Film history, theory or criticism Books

Book SynopsisOrganised as a chronological industrial history, this book examines how and why makeup and hairdressing evolved as crafts designed partly to maintain the white flawlessness of men and women as a value in the studio era.Trade Review“McLean combines extensive research, keen insight, detailed analysis of stars and films, and an enjoyable way with words to give readers an important overview of the history, politics, and aesthetics of 'beauty makeup' during the glory days of Hollywood cinema. I devoured it, and so will you.”— Sean Griffin, editor of What Dreams Were Made Of: Movie Stars of the 1940s "Adrienne McLean’s engaging All for Beauty gives us a peek under the powder, lipstick, beard, and toupee, to examine the craft and labor politics of makeup and hairdressing in the studio era. This impeccably researched and argued book is a must read for anyone interested in the Hollywood studio system, film acting, stardom, or beauty culture!"— Mary Desjardins, author of Recycled Stars: Female Film Stardom in the Age of Television and Video "All for Beauty reveals a treasure trove of research in this absorbing history of how beauty makeup and hairdressing became essential to Hollywood filmmaking and its construction of stardom. Adrienne McLean's tangible passion for her project makes this a gift to Hollywood historians."— Karen McNally, author of The Stardom Film: Creating the Hollywood Fairy TaleTable of ContentsIntroduction: Art and Science in the Service of Loveliness 1. Makeup and Hairdressing as Studio Crafts: The Silent Period 2. The Classical Period: Craft Identity and the Labor Force 3. The Classical Period: Department Practices and the Commerce of Expertise 4. Cosmetics, Coiffures, and Characterization Epilogue: Trophy Faces Appendix Acknowledgments Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first transnational history of cinema's role in decolonization.Using popular cinema from the United States, Britain, and France, Empire Films and the Crisis of Colonialism, 19461959, examines postwar Western attitudes toward colonialism and race relations. Historians have written much about the high politics of decolonization but little about what ordinary citizens thought about losing their empires. Popular cinema provided the main source of images of the colonies, and, according to Jon Cowans in this far-reaching book, films depicting the excesses of empire helped Westerners come to terms with decolonization and even promoted the dismantling of colonialism around the globe.Examining more than one hundred British, French, and American films from the postWorld War II era, Cowans concentrates on movies that depict interactions between white colonizers and nonwhite colonial subjects, including sexual and romantic relations. Although certain conseTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I The Persistence of Empire1. The White Woman's Burden2. Heroes of Empire3. WesternsPart II Coming to Terms4. The British Empire and Decolonization5. The French Empire and Decolonization6. American in Postwar AsiaPart III Dangerous Liaisons7. Miscegnation in Westerns8. Romance across the Pacific9. Black-White Couples and Internal DecolonizationConclusionAppendix AAppendix BNotesIndex

Read more less

Book Synopsis2023 Wall Award Finalist, Theatre Library AssociationHow a Hollywood gem transformed the national discourse on post-traumatic stress disorder.Released in 1946, The Best Years of Our Lives became an immediate success. Life magazine called it the first big, good movie of the post-war era to tackle the veterans problem. Today we call that problem PTSD, but in the initial aftermath of World War II, the modern language of war trauma did not exist. The film earned the producer Samuel Goldwyn his only Best Picture Academy Award. It offered the injured director, William Wyler, a triumphant postwar return to Hollywood. And for Harold Russell, a double amputee who costarred with Fredric March and Dana Andrews, the film provided a surprising second act.Award-winning author Alison Macor illuminates the film's journey from script to screen and describes how this authentic motion picture moved audiences worldwide. General Omar Bradley believed The Best Y

Read more less

Book SynopsisAction movie stars ranging from Jackie Chan to lesser-known stunt women and men like Zoë Bell and Chad Stahelski stun their audiences with virtuosic martial arts displays, physical prowess, and complex fight sequences. Their performance styles originate from action movies that emerged in the industrial environment of 1980s Hong Kong. In Experts in Action Lauren Steimer examines how Hong Kong--influenced cinema aesthetics and stunt techniques have been taken up, imitated, and reinvented in other locations and production contexts in Hollywood, New Zealand, and Thailand. Foregrounding the transnational circulation of Hong Kong--influenced films, television shows, stars, choreographers, and stunt workers, she shows how stunt workers like Chan, Bell, and others combine techniques from martial arts, dance, Peking opera, and the history of movie and television stunting practices to create embodied performances that are both spectacular and, sometimes, rendered invisible. By descriTrade Review“Experts in Action is a rich, painstakingly researched work on the evolutions of global stunt acting as a mode of performance. It beautifully shifts conversations about expertise into the realms of fandom, without relinquishing the rigor of its mixed methods engaging production history, performance studies, and transnational media theory. There's nothing at all like it in other accounts of Hong Kong cinema, and its consideration of the craft of stunt techniques is matched by the craft and meticulousness of Lauren Steimer's prose.” -- Karen Tongson, author of * Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries *“With high ambition and conceptual creativity, Experts in Action is the first book on stunt work that takes its topic from the specialist margins of cinema and media studies and lobs it right at the heart of broad critical debate about transnationalism in culture. A breakthrough achievement.” -- Meaghan Morris, author of * Identity Anecdotes: Translation and Media Culture *"Students and scholars of Hong Kong cinema, global media, performance, and industry studies will find much of value in Experts in Action. As a behind-the-scenes look into the specialized labor of contemporary stunts and physical performance, Steimer’s book offers a fascinating glimpse into how the human spectacle of modern action cinema straddles both cutting-edge motion capture technologies and low-tech paraphernalia such as cardboard boxes to break falls." -- Karen Fang * Journal of Cinema and Media Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Experts in Action 1 1. Risky Business: Financial and Physical Risk in the Action Stardom of Jackie Chan 23 2. Hong Kong Action Cinema as a Mode in Thai Action Stardom: Tony Jaa and the New Stunting Star Model 56 3. A Hong Kong Reservoir for Xena: Communicative Translation and the Bodily Disposition of Stunting Star Zoë Bell 86 4. Hong Kong Action in Transit: The Postmillennial Stunt Craftwork of Chad Stahelski and Dayna Grant 121 Conclusion. Novice and Expert Performance—a Call to Action 162 Notes 175 Bibliography 199 Index 215

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn How Do We Look? Fatimah Tobing Rony draws on transnational images of Indonesian women as a way to theorize what she calls visual biopolitics—the ways visual representation determines which lives are made to matter more than others. Rony outlines the mechanisms of visual biopolitics by examining Paul Gauguin’s 1893 portrait of Annah la Javanaise—a trafficked thirteen-year-old girl found wandering the streets of Paris—as well as US ethnographic and documentary films. In each instance, the figure of the Indonesian woman is inextricably tied to discourses of primitivism, savagery, colonialism, exoticism, and genocide. Rony also focuses on acts of resistance to visual biopolitics in film, writing, and photography. These works, such as Rachmi Diyah Larasati’s The Dance that Makes You Vanish, Vincent Monnikendam’s Mother Dao (1995), and the collaborative films of Nia Dinata, challenge the naturalized methods of seeing that justify exTrade Review“Fatimah Tobing Rony's passionate appeal for a different kind of filmmaking that might interrupt the representational violence of what she calls visual biopolitics animates every page of this innovative and important book. Building a powerful argument about how habitual ways of seeing and not seeing are produced, reproduced, and resisted via visual media, Rony makes a welcome and original contribution to both film studies and Southeast Asian studies.” -- Karen Strassler, author of * Demanding Images: Democracy, Mediation, and the Image-Event in Indonesia *“Fatimah Tobing Rony traces a fascinating visual archive across time, media, and sites of power, drawing out chilling resonances among primary media texts with great erudition, critical force, and lyricism. No other author is a sophisticated art historian, critical ethnographer, postcolonial feminist theorist, and filmmaker all in one. This powerful and remarkable book positions Rony as a brilliant and essential cultural voice.” -- Patricia White, author of * Women’s Cinema, World Cinema: Projecting Contemporary Feminisms *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ixTongue 1 Introduction. How Do We Look? 3The Peonies 24 1. Annah la Javanaise 27Under the Tree 70 2. The Still Dancer 72The Dressing Down 108 3. Mother Dao 110Flight 147 4. Nia Dinata 148 Conclusion. The Fourth Eye 187 Notes 191 Bibliography 213 Index 225

