Film history, theory or criticism Books

Book SynopsisDiscover the fascinating and secretive process of audience testing of Hollywood movies through these firsthand stories from famous filmmakers, studio heads, and stars.Audience-ology takes you to one of the most unknown places in Hollywood—a place where famous directors are reduced to tears and multi-millionaire actors to fits of rage. A place where dreams are made and fortunes are lost. From “the best in the business” (Sacha Baron Cohen), this book is the chronicle of how real people have written and rewritten America’s cinematic masterpieces by showing up, watching a rough cut of a new film, and giving their unfettered opinions so that directors and studios can salvage their blunders, or better yet, turn their movies into all-time classics. Each chapter informs an aspect or two of the test-screening process and then, through behind-the-scenes stories, illustrates how that particular aspect was carried out. Nicknamed “the doctor of audience-ology,” Kevin Goetz shares how he helped filmmakers and movie execs confront the misses and how he recommended ways to fix the blockbusters, as well as first-hand accounts from Ron Howard, Cameron Crowe, Ed Zwick, Renny Harlin, Jason Blum, and other Hollywood luminaries who brought you such films as La La Land, Chicago, Titanic, Wedding Crashers, Jaws, and Forrest Gump. Audience-ology explores one of the most important (and most underrated) steps in the filmmaking process with enough humor, drama, and surprise to entertain those with only a spectator’s interest in film, offering us a new look at movie history.Trade Review"Kevin’s analysis of my movies has been invaluable over the years. With a comedy, the number one objective is to find out, is it funny, and how do we make it funnier. Kevin is the best in the business.”—Sacha Baron Cohen, actor, writer, and producer“It takes about two years for my brother Bobby and I to make a movie—from writing it, casting it, shooting it, editing it—then one day you have to show it to the world and find out whether you just wasted two years of your life. Kevin is always at that nerve-wracking first screening—front and center—and thank God he is, because he’s like a movie whisperer who somehow knows all the right questions to ask the audience, so by the end of the night we know what’s working, and we know what’s not, and, most importantly, we know how to make the movie better. That’s Kevin’s job in a nutshell—to make movies better. And he does.”—Peter Farrelly, director, writer, producer, and Academy Award winner“Test screening a film is a terrifying experience but having Kevin in the room makes me break out in hives a lot less. The audience insight he has provided for our films has been vital, and it’s truly a sight to behold watching him work his magic. His ability to connect with and get inside the minds of an audience is unmatched.”—Charlize Theron, Academy Award winning actress and producer“On almost every comedy I have worked on in the last 20 years, Kevin has taken the movie through the testing process. Watching a focus group of your movies is like being in a bathroom stall at high school and hearing kids talk about you. Having Kevin there is always reassuring because he always is championing the filmmakers. His ability to analyze and interpret audiences is coupled with a real sense of how story works. He’s at once a scientist interpreting data and a psychologist shepherding audiences to reveal the answers a filmmaker is looking for. He is THE guy when it comes to focus groups and audience testing. And his results are undeniable.” —Ben Stiller, actor, writer, and producer. “The film media loves to gossip about who has “final cut” on a movie, but professionals know that what some contract says doesn’t matter much because in reality, the audience has final cut if you want a commercial hit. But getting an unbiased understanding of what the audience really thinks is not simple. Kevin Goetz is a master in aiding in this effort, as this book so entertainingly reveals.” —Tom Rothman, Chairman, Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group“So much of what we do as filmmakers revolves around providing maximum impact and wish fulfillment for our target audience. From concept to completion, we are constantly making assumptions around what we think will give the viewer a positive and unforgettable experience. Kevin and his remarkable company serve as the last validator of those assumptions. Through his carefully crafted process of audience engagement, focus groups, and data mining, he has consistently been able to help find the line between what was intended and what actually worked. This critical work has, hands-down, been the determining factor in the success of my films. There is no version of me locking picture without first consulting Kevin and his company Screen Engine/ASI.“ —Nate Parker, actor, director, writer, and producer“I remember it like it was yesterday – the day of our first preview. Bohemian Rhapsody took me nearly 10 years to make. To say I was a ball of nerves is an understatement. When the lights came on, all I remember was seeing Kevin’s heartwarming smile from ear to ear. He leaned over and said, ‘You’ve got a massive hit on your hands,’ and all my nerves disappeared. To watch him work and know that the film you put your blood, sweat, and tears into is in the best of hands, is one of the greatest experiences. Kevin is truly the best in the business.” – Graham King, Academy Award winning producer“When I screen my movies, they are bad. Then Kevin asks the audience why they are bad. It is painful. Like re-breaking a leg so it heals right. Then somehow, with his help, we figure out what to do. Now that I think about it, he doesn’t get paid enough. But this book should make up the difference.” – Judd Apatow, director, writer, and producer“Whether you sit behind the camera or in front of it, in film school or in an office on a studio lot, or just face a screen as a movie lover, Audience-ology sheds light on how moviegoer feedback holds a special place in the final stages of filmmaking. The explanation of how the test screening process works is illustrated with fascinating stories that are the lore of Hollywood. I only wish this book had existed when I first started out in the business.” – Amy Pascal, producer and former Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group

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Book SynopsisExploring the interface between the Bible and film offers exciting opportunities for both biblical scholars and moviegoers alike. The eleven contributors to this provocative and wide-ranging collection deal critically and creatively both with films about the Bible and biblical characters, including the recent controversial The Passion of the Christ, and with a wide range of contemporary films in which biblical themes play a significant, and sometimes surprising, role. Originally published as issue 1-2 of Volume 14 (2006) of Brill's journal Biblical Interpretation.Trade Review"... the reader is richly rewarded by reading and re-reading these essays. [..] Hopefully these essays will encourage readers to initiate their own conversations between bibles and film." – Michael Carden, in: The Bible and Critical Theory, 2007Table of ContentsThe Bible in Film Adele Reinhartz - History and Pseudo-History in the Jesus Film Genre Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner - What is “Real”? Re-Viewing and Un-Reeling The Passion of the Christ Richard Walsh - The Gospel according to Judas: Myth and Parable Reinhold Zwick - Mit ‘Esther’ für Versöhnung streiten: Zu Amos Gitais filmischer Aktualisierung der biblischen Erzählung Ulrike Vollmer - Auf Leinwand gebannt: Judith im (Miss-)Verständnis von Malerei und Film The Bible and Film Tod Linafelt - The Wizard of Uz: Job, Dorothy, and the Limits of the Sublime Fiona C. Black - A Miserable Feast: Dishing up the Biblical Corpse in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover Erin Runions - Inherited Crypts of the Wife/Mother: Ang Lee’s Hulk Meets Zechariah 5:5–11 in Contemporary Apocalyptic Discourse George Aichele - The Possibility of Error: Minority Report and the Gospel of Mark Tina Pippin - Warrior Women of the Apocalypse: The Role of the Female in Some Recent Disaster Films Ela Nutu - Angels in America and Semiotic Cocktails of Sex, Bible and Politics

