This book offers a history of films with Biblical, spiritual, and supernatural themes. This volume follows the evolution of one of the Hollywood's longest running thematic concerns. From the silent era to the present, Sacred Profanity: Spirituality at the Movies examines the rich diversity of films with spiritual themes-films that reflect our own fascination with the divine and supernatural, while evoking the specific times in which they were created. From Birth of a Nation to Angels and Demons, Sacred Profanity discusses over 180 films with an insightful, movie lover's approach. Coverage encompasses Biblical stories like King of Kings; films about spiritual characters, such as The Nun's Story; foreign masterpieces like The Seventh Seal; movies that incorporate spiritual symbolism, such as Taxi Driver and Cool Hand Luke; horrifying visions of the Satanic like The Exorcist, and controversial works like The Last Temptation of Christ. The book also looks at the history of Hollywood's attempt to maintain moral order through censorship, as well as the growing influence of filmmakers' own spiritual beliefs on the movies we see. Comprises discussions of 184 films with religious, spiritual, or supernatural themes Includes quotes from over 100 actors, producers, directors, and critics Presents 22 seminal images from Biblical epics, films featuring priests and nuns and also films dealing with symbolic sacramental themes Offers an extensive bibliography of print and online sources for further reading Provides a comprehensive filmography of all movies discussed in the book

In the past twenty years, China has witnessed the flowering of an independent documentary cinema characterized by a particular verite aesthetic. Independent Chinese Documentary traces the roots of this style back to the 1980s, and the gradual abandonment of studio-based filmmaking, dominant during the Maoist era, for shooting live and on location. Known in Chinese as xianchang - or being on "the scene" - this documentary practice is partly distinguished by its embrace of the contingent. Through a series of synoptic case studies, this book considers the different ways in which contingency manifests in independent Chinese documentary; the practical and aesthetic challenges its mediation presents for individual film directors; and the reasons for the quality's significance, set against the backdrop of China's ongoing postsocialist transition, and the consequences of this process for the very act of documentary representation itself.

India Retold: Dialogues with Independent Documentary Filmmakers in India is an attempt to situate and historicize the engagement of independent documentary filmmakers with the postcolonial India and its discourses with a focus on their independent documentary practices. Structured as an interview collection, the book examines how these documentary filmmakers, though not a homogeneous category, practice their independence through their ideology, their filmmaking praxis, their engagement with the everyday and their formal experiments. As a sparsely studied filmmakers, the book through meticulously tracing a wide ranging historical transitions (often marked by communal conflicts and the forces of globalization) not only details the ways in which independent filmmakers in India address the questions of postcolonial nation and its modernist projects but also explores their idiosyncratic views of these filmmakers which are characterized by a definitive departure from the logic of commercial films or state-sponsored documentary films. More important in many ways, these documentary filmmakers expose incongruences in national institutions and programs, embrace the voice of the underrepresented, and thus, imagine an alternative vision of the nation. During the last three years of the execution of the project, thirty Indian documentary filmmakers are interviewed in this book. Given the dearth of quality interviews and little theoretical engagement with documentary as a genre, this book would not only fill in the gap in scholarship but also would serve as an authentic guide for interested readers and for documentary filmmakers alike.

Surrealism has long been recognised as having made a major contribution to film theory and practice, and many contemporary film-makers acknowledge its influence. Most of the critical literature, however, focuses either on the 1920s or the work of Buuel. The aim of this book is to open up a broader picture of surrealism's contribution to the conceptualisation and making of film. Tracing the work of Luis Buuel, Jacques Prvert, Nelly Kaplan, Walerian Borowcyzk, Jan vankmajer, Raul Ruiz and Alejandro Jodorowsky, Surrealism and Cinema charts the history of surrealist film-making in both Europe and Hollywood from the 1920s to the present day. At once a critical introduction and a provocative re-evaluation, Surrealism and Cinema is essential reading for anyone interested in surrealist ideas and art and the history of film.

One of the most dynamic capital cities of the twenty-first century, Berlin also has one of the most tumultuous modern histories. A city that came of age, in many senses, with the cinema, it has been captured on film during periods of exuberance, devastation, division, and reconstruction. "World Film Locations: Berlin" offers a broad overview of these varied cinematic representations. Covering an array of films that ranges from early classics to contemporary star vehicles, this volume features detailed analyses of forty-six key scenes from productions shot on location across the city, as well as spotlight essays in which contributors with expertise in German studies, urban history, and film studies focus on issues central to understanding Berlin cinema. Among the topics discussed are the roles of rubble, construction sites, and music in films set and shot in Berlin, as well as key personalities, including Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl. With the help of full-color illustrations that include film stills and contemporary location shots, "World Film Locations: Berlin" cinematically maps the city's long twentieth century, taking readers behind the scenes and shedding new light on the connections between many favorite and possibly soon to be favorite films.

