Few mainstream filmmakers have as pronounced a disregard for the supposed rules of filmmaking as Martin Scorsese. His inventiveness displays a reaction against the "right" way to make a movie, frequently eschewing traditional cinematic language in favor of something flashy, unexpected and contrary to the way "proper" films are done. Yet despite this, he's become one of the most influential directors of the last fifty years, a critical darling (though rarely a box office titan), and a fan favorite. On the surface, Scorsese's work is defined by shocking violence and rampant profanity. These are often loud, brash films that appear to glorify the worst kinds of people. He makes heroes of mobsters, thugs, con men, and murderers. Yet dig deeper and you find the true beating heart of his oeuvre: guilt, collapse, self-destruction, spiritual turmoil, and the complicated hypocrisies of faith, among other themes that are a constant in his work. In this book, San Juan guides readers through the crooks, the mobsters, the loners, the moguls, and the nobodies of Scorsese's 26-movie filmography. The Films of Martin Scorsese examines the techniques that have made him one of the most innovative directors in history: needle-drop soundtracks, outbursts of violence, daring camera work, and more. The book further looks at the themes that are the engine driving all of this, including themes of self-sabotage, alienation, faith, and guilt. What is Martin Scorsese trying to tell us through his work? Can we learn something about the human conditions via works like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, and The Irishman? With that goal in mind, between these covers you'll find fodder for discussion, dissection, and debate, all of it driven by insightful-yet-approachable analysis of Martin Scorsese's entire filmography, from 1967s Who's That Knocking At My Door? to 2019's The Irishman, as well as carefully chosen excerpts from five decades worth of Martin Scorsese interviews and rare behind-the-scenes photos.

The writer Marguerite Duras was a key figure in post-war French cinema, pioneering innovations such as the disjunction of film and image, and the primacy given to voices, silence and music. Her multisensorial approach opened up new spaces for the female experience to be expressed. Although she worked with some of the best French visual technicians and musicians of her time, critiques have often neglected the visual and sonic aesthetics of her films, and their effects on spectators. Drawing on theories of embodiment and spectatorship, this book analyses the tactility and multisensoriality of Duras' films, and how they relate to her female-centred perspective.

Few novelists have taken films as seriously, or been closely involved in so many aspects of the film business all their lives, as Graham Greene. Even at University he was touching on it. His long-term experience of the evolving art included producing, performing, script-writing and adaptation. Not to mention the libel case against him brought by Miss Shirley Temple for some disobliging words. Mornings in the Dark gathers some of Greene's best film criticism with a mass of related material: his film articles, interviews, lectures and radio talks, stories for film, letters and film proposals. With appendices on Greene's own films and unfulfilled film projects, and David Parkinson's introduction, this is an essential collection for readers of fiction and film enthusiasts alike.

Since his early days at Disney, Tim Burton has possessed a unique talent and vision. His writing and directing credits range from big-budget features such as Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), to the comically grisly The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Corpse Bride (2005), to the twisted fairy tale Edward Scissorhands (1990), to literary adaptations like Big Fish (2003), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Sweeney Todd (2007). Though his name has become synonymous with the macabre and the odd, at bottom Burton's films reveal and champion the flawed human in us all. This collection of new essays brings together scholarship on many of his popular films, his adaptations, his innovations in stop motion photography and his collaborative relationship with actor Johnny Depp, providing an in-depth exploration one of the most prominent figures on the pop culture landscape for a quarter-century.

Akira Kurosawa is widely known as the director who opened up Japanese film to Western audiences, and following his death in 1998, a process of reflection has begun about his life's work as a whole and its legacy to cinema. Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon has become one of the best-known Japanese films ever made, and continues to be discussed and imitated more than 60 years after its first screening. This book examines the cultural and aesthetic impacts of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, as well as the director's larger legacies to cinema, its global audiences and beyond. It demonstrates that these legacies are manifold: not only cinematic and artistic, but also cultural and cognitive. The book moves from an examination of one filmmaker and his immediate social context in Japan, and goes on to explore how an artist's ideas might transcend their cultural origins to ultimately provide global influences. Discussing how Rashomon's effects began to multiply with the film being re-imagined and repurposed in numerous media forms in the decades that followed its initial release, the book also shows that the film and its ideas have been applied to a wider range of social and cultural phenomena in a variety of institutional contexts. It addresses issues beyond the realm of Rashomon within film studies, extending to the Rashomon effect, which itself has become a widely recognized English term referring to the significantly different interpretations of different eyewitnesses to the same dramatic event. As the first book on Rashomon since Donald Richie's 1987 anthology, it will be invaluable to students and scholars of film studies, film history, Japanese cinema and communication studies. It will also resonate more broadly with those interested in Japanese culture and society, anthropology and philosophy.

