Popular movies can enhance the study of history. A dominant form of entertainment during the mid-20th century, they can serve as nontraditional primary sources and offer remarkable opportunities to observe attitudes about social concerns, gender or racial issues, politics, and historical events that were current when the movies were made. This book is a topical guide for educators, providing detailed analysis of 35 movies, followed by discussion questions that will help students interpret how each movie's content and themes reflect the times when it was made. The book covers four main topics: the Great Depression, coping with World War II, the early years of the Cold War, and the changing expectations and images of women in movies from 1930 to 1970. An historical overview chronicles how each topic was treated in movies from that time period. The movies should have wide appeal in grades 7 through 12 and can help students learn to think more critically about the images and messages that appear in popular media today.

This book explores the presence of the anti-hero in mainstream dramatic serial television. It offers critical examinations of Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, True Blood, Breaking Bad, and Boardwalk Empire. What purpose might such unusual protagonists serve in today's culture and what do their tales tell about U.S. political and economic issues from 2008 to 2012? The author discovers how the characters that seem initially so different prove to be strong examplars of established forms of power, such as white patriarchy and late capitalist interests. The book finds that even when the characters are groundbreaking fictional figures, they are all eventually written into submission by the narratives of their series, echoing the same tales of fictitious heroism recycled in American television narratives for decades. New trends in television narratives are discussed - with the hope that future dramas will free audiences from oppressive narratives rather than continue to normalise them.

Isabelle Cornaro, based in Paris and Geneva, holds degrees in art history and visual arts. She has a strong interest in experimental cinema and devotes herself to the narrative, symbolic, and economic origins of things. In her work she assumes an anthropologist-type manner to investigate people's seemingly fixated attachment to emotionally charged, even fetishised objects, creating large stage installations and short movies. This book is part of the new On Words series that presents conversations with contemporary women artists. Through them, readers come to understand the sources from which they draw inspiration, the themes in their work, and their view of the world. Edited by Julie Enckell, Federica Martini, and Sarah Burkhalter and bringing together a wide range of viewpoints, the On Words series adds a new narrative to polyphonic art history as told by those who actively shape it. Text in English and French.

In a hundred years of filmmaking dozens of potentially great films of master directors and artists were either never completed or not released. Many of these films are lost forever, but their little-known histories illustrate what fiction writers have known all along: People's failures often make stories more compelling than their successes. The reasons these might-have-beens never came to fruition are almost as varied as the plots themselves: Love spurned (L'Ecole des Femmes, 1941, Max Olphuls), unmanageable stars (I Loved a Soldier, 1936, Henry Hathaway), government suppression (Bezhin Meadow, 1935, Sergei Eisenstein) and fear of reprisal (Metall, 1931-33, Hans Richter) are but a few. A detailed discussion of each attempt is accompanied by cast and production credits (when available) and excerpts from scripts and other sources. Rare stills are interspersed throughout.

This detailed chronological analysis of British World War II movies from 1939 until the present explores how recognizable stereotypes of British national character were projected and how the times in which a film was made shaped its perceptions. Several chapters look at films from the Golden Age of World War II. In films about the Home Front, characters display resolve as well as emotional restraint and present an image of a classless society co-operating to fight evil. By contrast, duty and patriotism are the paramount virtues of service films while spy melodramas exemplify the British love of improvisation. Fifties war films are examined against the backdrop of alarm and uncertainty caused by the Cold War. Such films reflect traditional national character stereotypes, though the stiff upper lip begins to be questioned by the end of the decade. The book then traces the radical effect of the 60s revolution, revealing how the fondness for sceptical antiwar movies went hand in hand with the questioning of Britain's place in the world. The book ends by looking at recent war films and asks whether these reflect the cult of narcissism so prevalent in modern Britain.

The collection features essays that examine how authors of the 20th and 21st centuries continue the use of sentimental forms and tropes of 19th century literature. Current literary and cultural critical consensus seems to maintain that Americans engaged in a turn-of-the-century refutation of the sentimental mode; however, the analysis in these essays of 20th and 21st century narratives reveals ongoing use of sentimental expression that draws upon its ability to instruct and influence readers through their emotions. While these later narratives employ aspects of the sentimental mode, many of them also engage in a critique of the failures of the sentimental, deconstructing 19th century perspectives on race, class and gender and the ways they are promoted by sentimental ideals.