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Book SynopsisReturn to Troy presents essays by American and European classical scholars on the Director’s Cut of Troy, a Hollywood film inspired by Homer’s Iliad. The book addresses major topics that are important for any twenty-first century representation of ancient Greek myth and literature in the visual media, not only in regard to Troy: the portrayals of gods, heroes, and women; director Wolfgang Petersen’s epic technique; anachronisms and supposed mistakes; the fall of Troy in classical literature and on screen; and the place of the Iliad in modern popular culture. Unique features are an interview with the director, a report on the complex filming process by his personal assistant, and rare photographs taken during the original production of Troy.Trade Review"The present volume is, however, distinguished from the first by the participation of two non-academics, namely Wolfgang Petersen and his son Daniel, who served as his father's personal assistant on Troy. Winkler's Chapter 1 ("Wolfgang Petersen on Homer and Troy"), records an interview with the director. It contains no revelations, but remains a useful assemblage of the director's views (...). Daniel Petersen's Chapter 2 introduces a refreshing note for a scholarly volume. Aptly titled "Live From Troy: Embedded in the Trojan War," it is journalistic, impressionistic, and breathless, providing an enjoyable "you are there" immersion in the down-and-dirty process of epic film-making. (One learns, for example, how to make blood spout effectively (33).)" Ruby Blondell, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016.04.44. "Besonders bei Winklers Beiträgen wird mehr als deutlich, dass diese aus der Perspektive eines Filmliebhabers geschrieben sind, dem es offensichtlich sehr am Herzen liegt, „Troy“ die Aufmerksamkeit und Anerkennung zukommen zu lassen, die der Film seiner Meinung nach verdient. Diese Begeisterung für das Thema mag dazu geführt haben, dass der Sammelband hier und da vielleicht ein wenig über das Ziel hinausschießt, doch ändert dies nichts daran, dass ein Teil der Untersuchungen wichtige Beiträge zur direkten Analyse und Interpretation des Films bietet, während ein anderer Teil sehr hilfreich ist, wenn es darum geht, „Troy“ rezeptionsgeschichtlich einzuordnen." Michael Kleu, H-Soz-Kult, 10.07.2017.Table of ContentsTable of Contents List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Editor’s Acknowledgments Introduction: Troy Revisited Martin M. Winkler Chapter 1 Wolfgang Petersen on Homer and Troy Martin M. Winkler Chapter 2 Live From Troy: Embedded in the Trojan War Daniel Petersen Photographs: Behind the Scenes of Troy Chapter 3 In the Footsteps of Homeric Narrative: Anachronisms and Other Supposed Mistakes in Troy Eleonora Cavallini Chapter 4 Petersen’s Epic Technique: Troy and Its Homeric Model Wolfgang Kofler and Florian Schaffenrath Chapter 5 Troy and the Cinematic Afterlife of Homeric Gods Martin M. Winkler Chapter 6 Achilles and Patroclus in Troy Horst-Dieter Blume Chapter 7 Odysseus in Troy Bruce Louden Chapter 8 A New Briseis in Troy Barbara P. Weinlich Chapter 9 The Fall of Troy: Intertextual Presences in Wolfgang Petersen’s Film Antonio M. Martín Rodríguez Chapter 10 Homer’s Iliad in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture Jon Solomon Coda: On Cinematic Tributes to Homer and the Iliad Martin M. Winkler Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe figure of the barbarian has captivated the Western imagination from Greek antiquity to the present. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism has taken center stage in Western political rhetoric and the media. But how can the longevity and popularity of this opposition be accounted for? Why has it become such a deeply ingrained habit of thought that is still being so effectively mobilized in Western discourses? The twenty essays in this volume revisit well-known and obscure chapters in barbarism's genealogy from new perspectives and through contemporary theoretical idioms. With studies spanning from Greek antiquity to the present, they show how barbarism has functioned as the negative outside separating a civilized interior from a barbarian exterior; as the middle term in-between savagery and civilization in evolutionary models; as a repressed aspect of the civilized psyche; as concomitant with civilization; as a term that confuses fixed notions of space and time; or as an affirmative notion in philosophy and art, signifying radical change and regeneration. Proposing an original interdisciplinary approach to barbarism, this volume includes both overviews of the concept's travels as well as specific case studies of its workings in art, literature, philosophy, film, ethnography, design, and popular culture in various periods, geopolitical contexts, and intellectual traditions. Through this kaleidoscopic view of the concept, it recasts the history of ideas not only as a task for historians, but also literary scholars, art historians, and cultural analysts.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Christian Moser and Maria Boletsi. Introduction I. Setting the Terms: Conceptual and Cultural Histories of Barbarism François Hartog. Barbarians: From the Ancient to the New World Markus Winkler. Towards a Cultural History of Barbarism from the Eighteenth Century to the Present II. Barbarian Configurations in Classic, Medieval, and Early Modern Settings Daniel Wendt. Laughing (at the) Barbarians: On Barbarism and Humor in Homer and Herodotus Clara Strijbosch. On the Evil Side of Creation: Barbarians in Middle Dutch Texts Paul J. Smith. Naked Indians, Trousered Gauls: Montaigne on Barbarism III. Barbarism and/in Enlightenment Thought, Aesthetics, and Literature Peter Vogt. The Conceptual History of Barbarism: What Can We Learn from Koselleck and Pocock? Reinhard M. Möller. Sublime Barbarism? Affinities between the Barbarian and the Sublime in Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics Madeleine Kasten. Staging the Barbarian: The Case of Voltaire’s Le Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le prophète IV. Barbarism and the Constitution of Society: Literary Challenges to Evolutionary Models Christian Moser. Liminal Barbarism: Renegotiations of an Ancient Concept in (Post-)Enlightenment Social Theory and Literature Steven Howe. “The Seat of the Young, Loving Feelings, thus Delusionally, Barbarically – ”: Barbarism and the Revolutionary State in Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea Tim Albrecht. Trusting Barbarians? Franz Grillparzer’s The Golden Fleece and the Challenge to the Mythography of Empire V. Barbarism and/in Modernity Elke Brüggen and Franz-Josef Holznagel. Des künic Etzelen man – The Huns and their King in Fritz Lang’s Classic Silent Film Die Nibelungen and in the Nibelungenlied Georgios Sagriotis. Barbarians and Their Cult: On Walter Benjamin’s Concept of New Barbarism Anna-Maria Valerius. Barbarians betwixt and between: Figurations of the Barbarian in Elfriede Jelinek’s The Children of the Dead VI. Barbarism in Contemporary Art and Popular Culture Heidi Denzel de Tirado. The Limes Mexicanicus or the ‘Barbarians at the Gate’: The Depiction of ‘Southern Invaders’ in American Film of the Twenty-First Century Marjan Groot. Writing Designed Anxieties on Barbarism, Ornament, Taste, and Bio-Design Gerlov van Engelenhoven and Looi van Kessel. Organizing Cultuur?Barbaar!: Some Problems of Creating Concepts through Art VII. The Politics of Barbarism Nikos Patelis. Ultimi Barbarorum: Eloquence and Subjectivity in Twenty-First-Century Social Movements Maria Boletsi. Waiting for the Barbarians after 9/11: Functions of a Topos in Liminal Times Terry Eagleton. The Politics of Barbarism The Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume seeks to revisit the Franco-Maghrebian representations of masculinity in the line of the New Men’s Studies examining the cultural codes, the aesthetical expressions as well as their interconnectedness with the socio-political realities. Dans la lignée des études sur le masculin, ce volume a pour objectif de revisiter les manifestations de la masculinité en contexte franco-maghrébin en éclairant autant les codes culturels, les expressions littéraires et cinématographiques que leur rapport aux réalités sociopolitiques.Table of ContentsIntroduction  Claudia Gronemann Part 1: Études dans le champ social et culturel 1 Masculinités et production érotiques au Maroc  Gianfranco Rebucini 2 Les Mésaventures du masculin postcolonial à travers le Texte maghrébin : de la Red̲j̲la aux papiches dans l’Imaginaire algérien  Mourad Yelles 3 Masculinité (vs féminité) et parole littéraire en berbère de Kabylie  Mohand-Akli Salhi 4 Basculement, renversement et révolution dans les relations entre genres et les comportements sexuels maghrébins  Denise Brahimi Part 2: Études cinématographiques 5 Circularité sans issue ? La Citadelle (El-Kalaa) de Mohamed Chouikh  Michael Gebhard 6 Melancholic Masculinity in Nouri Bouzid’s Man of Ashes  Kristine Hempel 7 La Double Altérité cinématographique de l’Autre maghrébin-homosexuel, entre exotisme, identification et décorporisation  Manuel Billi 8 Follitudes maghrébines et parodies en tous genres. Chouchou (Merzak Allouache) et La Folle Histoire d’amour de Simon Eskenazy (Jean-Jacques Zilbermann)  Renaud Lagabrielle 9 Masculinité et sexualités dans le cinéma tunisien  Alexie Tcheuyap Part 3: Études littéraires 10 Le Mâle/Mal de la Mélancolie : homoérotisme et masculinité inadaptée chez Abdellah Taïa  Claudia Gronemann 11 Transgressions des normes de genre et homosexualité dans Une vie à trois de Bahaa Trabelsi  Sabrina Nepozitek 12 Masculinités en crise. Ravisseur et La Vie sexuelle d’un islamiste à Paris de Leïla Marouane  Birgit Mertz-Baumgartner 13 La Représentation satirique de la Masculinité dans le Roman algérien et « beur »  Lila Medjahed 14 Father Figures in Beur Literature – a Comparison of Kiffe kiffe demain by Faïza Guène, Pieds-blancs by Houda Rouane and Les Chiens aussi by Azouz Begag  Ronja Schicke 15 Écriture et construction du corps masculin/féminin chez Mohammed Dib. L’exemple de Habel et Cours sur la Rive sauvage  Mourida Akaichi Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides philosophical insight into the nature of reality by reflecting on its ontological qualities through the medium of film. The main question is whether we have access to reality through film that is not based on visual representation or narration: Is film—in spite of its immateriality—a way to directly grasp and reproduce reality? Why do we perceive film as “real” at all? What does it mean to define its own reproducibility as an ontological feature of reality? And what does film as a medium exactly show? The contributions in this book provide, from a cinematic perspective, diverse philosophical analyses to the understanding of the challenging concept of “the real of reality”.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction   Christine Reeh-Peters, Stefan W. Schmidt and Peter Weibel PART 1 The Rise of the Real 1 The Real in Film The Historical Real, the Optical Real, and the Material Real   Hyun Kang Kim 2 The Being of Film   Christine Reeh-Peters 3 What It Means to Imagine Imagination  The Derrida–Searle Debate and the Poetic Ontology of Film   Philip Freytag 4 Emerging Imaginations  The Relation of Film and Reality from a Literary Perspective   Karin Janker 5 Animated Visions of Reality  The Real as Experimental Aesthetic in Anca Damian’s Animated Documentaries   Zsolt Gyenge 6 Pasolini’s Pan-semiology or Reality as Code   Peter Weibel PART 2 Experiencing the Real 7 The Cinematographic Experience  Thinking Cinema through the Philosophy of E. Husserl   Hanna Trindade 8 Reality Narrated through time  Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror   Stefan W. Schmidt 9 Time and Film   Maria-Teresa Teixeira 10 Mapping Film-World Relations to Reality  A New Conceptual Cartography   Atėnė Mendelytė 11 The Crisis of the Time-Image Montage in Postmodern Times   Martin Stefanov 12 Think Future Cinema—with Photofilm as Its Basis   Gusztáv Hámos PART 3 The Real Unsettling 13 The Bird’s Eye View—Ornithology and Ontology in Hitchcock’s The Birds   Markus Gabriel 14 A Rough Sketch on the Real of Terrorism—Thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy   Ringo Rösener 15 Justifying a Philosophical Claim  The Act of Killing and the Banality of Evil   Thomas E. Wartenberg 16 Jauja and Meek’s Cutoff  The Parallel American Ways of Rethinking Gilbert Simondon’s Role of Aesthetics in the Configuration of Humanity   Román Domínguez Jiménez 17 Maya Deren’s Claim for the “Ritualistic” Film or Fusing the Sacred and the Profane for the Sake of the Real   Patricia Feise-Mahnkopp

