Nino Rota is one of the most important composers in the history of cinema. Both popular and prolific, he wrote some of the most cherished and memorable of all film music - for The Godfather Parts I and II, The Leopard, the Zeffirelli Shakespeares, nearly all of Fellini and for more than 140 popular Italian movies. Yet his music does not quite work in the way that we have come to assume music in film works: it does not seek to draw us in and identify, nor to overwhelm and excite us. In itself, in its pretty but reticent melodies, its at once comic and touching rhythms, and in its relation to what's on screen, Rota's music is close and affectionate towards characters and events but still restrained, not detached but ironically attached. In this major new study of Rota's film career, Richard Dyer gives a detailed account of Rota's aesthetic, suggesting it offers a new approach to how we understand both film music and feeling and film more broadly. He also provides a first full account in English of Rota's life and work, linking it to notions of plagiarism and pastiche, genre and convention, irony and narrative. Rota's practice is related to some of the major ways music is used in film, including the motif, musical reference, underscoring and the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic music, revealing how Rota both conforms to and undermines standard conceptions. In addition, Dyer considers the issue of gay cultural production, Rota's favourte genre, comedy, and his productive collaboration with the director Federico Fellini.

For her first solo exhibition, entitled Infra-Thin, Valerie Jolly presents a series of ethereal sculptures and photographs which, according to critic Richard Dyer, appear to be in the process of vanishing, like a lasting impression or a fading memory. Valerie Jolly casts objects in sticky wet tissue paper and when the paper dries, what she peels off carries the form and marks of the original, only it is colourless and weightless. This technique enables her to capture, almost literally in the sense of stealing, all the details, even the most minute ones, of the original object.Her tissue paper sculptures are like a trace, a vaporous evocation of the original. They strive to achieve the impossible, to inhabit the space between spaces, the infra-thin threshold between presence and absence, visible and invisible, material and immaterial, reality and memory, reality and dream."

Now You See It, Richard Dyer's groundbreaking study of films by and about lesbians and gay men, has been revised for a second edition, and features an introduction by Juliane Pidduck outlining developments in lesbian and gay cinema since 1990. Now You See It examines familiar titles such as Girls in Uniform, Un Chant D'Amour, and Word Is Out, in their lesbian / gay context as well as bringing to light many other forgotten but remarkable films. Each film is examined in detail in relation to both film type and tradition and the sexual subculture in which it was made.
Now You See It is also a case study in the dynamics of lesbian and gay cultural production. These films were formed from the filmic and sub-cultural images, assumptions and styles available to lesbians and gay men which both made the films possible and delimited the forms they could take and what they could say. They carry a special charge for lesbians and gay men seeking both to break free from and be heard in the languages of a homophobic society.

Now twenty years since its initial release, Richard Dyer's classic text White remains a groundbreaking and insightful study of the representation of whiteness in Western visual culture. White explores how, while racial representation is central to the organisation of the contemporary world, white people have remained a largely unexamined category in sharp contrast to the many studies of images of black and Asian peoples. Looking beyond the apparent unremarkability of whiteness, Dyer demonstrates the importance of analysing images of white people. Dyer places this representation within the contexts of Christianity, 'race' and colonialism. In a series of absorbing case studies, he shows the construction of whiteness in the technology of photography and film as part of a wider 'culture of light'; discusses heroic white masculinity in muscle-man action cinema, from Tarzan and Hercules to Conan and Rambo; analyses the stifling role of white women in end-of-empire fictions like Jewel in the Crown and traces the associations of whiteness with death in Falling Down, horror movies and cult dystopian films such as Blade Runner and the Aliens trilogy. This twentieth anniversary edition includes a new introductory chapter by Maxime Cervulle entitled 'Looking into the light: Whiteness, racism and regimes of representation'. This new introduction illuminates how Dyer has made a major contribution to the study of contemporary regimes of representation by unveiling the cultural mechanisms that have formed and reinforced white hegemony, mechanisms under which white people have come to represent what is ordinary, neutral, even universal.

