Exiled and hunted, Cerulia, Princess of Weirandale, knows she has one destiny. Her enemies failed to kill her, and no one harboring her is safe. Raised in obscurity, she has no resources, no army, nothing that can help her against her enemies. Except their gods.

The soliders of Oromondo have invaded the Free States, leaving a wake of misery and death. Thalen, a young scholar, survives and gathers a small cadre of guerilla fighters for a one-way mission into the heart of an enemy land. Unconsciously guided by the elemental Spirits of Ennea Mon, Cerulia is drawn to the Land of the Fire Mountains to join Thelan's Raiders, where she will learn the price of war.

An Introduction to Film Genres, written by leading film scholars specifically for undergraduates who are new to the study of film, provides an introduction that helps students see thirteen film genres in a new light---to help them identify the themes, iconography, and distinctive stylistic traits of each genre.

How can it be that more people aren't talking about, studying and revering Preston Sturges, the first person to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, who wrote and directed some of the most bizarre, controversial and hilarious comedies of the 1940s? An influence on filmmakers ranging from Orson Welles to the Coen brothers, Preston Sturges may be the most talented Hollywood filmmaker who has yet to receive the critical recognition he deserves. The Films of Preston Sturges, first book in the ReFocus series, provides this recognition with essays by world-famous scholars that chart Sturges' contributions to Hollywood cinema, pivotal status as an early writer-director, inimitable style and ongoing influence.

"Let me tell you a story," each film seems to offer silently as its opening frames hit the screen. But sometimes the film finds a voice--an off-screen narrator--for all or part of the story. From "Wuthering Heights" and "Double Indemnity" to "Annie Hall" and "Platoon," voice-over narration has been an integral part of American movies.
Through examples from films such as "How Green Was My Valley," "All About Eve," "The Naked City," and "Barry Lyndon," Sarah Kozloff examines and analyzes voice-over narration. She refutes the assumptions that words should only play a minimal role in film, that "showing" is superior to "telling," or that the technique is inescapably authoritarian (the "voice of god"). She questions the common conception that voice-over is a literary technique by tracing its origins in the silent era and by highlighting the influence of radio, documentaries, and television. She explores how first-person or third-person narration really affects a film, in terms of genre conventions, viewer identification, time and nostalgia, subjectivity, and reliability. In conclusion she argues that voice-over increases film's potential for intimacy and sophisticated irony.

Since the birth of cinema, film has been lauded as a visual rather than a verbal medium; this sentiment was epitomized by John Ford's assertion in 1964 that, "When a motion picture is at its best, it is long on action and short on dialogue." Little serious work has been done on the subject of film dialogue, yet what characters say and how they say it has been crucial to our experience and understanding of every film since the coming of sound. Through informative discussions of dozens of classic and contemporary films--from "Bringing Up Baby" to "Terms of Endearment, " from "Stagecoach" to "Reservoir Dogs"--this lively book provides the first full-length study of the use of dialogue in American film.

Sarah Kozloff shows why dialogue has been neglected in the analysis of narrative film and uncovers the essential contributions dialogue makes to a film's development and impact. She uses narrative theory and drama theory to analyze the functions that dialogue typically serves in a film.
The second part of the book is a comprehensive discussion of the role and nature of dialogue in four film genres: westerns, screwball comedies, gangster films, and melodramas. Focusing on topics such as class and ethnic dialects, censorship, and the effect of dramatic irony, Kozloff provides an illuminating new perspective on film genres.