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Books > Arts & Architecture > General
The latest addition to the Media and Society Series, Meanings of the Medium takes a new approach to the study of the past, present, and future of television. Most of its authors are not media experts but literary critics, philosophers, rhetoricians, and historians. They use their unique skills to examine three interwoven themes: the origin and meaning of American attitudes toward television, the relationship between high art and television's popular art, and the relationship between particular kinds of programs and the audience's sensibilities. Stressing an aesthetic and historical approach, the volume directs itself to the reasons why people watch particular programs and what these patterns tell us about ourselves. This volume is divided into three sections. First, Television and Society stresses the dynamic relationship between a particular genre and the sensibility of its audience. Television Programming as Art traces the subtle connections between High culture and examples of contemporary television programs. The development of American attitudes toward television is documented by media experts in the final section, Television and Its Critics.
Welcome to the uncertain world of "Radio 2.0"—where podcasts, mobile streaming, and huge music databases are the new reality, as are tweeting deejays and Apple's Siri serving as music announcer—and understand the exciting status this medium has, and will continue to have, in our digitally inclined society. How did popular radio in past decades—from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats" in the 1930s through Top 40 music and Rush Limbaugh's talk radio empire—shape American society? How did devices and systems like the iPhone, Pandora, and YouTube turn the radio industry upside-down? Does radio still have a future, and if so, what will we want it to look like? Radio 2.0: Uploading the First Broadcast Medium covers the history and evolution of Internet radio, explaining what came before, where Internet radio came from, and where it is likely headed. It also gives readers a frame of reference by describing radio from its introduction to American audiences in the 1920s—a medium that brought people together through a common experience of the same broadcast—and shows how technologies like digital music and streaming music services put into question the very definition of "radio." By examining new radio and media technologies, the book explores an important societal trend: the shift of media toward individualized or personalized forms of consumption.
This is the most comprehensive study to date of the work of Milos Forman, best known for his Academy Award winning direction of "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) and "Amadeus" (1984). The work begins with a brief biography that emphasizes the relationship for Forman's life to his philosophic and artistic development. The major portion of the work consists of a critical filmography with annotations based on the author's direct study, and an annotated bibliography with an introductory essay.
Cedric Morris (1889–1982) and Arthur Lett-Haines (known as Lett) (1894–1978) were an extraordinary couple who were at the centre of the Modern British art scene and were hugely influential across the spheres of gardening and cookery as well as art. After studying in Paris in the 1920s, they moved to London, where they gave fabulous parties attended by the cream of creative London. Morris became a sought-after painter of flowers, birds and landscapes, while Lett was hailed as Britain’s first Surrealist. Together they founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Benton End in Suffolk, attended by Lucian Freud and Maggi Hambling, where the atmosphere was described as “robust and coarse, exquisite and sensitive all at once, also faintly dangerous”. Lett ran the school and was a superb cook who swapped recipes with Elizabeth David. Cedric Morris became an award-winning plantsman and poppy and iris breeder. He was an acknowledged influence on many gardeners, including Beth Chatto. This biography, revised and updated in this paperback edition, is a fascinating portrait of a unique couple who were hugely influential across the spheres of gardening and cookery as well as art.
The theatre and drama of the 1920s reflects a great synergy of "art, glitter, and glitz"--a decade of experimentation and incubation for mainstream American playwrights coexisting with important revivals of European playwrights and Shakespeare, a flourishing commercial theatre, and the vibrant worlds of burlesque, musical comedy, Revues and Follies. The 22 essays gathered by Gewitz and Kolb reflect recent scholarship and research, including several provocative, new readings of the plays of Eugene O'Neill, contrasting essays for and against the significance of Philip Barry, and considerations of less well-known plays by Elmer Rice and Sidney Howard. Essays also address the continuing relevance of Anderson and Stallings' What Price Glory?, the impact of George Pierce Baker on the playwrights of the 1920s, an analysis of the commercial success, Broadway, and a thoroughly detailed account of the Dramatists Guild and its negotiation of a minimum basic agreement. Essays on the popular theatre cover an extraordinary gamut from the popularization of Shakespeare in the hands of John Barrymore to the contrasting acting styles of Jeanne Eagels and Pauline Lord, the one-night Revue presented by members of the Algonquin Circle, grand-guignol, Ring Lardner on Broadway, the Ziegfeld Follies, downtown burlesque, the travesty act of Barbette, the production history of A. H. Woods, and the early musical comedy of Rodgers and Hart. An important resource for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with 20th-century American theatre and drama.
Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene has often been referred to as a pioneer of the sub-Saharan African cinema. From "Borom Sarret" (1963) to "Guelwaar" (1992), Sembene has developed a political and aesthetic project that has deeply influenced the evolution of African filmmaking. This project, with its goal to create a new Africa free of the remnants of colonialist oppression, has subsequently become the objective of emerging generations of African filmmakers. In this book seven scholars explore Sembene's notion of a new Africa by examining the central issues of change, cultural alienation and economic dependence that infuse the director's cinematic and literary works. In this book seven scholars explore Sembene's notion of a new Africa by examining the central issues of change, cultural alienation and economic dependence that infuse the director's cinematic and literary works.
"Bound to Bond: Gender, Genre, and the Hollywood Romantic Comedy" looks at gender roles in a unique way--by examining what the last thirty years of romantic comedy films have argued, reflected, and implied. Mark Rubinfeld contends that, essentially, we are what we see, and by identifying four basic plots of the genre, representing four basic love stories, he studies the implications of filmic depictions of male/female relationships. Cultural changes that have transformed our society since 1970 are seen here as we see them on the silver screen, and the author analyzes notable examples of the genre with a rigorous sociological perspective. What he reveals may be surprising: during the seventies and, to an extent, the early eighties, the plot conventions of Hollywood romantic comedy seemed to challenge, rather than reinforce, existing gender stereotypes. Later, however--during what should have been a more enlightened time--the genre reversed course, reverting to more traditional types for men and women alike.
Following the Japanese invasion of northeast China in 1931, the occupying authorities established the Manchuria Film Association to promote film production efficiency and serve Japan’s propaganda needs. Manchuria Film Association had two tasks: to make “national policy films” as part of a cultural mission of educating Chinese in Manchukuo (the puppet state created in 1932) on the special relationship between Japan and the region, and to block the exhibition of Chinese films from Shanghai that contained anti-Japanese messages. The corporation relied on Japanese capital, technology, and film expertise, but it also employed many Chinese filmmakers. After the withdrawal of Japanese forces in 1945, many of these individuals were portrayed as either exploited victims or traitorous collaborators. Yuxin Ma seeks to move the conversation beyond such simplistic and inaccurate depictions. By focusing on the daily challenges and experiences of the Chinese workers at the corporation, Ma examines how life was actually lived by people navigating between practical and ideological concerns. She illustrates how the inhabitants of Manchukuo navigated social opportunities, economic depression, educational reforms, fascist rule, commercial interests, practical daily needs, and more—and reveals ways in which these conflicting preoccupations sometimes manifested as tension and ambiguity on screen. In the battle between repression and expression, these Chinese actors, directors, writers, and technicians adopted defensive and opportunistic tactics. They did so in colonial spaces, often rejecting modernist representations of Manchukuo in favor of venerating traditional Chinese culture and values. The expertise, skills, and professional networks they developed extended well beyond the occupation into the postwar period, and may individuals reestablished themselves as cinema professionals in the socialist era.
Stephen King's fiction has formed the basis of more motion picture adaptations than any other living author. His earliest short stories, collected in the Night Shift anthology, have been adapted into hit features including Creepshow, Children of the Corn, Cat's Eye, Maximum Overdrive, Graveyard Shift, Sometimes They Come Back, and The Mangler. Through his "Dollar Baby" program, King licensed several Night Shift stories to aspiring filmmakers for just one dollar each, resulting in numerous student film adaptations. This book critically examines and contextualizes adaptations of the Night Shift short stories, from big box office features to relatively unknown student films. It illuminates how each film is a uniquely and intricately collaborative endeavor, and charts the development of each adaptation from first option to final cut. Through old and new interviews with the creators, the work explores how filmmakers continue to reinvent, reimagine, remake and reboot King's stories.