Media matter, particularly to social minorities like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Rather than one homogenised idea of the 'global gay', what we find today is a range of historically and culturally specific expressions of gender and sexuality, which are reflected and explored across an ever increasing range of media outlets. This collection zooms in on a number of facets of this kaleidoscope, each chapter discussing the intersection of a particular European context and a particular medium with its affordances and limitations. While traditional mass media form the starting point of this book, the primary focus is on digital media such as blogs, social media and online dating sites. All contributions are based on recent, original empirical research, using a plethora of qualitative methods to offer a holistic view on the ways media matter to particular LGBTQ individuals and communities. Together the chapters cover the diversity of European countries and regions, of LGBTQ communities, and of the contemporary media ecology. Resisting the urge to extrapolate, they argue for specificity, contextualisation and a provincialized understanding of the connections between media, culture, gender and sexuality.

Media matter, particularly to social minorities like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Rather than one homogenised idea of the 'global gay', what we find today is a range of historically and culturally specific expressions of gender and sexuality, which are reflected and explored across an ever increasing range of media outlets. This collection zooms in on a number of facets of this kaleidoscope, each chapter discussing the intersection of a particular European context and a particular medium with its affordances and limitations. While traditional mass media form the starting point of this book, the primary focus is on digital media such as blogs, social media and online dating sites. All contributions are based on recent, original empirical research, using a plethora of qualitative methods to offer a holistic view on the ways media matter to particular LGBTQ individuals and communities. Together the chapters cover the diversity of European countries and regions, of LGBTQ communities, and of the contemporary media ecology. Resisting the urge to extrapolate, they argue for specificity, contextualisation and a provincialized understanding of the connections between media, culture, gender and sexuality.

Writing with his customary wit and style, Dyer argues that while pastiche can be used to describe works which contain montage or collage, it can also be used to describe works which are a kind of imitation of previous works. Because of its self-consciousness, pastiche is often seen as emotionally distancing; Dyer argues that it can in fact be extremely moving--thus self-awareness and emotion can co-exist. To illustrate his thesis, Dyer investigates a wide range of cultural texts drawn from films, videos, novels, poetry, rap tracks, music and painting. He explores issues of text, genre, and the use of pastiche as a resource within a work. The last chapter draws together the underlying concern of the book with affect and poetics and discusses the politics of pastiche.

Writing with his customary wit and style, Richard Dyer argues that while pastiche can be used to describe works which contain montage or collage, it can also be used to describe works which are a kind of imitation of previous works.

Investigating a wide range of cultural texts drawn from films, videos, novels, poetry, rap tracks, music and painting, Richard Dyer explores issues of text, genre, and the use of pastiche as a resource within a work. The final chapter draws together the underlying concern of the book with affect and poetics and discusses the politics of pastiche.

Richard Dyer's classic study of movie stars and stardom has been updated for a second edition, with a new introduction by the author discussing the rise of celebrity culture and developments in the study of stars.
Dyer's illuminating study is based around case studies of three major stars: Marilyn Monroe, Paul Robeson and Judy Garland. He draws on a wide range of sources, including the films in which each star appeared, to illustrate how each star's persona was constructed, and goes on to examine each within the context of particular issues in fan culture and stardom. Dyer discusses Marilyn Monroe in the context of ideas about sexuality in the 1950s and her perceived status as a victim of patriarchy, Robeson in terms of black identity and the ways in which he used his star status to further socialist and anti-racist causes, and Garland in light of her special place in gay male culture.

This revised second edition of "The Matter of Images" searches through the resonances of the term "representation", analysing images in terms of why they matter, what they are made of and the material realities they refer to. Richard Dyer's analyses consider representations of "out" groups and traditionally dominant groups alike, and encompass the eclectic texts of contemporary culture, from royalty to serial killers, political correctnesss, representations of Empire and films such as "Gilda", "Papillon" and "The Night of the Living Dead".;Essays new to the second edition discuss Lillian Gish as the ultimate white movie star, the representation of whiteness in the south in "Birth of a Nation", and society's fascination with serial killers.

