This book gives detailed and original critical readings of all eleven of Derek Jarman's feature-length films, arguing that he occupies a major and influential place in European and world cinema rather than merely being a cult figure. It places particular emphasis on the importance of Renaissance art and literature for Jarman, and emphasises his interest in Jungian psychology. Wymer shows how Jarman used his films to take his audience with him on an inner journey in search of the self, whilst remaining fully aware of the dangers of such a journey. Making substantial use of Jarman's unpublished papers as well as all his published works, Wymer argues that the films are orientated towards a much wider audience than is often supposed. They are addressed to anyone, of whatever gender or sexuality, who is prepared to go on a journey in search of him or her self and to become Jarman's accomplice in 'the dream world of the soul'. -- .

Pedro Almodovar is an internationally acclaimed Spanish director. The national and international fascination over Almodovar's cinema lies in his ability to reflect the problems of contemporary society, his lucidity in combining the urban and the rural, his ability to express the frustrations of modern man, as well as his freshness and spontaneity. Although the vast majority of studies on this Spanish director have focused on women and the gay world, his films are crowded with many types and archetypes of heterosexual men. This groundbreaking edited volume studies the men in the cinema of Almodovar from a broad yet comprehensive and complementary perspective. Each chapter of All About Almodovar's Men methodically dissects these male characters-their misery and their greatness, their frustrations and their desires-offering a kaleidoscopic view of man that goes beyond the narrow framework in which many studies have locked the rich cinema of Almodovar.

Over the past two decades, independent director Gregg Araki has emerged as one of the most intriguing auteurs of contemporary U.S. cinema. A leading figure of the New Queer Cinema movement of the early 1990s, Araki is known for his innovative, eye-opening, and at-times-controversial films aimed primarily at queer audiences. Images for a Generation Doomed: The Films and Career of Gregg Araki explores the films and career trajectory to date of this New Queer Cinema pioneer. Offering in-depth analyses of films such as The Living End, Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation, Nowhere, and Splendor, Kylo-Patrick R. Hart demonstrates how, over the course of the 1990s, the director's cinematic offerings became increasingly devoid of their early subversive potential. Hart goes on to argue that as the 1990s progressed, Araki's films were largely irrelevant to the cultural project of providing groundbreaking on-screen representations of non-heterosexual individuals living in the age of AIDS. However, Hart sees Mysterious Skin as evidence of Araki's successful attempt at reestablishing his cinematic and cultural relevancy in relation to the approaches and subject matter of contemporary queer cinema in the new millennium.

American filmmaker John Cassavetes (1929-1989) made only nine independent films during a quarter century, but those films have affected the cinema culture of the 1960s to the 1980s in unprecedented ways. With a close nucleus of actors and crew members on his team, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes created films that explored the gritty side of human relationships. He staunchly advocated the right of actors and filmmakers to full artistic freedom over their work. Attracting both fervent admirers and harsh critics, Cassavetes's films have garnered prestigious awards in the US and Europe and continue to evoke strong reactions. Starting in New York with his first film Shadows (1959), Cassavetes moved on to the West Coast with Faces (1968), Husbands (1970), Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Opening Night (1977), Gloria (1980), and Love Streams (1984). He also directed several studio films, which often rankled his independent streak that rebelled against a loss of artistic freedom. Cassavetes's work in the theater and his performances in numerous television programs and films, including The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), made him, as a director, fiercely protective of his actors' right to self-expression. Cassavetes's contributions to film as actor, writer, director, producer, and cinematographer at a time of radical changes in cinema history continue to inspire independent filmmakers to challenge creative restrictions and celebrate actors' artistic contributions. John Cassavetes: Interviews captures this ""maverick"" streak of an intensely personal filmmaker who was passionate about his art.

Bertrand Tavernier (b. 1941) is widely considered to be the leading light in a generation of French filmmakers who launched their careers in the 1970s, in the wake of the New Wave. In just over forty years, he has directed twenty-two feature films in an eclectic range of genres, from intimate family portrait to historical drama and neo-Western. Beginning with his debut feature--L'Horloger de Saint-Paul (1974), which won the prestigious Louis Delluc prize--Tavernier has shown himself to be a public intellectual. Like his films, he is deeply engaged with the pressing issues facing France and the world: the consequences of war, colonialism and its continuing aftermath, the price of heroism, and the power of art. A voracious cinephile, he is immensely knowledgeable about world cinema and American film in particular. Tavernier's roots are in Lyon, the birthplace of the cinema. He founded and presides over the Institut Lumiere, which hosts retrospectives and an annual film festival in the factory where the Lumiere brothers made the first films. In this collection, containing numerous interviews translated from French and available in English for the first time, he discusses the arc of his career following in the lineage of the Lumiere brothers, in that his goal, like theirs, is to ""show the world to the world."" It is no surprise, then, that an interview with Tavernier is a treat. Beginning with discussions of his own films, the interviews in this volume cover a vast range of topics. At the core are his thoughts about the ways cinema can inspire the imagination and contribute to the broadest possible public conversation.