Read more less

Book SynopsisJennifer DeClue examines Black feminist avant-garde films from filmmakers including Kara Walker, Tourmaline, and Ja'Tovia Gary that visualize violence suffered by Black women in the United States.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction. Visitation 1 1. The Archive and the Silhouette: Framing Black Feminist Avant-Garde Cinema 29 2. Reckoning at the Bridge: Saved and the Archive of Laura Nelson 65 3. Carrying the Knowledge / Performing the Archive: An Afternoon with Marsha P. Johnson 99 4. Ecstasy and the Archive: A Black Feminist Phenomenology of Freedom 143 Coda. On Tenderness 183 Notes 187 Bibliography 211 Index 221

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis special issue recognizes the work and legacy of Agnès Varda (19282019), a Belgian-born film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist whose work was part of the French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the wake of Varda's passing in March 2019, contributors offer reflections on the continued relevance of her work.Until the end of her life, Varda was engaged with feminism, ethics, politics, and the representation of women in the film industry. Rather than focusing on Varda's most famous films, the contributors to this issue consider aspects of her oeuvre that have contemporary relevance and those that point to the future: films, art installations, and photographs that have received less scholarly attention; her political activism; her role as manager of her own production company; and her Instagram presence. By emphasizing these often-overlooked elements of Varda's creative output, the contributors reveal the depth of her artistic legacy and demonstrate how v

Read more less

Book SynopsisChronicling sixteenth-century Spain to the present day, Beyond Human aims to decentre the human and acknowledge the material historicity of more-than-human nature. The book explores key questions relating to ecological equity, justice, and responsibility within and beyond Spain in the Anthropocene. Examining relations between Iberian cultural practices, historical developments, and ecological processes, Maryanne L. Leone, Shanna Lino, and the contributors to this volume reveal the structures that uphold and dismantle the non-humanhuman dichotomy and nature-culture divide. The book critiques works from the Golden Age to the twenty-first century in a wide range of genres, including comedia, royal treatises, agricultural reports, paintings, satirical essays, horror fiction and film, young adult and speculative literature, poetry, graphic novels, and television series. The authors contend that Spanish cultural studies must expose the material historicity thTable of ContentsList of Map and Illustrations Foreword Luis I. Prádanos Acknowledgments Introduction: Historicizing the Ecocrisis: Beyond-Human Experiences in Spanish Natureculture Maryanne L. Leone and Shanna Lino Part One: Tracing Environmental Culture in Spain 1. Lope’s Los guanches de Tenerife y conquista de Gran Canaria: An Ecolonialist Reading Bonnie L. Gasior 2. Birdsong and the Earth’s Polyrhythm: The Life of a Caged Blue Rock Thrush in Early Modern Spain John Beusterien 3. Water Grabbing and the Dammed Esla: The Enchanted Waters of Jorge de Montemayor and the Riaño Reservoir Margaret Marek 4. Of Witches and Land Reform in Enlightenment Spain Daniel Frost 5. Plant, Animal, and Human Consciousness in Julio Llamazares’s Luna de lobos Olga Colbert Part Two: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene 6. Leonardo Torres Quevedo’s Automata and the Consolidation of Technological Regenerationism Óscar Iván Useche 7. The Specter of Capitalism: Reading the Anthropocene in Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s Cañas y barro Michael L. Martínez, Jr. 8. Jesús Carrasco’s Intemperie: The Literature of Post-Immunological Modernity William Viestenz 9. Transhumanism and Necropolitics in Rosa Montero’s Times of Hatred Juan Carlos Martín Galván 10. The Salvage Poetics of Ben Clark’s Basura Micah McKay Part Three: Disruptive Agentic Paradigms 11. Ecofeminist Materialism and Entanglements of Care in Sara Mesa’s Un incendio invisible Maryanne L. Leone 12. Trans-Corporeal Matter Narratives in Hierro Ma Luz González-Rodríguez and Ma Concepción Brito-Vera 13. ¡El toro no entiende de toreo!: Taurine Naturecultures, Wenceslao Fernández Flórez’s Antitaurine Essays, and the Emergence of Posthumanist Views of Animals in Spain Daniel Ares-López 14. Ecohorror as Critique of Anthropogenic (Self-)Destruction in Sánchez Piñol’s Cold Skin Shanna Lino Part Four: Medium as Activism Igniter 15. Monstrous Humanity: An Ecopostcolonial Reading of Laura Gallego García’s Trilogy Guardianes de la Ciudadela Victoria L. Ketz 16. La cuenta atrás: An Ecodystopian Graphic Novel on Spain’s Greatest Ecological Disaster Carla Almanza-Gálvez 17. Drawing Ecological Thought: Anthropomorphism and Satire as Critique of Capitalism in the Twenty-First-Century Spanish Comic Christine M. Martínez List of Contributors Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe School Story: Young Adult Narratives in the Age of Neoliberalism examines the work of contemporary writers, filmmakers, and critics who, reflecting on the realm of school experience, help to shape dominant ideas of school. The creations discussed are mostly stories for children and young adults. David Aitchison looks at serious novels for teens including Laurie Halse Anderson''s Speak and Faiza Guène''s Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow, the light-hearted, middle-grade fiction of Andrew Clements and Tommy Greenwald, and Malala Yousafzai''s autobiography for young readers, I Am Malala. He also responds to stories that take young people as their primary subjects in such novels as Sapphire''s Push and films including Battle Royale and Cooties. Though ranging widely in their accounts of young life, such stories betray a mounting sense of crisis in education around the world, especially in terms of equity (the extent to which students from diverse bac

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn exploration of how film has made legible the Italian long ’68 as a moment of crisis and transitionTraditionally, the definition of political cinema assumes a relationship between cinema and politics. In contrast to this view, author Mauro Resmini sees this relationship as an impasse. To illustrate this theory, Resmini turns to Italian cinema to explore how films have reinvented the link between popular art and radical politics in Italy from 1968 to the early 1980s, a period of intense political and cultural struggles also known as the long ’68.Italian Political Cinema conjures a multifaceted, complex portrayal of Italian society. Centered on emblematic figures in Italian cinema, it maps the currents of antagonism and repression that defined this period in the country’s history. Resmini explores how film imagined the possibilities, obstacles, and pitfalls that characterized the Italian long ’68 as a moment of crisis and transition. From workerism to autonomist Marxism to feminism, this book further expands the debate on political cinema with a critical interpretation of influential texts, some of which are currently only available in Italian.A comprehensive and novel redefinition of political film, Italian Political Cinema introduces its audience to lesser-known directors alongside greats such as Pasolini, Bertolucci, Antonioni, and Bellocchio. Resmini offers access to untranslated work in Italian philosophy, political theory, and film theory, and forcefully advocates for the continued artistic and political relevance of these films in our time.Trade Review "Mauro Resmini’s Italian Political Cinema is a powerful and original reimagining of the question of the political in Italian cinema. Bracingly theorized and enriched by a fine handling of form and historical context, Resmini’s book heralds a new era in Italian film studies while making an important contribution to the theorization of cinema’s political possibilities."—John David Rhodes, author of Spectacle of Property: The House in American Film "By being courageous enough to embrace unresolved tensions, Resmini constructs one of the most exciting explorations of political cinema to date, one sure to have encouraging effects for film analysis, political struggle, and knowledge production at large."—Film Quarterly