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Book SynopsisAfter a 35 year-long career on worldwide TV screens, Lieutenant Columbo has become one of the most famous fictional detectives. Lilian Mathieu shows that the Columbo series owes its success to its implicit but formidable political dimension, as each episode is structured as a class struggle between a rich, famous, cultured or powerful criminal and an apparently humble and blunderer police officer dressed in a crumpled raincoat and driving an antique car. Highlighting the contentious context that gave birth to the series in 1968, he shows that the sociology of culture offers intellectual tools to understand how a TV detective story can be appreciated as a joyful class revenge.Table of ContentsAbstract Keywords  Introduction  1 Class against Class  2 A World of Distinction  3 Superiority in Crime  4 A Sense of Limits  5 A Misplaced Police Officer  6 Police Work  7 Just One More Thing … References  List of Episodes

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Book SynopsisBrill’s Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Film is the first volume exclusively dedicated to the study of a theme that informs virtually every reimagining of the classical world on the big screen: armed conflict. Through a vast array of case studies, from the silent era to recent years, the collection traces cinema’s enduring fascination with battles and violence in antiquity and explores the reasons, both synchronic and diachronic, for the central place that war occupies in celluloid Greece and Rome. Situating films in their artistic, economic, and sociopolitical context, the essays cast light on the industrial mechanisms through which the ancient battlefield is refashioned in cinema and investigate why the medium adopts a revisionist approach to textual and visual sources.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Figures Notes on Contributors Part 1: Introduction 1 Swords Made of Rubber: Cinematic Antiquity through the Lens of War  Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos Part 2: Cinema vs. History: Testing the Accuracy of Celluloid Battles 2 Form and Function: The Importance of Military Formations in Cinematic Depictions of the Roman Army  Jeremy Armstrong 3 Alexander in Ares’ Mirror: Armed Conflict in Oliver Stone’s Historical Epic  Elias Koulakiotis Part 3: The Leading Men of Celluloid Armies 4 “Hail! The Sign of the Cross”: Industrial Campaigns and Commanding Performances in The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Cleopatra (1934)  Michael Williams 5 Richard Burton in Alexander the Great (1956) and the Mechanisms of Hollywood Stardom: Fashioning an Ancient Military Icon in Post-WWII American Cinema  Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos 6 Brad’s Biceps and Dwayne’s Delts: Stardom as Physicality and Digital Spectacle in Troy (2004) and Hercules (2014)  Djoymi Baker Part 4: Women and Military Conflict 7 Atalanta as Celluloid Warrior in Jason and the Argonauts (2000) and Hercules (2014)  Patricia Salzman-Mitchell 8 Women on the Battlefield: Ancient Warrior Queens and Female Military Commanders on the Millennial Screen  Irene Berti 9 “She Wants to Be Married and Give the Children Names!”: Women and the Roman Army in Post-Gladiator Films  Jorit Wintjes 10 Women in Captivity: The Human Cost of Armed Conflict from the Trojan War to Modern Greek Cinema  Anastasia Bakogianni Part 5: Western Colonialism and Racist Attitudes 11 Rome vs. Carthage: Imperial and Racist Aspirations in Italian Films of the Twentieth Century  Arthur J. Pomeroy 12 Porus vs. Alexander in Modi’s Sikandar (1941) and Stone’s Alexander (2004–2014)  Seán Easton Part 6: Ancient Warfare on Film and Modern Politics 13 Armed Conflict in Italian Historical Films of the Fascist and Post-WWII Era (1937–1954)  Óscar Lapeña Marchena 14 The Noise of War: Sound, Politics and Space in the Italian Peplum  Robert A. Rushing 15 “Make Love, Not War”: Roman Soldiers and 1960s Countercultural Masculinity in Fellini-Satyricon  Renata Senna Garraffoni 16 Epic Combat in Ancient and Modern History: A Comparative Analysis of The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and The Longest Day (1962)  Jonathan Stubbs 17 Lysistrata (1972): Political and Sexual Refractions of the Peloponnesian War during the Greek Junta  Kaiti Diamantakou Part 7: Ancient Battles for Millennial Spectators and the Impact of the Hollywood War Film 18 Sensational Violence: Brutality in Twenty-First-Century Cinematic Depictions of Roman Battles  Hannah-Marie Chidwick 19 Rockules’ Revenge: The Portrayal of the Veteran Warrior in Brett Ratner’s Hercules  Owen Rees 20 Romans and Zealots in the Global War on Terror: Asymmetric Warfare and Counterinsurgency in Risen (2016) and Ben-Hur (2016)  Oskar Aguado-Cantabrana Part 8: Epilogue 21 To Be Continued: Considerations of Ancient Warfare in Film  Lee L. Brice Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume on avant-garde film has emerged as part of a wider reassessment of 20th century avant-garde art, literature and film carried out in the framework of a research project at the University of Edinburgh. It paves the way for a fresh assessment of avant-garde film and develops its theory as an integral part of a newly defined conception of the avant-garde as a whole, by closing the gap between theoretical approaches towards the avant-garde as defined on the basis of art and literature on the one hand and avant-garde cinema on the other. It gathers contributions by the most esteemed scholars in the field of avant-garde studies relating to the “classical” avant-garde cinema of the 1920s, to new trends emerging in the 1950s and 1960s and to the impact that innovative technologies have recently had on the further development of avant-garde and experimental film. The contributions reflect the broad range of different moving-image media that make up what we refer to today simply as “film”, at the same time as reconsidering the applicability of the label “avant-garde”, to offer a comprehensive and updated framework that will prove invaluable to scholars of both Moving Image Studies and Art History disciplines.Table of ContentsPreface Abstraction, Surrealism, Futurism: The Cinema of the Historical Avant-Garde R. Bruce ELDER: Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling: The Dream of Universal Language and the Birth of The Absolute Film A.L. REES: Frames and Windows: Visual Space in Abstract Cinema Alexander GRAF: Berlin - Moscow: On the Montage Aesthetic in the City Symphony Films of the 1920s Rudolf E. KUENZLI: Man Ray’s Films: From Dada to Surrealism Michael KORFMANN: On Mário Peixoto’s Limite Tami M. WILLIAMS: Dancing with Light: Choreographies of Gender in the Cinema of Germaine Dulac Marina BURKE: Mayakovsky: Film: Futurism Post-War American and European Experiments Maureen TURIM: The Interiority of Space: Desire and Maya Deren Inez HEDGES: Stan Brakhage’s Film Testament: The Four Faust Films William WEES: Light-Play and the Aesthetics of Avant-Garde Film Yvonne SPIELMANN: Paul Sharits: from Cinematic Movement to Non-directional Motion Pierre SORLIN: Changes in experimental filmmaking between the 1920s and the 1960s: On Luis Buñuel Bart KEUNEN and Sascha BRU: It’s a Kind of Magic: World Construction in French Surrealist and Belgian Magical Realist Fiction and Cinema Nicky HAMLYN: Peter Kubelka’s Arnulf Rainer Tania ØRUM: Danish Avant-Garde Filmmakers of the 1960s: Technology, Cross-aesthetics and Politics New Technologies and Media Convergence: The Contemporary Avant-garde Film Martine BEUGNET: French Experimental Cinema: the Figural and the Formless – Nicolas Rey’s Terminus for you (1996) and Pip Chodorov’s Charlemagne 2: Piltzer (2002) Frédérique DEVAUX: The Stammering Frame: on recent French and Austrian Film Experiments Ursula BÖSER: Inscriptions of Light and The ‘Calligraphy of Decay’: Volatile Representation in Bill Morrison’s Decasia Günter BERGHAUS: From Video Art to Video Performance: The Work of Ulrike Rosenbach Margit GRIEB: New Media and Feminist Interventions: Valie Export’s Medial Anagrams Jonathan WALLEY: The Paracinema of Anthony McCall and Tony Conrad List of Illustrations About the Authors Index