In 1915, American filmmaker D. W. Griffith released a film that went on to become one of the most controversial of all time. Over a century later, The Birth of a Nation continues to stimulate debate on the relationship between Hollywood and racism. This volume reveals new perspectives on Griffith's film across ten original chapters, re-considering it as text, historical milestone and influence. The volume also includes a helpful timeline that lists key publications and events in Birth's ongoing history, revealing the rich and stimulating discourse on its art, its cultural impact and its ethical dimensions. -- .

The increasingly popular idea that cinematic fictions can 'do' philosophy raises some difficult questions. Who is actually doing the philosophizing? Is it the philosophical commentator who reads general arguments or theories into the stories conveyed by a film? Could it be the film-maker, or a group of collaborating film-makers, who raise and try to answer philosophical questions with a film? Is there something about the experience of films that is especially suited to the stimulation of worthwhile philosophical reflections? In the first part of this book, Paisley Livingston surveys positions and arguments surrounding the cinema's philosophical value. He raises criticisms of bold theses in this area and defends a moderate view of film's possible contributions to philosophy. In the second part of the book he defends an intentionalist approach that focuses on the film-makers' philosophical background assumptions, sources, and aims. Livingston outlines intentionalist interpretative principles as well as an account of authorship in cinema. The third part of the book exemplifies this intentionalist approach with reference to the work of Ingmar Bergman. Livingston explores the connection between Bergman's work and the Swedish director's primary philosophical source-a treatise in philosophical psychology authored by the Finnish philosopher, Eino Kaila. Bergman proclaimed that reading this book was a tremendous philosophical experience for him and that he 'built on this ground'. With reference to materials in the newly created Ingmar Bergman archive, Livingston shows how Bergman took up Kaila's topics in his cinematic explorations of motivated irrationality, inauthenticity, and the problem of self-knowledge.

Ernst Lubitsch (1982-1947) was one of the most successful and influential German filmmakers in American film comedy. In this volume, Rick McCormick argues for a more transnational view of Lubitsch's career and films with respect to nationality, ethnicity, migration, class, sexuality, and gender. McCormick focuses on Lubitsch's Jewishness, which is inseparable from the distinct transnational character of the director, categorizing his early films as "Jewish comedies" where Lubitsch strikes a tenuous balance between Jewish humor, antisemitic jokes, stereotypes, and the incorporation of antifascist subjects into his popular films. Above all, the larger political issues at stake in Lubitsch's work are brought forward: German-Jewish perspectives and experiences, the subtle treatment of covert political and social messages, and the relationship of comedy, especially sexual comedy, to emancipatory politics and, in particular, to the turbulent politics of Europe and the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. The book discusses in depth the following films by Lubitsch: The Pride of the Firm (1914), Shoe Palace Pinkus (1916), Meyer From Berlin (1918), I Don't Want to Be a Man (1918), The Oyster Princess (1919), Madame Dubarry (1919), The Doll (1919), Sumurun (1920), The Wildcat (1921), The Marriage Circle (1924), The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), The Love Parade (1929), The Man I Killed (1932), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), and To Be or Not to Be (1942).

More than four decades after the premiere of his first film, Steven Spielberg (b. 1946) continues to be a household name whose influence on popular culture extends far beyond the movie screen. Now in his seventies, Spielberg shows no intention of retiring from directing or even slowing down. Since the publication of Steven Spielberg: Interviews in 2000, the filmmaker has crafted some of the most complex movies of his extensive career. His new movies consistently reinvigorate entrenched genres, adding density and depth. Many of the defining characters, motifs, tropes, and themes that emerge in Spielberg's earliest movies shape these later works as well, but often in new configurations that probe deeper into more complicated subjects?dangerous technology rather than man-eating sharks, homicidal rather than cuddly aliens, lethal terrorism instead of rampaging dinosaurs. Spielberg's movies continue to display a remarkably sophisticated level of artistry that matches, and sometimes exceeds, the memorable visual hallmarks of his prior work. His latest series of films continue to demonstrate an ongoing intellectual restlessness and a willingness to challenge himself as a creative artist. With this new collection of interviews, which includes eleven original interviews from the 2000 edition and nine new interviews, readers will recognize the themes that motivate Spielberg, the cinematic techniques he employs to create his feature films, and the emotional connection he has to his movies. The result is a nuanced and engaging portrait of the most popular director in American cinema history.