Contents:
1. Introduction 2. The Idea of Entertainment 3. A Bit of Uplift: Classical Ballet 4. Quality Pleasures 5. Entertainment and Utopia 6. The Colour of Entertainment 7. The Sound of Music 8. Sweet Charity 9. Action! 11. Lethal Repetition 12. First a Star: Elizabeth Taylor 13. The Son of the Sheik 14. Don't Look Now: the Instabilities of the Male Pin-Up 15. Coming to Terms: Gay Pornography 16. In Defence of Disco 17. Getting Over the Rainbow: Identity and Pleasure in Gay Cultural Politics 18. The Waning of Entertainment

Only Entertainment explores entertainment as entertainment, asking how and whether an emphasis on the primacy of pleasure sets it apart from other forms of art.L Richard Dyer focuses on the genres most associated with entertainment, from musicals to action movies, disco to porn. He examines the nature of entertainment in movies such as The Sound of Music and Speed, and argues that entertainment is part of a 'common sense' which is always historically and culturally constructed.L This new edition of Only Entertainment features a revised introduction and five new chapters on topics from serial killer movies to Elizabeth Taylor. In the final chapter Dyer asks whether entertainment as we know it is on the wane.

For around a hundred years up to the Stonewall riots, the word for gay men was 'queers'. From screaming queens to sensative vampires and sad young men, and from pulp novels to pornography to the films of Fassbinder, The Culture of Queers explores the histosy of queer arts and media.
Richard Dyer traces the contours of queer culture, examining the differences and contiunities with the gay culture which succeeded it. Opening with a discussion of the very concept of 'queers', he asks what it means to speak of a sexual grouping having a culture and addresses issues such as gay attitudes to women and the notion of camp.
Dyer explores a range of queer-made culture, from key topics such as fashion and vampires to genres like film noir and the heritage film, and stars such as Charles Hawtrey (outrageous star of Carry On films) and Rock Hudson. Offering a grounded historical approach to the cultural implication of queerness, The Culture of Queers both insists on the cultural consequences of the oppression of homosexual men and offers a celebration of queer resistance.

For around a hundred years up to the Stonewall riots, the word for gay men was 'queers'. From screaming queens to sensative vampires and sad young men, and from pulp novels to pornography to the films of Fassbinder, The Culture of Queers explores the histosy of queer arts and media.
Richard Dyer traces the contours of queer culture, examining the differences and contiunities with the gay culture which succeeded it. Opening with a discussion of the very concept of 'queers', he asks what it means to speak of a sexual grouping having a culture and addresses issues such as gay attitudes to women and the notion of camp.
Dyer explores a range of queer-made culture, from key topics such as fashion and vampires to genres like film noir and the heritage film, and stars such as Charles Hawtrey (outrageous star of Carry On films) and Rock Hudson. Offering a grounded historical approach to the cultural implication of queerness, The Culture of Queers both insists on the cultural consequences of the oppression of homosexual men and offers a celebration of queer resistance.

Popular European Cinema examines the reasons why films that are most popular with audiences in any one European countha are seldom successful eslewhere. Audiences themselves represent diverse class, gender and ethnic identities that complicate th equestoin of national cinema, not least with recent developments in formerly communist Eastern Europe and post-colonialist Western Europe. THrough their individual studies, the contribuitots ehr oven up a new area of study, using the medium of film to fucus a wider discussion of popular European culture.

While popular European cinema is strongly linked with the dominant American version of popular film, it cannot be read simply as Hollywood in foreign dress. The styles, stars and genres of popular European cinema - Swedish melodramas, Italian horror movies, French musicals - all have their own conventions, superfically similar to Hollywood and yet certainly distinct from it. The popular cinema of Europe has been surprisingly little studied as both art and social document. "Popular European Cinema" seeks to fill this gap and to illuminate two compelling contemporary issues: the nature of the "popular" and the "new Europe". The book examines the reasons why films that are most popular with audiences in any one European country are seldom successful elsewhere. Audiences themselves represent diverse class, gender and ethnic identities that complicate the question of national cinema, not least with recent developments in formerly communist Eastern Europe and post-colonialist Western Europe. This book should be of interest to undergraduates in film and cultural studies courses.

Fellini's La dolce vita has been a phenomenon since before it was made, a scandal in the making and on release in 1960 and a reference point ever since. Much of what made it notorious was its incorporation of real people, events and lifestyles, making it a documentation of its time. It uses performance, camera movement, editing and music to produce a striking aesthetic mix of energy and listlessness, of exuberance and despair. Richard Dyer's study considers each of these aspects of the film - phenomenon, document, aesthetic - and argues that they are connected. Beginning with the inspirations and ideas that were subsequently turned into La dolce vita, Dyer then explores the making of the film, the film itself and finally its critical reception, providing engaging new insights into this mesmerising piece of cinema.