This guide to Spanish film documents the film industry's interpretation of the isolating effects of the cultural traditionalism of the early twentieth century to the expanding international popularity of such films as Trueba's "Belle Epoque," Aranda's "Amantes," and Bigas Luna's "Jamon, Jamon," and such actors as Victoria Abril, Carmen Maura, and Antonio Banderas. This is the first volume in a new Greenwood series that discusses, historically and critically, films, directors, and actors in film industries throughout the world. Each volume will include a detailed historical introduction and will provide an in-depth treatment of the most important films and individuals involved in the industry. End-of-entry bibliographies provide sources for further reading and appendixes provide additional useful information. The Guides will be valuable to scholars, students, and film buffs. Spanish cinema is in many ways a microcosm of the tensions and conflicts that have shaped the evolution of the nation over the course of this century. Spanish film as a cultural institution is rarely divorced from the political and social currents that have shaped the larger Spanish culture torn as it was between tendencies of localism and internationalism. It languished in industrial and artistic underdevelopment for many years under Franco; it is now, however, experiencing international recognition while remaining rooted in the specificity of its own popular cultural styles.
By looking at the interactions between cinema and psychology, Packer offers readers clear and basic insights into some of the most fundamental reasons why film is such an important influence upon our lives today. Movies and the Modern Psyche first describes the basic concepts of psychoanalysis, experimental psychology, behavioral conditioning, and hypnosis, which have all played major roles in the histories of both film and psychiatry. It then goes on to discuss the recent rise in film therapy, drug treatments, treatment for drug abuse, and the closing of asylums, to show how shifts in treatment techniques, theories, and settings are foreshadowed and fossilized by film. Psychology and cinema are kindred cousins, born at the same time and developing together, so that each influences the other. From the mind-controlling villains that occupy early horror films and Cold War thrillers (like Caligari, Mabuse, and The Ipcress File), to the asylums that house numberless political allegories and personal dramas (in Shock Corridor, Spellbound, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Girl Interrupted), to the drugs, phobias, and disorders that pervade so many of our favorite films (including, as a small sample, Vertigo, Night of the Hunter, Psycho, Rainman, Fight Club, Requiem for a Dream, and Batman Begins), there is no escaping either psychology in the movies, or the movies in psychology. By looking at the interactions between cinema and psychology, this book offers readers clear and basic insights into some of the most fundamental reasons why film is such an important influence upon our lives today. Movies and the Modern Psyche first describes the basic concepts of psychoanalysis, experimental psychology, behavioral conditioning, and hypnosis, which have all played major roles in the histories of both film and psychiatry. It then goes on to discuss the recent rise in film therapy, drug treatments, treatment for drug abuse, and the closing of asylums, to show how shifts in treatment techniques, theories, and settings are foreshadowed and fossilized by film.
The Lure of the Image shows how a close study of camera movement challenges key assumptions underlying a wide range of debates within cinema and media studies. Highlighting the shifting intersection of point of view and camera position, Daniel Morgan draws on a range of theoretical arguments and detailed analyses across cinemas to reimagine the relation between spectator and camera—and between camera and film world. With sustained accounts of how the camera moves in films by Fritz Lang, Guru Dutt, Max Ophuls, and Terrence Malick and in contemporary digital technologies, The Lure of the Image exposes the persistent fantasy that we move with the camera within the world of the film and examines the ways that filmmakers have exploited this fantasy. In so doing, Morgan provides a more flexible account of camera movement, one that enables a fuller understanding of the political and ethical stakes entailed by this key component of cinematic style.
