Film history, theory or criticism Books

Book SynopsisHOWARD HUGHES'S NEW FILMGOERS' GUIDE TO SCIENCE-FICTION FILMS DELVES DEEP INTO THE LANDMARK MOVIES OF THIS EVERPOPULAR GENRE, FROM METROPOLIS TO AVATAR AND BEYOND, AND COVERS OVER 250 MORE Outer Limits explores science-fiction cinema through 26 great films, from the silent classic Metropolis to today. It reviews the galaxy of stars and directors who have created some of the most popular films of all time, including George Lucas's 'Star Wars' films, Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Minority Report, James Cameron's 'Terminator' films and Ridley Scott's milestones Alien and Blade Runner. It also discusses everything from A-listers 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes, to Japanese monster movies, 1950s B-movies, creature features and cult favourites, depicting time travel, distant planets or alien invasions. Films featured include The War of the Worlds, Independence Day, Tarantula, Godzilla, The Thing, Forbidden Planet, Barbarella, Galaxy Quest, Mad Max 2, Back to the Future, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Star Trek, Apollo 13, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Matrix, and many, many more. Illustrated with original posters, Outer Limits is an informative, entertaining tour of the sci-fi universe.Table of ContentsNow and Then: An Introduction to Science Fiction Cinema Acknowledgements 1. Death to the Machines 2. Regarded this Earth with Envious Eyes 3. Godzilla is just a Legend 4. I Never Saw Anything Like It! 5. You're Next! 6. We Are, After All, Not God 7. He Has all the Time in the World 8. Damn You All to Hell 9. My God, it's Full of Stars 10. I Love all the Love in You 11. The Mysteries Remain 12. The Force Will Be With You, Always 13. When You Wish Upon a Star 14. In Space No One Can Hear you Scream 15. Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive 16. Like Tears in Rain 17. It's Weird and Pissed Off 18. You Have no Concept of Time 19. Hasta La Vista, Baby 20.Houston, we Have a Problem 21 Now that's what I call a Close Encounter 22. Welcome to the Real World 23. By Grabthar's Hammer! 24. We See what they See 25. Live Long and Prosper 26. I See You Bibliography and Sources Index of Film Titles

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Book SynopsisJoss Whedon''s new adaptation of Shakespeare''s classic comedy has already been acclaimed as a masterpiece. This official book features an Introduction by Joss, his full screenplay, and a gallery of photos from the set. Also included is an extended interview with the director, discussing his approach to the play, and the production of the film, shot in just 12 days at Whedon''s own house.

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Book SynopsisRipped from the pages of Empire magazine, the first collection of film critic, film historian and novelist Kim Newman’s reviews of the best and worst B movies. Some of the cheapest, trashiest, goriest and, occasionally, unexpectedly good films from the past 25 years are here, torn apart and stitched back together again in Kim’s unique style. Everything you want to know about DTV hell is here. Enter if you dare.Trade Review“This is one dungeon you will want to be locked in for a very long time. You might as well just throw away the key“ - Dread Central“distinctive and authoritative, with a gleeful sense of humour for the absurd” - Cinema Retro online “Newman makes films as WTF as 1980’s Dracula Exotica sound appealing” - The Film Stage“The collection is wickedly eclectic...compiling all the author’s DUNGEON reviews into one exceedingly welcome and original omnibus” - FIlm Phreak“a good reference for collectors of various horror movies” Girl Who Reads"Video Dungeon, like the Roger Ebert worst-movie review collections that precede it, is great fun and a guaranteed way to discover dozens of movies you never knew existed." - Manhattan Book Review

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Book SynopsisHow does a film come to look the way it does? What influence does a film's look have on our reaction to it? Cinematography's role as a science and an art is often forgotten. Cinematography remedies this omission by examining the highlights of the art of the cinematographer and providing the first comprehensive overview of how the field has rapidly evolved, from the early silent film era to today's digital imagery. It shows how the art of cinematography has been influenced by both technological advances and trends in the movie industry, from the rise of big-budget blockbusters to the spread of indie films, with detailed views of films and profiles of the major cinematographers. It is a valuable behind-the-scenes look at the profession and a stirring celebration of the art form, that will equip general readers, students & industry professionals with a fresh eye for what appears on the screen.