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Structure is Character. Characters are what they do. Story events
impact the characters and the characters impact events. Actions and
reactions create revelation and insight, opening the door to a
meaningful emotional experience for the audience. Story is what
elevates a film, a novel, a play, or teleplay, transforming a good
work into a great one. Movie-making in particular is a
collaborative endeavour - requiring great skill and talent by the
entire cast, crew and creative team - but the screenwriter is the
only original artist on a film. Everyone else - the actors,
directors, cameramen, production designers, editors, special
effects wizards and so on - are interpretive artists, trying to
bring alive the world, the events and the characters that the
writer has invented and created. Robert McKee's STORY is a
comprehensive and superbly organized exploration of all elements,
from the basics to advanced concepts. It is a practical course,
presenting new perspectives on the craft of storytelling, not just
for the screenwriter but for the novelist, playwright, journalist
and non-fiction writers of all types.
THE LEGENDARY TEACHER OF STORY . . . Robert McKee's new book
CHARACTER: The Art of Role and Cast Design for Page, Stage and
Screen is an excellent companion volume to his hugely successful
STORY: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of
Screenwriting and DIALOGUE: The Art of Verbal Action for Page,
Stage and Screen. Divided into four parts (In praise of Character,
Character Creation, The Character Universe and Character
Relationships) CHARACTER has a primary purpose of enriching the
reader's insight into the nature of a fictional character and
sharpens the creative techniques necessary to invent a complex cast
of personalities, starting with the protagonist then adding the
cast of supporting roles. McKee uses scenes from classic films and
television programmes, Sex and the City, Casablanca, The Sopranos,
Breaking Bad and Fawlty Towers, and the works of classical
dramatists, Homer, Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, to demonstrate how
characters are constructed and developed for page, stage and
screen. Robert McKee is an author, lecturer and story consultant
whose popular writing workshops have brought him international
fame. His book STORY, is the basis for his programme and it has
defined how we regard the art of story creation. In STORY's
companion volume, DIALOGUE, McKee offers the same in-depth analysis
of how actors speak on the screen, on the stage and on the page.
CHARACTER is a masterly work with a primary purpose of enriching
the reader's insight into the nature of a fictional character and
sharpening the creative techniques necessary to invent a complex
cast of personalities, starting with the protagonist then adding
the first, second and third tiers of supporting roles. CHARACTER is
a brilliant addition to the genre and is essential reading for all
aspiring writers.
Storynomics - Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World
is a brilliant book that's destined to send shockwaves through the
worlds of marketing and branding. Drawing on the experiences gained
with his Storynomics seminars, Robert McKee - author of Story:
Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting and
Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage and Screen - has
teamed up with Tom Gerace to produce a work that is at once
imaginative, innovative and inspirational. There has been a major
change in the way brands connect with consumers. In the past, brand
managers and chief marketing executives would find stories people
loved and then interrupt their telling with advertisements. Today's
consumers have tired of the ads and are blocking, skipping or
avoiding them at unprecedented rates. The consequences are that
marketing professionals are finding it harder and harder to reach
their customers. Some business leaders have recognised that
storytelling is the future of marketing, and to succeed in an
increasingly ad-free world, they must place `story' at the centre
of their strategies. There is still some misunderstanding about
story and how it can be used effectively. Robert McKee created the
Storynomics seminars to show business leaders how to apply
storytelling to their businesses, to drive revenue, margins and
brand loyalty. In their new book, McKee and Gerace bring a whole
new meaning to marketing, to displace old theories and practices
with story-driven messages. Storynomics, the book, is essential
reading for all serious professionals.
This latest head trip from director Spike Jonze ("Being John
Malkovich") concerns an orchid collector (Chris Cooper), a
journalist (Meryl Streep as author Susan Orlean), and the
screenwriter (Charlie Kaufman, played by Nicolas Cage) who, in
adapting Susan Orlean's book "The Orchid Thief" writes himself into
the movie. Includes the complete screenplay and a selection of
b&w movie stills.