Read more less

Book SynopsisA formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its global reach raises a perplexing question—what happens when anime is produced outside of Japan? Who actually makes anime, and how can this help us rethink notions of cultural production? In Anime’s Identity, Stevie Suan examines how anime’s recognizable media-form—no matter where it is produced—reflects the problematics of globalization. The result is an incisive look at not only anime but also the tensions of transnationality.Far from valorizing the individualistic “originality” so often touted in national creative industries, anime reveals an alternate type of creativity based in repetition and variation. In exploring this alternative creativity and its accompanying aesthetics, Suan examines anime from fresh angles, including considerations of how anime operates like a brand of media, the intricacies of anime production occurring across national borders, inquiries into the selfhood involved in anime’s character acting, and analyses of various anime works that present differing modes of transnationality. Anime’s Identity deftly merges theories from media studies and performance studies, introducing innovative formal concepts that connect anime to questions of dislocation on a global scale, creating a transformative new lens for analyzing popular media.Trade Review "Stevie Suan utterly transforms our understanding of anime. Using media theory to expand the formal analysis of anime conventions, while calling on a transnational framework to avoid a simplistic opposition between local and global, he not only provides incisive readings of key anime series, but also lays out a powerful and much-needed methodology for thinking anime in the world."—Thomas Lamarre, author of The Anime Ecology: A Genealogy of Television, Animation, and Game Media "Focusing on formalism and performance studies in particular, rather than taking a phenomenological or sociological approach, Stevie Suan proposes a radical alternative for engaging with anime studies."—Daisuke Miyao, author of Japonisme and the Birth of Cinema "Anime's Identity provides a multilayered overview of cultural debates on anime for an English-reading audience."—The Journal of Asian Studies Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Anime’s Performance of Identity1. Anime’s Local–Global Tensions2. Anime’s Dispersed Production3. Anime’s Media Heterotopia4. Anime’s Citationality5. Anime’s Creativity6. Anime’s Actors7. Anime’s (Anti)Individualism8. Anime’s DislocationConclusion: Anime’s WorldAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisA cultural history of the enduring relationship between film spectatorship and intoxicating substances Movies under the Influence charts the entangled histories of moviegoing and mind-altering substances from early cinema through the psychedelic 1970s. Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece examines how the parallel trajectories of these two enduring aspects of American culture, linked by their ability to influence individual and collective consciousness, resulted in them being treated and regulated in similar ways. Rather than looking at representations of drug use within film, she regards cinema and intoxicants as kindred experiences of immersion that have been subject to corresponding forces of ideology and power. Exploring the effects of intoxicants such as caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, and psychedelics on film spectatorship, Szczepaniak-Gillece demonstrates how American movie theaters sought to cultivate a dual identity, presenting themselves as both a place of wholesome entert

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn exploration of the fundamental bond between cinema and the cosmos The advent of cinema occurred alongside pivotal developments in astronomy and astrophysics, including Albert Einstein's theories of relativity, all of which dramatically altered our conception of time and provided new means of envisioning the limits of our world. Tracing the many aesthetic, philosophical, and technological parallels between these fields, Stardust explores how cinema has routinely looked toward the cosmos to reflect our collective anxiety about a universe without us. Employing a cosmocinematic gaze, Hannah Goodwin uses the metaphorical frameworks from astronomy to posit new understandings of cinematic time and underscore the role of light in generating archives for an uncertain future. Surveying a broad range of works, including silent-era educational films, avant-garde experimental works, and contemporary blockbusters, she carves out a distinctive area of film analysis that extends its reach far

Read more less

Book SynopsisBarbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) rose from the ranks of chorus girl to become one of Hollywood's most talented leading women-and America's highest paid woman in the mid-1940s. Shuttled among foster homes as a child, she took a number of low-wage jobs while she determinedly made the connections that landed her in successful Broadway productions. Stanwyck then acted in a stream of high-quality films from the 1930s through the 1950s. Directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra treasured her particular magic. A four-time Academy Award nominee, winner of three Emmys and a Golden Globe, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy.Dan Callahan considers both Stanwyck's life and her art, exploring her seminal collaborations with Capra in such great films as Ladies of Leisure, The Miracle Woman, and The Bitter Tea of General Yen; her Pre-Code movies Night Nurse and Baby Face; and her classic roles in Stella Dallas, Remember the Night, The Lady Eve, and Double Indemnity. After making more than eighty films in Hollywood, she revived her career by turning to television, where her role in the 1960s series The Big Valley renewed her immense popularity.Callahan examines Stanwyck's career in relation to the directors she worked with and the genres she worked in, leading up to her late-career triumphs in two films directed by Douglas Sirk, All I Desire and There's Always Tomorrow, and two outrageous westerns, The Furies and Forty Guns. The book positions Stanwyck where she belongs-at the very top of her profession-and offers a close, sympathetic reading of her performances in all their range and complexity.

Read more less

Book SynopsisBollywood’s New Woman examines Bollywood’s construction and presentation of the Indian Woman since the 1990s. The groundbreaking collection illuminates the contexts and contours of this contemporary figure that has been identified in sociological and historical discourses as the “New Woman.” On the one hand, this figure is a variant of the fin de siècle phenomenon of the “New Woman” in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the Indian context, the New Woman is a distinct articulation resulting from the nation’s tryst with neoliberal reform, consolidation of the middle class, and the ascendency of aggressive Hindu Right politics. Trade Review"Essays in this exciting and welcome collection show us how India’s economic liberalization ushers in new figurations of women. Tracking Bollywood’s New Woman across revised filmic tropes, unconventional screen bodies, emergent technological formats and cosmopolitan geographies, they reveal gender’s starring role in the unfolding story of India’s neoliberalism and cinema." -- Priya Jaikumar * author of Where Histories Reside: India as Filmed Space *"A sumptuous and well-rounded volume of essays by leading experts on Indian cinema. This book is recommended for all scholars and students for an in-depth understanding of the gender dynamics in post-globalization Bollywood." -- Rini Bhattacharya Mehta * author of Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and Bollywood *"Insightful and wide-ranging, Bollywood’s New Woman brings together some of the most exciting new scholarship in South Asian film and cultural studies. The figure of the ‘New Woman’ has emerged as the site on which many of India’s current desires and anxieties come to be rehearsed and executed. This anthology is essential reading for anyone interested in gender, politics, and popular culture in contemporary India and beyond." -- Meheli Sen * author of Haunting Bollywood: Gender, Genre and the Supernatural in Hindi Commercial Cinema *"A timely and valuable collection, Bollywood’s New Woman offers a critical assessment of nearly three decades of post-economic liberalization India through a focus on the changes and consistencies, in female characters and stars in Hindi cinema. The close readings situate films in diverse industrial formations—big-budget, small films, multiplex, hatke—that shape the many manifestations of these ‘new’ women. And, the perceptive readings anchored in genres, star texts, and new media skillfully show how these ‘new’ women navigate, question, and/or embrace the tradition/modern dyad in neoliberal and Hindu nationalist India." -- Monika Mehta * author of Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema *"There is an emerging gap in classical narrative or textual analysis which marked the early blossoming of film studies in India. Anwer and Arora’s edited volume on Bollywood’s New Woman addresses precisely this gap by taking the attention back to the text to comment on gender, history and society. This collection of articles, spread across fourteen chapters and four sections attempts to reconfigure screened womanhood from the post-liberalization era." * Studies in South Asian Film and Media *"These authors deconstruct the tools that filmmakers use and how the characters themselves strategize to assert identity and individuality. Localized, globalized, and contextualized within the larger Indian landscape and yet focusing on the intersections of place, class, caste, and age, the book offers an overview of the New Bollywood Woman." -- Uma Vangal * Quarterly Review of Film and Video *Table of ContentsContents Introduction Part I Family and Nation 1. Koel Banerjee and Jigna Desai, “Mompreneur in the Multiplex: Entrepreneurial Technologies of the “New Woman” Subject in the Age of Neoliberal Globalization” 2. Sangita Gopal, “Lethal Acts: Bollywood’s new woman and the Nirbhaya Effect” 3. Baidurya Chakrabarti, “Beyond the Couple Form: The Space of the New Woman in Yash Raj Films” 4. Aparajita De, “Mera Saaya: Shadows of the Woman in Bollywood’s Cultural Imagination” Part II Body Matters 5. Gohar Siddiqui, “New Womanhood and #LipstickRebellion: Feminist Consciousness in Lipstick Under My Burkha” 6. Debadatta Chakraborty, “Queering Bollywood: Sexuality of the disabled Body – A Case Study” 7. Ajay Gehlawat, “Plus-size Femininity: The Multiple Figurations of Bhumi Pednekar” 8. Puja Sen, “The Many Bodies of Vidya Balan: The Dirty Picture, Kahaani, and Tumhari Sulu” Part III Geographies of the New Woman 9. Anjali Ram, “Out of India: Educating the New Woman in Queen, EnglishVinglish, and Badrinath ki Dulhaniya” 10. Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, “Learning to Love The(ir) World: Using Feminist Spaces and Cosmopolitan Impulses against the Heteropatriarchy in Queen and English Vinglish” 11. Namrata Rele Sathe, “Single in the City: The Female Flâneur in Queen” 12. Madhavi Biswas, ”Dedh Ishqiyaand Ishqiya “Glocal Women: Gender, Genre, and Performance in Abhishek Chaubey’s Part IV New Media and the New Woman 13. Kuhu Tanvir, “All Broken Up and Dancing: Looking at Katrina Kaif in eight GIFs” 14. Tanushree Ghosh, “Reshaping ‘Bollywood’: Dissident New Media Femininities and Hindi Cinema” Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis magnificent companion to The Art of Horror looks at the entire history of the horror film, from the silent era right up to the latest releases and trends. This revised edition includes more films, rare images, and in-depth explorations to bring this award-winning book completely up to date, cementing its position as the definitive and essential guide to horror movies. Through a series of informative chapters and fascinating sidebars chronologically charting the evolution of horror movies for more than a century, profusely illustrated throughout with over 600 rare and unique images including posters, lobby cards, advertising, promotional items, tie-in books and magazines, and original artwork inspired by classic movies, this handsomely designed hardcover traces the development of the horror film from its inception and celebrates the actors, filmmakers, and artists who were responsible for scaring the pants off successive generations of moviegoers! Edited by multipl

