A richly illustrated study of wayang, the traditional puppet theater form of Java, based on unprecedented decades-long participatory research. Wayang, the traditional puppet theater form of Java, fascinates and endures thanks to the many ways it works as a medium—bearing the weight of Javanese culture and tradition as a key component of rites of passage, as a medium of ritual and spiritual practice, as public spectacle, and as entertainment of the broadest sort, performed live, broadcast, or streamed. Over the past forty years, the form has been subject to a great deal of experimentation and innovation, pulled in many directions within an ever-changing media landscape. In this book, Kathryn Anne Emerson outlines both significant contributions by a number of key figures and the social and political influences propelling such innovations. She also describes deeper and more lasting changes in wayang, based on what the art form's most accomplished practitioners have to say about it. At the core of the book is one pivotal figure, Purbo Asmoro of the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Surakarta, who, Emerson argues, has taken the individual and singular innovations of the era and integrated them into a new system of performance practice, one that has shaped the key Surakarta school of performance. Grounded in an unprecedented, decades-long participatory research project involving hundreds of interlocutors, the book is beautifully illustrated and will be of considerable interest in Indonesian studies.

`Cooperman! The Life of Tommy Cooper' is a hilarious look at one of Britain's best-loved comedians. For almost four decades, Tommy Cooper was the most popular entertainer in the country, and certainly the most imitated. This is the story of the man and his magic, his life, and his times. This volume contains hundreds of his favourite jokes, tricks, and sketches, as well as behind-the-scenes stories from his friends, family, and fellow artistes. This entertaining and informative account provides an insight into the fun and humour of Tommy Cooper. It is intended as genial aide-memoire to remind fans why they loved this British comedy giant. Cooperman! is an authorised biography, presented with the blessing of Cooper's family and estate. Ian Carroll is a co-writer and creator of `Just Like That! The Tommy Cooper Show', a theatrical play currently touring across the UK to both critical and audience acclaim.

Since 1953, the ars viva visual arts prize has been awarded to outstanding young artists living in Germany, whose works of art demonstrate an independent formal language and an awareness of contemporary issues. This year, the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft is distinguishing Rob Crosse (*1985), Richard Sides (*1985), and Sung Tieu (*1987) with the 2021 ars viva prize. Text in English and German.

Moving pictures existed for over a decade before anything resembling a star system appeared. Then, within the space of a very few years, American cinema went from being completely devoid of stars to being completely dependent on them. Picture Personalities is an invaluable account of this crucial development in cinema and modern culture.   Conventional wisdom attributes the rise of the star system to the charisma of individual performers or to the public's desire to idolize an appealing star. In Picture Personalities, Richard deCordova argues that the fledgling movie industry and the press conspired to develop the star system, along with a system of discourse to support it.   How actors became stars and how they began to assume public identities distinct from their fictional roles was closely tied to the journalistic discourse of the period, produced by the trade press, newspapers, general periodicals, fan magazines, publicity stills, posters, and other material. DeCordova shows how the studios worked to fabricate moral images of the stars' marriages and personal lives and how a series of star scandals in the 1920s challenged those images and brought about changes in the conventions of representing stars. A new foreword by Corey K. Creekmur enhances this first paperback edition.  

Featuring hundreds of carefully hand-crafted illustrations as well as significant tuition on how to best compose and use images to create the most powerful frames, this book is potentially Hans P. Bacher's life's work encapsulated in one volume. Here, the internationally renowned production designer shares his expertise in an easy-to-follow and imaginative way – giving tips, exercises, and a depth of knowledge garnered from a lifetime in the industry. Bacher's production designs have established the look of many seminal animated films such as The Lion King, Balto, Mulan and Beauty and the Beast, so fans of his work will be delighted. While keeping the focus on storytelling, Bacher instructs readers in the art of animated cinematography with the ever-present aim of soliciting an emotional response from the audience. Vision: Color and Composition for Film represents an amazing depth of experience — and is visually arresting to boot.

A stunning photo album exploring the beauty of Australia riding a Ducati.