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Chapter One: The Silent Screen (1894-1927) Chapter Two: Classical Hollywood (1928-1946) Chapter Three: Postwar Hollywood (1947-1967) Chapter Four: The Auteur Renaissance (1968-1980) Chapter Five: The New Hollywood (1981-1999) Chapter Six: The Modern Entertainment Marketplace (2000-present) Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe expert contributors together trace how the arts of editingand effects have evolved in tandem, starting with the 'trick films'of the early silent era, which astounded audiences by splicingin or editing out key frames, all the way to today's cutting-edgeeffects technologies. Multiple filmmaking techniques are exploredthroughout, from classic Hollywood's rear projection and matteshots to the fast cuts and wall-to-wall CGI of the contemporaryblockbuster. The book introduces readers to the analog and digitaltools used in these crafts, showing the impact of changes in the filmindustry itself.Trade Review'A much-needed survey of two fundamental cinematic crafts & techniques and their creative challenges. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the instrumental impact of technological turns on film history.' - Andre Gaudreault, Universite de Montreal

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Book SynopsisCinema was the most important new artistic medium of the twentieth century and modernism was the most important new aesthetic movement across the arts in the twentieth century. However, what exactly is the relationship between cinema and modernism? Cinematic Modernism and Contemporary Film explores how in the early twentieth century cinema came to be seen as one of the new technologies which epitomised modernity and how cinema itself reflected ideas, hopes and fears concerning modern life. Howard Finn examines the emergence of a new ‘international style’ of cinema, combining a poetic aesthetic of the image with genre-based fictional narrative and documentary realism. He provides concise accounts of how theorists such as André Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Rancière have discussed this cinematic aesthetic, clarifying debates over terms such as ‘realism’, ‘classical’ and ‘avant-garde’ as well as recent controversies over terms such as ‘slow cinema’ and ‘vernacular modernism’. He further argues the influence of modernism through close readings of many contemporary films, including films by Abbas Kiarostami, Béla Tarr, Jia Zhangke, and Angela Schanelec. Drawing on a broad range of examples, including Soviet montage, Italian neorealism, postwar new waves and the ‘new cinema’ of Taiwan and Iran, this book explores the cultural significance of modernism and its lasting influence over cinema.Trade ReviewCinematic Modernism and Contemporary Film sets a new standard for discussions of art cinema and modernist film. Finn convincingly argues that key elements of contemporary cinematic modernism are inspired by a commitment to realism, even as such realism is continually questioned and often undermined. The range of films and filmmakers discussed here is impressive and gives readers a comprehensive account of cinematic modernism from its beginnings to the present. -- Richard Rushton, Lancaster University, UKTable of ContentsIntroduction 1.What is Modernism? What is Cinema? 2.Cinema and the Modernist Arts: The Cult of the Image 3.Cinematic Modernism in the Silent Film Era 4.Postwar Cinematic Modernism: From Neorealism to the New Wave 5.Postwar Cinematic Modernism: Critical Perspectives 6.The Return of Cinematic Modernism 7.Contemporary Cinematic Modernism: Currents and Controversies 8.Contemporary Cinematic Modernism: An International Style – Commentaries on Ten Contemporary Films Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis‘It is impossible not to be thrilled by Edgar Wallace.’ So said the blurbs of Wallace’s own books.Indeed, he was a prolific author of over 170 books, translated into more than thirty languages. More films were made from his books than any other twentieth-century writer, and in the 1920s a quarter of all books read in England were written by him. His success is written in black and white, but his life got off to an inauspicious start.Edgar Wallace, the illegitimate son of a travelling actress, rose from poverty in Victorian England to become the most popular author in the world and a global celebrity of his age.Famous for his thrillers, with their fantastic plots, in many ways Wallace did not write his most exciting story: he lived it, and here Neil Clark eloquently tells his tale to allow you to live it too.Trade ReviewClark’s aim is less to claim Wallace as a neglected genius than to 'generate renewed interest in this remarkable man'. In this he succeeds admirably. -- Duncan Campbell * The Guardian *A very readable biography about an extraordinary writer. -- Martin EdwardsA fascinating book which I wholeheartedly recommend. -- Christopher Gray * The Oxford Times *