Read more less

Book SynopsisRobert McKee''s screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience. In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the magic of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.

Read more less

Book Synopsis'Defamiliarizes' the reader with eleven different films. This book argues that critics often use cut-and-dried methods and choose films that easily fit those methods. It also argues that neoformalism, on the other hand, encourages the critic to deal with each film differently and to modify his or her analytical assumptions continually.

Read more less

Book SynopsisSam Rohdie's insightful and compelling analysis of Luchino Visconti's 1960 epic of modern urban life provides reveals the film as one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian cinema. Rocco tells the story of a family of peasants uprooted from their village in southern Italy, and forced to battle for existence in the industrial metropolis of Milan. Though fascinated by the social reality of modern Italy, Visconti had by this time thrown off the influence of the neorealist movement. He had developed a style all his own, enriched by his experience of directing opera for the stage. As a result, the characters in Rocco are no longer held in check by the naturalistic conventions of neorealism. Instead, they erupt on the screen with all the emotional power of heightened melodrama. The violent sexuality projected by stars Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Claudia Cardinale and the rest of Visconti's impressive cast was too much for the Italian censors, who cut several scenes. Rohdie discusses the film in terms of its 'passionate splendid realism', arguing that these two apparently opposing moods are held in balance rather than contradiction in the film, part of 'the very condition of the film's power - and grace.'Table of ContentsForeword to the 2020 Edition Acknowledgements Introduction Rocco and His Brothers Notes Credits Bibliography

Read more less

Book SynopsisThelma & Louise, directed by Ridley Scott and written by Callie Khouri, sparked a remarkable public discussion about feminism, violence, and the representation of women in cinema on its release in 1991. Subject to media vilification for its apparent justification of armed robbery and manslaughter, it was a huge hit with audiences composed largely but not exclusively of women who cheered the fugitive central characters played by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. Marita Sturken examines Thelma & Louise as one of those rare films that encapsulates the politics of its time. She discusses the film's reworking of the outlaw genre, its reversal of gender roles, and its engagement with the complex relationship of women, guns adn the law. The insights of director Scott, screenwriter Khouri as well as Davis and Sarandon are deployed in an analysis of Thelma & Louise and the controversies it sparked. This is a compelling study of a landmark in 1990s American cinema. In her foreword to this new edition, Sturken looks back on the film's reception at the time of its release, and considers its continuing resonances and topicality in the age of #MeToo.Table of ContentsForeword to the 2020 Edition Acknowledgments Thelma & Louise Notes Credits