Laurence Olivier was one of the best-known and most pioneering actor-directors of Shakespeare on screen. This is the first study to provide a comprehensive analysis of Olivier's Shakespearean feature films and his unique Shakespearean star image. Through an examination of Olivier's unmade film Macbeth, as well as his adaptations of Shakespeare's Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III, Jennifer Barnes offers a detailed exploration of Olivier's entire cinematic Shakespearean oeuvre in relation to his distinctive form of stardom. Considering the development of Olivier's image in relation to the industrial and cultural contexts of the wartime and post-war British film and theatre industries, the volume also analyses Olivier's life writing and published autobiographies and is supplemented by numerous illustrations.

The 'Gainsborough melodramas' were a mainstay of 1940s British cinema, and helped make the careers of such stars as Margaret Lockwood, James Mason and Stewart Granger. But what was unique about these films? And who were the directors behind them? This book presents four key filmmakers, each with his own talents and specialities. It traces their professional lives through the highs of the 1940s, when the popularity of Gainsborough films was at its peak, to the tougher decades that followed the genre's decline. Featuring expert analysis of such films as The Man in Grey (1943), Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) and The Upturned Glass (1947), alongside valuable historical context, the book constitutes the first extended examination of this group of directors. It combines critical acumen with readability, making it a valuable resource for students, lecturers and general readers alike. -- .

Roman Polanski is a great maverick figure of world cinema who has lived a controversial and tragic life. Yet his notoriety has eclipsed the true importance of his long career, starting with his short films in the 1950s and continuing through to the recent "Oliver Twist" (2005). This collection highlights the bold and dazzling diversity of his work as well as recurrent themes and obsessions. Films discussed include "Knife in the Water" (1962), "Repulsion" (1965), "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), "Chinatown" (1974), "Death and the Maiden" (1994), and "The Pianist" (2002).

An opinionated, revealing collection of interviews with the mercurial Danish director of Dogville, Dancer in the Dark, and Breaking the Waves.
The only director to have accomplished the unique feat of premiering all of his features at Cannes, Lars von Trier is the unabashed prince of the European avant-garde. The grand ambitions of his career mirror those of an earlier generation of directors, such as von Sternberg and von Stroheim, a similarity the director openly acknowledges, having affected the lordly 'von' in his name as a tribute while still in film school. From his highly stylized debut, "Element of Crime," to the universally acclaimed "Breaking the Waves" and controversial musical "Dancer in the Dark," von Trier has constantly challenged the boundaries of contemporary film, and this thoughtful and engagingly humorous assortment of interviews with fellow director Stig Bjorkman reveals the motivation behind his most lasting and controversial innovations-most notably the back-to-basics Dogme 95 movement, as well as the propless, setless" Dogville," which debuted at Cannes in 2003 to lavish praise. Accompanied by several 'manifestos' which explicate his most experimental films, "Trier on von Trier" promises a definitive portrait of "the most brilliant director working in cinema today." ("IndieWIRE")

East Asian cinema has become a worldwide phenonemon, and directors such as Park Chan-wook, Wong Kar Wai, and Takashi Miike have become household names. "Dekalog 4: On East Asian Filmmakers" solicits scholars from Japan, Hong Kong, Switzerland, North America, and the U.K. to offer unique readings of selected East Asian directors and their works. Directors examined include Zhang Yimou, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Rithy Panh, Kinji Fukasaku, and Jia Zhangke, and the volume includes one of the first surveys of Japanese and Chinese female filmmakers, providing singular insight into East Asian film and the filmmakers that have brought it global recognition.

Born in Oklahoma into the Chickasaw Nation, Wallace Fox directed films over the span of four decades. Known primarily for Westerns and mystery films, his output starred such famed actors as Bela Lugosi, Bob Steele, and Lon Chaney. ReFocus: The Films of Wallace Fox includes analysis of some of his best known films, including Wild Beauty, Gun Town, The Corpse Vanishes, Bowery at Midnight, Career Girl and Brenda Starr, Reporter. It reclaims the history and artistry of this major talent.