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Book SynopsisThis innovative interdisciplinary study compares the uses of painting in literary texts and films. In developing a framework of four types of ekphrasis, the author argues for the expansion of the concept of ekphrasis by demonstrating its applicability as interpretive tool to films about the visual arts and artists. Analyzing selected works of art by Goya, Rembrandt, and Vermeer and their ekphrastic treatment in various texts and films, this book examines how the medium of ekphrasis affects the representation of the visual arts in order to show what the differences imply about issues such as gender roles and the function of art for the construction of a personal or social identity. Because of its highly cross-disciplinary nature, this book is of interest not only to scholars of literature and aesthetics, but also for scholars of film studies. By providing an innovative approach to discussing non-documentary films about artists, the author shows that ekphrasis is a useful tool for exploring both aesthetic concerns and ideological issues in film. This study also addresses art historians as it deals with the reception of major artists in European literature and film throughout the 20th century.Trade Review”Writing and Filming the Painting is a valuable addition to the exponentially growing area of ekphrastic studies” - Erik Martiny, in: English Studies, Vol. 94.6, October 2013 pp. 748-50Table of ContentsChapter 1: Toward a Definition of Ekphrasis in Literature and Film Chapter 2:Methodology Chapter 3: Goya’s Sleep of Reason in Poetry, Drama and Film: Dramatizing the Artist’s Battle with his Creatures Chapter 4: Goya’s Sleep of Reason in Lion Feuchtwanger’s Novel and Konrad Wolf’s Film Adaptation: Private or Social Demons? Chapter 5: From Screenplay to Film: Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits and Social Identity Construction through Ekphrasis Chapter 6: Vermeer’s Women in Film and Fiction: Ekphrasis and Gendered Structures of Vision Chapter 7: Conclusion: The Cerebral and the Affective Function of Ekphrasis Works Cited Filmography List of Illustrations/Image Credits

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Book SynopsisEl cine español contemporáneo (1990-2005) dedica mucha atención a la rememoración del pasado (Segunda República, la Guerra Civil, el período franquista,…) y la realidad social (el paro, la violencia doméstica, inmigración, eutanasia,…). Directores renombrados como Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro Amenábar, Fernando León de Aranoa, Icíar Bollaín, o Isabel Coixet, muestran este interés dentro de sus miradas cinematográficas. La gran popularidad de este cine ha estimulado su migración en pantallas ajenas y dentro de contextos universitarios nacionales e internacionales. Este libro reúne unos veinte artículos, de investigadores americanos y europeos, que ilustran las múltiples tradiciones culturales en vigor dentro de los estudios cinematográficos, y que enfocan al mismo tiempo el tema central del libro: ¿Cómo se puede leer, la mirada de los autores españoles, sobre el pasado y el presente, dentro del contexto de su cine nacional?Table of ContentsIntroducción Pietsie FEENSTRA y Hub. HERMANS : La migración del cine español Eduardo RODRİGUEZ MERCHÁN y Gema FERNÁNDEZ-HOYA : La definitiva renovación generacional (1990-2005) El pasado filmado Vicente SÁNCHEZ-BIOSCA : Silencio roto (Montxo Armendáriz): imperativos del relato y política de la memoria Pilar GARCÍA JIMÉNEZ : Lenguajes de la memoria en El grito del sur: Casas Viejas de Basilio Martín Patino Bénédicte BRÉMARD : Jaime Camino, Los niños de Rusia (2001), siguiendo el camino de la memoria Hub. HERMANS : El silencio llevado al cine: Cercas, Trueba y los Soldados de Salamina Pietsie FEENSTRA : ‘Coreografías-monumentales’ en La niña de tus ojos (1998) de Fernando Trueba Nancy BERTHIER : Carlos Saura o el arte de heredar El presente filmado Ficción : discursos diversos sobre temas sociales Isabel MAURER QUEIPO : ‘La estética de lo híbrido’ en Hable con ella de Pedro Almodóvar Marina DÍAZ LÓPEZ : ¡Viva la diferencia (sexual)! o El otro lado de la cama (Emilio Martínez-Lázaro, 2002) Verena BERGER : La soledad a través de la cámara: Solas (1999) de Benito Zambrano María CAMI-VELA : Cineastas españolas que filman en inglés: Isabel Coixet Lorenzo Javier TORRES HORTELANO : Poniente (2002) de Chus Gutiérrez. ‘En España no hay racismo…’ Documentales ficticios Román GUBERN: ¡Hay motivo! (2004): un macrotexto de cine militante Josetxo CERDÁN : Volar sobre el conflicto vasco: La pelota vasca. La piel contra la piedra / Euskal Pilota. Larrua Harriaren Kontra (Julio Medem, 2003) Pascale THIBAUDEAU : El cine de denuncia social en España: el caso de Te doy mis ojos de Icíar Bollaín Àngel QUINTANA : Fernando León de Aranoa: Princesas (2005) y el realismo tímido en el cine español José Luis CASTRO DE PAZ : Mar adentro (Alejandro Amenábar, 2004) y las zozobras del cine español Sobre los autores Colaboran

