This book presents the bold and original proposal to replace the general appellation of 'world cinema' with the more substantive concept of 'realist cinema'. Veering away from the usual focus on modes of reception and spectatorship, it locates instead cinematic realism in the way films are made. The volume is structured across three innovative categories of realist modes of production: 'noncinema', or a cinema that aspires to be life itself; 'intermedial passages', or films that incorporate other artforms as a channel to historical and political reality; and 'total cinema', or films moved by a totalising impulse, be it towards the total artwork, total history or universalising landscapes. Though mostly devoted to recent productions, each part starts with the analysis of foundational classics, which have paved the way for future realist endeavours, proving that realism is timeless and inherent in cinema from its origin.

From its inception, Brazilian cinema has combined extra-filmic artistic and cultural forms, both local and imported, resulting in an original aesthetic blend. Theatre, dance, music, circus, radio, television and the plastic arts left a distinctive mark on Brazilian cinema's poetics and politics, as can be observed in a host of fascinating phenomena analysed in this book, including: the film prologues that connected the screen to the stage in the 1920s; the chanchada musical comedies, inflected by vaudeville theatre and the radio; the manguebeat and arido movie movements that blurred the boundaries between music and film; and contemporary multimedia installations and other experiments. By adopting intermediality as a historiographic method, this book reconstructs the history and cultural wealth behind filmic expressions in Brazilian cinema.

Andre Bazin's famous article, 'Pour un cinema impur: defense de l'adaptation', was first translated into English simply as 'In Defence of Mixed Cinema', probably to avoid any uncomfortable sexual or racial resonances the word 'impure' might have. 'Impure Cinema' goes back to Bazin's original title precisely for its defence of impurity, applying it on the one hand to cinema's interbreeding with other arts and on the other to its ability to convey and promote cultural diversity. In contemporary progressive film criticism, ideas of purity, essence and origin have been superseded by favourable approaches to 'hybridization', 'transnationalism', 'multiculturalism' and cross-fertilizations of all sorts. 'Impure Cinema' builds on this idea in novel and exciting ways, as it draws on cinema's combination of intermedial and intercultural aspects as a means to bridge the divide between studies of aesthetics and culture. Film is revealed here as the location par excellence of media encounters, mutual questioning and self-dissolution into post-medium experiments. Most importantly, the book argues, film's intermedial relations can only be properly understood if their cultural determinants are taken into account. Scholars and students of film, cinephiles and students of the arts will discover here unexpected connections across many artistic practices.

This is a sweeping study of world cinema, illustrating how its creative peaks stem from the urge to reveal otherwise hidden political and social dimensions of reality. "World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism" is a highly original study. It breaks away from the binary divisions which underpin most of film theory, and challenges traditional views of cinematic realism, drawing instead on the filmmaker's commitment to truth and to film's material bond with the real. Nagib conducts comparative case studies drawn from a wide range of realist trends, including the Japanese New Wave, the nouvelle vague, the Cinema Novo, the New German Cinema, the Inuit Indigenous Cinema, the Taiwan New Cinema and the New Brazilian Cinema. She reveals that these creative peaks are animated by the desire to reveal concealed or unknown political, social, psychological or mystical dimensions of reality - as observed in the various cycles of new waves and new cinemas across film history and geography. "World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism" is groundbreaking scholarship that surveys and defines World Cinema not as the opposite of Hollywood, but in positive terms; and draws upon the work of Badiou and Ranciere to take film theory in a bold new direction.

This is a sweeping study of world cinema, illustrating how its creative peaks stem from the urge to reveal otherwise hidden political and social dimensions of reality. "World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism" is a highly original study. It breaks away from the binary divisions which underpin most of film theory, and challenges traditional views of cinematic realism, drawing instead on the filmmaker's commitment to truth and to film's material bond with the real. Nagib conducts comparative case studies drawn from a wide range of realist trends, including the Japanese New Wave, the nouvelle vague, the Cinema Novo, the New German Cinema, the Inuit Indigenous Cinema, the Taiwan New Cinema and the New Brazilian Cinema. She reveals that these creative peaks are animated by the desire to reveal concealed or unknown political, social, psychological or mystical dimensions of reality - as observed in the various cycles of new waves and new cinemas across film history and geography. "World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism" is groundbreaking scholarship that surveys and defines World Cinema not as the opposite of Hollywood, but in positive terms; and draws upon the work of Badiou and Ranciere to take film theory in a bold new direction.

Two periods of Brazilian film history are particularly notable for their artistic momentum: the Cinema Novo movement of the 1960s and early '70s, and the film revival from the mid 1990s onwards. What makes them especially strong, this book argues, is their utopian impulse. By adopting Utopia as a theme, as well as a method of film analysis, Lucia Nagib unveils, organises and interprets a fascinating wealth of recurrent images, which are a bridge between a cinema strongly concerned with the national project and another informed by global culture. Outstanding recent films, such as "Central Station", "Perfumed Ball", "Hans Staden", "Orfeu", "City of God" and "The Trespasser", are illuminated by Nagib's sharp analysis, which detects utopian, anti-utopian and even dystopian impulses in them. They are at once representatives of a political arena in constant struggle against underdevelopment and legitimate (as well as critical) heirs of past cinematic traditions. Throwing new light on a large selection of Cinema Novo and contemporary films, this book thus presents a national cinema that rejects the end of history and of film history, while benefiting from, and contributing to, a new transnational aesthetics.

