Political documentaries are more popular now than ever— Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), the top-grossing documentary film of all time, is one of many such recent films. In this incisive book, James McEnteer parses the politics of nonfiction films of recent decades, which together constitute an alternative history to many official stories offered by the government and its media minions. Tracing the origins of an oppositional documentary movement to the Vietnam era, McEnteer shows how a strong independent documentary tradition grew from television's failure to sustain a commitment to the public interest. McEnteer evaluates the work of four artists in depth—the intrepid Barbara Kopple; the puckish but deadly Michael Moore; Errol Morris, a connoisseur of human quirkiness; and anti-Bush crusader Robert Greenwald—and that of other courageous filmmakers, including Barbara Trent (The Panama Deception and Cover-Up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair). McEnteer looks at the pioneering public affairs documentaries of Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly. Their 1950s CBS program, See It Now, won many awards but angered network owners who did not wish to alienate mass TV audiences with controversy. With Murrow's firing, the retreat of television from engaging civic issues in serious ways began in earnest. McEnteer devotes an entire chapter to the many 2004 documentaries made by both sides in that hotly contested presidential election. He concludes with a look at populist antiwar and antiglobalization films of Big Noise and the Guerrilla News Network, whose youthful producers push the boundaries of the documentary form. As mass media fail—now more than ever—to fulfill their watchdog role over public officials and policies, the importance of documentaries committed to telling the truth increases. Such films bear witness to important events otherwise hidden from our view. Their makers dare to refute the falsehoods passing for conventional wisdom, sometimes risking their lives or reputations to reveal the nature of those lies and the interests behind them. As Shooting the Truth clearly shows, documentaries have become an essential component for making sense of our time. This book enlarges our appreciation of contemporary nonfiction films and invites debate on the many issues it raises.

One way to analyze the intensely conflicting feelings Americans hold toward the Vietnam War is to see how the war has been portrayed through film. How the War Was Remembered is the first book to analyze Vietnam War films. Auster and Quart create a typology of these films based on their connection to sociohistorical currents such as the Wounded Hero, Superman, Hunter/Hero, and the Survivor. They also combine aesthetic analysis with a social, historical, and cultural critique. How the War Was Remembered by Albert Auster and Leonard Quart is a full-length treatment of filmic portrayals of the Vietnam War. From Samuel Fuller's China Gate to Francis Coppala's Apocalypse Now they examine the major works of an ever growing genre. The book is divided into four parts. The first deals with the genre, and the other three specific types within the genre. Notes, a bibliography, and an index complete the volume. Communication Booknotes One way to analyze the intensely conflicting feelings Americans hold toward the Vietnam War is to see how the war has been portrayed through film. How the War Was Remembered is the first book to analyze Vietnam War films, beginning with China Gate, and ending with Hamburger Hill. Included are analyses of all the major films about the Vietnam War, including Green Berets, The Deerhunter, Apocalypse Now, The Killing Fields, Rambo, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket, and others. Auster and Quart create a typology of these films based on their connection to socio-historical currents such as the Wounded Hero, Superman, Hunter/Hero, and the Survivor. They also combine aesthetic analysis with a social, historical, and cultural critique.

During World War I, the Catholic church blocked the distribution of government-sponsored V.D. prevention films, initiating an era of attempts by the church to censor the movie industry. This book is an entertaining and engrossing account of those efforts-how they evolved, what effect they had on the movie industry, and why they were eventually abandoned. Frank Walsh tells how the church's influence in Hollywood grew through the 1920s and reached its peak in the 1930s, when the film industry allowed Catholics to dictate the Production Code, which became the industry's self-censorship system, and the Legion of Decency was established by the church to blacklist any films it considered offensive. With the industry's Joe Breen, a Catholic layman, cutting movie scenes during production and the Legion of Decency threatening to ban movies after release, the Catholic church played a major role in determining what Americans saw and didn't see on the screen during Hollywood's Golden Age. Walsh provides fascinating details about the church's efforts to guard against anything it felt might corrupt moviegoers' morals: forcing Gypsy Rose Lee to change her screen name; investigating Frank Sinatra's fitness to play a priest in Miracle of the Bells; altering a dance sequence in Oklahoma; eliminating marital infidelity from Two-Faced Woman; compelling Howard Hughes to make 147 cuts in The Outlaw; blocking the distribution of Birth of a Baby; and attacking Asphalt Jungle for serving the "crooked purposes of the Soviet Union." However, notes Walsh, there were serious divisions within the church over film policy. Bishops feuded with one another over how best to deal with movie moguls, priests differed over whether attending a condemned film constituted a serious sin, and Legion of Decency reviewers disagreed over film evaluations. Walsh shows how the decline of the studio system, the rise of a new generation of better-educated Catholics, and changing social values gradually eroded the Legion's power, forcing the church eventually to terminate its efforts to control the type of film that Hollywood turned out. In an epilogue he relates this history of censorship to current efforts by Christian fundamentalists to end "sex, violence, filth, and profanity" in the media.