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Book SynopsisCléo de 5 à 7 (Cléo from 5 to 7), Agnes Varda's classic 1962 work depicts, in near real-time, 90 minutes in the life of Cléo, a young woman in Paris awaiting the results of medical tests that she fears will confirm a fatal condition. The film, whose visual beauty matches its evocation of early-Fifth Republic Paris, was a major point of reference for the French New Wave despite the fact that Varda never considered herself a member of the core Cahiers du cinéma group of critics-turned- film-makers. Ungar provides a close reading of the film and situates it in its social, political and cinematic contexts, tracing Varda's early career as a student of art history and as a photographer, the history of post-war French film, and the lengthy Algerian war to which Cléo's health concerns and ambitions to become a pop singer make her more or less oblivious. His study is the first to set a reading of Cléo's formal and technical complexity alongside an analysis of its status as a visual document of its historical moment. Steven Ungar's foreword to this new edition looks back upon Varda's film-making career and considers her contributions as a female auteur and in the context of the French New Wave.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Foreword to the 2020 edition Introduction: Sense of Time, Sense of Place Part I. Between photography and film Absolute beginner? The pregnant gaze Part II. A film about time and space By the clock and on the map Part III. Painting Fear Paris How many Cléos Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisLynne Ramsay's bleak yet beautifully photographed debut unflinchingly portrays life on a Glasgow housing estate during the 1973 refuse collectors' strike, as seen through the eyes of 12-year-old James Gillespie (William Eadie). After James's friend falls into a canal and drowns, James becomes increasingly withdrawn. As bags of rubbish pile up and rats move in, James finds solace in his friendships with Kenny, an odd boy who loves animals, and Margaret Anne, a teenage misfit. Annette Kuhn's study of the film, the first to offer an overarching account of Ramsay's work, considers the director's background and Ratcatcher alongside her earlier films. Kuhn traces the film's production history in the context of Scottish media and literary cultures, and its cinematic influences, while acknowledging the distinctiveness of Ramsay's poetic, visionary style. Kuhn draws on interviews with Ramsay and others involved in the film's production, and combines this with a close reading of selected passages to provide an in-depth and illuminating analysis of the film's poetic style and its aesthetics, including an examination of its construction of a child's world through a highly distinctive organisation of cinematic space.

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Book SynopsisG.W. Pabst's 1929 silent classic Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora), stars Hollywood icon Louise Brooks as the enigmatic heroine whose erotic charms lead to disaster for the men drawn into her web. Despite failing commercially upon release, it has evolved into a cult film long after it should have been forgotten. Pandora's Box captivates audiences with its libidinous, violent story, and its mysterious heroine whose motivations, as well as whose guilt or innocence, are difficult to determine. It is a sophisticated adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays, and indisputably Louise Brooks' finest performance on film. In her compelling study, Pamela Hutchinson traces Pandora’s production history and the many contexts of its creation and afterlife, revisiting and challenging many assumptions made about the film, its lead character and its star. Analysing the film act by act, she explores the conflicted relationship between Brooks and the director G.W. Pabst, the film's historical contexts in Weimar Berlin, and its changing fortunes since its release.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. Brooks and Pabst: The Star and the Director 2. Wedekind and Lulu's 'Divine Birth' 3. The Making of Pandora's Box 4. The Cast of Pandora's Box 5. Pandora's Box Act by Act 6. Beyond Pandora's Box Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisDrawing on film theory, literary modernism, psychology and art history, Fields of View elucidates an expanded network of connections between avant-garde film and wider culture. In this bold and original work, A.L. Rees identifies three key terms - ‘field’, ‘frame’ and ‘interval’ and charts their use by filmmakers and theorists such as Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, Bruce Baillie, Maya Deren, Malcolm Le Grice and Werner Nekes, from the 1920s through to the present day. A seminal voice in film culture, Rees left the incomplete manuscript for this book on his death, and Simon Payne has subsequently carefully prepared the book for publication. Fields of View is an important work that establishes a unique perspective on experimental film.Trade ReviewAl Rees's testament is a cinematic thinking: film and world swooping towards each other across a landscape of fields and intervals, projections and geometries, movements in and of time and space. On every page, the generosity of the man, the curator and the teacher shape new insights into our audiovisual century and its lineage. A work of permanent illumination. -- Sean Cubitt, Professor of Screen Studies, University of Melbourne, AustraliaIn the unlikely event that there was any doubt, Fields of View affirms A.L. Rees as one of experimental cinema’s most erudite, insightful, and passionate critics and advocates. His writings, which range across a breathtaking array of subjects, ideas, works, and references, are intelligent - frequently brilliant - without ever devoting into intellectualism. They are astonishingly well-read without succumbing to mere scholasticism; we never lose the sense of an original voice, a distinct sensibility, and a great mind. Like all the best