This intriguing book explores why spectacular films involving biblical figures or set in biblical times have been a staple of film-making since talkies began. Forshey looks at these films and suggests that the underlying purpose was to mediate between a monistic scientific world view and a dualistic religious world view, and between secular and religious ethics. Forshey discusses how filmic, political, religious, and cultural histories influenced filmmakers of these spectaculars. Chapter 1 differentiates between religious spectaculars and biblical spectaculars. The following chapters discuss early religious films and how the post-war and cold war eras led to a struggle to define the righteous nation. Chapters on biblical spectaculars examine films in which sex and social responsibility was a paramount concern (Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba). The 1960s were dominated by films about Jesus and the search for an ethical system for a world undergoing rapid social change. One entire chapter is devoted to Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, the epitome of the biblical spectacular form, followed by a chapter on John Huston's The Bible as a culmination of the form, and a final chapter on how television rethought spectaculars and how Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ drew the battle lines between humanistic Christians and evangelical Christians. American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars will appeal to scholars of film, religion, and popular culture.

This book examines international radio news coverage of the four superpower summit meetings between Soviets and Americans from 1987 to 1990. It concentrates on the symbolic constructs used by radio services to report about the summits, including their treatments of the two superpowers, their leaders, and their perspectives as recorded in interviews, press conferences and releases, joint communiques, and briefings. The study assesses the degree of success enjoyed by each of the superpowers in directing the nature of international news coverage, particularly the public relations battle between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. It also weighs the viability of specific talking points written to direct U.S. summit statements by the National Security Council, and the degree to which news coverage was tainted by propaganda. Finally, it is able to suggest the nature of each service's contribution to diversity in international news flow, and to the ongoing debate about the equality of the international communication and information order.

Soap opera story, the only mass-public form of continuing narrative today, is oral culture for our electronic era. Carol Williams' It's Time for My Story is an examination of soap opera sources, structure, and response, particularly from the critical viewpoints of psychology, both archetypal and empirical, and popular culture, specifically narratology and feminism, that uncover the true nature of the genre. First, Williams traces the development of soap opera from its immediate source in radio and television as well as from its fundamental source in age-old myth and storytelling. Then she analyzes the content and form that together make up the structure of soap opera. Finally, she looks at what soaps mean to watchers and in the process debunks many myths about soap opera (for instance, the myth that soap opera, like all television drama, is merely commercial, produced formulaically by advertisers; Williams argues that soap opera is not only a commercial product but also a popular art form derived from the wellspring of culture and folk story). She also argues that it is a form which has been depreciated because it is historically a woman's medium. Discussions with writers, creators, and fans are included throughout. Recommended to scholars and students of media, drama, popular culture, and women's studies.

This Discover the Dinosaurs 5-pencil set includes a fascinating range of dinosaurs, from diplodocuses and plesiosaurs to old favourites such as T-rexes, stegosaurus and triceratops! Throughout this activity book, kids will have hours of fun with colouring activities, how-to-draws, word searches, connect the dots, memory games and more!

The easy-to-follow directions build drawing skills and confidence. Best of all, the five adorable pencil toppers make this colouring and activity book an ideal gift!

This eclectic, yet comprehensive analytical overview of the cataclysmic changes in the American film industry since 1990 shows how they have collectively resulted in a new era—The Digital Age. The American film industry has entered a new era. American Film in the Digital Age traces the industrial changes since 1990 that have brought us to this point, namely: the rise of media conglomerates, the proliferation of pornography through peripheral avenues of mainstream media, the role of star actors and directors in distributing and publicizing their own pet projects, the development of digital technology, and the death of truly independent films. Author Robert Sickels draws straight lines from the movies to music, DVDs, video games, fast food, digital-on-demand, and more, to demonstrate how all forms of media are merging into one. He explores the irony that the success of independent films essentially killed independent cinema, showing how it has become almost impossible to get a film released without the imprimatur of one of the big six media companies—Fox, Viacom, TimeWarner, Disney, General Electric, or CBS. In the end, using recent, popular films as examples, he explains not only how we got where we are, but where we're likely headed as well.

George Lukas and other leading filmmakers acknowledge their indebtedness to mythographic scholarship on archetypes. In his new study, author Rodney Farnsworth identifies a pattern of filmmakers' obsessions with archetypical rituals centered on sacrifice and the family in films made between 1977 and 1983, a period of political upheaval on both sides of the Atlantic. Combining a strong historical reading of the films in a sociopolitical context and utilizing Queer Theory as a framework for his arguments, Farnsworth offers a close examination of key films of the period, including works by Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, and Francis Ford Coppola, and provides a fascinating and timely glimpse of an important political and cinematic time.

Marking the end of a more liberal era, the late seventies and early eighties witnessed the growth of reactionary conservative movements such as the New Religious Political Right. These were the years that gave birth to movies--from esoteric art-house pictures to blockbusters such as "Star Wars"--that seemed in many cases to be adaptations of primordial mythology, subverting liberal-to-moderate views into reactionary depictions of family life. Although filmmakers had turned to these myths to shape their works, Farnsworth observes, the unstable, volatile nature of the archetypes deconstructed their best social intentions into something rich, strange, and deadly. This thought-provoking work will be of interest to students of social history as well as film studies.