Jews have played a constant and diverse role in the growth of cinema and film-making. This unique book provides a catalogue of over 1,200 films about Jews and Jewish history, culture, personalities, and issues. It contains entries that have been collected from a variety of sources worldwide (much of it personal correspondence with film-makers themselves) and there is international coverage of the following genres: documentaries; foreign language films; Hollywood features; film testimony; made-for-television mini-series, dramas, and documentaries; educational/instructional films; and Yiddish cinema. Coverage spans from Wallace McCutcheon's silent two-reeler, "Old Isaac, the Pawnbroker" (1907) to Erwin Leiser's new film, "The Class of 1940/Jahrgang 1940," to be released in 1992. Short, medium, and full-length films and monumental mini-series are included--from Evald SchroM's 12-minute "Psalm/Zalm" to Dan Curtis's 18-hour "War and Remembrance."

The second part of the book provides a section of comprehensive indexes, cross-referencing all films by subject (e.g. Amsterdam, the Catskill mountains, Nazi propaganda films, the Six Day War, Yiddish culture), director, country of production (at least 28, from Argentina to Yugoslavia), and source material (i.e. novels, plays, stories, diaries). The volume also includes a list of Jewish film festivals and useful addresses of archives and institutes, as well as a bibliography. This is an extremely valuable book for filmographers, historians, researchers, students, libraries, institutes, festival programmers, and film buffs.

A well argued, comparative study of male jealousy in literature and film, informed by critical theory and engaging with key philosophical figures such as Derrida, Freud and Lacan."Male Jealousy: Literature and Film" is a critical and cultural theory-based study of male jealousy in western culture and its connections with paranoia. By tracing the meanings of jealousy and the representation of jealous men (married or unmarried, heterosexual or homosexual), Lo argues that jealousy is promoted within patriarchy and within what Derrida characterises as logocentricism, where to love is the desire to be loved, and where love cannot be guaranteed in any form of sexual relationship.Contrasting the difference between jealousy and its closely linked concept, envy, this book explores the economy of possession and its relationship to the body, and argues, controversially, that jealousy is an even more modern concept than envy. Informed by critical theory, engaging in particular with Derrida, Deleuze, Freud, Lacan and Kristeva, the study offers close readings of key works by Cervantes, Shakespeare, Proust, Bunuel, Vidor and Almodovar, in which a spectrum of different forms of jealousy are portrayed.

This book is an original and highly detailed reference work on Eastern European films and is the first of its kind to provide such a wealth and breadth of information. There is full coverage of over 350 major postwar film-makers from nine countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia.

The entries are listed alphabetically by film director's surname. Each entry includes biographical and career details, a complete list of films made--with dates, original language titles, and recognized English language titles--and an indication of the director's other involvement in the film (as scriptwriter or actor, for example). Also included are co-productions and banned films, many of which have only recently been released. There are two comprehensive indexes: one arranges film-makers by country, the other lists all film titles--nearly 6,000--both in the original languages and in English. The volume also includes a detailed bibliography. It will be of great use to filmographers, students and scholars of Eastern European film, and others interested in the history of film.

Melodrama in Contemporary Film and Television debates the ways in which melodrama expresses and gives meaning to: trauma and pathos; memory and historical re-visioning; home and borders; gendered and queer relations; the family and psychic identities; the national and emerging public cultures; and morality and ethics.

A one-of-a-kind miniature replica of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for fans and collectors of Harry Potter and J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. Kit includes:

- 4 x 3-inch molded collectible replica of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with flickering light feature

- 16-page sticker book with 8 Hogwarts-related full-color photographs from the Harry Potter films

"The biography is as good an introduction to Chaplin's life and films as has been published. The bibliographical essay . . . offers clear and reliable evaluations of the works considered. The filmography carefully lists everyone involved in each Chaplin film." Choice

Peter Sellers's explosive talent made him a beloved figure in world cinema and continues to attract new audiences. With his darkly comic performances in Dr. Strangelove and Lolita and his outrageously funny appearances as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films, he became one of the most popular movie stars of his time. Sellers himself identified most personally with the character he played in Being There--an utterly empty man on whom others projected what they wanted, or needed, to see. In this lively and exhaustively researched biography, Ed Sikov offers unique insight into Sellers's comedy style. Beginning with Sellers' lonely childhood with a mother who wouldn't let go of him, through his service in the Royal Air Force and his success on BBC Radio's The Goon Show, Sikov goes on to detail his relationships with co-stars such as Alec Guinness, Sophia Loren, and Shirley MacLaine; his work with such directors as Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder, and Blake Edwards; his four failed marriages; his ridiculously short engagement to Liza Minnelli; and all the other peculiarities of this eccentric man's unpredictable life. The most insightful biography ever written of this endlessly fascinating star, Mr. Strangelove is as comic and tragic as Peter Sellers was himself.