Television comedy traces its roots to vaudeville, radio and film, from which it developed its own unique forms to make the audience laugh. These styles became industry standards: the so-called traditional forms of variety shows and situation comedies. In recent years modern comedy-nighttime variety shows, adult programmes, stand-up acts, British imports, parody shows-have gained increasing acceptance, with these innovative forms bringing an artistry often lost under the traditional formats. These thirteen essays trace the history of television comedy from the genius of Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan and Lucille Ball to the antics of ALF, Martin Mull, Julie Brown and the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Emphasis is placed on the development and artistry of the genre as evidenced in shows such as Dobie Gillis, Green Acres, Newhart, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Bewitched.

This book examines 13 movies that deal with the protagonist and his projected ""other"". The cinematic Other is interpreted as an unconscious personality, a denied part of the protagonist that appears in his life as a shadowy menace who won't go away. Devoting a chapter to each movie, the book starts with Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and three cinematic pairs: two Hitchcock films, Shadow of a Doubt and Strangers on a Train; two versions of Cape Fear, J. Lee Thompson's 1962 original and Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake; and a pair of Clint Eastwood films, In the Line of Fire and Blood Work. The book then examines Something Wild, Sea of Love, Fight Club, Desperately Seeking Susan, Apocalypse Now and The Lives of Others. The book overall aims to show how movies envision the unconscious Other we all too often project on other people.

This is a wonderful overview of the remarkable range of dog portraits--there are no human sitters--produced over the last 250 years. It features well-known works such as Rosa Bonheur's Brizo, (one of the best-loved portraits in The Wallace Collection), George Stubbs' Turk, Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of his two dogs Tristram and Fox, Lucian Freud's oil painting of Pluto, his pet whippet, and David Hockney's dachshunds Stanley and Boodgie.Over 50 works, arranged by theme, are drawn from major British collections, including the Royal Collection, the V & A, Tate Britain, the British Museum, and a wealth of regional museums and private collections. In addition memorabilia and souvenirs-bronzes, photos, brooches, and Faberge works, many relating to the British royals, especially Queen Victoria and her children- all evoke the sense of a cabinet of curiosities. This is a must-have for dog lovers.

Often considered the quintessential 'outsider', Johnny Depp has fascinated his fans for more than two decades. This biographical study invites fans and critics alike to take a close look at the person behind the movie star, his body of work as an actor, and the set of heroes and anti-heroes he has played throughout his career. Ideal for student research assignments, this series covers the most interesting historical and contemporary figures from curriculum subject areas including science, history, literature, politics, and the arts. The series fills a gap in reference collections for full-length, well-written biographies, serving as both enjoyable reading and authoritative research tools.The volumes include: an engagingly written style for high school and undergraduate students; coverage from birth to death/present day; photographs of the subject at different life stages; timeline highlighting significant events and contributions; and further suggested readings from both print and electronic sources

While it is certainly the case that the work of Karl Marx has a revered place in the realm of social philosophy, political science, and literary criticism, there is a place in which Marxism seems to have been forgotten. This place is the study of popular culture, where Marxism provides a lens through which many seemingly disparate films are brought together through philosophical exploration of theme, social and political hierarchies, and questions of power. Essentially, this text seeks to bring to popular culture studies the same sort of scholarly weight that attends the work of Aristotle or Plato or Derrida and, at the same time, to present that scholarship in a readable style that allows both laypeople and scholars to read and enjoy. Often popular culture studies is not taken seriously because the work in discussion is seen as an example of some other great work - for example, one might see a philosopher use an episode of The Simpsons to explain a concept related to Kant's Categorical Imperative. Notice, it is Kant that is under discussion there, not really The Simpsons. This robs the popular work of its own voice. Thus, this text seeks to engage Marxist critical theory from a variety of scholarly angles emphasising the interplay of visual text and critical interpretation. The premium is placed in two areas - critical analysis and readability.

Horror films come in a wide variety of styles and subject matter. The films examined in this study are three of the most intimate explorations of terror in the genre. Intimate in terms of settings (small towns and an isolated motel) and in the emotional links between the characters and the terrors they face. In Psycho, Norman Bates is a darker reflection of Marion Crane and Sam Loomis. They share frustrations, fears and compulsions, albeit at different levels of intensity. In The Birds, Melanie Daniels and her new acquaintances in Bodega Bay share emotional problems which sometimes impel them to act in destructive ways. Ways echoed and then overwhelmed by violence from the natural world. Halloween features a monster, Michael Myers, who has more in common with one of his victims, heroine Laurie Strode, than is evident at first glance. But beyond the link between normality and the violently aberrant, all three films give their audiences glimpses of emotional intimacy that is threatened and sometimes tragically destroyed by horror that, even though rare, can rob us of what makes life worth living.