Read more less

Book SynopsisSingle Lives is a collection of singleness studies essays from the interdisciplinary humanities that explores the last two hundred years of literature and popular media by, about, and for single women in the US and the UK. Independent women have always been a center around which social anxieties and excitement coalesced. Moving between the family home and domestic independence, between household and public labor, and between celibacy and a range of sexual relations, the single woman remains a literary and cultural focus, as she has been from the 19th to the 21st centuries. This collection offers readers the opportunity to uncover the social, political, economic, and cultural connections between the "singly blessed" women and "bachelor girls" of the 19th and early 20th century and "all the single ladies" of the 21st century. Essays read singleness across genre and field, offering new approaches to studying modern and contemporary single women in literature, film, and history. Authors engage scholarship from wide ranging fields of social history, women's studies, queer theory, and Black feminism. The collection reads familiar texts against the grain, rethinking archival resources, revisiting familiar figures, and exploring new sources: cookbooks, ephemera, personal documents, recovered film histories, and forms of domestic space and labor.This is a book for scholars of gender and sexuality, social history, feminist film and media scholars, and literary historians, and reflects the urgent contemporary interest in single women as a political, economic, and cultural force. Trade Review"Single Lives, focusing on a wide range of British and American texts from the nineteenth to the present century, makes a timely feminist intervention into ongoing critical conversations about the representation of women’s singleness. This engaging interdisciplinary collection, which foregrounds diverse embodiments of singleness, revisits familiar figures, and promotes expanded methods and sources to better understand single women’s lived experiences, promises to greatly enrich the field of singleness studies." -- Anthea Taylor * author of Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster *"Drawing from wide-ranging disciplines and spanning a century of British and American history, Single Lives offers an original and engrossing analysis of how the figure of the single woman stands as an implicit challenge to the norm of the patriarchal nuclear family." -- Kathleen Rowe Karlyn * author of The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter *"Single Lives, focusing on a wide range of British and American texts from the nineteenth to the present century, makes a timely feminist intervention into ongoing critical conversations about the representation of women’s singleness. This engaging interdisciplinary collection, which foregrounds diverse embodiments of singleness, revisits familiar figures, and promotes expanded methods and sources to better understand single women’s lived experiences, promises to greatly enrich the field of singleness studies." -- Anthea Taylor * author of Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster *"Drawing from wide-ranging disciplines and spanning a century of British and American history, Single Lives offers an original and engrossing analysis of how the figure of the single woman stands as an implicit challenge to the norm of the patriarchal nuclear family." -- Kathleen Rowe Karlyn * author of The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Situating Single Lives by Katherine Fama and Jorie Lagerwey Part I: Singles Studies: Archives and Methods Chapter 1: Searching for Singles: Archival Approaches for Singleness Studies and Black Women’s Collections by Andreá N. Williams Chapter 2: Reclaiming Single Women’s Work: Gender, Melodrama, and the Processes of Adaptation in The Best of Everything by Jennifer S. Clark Chapter 3: Recovering Single Biography: Jane Armstrong Tucker, Illness, and the Single Life by Elizabeth DeWolfe Part II: Familiar Figures: Representing and Reforming the Single Woman Chapter 4: Becoming Single: Gidget “Betwixt and Between” by Pamela Robertson Wojcik Chapter 5: F. Scott Fitzgerald and “The Sinking Ship of Future Matrimony:” The Unmarried Flapper in Literature and on Screen by Martina Mastandrea Chapter 6: Neither Betwixt nor Between: Divorced Mothers in the United States, 1920-1965 by Kristin Celello Chapter 7: Serves One: Exploring Representations of Female Singleness in American Cookbooks by Ursula Kania Part III: Singles at Home: Domestic Labors Chapter 8: Feeling “Like a Queen:” Later-Life Single Women at Home in Modern American Short Fiction by Katherine Fama Chapter 9: “Spinsters’ Rest?”: The Discomforts of Home in British Women’s Short Stories of the 1920s to the 1940s by Emma Liggins Chapter 10: All the Single Nannies: Reforming Elite Domesticity and the Cultural Imaginary by Ann Mattis Afterword by Benjamin Kahan Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisMakes an excellent case for Parrott as an unjustly forgotten historical figure.TheNew YorkerRemind[s] us of the brazenly talented women sidelined by convention.New York Times The riveting biography of Ursula Parrottbest-selling author, Hollywood screenwriter, and voice for the modern woman. Credited with popularizing the label ex-wife in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life balance, and a host of new challenges facing modern women. Her best sellers, Hollywood film deals, marriages and divorces, and run-ins with the law made her a household name. Part biography, part cultural history, Becoming the Ex-Wife establishes Parrott's rightful place in twentieth-century American culture, uncovering her neglected work and keen insights into American women's lives during a period of immense social change. Although she was frequently dismissed as a woman's writer, reading Parrott's writing today makes it clear that she was a trenchant philosopher of modernityher work was prescient, anticipating issues not widely raised until decades after her decline into obscurity. With elegant wit and a deft command of the archive, Marsha Gordon tells a timely story about the life of a woman on the front lines of a culture war that is still raging today.Trade Review"As Marsha Gordon argues in her engaging new biography, Becoming the Ex-Wife, the novel 'offers a strong case for the protections of marriage and the dangers of being an unattached woman.' . . . In her biography, Gordon makes an excellent case for Parrott as an unjustly forgotten historical figure: a sociological flash point, a beneficiary of feminism and victim of patriarchy who got her enemies mixed up." * The New Yorker *“Why did a once-transfixed reading public turn away, and why is Parrott so often now eliminated from a pantheon of popular urban “working girl” writers that includes Helen Gurley Brown, Candace Bushnell, Nora Ephron, Dorothy Parker and, perhaps most comparably, Jacqueline Susann? . . . A reissue of Ursula Parrott’s racy novel “Ex-Wife,” and a new biography of its author, remind us of the brazenly talented women sidelined by convention. . . . [Gordon] surfaces plenty of colorful period detail: passport photos of everyone looking mussed and truculent in that Jazz Age way; correspondence from exasperated agents, editors and lovers; even an adorable 'mapback' version marked with key locations in 'Ex-Wife.'” * The New York Times *“[V]igorous, entertaining, and well-researched . . . [Gordon’s] biography salvages and reconstructs Parrott’s many remains, rescuing an important American voice and cultural figure from near oblivion. . . . The result is a clear, full, yet unlabored portrait of Parrott, written in agile, accessible prose. Gordon’s tone is warm but unsentimental (as was Parrott herself), occasionally displaying a subtle and welcome bit of cheek or zing befitting her subject." * Los Angeles Review of Books *“[R]igorous . . . an enlightening companion to the novel" * The Baffler *"Marsha Gordon’s Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott is a thoroughly researched, sympathetic, but not uncritical portrait of a woman who achieved exceptional commercial success as a writer and who was, for a while, 'the most famous divorcée in the United States.'" -- Joyce Carol Oates * The New York Review of Books *"Gordon’s biography . . . is good on Parrott’s significance for an understanding of American life – and women’s lives, in particular – in the interwar period, with its glancing insights into alcoholism and abortion. Keenly supported by examples from the writings, Gordon also shows how her subject’s life was often too strange for any kind of fiction." * Times Literary Supplement *"Parrott led a scandalous, glamorous, sometimes lonely life in the public eye, and Gordon, professor and director of the film studies program at North Carolina State University, has done the world a great service by bringing her back into the spotlight." * Washington City Paper *"In Becoming the Ex-Wife, Marsha Gordon sheds welcome light on this remarkable and troubled writer, who knew too well how hard it was to be a modern woman who wanted sexual freedom and a career of her own choosing. In this well-researched and fascinating biography, Parrott emerges as a star who should be remembered alongside Jazz Age icons like Dorothy Parker and the Fitzgeralds.” * Newcity Lit *"[O]ffers an in-depth look at Parrott’s complicated and sometimes scandalous life." * Walter Magazine *"Parrott is forgotten and Faulkner is famous. This is so much more than a matter of quality, which is why we need biography. . . . Marsha Gordon makes a compelling case for Parrott’s artistry and continuing relevance. . . . Ms. Gordon does something else that is quite shrewd: She has a concluding chapter, after Parrott has died, which concentrates on her subject’s literary legacy. The story of Parrott’s life is over, but her writing lives on, even if we don’t yet know it." * The New York Sun *"Marsha Gordon’s new biography of the best-selling author Ursula Parrott, Becoming the Ex-Wife, rescues this important author’s life from obscurity, . . . Both Gordon’s biography, and the 2023 publication of a McNally Edition of Parrott’s 1929 novel Ex-Wife have garnered a lot of well-deserved attention. . . . In Becoming the Ex-Wife, it is clear Gordon mined all the archives and saved what she could of this fascinating and accomplished woman’s life from obscurity.” * Biblio *"There are certain books which catch you completely by surprise. Marsha Gordon’s Becoming the Ex-Wife is one of those books. . . . Gordon does an excellent job of telling Parrott’s story because she balances her admiration with the right amount of critical eye. . . . If you can accept that a human can be both good and bad in various measures while finding their life story interesting, then you will enjoy this book immensely.” * History Nerds United *"Gordon’s biography . . . is good on Parrott’s significance for an understanding of American life – and women’s lives, in particular – in the interwar period, with its glancing insights into alcoholism and abortion. Keenly supported by examples from the writings, Gordon also shows how her subject’s life was often too strange for any kind of fiction." * Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note on Name Usage Introduction: "Maxims in the Copybook of Modernism" 1 • The Limited Life of a Dorchester Girl 2 • At Radcliffe: "A Pushy Lace-Curtain Irish Girl from Dorchester" 3 • First Husband, Lindesay Parrott: "Strange Moments of Tenderness and Pretty Constant Dislike" 4 • Modern Parenting 5 • Greenwich Village: The Path to Becoming a "Self-Sufficient, Independent, Successful Manager of Her Own Life" 6 • Hugh O’Connor: High Felicity on the "Road of No Rules" 7 • New Freedoms in the "Era of the One-Night Stand": The Ex-Wife Is Born 8 • Ursula Goes to Hollywood 9 • Second Husband, Charles Greenwood: "The Stupidest Thing I Ever Did in My Life" 10 • "Extravagant Hell" 11 • The Business of Being a Writer 12 • Third Husband, John Wildberg: The Faint Resemblance of Stability 13 • "The Monotony and Weariness of Living" 14 • Fourth Husband, Alfred Coster Schermerhorn: "Two Catastrophes Should Be Enough" 15 • Saving Private Bryan: The United States vs. Ursula Parrott 16 • Her "Breaks Went Bad" 17 • "Black Coffee, Scotch, and Excitement" Afterword: Remembering a "Leftover Lady" Acknowledgments Chronology Notes Published Writings of Ursula Parrott Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisMovie Movements: Films That Changed the World of Cinema is a one-stop guide to the major movements that have shaped our sense of what cinema is and can be. It introduces the reader to definitions of the founding concepts in Film Studies such as authorship and genre, technological impacts and the rise of digital cinema, social influences and notions of the avant-garde, and cinema's emergence as a major art form that reflects and shapes the world. It explores, in concise and clear sections, how major works from the classic French realist La Regle de Jeu to the dazzling animation of Norman McLaren and the memorial documentary of Shoah, were conceived, developed and produced, and eventually received by the public, critics and film history. Offering a concise overview of a vast and compelling subject, it's a book for both the film enthusiast and the Film Studies student.Trade ReviewA tsunami of film noirs and isms * Total Film *Intelligent but very readable...a good coffee table book for any film buff -- Charlene Lydon * Film Ireland *James Clarke's Movie Movements is part of the Kamera book series, which are helpful guides to random cinema-related phenomena -- Charlene Lydon * Film Ireland *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis revised and updated new edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of cinema in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as to disaporic and transnational Chinese film-making, from the beginnings of cinema to the present day. Chapters by leading international scholars are grouped in thematic sections addressing key historical periods, film movements, genres, stars and auteurs, and the industrial and technological contexts of cinema in Greater China.Trade ReviewChinese cinema’s unprecedented growth in the last decade invites new considerations about the state of this vibrant industry. In this expanded second edition, The Chinese Cinema Book addresses important developments in digital technology, documentary filmmaking, and censorship, propaganda and film policy, as they relate to one of the fastest growing cinemas in the world. -- Olivia Khoo, Associate Professor, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, AustraliaThe Chinese Cinema Book is sure to be a standard textbook for Chinese cinema studies. It systematically explores the rich and kaleidoscopic history of Chinese cinemas and covers key and up-to-date theories in the field. A must-read for anyone interested in Chinese cinema studies. -- Yongchun Fu, Associate Professor of Zhejiang Unviersity Ningbo Institute of Technology, China.Substantially updated, with four new chapters alongside many other contributions from leading scholars, this new edition of The Chinese Cinema Book will be an essential resource for all researchers and teachers of Chinese film. As China looks poised to become the world’s largest film market, this volume’s comprehensive and illuminating approach to Chinese cinema from its earliest moments to the digital epoch is more valuable than ever. -- Margaret Hillenbrand, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, University of Oxford, UK.Comprehensive, authoritative and a great read. * Linda Mitchell, Seminar Tutor, Cardiff University, UK *Table of ContentsIntroduction“The Coming of Age of Chinese Cinemas Studies” Song Hwee Lim, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China, and Julian Ward, University of Edinburgh, UK Preface to Revised Edition Song Hwee Lim, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China, and Julian Ward, University of Edinburgh, UK Section I: Territories, Trajectories, Historiographies Chapter 1, “Transnational Chinese Film Studies” Chris Berry, King’s College London, UK Chapter 2, “National Cinema as Translocal Practice: reflections on Chinese LFI Historiography”Yingjin Zhang, University of California, San Diego, USA Chapter 3, “Cinemas of the Chinese Diaspora” Gina Marchetti, Hong Kong University, China Chapter 4, “Six Chinese Cinemas in Search of a Historiography” Song Hwee Lim Section II: Early Cinema to 1949 Chapter 5, “Shadow Magic and the Lost Decades in Chinese Film History” Zhiwei Xiao, California State University, San Marcos, and Xuelei Huang, University of Edinburgh, UK Chapter 6, “The Making of a National Cinema: Shanghai Cinema of the 1930s” Laikwan Pang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China Chapter 7, “Wartime Cinema: Reconfiguration and Border Navigation” Yiman Wang, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA Chapter 8, “Chinese Filmmaking on the eve of the Communist Revolution” Paul Pickowicz, University of California, San Diego, USA Section III: The Forgotten Period – 1949-1980 Chapter 9, “The Remodelling of a National Cinema: Chinese film of the Seventeen Years (1949-1966)” Julian Ward, University of Edinburgh, UK Chapter 10, “Liminal Cinema: PRC Film Genres of the New Era” Michael Berry, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Chapter 11, “Healthy Realism in Taiwan, 1964-1980: Film Style, Cultural Policies and Mandarin Cinema” Guo-Juin Hong, Duke University, USA Chapter 12, “The Hong Kong Cantonese Cinema: Emergence, Development and Decline” Stephen Teo, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Section IV: The New Waves Chapter 13, “The Fifth Generation: A Re-assessment” Wendy Larson, University of Oregon, USA Chapter 14, “Taiwan New Cinema Movement and Its Legacy” Tonglin Lu, University of Montreal, Canada Chapter 15, “The Hong Kong New Wave: A Critical Reappraisal” Vivian P. Y. Lee, City University of Hong Kong, China Chapter 16, “Transnational Chinese-Language Auteurism: Time, Place, Gender” James Udden, Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania, USA Section V: Stars, Auteurs and Genres Chapter 17, “Dragons Forever: Chinese Martial Arts Stars” Leon Hunt, Brunel University, UK Chapter 18, “The Contemporary Wuxia Revival: Genre Evolution and the Hollywood Transnational Factor” Kenneth Chan, University of Northern Colorado, USA Chapter 19, “Independent Documentary in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong”Luke Robinson, University of Sussex, UK Section 6: Industry, Market and TechnologyChapter 20, “Contemporary Mainstream PRC Cinema”Yomi Braester, University of Washington, USA Chapter 21, “The Urban Generation: Underground and Independent Films from the PRC” Jason McGrath, University of Minnesota, USA Chapter 22, “Censorship, Propaganda, and Film Policy” Matthew Johnson, Taylor’s University, Malaysia Chapter 23, “Alternative Ways of Seeing: Post-Digital Detours in Chinese Cinema” Paola Voci, University of Otago, New Zealand Afterword“Liquidity of Being” Rey Chow, Duke University, USA Appendix 1Book-length Studies of Chinese Cinemas in the English Language Compiled by Wan-Jui Wang, Louise Williams, Li Pin, and Song Hwee Lim Appendix 2Chinese Film Titles Appendix 3Chinese Names Appendix 1 Book-length Studies of Chinese Cinemas in the English Language Compiled by Wan-Jui Wang, Louise Williams, Li Pin, and Song Hwee Lim Appendix 2Chinese Film Titles Appendix 3Chinese Names