critical writing, Rees’s is itself elegant, artful, provocative, and personal. This collection of essays is an excellent introduction for those unfamiliar with Rees, and a reminder to those of us who already knew his writing how important he was (and remains), and what great writing about art looks like. -- Dr Jonathan Walley, Associate Professor, Department of Cinema, Denison University, USAIn this posthumous collection of essays, A.L. Rees has woven his outstanding knowledge of avant-garde film into a startlingly original, and non-linear, reconfiguration of its history. With great agility and lightness of touch, his perceptive but unexpected juxtapositions between theorists and artists, ideas and technologies, movements and moments throw new light on key issues of film theory and aesthetics. This radical rejection of chronology, however, has an underlying message. Rees traces ways in which experimental art and artists’ film have challenged traditions of space and time that, rather than abrupt rupture, create a direct connection with the forms of digital art. In the brilliant last chapters of the book, he zeroes in on this dialectic. -- Laura Mulvey, Professor of Film and Media Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.Table of ContentsForeword: Harvesting Fields Acknowledgements Fields Film Machine Film as Optic and Idea Expanding Cinema Room Films Film Objects Projection Space Time Frames Realisms Asymptote Digital Dialectic Fields in Braque and Gehr Classic Film Theory and the Spectator Field and Gestalt Monet, Lumière and Cinematic Time Displacement, Sculpture Bodies in Motion Intervals Methods of Montage Frames Frames and Windows Constructivism and Computers Geometry of Intervals Notes

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Book SynopsisRitwik Ghatak’s The Cloud-Capped Star (Meghe Dhaka Tara, 1960) has been hailed as ‘one of the great classics of world cinema’ (Adrian Martin), and ‘one of the five or six greatest melodramas in cinema history’ (Serge Daney). A striking blend of modernist aesthetics and melodramatic force, it is arguably the best-known film by Ghatak, widely considered to be one of the most original, politically committed, and formally innovative film-makers from India. The film’s focus on a family uprooted by the Partition of India and its powerful exploration of displacement and historical trauma gives it a renewed relevance in the midst of a global refugee crisis. Manishita Dass situates the film in its historical and cultural contexts and within Ghatak’s film-making career, and connects it to his theatrical work and his writings on film and theatre. Her close reading of the film locates its emotional and intellectual power in what she describes as its ‘cinematic theatricality,’ and brings into focus Ghatak’s modernist experiments with melodramatic devices, his deliberate departures from cinematic realism, and distinctive use of sound and music. The book draws on extensive archival research, excavates new layers of meaning, and offers fresh insights into the cosmopolitan cinematic sensibility of a director described as ‘one of the most neglected major film-makers in the world’ (Jonathan Rosenbaum).Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prefatory Note/Synopsis 1. Introduction: Echoes of a Cry 2. Chronicler of Troubled Times 3. A Familiar Face 4. Cinematic Theatricality

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Book SynopsisIn Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Fear Eats the Soul (Angst Essen Seele Auf, 1974) Emma (Brigitte Mira), a working-class widow and former member of the Nazi party, marries Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), a much younger Moroccan migrant worker. Set in Munich during the 1970s, the film melds the conventions of melodrama with a radical sensibility to present a portrait of racism and everyday hypocrisy in post-war Germany. It is a film about the way conventional society detests anything and anybody unfamiliar - but also a film about the hopes and limits of love. Intricately directed, beautifully performed, and designed to show Munich life in all its shabby kitschiness, Fear Eats the Soul may be Fassbinder’s finest film. Laura Cottingham celebrates Fassbinder’s achievement, placing Fear Eats the Soul in relation to his extraordinarily prolific career in theatre, film and television. Her analysis pulls back the thin curtain that separated his work from his tumultuous life. She also explores the director’s debt to the lush Hollywood melodramas made by fellow German Douglas Sirk, especially All That Heaven Allows (1955). In a detailed scene-by-scene analysis, Cottingham shows how Fassbinder managed to combine beauty and tenderness with fierce political critique.Table of ContentsForeword to the 2020 Edition A Career of Despair The Theatre and its Anti-Teater An Imperfect Realism Mirroring Douglas Sirk The Story of a Marriage 'Fear Eats the Soul' Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThrone of Blood (1957), Akira Kurosawa's reworking of Macbeth, is widely considered the greatest film adaptation of Shakespeare ever made. In a detailed account of the film, Robert N. Watson explores how Kurosawa draws key philosophical and psychological arguments from Shakespeare, translates them into striking visual