For more than a century the Western film has proven to be an enduring genre. At the dawn of the 20th century, in the same years that The Great Train Robbery begat a film genre, Owen Wister wrote ,em>The Virginian, which began a new literary genre. From the beginning, both literature and film would usually perpetuate the myth of the Old West as a place where justice always triumphed and all concerned (except the villains) pursued the Law. The facts, however, reflect abuses of due process: lynch mobs and hired gunslingers rather than lawmen regularly pursued lawbreakers; vengeance rather than justice was often employed; and even in courts of law justice didn't always prevail. Some films and novels bucked this trend, however. This book discusses the many Western films as well as the novels they are based on, that illustrate distortions of the law in the Old West and the many ways, most of them marked by vengeance, in which its characters pursued justice. The author has used correspondence from studio files, letters from the Production Code office, newspaper and magazine reviews, passages from the novels to analyse not only the filmmakers' intentions but also how the films, contrary to reality, became a showcase of America as it promoted the principles of due process, trial by jury, and innocence before proven guilty.

America in the 1950s was a cauldron of contradictions. Advances in technology chafed against a grimly conservative political landscape; the military-industrial complex ceaselessly promoted the ""Communist menace""; young marrieds fled crumbling cities for artificial communities known as suburbs; and the corporate cipher known as ""The Organization Man"" was created, along with stifling images of women. The decade, huddled under the fear of nuclear holocaust, was also dedicated to all things futuristic. Science fiction was in its salad days, in magazines and novels and in motion pictures, trying every trick in the book to lure customers back from television, including reliance on monster movies. All of these forces collided in 1957, when an astounding 57 movies of the science fiction, horror and fantasy variety were shown in the United States--a record unmatched to this day. Each of these beloved and memorable films addressed and reflected some of the many socio-political topics of the day, and several are exceptional examples of their genres. This book is a critical discussion of this unique one-year collection of cultural artifacts.

The Classical Animated Documentary and Its Contemporary Evolution is the first book to provide an historical insight into the animated documentary. Drawing on archival research and textual analysis, it shows how this form, usually believed to be strictly contemporaneous, instead took shape in the 1940s. Cristina Formenti integrates a theoretical and a historical approach in order to shed new light on the animated documentary as a form as well as on the work of renowned studios such as The Walt Disney Studios, Halas & Batchelor, National Film Board of Canada and never before addressed ones, such as Corona Cinematografica. She also highlights the differences and the similarities existing among the animated documentaries created between the 1940s and the mid-1980s and those produced today so as to demonstrate how the latter do not represent a complete otherness in respect to the former, but rather an evolution.

This is an extended analysis of the film, from different perspectives. The first half is largely a discussion of the cinematic technique, with key sequences analysed shot by shot. The second half approaches the film from many other angles, including its history, the critical reception, Renoir's life and career, and film theory, e.g., film in relation to music. A case is made that Renoir's career was inconsistent during the 1930s, especially after La Regle du jeu; melodramatic plots and trite cinematic technique detract from many of his films. And rather than emphasising the humanist, anti-war thrust of La Grande Illusion, the film is approached as a work of art that is deeply expressive cinematically.

This is a compilation of interviews with motion picture crew members who worked during Hollywood's Independent Age of film and television production--basically from 1945 to 1980. A celebratory insiders' look at the Tinseltown machine, the project utilises individual interviews, with rare crew photographs to provide the back story of production challenges and solutions for some of the world's most recognised movies. The Searchers, Chinatown, The Hustler, andBullitt (to name a few) were done by the various people included in this book. It provides not only an educational treatment of the jobs and techniques of film making but also a dose of humourous and memorable experiences from the trenches. This book was compiled by a production hand with 30 years in the biz and is full of classic Hollywood fare.

The classic of Russian spirituality—now with facing-page commentary that illuminates and explains the text. The Way of a Pilgrim is the timeless account of an anonymous wanderer who set out on a journey across nineteenth-century Russia with nothing but a backpack, some bread, and a Bible, with a burning desire to learn the true meaning of the words of St. Paul: "Pray without ceasing." In this completely accessible new abridgment, all the terms and references are explained for you--with intriguing insights into aspects of the text that are often not available to the general reader.