The urge for travel and adventure, for freedom and discovery has always impelled men to move on, cross oceans and continents, climb mountains and brave deserts. This is a story that celebrates power and grandeur, set on the dirt roads that cross the remote territories of Australia. Two motorcyclists recount in real time their adventures at the wheels of their Ducati Multistrada bikes. Riding along some of the world’s wildest and most beautiful dirt roads, they encounter the kangaroos, parrots, shimmering deserts and the forests of Australia. The motorcyclists – with their bikes, their faces strained by fatigue, their shining eyes and emotion-filled smiles – manage to perform magic, transforming the road into a journey.

The book will coincide with the first Ashmolean NOW exhibition in Gallery 8, opening in July 2023. The Ashmolean NOW Program features exciting works by prominent early to mid-career artists based in the UK, seeking to attract new audiences interested in contemporary art. Artists who have established international reputations and emerging artists whose international status is anticipated with a strong degree of confidence are approached pro-actively. In addition to exhibiting their existing works, all artists are invited to create at least one new work as a response to the museum and/or its collections. This first exhibition presents two linked solo shows: paintings/drawings by Flora Yukhnovich, and paintings/drawings by Daniel Crews-Chubb. The double-sided style of the book will mirror the exhibition concept, while presenting itself as a unique, well designed object that has a life beyond the exhibition.

"Michele Hilmes has produced   an excellent introduction to a most important subject. This is an invaluable   work for both scholars and students that places film, radio, and television   within the context of the national culture experience."   --- American Historical Review "Hilmes is one of the few historians   of broadcasting to move beyond a political economy of the media. . . . Her work   should serve as a model for future histories of broadcasting."   --- Journal of Communication "All media historians will   find this work a critical addition to their bookshelves."   --- American Journalism "A major addition to media   history literature."   --- Journalism History  

This three-staged memory game invites you to observe masterpieces closely. Historically, a masterpiece was a work of a very high standard, produced in order to obtain membership of a guild or academy. Since the author never went to art school, her untrained eye wondered: "How should I look at art in order to fully appreciate it?" Trying to answer this question, she decided to design a system of observation based on different steps: games and activities following a set scheme that triggers the player to look at a masterpiece on a different scale. Pixel-Art Game allows you to zoom into these Dutch Masterpieces. Match the original image with its pixelated copies by zooming into Van Gogh's famous Cafe Terrace at Night. The painter's colour and use of light are emphasised through the pixels of the digitalised image, taking art into our contemporary digital language. With light packaging, perfect to take along with you, the Pixel-Art Game offers several games in one set. Each of these 3 games is a step towards understanding the artwork better, and they can be played with multiple players.

Francesco Rosi is one of the great realist artists of post-war Italian, indeed post-war world cinema. In this book, author Gaetana Marrone explores the rich visual language in which the Neapolitan filmmaker expresses the cultural icons that constitute his style and images. Over the years, Rosi has offered us films that trace an intricate path between the real and the fictive, the factual and the imagined. His films show an extraordinarily consistent formal balance while representing historical events as social emblems that examine, shape, and reflect the national self. They rely on a labyrinthine narrative structure, in which the sense of an enigma replaces the unidirectional path leading ineluctably to a designated end and solution. Rosi's logical investigations are conducted by an omniscient eye and translated into a cinematic approach that embraces the details of material reality with the panoramic perspective of a dispassionate observer. This book offers intertextual analyses within such fields as history, politics, literature, and photography, along with production information gleaned from Rosi's personal archives and interviews. It examines Rosi's creative use of film as document, and as spectacle). It is also a study of the specific cinematic techniques that characterize Rosi's work and that visually, compositionally, express his vision of history and the elusive "truth" of past and present social and political realities.

Kazuo Ohno is one of the founders of the Japanese modern dance form, Butoh, which had a large influence on contemporary American modern and postmodern dance. Now for the first time, Ohno's words and insights are available in English. This book brings together two distinct but related works: the first, Food for the Soul, is an interview with Yoshito Ohno about his father and his father's dances. With the help of some 100 photographs, he reveals a compelling and complex figure. The second, Workshop Words, is a collection of talks given by Kazuo Ohno to his students during workshops, complemented by photographs of Ohno in intimate settings. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully designed, this book is a finely nuanced portrait of one of the most distinctive contemporary performers to emerge from Japan in the 20th century. It is an indispensable manual for the aspiring performer in any field.