Read more less

Book SynopsisTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWho made the phone call that got HBO to launchthe show? What's the significance of all those eggs? And, what the hell ever happened to the Russian? In Woke Up This Morning, Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripahave all the answers and they're revealing where all the bodies are buried.Inspired by the incredibly successful Talking Sopranos podcast, The Sopranos stars Michael Imperioli (Christopher Moltisanti) and Steve Schirripa (Bobby Baccalieri) finally reveal all the Soprano family secrets in a surprising, funny, and honest new book. Woke Up This Morning is the definitive behind-the-scenes history of the groundbreaking HBO series that became a worldwide cultural phenomenon, ushered in a new Golden Age of Television, and to this day continues to be one of the most binged shows of all time.Michael and Steve tell all the incredible stories that The Sopranos fans have been waiting to hear for over twenty years. The book covers the entire history of The SopranTrade Review‘I will be reading and rereading Woke Up This Morning ….These rollicking gabfests… bring together nearly everyone, on screen and off, who made the series a creative and cultural landmark. The freely offered admiration expressed by so many for their missing comrade and unofficial cast captain, Gandolfini, makes these stories about playing tough guys all the more tender’ New York Times ‘Ever wished you could hang out with the cast and crew of The Sopranos and just listen to them trade stories? … There are plenty of tantalizing bits of trivia—Tony was Tommy Soprano in the pilot script; producers wanted Lorraine Bracco to play Tony’s wife, but she said she would only consider playing Melfi, the psychiatrist—but this isn’t just a trivia collection. Mostly it’s about friends and colleagues getting together to pay tribute to one another and to a series that rewrote many of the rules of television. Love and respect for the show’s star, the late James Gandolfini, permeates the book, as does admiration for the show’s creator, David Chase, who started with a vague idea about a crook and his mother and built it into something that’s almost Shakespearean in its thematic scope. For Sopranos fans this one is an absolute must-read’ Booklist ‘Essential for fans, with a revelation on every page … Devotees will revel in the stroll into series minutiae’ Kirkus Reviews ‘A spectacular tell-all about the making of the Emmy-winning hit television series … What makes this sing is the passion and energy brought by Imperioli and Schirripa and its indelible tribute to the late James Gandolfini. As Aida Turturro (Janice Soprano) recalls, 'He was there for you no matter what.' This is the ultimate book on The Sopranos, made by the people who lived it’ Publishers Weekly