Long dismissed as ciphers, sycophants and Stepford Wives, a more careful assessment of how women were portrayed on primetime television during the 1950s through the 1980s, actually reveals the exact opposite. From smart, savvy wives and resilient mothers (including the much-maligned June Cleaver and Donna Reed) to talented working women (long before the debut of ""Mary Tyler Moore"") to crimebusters and even criminals, American women on television were a diverse, empowered, individualistic, and capable lot, highly worthy of emulation and appreciation.

At 18, Hal Kanter first came to Hollywood to work as the ghost writer for a comic strip for the princely sum of $10 per week - before he was fired. It was then he heard an Eddie Cantor radio show and realised that he could write better jokes than the famed comedian's writers were providing him. Interestingly enough, Cantor's writers agreed with him, at least to some degree, and hired the brash young man to work with them on the Jack Oakie radio show. Thus was born one of the more interesting and varied careers in Hollywood. Kanter's writing career went from radio shows to screenplays to television series. Along the way he worked with such luminaries as Bob Hope, Frank Capra, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and a host of others. Awarded an Emmy for writing The George Gobel Show, he was the creator of Julia, the ground-breaking television series. Though he went on to enjoy great success as a producer and director, Kanter always considered himself, first and foremost, a writer. And just how many scripts has he written? ""More than I can lift,"" he says.

Quiz Kids was a network radio programme aired from 1940 to 1953 featuring smart children answering difficult questions submitted by listeners throughout America. Part of radio history during its ""golden age,"" and set within the backdrop of dramatic changes in America - social, cultural and political - Quiz Kids thrived during this period spanning a time from home delivery of milk by horse and wagon to the nuclear age. Almost immediately after its debut, the programme made radio history. Audiences marvelled at the speed with which the Kids answered the most difficult questions. The show went beyond the producers' wildest expectations. It was a national phenomenon. Eleanor Roosevelt invited the Kids to the White House to meet with them. Their appearance at the Senate is discussed in the Congressional Record. During World War II, they toured America and raised $120,000,000 in war bonds. They were in demand at military bases, hospitals, fund raising events, national conventions. They were guests on Jack Benny's radio show for three consecutive weeks. Walt Disney, Bob Hope, Fred Allen, the Lone Ranger, Gene Autry and other famous people were on their programme.

This study considers film in the aftermath of September 11. Eleven essayists address Hollywood movies, indie film, and post-cinematic media, including theatrical films by directors such as Steven Spielberg, Darren Aronofsky, and Lars von Trier, and post-cinematic works by Wafaa Bilal, Douglas Gordon, and Peter Tscherkassky, among others. All of these analyses are undertaken with an attentive eye to what may be the central concept of our time, the sublime. The sublime--that which can be thought but not represented (the ""unpresentable"")--provides a ready tool for analyses of trauma, horror, catastrophe and apocalypse, the military-industrial complex, the end of humanism, and the limits of freedom. Such essays take the pulse of our cultural moment, while also providing the reader with a sense of both the dual nature of the sublime in critical work, and how it continues to evolve conceptually in the 21st century.

Discover the complete history of Godzilla in this definitive, official guide to the King of the Monsters. Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters celebrates more than 60 years of movie mayhem in an exceptional, fully illustrated book. An official publication in partnership with Toho Co., this must-read guide brings together every incarnation of the world's most famous creature for the first time – including all the Japanese and Western movies, as well as Godzilla's most celebrated appearances in TV, comics and video games. Inside you'll find detailed reviews, spectacular stills and behind-the-scenes images from every Godzilla movie, from 1954's Gojira to 2021's Godzilla vs. Kong, along with countless insights into the making of one of cinema's most enduring, innovative and successful franchises. Packed with essential info, incredible trivia and stunning artwork, this is the ultimate illustrated reference to all things Godzilla.

This book reveals and reflects upon Janet Leigh's life and extraordinary career and also extensively analyzes all of her films and television appearances, and the like. For the first decade of her career Leigh's screen persona was restricted almost exclusively to Hollywood's most conventional image of the ""nice girl."" She was cast opposite some of the industry's biggest names including Robert Mitchum in Holiday Affair, Stewart Granger in Scaramouche, James Stewart in The Naked Spur, and Charlton Heston in Orson Welles' masterpiece Touch of Evil. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho supplied her most memorable role: Marion Crane, who is murdered before the picture is half over. The part earned Leigh an Academy Award nomination. Two years later, she starred opposite Frank Sinatra in John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. From 1951 to 1962, Leigh was married to favorite co-star Tony Curtis; the iconic couple of 50's Hollywood starred together in five films. They had two daughters, Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis, both of whom followed in their parents' professional footsteps.