Though the creative community of Reykjavik, Iceland, has earned a well-deserved reputation for its unique artistic output--most notably the popular music that has emerged from the city since the 1980s--Reykjavik's filmmakers have received less attention than they merit. "World Film Locations: Reykjavik" corrects this imbalance, shedding new light on the role of cinema in a country that, partly because of its small population, produces more films per capita than any other in the world. The contributors to this volume trace cinema in Iceland from the 1979 establishment of the Icelandic Film Fund--before which the country's film industry barely existed--through today. In a series of illuminating scene reviews, they show how rapidly the city has changed over the past thirty years. In thematic spotlight articles, they go on to explore such topics as the relationship between Iceland and its capital city; youth culture and night life; the relationship between film and the local music community; cinematic representations of Scandinavian crime; and filmmakers' response to the 2008 banking crisis. Together, these varied contributions show how films shot in Reykjavik have been shaped both by Iceland's remoteness from the rest of the world and by Icelandic filmmakers' sense that the city remains forever on the brink of desolate and harsh wilderness.

The title of Li Yu's film "Lost in Beijing" evokes the experience of many first-time visitors to China's bustling capital. The city's sprawling structure and rapid redevelopment--embodied by the high-rise apartments taking over historic districts--render Beijing's streets hard to navigate and its culture is just as difficult to penetrate. "World Film Locations: Beijing" is a revealing and engrossing introduction to both. In a series of spotlight essays and illustrated scene reviews, a cast of seasoned scholars and fresh new voices explore the vast range of films--encompassing drama, madcap comedy, martial arts escapism, and magical realism--that have been set in Beijing. Unveiling a city of hidden courtyards, looming skyscrapers, and traditional Hutong neighborhoods, these contributors depict a distinctive urban culture that reflects the conflict and tumult of a nation in transition. With considerations of everything from the back streets of "Beijing Bicycle" to the forbidden palace of "The Last Emperor" to the tourist park of "The World," this volume is a definitive cinematic guide to an ever-changing and endlessly fascinating capital city.

Although Ida Lupino is best known as a leading actress in many Hollywood B movies, her work as a filmmaker has been neglected by critics, historians, and audiences. In the late 1940s, Lupino turned writer, producer, and director in her own independent production company. The films she made, beginning with "Not Wanted" in 1949, were low-budget pictures taking an uncompromising approach to controversial subject matter -- unmarried motherhood, disability, rape, bigamy. Lupino is exceptional as the only woman to have directed a visible body of films in the male-dominated Hollywood of the 1950s. The continuation of that directorial career in television throughout the 1960s strengthens the claim that Lupino is the most prolific and creatively powerful woman director ever to have worked in the moving image industry.

This book is the first extensive critical study of Ida Lupino's work as a director in both film and television. It features in-depth essays on each of the films she directed and on her work in television (including such popular series as The Fugitive and The Twilight Zone), with the most complete credit listing yet published of her television work. Viewing Lupino's oeuvre in historical, social, industrial, and aesthetic contexts, all the contributors demonstrate that the work repays informed and sensitive readings and many consider it in light of contemporary feminist debates on cinema. Queen of the B's is a long overdue reassessment of an important and pioneering director.

The architectural imagery that you create is most effective when it examines your project in an abstract manner. Most students and practitioners understand linear perspective and cinema to be examples of architectural presentation tools. This book asks you to consider drawings and movies to be analytical tools that give you the capacity to engage all phases of the design process, from parti to presentation.

The ways in which spaces relate to each other and how materials connect to each other in your projects are as important as your building s appearance. As digital tools increasingly allow you to simulate the experience of built and unbuilt environments, it is essential that you scrutinize the nature of architectural imagery and resist the lure of virtual reality. Though pure simulation may be appropriate for your clients, your design process requires abstraction and analysis.

Author Thomas Forget demonstrates how to construct analytical drawings and movies that challenge the alleged realism of linear perspective and cinema. These demonstrations expose you to underlying principles that will allow you to understand the broader implications of these methods. In addition, historical surveys of drawings and movies provide you with insight into how architects and architectural historians have understood the role of linear perspective and cinema in their fields. Finally, examples of drawing and moviemaking strategies illustrate how you can apply the lessons of the book to precedent analyses and design projects.