Michael Mann first made his mark as a writer for such television programs as Starsky and Hutch, Police Story, and Vegas. In 1981 he made his feature film directing debut with the James Caan thriller Thief, and in the 1980s he served as a writer and executive producer for the groundbreaking programs Miami Vice and Crime Story. Though he has delved into other genres, Mann's career as a writer, producer, and director has consistently focused on criminal activity, from small-time hoods and professional thieves to corporate manipulators and serial killers. In Michael Mann: Crime Auteur, Steven Rybin looks at the television programs and films that Mann has stamped with his personal signature. This book closely examines the themes and techniques used in films such as Manhunter, Heat, The Insider, and Collateral and connects these elements to his work on the non-genre films The Last of the Mohicans and Ali. A revised and significantly expanded edition of The Cinema of Michael Mann (2007), this book includes new chapters on Public Enemies and the big screen version of Miami Vice, as well as Mann's work on the shows Crime Story and Luck. Covering Mann's entire career, this book will be of interest to fans of the writer/director's body of work as well as to scholars of both film and television.

This book explores how Bakhtin's ideas can illuminate the compelling but uneasy fusion of Shakespeare and cinema. With a wide variety of tones, languages, cultural orientations, and thematic concerns, film directors have updated, translated, transposed, fragmented, parodied, and geographically re-situated Shakespeare. Keith Harrison illustrates how Bakhtin's interlinked writings in various fields can fruitfully be applied to an understanding of how the ongoing responsiveness of filmmakers to Shakespeare's historically remote words can shape self-expressive acts of co-authoring in another medium. Through the use of such Bakhtinian concepts as the chronotope, heteroglossia, the carnivalesque, and polyphony, Harrison details how filmmakers-faithful to their specific cultures, genders, geographies, and historical moments-dialogically locate their particularity through Shakespeare's presence.

A spirited dive into the life and career of a performer, writer, and director who dominated twentieth-century American comedy Mel Brooks, born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn in 1926, is one of the great comic voices of the twentieth century. Having won almost every entertainment award there is, Brooks has straddled the line between outsider and insider, obedient and rebellious, throughout his career, making out-of-bounds comedy the American mainstream. Jeremy Dauber argues that throughout Brooks's extensive body of work-from Your Show of Shows to Blazing Saddles to Young Frankenstein to Spaceballs-the comedian has seen the most success when he found a balance between his unflagging, subversive, manic energy and the constraints imposed by comedic partners, the Hollywood system, and American cultural mores. Dauber also explores how Brooks's American Jewish humor went from being solely for niche audiences to an essential part of the American mainstream, paving the way for generations of Jewish (and other) comedians to come.

Elia Kazan first made a name for himself on the Broadway stage, directing productions of such classics as The Skin of Our Teeth, Death of Salesman, and A Streetcar Named Desire. His venture to Hollywood was no less successful. He won an Oscar for only his second film, Gentleman's Agreement, and his screen version of Streetcar has been hailed as one of the great film adaptations of a staged work. But in 1952, Kazan's stature was compromised when he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Kazan's decision to name names allowed him to continue his filmmaking career, but at what price to him and the Hollywood community? In The Ambivalent Legacy of Elia Kazan: The Politics of the Post HUAC Films, Ron Briley looks at the work of this unquestionable master of cinema whose testimony against former friends and associates influenced his body of work. By closely examining the films Kazan helmed between 1953 and 1976, Briley suggests that the director's work during this period reflected his ongoing leftist and progressive political orientation. The films scrutinized in this book include Viva Zapata!, East of Eden, A Face in the Crowd, Splendor in the Grass, America America, The Last Tycoon, and most notably, On the Waterfront, which many critics interpret as an effort to justify his HUAC testimony. In 1999, Kazan was awarded an honorary Oscar that caused considerable division within the Hollywood community, highlighting the lingering effects of the director's testimony. The blacklist had a lasting impact on those who were named and those who did the naming, and the controversy of the HUAC hearings still resonates today. The Ambivalent Legacy of Elia Kazan will be of interest to historians of postwar America, cinema scholars, and movie fans who want to revisit some of the director's most significant films in a new light.