Read more less

Book SynopsisNarratives are artefacts of a special kind: they are intentionally crafted devices which fulfil their story-telling function by manifesting the intentions of their makers. But narrative itself is too inclusive a category for much more to be said about it than this; we should focus attention instead on the vaguely defined but interesting category of things rich in narrative structure. Such devices offer significant possibilities, not merely for the representation of stories, but for the expression of point of view; they have also played an important role in the evolution of reliable communication. Narratives and narrators argues that much of the pleasure of narrative communication depends on deep-seated and early developing tendencies in human beings to imitation and to joint attention, and imitation turns out to be the key to understanding such important literary techniques as free indirect discourse and character-focused narration. The book also examines irony in narrative, with an emTrade ReviewRich with examples drawn from both literature and film ... the book makes an interesting and important contribution not only to our understanding of the nature of narratives but also to the nature of our engagement with them. * Amy Kind, The Philosophical Quarterly *a rich study. * Adriana Boneta, Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory *abounds in analyses and arguments as Currie identifies and interrogates (generally successfully) strong counter-theses that challenge his own * Daniel D. Hutto, Times Literary Supplement *I expect Gregory Currie's new book, Narratives and Narrators, to attain the same importance and influence in philosophical thinking about narrative that his earlier books The Nature of Fiction and Image and Mind have had in the philosophy of fiction and film, respectively. It is an ambitious, careful, and philosophically rich work containing a number of novel and important arguments... The book has many virtues, and the greatest of them might be that it opens up new areas for exploration in the philosophic study of narrative. * James Harold, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *The book is ambitious in its topics and contains fresh approaches to various traditional problems ... full of thought-provoking arguments and intriguing proposals. * Jukka Mikkonen, Mind *This fairly short book does a lot of work ... consistently challenging * Raphael Lyne, Cambridge Quarterly *Table of ContentsPreface ; Acknowledgements ; Analytical contents ; 1. Representation ; 2. The content of narrative ; 3. Two ways of looking at a narrative ; 4. Authors and narrators ; 5. Expression and imitation ; 6. Resistance ; 7. Character-focused narration ; 8. Irony: a pretended point of view ; 9. Dis-interpretation ; 10. Narrative and character ; 11. Character scepticism ; In Conclusion ; Bibliography ; Indexes

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewDoherty writes with such wit and verve, bringing the past to life... a very entertaining read. Publishers Weekly Compelling, colorful, insightful, and nearly encyclopedic in detail, this book seems destined to become the definitive scholarly biography of Breen. Highly recommended. Library Journal [An] entertaining and rigorous biography of Breen. -- Ada Calhoun New York Times Book Review A fascinating read for anyone interested in American film history. -- Carol O'Sullivan Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [An] authoritative, entertaining, unexpectedly unnerving biography. -- Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times [A] brilliant and absorbing new book. -- Gerald Peary The Phoenix Hollywood's Censor is a stinging portrait of a cultural strongman who made it his business to baby his fellow citizens. -- Dennis Drabelle Washington Post Written with controlled exuberance, and much wit. -- Scott Eyman Palm Beach Post A pleasure to read. -- Rob Hardy Commercial Dispatch An exemplary biography... Highly recommended. CHOICETable of ContentsOpening Credits Prologue: Hollywood, 1954 1. The Victorian Irishman 2. Bluenoses Against the Screen 3. Hollywood Shot to Pieces 4. The Breen Office 5. Decoding Classical Hollywood Cinema 6. Confessional 7. Intermission at RKO 8. At War with the Breen Office 9. In His Sacerdotalism 10. "Our Semitic Brethren" 11. Social Problems, Existential Dilemmas, and Outsized Anatomies 12. Invasion of the Art Films 13. Amending the Ten Commandments 14. Not the Breen Office 15. Final Cut: Joseph I. Breen and the Auteur Theory Appendix: The Production Code Notes Film Index Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn this Oxford Guide to Film Musicals, author Hannah Lewis gives readers fascinating new insights into the development, style, and reception of the 2016 film musical La La Land. Directed by Damien Chazelle with music by Justin Hurwitz, the film tells the story of a romance between an aspiring actress and jazz pianist as the two pursue their dreams in Los Angeles. It uses a vintage form to tell a modern story and its blend of nostalgia and realism made it an instant classic even as it prompted a range of critical and audience responses. Drawing on extensive personal interviews with director Damien Chazelle, composer Justin Hurwitz, choreographer Mandy Moore, and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the book explores La La Land''s aesthetic approach to the film musical genre, particularly its engagement with and subversion of the classic Hollywood musical''s stylistic and narrative expectations. Lewis offers readers ways of listening to the film''s depiction of jazz, focusing especially on how race and genre intersect in its narrative. She also reveals new insights into the film''s reception, showing how the critical response from its premiere to its place at the Academy Awards reflected broader cultural expectations and understandings of the film musical and its continued appeal for twenty-first century audiences. By exploring the range of stylistic and cultural debates that La La Land prompted, this book gives readers new ways of thinking about the film musical genre''s enduring and evolving place in contemporary American culture.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisShowcasing 52 Essential films from the golden age to the present, Turner Classic Movies invites you into a world filled with stirring performances, dazzling musical numbers, and bold directorial visions that mark the greatest moments in film history. These are movies that define what it means to be a classic. Readers can enjoy one film per week, for a year of stellar viewing, or indulge in their own classic movie festival.Trade Review"[An] excellent book. Author Arnold distills why each movie is a must-see, and augments his knowledgeable text with sidebar quotes from various TCM hosts... Handsomely designed and packed with great photos, The Essentials would be a perfect gift for a young person who's just dipping his or her toe into these waters...but I found it equally appealing." --Leonard Maltin, leonardmaltin.com "An entertaining read... Beautifully-designed and illustrated... Author Jeremy Arnold does a superb job presenting the reasons why a particular film matters." --Raymond Benson, Cinema Retro

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis series uses the integration of films to develop linguistic competencies through progressive acquisition of vocabulary and grammar structures. A variety of activities target the four communicative goals: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Read more less