"New Jews'?" is the first comprehensive study of American Jewish identity in Hollywood movies of the new millennium. Despite the argument that we live in a "post-racial" society with supposedly "new" Jewish characters emerging on the big screen, this book details how traditional racial stereotypes of American Jews persist in popular films from the first decade of this century. In clear and readable prose, the book offers an innovative and penetrating look at dozens of American Jewish "meddling matriarchs," "neurotic nebbishes," "pampered princesses," and "scheming scumbags" from 21st century film, whether Hollywood blockbusters like Meet the Fockers and Sex and the City or indie favorites like Garden State and Kissing Jessica Stein. Throughout the book, famous American Jewish characters played by the likes of Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Adam Sandler, and Ben Stiller are discussed, with the ultimate conclusion that movies today are marked less by the emergence of "new Jews" than by the continued - but dynamic and transformed -- presence of the same old stereotypes.

The Presence of the Past offers a new perspective on Hollywood's "New Wave" as engaged with the vitality of sensory experience and the affective imagination. As author Daniel Bishop shows, the soundtracks of several key films of the New Hollywood Cinema of the late 1960s and 70s cultivated an array of sensibilities regarding the American past. This importance of the past exceeded the New Hollywood's acknowledged use of genre revisionism as a vehicle for timely ideological commentary. There was also a vital tendency in this era to locate the past as an object of imagined phenomenal presence. Although this concept of the past never solidified into a self-conscious discourse, it was nevertheless woven into film culture, readable between the lines of criticism, cultural reception, New Wave aesthetics, and in the aesthetic and industrial transformations of sound design and film music. Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), The Last Picture Show (1971), American Graffiti (1973), Chinatown (1974), and Badlands (1973) are not only key texts of an exciting era in American popular cinema. They are also mediations upon the presence of the past, an image central to the polarities of visceral energy and ambiguous ephemerality, of utopian dreams and melancholy resignation that characterized this cinema. These sensibilities of pastness engage in diverse ways with myth, nostalgia, paranoia, and existential alienation. They are, however, also united by a concern both with the experiential actuality of the past and with the distances that inevitably separate us from this actuality.

West German cinema of the 1960s is frequently associated with the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers, collectively known by the 1970s as the "New German Cinema." Yet for domestic and international audiences at the time, German cinema primarily meant popular genres such as exotic adventure films, Gothic crime thrillers, westerns, and sex films, which were dismissed by German filmmakers and critics of the 1970s as "Daddy's Cinema." International Adventures provides the first comprehensive account of these genres, and charts the history of the West German film industry and its main protagonists from the immediate post-war years to its boom period in the 1950s and 1960s. By analyzing film genres in the context of industrial practices, literary traditions, biographical trajectories, and wider cultural and social developments, this book uncovers a forgotten period of German filmmaking that merits reassessment. International Adventures firmly locates its case studies within the wider dynamic of European cinema. In its study of West German cinema's links and co-operations with other countries including Britain, France, and Italy, the book addresses what is perhaps the most striking phenomenon of 1960s popular film genres: the dispersal and disappearance of markers of national identity in increasingly international narratives and modes of production.

Science Fiction explores the genre from 1895 to the present day, drawing on examples from over forty countries. It raises questions about the relationship between science fiction, science and technology, and examines the interrelationships between spectacle, narrative and self-reflexivity, paying particular attention to the role of special effects in creating meaning and affect. It explores science fiction s evocations of the sublime, the grotesque, and the camp, and charts the ways in which the genre reproduces and articulates discourses of colonialism, imperialism and neo-liberal globalization. At the same time, "Science Fiction" provides a thorough analysis of the genre s representation of race, class, gender and sexuality, making this text an essential guide for students, academics and film fans alike.

