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Exile is the dominant theme of our times. It can be found in the
forced migration of populations but also in the temporal, cultural
and physical alienation of the individual's experiences of the
postmodern world. This is a world of unstable, shifting identities
dominated, and perhaps most acutely expressed by, the fluidity of
the visual image. The essays in this volume examine issues such as
remembering and forgetting trauma and nostalgia, time and space,
social and sexual exclusion in relation to visual media and new
technologies, cinema and the visual arts. The multi-facetted and
interdisciplinary exploration of exile and displacement - whether
geographical, temporal, corporeal or performative - provides an
important analysis of a significant and fascinating aspect of
contemporary culture.
Terence Davies has made some of the most innovative, harrowing, and
hauntingly lyrical films of the contemporary era. This is the first
ever book-length study of his work, combining detailed analysis of
all his films with a persuasive and stimulating investigation of
key filmic issues of time and memory, identity and selfhood, and
the nature of literary adaptation, as well as a previously
unpublished interview with Davies himself. The book demonstrates
that Davies's films successfully subvert traditional division
between 'popular' culture and 'art-house' cinema. Gardner explores
not only Davies's debt to social realism, the British Documentary
movement, and Ealing comedies, but equally to the European auteur
tradition and to the great Hollywood musicals and melodramas that
continue to inspire him. It provides fresh insight into the
centrality of music in Davies's work, and into his conviction that
film itself is closer to music than to any other art form. -- .
Italian cinema currently finds itself in a transitional phase after
a highly successful period in which it was associated with the work
of directors such as Rossellini, Visconti, Fellini, and Pasolini,
and with innovative styles of film-making, principally neorealism.
This book explores the evolution of Italian cinema over the last
twenty years, with particular reference to modern masterpieces such
as Tornatore's Oscar-winning Nuovo Cinema Paradiso. The volume
focuses on the work of some of the most prominent directors of
recent times, combining an auteurist perspective with an incisive
overview of the most important thematic and stylistic developments
in modern Italian film-making. A broad range of theoretical
approaches has been selected, embracing cognitive, aesthetic,
psychoanalytical, and sociological perspectives. This approach has
been adopted with a view to providing the most illuminating
analyses of the radically diverse work of different directors,
rather than attempting to impose a single critical perspective or
theme upon films that range from social realism to horror.
Significantly, these different approaches are complemented by
detailed discussions of the technical arrangements of given film
sequences, since another of the volume's aims is to encourage a
greater familiarity with the effects of mise-en-scene, montage,
sound, and camera movement.
The role of space and place in the creation of visual narratives
constitutes one of the most dynamic and exciting debates in
contemporary film studies. How does film construct space? What are
the spatial codes and strategies that it uses? What is the
relationship between space and time in film? How do spatial
constructs enable us to understand new concepts of identity and the
politics and geographies of exile and displacement? Such questions,
whose importance to contemporary film and culture is fundamental,
are explored in wide-ranging, challenging essays that re-evaluate
and extend recent theoretical debate in relation to the regional
and national cinemas of Europe. Alongside critical essays by
scholars of international repute the book contains original
contributions by practising film directors Characterised by its
interdisciplinary, cross-national focus, it is thematically
structured to provide an insight into smaller and less
well-explored cinemas as well as those of Britain, France, Germany,
Italy, Russia and Spain. Authoritative, lively, and jargon-free,
these essays provide the reader with a clear understanding of the
significance of space and place, and a fresh perspective on the
fascinating diversity of European cinema.
The identity of European cinema, like the identity of Europe
itself, is multiple, complex, and fascinating. Providing both a
general survey of contemporary European cinema production,
distribution and exhibition and detailed critical analysis of
specific films, directors, and national cinemas, this volume offers
a stimulating and thought-provoking contribution to current film
debate.
While the book's critical essays offer keen insight into the
complex identities of European cinema, its combination of breadth
and detail, and its interdisciplinary focus and background ensure
its wider relevance to anyone interested in questions of
contemporary culture and European affairs in general. Its stylistic
clarity and freedom from jargon make it readable and accessible.
The essays have been written by respected academics working in a
number of disciplines including Film and Media Studies, Modern
Languages, and Cultural Studies.
Topics include questions of memory and identity; filmic
autobiography and first-person narration; cultural identity;
peripheral voices; popular film and political film. Individual
directors, and different national cinemas, including those of
France, Germany, Northern Ireland, Russia, Scotland and Spain, are
viewed in a wider pan- European context.
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