This book addresses a variety of regional humor traditions such as exploitation cinema, Brazilian chanchada, the Cantinflas heritage, the comedy of manners and light sexuality, iconic figures and characters, as well as a variety of humor registers evident in different Latin American films.

Culture, Space and Power: Blurred Lines collects essays that study contemporary mutations of public and private space in multiple cultural contexts and media from a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. The essays range from the general to the specific: the first section will explore how recent trends in globalization, nationalism, city design, and ruralist revival yield particular spatial morphologies. The second part of the volume investigates spaces of privacy and togetherness, including traditional settings for intimacy, such as the home, and enclosure, such as the prison, or the virtual locations created through digital media (cellphones, tablets and computers). At the same time, despite the two-part division into public and private, the volume stresses their connection and interdependency: the extent, that is, to which broader spatial configurations affect private, day-to-day practices and locations.

The first major English-language study of JarmuschAt a time when gimmicky, action-driven blockbusters ruled Hollywood, Jim Jarmusch spearheaded a boom in independent cinema by making now-classic low-budget films like Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, and Mystery Train. Jarmusch's films focused on intimacy, character, and new takes on classical narratives. His minimal form, peculiar pacing, wry humor, and blank affect have since been adopted by directors like Sofia Coppola, Hal Hartley, Richard Linklater, and Tsai Ming-liang. Juan A. Suarez identifies and describes an abundance of aesthetic influences on Jarmusch, delving into the director's links to punk, Structural film, classic street photography, hip-hop, beat literature and art, and the New York pop vanguard of the late 1970s. At the same time, he analyzes Jarmusch's work from three mutually implicated perspectives: in relation to independent filmmaking from the 1980s to the present; as a form of cultural production that appropriates existing icons, genres, and motifs; and as an instance of postmodern politics. A volume in the series Contemporary Film Directors, edited by James R. Naremore

"This comprehensive, insightful study demonstrates that 1960s NewYork underground film fused 'artistic innovation and the exploration of everydaylife' and distinctively interacted with mass culture.'" --Choice

..". thoroughly researched [and] engaging text..." -- Library Journal

"This is a very timely and welcomebook.... intervenes very effectively to to rewrite the history of the 1960s Americanunderground cinema." -- UTS Review

At the confluence ofexperimental art and the gay subculture of early 1960s New York, Juan Su rezdiscovers a postmodern, gay-influenced aesthetic that "recycles" popularculture. Filmmakers Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, and Andy Warhol epitomize thissensibility, combining the influences of European avant-garde movements, comicbooks, rock 'n' roll, camp, film cults, drag performances, fashion, and urban streetcultures.