Book SynopsisPaolo Sorrentino has emerged as one of the most compelling figures in twenty-first-century European film. This book is a critical examination of Sorrentino’s work, focusing on his emergence as a preeminent transnational auteur.Trade Review...Kilbourn’s monograph will form a solid foundation for what will likely be an outpouring of English-language writing on the director as he continues to produce works for a global audience. -- Allison Cooper, Bowdoin College * Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies *I highly recommend this book. It is a treasure trove of material and insight: assiduously researched, built upon minute observation, and grounded in important issues around Sorrentino and contemporary transnational cinema and media. It will be a touchstone for Sorrentino studies, setting a very high bar for its successors -- Frank Burke, Queen’s University * Italian Studies *With each new film, the need for a book capable of bridging the local and global and of accounting for the problematic aspects of Sorrentino’s aesthetic has become ever more pressing. That need has now been met. Film by film, Kilbourn maps and explains Sorrentino’s evolving aesthetic with great dexterity, clarity, and intellectual rigor, making a strong case for Sorrentino’s status as one of the most important cinematic artists of our age. This book is invaluable for newcomers and specialists alike and will undoubtedly become an essential touchstone for all future studies of the director. -- Alex Marlow-Mann, University of KentThis elegantly written book is the first extensive study in English of Italy’s leading contemporary director. It places Sorrentino more firmly on the Anglophone film-critical map, and offers an insightful reading of each of his films. Kilbourn is also incisive on the politics of the auteur that have elevated Sorrentino internationally and on his films’ sometimes problematic gender politics. As such, this book is a welcome and thorough examination of Sorrentino as an intermedial and transnational auteur, and will be required reading for all those interested in contemporary Italian cinema. -- Catherine O'Rawe, author of Stars and Masculinities in Contemporary Italian CinemaThe Cinema of Paolo Sorrentino will be a touchstone for future work on the director. Nothing of the sort exists that engages with Sorrentino’s entire oeuvre. Kilbourn writes in a lively, clear, and engaging tone, translating concepts from a wide array of fields in a very accessible fashion. The astute and highly original analyses of Sorrentino's films will make important contributions to film genre studies, discourses around auteurism, and the stakes of transnational cinema. -- Dana Renga, author of Mafia Movies: A ReaderRichly researched and ultimately rewarding book. * Studies in European Cinema *Newcomers to Sorrentino who seek a guided entry into his works as well as experts who want to prod deeper will find a valuable and enriching experience with this text. * University of Toronto Quarterly *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Commitment to Style1. One Man Up (L’uomo in piú): The Consequences of Coincidence2. The Consequences of Love (Le conseguenze dell’amore): This Must Be the (Non-) Place3. The Family Friend (L’amico di famiglia): “Ridiculous Men and Beautiful Women”4. “What Will They Remember About You?” Il Divo and the Possibility of a Twenty-First-Century Political Film5. This Must Be the Place: From the Ridiculous to the Unspeakable (A Holocaust Road Movie)6. The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza): Reflective Nostalgia and the Ironic Elegiac7. Youth (La giovinezza): Between Horror and Desire (Life’s Last Day)8. Ceci n’est pas un pape: Postsecular Melodrama in The Young PopeCoda: Toward a Post-Political Film: Loro and the Mediatic ElegiacConclusion: Style as CommitmentNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisMore than seventy-five years after its publication, Gone with the Wind remains thoroughly embedded in American culture. Margaret Mitchell’s novel and the film produced by David O. Selznick have melded with the broader forces of southern history, southern mythology, and marketing to become, and remain, a cultural phenomenon.A Tough Little Patch of History (the phrase was coined by a journalist in 1996 to describe the Margaret Mitchell home after it was spared from destruction by fire) explores how Gone with the Wind has remained an important component of public memory in Atlanta through an analysis of museums and historic sites that focus on this famous work of fiction. Jennifer W. Dickey explores how the book and film threw a spotlight on Atlanta, which found itself simultaneously presented as an emblem of both the Old South and the New South. Exhibitions produced by the Atlanta History Center related to Gone with the Wind are explored, along with nearby Clayton County’s claim to fame as “the Home of Gone with the Wind,” a moniker bestowed on the county by Margaret Mitchell’s estate in 1969. There’s a recounting of the saga of “the Dump,” the tiny apartment in midtown Atlanta where Margaret Mitchell wrote the book, and how this place became a symbol for all that was right and all that was wrong with Mitchell’s writing.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe movie that inspired filmmakers to direct is like the atomic bomb that went off before their eyes. The Film That Changed My Life captures that epiphany. It explores 30 directors’ love of a film they saw at a particularly formative moment, how it influenced their own works, and how it made them think differently. Rebel Without a Cause inspired John Woo to comb his hair and talk like James Dean. For Richard Linklater, “something was simmering in me, but Raging Bull brought it to a boil.” Apocalypse Now inspired Danny Boyle to make larger-than-life films. A single line from The Wizard of Oz--“Who could ever have thought a good little girl like you could destroy all my beautiful wickedness?”--had a direct impact on John Waters. “That line inspired my life,” Waters says. “I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer.” In this volume, directors as diverse as John Woo, Peter Bogdanovich, Michel Gondry, and Kevin Smith examine classic movies that inspired them to tell stories. Here are 30 inspired and inspiring discussions of classic films that shaped the careers of today’s directors and, in turn, cinema history. Trade Review"If you love films, and care about filmmakers, you'll have a hard time putting this book down once you dive in." --Leonard Maltin"Elder has done us all a favor: Read this book, then go to your video store or to Netflix and see for yourself why these movies made the cut!" --Lawrence Grobel, author, Al Pacino: in Conversation and The Art of the Interview"A great and provocative read. The wonderful thing about being a critic or a lifelong movie lover is that life changes all the time in relation to the spells being cast on the screen. Elder's book honors that alchemic relationship many times over. It's addictive." --Michael Phillips, film critic, Chicago Tribune

Read more less

Book SynopsisWith the hilarious “instant cult classic” Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal, Vern wrote a book that shook the very foundations of film criticism, broke their wrists, and then threw them through a window. Now he’s back, and this time he’s got all of ‘the films of badass cinema’ in his sights... From Die Hard to The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Transformers to Mary Poppins, Vern has an opinion on everything, and he’s not shy about sharing them...

Read more less

Book SynopsisMurray Pomerance offers an illuminating account of one of Hitchcock''s most intruiging and successful films, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring James Stewart and Doris Day. Through a close reading of the film alongside analysis of its complex production history, Pomerance''s analysis highlights its darkest nuances, and its themes of musicality, gendered power, and cultural strangeness. He proposes that, far from being a merely charming escapade, the film tells a strange story of doubling, spiritual presence, and the intricacies of social organisation.

Read more less

Book SynopsisJack Clayton''s gothic masterpiece The Innocents, though not a commercial success on its release in 1961, has been hailed as one of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time. Dividing reviewers with its ambiguous depiction of ghosts, the film ignited a debate about the aesthetics of horror which still rages today.In this stimulating introduction to The Innocents, Sir Christopher Frayling traces the film from its genesis in the original novel The Turn of The Screw by Henry James, via contemporary critical contexts and William Archibald''s 1950 stage adaptation of the same name, to the screenplay by William Archibald, Truman Capote and John Mortimer. Drawing on unpublished material from Jack Clayton''s archive including Capote''s handwritten drafts for the film and interviews with Deborah Kerr, Freddie Francis, and John Mortimer, Frayling explores how this classic ghost story came to life on screen. This special edition features original cover artwork by Matthew Young.

Read more less

Book SynopsisDespite being one of Andrei Tarkovsky's most successful films, Solaris (1972) was the one he most disliked. This dismissal of his most generically marked film has often been accepted by those quick to embrace the image of Tarkovsky as a transcendent artist rising above the politics of the Soviet film industry and the trappings of genre to produce personal works of art. Going against such currents, Mark Bould instead treats Solaris as the product of a genre as well as the work of a skilled film-maker. He teases out Tarkovsky's fascination with Stanislaw Lem, on whose novel the film was based, and also considers Steven Soderbergh's 2002 adaptation. Lively and revealing, Bould's examination situates Solaris within the Russian and global cultures of the fantastic, to which Tarkovsky contributed three major science fiction films. This special edition features original cover artwork by Matthew Shlian.Trade ReviewLike the film, Bould's observations raise as many questions as he answers. -- Good Book GuideTable of ContentsAcknowledgements.- Introduction.- 1 Sf, Tarkovsky and Lem.- 2 Solarises.- 3 Tarkovsky's Solaris.- Notes.- Credits.

Read more less