'A hilarious must read.' - Jameela Jamil 'Funny, frank and inspiring' - Lenny Henry All her life, London longed to be a badass, an awesome bulletproof star nobody could mess with - someone who takes no shit - and in Living My Best Life, Hun, she lifts the lid on how she went from secretly writing Frasier fan fiction alone in her bedroom to taking Hollywood by storm. It hasn't been an easy journey; from birthday parties gone wrong and dealing with bullies every step of the way, to getting blocked by Foxtons (long story) and being mistaken for the cleaner at a comedy competition (true story), London leaves no stone unturned. It took London some time to find her voice and her people, but now that she has, she's mentally high-fiving her fourteen-year-old self every day. Frank, fearless and funny, Living My Best Life, Hun will inspire you to ditch the self-loathing, start the self-loving and engage with your inner winner.

This magnificent publication surveys the vital role of women in the development of Abstract Expressionism by looking at more than 50 paintings, collages and sculptures all accompanied by carefully selected quotes from the artists themselves. The dominant movement of the New York and San Francisco art scenes of the mid-20th century, Abstract Expressionism is celebrated as the first development in American art to gain international status. The movement is synonymous with the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, but also belonging to this generation who changed the course of modern art were numerous female artists; only in recent years have their contributions received the recognition they deserve. The remarkable women in this exciting new book - among them Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Gechtoff, Lee Krasner, and Joan Mitchell - studied at the same art schools as the men, exhibited at the same galleries, and were part of the same social scene. But their work was not shown and reviewed as widely or considered as valuable as that of the men. This beautiful book presents the works of the Levett Collection, an unparalleled private collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture by women Abstract Expressionists. Richly illustrated essays by the scholars Ellen G. Landau and Joan M. Marter, leading authorities on the subject, consider, respectively, the vital role of women in the development of Abstract Expressionism and the work of women sculptors of the movement. Full of exuberant, explosive colour and densely layered expression, the main part of the book is devoted to more than 50 paintings, collages, and sculptures, all accompanied by pertinent quotes from the women about their artistic practice and concerns. An illustrated timeline and 35 artist biographies provide further insight, making this volume an essential addition to the study of Abstract Expressionist women, innovators in their own right, whose time in the art-historical spotlight has finally come. AUTHOR: Ellen G. Landau is Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emerita at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Joan M. Marter is Distinguished Professor Emerita at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. 170 illustrations

Everyone has their favourite Monty Python sketches, often quoted almost verbatim, whether it is 'the Parrot Sketch', 'the Cheese Shop' or 'Blackmail' - amongst many. Likewise the Python films, the mere mention of which might solicit quotes like ‘Tis but a flesh wound’ or ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy’. But what lies beyond these well-remembered favourites? How many remember the 'Fresh Fruit Self Defence' sketch, or 'the Fish-Slapping dance'? Or even such almost-forgotten curios as 'Blancmanges Playing Tennis', 'The Olympic Hide And Seek Final' and 'The Batley Townswomen’s Guild Re-enacting Pearl Harbour'. This book will shine a light on all of these often-hilarious - but occasionally misfiring - curios. As well as the films and all 45 TV episodes, the record albums are also analyses for their content and how they differed from the TV show, as well as the books which came out as spin-off merchandise - but were never less than brilliantly entertaining for all that. How did Python come to be, what tensions were there between its stars, and what was the atmosphere like when the crew reunited to make the films long after they had left their TV show days behind them? All this will get an answer and much, much more... Now, do you want to read for five minutes, or the full half-hour?

Ken Kwapis has worked for more than thirty years in Hollywood. With time has come experience, and with experience he has charted a career full of hits, from The Office to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and become one of the most reliable and sought after directors in show business. He didn't start there. He struggled just like everyone else. Using his experience and inside knowledge of the business, But What I Really Want to Do is Direct is Ken Kwapis' take on William Goldman's classic Adventures in the Screen Trade, but from the director's point of view. The book tackles common Hollywood myths through Ken's lively and highly entertaining experiences. It's a rollercoaster ride through the entertainment business fueled by battles over budgets, temperamental actors, and the passion that makes it all worthwhile. This humorous and poignant memoir is filled with positive instruction, hilarious outtakes, tutelage, and joy. It's also a celebration of movies and TV, and what it takes to succeed in show business on your own terms.