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Book SynopsisHosting the Monster responds to the call of the monstrous with, not rejection, but invitation. Positing the monster as that which defies classification, the essays in this collection are an ongoing engagement with that which lies outside of established boundaries. With chapters ranging from the monstrous mother or the deformed child to subjectivity in transition, this volume is not only of interest to film and gender scholars and literary and cultural theorists but also students of popular culture or horror. Its wide appeal stems from its invitation both to entertain the monster and to widen the call to and the listening for the monsters that have not yet, and perhaps must not yet, come calling back. This sense of hospitality and non-hostility is one guiding principle of this collection, suggesting that the ability to survey and research the otherwise may reveal more about the subjectivity of the self through the wisdom of the other, however monstrous the manifestation.Table of ContentsPreface Holly Lynn BAUMGARTNER and Roger DAVIS: Hosting the Monster: Introduction Duane W. KIGHT: “I Live in the Weak and the Wounded”: The Monster of Brad Anderson’s Session 9 Amaya MURUZÁBAL MURUZÁBAL: The Monster as a Victim of War: The Returning Veteran in The Best Years of Our Lives Lucy FIFE: Human Monstrosity: Rape, Ambiguity and Performance in Rosemary’s Baby Inderjit GREWAL: The Monstrous and Maternal in Toni Morrison’s Beloved Hannah PRIEST: The Witch and the Werewolf: Rebirth and Subjectivity in Medieval Verse Holly Lynn BAUMGARTNER: It’s Never the Bass: Opera’s True Transgressors Sing Soprano Katherine ANGELL: Joseph Merrick and the Concept of Monstrosity in Nineteenth Century Medical Thought Jessica WEBB: Herculine Barbin: Human Error, Criminality and the Case of the Monstrous Hermaphrodite Cecilia A. FEILLA: Literary Monsters: Gender, Genius, and Writing in Denis Diderot’s ‘On Women’ and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Sorcha NÍ FHLAINN: Sweet, Bloody Vengeance: Class, Social Stigma and Servitude in the Slasher Genre. David M. KINGSLEY: It Came from Four-Colour Fiction: The Effect of Cold War Comic Books on the Fiction of Stephen King Liesbet DEPAUW: The Monsters that Failed to Scare: The Atypical Reception of the 1930s Horror Films in Belgium Roger DAVIS: “a white illusion of a man”: Snowman, Survival and Speculation in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisSome eighteen film directors from France to the United States, Germany to India, have applied themselves to the task of adapting Madame Bovary to the screen. Why has Flaubert’s 1857 classic novel been so popular with filmmakers? What challenges have they had to meet? What ideologies do their adaptations serve? Madame Bovary at the Movies seeks to answer these questions, avoiding value judgments based on the notion of fidelity to the novel. In-depth analyses are reserved for the studio films of Renoir, Minnelli and Chabrol and the small-screen adaptation of Fywell. As the first book-length examination of the Madame Bovary adaptations, this volume, in addition to its pedagogical applications, will be a useful reference for scholars of literature and film and for those interested in the burgeoning field of adaptation studies.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction The Theory and Practice of Adaptation Jean Renoir (1934): Framing Emma Vincente Minnelli (1949): Hollywood Rediscovers Emma Claude Chabrol (1991): Keeping the Faith Tim Fywell (2000): Sex in the Living Room Adaptation and its Avatars Conclusion Appendix A: Synopsis of Novel Appendix B: Filmography Appendix C: Glossary of Film Terms Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe swelling flows of migration from Africa towards Europe have aroused interest not only in the socio-political consequences of the migrants’ insistent appeals to ‘fortress Europe’ but also in the artistic integration of African migrants into the cultural world of Europe. While in recent years the creative output of Africans living in Europe has received attention from the media and in academia, little critical consideration has been given to African migrants’ modes of narration and the manner in which these modes give expression to, or are an expression of, their creators’ transcultural realities. Transcultural Modernities: Narrating Africa in Europe responds to this need for reflection by examining the manner in which migrants compose and negotiate their Euro-African affiliations in their narratives. The book brings together scholars in the fields of literary and art criticism, cultural studies, and anthropology for an extensive interdisciplinary exchange on the specific modes of narration displayed in Euro-African literatures, the visual arts, and cinema, as well as offering ethnographic case studies. The result is a wide range of reflections on how African artists, writers, and ordinary people living in Europe experience and explore their transcultural and/or postcolonial environments, and how their experiences and explorations in turn contribute to the construction of modern Euro-African life-worlds.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Illustrations Introduction New Euro-African Literary Spaces Sabrina BRANCATO: Voices Lost in a Non-Place: African Writing in Spain Peter N. PEDRONI: Kossi Komla–Ebri and Migrant Writing in Italy Daniela MEROLLA: Poetics of Transition: Africa and Dutch Literary Space Elisabeth BEKERS: Chronicling Beyond Abyssinia: African Writing in Flanders, Belgium Eila RANTONEN: African Voices in Finland and Sweden Literary Perspectives Frank SCHULZE–ENGLER: Transcultural Modernities and Anglophone African Literature Susan ARNDT: Euro-African Trans-Spaces? Migration, Transcultural Narration and Literary Studies Elisabeth BEKERS: Culture in Transit: The Migration of Female Genital Excision to Europe in Euro-African Writing Susanne GEHRMANN: Black Masculinity, Migration and Psychological Crisis: A Reading of Simon Njami’s African Gigolo Elisa DIALLO: Polyphony, Old ‘Lyonnais’ and Animism: Africa in Urban Europe in Un Rêve utile de Tierno Monénembo Nadia BUTT: Negotiating Untranslatability and Islam in Leila Aboulela’s The Translator Obododimma OHA: ‘Occupying the Isolated Terminal Space and Silent’: The Rhetoric of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Poetry of Femi Oyebode Daria TUNCA: Linguistic Counterpoint in Gbenga Agbenugba’s Another Lonely Londoner Visual and Cinematographic Narratives Alex ROTAS: New Labels, But It’s Still Labelling: Ibrahim El Salahi and Mohamed Bushara as ‘Asylum Artists’ in the UK Marie–Christine PRESS: North African Modernities: Myth Stripped Bare Daphne PAPPERS: Spies in the Sixteenth Arrondissement: Myriam Mihindou Exhibits at the Musée Dapper in Paris Jacobia DAHM: Emigrants and Immigrants of Burkina Faso, Senegal, and France: Ousmane Sembène’s La Noire De ... and S. Pierre Yameogo’s Moi et mon blanc Marie–Hélène GUTBERLET: Towards an Aesthetic of the Migrant Self: The Film Le Clandestin by José Zeka Laplaine Nwachukwu Frank UKADIKE: Critical Dialogues: Transcultural Modernities and Modes of Narrating Africa in Documentary Films Imagining Life – Narrating Stories Graham HUGGAN: Imagining Disaster in the African Postcolony Sissy HELFF: Refugee Life Narratives: The Disturbing Potential of a Genre and the Case of Mende Nazer Katrin BERNDT: Shared Paradoxes in Namibian and German History: Lucia Engombe’s Kind Nr. 95 Annika LIEBY–MCPHERSON: From Utopia to Atopia to Diaspora? Social (Re-)Organization in a German Refugee Home Bettina HORN–UDEZE: “Here in Europe it’s like a secret cult”: A Nigerian Migrant’s Narration of Initiation into the System of Migration Christine MATZKE: “Performing ‘Africa’” in Germany: Members of abok Theatre Company in Conversation Fouad LAROUI: Misunderstandings: Working Euro-African Life into Fiction Creative Writing Fouad LAROUI: Le Pyjama bleu Chika UNIGWE: Cotton Candy Notes on Contributors and Editors Notes for Contributors