From the master of STORY, DIALOGUE, and CHARACTER, ACTION offers
writers the keys to powerful storytelling. ACTION explores the ways
that a modern-day writer can successfully tell an action story that
stands apart from all others. In collaboration with former co-host
of The Story Toolkit, Bassim El-Wakil, legendary story lecturer
Robert McKee guides writers to award-winning originality by
analysing the action genre, highlighting the challenges and, more
importantly, showing how to master the demands of plot creation
through innovation and ingenuity. ACTION is a must-have addition to
the McKee storytelling oeuvre.
The first of its kind and a powerful challenge to customary views
of gender and sexuality in the life and literature of Mexico, this
book traces literary representations of masculinity in Mexico from
independence in 1810 to the 1960s, and shows how these intersect
with the constructions of nation and nationality. The rhetoric of
"Mexicanness" makes constant use of images of masculinity, though
it does so in shifting and often contradictory ways. Robert McKee
Irwin's work follows these shifts from the male homosocial bonding
that was central to notions of national integration in the
nineteenth century, to questioning of gender norms stirred by
science and scandals at the turn of the century, to the virulent
reaction against gender chaos after the Mexican revolution, to the
association of Mexicanness with machismo and homophobia in the
literature of the 1940s and 1950s--even as male homosexuality was
established as an integral part of national culture. As the first
historical study of how masculinity and, particularly,
homosexuality were understood in Mexico in the national era, this
book not only provides "queer readings" of most major canonical
texts of the period in question, but also uncovers a variety of
unknown texts from queer Mexican history, including the 1906 novel
Los 41, which reenacts the scandal of a turn-of-the-century
transvestite ball that launched modern discussion of homosexuality
in Mexico. It is a radical undermining of the simple
hetero/homosexual and masculine/feminine oppositions that have for
so long informed views of the country's national character.
Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience. In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.
"This book is an essential reference for scholars and students
from a wide array of fields represented by Latin American and
cultural studies. It provides highly authoritative entries on most
of the major topics of the day."--Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, author
of "Naciones Intelectuales"
"This text represents a fantastic resource as well as an
excellent pedagogical tool for the diffusion of the main tenets of
cultural studies among students and among scholars who are not
specialists in Latin American cultural studies."--Ana Del Sarto,
coeditor of "Latin American Cultural Studies Reader"
"A dictionary is a book to ask questions of. Not only what each
word means, but also why some are present and others are absent,
and how the presences and the absences are connected. Irwin and
Szurmuk's "Dictionary" exhaustively registers the sources and lines
of development of the studies of culture in Latin America."--Nestor
Garcia Canclini, writing in "En torno a los estudios
culturales"
The "Dictionary of Latin American Cultural Studies" is a
fundamental reference for students, pedagogues, and investigators
interested in understanding the terminology of the field.
This comprehensive volume explains and contextualizes fifty-four
key terms and theories, including some general concepts in cultural
studies (e.g., body, deconstruction, ideology, postmodernism,
power, queer theory) as they relate to research in Latin America,
and some specific to the field of Latin American studies (e.g.,
anthropophagy, deterritorialization, lettered city). Each entry
defines the term in question, explains its usages, discusses its
etymology and the intellectuals who have made relevant
contributions, and provides a bibliography of essential
sources.
Uniquely suited to the student or scholar struggling with
translating cultural studies terminology into non-English language
topics of study, originally published in Spanish, and with
contributions by many of the field's foremost authorities, this
dictionary is poised to become a defining text for Latin American
cultural studies.
"Bandits, Captives, Heroines, and Saints" investigates cultural
icons of the late nineteenth century from Mexico's largely
unstudied northwest borderlands, present-day Sonora, Baja
California, and western Chihuahua. Robert McKee Irwin looks at
popular figures such as Joaquin Murrieta, the gold rush social
bandit; Lola Casanova, the anti-Malinche, whose marriage to a Seri
Indian symbolized a forbidden form of "mestizaje;" and la Santa de
Cabora, a young faith healer who inspired armed insurgencies and
was exiled to Arizona.