A central character in legends and histories of the Old West, Billy the Kid rivals such western icons as Jesse James and General George Armstrong Custer for the number of books and movies his brief, violent life inspired. Billy the Kid: A Reader's Guide introduces readers to the most significant of these written and filmed works. Compiled and written by a respected historian of the Old West and author of a masterful new biography of Billy the Kid, this reader's guide includes summaries and evaluations of biographies, histories, novels, and movies, as well as archival sources and research collections. Surveying newspaper articles, books, pamphlets, essays, and book chapters, Richard W. Etulain traces the shifting views of Billy the Kid from his own era to the present. Etulain's discussion of novels and movies reveals a similar shift, even as it points out both the historical inaccuracies and the literary and cinematic achievements of these works. A brief section on the authentic and supposed photographs of the Kid demonstrates the difficulties specialists and collectors have encountered in locating dependable photographic sources. This discerning overview will guide readers through the plethora of words and images generated by Billy the Kid's life and legend over more than a century. It will prove invaluable to those interested in the demigods of the Old West - and in the ever-changing cultural landscape in which they appear to us.

A collection of ten original essays forging new interdisciplinary connections between crime fiction and film, encompassing British, Swedish, American and Canadian contexts. The authors explore representations of race, gender, sexuality and memory, and challenge traditional categorisations of academic and professional crime writing.

A unique resource detailing the developments and use of special effects in the American movie industry, this title is well indexed and illustrated with 366 entries. It covers Academy Award-winning special effects movies, groundbreaking techniques, equipment, and devices, special effects houses, and pivotal figures in mechanical and visual special effects, makeup, creature design, directing, and stunt work."--"Outstanding Reference Sources," American Libraries, May 2001.

Timely and ground-breaking, Love in Western Film and Television discloses surprising, and often disturbing, information about the complicated (and often conflicted) emotional frontiers found in Western films released after the Second World War. Fourteen essays by authors from around the world offer new insights to those interested in the American character and the areas of culture, gender, film, and American studies.

Until now, there hasn't been one single-volume authoritative reference work on the history of women in film, highlighting nearly every woman filmmaker from the dawn of cinema including Alice Guy (France, 1896), Chantal Akerman (Belgium), Penny Marshall (U.S.), and Sally Potter (U.K.). Every effort has been made to include every kind of woman filmmaker: commercial and mainstream, avant-garde, and minority, and to give a complete cross-section of the work of these remarkable women. Scholars and students of film, popular culture, Women's Studies, and International Studies, as well as film buffs will learn much from this work. The Dictionary covers the careers of nearly 200 women filmmakers, giving vital statistics where available, listings of films directed by these women, and selected bibliographies for further reading. This is a one-volume, "one-stop" resource, a comprehensive, up-to-date guide that is absolutely essential for any course offering an overview or survey of women's cinema. It offers not only all available statistics, but critical evaluations of the filmmakers' work as well. In order to keep the length manageable, this volume focuses on women who direct fictional narrative films, with occasional forays into the area of the documentary and is limited to film production rather than video production.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Rock Hudson rose to stardom as the virile hero of adventure films, and he then gained a flurry of female fans by starring in melodramas, like Magnificent Obsession. He earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Giant, starred in successful romantic comedies, and had a productive television and stage career. This book provides full information about his many performances and charts his life and career up to his death from AIDS. Rock Hudson was a movie giant, one of the biggest stars Hollywood ever produced. He gained early fame as the romantic hero of adventure films and melodramas such as Magnificent Obsession (1954). He then tackled serious drama in Giant (1956), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination. With the success of Pillow Talk (1959), he entered a new genre for which he would become best known-the sex comedy. He also had a successful stage and television career. This book charts Rock Hudson's rise as a celebrity until his death from AIDS. A biography opens the volume, followed by chapters which chronicle his work in film, television, radio, and the stage. Each chapter contains descriptions of Hudson's individual performances, with entries providing cast and credit information, plot summaries, excerpts from reviews, and critical commentary. The volume also includes a listing of Hudson's awards and an annotated bibliography of additional sources of information.

Pop music stars in many of the most exciting and successful British films--from "Performance" to "Trainspotting," from "A Hard Day's Night" to H"uman Traffic." Other films using pop music might be more obscure but include many demonstrating a boldness and imagination rarely matched in other areas of British cinema.
Pop artists (David Bowie, Cliff Richard, Spice Girls, Patsy Kensit, Sex Pistols) could be said to be captured at their most iconic on celluloid. And of course there are the rare but prized cameos from a huge variety of other musicians and their songs in the most unexpected of places. This book tells the story and records the facts of the pop-film relationship decade by decade. It is the most systematic guide to where and how pop appears in British cinema.
"Pop in British Cinema" includes:
* Decade by decade commentary and systematic listings of films with pop music
* Comprehensive referencing of all British feature films using music from the 50s to the end of the century
* Illustrations and descriptions of the changing ways of using pop in British film
* Listings of "band" movies and indexes to musicians, directors, and film titles
For researchers and the curious alike this is an easy and fascinating reference source. It represents both a first history of pop music in British cinema and a mine of trivia questions for music and film buffs of all descriptions.