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book that comprehensively examines Indigenous filmmaking in North America, as it analyzes in detail a variety of representative films by Canadian and US-American Indigenous filmmakers: two films that contextualize the oral tradition, three short films, and four dramatic films. The book explores how members of colonized groups use the medium of film as a means for cultural and political expression and thus enter the dominant colonial film discourse and create an answering discourse. The theoretical framework is developed as an interdisciplinary approach, combining postcolonialism, Indigenous studies, and film studies. As Indigenous people are gradually taking control over the imagemaking process in the area of film and video, they cease being studied and described objects and become subjects who create self-controlled images of Indigenous cultures. The book explores the translatability of Indigenous oral tradition into film, touching upon the changes the cultural knowledge is subject to in this process, including statements of Indigenous filmmakers on this issue. It also asks whether or not there is a definite Indigenous film practice and whether filmmakers tend to dissociate their work from dominant classical filmmaking, adapt to it, or create new film forms and styles through converging classical film conventions and their conscious violation. This approach presupposes that Indigenous filmmakers are constantly in some state of reaction to Western ethnographic filmmaking and to classical narrative filmmaking and its epitome, the Hollywood narrative cinema. The films analyzed are The Road Allowance People by Maria Campbell, Itam Hakim, Hopiit by Victor Masayesva, Talker by Lloyd Martell, Tenacity and Smoke Signals by Chris Eyre, Overweight With Crooked Teeth and Honey Moccasin by Shelley Niro, Big Bear by Gil Cardinal, and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner by Zacharias Kunuk.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. The Foucauldian Lens of Power Decolonized 2. A Postcolonial Approach to Indigenous Filmmaking in North America 3. Oral Tradition as Reflected in Film Connections Between Oral Tradition and Film 4. Short Films 5. Dramatic Films Conclusion Works Cited Filmography Internet Sources Appendix Index

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Table of ContentsHélène Maurel-Indart: Literary Plagiarism Awa C. Sarr: Plagiat, négriat littéraire et institution littéraire Roxanna Curto: Senghor and Heidegger: Negritude’s Appropriation of German Phenomenology Patrick D. Murphree: Sentimental Invraisemblance and Post-revolutionary French Identity: Three Parodies of Misanthropie et repentir Fayçal Falaky: L’originalité du plagiat Barbara T. Cooper: Purloined Property: A Study of Madame Reybaud’s Les Épaves and Its Theatrical Adaptation, Le Marché de Saint-Pierre Corry Cropper: Call Me Clara: Prosper Mérimée’s Hoax Ethos Bertrand Bourgeois: Le Muséum de Bouvard et Pécuchet: Parodie, kitsch et ruine du musée moderne Paola Scarpini: Quand les topoi ne sont plus les mêmes: d’Ipomédon de Hue de Rotelande Nora Cottille-Foley: Un texte en cache-t-il un autre? Le palimpseste chez Marie Darrieussecq Trae DeLellis: Copycat, Copycat: The Anxiety of Influence in Irma Vep Patricia Reynaud: Le goût des autres d’Agnès Jaoui: de l’adaptation de P. Bourdieu au cinéma à sa subversion Nathalie Wourm: Non-readings, Misreadings, Unreadings: Deleuze and Cadiot on Robinson Crusoe and Capitalism Corinne François-Denève: L’homme qui racontait des histoires: Paul Pavlowitch Alexander Hertich: Erratum... Errata... Erasum...: The Selection of Sources for Raymond Queneau’s Le Chiendent Peter Sorrell: “Cette nouvelle réalité”: at the Mouviez with Raymond Queneau

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Book SynopsisFor decades postwar Austrian literature has been measured against and moulded into a series of generic categories and grand cultural narratives, from nostalgic ‘restoration’ literature of the 1950s through the socially critical ‘anti-Heimat’ novel to recent literary reckonings with Austria’s Nazi past. Peering through the lens of film adaptation, this book rattles the generic shackles imposed by literary history and provides an entirely new critical perspective on Austrian literature. Its original methodological approach challenges the primacy of written sources in existing scholarship and uses the distortions generated by the shift in medium as a productive starting point for literary analysis. Five case studies approach canonical texts in post-war Austrian literature by Gerhard Fritsch, Franz Innerhofer, Gerhard Roth, Elfriede Jelinek, and Robert Schindel, through close readings of their cinematic adaptations, concentrating on key areas of narratological concern: plot, narrative perspective, authorship, and post-modern ontologies. Setting the texts within the historical, cultural and political discourses that define the ‘Alpine Republic’, this study investigates fundamental aspects of Austrian national identity, such as its Habsburg and National Socialist legacies.Trade Review“Impeccably researched and supported, Firth’s virtuoso study offers a highly engaging critical experience in her re-vision of textual structure and filmic translation in sources that call the traditional binary reading of postwar Austrian cultural identity into question. Her utilization of cinematic concepts to re-examine literature and psychological strategies to comprehend film adaptations comes with a clarity that is rare. Modern Austrian Literature through the Lens of Adaptation is a key text that offers literature and film analysis pertinent interdisciplinary tools, and tantalizingly rattles staid concepts of Austrian cultural-historical criticism. [...]what is most intriguing about Through the Lens of Adaptation is its aspiration to move beyond a traditionally linear conception of the adaptation process in order to understand the relationship between the two media not as a unidirectional but a more complex reciprocal transaction. […] Through the Lens of Adaptation undoubtedly has much to offer scholars of literary studies and film studies alike. It not only provides a useful overview of the history of Austrian literature in the second half of the twentieth century but also critically engages with the problematic dynamics of its making. A set of comparative analyses serves as an invitation to revisit canonical works and to reconsider the major narratives that have dominated their critical debate. Overall, the innovative interdisciplinary approach of this work succeeds in providing inspiring new perspectives on literary works “through the lens of adaptation.” – Arnhilt Johanna Hoefle, University of London, in: Journal of Austrian Studies 46:4 (2014), pp. 140-142Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Author’s Note Introduction Perverted Narratives and Secret Subversion: Gerhard Fritsch and Georg Lhotzky’s Moos auf den Steinen Focalisation, Identification, and Power: Franz Innerhofer and Fritz Lehner’s Schöne Tage The Violence of Visual Anthropology: Gerhard Roth and Xaver Schwarzenberger’s Der Stille Ozean Comedy, Collusion, and Exclusion: Elfriede Jelinek and Franz Novotny’s Die Ausgesperrten Post-Modern Pleasures: Robert Schindel and Lukas Stepanik’s Gebürtig Concluding Remarks Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOne can find it in the classics of experimental literature such as Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy or the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges, but also in the horror and fantasy fiction of Stephen King, in Mel Brooks’s spoof films and Grant Morrison’s superhero comics. The talk is of metalepsis, the transgression of narrative levels. While this device was long perceived as a narratological oddity reserved for avant-garde texts, it has recently emerged as a phenomenon of much wider bearing that exists in numerous media and in popular as well as high culture. When Storyworlds Collide wishes to do justice to this situation and offers both a refined model for the analysis of metalepsis across media and a detailed investigation of the uses and functions of metalepsis in popular culture, thus providing a valuable addition to the burgeoning field of post-classical and transmedial narrative theory. Starting from a thorough reevaluation of the concept of metalepsis as it is discussed both in classical narratology and more recent endeavours, this book puts forth a deceptively simple yet flexible definition and typology of this device, centred on the violation of the border separating the inside and outside of a storyworld and designed to be transmedially applicable. In a second step, this model is put to the test through an analysis of a wide range of metaleptic narratives drawn from popular fiction, film, and comics. When Storyworlds Collide takes popular culture seriously, employing it neither to merely exemplify theory nor to demonstrate that it is ultimately a knockoff of high culture. Rather, it shows that metalepsis possesses a unique dynamics in popular storytelling and has become an essential device for pop-cultural self-reflection – while still retaining an immense potential to create amusing and entertaining narratives. This book will be relevant to students and scholars from a wide variety of fields: narrative theory, intermediality and media studies, popular culture as well as literary, film and comics studies.Trade Review“One of the greatest merits of this book is that it provides readers with a convincing and viable definition of metalepsis. Based on a concise review of the dominant theories of metalepsis, starting with Gérard Genette’s original description of the phenomenon, and drawing on concepts from possible worlds theory, in particular Marie-Laure Ryan and Lubomír Doležel, Thoss defines metalepsis as the paradoxical transgression of the line separating the inside from the outside of a storyworld. Unlike Genette, who conceptualizes metalepsis as a hierarchical violation. […] As a whole, the book is tightly argued, well-written and thus a pleasure to read. Moreover, Thoss’s threefold typology of metaleptical transgressions is a more than useful addition to the existing literature and theory on metalepsis.” - Keyvan Sarkhosh, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 41.2 (2016), pp. 93-97Table of ContentsList of illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Theory 2. Fiction 3. Film 4. Comics Conclusion References