Margarethe von Trotta (b. 1942) entered the film industry in the only way she could in the 1960s - as an actress. Throughout her career, von Trotta added thirty-two acting credits to her name; however, these credits came to a halt in 1975. Her ambition had always been to be a movie director. Though she viewed acting as a detour, it allowed her to be in the right place at the right time, and through her line of work she met such important directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schloendorff. The latter would eventually provide her with the opportunity to codirect her first film, Die Verlohrene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum) in 1975. The debut's success ensured von Trotta's future in the film industry and launched her accomplished film directing career. In Margarethe von Trotta: Interviews, volume editor Monika Raesch furnishes twenty illuminating interviews with the auteur. Spanning three decades, from the mid-1980s until today, the interviews reveal not only von Trotta's life in the film industry, but also evolving roles of and opportunities provided to women over that time period. This collection of interviews presents the different dimensions of von Trotta through the lenses of film critics, scholars, and journalists. The volume offers essential reading for anyone seeking a better understanding of an iconic female movie director at a time when this possibility for women just emerged.

Since their first film in 1984, Joel and Ethan Coen have written and directed some of the most celebrated American films of the last thirty years. The output of their work has embraced a wide range of genres, including the neo-noirs Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn t There, the absurdist comedy Raising Arizona, and the violent gangster film Miller s Crossing. Whether producing original works like Fargo and Barton Fink or drawing on inspiration from literature, such as Charles Portis True Grit or Cormac McCarthy s No Country for Old Men, the brothers put their distinctive stamp on each film. In The Coen Brothers Encyclopedia, all aspects of these gifted siblings as writers, directors, producers, and even editors in the guise of Roderick Jaynes are discussed. Entries in this volume focus on creative personnel behind the camera, including costumer designers, art directors, and frequent contributors like cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Carter Burwell. Recurring actors are also represented, such as Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, George Clooney, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand, and John Turturro. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of published sources, both in print and online. From Blood Simple to Inside Llewyn Davis, The Coen Brothers Encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference on two of the most significant filmmakers of the last three decades. An engaging examination of their work, this volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and fans interested in this creative duo."

Perhaps best known for his controversial 1981 adaptation of John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, Czech-born refugee Karel Reisz (1926-2002) is widely regarded as one of the seminal figures in post-war British cinema. Along with Lindsay Anderson and Tony Richardson, Reisz was a founder member of the independent Free Cinema 'movement' which attacked the parochial middle-class values of home-grown studio product with a vigorous commitment to everyday working-class subject matter and a poetically-charged film style, the aesthetic foundation for the international success of Reisz's first feature, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). As the import of Free Cinema rapidly dissipated during the 'Swinging London' era, Reisz confronted the changing cultural mores of the 1960s and 1970s with a series of ambivalent films that critique the anarchic free spirit of the times, including Morgan (1966), Isadora (1968), The Gambler (1974) and Dog Soldiers/Who'll Stop the Rain (1978), the latter a dark meditation on the corruption of the drug-based counter-culture following the Vietnam War. These films express Reisz's own deep crisis of political commitment as the ideological safety-net of the original New Left fell into disarray. Drawing on Reisz's early film criticism for Sequence and Sight and Sound, as well as interdisciplinary methodologies derived from post-structuralism and Cultural Studies, this first career-length study explores Reisz's personal brand of character-based realism, offering the spectator a privileged insight into an artist's developing response to subjective and historical dislocation. The book should thus prove invaluable to film scholars, cultural historians and the Reisz aficionado.

Robert Zemeckis has risen to the forefront of American filmmaking with a string of successes: Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future I, II, & III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump, and Castaway. Herein, Norman Kagan unlocks the mind behind the making of these diverse and groundbreaking hits-appraising each work's public and critical appeal while placing the films in the context of Zemeckis's career.

Woody Allen is a uniquely innovative performer, writer and director with nearly fifty movies to his credit, from cult slapstick films and romantic comedies to introspective character studies and crime thrillers. Classics such as Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose and Hannah and Her Sisters still resonate, and more recently Midnight in Paris and Blue Jasmine have been notable successes. In this timely retrospective, Tom Shone reviews Woody Allen's entire career, providing incisive commentary on his films and shedding light on this uniquely self-deprecating filmmaker, with the help of comments contributed by Allen himself. Superbly illustrated with more than 250 key images, this is a fitting tribute to one of the masters of modern cinema, published to mark Woody Allen's eightieth birthday. 'I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.' Woody Allen

Known for creating classic films including His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, Bringing Up Baby, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Howard Hawks is one of the best-known Hollywood 'auteurs', but the important role that music plays in his films has been generally neglected by film critics and scholars. In this concise study, Gregory Camp demonstrates how Hawks' use of music and musical treatment of dialogue articulate the group communication that is central to his films. In five chapters, Camp explores how the notion of 'music' in Hawks' films can be expanded beyond the film score, and the techniques by which Hawks and his collaborators (including actors, screenwriters, composers, and editors) achieve this heightened musicality.