George Lucas by Brian Jay Jones is the first comprehensive telling of the story of the iconic filmmaker and the building of his film empire, as well as of his enormous impact on cinema. At once a biography, a business manual, and a film history, George Lucas will, for the first time explore the life and work of a fiercely independent writer/director/producer who became one of the most influential filmmakers and cultural icons - a true game changer. On May 25, 1977, a problem-plagued, budget-straining, independent science fiction film opened in a mere thirty-two American movie theatres. Its distributor - 20th Century Fox - were baffled by the film. The film's production had been a disaster from nearly day one, hampered by bad weather, malfunctioning props and ill-fitting costumes. But its release on a quiet Wednesday in May of 1977, changed cinema forever. The film was Star Wars. The fiercely independent thirty-three year-old George Lucas was just getting going. Determined to control every element of the film-making process he had founded Lucasfilm ltd., in 1971. Among his hits, Lucas gave us six Star Wars films and four featuring the globetrotting archaeologist Indiana Jones. Together these ten films have earned more than $6 billion worldwide and won some of the largest and most devoted fan bases ever seen. In 2013 he sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion. Along the way the man who invented the Blockbuster also gave us computer generated imagery (CGI), created a small animation company called Pixar and reinvented the way movies were made, marketed and merchandised.

Twenty-first century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellant; one seductive, the other infectious. With case studies of films like I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, as well as TV programmes like Angel and The Walking Dead, this book challenges these popular assumptions and reveals the increasing interconnection of undead genres. Exploring how the figure of the vampire has been infused with the language of science, disease and apocalypse, while the zombie text has increasingly been influenced by the trope of the 'reluctant' vampire, Stacey Abbott shows how both archetypes are actually two sides of the same undead coin. When considered together they present a dystopian, sometimes apocalyptic, vision of twenty-first century existence.

Lucrecia Martel has made only four feature films to date, but has nonetheless become one of the world's most admired directors. Her work is extraordinarily sensitive to the limits of sensory perception, the limits imposed by gender roles, and the limits of empathy and affect across social divisions. This edited collection broadens the critical conversation around Martel's work by integrating analyses of her features with the less frequently studied short films and her other artistic projects. This volume's fresh, holistic approach to Martel's career includes contributions from scholars in Latin America, Europe and the United States, and ends with a new interview with Martel herself.

The pioneering film director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein is known for the unequalled impact his films have had on the development of cinema. Less is known about his remarkable and extensive writings, which present a continent of ideas about film. Robert Robertson presents a lucid and engaging introduction to a key area of Eisenstein's thought: his ideas about the audiovisual in cinema, which are more pertinent today than ever before. With the advent of digital technology, music and sound now act as independent variables combined with the visual medium to produce a truly audiovisual result. Eisenstein explored in his writings this complex, exciting subject with more depth and originality than any other practitioner, and this is an accessible and original exploration of his ideas. Winner of the Kraszna Krausz Foundations's And/Or Award for Best Moving Image Book of 2009, " Eisenstein on the Audiovisual" is essential reading for students and practitioners of the audiovisual in cinema and related audiovisual forms, including theatre, opera, dance and multimedia.

The acclaimed French auteur behind the mind-bending modern classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Michel Gondry has directed a number of innovative, ground-breaking films and documentaries, episodes of the acclaimed television show Kidding and some of the most influential music videos in the history of the medium. In this collection, a range of international scholars offers a comprehensive study of this significant and influential figure, covering his French- and English-language films and videos, and framing Gondry as a transnational auteur whose work provides insight into both French/European and American cinematic and cultural identity. With detailed case studies of films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep (2006), Microbe & Gasoline (2015) and Mood Indigo (2013), this collection appeals to readers interested in the various media in which Gondry has worked, and in contemporary post-modern French and American cinema in general.

The tradition of British realism has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, where films by directors such as Duane Hopkins, Joanna Hogg, Andrea Arnold, Shane Meadows and Clio Barnard have suggested a markedly poetic turn. This new realism rejects the instrumentalism and didacticism of filmmakers like Ken Loach in favour of lyrical and often ambiguous encounters with place, where the physical processes of lived experience interacts with the rhythms of everyday life. Taking these 5 filmmakers as case studies, this book seeks to explore in depth this new tradition of British cinema - and in the process, it reignites debates over realism that have concerned scholars for decades.