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Book SynopsisFilm criticism is in crisis. Dwelling on the many film journalists made redundant at newspapers, magazines, and other 'old media' in past years, commentators have voiced existential questions about the purpose and worth of the profession in the age of WordPress blogospheres and proclaimed the 'death of the critic'. Bemoaning the current anarchy of internet amateurs and the lack of authoritative critics, many journalists and academics claim that in the digital age, cultural commentary has become dumbed down and fragmented into niche markets. Mattias Freu, arguing against these claims, examines the history of film critical discourse in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States . He demonstrates that since its origins, film criticism has always found itself in crisis: the need to show critical authority and the anxieties over challenges to that authority have been longstanding concerns.Trade ReviewŸCompelling. . . . Frey demonstrates that in all arts criticism, crisis is a continual and perpetual cycle. Recommended.Œ -ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgements. Introduction. Chapter 1. The Birthing Pains of the First Professionals: Promotion and Distinction Chapter 2. Second-Wave Crises of Proximity and Distance: Relating to the Industry and the Audience Chapter 3. The Institutional Assertion of Authority: Sight and Sound and the Postwar Cinephile Challenge Chapter 4. From 'I' to 'We': Filmkritik and the Limits of Kracauerism in Postwar German Film Criticism Chapter 5. The Anxiety of Influence: The 'Golden Age' of Criticism, The Rise of the TV Pundit, and the Memory of Pauline Kael Chapter 6. The Spectre of 'Democratization' in the Digital Age Conclusion. What Is the Good of Authoritative Critics? Select Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisThis volume brings together a wide range of research on the ways in which technological innovations have established new and changing conditions for the experience, study and theorization of film. Drawn from the IMPACT film conference (The Impact of Technological Innovations on the Historiography and Theory of Cinema) held in Montreal in 2011, the book includes contributions from such leading figures in the field as Tom Gunning, Charles Musser, Jan Olsson and Vinzenz Hediger.Table of ContentsForeword André Gaudreault Introduction The Discursive Spaces Between a History of Film Technology and Technological Experience Santiago Hidalgo SECTION I: EXPERIENCE Chapter 1 When Did Cinema Become Cinema?: Technology, History, and the Moving Pictures Charles Musser Chapter 2 Exhibition Practices in Transition: Spectators, Audiences, and Projectors Jan Olsson Chapter 3 Reel Changes: Post-mortem Cinephilia or the Resistance of Melancholia André Habib Chapter 4 Walter Benjamin’s Play Room: Where the Future So Eloquently Nests Or: What is Cinema Again? Dana Cooley SECTION II: STUDY Chapter 5 Hitchcock, Film Studies, and New Media: The Impact of Technology on the Analysis of Film David Colangelo Chapter 6 Film Analysis and Statistics: A Field Report Charles O’Brien Chapter 7 A ‘Distant Reading’ of the ‘Chaser Theory’: Local Views and the Digital Generation of New Cinema History Paul Moore SECTION III: THEORY Chapter 8 Graphism: A New Approach to the Evolution of Film Language Through Technology Tom Gunning Chapter 9 Can We Have the Cave and Leave It Too? On the Meaning of Cinema as Technology Vinzenz Hediger Chapter 10 On Viewfinders, Video Assist Systems, and Tape Splicers: Questioning the History of Techniques and Technology in Cinema Benoît Turquety

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Book SynopsisFrom 1968 to 1991 the acclaimed film theorist Christian Metz wrote several remarkable books on film theory: Essais sur la signifi cation au cinéma, tome1 et 2; Langage et cinéma; Le signifiant imaginaire; and L’Enonciation impersonnelle. These books set the agenda of academic film studies during its formative period. Metz’s ideas were taken up, digested, refined,reinterpreted, criticized and sometimes dismissed, but rarely ignored. This volume collects and translates into English for the first time a series of interviews with Metz, who offers readable summaries,elaborations, and explanations of his sometimes complex and demanding theories of film. He speaks informally of the most fundamental concepts that constitute the heart of film theory as an academic discipline — concepts borrowed from linguistics, semiotics, rhetoric, narratology, and psychoanalysis. Within the colloquial language of the interview, we witness Metz’s initial formation and development of his film theory. The interviewers act as curious readers who pose probing questions to Metz about his books, and seek clarification and elaboration of his key concepts. We also discover the contents of his unpublished manuscript on jokes, his relation to Roland Barthes, and the social networks operative in the French intellectual community during the 1970s and 1980s.Table of ContentsIntroductions A Furious Exactitude: An Overview of Christian Metz's Film Theory Warren Buckland Christian Metz and the Constellation of French Film Journals in the 1960s and 1970s Daniel Fairfax Interviews Works of Christian Metz Frequently Cited in the Interviews 1. Semiology, Linguistics, Cinema: Interview with Christian Metz René Fouque, Elaine Le Grivés, and Simon Luciani 2. Cinema and Semiology: On 'Specificity': Interview with Christian Metz Jean-André Fieschi 3. Interview on Film Semiology Raymond Bellour and Christian Metz 4. Interview with Christian Metz Daniel Percheron and Marc Vernet 5. Round Table on Film Theory Christian Metz, Michel Fano, Jean Paul Simon, and Noël Simsolo 6. Conversation on The Imaginary Signifier and Essais sémiotiques Jean Paul Simon, Marc Vernet, and Christian Metz 7. The Cinematic Apparatus as Social Institution: An Interview with Christian Metz Sandy Flitterman, Bill Guynn, Roswitha Mueller, and Jacquelyn Suter 8. A Seminar with Christian Metz: Cinema, Semiology, Psychoanalysis, History Chaired by Rick Thompson 9. Responses to Hors cadre on The Imaginary Signifier Christian Metz 10. Interview with Christian Metz Michel Marie and Marc Vernet 11. Christian Metz: Interview André Gaudreault 12. An Ethics of Semiology: Interview with Christian Metz André Gardies