Alfred Hitchcock and the cinema grew up together. Born in 1899, four years after the first 'official' film showing in Paris, Hitchcock demonstrated an early fascination with the new art of the cinema. He entered the film industry in 1920, and by 1925, he had directed his first feature-length film, " The Pleasure Garden." His subsequent film career paralleled the phenomenal growth of the film industry during the years 1925-1976, the year of his last film. In the same way, Hitchcock's films are consonant with the revolutionary theories in the fields of physics and cosmology that were transforming the twentieth century, personified by the genius of Albert Einstein.Philip Skerry's book applies the theories of dark energy, entropy, black holes, and quantum mechanics to Hitchcock's technological genius and camera aesthetics, helping to explain the concept of 'pure cinema' and providing verification for its remarkable power. Including interviews with influential physicists, this study opens up new ways of analyzing Hitchcock's art.

Largely forgotten during the last 20 years of his life, the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) has occupied a singular and often controversial position over the past sixty years as a founding figure of documentary, avant-garde, and political-propaganda film practice. Creator of Man with a Movie Camera (1929), perhaps the most celebrated non-fiction film ever made, Vertov is equally renowned as the most militant opponent of the canons of mainstream filmmaking in the history of cinema. This book, the first in a three-volume study, addresses Vertov's youth in the largely Jewish city of Bialystok, his education in Petrograd, his formative years of involvement in filmmaking, his experiences during the Russian Civil War, and his interests in music, poetry and technology.

Unlike other books on Martin Scorsese that favor the discussion of broad themes and plot summaries, Scorsese Up Close: A Study of the Films also looks at the cinematic text of the great director's films. With a scrutiny comparable to the detail Scorsese brings to the shooting and editing process, author Ben Nyce examines particular shots or sequences of shots in many of the director's works. By focusing on these key components, Nyce explains how the visual and aural elements of such scenes dramatize Scorsese's singular vision. Nyce first discusses several of the early works that established Scorsese as a filmmaker, beginning with a short student film, What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Subsequent chapters focus on individual films in the Scorsese canon, including Mean Streets, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Age of Innocence, Bringing out the Dead, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull. Nyce's close attention to the details within each of these films will satisfy fans and students alike, especially those who share a passion for Scorsese's artistry and an appreciation for the craft of his filmmaking. Illustrated with photos.

Now in Paperback! Ronald Neame's autobiography takes its title from one of his best-loved films, The Horse's Mouth (1958), starring Alec Guinness. In an informative and entertaining style, Neame discusses the making of that film, along with several others, including In Which We Serve, Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Tunes of Glory, I Could Go on Singing, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Scrooge, The Poseidon Adventure, and Hopscotch. Straight from the Horse's Mouth provides a fascinating, first-hand account of a unique filmmaker, who began his career as assistant cameraman on Hitchcock's first talkie, Blackmail, and went on to direct Maggie Smith, Judy Garland, Walter Matthau, and many other prominent performers. The book includes tales of the on-and-off-the-set antics of comedian George Formby, and original accounts of his experiences working with Noel Coward and David Lean. This is not simply an autobiography, but rather a history of British cinema from the 1920s through the 1960s, and Hollywood cinema from the 1960s through the present. Aside from Neame's own writing, the book contains original commentary by many of his contemporaries and associates including Alec Guinness, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Shirley MacLaine, Walter Matthau, John Mills and Shelley Winters. Includes more than 40 photos!

The true story of John Merrick has captured the imagination of generations of audiences, critics, actors, and filmmakers. In 1988 I received a screenplay about a hideously disfigured man-John Merrick, the Elephant Man-who refused to fall victim to despair and instead exemplified human dignity. The story was so gripping, so moving, the moment I finished the screenplay I began to read it again. I had to produce it. John Merrick's story needed to be told. The story of how I got this movie made-the whole, unvarnished, hair-pulling, stomach-churning, adventure-is itself a study in the triumph of dignity over fear. This is the story of my journey to share my love and admiration for John Merrick with the rest of world. It is a story within a story, with scheduling conflicts, location issues, special effects nightmares and many risky decisions. Assembling a team that included executive producer, Mel Brooks, new director, David Lynch, and actors John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins, I stared adversity in the eye and found a way to persevere and overcome my fears. I hope you enjoy this story, my story, of the making of this inspiring Oscar-nominated, award-winning film.

KinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing. This KinoSputnik about Fedor Bondarchuk's megahit Stalingrad (2013) examines the production, context and reception of the film, whilst offering a detailed reading of its key themes. Fedor Bondarchuk's 2013 blockbuster film Stalingrad shattered box-office records and dazzled viewers with its use of special effects, enhanced by its 3D IMAX format. The film transported viewers back to 1942 and the bloody battle that would turn the tide of the Second World War. This new study situates the film within the context of ongoing debates about the meanings of the Second World War in Russia and previous films about the Battle of Stalingrad. Primary readership will be among film studies students and film enthusiasts, but will also be of interest to anyone researching or studying the Battle of Stalingrad and the course of the Second World War. A list of all books in the series is here on the Intellect website on the series page KinoSputnik

As late as 1976, George Roy Hill was the first and only director to have two films on the all-time top ten box office hits: ""Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"" and ""The Sting"" (both starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman). A filmmaker with a diverse background in music, drama and television, Hill proved to be a popular storyteller in a variety of genres. His films are tied to important American themes and reflect an ironic, bittersweet vision of life. The book begins with a discussion of the way Hill's films often make their most important statements on the subtextual level. The stories entertain, but the subtext is often disturbing, contradictory, unresolved. Hill felt that all of his major characters 'create an environment, a fantasy, an illusion, and then go on to make it happen'. It continues by tracing the thematic characteristics that are consistent with Hill's depiction of protagonists who create their own environments and then attempt to inhabit them. Then, individual chapters study in detail the art, craft and style of each of his films, including ""Thoroughly Modern Millie"", ""Slaughterhouse Five"", ""A Little Romance"", ""The World According to Garp"", 'Little Drummer Girl"" and Hill's last film ""Funny Farm"".

Jerzy Skolimowski is one of the most original Polish directors and one of only a handful who has gained genuine recognition abroad. This is the first monograph, written in English, to be devoted to his cinema. It covers Skolimowski's career from his early successes in Poland, such as Identification Marks: None and Barrier, through his emigre films, Deep End, Moonlighting and The Lightship, to his return to Poland where, in 2008, he made the internationally acclaimed Four Nights with Anna. Ewa Mazierska addresses the main features of Skolimowski's films, such as their affinity to autobiographism and surrealism, while discussing their characters, narratives, visual style, soundtracks, and the uses of literature. She draws on a wide range of cinematic and literary texts, situating Skolimowski's work within the context of Polish and world cinema, and drawing parallels between his work and that of two directors, with whom he tends to be compared, Roman Polanski and Jean-Luc Godard.

Here, in his own colorful, slangy words, is the true American Dream saga of a self-proclaimed "film geek," with five intense years working in a video store, who became one of the most popular, recognizable, and imitated of all filmmakers. His dazzling, movie-informed work makes Quentin Tarantino's reputation, from his breakout film, "Reservoir Dogs" (1992), through "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" (2003) and "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" (2004), his enchanted homages to Asian action cinema, to his rousing tribute to guys-on-a-mission World War II movie, "Inglourious Basterds" (2009). For those who prefer a more mature, contemplative cinema, Tarantino provided the tender, very touching "Jackie Brown" (1997). A masterpiece--"Pulp Fiction" (1994). A delightful mash of unabashed exploitation and felt social consciousness--his latest opus, "Django Unchained" (2012).

From the beginning, Tarantino (b. 1963)--affable, open, and enthusiastic about sharing his adoration of movies--has been a journalist's dream. "Quentin Tarantino: Interviews," revised and updated with twelve new interviews, is a joy to read cover to cover because its subject has so much interesting and provocative to say about his own movies and about cinema in general, and also about his unusual life. He is frank and revealing about growing up in Los Angeles with a single, half-Cherokee mother, and dropping out of ninth grade to take acting classes. Lost and confused, he still managed a gutsy ambition: young Quentin decided he would be a filmmaker.

Tarantino has conceded that Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson), the homicidal African American con man in "Jackie Brown," is an autobiographical portrait. "If I hadn't wanted to make movies, I would have ended up as Ordell," Tarantino has explained. "I wouldn't have been a postman or worked at the phone company. . . . I would have gone to jail."