Key films discussed include:

• Le voyage dans la lune (1902)
• 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1916)
• L Atlantide (1921)
• King Kong (1933, 2005)
• Gojira (1954)
• La Jet e (1962)
• The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971)
• Tetsuo (1989)
• Sleep Dealer (2008)
• Avatar (2009)

Sin and redemption. The ridiculous and the sublime. The carnivalesque excess of the Strip and the barrenness of the desert surrounding the city. Visited by millions of fortune seekers - and starry-eyed lovers - each year, Las Vegas is a city with as many apparent contradictions as Elvis impersonators and this complexity is reflected in the diversity of films that have been shot on location there. A copiously illustrated retrospective of Vegas's appearances on the big screen, this new volume in Intellect's World Film Locations series presents synopses of scenes from a broad selection of films - from big-budget blockbusters like Oceans Eleven to acclaimed classics Rain Man, Casino and The Godfather to cult favourites like Showgirls and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Insightful essays throughout explore a range of topics, including the Rat Pack's Las Vegas, the cinematised Strip, Las Vegas as a frequent backdrop for science fiction and the various film portrayals of iconic pop-cultural figures like Elvis and Frank Sinatra. Rounding out this information are film stills juxtaposed with photographs of the locations as they appear today.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN: THE BOOKS, THE FILMS, THE WHOLE CULTURAL PHENOMENON

A book exploring the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, Britain's premier fantasy author, in over 800 pages. New, updated edition.

Part one of this book focusses on J.R.R. Tolkien's texts, principally those dealing with his 'secondary world' of Middle-earth. Part two explores the 2001-03 Hollywood movies of The Lord of the Rings, with a scene-by-scene analysis of the three films. Part of this book explores the influence of the Tolkien industry, in areas like computer gaming, pop music, merchandizing and cinema.

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, and the critics too, 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 MARK ROBINSON

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: J.R.R. Tolkien; Samuel Beckett; Thomas Hardy; Andre Gide; Robert Graves; and Lawrence Durrell.

This book discusses contemporary film in all the main countries of Southeast Asia, and the social practices and ideologies which films either represent or oppose. It shows how film acquires signification through cultural interpretation, and how film also serves as a site of contestations between social and political agents seeking to promote, challenge, or erase certain meanings, messages or ideas from public circulation. A unique feature of the book is that it focuses as much on films as it does on the societies from which these films emerge: it considers the reasons for film-makers taking the positions they take; the positions and counter-positions taken; the response of different communities; and the extent to which these interventions are connected to global flows of culture and capital. The wide range of subjects covered include documentaries as political interventions in Singapore; political film-makers' collectives in the Philippines, and films about prostitution in Cambodia and patriotism in Malaysia, and the Chinese in Indonesia. The book analyses films from Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, across a broad range of productions - such as mainstream and independent features across genres (for example comedy, patriotic, political, historical genres) alongside documentary, classic and diasporic films.

"Europe and Love in Cinema" explores the relationship between love and Europeanness in a wide range of films from the 1920s to the present. A critical look at the manner in which love--in its broadest sense--is portrayed in cinema from across Europe and the United States, this volume exposes constructed notions of "Europeanness" that both set Europe apart and define some parts of it as more "European" than others. Through the international distribution process, these films in turn engage with ideas of Europe from both outside and within, while some, treated extensively in this volume, even offer alternative models of love. A bracing collection of essays from top film scholars, "Europe and Love in Cinema" demonstrates the centrality of desire to film narrative and explores multiple models of love within Europe's frontiers.

British comedy cinema has been a mainstay of domestic production since the beginning of the last Century and arguably the most popular and important genre in British film history. This edited volume will offer the first comprehensive account of the rich and popular history of British comedy cinema from silent slapstick and satire to contemporary romantic comedy. Using a loosely chronological approach, essays cover successive decades of the 20th and 21st Century with a combination of case studies on key personalities, production cycles and studio output along with fresh approaches to issues of class and gender representation. It will present new research on familiar comedy cycles such as the Ealing Comedies and Carry On films as well as the largely undocumented silent period along with the rise of television spin offs from the 1970s and the development of animated comedy from 1915 to the present. Films covered include: St Trinians, A Fish Called Wanda, Brassed Off, Local Hero, The Full Monty, Four Lions and In the Loop. Contributors: Melanie Bell, Alan Burton, James Chapman, Richard Dacre, Ian Hunter, James Leggott, Sharon Lockyer, Andy Medhurst, Lawrence Napper, Tim O'Sullivan, Laraine Porter, Justin Smith, Sarah Street, Peter Waymark, Paul Wells

Taking an inclusive approach to South African film history, this volume represents an ambitious attempt to analyze and place in appropriate sociopolitical context the aesthetic highlights of South African cinema from 1896 to the present. Thoroughly researched and fully documented by renowned film scholar Martin Botha, the book focuses on the many highly creative uses of cinematic form, style, and genre as set against South Africa's complex and often turbulent social and political landscape. Included are more than two hundred illustrations and a look at many aspects of South African film history that haven't been previously documented.