metaphors, and inflects them through the history of post-World War II Japan. Watson places particular emphasis on the contexts that underlie the film's central tension between individual aspiration and the stability of broader social and ecological collectives - and therefore between free will and determinism. In his foreword to this new edition, Robert Watson considers the central characters' Washizu and his wife Asaji's blunder in viewing life as a ruthless competition in which only the most brutal can thrive in the context of an era of neoliberal economics, resurgent ‘strongman’ political leaders, and myopic views of the environmenal crisis, with nothing valued that cannot be monetized.Table of ContentsForeword to the 2020 Edition Acknowledgments Introduction A Guided Tour Through the Spider's Web Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisErnst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise (1932) was released at a critical moment in cinema history, just after the advent of synchronized sound technology and just before the full implementation of the production code. By the time of its release, Lubitsch had already directed more than 50 films, but it was unlike anything he had done before. Aside from being his first non-musical talking picture, the film introduced a level of sophistication and visual subtlety that established the benchmark for classic Hollywood cinema for years to come. In his study of the film, David Weir explores its significance within Lubitsch’s career, but also its larger cultural significance within the history of cinema, and the social context of its release during the Great Depression. Paying careful attention to the film itself, Weir discusses its source material, its mise-en-scène and art deco production design, and its inventive use of post-synchronized sound. Drawing on original archival research, Weir traces Trouble in Paradise's reception history, including its critical reception, and the effect of the Motion Picture Production Code, which led to the film being denied approval for re-release in 1935.Trade ReviewAs light, elegant, and serious as a Lubitsch film, this volume gives us a full analysis and appreciation of one of the great director’s greatest movies. -- Eric Smoodin, University of California, Davis, USATable of Contents1. Introduction: A biographical sketch of Lubitsch’s career leading up to Trouble in Paradise. 2. The development of classic Hollywood technique 3. Analysis of Trouble in Paradise 4. Reception, legacy and influence 5. Conclusion Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisPedro Almodóvar’s 1988 black comedy-melodrama Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown established its director as one of the most exciting of European film-making talents. An often hilarious study of sexual mores, Women on the Verge has a central character, Pepa (Carmen Maura), as warm and richly drawn as any modern film heroine. Made strong and self-reliant by suffering in a troubled relationship, Pepa is the centre of a network of lovers, friends and family who represent a vivid cross-section of Spanish society. Peter William Evans provides a formidable analysis of Almodóvar’s insights into gender, sexuality and identity. Evans sees Women on the Verge as concerned with the often tyrannical spell of sexual desire and the anxieties of relationships and families, but also with the possibilities for personal liberation. He discusses the film in the context of the history of Spain and the social revolution that occurred after the death of Franco. In his foreword to this new edition, Evans reflects upon Women on the Verge in the light of Almodóvar’s subsequent films, and the impact of Carmen Maura’s performance as Pepa on the representation of women in Spanish cinema.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Synopsis 2. Comedy and Melodrama 3. Men and Women 4. Carmen Maura 5. Closure Notes Credits References

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Book SynopsisThe Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami burst onto the international film scene in the early 1990s and was widely regarded as one of the most distinctive and talented modern-day directors. His major features - including Through the Olive Trees (1994), Taste of Cherry (1997) and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) - are relatively modest in scale, contemplative and humanist in tone. In 2002, with 10, Kiarostami broke new ground, fixing one or two digital cameras on a car's dashboard to film ten conversations between the driver (Mania Akbari) and her various passengers. The results are astonishing: though formally rigorous, even austere, and documentary-like in its style, 10 succeeds both as emotionally affecting human drama and as a critical analysis of everyday life in modern Tehran. In his study of the film, Geoff Andrew considers 10 within the context of Kiarostami's career, of Iranian cinema's renaissance, and of international film culture. Drawing on a number of detailed interviews he conducted with both Kiarostami and his lead actress, Andrew sheds light on the unusual methods used in making the film, on its political relevance, and on its remarkably subtle aesthetic. He also argues that 10 was an important turning-point in the career of a film-maker who was not only one of contemporary cinema's most accomplished practitioners but also one of its most radical experimentalists.