Bruce Babington analyses the achievement of one of the central partnerships in British film history, the screenwriters of famous films by Hitchcock and Carol Reed, who became the producer-writer-directors of a succession of famous and well-loved films including Millions Like Us, Two Thousand Women, Waterloo Road, The Rake's Progress, I See a Dark Stranger, The Blue Lagoon and The Happiest Days of Your Life. This study of the pair is notable both for its contextualising of them within English and British culture over four decades, including British cinema's 'golden age' of the war and immediate post-war years, and for its close reading of films that have been critically neglected, despite their popularity. Scholarly but not pedantic, the book shows its subjects to be not ordinary mainstream practitioners but deceptively serious filmmakers registering the 'ideological weather' of wartime and post-war Britain in engaging and creative ways. -- .

A history of the New Zealand fiction feature film is the only comprehensive account of the New Zealand feature film from its beginnings to the present. Countering tendencies to think of New Zealand film as beginning in the 1970s, Bruce Babington discloses a longer saga showing how the present, for all its difference, can only be understood through the past: Gaston Melies' New Zealand films of 1912, Tarr's Hinemoa, the first feature made by a New Zealander, early Australian film makers' use of New Zealand for an Australasian audience, the English and American made 'Maoriland' films of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and the crucial works of New Zealand film's two great father figures, Rudall Hayward and John O'Shea. Such cornerstones of the national cinema as The Te Kooti Trail, My Lady of the Cave, Rewi's Last Stand (1940), Broken Barrier, Runaway and Don't Let It Get You are analysed in detail. Babington surveys the internationally popular films of recent years, from Murphy's and Donaldson's, through to those of Reid, Preston, Campion, Ward, Jackson, Caro, Jeffs, Sinclair, Barclay and others, along with recent low-cost digitals, and Maori feature film making, allowing the book to become a reference map of the cinema, its genres, and its preoccupations, while at the same time giving fascinating detailed analysis of important texts. A history of the New Zealand fiction feature film is essential reading for all students and followers of New Zealand cinema as well as those interested in the local post-colonial culture and its products. -- .

Deals analytically with the fascinating topic of the great film stars (and some thought-provoking lesser ones) of the British cinema, from Alma Taylor and Ivor Novello in the Silent period, up to the present day. Looks both at stars who attained worldwide fame through the Hollywood cinema, and those whose contribution is primarily to the national cinema.. First collection of essays on the subject with a wide historical coverage including major figures, such as Connery, Mason, Trevor Howard, Deborah Kerr, Mary Millington, Albert Finney and James Mason. Major figures in UK film studies have contributed, including Marcia Landy, Andrew Higson, Peter Evans, Charles Barr, Pam Cook and Andy Medhurst. -- .

This volume contains twenty in-depth studies of prominent New Zealand directors, producers, actors, and cinematographers. ""New Zealand Filmmakers"" outlines and examines three major constituent groups who are responsible for the industry as it appears today: those involved in pioneering film in New Zealand, those associated with the New Wave of the 1970s and 1980s, and those post - mid-1980s visionaries and fantasists who have produced striking individual productions. A comprehensive introduction situates the New Zealand film industry in cultural, historical, and ideological contexts.The book displays the diversity of filmmaking in New Zealand and highlights the specific industrial, aesthetic, and cultural concerns that have created a film culture of international significance. With the majority of the contributions in the book containing analysis developed through dialogue with the filmmakers, ""New Zealand Filmmakers"" is an authoritative study of the film industry in New Zealand. Each essay also includes a thorough and definitive filmography, detailing the full nature of the work produced by each individual, with key titles highlighted.Filmmakers covered in this volume include Barry Barclay, David Blyth, Jane Campion, Roger Donaldson, Rudall Hayward, Peter Jackson, John Laing, Bruno Lawrence, Len Lye, Alison Maclean, Merata Mita, Ian Mune, Geoff Murphy, Leon Narbey, John O'Shea, Gaylene Preston, John Reid, Vincent Ward, Jennifer Ward-Lealand, and Peter Wells. This collection is illustrated with 50 film prints, many of which have never before been published. With the New Zealand film industry poised to become a center of film production and already a major topic of critical interest, this volume will find many interested readers among film scholars and educators.

After covering the genre's early history and theorizing its general characteristics, this volume then focuses on specific instances of sports films, such as the biopic, the sports history film, the documentary, the fan film, the boxing film, and explores issues such as gender, race, spectacle and silent comedy. Four major films are then closely analysed - Chariots of Fire, Field of Dreams, the Indian cricket epic Lagaan, and Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday. While recording American film's importance to the genre, the book resists the conventional over-concentration on American cinema and sports by its attention to other cinemas, for example the British, Indian, Australian, South Korean, Thai, German, New Zealand, Spanish, and so on, with the many different sports they depict.

With the huge global success of Hollywood 'family film' franchises, such as Harry Potter, it is unsurprising that there have been many attempts to emulate this success. In recent years, there has been an explosion in international production of films for both adults and children - resulting in an erosion of the dominance of The Disney Company and the other major Hollywood Studios in family film production. "Family Films in Global Cinema" is the first serious examination of films for child and family audiences in a global context. Whereas most previous studies of children's films and family films have concerned themselves with Disney, this book encompasses both live-action and animated films from the Hollywood, British, Australian, East German, Russian, Indian, Japanese and Brazilian cinemas. As well as examining international family films previously ignored by scholars, the collection also presents a fresh perspective on familiar movies such as "The Railway Children," "The Nightmare Before Christmas," "Babe," and the "Harry Potter" series.