There are over fifty Chan films and an additional three Spanish language Chan films. This guide reviews the forty-four extant Chan films. Entries, alphabetically arranged, include a unique annotated cast list, a comparative rating system, production information, analysis and plot synopsis, a performance critique, and a collection of Chan sayings, which vary from film to film. An introduction discusses the history and literary origins of the Chan films and the formulaic devices common to the films.

Film scholars and fans of the Charlie Chan films will appreciate the extensive information each review provides. Each film is given a star rating, and several appendices provide additional information such as the lost films of Charlie Chan, actors who played Chan, and Chan on television.

Grotesques, angels, Beast-Man, and the Medusa are among the marvelous cast of characters analyzed in this volume. Originally presented at the 7th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts held in 1986, these essays are stimulating responses by scholars to a range of creative works by Mark Strand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Kafka, Tolkein, Henry James, Julio Cortazar, Sherwood Anderson, Ursula Le Guin, I.B. Singer, Joyce, and others. Examining both mainstream and fantasy literature from many nations, the authors zero-in on the myriad shapes of the fantastic and study the world of SF and film. Five sections treat the fantastic from various enlightening perspectives and seven figures illustrate the essays' provocative theses. In Part I, Discovery and Interpretation, five authors sleuth out surprising elements of fantasy in poetry, short fiction, and a neo-Romantic fairy tale. Also in Part I, an inquiry is made of fantasy in the post-modernist movement. The Inexplicable Reality of Part II refers to deaths that are anything but terminal and four essays chronicle fantastic occurrences whose scientific rationale is tenuous at best. The fifth article traces the elusiveness of fantasy in a number of authors and works. Beast-Man, angels, the Medusa, and other Marvelous Beings are the subject of six essays in Part III. In Part IV, Fantasy in Symbiosis with other Forms, six essays consider the combination of fantasy with murder mystery, with taoism, with the symbolism of the tarot, with Freudian dreams, and with other genres. In the final section, From Fantasy to Science Fiction: Critical Considerations, essays address fantasy and Science Fiction in film, present a discussion between 2 critics of science fiction, and view the history and development of the contemporary SF novel. Series Editor Marshall B. Tymn's selected bibliography of criticism on the fantastic supplements the bibliographies that follow each essay and completes this remarkable work: fascinating reading for generalists; a necessity for students and scholars, aestheticians and critics of the fantasy and SF genres in literature, film, and art.

Skinner reveals how the Roman Catholic Church, through its agency, the National Legion of Decency, dominated the American film censorship scene in tandem with the Production Code Administration. In its heyday in the 1930s and 40s, the Legion claimed a membership of over eleven million Americans--about one moviegoer in twelve--and brought movie moguls such as David O. Selznick and Howard Hughes to their knees in determined campaigns to bar what it deemed unsuitable entertainment. Some of the most controversial titles in the annals of movie censorship, including The Outlaw, Duel in the Sun, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and The Pawnbroker, are featured as targets of clerical wrath in this study which covers four decades of film history.

Jesters and fools have existed as important and consistent figures in nearly all cultures. Sometimes referred to as clowns, they are typological characters who have conventional roles in the arts, often using nonsense to subvert existing order. But fools are also a part of social and religious history, and they frequently play key roles in the rituals that support and shape a society's system of beliefs. This reference book includes alphabetically arranged entries for approximately 60 fools and jesters from a wide range of cultures. Included are entries for performers from American popular culture, such as Woody Allen, Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, and the Marx Brothers; literary characters, such as Shakespeare's Falstaff, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Singer's Gimpel; and cultural and mythological figures, such as India's Birbal, the American circus clown, the Native American Coyote, Taishu Engeki of Japan, Hephaestus, Loki the Norse fool, schlimiels and schlimazels, and the drag queen. The entries, written by expert contributors, are critical as well as informative. Each begins with a biographical, artistic, religious, or historical background section, which places the subject within a larger cultural and historical context. A description and analysis follow. This section may include a discussion of the fool's appearance, gender role, ethical and moral roles, social function, and relationship to such themes as nature, time, and mortality. The entry then discusses the critical reception of the subject and concludes with an extensive bibliography of general works.

In this examination of the psychology of terror, Iaccino uses Jungian archetypes to analyze significant works in the horror film genre. In the past, Jungian archetypes have been used to interpret mythologies, to examine great works of literature, and to explain why sexual stereotypes persist in our society. Here, for the first time, Iaccino applies such models as the "Cursed Wanderers," the "Warrior Amazons," the "Random Destroyers," and the "Techno-Myths" to highlight recurrent themes in a wide range of films, from early classics such as Nosferatu to the contemporary Nightmare on Elm Street and Alien series. With this innovative approach, Iaccino gains a new perspective on the psychology of the often powerful compulsion to be scared.

Africa has internal cultural resources that have positively influenced its development. "Community in Motion" explores the relationship between theatre and Freirian pedagogy. It underscores the urgency of refocusing development strategies on human rather than technical resources by showing how culture has traditionally played an important role in African development, and demonstrates the similarities between traditional African cultural paradigms and Freirian pedagogy.