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Book SynopsisThis collection is the first to bring together scholars to explore the ways in which various people and groups in Italian society reacted to the advent of cinema. Looking at the responses of writers, scholars, clergymen, psychologists, philosophers, members of parliament, and more, the pieces collected here from that period show how Italians developed a common language to describe and discuss this invention that quickly exceeded all expectations and transcended existing categories of thought and artistic forms. The result is a close-up picture of a culture in transition, dealing with a 'scandalous' new technology that appeared poised to thoroughly change everyday life.Table of ContentsFrancesco Casetti, The Throb of the Cinematograph Section 1. Cinema and Modern Life Introduction (Francesco Casetti) 1. Edipi [Ettore della Porta], Cinematography 2. Giovanni Papini, The Philosophy of Cinematograph 3. Gaio [Adolfo Orvieto], Summertime Spectacles: The Cinema 4. Maffio Maffii, Why I love the Cinema 5. Giovanni Fossi, The Movie Theatre Audience 6. Crainquebille [Enrico Thovez], The Art of Celluloid 7. Ricciotto Canudo, The Triumph of the Cinema 8. Fausto Maria Martini, The Death of the Word Section 2. Film in Transition Introduction (Francesco Casetti) 9. Lucio D'Ambra, The Museum of the Fleeting Moment 10. Haydée [Ida Finzi], The Woman and the Cinema 11. Emanuele Toddi [Pietro Silvio Rivetta], Darkness and Intelligence 12. Matilde Serao, A Spectatrix is Speaking to You 13. Emilio Scaglione, Motion Pictures in Provincial Towns 14. Edoardo Coli, Cinematic Psychology 15. Silvio D'Amico, The Cinematograph Doesn't Exist 16. Giovanni Bertinetti, The Cinema, School of the Will and of Energy 17. Alberto Orsi, The Close-Up 18. Ernesto Quadrone, Cinedrama Titles Section 3. Cinema at War Introduction (Luca Mazzei) 19. Nino Salvaneschi, The War from Close-Up 20. Renato Giovannetti, That Poor Cinema 21. Renato Giovannetti, War Applied to Industry 22. Luigi Lucatelli, Families of Soldiers 23. g. pr. [Giuseppe Prezzolini], War and Cinema 24. Lucio D'Ambra, Max Linder Dies in the War 25. Saverio Procida, Cinema of War Section 4. Politics, Morality, Education Introduction (Silvio Alovisio) 26. Domenico Orano, The Cinema and Education 27. Romano Costetti, The Intuitive Method of Religious Education 28. Giovan Battista Avellone, The Cinema and Its Influence on the Education of the People 29. Francesco Orestano, Motion Pictures and Scholastic Education 30. Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, The People's Theatre 31. Angelina Maria Buracci, Cinema for the Cultivation of the Intellect 32. Ettore Fabietti, The Cinema as Teacher Section 5. Film, Body, Mind Introduction (Silvio Alovisio) 33. Pasquale Rossi, Collective Psychology 34. Mario Ponzo, Psychological Observations Made during Motion Picture Screenings 35. Giuseppe D'Abundo, Concerning the Effects of Film Viewing on Neurotic Individuals 36. Mariano Luigi Patrizi, The Ongoing Battle between Gesture and Word 37. Mario Umberto Masini and Giuseppe Vidoni, The Cinematograph in the Field of Mental Ilness and Criminality: Notes 38. Mario Ponzo, Cinema and Juvenile Delinquency Section 6. The Aesthetic Side Introduction (Luca Mazzei and Silvio Alovisio) 39. Corrado Ricci, Problems of Art: Expression and Movement in Sculpture 40. Sebastiano Arturo Luciani, Scenic Impressionism 41. Goffredo Bellonci, The Aesthetics of Cinema 42. Sebastiano Arturo Luciani, The Poetics of Cinema 43. Goffredo Bellonci, Manifesto for a Cinematic Revolution 44. Antonio Gramsci, Theatre and the Cinema 45. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Bruno Corra, Emilio Settimelli, Arnaldo Ginna, Giacomo Balla, and Remo Chiti, The Futurist Cinematography 46. Antonio Gramsci, In the Beginning Was Sex= 47. Emanuele Toddi [Pietro Silvio Rivetta], Rectangle-Film (25 x 19) 48. Anton Giulio Bragaglia, The Proscenium Arch of My Cinema 49. Lucio D'Ambra, My Views on the Cinematograph 50. Michele Biancale, Meditations in the Dark Section 7. A Theory in a Narrative Form Introduction (Luca Mazzei) 51. Roberto Tanfani, Colour Film 52. Luigia Cortesi, At the Cinema 53. Alberto Lumbroso, A Phantom Pursued 54. Aldo Borelli, Miopetti's Duel 55. Guido Gozzano, Pamela-Film 56. Pio Vanzi, Feature Film 57. Luciano Doria, Me, Riri, and Love in Slippers 58. Federigo Tozzi, A Cinematic Performance 59. Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo, Life, a Glass Theatre 60. Guido Gozzano, The Shears' Reflection Sources Authors' Biographies General Bibliography Aknowledgements Index Editors' Biographies

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Book SynopsisA pioneering figure in film studies, Christian Metz proposed countless new concepts for reflecting on cinema, rooted in his phenomenological structuralism. He also played a key role in establishing film studies as a scholarly discipline, making major contributions to its institutionalisation in universities worldwide. This book brings together a stellar roster of contributors to present a close analysis of Metz's writings, their theoretical and epistemological positions, and their ongoing influence today.Trade Review"This book offers an extensive, encompassing reflection and analysis of Metz’s oeuvre in English [...] The complexity and thematic variety of contributions grants this book the potential of becoming core reading both for film students and film theorists."- Marija Weste, Linkoping University, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2019 "The book is conceived both as an homage and as a contribution to current film and media theoretical debates. [=] The readers are offered a material-rich and detailed discussion of Metz including documents from his archived inheritance. The book indicates links and possibilities of application of his reflections to contemporary audiovisual productions of meaning and it offers readers not yet familiar with Metz an introduction to his thinking on a high theoretical and analytical level."- Philipp Blum (Zürich), MEDIENwissenschaft 03/2019Table of ContentsAcknowledgments & Editorial Note Margrit Tröhler — Christian Metz and Film Semiology — Dynamics within and on the Edges of the ‘Model’: An Introduction I. Metz and the Tradition of Film Theory Raymond Bellour — Two Ways of Thinking Michel Marie — Christian Metz and His Theoretical Legacy Roger Odin — Christian Metz for Today Frank Kessler — Thinking Cinema: Christian Metz and/in the Tradition of Film Theory Guido Kirsten — Barthes’ Early Film Semiology and the Legacy of Filmology in Metz II. Questions of Form and Aesthetics Martin Lefebvre — Christian Metz and Aesthetics Francesco Casetti — Christian Metz and the Modern Cinema André Gaudreault & Philippe Gauthier — Christian Metz, Editing, and Forms of Alternation III. Specificities of the Cinematic Code and the Imaginary Philip Rosen — Between Classical and Postclassical Film Theory: Metz on Specificity Then and Now Selim Krichane — Cyber-Metz? The Notion of Code in the Writings of Christian Metz Marc Vernet — Yes, the Image Lies Beyond Analogy: Understanding Metz with Cartier-Bresson Mary Ann Doane — The Cinematic Signifier and the Imaginary D.N. Rodowick — Fetishism and Skepticism, or the Two Worlds of Christian Metz and Stanley Cavell IV. Narration, Enunciation, Cinephilia Anne Goliot-Lété — Cinema: Image or Narrative Dana Polan — Semiotics, Science, and Cinephilia: Christian Metz’s last book, L’énonciation impersonnelle Alain Boillat — ‘ŸTheorizeŒ, he says... ’: Christian Metz and the Question of Enunciation: A Theory in (Speech) Acts Dominique Bluher — Personal Enunciation: Presences of Absences Nico Baumbach — Metz With Deleuze: From Film-Philosophy to Film Theory and Back Again Two Interviews with Christian Metz Elena Dagrada — Thirty Years After Elena Dagrada & Guglielmo Pescatore — The Semiology of Cinema? It Is Necessary to Continue! A Conversation with Christian Metz Margrit Tröhler — Flashback to Winter 1990 Dominique Blüher & Margrit Tröhler — ‘I Never Expected Semiology to Thrill the Masses’: Interview with Christian Metz Postscript ‘Conclusion’ (handwritten note by Christian Metz) Summaries List of Contributors List of Translators

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