An eye-opening portrait of a vibrant film culture, The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film is the most comprehensive study of the Japanese filmmaking scene yet written. Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp explore the astounding resurgence of Japanese cinema, both live action and animated, profiling 19 contemporary Japanese filmmakers, from the well-known (Kitano, Miike, Miyazaki) to the up-and-coming (Naomi Kawase, Satoshi Kon, Shinya Tsukamoto) and reviewing 97 of their recent films. With 100+ images from behind and in front of the camera, this is a book any film lover will savor. Foreword by Hideo Nakata, director of Ring. Tom Mes (in Paris) and Jasper Sharp (in Tokyo) co-edit Midnighteye.com, the premier English-language website on Japanese cinema.

During a period of heightened global concerns about the movement of immigrants and refugees across borders, Migrant Anxieties explores how filmmakers in Italy have probed the tensions accompanying the country's shift from an emigrant nation to a destination point for over five million immigrants over the course of three decades. �ine O'Healy traces a phenomenology of anxiety that is not only present at the sociopolitical level but also interwoven into the narrative strategies of over 30 films produced since 1990, throwing into sharp relief the interface between the local and the global in this transnational era. Starting with the representation of post-communist migrations to Italy from Eastern Europe and subsequent arrivals from Africa through the controversial frontier of Lampedusa, O'Healy explores topics as diverse as the configuration of migrant labor, affective surrogacy, Italian whiteness, and the legacy of Italy's colonial history. Showing how contemporary filmmaking practices in Italy are linked to changes in the broader media landscape, O'Healy analyzes the ways in which both Italian and migrant filmmakers are reimagining Italian society and remapping the nation's borderscape.

The Twilight Zone has evolved from a groundbreaking speculative television series into a cultural phenomenon. The recently revived series on FOX averaged 4.6 million viewers on its first episode. Indeed, the title itself conjures up thoughts of fantastic stories that bridge several forms of fiction to create a unique genre of morality tales with a touch of irony, unlimited by the boundaries of conventional fiction. Broadcast from 1959 to 1964, the show has run ever since in syndication, making it one of the longest running television shows of all time, creating a new genre of shows similar to the X-Files and Twin Peaks. Five writers created the core of the show, and together these men fashioned the bulk of the 156 original episodes: Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, George Clayton Johnson, and Earl Hamner. All went on to other projects in film, television, theater, and print, but their involvement in the Twilight Zone is well known to fans of the series. The Twilight Zone Scripts of Earl Hamner contains reprints of the eight episodes written by Hamner, along with Albarella's commentary on each story: The Hunt, "" ""A Piano in the House, "" ""Jess-Belle, "" ""Ring-a-Ding Girl, "" ""You Drive, "" ""Black Leather Jackets, "" ""Stopover in a Quiet Town, "" and ""The Bewitchin' Pool."" Also included is a ""lost"" Twilight Zone short story by Mr. Hamner and an interview with Albarella that covers the background details of how Hamner became involved in the series.""

Francis Bacon: Shadows continues in the revelatory mode established by Inside Francis Bacon. It comprises six essays on diverse topics, interpretative as well as factual, which cumulatively present an abundance of fresh ideas and information about Bacon. The fundamental aim of the series – to rethink Bacon’s art from new perspectives – is impressively fulfilled by the eminent authors. Martin Harrison opens the book with some hitherto unseen Bacon-related photographs and includes a tribute to the great Bacon scholar, David Boxer (1946–2017). Christopher Bucklow turns his attention to the contrast between Bacon's art and the art of our own times, setting Bacon in the context of Romantic Modernism's confidence in the unconscious as a source. Amanda Harrison’s essay explores imagery in Bacon’s paintings that relates to esoteric, mythological and alchemical themes, while Stefan Haus draws on the ideas of philosophers from Plato to Hegel to consider the impact of Bacon’s art. Hugh Davies’s unexpurgated 1973 Bacon Diaries are published here in their entirety for the first time, revealing a more complete view of Bacon as both man and artist. Sophie Pretorius examines Tate's Barry Joule Archive, a collection of working materials and drawings attributed to Bacon. Finally, Martin Harrison explores Francis Bacon's Lost Paintings – works Bacon dubbed 'failures', but preserved by his Estate and published here for the very first time. With 120 illustrations in colour