
House on the Left and the cult classic The Hills Have Eyes to the
outrageous Shocker and The People Under the Stairs. Through
exclusive interviews with Craven, Robb provides in-depth accounts
of the making of each of the films - including the final
instalments of the Scream series - Craven's foray into writing
novels, and his numerous television projects.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, transnational European
cinema has risen, not only in terms of production but also in terms
of a growing focus on multiethnic themes within the European
context. This shift from national to trans-European filmmaking has
been profoundly influenced by such historical developments as the
collapse of the Iron Curtain and the subsequent ongoing enlargement
of the European Union. In European Cinema after the Wall: Screening
East-West Mobility, Leen Engelen and Kris Van Heuckelom have
brought together essays that critically examine representations of
post-1989 migration from the former Eastern Bloc to Western Europe,
uncovering an array of common tropes and narrative devices that
characterize the influences and portrayals of immigration.
Featuring essays by contributors from backgrounds as divergent as
film studies, Slavic and Russian studies, comparative literature,
sociology, contemporary history, and communication and media
studies, this volume will appeal to scholars of film, European
history, and those interested in the impact of migration, diaspora,
and the global flow of cinematic culture.
In this study of fandom at its most intense, Will Brooker examines
the "Star Wars" phenomenon from the audience's perspective, and
discovers that the saga exerts a powerful influence over the
social, cultural and spiritual lives of those drawn into its myth.
From a Boba Fett-loving police officer in Indiana to the
webmistress of the "Star Wars chicks" site; from an 11-year-old boy
in south London to a Baptist Church in South Carolina; from the
director of "George Lucas in Love" to the custodians of the Jedi
Hurtaholics Archive - Brooker unearths a seemingly endless array of
fans who use and interpret the saga in a number of creative ways
This book explores what it means to be a fan, examining the role of
gender and generation in creating sub-communities within the larger
group of Star Wars devotees. It discusses the films and stories
created by thousands of fans around the world, and asks whether
this apparently unstoppable creativity can be controlled by an
organization that has - completely unintentionally - positioned
itself in the role of the Empire and turned loyal fans into Rebels.
Ultimately, the book serves as a testament to the extraordinary
power of the "Star Wars" films
Since Toy Story, its first feature in 1995, Pixar Animation Studios
has produced a string of commercial and critical successes
including Monsters, Inc.; WALL-E; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles;
Cars; and Up. In nearly all of these films, male characters are
prominently featured, usually as protagonists. Despite obvious
surface differences, these figures often follow similar narratives
toward domestic fulfillment and civic engagement. However, these
characters are also hypermasculine types whose paths lead to
postmodern social roles more revelatory of the current "crisis"
that sociologists and others have noted in boy culture. In Pixar's
Boy Stories: Masculinity in a Postmodern Age, Shannon R. Wooden and
Ken Gillam examine how boys become men and how men measure up in
films produced by the animation giant. Offering counterintuitive
readings of boy culture, this book describes how the films quietly
but forcefully reiterate traditional masculine norms in terms of
what they praise and what they condemn. Whether toys or ants,
monsters or cars, Pixar's males succeed or fail according to the
"boy code," the relentlessly policed gender standards rampant in
American boyhood. Structured thematically around major issues in
contemporary boy culture, the book discusses conformity,
hypermasculinity, social hierarchies, disability, bullying, and an
implicit critique of postmodern parenting. Unprecedented in its
focus on Pixar and boys in its films, this book offers a valuable
perspective to current conversations about gender and cinema.
Providing a critical discourse about masculine roles in animated
features, Pixar's Boy Stories will be of interest to scholars of
film, media, and gender studies and to parents.
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.
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