The author describes selected significant Theatre for Development programs in diverse parts of Africa and determines the extent that these programs find congruence with the teachings of Paulo Freire. Case studies of Botswana, Zambia, Nigeria, and Kenya explore in detail the ongoing work in Zimbabwe, specifically the Zimbabwe Association of Community Theatre (ZACT). ZACT's work is analyzed in the context of Freirian pedagogy in order to highlight the development of a community-based theatre operation that is national in its scope and international in its influences.

The success of clown comedy is dependent on the comic or comics who take center stage. These comics are usually identified with a specific comedic shtick, physical or visual humor, and their underdog status. This study by film scholar Wes Gehring presents a brief, historical overview of major figures in the genre, including W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, and Woody Allen. The comedians discussed are drawn from four genre periods: the silent era, the depression era, the post-World War II period, and the modern era.

One of a handful of great Shakespearean roles, the part of Richard of Gloucester has maintained its importance from the beginning of its performance history in the late 1690s and has assumed an identity extending even beyond the play. The range of interpretation has been startling, with many actors also taking liberties with the text. Most of the greatest Shakespearean actors have tried the part, though some have carefully avoided it. Successful Richards have had to create an archetype of evil who nonetheless must be comprehended in vivid human terms. Among the most memorable Richards are David Garrick, William Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, J.B. Booth, William Charles Macready, Edwin Booth, Richard Mansfield, Robert Mantell, John Barrymore, Alec Guiness, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Ian Holm, Antony Sher, and Anton Lesser. This dynamic stage history of Richard III covers all major English and American interpretations and some foreign-language productions to the present day, setting the stage in the context of prevailing theatrical practices within each era. Focusing on the play and role as vehicles for actors and theatre practitioners, Richard's Himself Again demonstrates how theatrical issues have shaped the acting norm, which in turn has been reshaped by the individual performers. While utilizing volumes of source material including promptbooks, biographies, memoirs, and reviews, Scott Colley injects his own spirit into the narrative, achieving a lively, personable tone. The resulting book will appeal to theatregoers as well as to academic and professional specialists.

This revealing study looks at the influences and creative impulses that shape one of today's most progressive, thoughtful filmmakers. Charlie Kaufman got his start in television, but it was his first film, the eccentric Being John Malkovich, that won notice for his unique storytelling style. With the aid of a plethora of contributions from those with whom the writer has worked, Charlie Kaufman: Confessions of an Original Mind presents the intriguing story of that movie and others as it examines one of the most innovative voices in modern film. This exhaustive study of Kaufman's life and work is organized chronologically to cover his early influences as well as his most-recent ventures. Highlights include explorations of Kaufman's collaboration with Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze—who stood him up for their first meeting—and the writer's conflict with George Clooney (about whom Kaufman says, "I can tell you that George Clooney is my least favorite person"). There are analyses of Human Nature, Adaptation, and the hauntingly beautiful Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which led to an Academy Award. The book also studies Kaufman's sound plays for Theatre of the New Ear and his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York.

Forty years ago, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan saw Kirk and the U.S.S. Enterprise crew face one of the greatest foes in Star Trek history, Khan Noonien Singh, as well as the death of Spock. Celebrate this landmark anniversary by taking a deep dive into the stories behind this iconic science fiction classic. This beautiful coffee-table book is full to the brim with rare and previously unpublished archival material, behind-the-scenes photography, production art, cut scenes, script extracts, and much more, alongside new and exclusive interviews with the creatives, including director Nicholas Meyer.

This ground-breaking work brings dance into current discussions of the African presence in American culture. Dixon Gottschild argues that the Africanist aesthetic has been invisibilized by the pervasive force of racism. This book provides evidence to correct and balance the record, investigating the Africanist presence as a conditioning factor in shaping American performance, onstage and in everyday life. She examines the Africanist presence in American dance forms particularly in George Balanchine's Americanized style of ballet, (post)modern dance, and blackface minstrelsy. Hip hop culture and rap are related to contemporary performance, showing how a disenfranchised culture affects the culture in power.

Theatre was one of many German institutions experiencing profound change in the aftermath of World War I. Grange contends that had comedy not prevailed throughout the turbulent years of the ill-fated Weimar experiment in democracy, much of theatre would have died along with the republic itself. Audiences attended performances of comedies in numbers far surpassing those of any other form of theatre.

Theatre was one of many German institutions experiencing profound change in the aftermath of World War I. Grange contends that had comedy not prevailed throughout the turbulent years of the ill-fated Weimar experiment in democracy, much of theatre would have died along with the republic itself. Audiences attended performances of comedies in numbers far surpassing those of any other form of theatre. Industrial comedy describes the most important and most predominant form of comedy on German stages from 1919 to 1933. Discoveries, reversals, mistaken identities, and abrupt plot twists were its stock-in-trade. Scholars and students of theatre as well as modern German history will find this a fascinating look at why Germans were laughing, and what they were laughing at, as their society crumbled around them.