A student at Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art, Eileen Cooper RA became well known in the 1980s for her strong and passionate figuration. Her unapologetically female approach to her subject-matter encompasses sexuality, motherhood, life and death. She was elected a Royal Academician in 2001 and served as Keeper of the Royal Academy between 2010 and 2017, the first woman in the institution’s history to do so. This lovely new sketchbook reveals Cooper’s fascination with the female body in various media, from pencil and crayon to charcoal and gouache, and celebrates her work in all its joyful intimacy.
Carole Lombard was among the most commercially successfuly and admired film personalities in Hollywood in the 1930s. Carole Lombard includes a biography which brings to life this vivacious, unconventional woman, who showed fortitude in the face of personal hardships such as the automobile accident that scarred her face at age eighteen. The bibliography that follows is comprehensive in scope, the most ambitious to date; it contains citations for anonymous and attributed magazine articles, books, and films. Full text reprints of a revealing interview for "Motion Picture" magazine and her only published article provide interesting views of Lombard. The never before published Civil Aeronautics Board investigative report of the airplane crash in which she died, fifteen previously unpublished photographs, and detailed examination of many articles, biographies, and film history books that deal with some aspect of her life and/or career make this bio-bibliography an excellent resource.
The essays in this collection explore taboo and controversial humour in traditional scripted (sitcoms and other comedy series, animated series) and non-scripted forms (stand-up comedy, factual and reality shows, and advertising) both on cable and network television. Whilst the focus is predominantly on the US and UK, the contributors also address more general and global issues and different contexts of reception, in an attempt to look at this kind of comedy from different perspectives. Over the last few decades, taboo comedy has become a staple of television programming, thus raising issues concerning its functions and appropriateness, and making it an extremely relevant subject for those interested in how both humour and television work.
Providing legal analysis and touching upon social history and art history themes, this work offers an objective review of five art trials. Spanning the last 20 years, specific areas of law are examined with each trial: First and Fifth Amendments, copyright law, contract law, valuation of art, and misrepresentation. Art, outside of the legal vacuum, has been embroiled in a battle initiated by social conservatives to promote decency. Three trials involving this struggle and the National Endowment of the Arts are analyzed. The valuation of art is examined in the context of Andy Warhol's estate and copyright law is considered because of the appropriation of contemporary images by Jeff Koons. Although each trial is reviewed distinctly, all are interwoven to present major issues relating to contemporary art. Entertaining aspects of each trial contribute to the understanding of art and law. For art students, copyright, contract and constitutional analysis in the context of actual hearings is an invaluable resource outlining afforded protections and options. To scholars interested in contemporary art and its encounters with the law, this text bridges the gap between two seemingly disparate worlds.
For half a century, television spies have been trained professionals, reluctant heroes, housewives, businessmen, criminals, and comedians. They have by turns been glamorous, campy, reflective, sexy, and aloof. This is the first book-length treatment of one of TV's oldest and most fascinating genres. Britton's comprehensive guide provides readers, from casual viewers to die-hard fans, with behind-the-scenes stories to this notable segment of television entertainment. From the early 1960s, in which television spies were used essentially as anti-Communist propaganda, through the subsequent years that both built upon and parodied this model, and finally to today's gadget-laden world of murky motives and complex global politics, spy television has served as much more than mere escapism. From the beginning, television spies opened doors for new kinds of heroes. Women quickly took center stage alongside men, and minority leads in spy programs paved the way for other kinds of roles on the small screen. For half a century, television spies have been trained professionals, reluctant heroes, housewives, businessmen, criminals, and comedians. They have by turns been glamorous, campy, reflective, sexy, and aloof. This is the first book-length treatment of one of TV's oldest and most fascinating genres.
This professional reference provides solid advice to academic and public librarians for managing performing arts collections. The volume is divided into sections on the history of performing arts librarianship, dance collections, film studies collections, music collections, and theater collections. Each chapter is written by one or more expert contributors and presents current and reliable information on collection management. They discuss personnel management, collection development, technical services, public services, the impact of new technologies, facilities management, financial planning, and political considerations. Each chapter closes with references cited in the chapter, and the volume concludes with a valuable selected, annotated bibliography of important background sources and management tools. |
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