One of the few women pioneers of cinema and a committed feminist, Germaine Dulac strongly believed that the public had a role to play in shaping the history of cinema and the kinds of films that filmmakers could make. This book draws on a wealth of archival material - both films and writing - to study Dulac's 'behind the scenes' work on filmmaking and her social/political activism in the field of cinema. The biographical and historical introduction contextualises Dulac's situation at the heart of the avant-garde. Three chapters organise her films and career around the kinds of cinema that she promoted: 'psychological', 'pure' and 'documentary'. The conclusion contrasts Dulac's contributions with those of Alice Guy Blache, another early woman film pioneer, highlighting their differing paths to recognition. -- .

"On Story is film school in a box, a lifetime's worth of filmmaking knowledge squeezed into half-hour packages." -Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times Austin Film Festival (AFF) is the first organization focused on the writer's creative contribution to film. Its annual Film Festival and Conference offers screenings, panels, workshops, and roundtable discussions that help new writers and filmmakers connect with mentors and gain advice and insight from masters, as well as refreshing veterans with new ideas. To extend the festival's reach, AFF produces On Story, a television series currently airing on PBS-affiliated stations and streaming online that presents footage of high-caliber artists talking candidly and provocatively about the art and craft of screenwriting and filmmaking, often using examples from their own films. On Story-Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films presents renowned, award-winning screenwriters and filmmakers discussing their careers and the stories behind the production of their iconic films such as L.A. Confidential, Thelma & Louise, Groundhog Day, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Silence of the Lambs, In the Name of the Father, Apollo 13, and more. In their own lively words transcribed from interviews and panel discussions, Ron Howard, Callie Khouri, Jonathan Demme, Ted Tally, Jenny Lumet, Harold Ramis, and others talk about creating stories that resonate with one's life experiences or topical social issues, as well as how to create appealing characters and bring them to life. Their insights, production tales, and fresh, practical, and proven advice make this book ideal for film lovers, screenwriting students, and filmmakers and screenwriters seeking inspiration.

Known for his surrealist films, his unique approach to tarot, his symbolic comics, and his shamanic therapeutic method of psychomagic, Alejandro Jodorowsky has accomplished an extraordinary amount in his more than 80 years. In this book, we get an intimate look into the inner workings of the cult figure of Jodo. What is revealed is a man who has evolved since his groundbreaking films of the 1970s, El Topo and The Holy Mountain, a man who has grown from a sacred trickster, a shaman of psychomagic, into a brilliant spiritual maverick of the 21st century. We get to see Jodo's own reflections on his remarkable life, including the initiatory failure of the Dune film project, which combined the talents of a multitude of creative greats, including Moebius, Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and H. R. Giger. We learn about Jodo's years with Marcel Marceau and with great masters such as Ejo Takata, whose Zen training featured strenuous physical and mental ordeals; the sorceress Pachita, who performed psychic surgery on Jodo; and the mysterious Carlos Castaneda. From sacred trickery to the path of kindness, Jodo's radical wisdom discerns the timeless within the immediate and gauges the everyday by the measure of eternity.

Richard Roud's Godard, first published in 1967 as 'Number One' in the seminal Cinema One series, was the first monograph on the great film-maker to be published in English, and one that reveals a unique intimacy between the author and his subject. Roud's provocative and far-reaching analysis shows an intuitive understanding of the aesthetic, intellectual and political context in which Godard worked, paying particular attention to his 'political' cinema, including the ferocious masterpiece Weekend (1967). In his foreword to this reissue, Michael Temple provides an overview of film criticism on Godard, arguing that, more than forty years since its publication, Roud's book remains at the forefront of writings on the director. Temple pinpoints how Roud was uniquely placed as a contemporary of Godard's to follow the film-maker's career from one explosive film to the next, charting the course of the Godardian star even as Roud's own career as a critic and festival programmer was unfolding. He contends that Roud's study was 'a pure product - and a faithful reflection - of a certain tendency in British film culture at the end of the 1960s: cinephile, progressive, European, intellectual, metropolitan.' For Temple, Roud's work remains a lucid summary of what Godard had already achieved by the end of the 1960s, and provides a suggestive model of cultural criticism with which to approach subsequent aspects of Godard's multimedia artistic adventure.