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction: Something Small 2. World Cinema at the Turn of the Millennium 3. Iranian Cinema: A Special Case 4. Abbas Kiarostami: A Very Special Case 5. Kiarostami and Digital: ABC Africa 6. 10 7. A Lesson for Others 8. A Lesson for Kiarostami 9. Poetry and Motion 10. Conclusion: The Start of Something Big? Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisRichard Dyer is a foundational figure for the critical study of cinema and popular culture. Across a career spanning five decades, he has made path breaking contributions to our understanding of stardom and celebrity, gay and queer politics and cultural history, film music, race and whiteness and the pleasures of popular entertainment. The Richard Dyer Reader brings together for the first time key writings by this vital and influential figure, many of which are not otherwise available. The anthology guides readers through Dyer’s prolific and rich output through six thematic selections of essays and extracts, each centred on a key theme in Dyer's work: stardom and the image; entertainment and ideology; gay politics and representation; whiteness; the pleasures of popular entertainment, and textual analysis. A seventh section comprises a selection of interviews conducted across the span of his career, as well as a new interview with editors Glyn Davis and Jaap Kooijman. The book will provide an introduction for those new to Dyer’s writings, as well as offering a fresh perspective for readers with a more comprehensive knowledge of his work. The collection includes archival and recent pieces of writing never previously anthologised, newly commissioned essays, a substantial introduction to Dyer’s life and work and framing introduction to each section.Trade ReviewRichard Dyer is one of the most important film scholars in the world – establishing the fields of star and sexuality studies while exercising a huge influence on the analysis of race and gender in popular culture. It is remarkable that his work has not yet been collected in this kind of volume – perhaps because he is rightly careful about how to do it. In Glyn Davis and Jaap Kooijman, he has the perfect anthologists. -- Mandy Merck, Royal Holloway, University of London, UKFor half a century, Dyer has been one of the most important, impassioned and insightful observers in film/media and cultural studies. The Richard Dyer Reader’s selections – on action film, musicals, politics, gay pornography, whiteness, television, disco, stardom and much more – showcase Dyer at his blissfully jargon-free best. -- Chris Holmlund, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, USATable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction - Glyn Davis and Jaap Kooijman I: A STAR IS BORN and other essays on stardom and image 1. A Star is Born and the construction of authenticity (1981) 2. The meaning of Tom Jones (1971) 3. Gene Kelly (1972) 4. Jane Fonda (1979) 5. The way she is (1981) 6. Diana Ross (1982) 7. Never too thin (1993) 8. Charles Hawtrey (1994) 9. Between parturition and manufacture (2018) II: IN DEFENCE OF DISCO and other essays on entertainment and ideology 10. In defence of disco (1979) 11. Views of Nationwide go wide (1980) 12. Coronation Street (1981) 13. Tea and cocoa tele (1982) 14. Bad for a laugh (1982) 15. Taking popular television seriously (1985) 16. The colour of entertainment (1995) 17. Jurassic World and procreation anxiety (2015) III: GETTING OVER THE RAINBOW and other essays on gay liberation 18. Getting over the rainbow: identity and pleasure in gay cultural politics (1981) 19. Notes on gays and class (1976) 20. Pasolini and homosexuality (1977) 21. Taxi zum Klo (1982) 22. Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (1983) 23. Rock: the last guy you’d have figured? (1985) 24. Nice young men who sell antiques: gay men in heritage cinema (2001) 25. The idea of a gay icon (2009) IV: WHITE and other essays on representation and visibility 26. White (1988) 27. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the right to love oneself (1968) 28. The role of stereotypes (1979) 29. Of rage and despair (1981) 30. Don’t look now: the instabilities of the male pin-up (1982) 31. Heterosexuality (1997) 32. Is the camera racist? (1997) 33. White enough (2013) 34. The president’s hair (2018) V: COMING TO TERMS and other essays on bodies and affect 35. Male gay porn: coming to terms (1985) 36. Scorpio Rising (1981) 37. Why dance? (1981) 38. Old briefs for new (1989) 39. Dracula and desire (1993) 40. Idol thoughts: orgasm and self-reflexivity in gay pornography (1994) 41. ACTION! (1994) 42. The same over and over (2015) 43. Fond of little tunes: the sissiness of music in Rope and Tea and Sympathy (2023) VI: THE PERSISTENCE OF TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and other essays on form and meaning 44. The persistence of textual analysis (2023) 45. The television situation (1973) 46. The Towering Inferno (1975) 47. Notes on textual analysis (1981) 48. The space of happiness in the musical (1998) 49. Sound in Seven (1999) 50. The talented Mr Rota (2004) 51. Far from Heaven (2007) 52. Going Italian (2011) 53. Eisenstein’s penis (2023) VII: MASCULINITY IS SO BORING and other conversations with Richard Dyer 54. Masculinity is so boring (1985) (with Joe McElhaney) 55. To be reel (1997) (with Matthew Rettenmund) 56. Pleasure | obvious | queer (2016) (with Catherine Grant and Jaap Kooijman) 57. Writing out of love or politics (2023) (with Glyn Davis and Jaap Kooijman) Index