This innovative book is about the place of world cinema in the cultural imaginary. It also repositions world cinema in a wider discursive space than is usually the case and treats it as an object of theoretical enquiry, rather than as a commercial label. The editors and distinguished group of contributors offer a range of approaches and case studies whose organizing principle is the developing idea of polycentrism as applied to cinema. They refine and redefine key concepts in film studies, including identification and identity, narrative and realism, allegory and the national project, auteurism and the popular, art and genre. They re-evaluate how cinema shapes and responds to the philosophical, cultural and political effects of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism in the age of the moving image, and explore the interconnectedness of films produced worldwide, as well as the links between cinema and other visual cultural forms. The contributors include: John Caughie, Felicia Chan, Tiago de Luca, Rajinder Dudrah, Song Hwee Lim, Laura Mulvey, Lucia Nagib, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Chris Perriam, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Julian Smith, and Ismail Xavier.

Glauber Rocha is known as the visionary Brazilian director of landmark films, Black God, White Devil, Entranced Earth and Antonio das Mortes. Hitherto virtually unknown outside Brazil is that he was also a brilliant film critic and innovative thinker on world cinema. On Cinema brings together for the first time in the English language a comprehensive selection of Rocha's film writings, revealing for the first time to English-speaking readers the full critical power, inventiveness and vision of a great filmmaker. Rocha's writings, endowed with critical verve and humour, give insights into key moments of film history, as well as the politics of world cinema. Here he fearlessly confronts the film establishment and debates with a host of sacred filmmakers of the world pantheon. Included is Rocha's early criticism of Brazilian films, landmark manifestoes such as 'An Aesthetics of Hunger' and 'An Aesthetics of Dreams', articles about the development of Cinema Novo, and his international film criticism, including pieces on Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, James Dean, David Lean, John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini. The publication of On Cinema, edited by film scholar Ismail Xavier and in expert translation, is an international publishing event.

Andre Bazin's famous article, 'Pour un cinema impur: defense de l'adaptation', was first translated into English simply as 'In Defence of Mixed Cinema', probably to avoid any uncomfortable sexual or racial resonances the word 'impure' might have. Impure Cinema goes back to Bazin's original title precisely for its defense of impurity, applying it on the one hand to cinema's interbreeding with other arts and on the other to its ability to convey and promote cultural diversity. In contemporary progressive film criticism, ideas of purity, essence and origin have been superseded by favorable approaches to 'hybridization', 'transnationalism', 'multiculturalism' and cross-fertilizations of all sorts. Impure Cinema builds on this idea in novel and exciting ways, as it draws on cinema's combination of intermedial and intercultural aspects as a means to bridge the divide between studies of aesthetics and culture. Film is revealed here as the location par excellence of media encounters, mutual questioning and self-dissolution into post-medium experiments. Most importantly, the book argues, film's intermedial relations can only be properly understood if their cultural determinants are taken into account. Scholars and students of film, cinefiles and students of the arts will discover here unexpected connections across many artistic practices.

This innovative book is about the place of world cinema in the cultural imaginary. It also repositions world cinema in a wider discursive space than is usually the case and treats it as an object of theoretical enquiry, rather than as a commercial label. The editors and distinguished group of contributors offer a range of approaches and case studies whose organizing principle is the developing idea of polycentrism as applied to cinema. They refine and redefine key concepts in film studies, including identification and identity, narrative and realism, allegory and the national project, auteurism and the popular, art and genre. They re-evaluate how cinema shapes and responds to the philosophical, cultural and political effects of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism in the age of the moving image, and explore the interconnectedness of films produced worldwide, as well as the links between cinema and other visual cultural forms. The contributors include: John Caughie, Felicia Chan, Tiago de Luca, Rajinder Dudrah, Song Hwee Lim, Laura Mulvey, Lucia Nagib, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Chris Perriam, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Julian Smith, and Ismail Xavier.

Two periods of Brazilian film history are particularly notable for their artistic momentum: the Cinema Novo movement of the 1960s and early '70s, and the film revival from the mid 1990s onwards. What makes them especially strong, this book argues, is their utopian impulse. By adopting Utopia as a theme, as well as a method of film analysis, Lucia Nagib unveils, organises and interprets a fascinating wealth of recurrent images, which are a bridge between a cinema strongly concerned with the national project and another informed by global culture. Outstanding recent films, such as "Central Station", "Perfumed Ball", "Hans Staden", "Orfeu", "City of God" and "The Trespasser", are illuminated by Nagib's sharp analysis, which detects utopian, anti-utopian and even dystopian impulses in them. They are at once representatives of a political arena in constant struggle against underdevelopment and legitimate (as well as critical) heirs of past cinematic traditions. Throwing new light on a large selection of Cinema Novo and contemporary films, this book thus presents a national cinema that rejects the end of history and of film history, while benefiting from, and contributing to, a new transnational aesthetics.

Lucia Nagib presents a comprehensive critical survey of Brazilian film production since the mid 1990s, which has become known as the "renaissance of Brazilian cinema". Besides explaining the recent boom, this book elaborates on the new aesthetic tendencies of recent productions, as well as their relationships to earlier traditions of Brazilian cinema. Internationally acclaimed films, such as "Central Station", "Seven Days in September" and "Orpheus", are analysed alongside daringly experimental works, such as "Chronically Unfeasible", "Starry Sky" and "Perfumed Ball". Contributors include Carlos Diegues, Robert Stam, Laura Mulvey and Jose Carlos Avellar.