Cultural icons such as Murrieta, Lola Casanova, and la Santa de
Cabora are products of intercultural dialogue, Irwin reveals, and
their characterizations are unstable. They remain relevant for
generations because there is no consensus regarding their meanings,
and they are weapons in struggles of representation in the
borderlands. The figures studied here are especially malleable, he
argues, because they are marginalized from the mainstream of
historiography.
A timely analysis, "Bandits, Captives, Heroines, and Saints
"challenges current paradigms of border studies and presents a rich
understanding of the ways in which cultural icons influence
people's minds and lives.
Robert McKee Irwin is associate professor of Spanish at the
University of California, Davis, and the author of Mexican
Masculinities (Minnesota, 2003).
Listening to Sicarios presents new insights into the lives of paid
assassins of Mexico's drug trafficking syndicates from the
perspectives of the assassins themselves. Based on an extraordinary
series of ethnographic interviews carried out in the wake of the
record levels of narcoviolence experienced in Ciudad Juarez between
2008 and 2012, this study analyzes the ways in which these young
men interpret their actions across four key thematic axes: border
infrastructures, youth and responsibility, masculinity and
sentiment, and ethics: good vs. evil. It argues that sicarios
follow a career path within a criminal corporate infrastructure
that is especially robust in Mexican border cities. It also
explores how sicarios understand youthful innocence in relation to
adult accountability in the realm of violence that is frequently
meted out by young men on other young men. It then analyzes
sicarios' expressions of feelings of power that may boost their
sense of virility, as well as feelings of fear and regret that
imply weakness. Finally, it examines how sicarios defend their
personal integrity in the face of a public discourse that views
their acts as savage.
The Dictionary of Latin American Cultural Studies is a fundamental
reference for students, pedagogues, and investigators interested in
understanding the terminology of the field.
A man masquerading as a lesbian in Spain's Golden Age fiction. A
hermaphrodite's encounters with the Spanish Inquisition. Debates
about virility in the national literature of postrevolutionary
Mexico. The work of contemporary artists Reinaldo Arenas, Severo
Sarduy, and Maria Luisa Bemberg. The public persona of Pedro
Zamora, former star of MTV's The Real World. Despite an enduring
queer presence in Hispanic literatures and cultures, most scholars
have avoided the specter of sexual dissidence in the
Spanish-speaking world. In Hispanisms and Homosexualities, editors
Sylvia Molloy and Robert Irwin bring together a group of essays
that advance Hispanic studies and gay and lesbian studies by
calling into question what is meant by the words Hispanic and
homosexual. The fourteen contributors to this volume not only offer
queer readings of Spanish and Latin American texts and
performances, they also undermine a univocal sense of homosexual
identities and practices. Taking on formations of national identity
and sexuality; the politics of visibility and outing; the
intersections of race, sexuality, and imperial discourse; the
status of transvestism and posing; and a postmodern aesthetic of
camp and kitsch, these essays from both established and emerging
scholars provide a more complex and nuanced view of related issues
involving nationality, ethnicity, and sexuality in the Hispanic
world. Hispanisms and Homosexualities offers the most sophisticated
critical and theoretical work to date in Hispanic and queer
studies. It will be an essential text for all those engaged with
the complexities of ethnic, cultural, and sexual
subjectivities.Contributors. Daniel Balderston, Emilie Bergmann,
Israel Burshatin, Brad Epps, Mary S. Gossy, Robert Irwin, Agnes I.
Lugo-Ortiz, Sylvia Molloy, Oscar Montero, Jose Esteban Munoz, Jose
Quiroga, Ruben Rios Avila, B. Sifuentes Jauregui, Paul Julian Smith
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