Now published in a revised second edition, The Matter of Images searches through the resonances of the term 'representation', analysing images in terms of why they matter, what they are made of and the material realities they refer to. Richard Dyer's analyses consider representations of 'out' groups and traditionally dominant groups alike, and encompass the eclectic texts of contemporary culture, from royalty to serial killers, political correctnesss, representations of Empire and films such as Gilda, Papillon and The Night of the Living Dead. Essays new to the second edition discuss Lillian Gish as the ultimate white movie star, the representation of whiteness in the south in Birth of a Nation, and society's fascination with serial killers.
The Matter of Images is distinctive in its commitment to writing politically about contemporary culture, while insisting on the importance of understanding the formal qualities and complexity of the images it investigates.

Now twenty years since its initial release, Richard Dyer's classic text White remains a groundbreaking and insightful study of the representation of whiteness in Western visual culture. White explores how, while racial representation is central to the organisation of the contemporary world, white people have remained a largely unexamined category in sharp contrast to the many studies of images of black and Asian peoples. Looking beyond the apparent unremarkability of whiteness, Dyer demonstrates the importance of analysing images of white people. Dyer places this representation within the contexts of Christianity, 'race' and colonialism. In a series of absorbing case studies, he shows the construction of whiteness in the technology of photography and film as part of a wider 'culture of light'; discusses heroic white masculinity in muscle-man action cinema, from Tarzan and Hercules to Conan and Rambo; analyses the stifling role of white women in end-of-empire fictions like Jewel in the Crown and traces the associations of whiteness with death in Falling Down, horror movies and cult dystopian films such as Blade Runner and the Aliens trilogy. This twentieth anniversary edition includes a new introductory chapter by Maxime Cervulle entitled 'Looking into the light: Whiteness, racism and regimes of representation'. This new introduction illuminates how Dyer has made a major contribution to the study of contemporary regimes of representation by unveiling the cultural mechanisms that have formed and reinforced white hegemony, mechanisms under which white people have come to represent what is ordinary, neutral, even universal.

Richard Dyer's classic study of movie stars and stardom has been updated for a second edition, with a new introduction by the author discussing the rise of celebrity culture and developments in the study of stars since publication of the first edition in 1986.

Dyer's illuminating study is based around case studies of three major stars: Marilyn Monroe, Paul Robeson and Judy Garland. He draws on a wide range of sources, including the films in which each star appeared, to illustrate how each star's persona was constructed, and goes on to examine each within the context of particular issues in fan culture and stardom. Dyer discusses Marilyn Monroe in the context of ideas about sexuality in the 1950s and her perceived status as a victim of patriarchy, Robeson in terms of black identity and the ways in which he used his star status to further socialist and anti-racist causes, and Garland in light of her special place in gay male culture.

Brief Encounter (1945), adapted from Noel Coward's play Still Life, is a classic of British cinema - a tale of impossible love between a married woman and a man she meets while waiting for a train. Though it's a film made by men, it is the woman's voice we hear recounting the story of a small-town love affair and her renunciation of it. In his lucid analysis of the film, Richard Dyer explores how its depiction of powerful feelings kept under wraps is a definitive example of a particularly English style of emotional restraint, but also how it spoke to a gay audience for whom this subject - forbidden love between ordinary people - had a special resonance. This reissued edition features original cover artwork by Rania Moudaress and a substantial new foreword that revisits the film and recent readings of it, covering its enduring legacy and adaptation for theatre and television.

Richard Dyer's In the Space of a Song takes an in-depth look at the use of songs in film. Songs take up space and time in film and the way they do so indicates a great deal about the songs themselves, the nature of the feelings they present, and who is allowed to present feelings how, when and where. In the Space of a Song explores this perception through a range of examples, from classic MGM musicals to blaxploitation cinema, with the career of Lena Horne providing a turning point in the cultural dynamics of the feeling. Chapters include: The Perfection of Meet Me in St. Louis A Star Is Born and the Construction of Authenticity 'I Seem to Find the Happiness I Seek': Heterosexuality and Dance in the Musical The Space of Happiness in the Musical Singing Prettily: Lena Horne in Hollywood Is Car Wash a Musical? Music and Presence in Blaxploitation Cinema In the Space of a Song is ideal for both scholars and students of film studies.