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Book SynopsisPeter Weir's haunting and allusive Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), set in 1900, tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher on a trip to a local geological formation. The film is widely hailed as a classic of new Australian cinema, seen as exemplary of a peculiarly Australian style of heritage filmmaking. Anna Backman Rogers' study considers Picnic from feminist, psychoanalytic and decolonialising perspectives, exploring its setting in a colonised Australian bushland in which the Aboriginal people are a spectral presence in a landscape stolen from them in pursuit of the white man's 'terra nullius'. She delves into the film's production history, addressing director Weir's influences and preoccupations at the time of its making, its reception and its lasting impact on visual culture more broadly. Rogers addresses the film's treatment of the young schoolgirls and their teachers, seemingly, as embodiments of an archetype of the ‘eternal feminine’, as objects of the male gaze, and in terms of ideas about female hysteria as a protest against gender norms. She argues that Picnic is, in fact, highly subversive: a film that requires its viewers to read its seductive surfaces against the grain of the image in order to uncover its psychological depths.Trade ReviewAesthetics professor Rogers’ rigorous monograph uses feminist Freudian and post-colonial tools to unpick Picnic’s alluring push-pull of ambiguity/ suggestion, showing how it encourages keen viewers to question the film’s mediated images of femininity. Between the surfaces and secrets, she finds something subversive: a story about the horror of living under an imposed narrative. -- Kevin Harley * Total Film *The BFI Film Classics are a perfect way to explore a film such as this, and Rogers’ monograph is another essential entry in the series. -- Adrian Smith * Cinema Retro *Backman Rogers has produced a beautifully constructed analysis of this complex, visually haunting film as she leads the reader through aspects of its background, musical score, casting, shooting and marketing. * The Irish Scene *Such an attentive, impassioned awareness of the politics which underscore the figuration of the girl on screen not only offers up a provocative re-reading of a classic film, but it also speaks directly to its gestures of love, of kinship and pleasure which operate outside, and in spite of, patriarchal culture. This is a beautiful book of relevance to any and all interested in the expanding vistas of female subjectivity in film and those real and metaphorical 'rocks' which might lodge, vociferously, between such positions of imagination, selfhood and desire. -- Davina Quinlivan, Kingston University, UKA beautifully constructed analysis of a complex and haunting film. Backman Rogers skillfully dissects the patriarchal working environment of Patricia Lovell’s project to realize a faithful rendering of Joan Lindsay’s perplexing novel while also offering a subtle reading of the film via its distinctive cinematography. A tour de force of feminist film analysis, intellectual clarity and cinephilia. -- Griselda Pollock, University of Leeds, UKThis is a ravishing book. Anna Backman Rogers passionately honours the enchantment of Picnic at Hanging Rock, its veiled images, the love between Miranda and Sarah, its languor, ‘the slow bleed from morning into afternoon’. Yet she also, in coruscating prose, shows quite brilliantly how the film decries the horror of empire and the ‘violence wrought on the female body’, then and now. I urge you to read this book, to enter its dream. -- Emma Wilson, University of Cambridge, UKTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1 Within a Dream: Origins, Production and Filming 2 Waiting a Million Years Just for Us: Artistic Influences and Uncanny Spaces 3 Quite Intact: The Male Imaginary and Courtly Love Conclusion: Girls on the Verge; Femininity and Hysteria Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisIn a comprehensively revised and updated new edition, James Naremore provides an illuminating critical account of the films of Stanley Kubrick, from his earliest feature, Fear and Desire (1953), to the posthumously-produced A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001). Naremore offers provocative analyses of each of Kubrick's films, considering his emphasis on the absurdity of combat, as in Paths of Glory (1957) and Full Metal Jacket (1987), the failure of scientific reasoning, as in 2001 (1968), and the fascistic impulses in masculine sexuality, as in Dr Strangelove (1964) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He argues that while Kubrick was a voracious intellectual and a life-long autodidact, the fascination of his work has less to do with the ideas it espouses than with the emotions it evokes. Combining close readings with new insights into the production histories and cultural contexts of key films, Naremore provides a concise yet thorough discussion that will be useful to students of Kubrick's filmmaking and cinephiles who seek a deeper insight into the work of this perfectionist genius. Revised throughout, this new edition also includes a fully updated bibliography of critical writings on Kubrick's cinema.Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements for the Revised Edition Acknowledgements for the First Edition Introduction to the New Edition: Kubrick’s Cold Modernism and Major Themes PART I Prologue 1. Portrait of the Late Modernist as a Young Photographer 2. Silence, Exile and Cunning 3. Grotesque Aesthetics PART II Early Kubrick 1. No Other Country but the Mind 2. Dream City PART III Kubrick, Harris, Douglas 1. The Criminal and the Artist 2. Ant Hill 3. Dolores, Lady of Pain PART IV Stanley Kubrick Presents 1. Wargasm 2. Beyond the Stars 3. A Professional Piece of Sinny 4. Duelist 5. Horrorshow PART V Late Kubrick 1. Warriors 2. Lovers PART VI Epilogue 1. Summation 2. Some Unproduced Films 3. Love and Death in A. I. Artificial Intelligence Filmography Select Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis“Brisk [and] forceful.” Sight & Sound "Lucidly argued.” Total Film Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schlöndorff’s The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) was a pivotal film for the New German Cinema movement. Julian Preece considers what makes Katharina Blum new and radical, in particular in respect of women’s cinema and its portrayal of the ordeal of its female lead in a world run by men. Drawing on archival material including drafts of the screenplay, brochures and props, reviews and interviews, Preece traces the conception of the film and its development from Heinrich Böll’s original novel. Preece analyses how the film continues to resonate with our contemporary moment and has influenced film-makers from the German-Turkish director Fatih Akin to the British screenwriter Peter Morgan.Trade ReviewBrisk [and] forceful. -- Adam Nayman * Sight & Sound *Exhaustively researched, and lucidly argued. -- Joel Harley * Total Film *A thoroughly researched and engaging read, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum stands as a worthy entry in the BFI Film Classics series. Julian Preece provides an immense amount of biography, cultural history, and technical information, though sometimes one may wish the book’s structure were more methodical and transparent. * Historical Journal of Film, Radio & TV *This is an excellent study of this important film. Julian Preece knowledgably and deftly accounts for the form and style of the film, the politics of the era in which it appeared, and its reception. Even if you think you know this film, you stand to learn a great deal from Preece’s book.” -- Brad Prager, University of Missouri, USAJulian E. Preece’s The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum offers fresh perspectives on a classic for a new generation of scholars, readers, and movie-goers. Based on extensive archival research, Preece produces unexpected insights on this politically provocative West-German film and its many after-lives. -- Barbara Mennel, University of Florida, USATable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: A Pivotal Film for New German Cinema 1. Political Context 2. The Novel 3. The Film 4. Reception, Influence and Afterlives Conclusion Notes Bibliography Credits

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Book SynopsisFrancis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) marked a transition in American film-making, and its success – as a work of art, as a creative 'property' exploited by its studio, Paramount Pictures; and as a model for aspiring auteurist film-makers – changed Hollywood forever. Jon Lewis's study of The Godfather begins with a close look at the film's audacious visual style (the long, theatrical set pieces; the chiaroscuro lighting, the climactic montage paralleling a family baptism with a series of brutal murders). The analysis of visual style is paired with a discussion of the movie's principal themes: Vito and Michael's attempt to balance the obligations of business and family, their struggle with assimilation, the temptations and pitfalls of capitalist accumulation, and the larger drama of succession from father to son, from one generation to the next. The textual analysis precedes a production history that views The Godfather as a singularly important film in Hollywood's dramatic box-office turnaround in the early 1970s. And then, finally, the book takes a long hard look at the gangster himself both on screen and off. Hollywood publicity attending the gangster film from its inception in the silent era to the present has endeavoured to dull the distinction between the real and movie gangster, insisting that each film has been culled from the day's sordid headlines. Looking at the drama on screen and the production history behind the scenes, Lewis uncovers a series of real gangster backstories, revealing, finally, how millions of dollars of mob money may well have funded the film in the first place, and how, as things played out, The Godfather saved Paramount Studios and the rest of Hollywood as well.Trade ReviewCombining narrative analysis and production history, this slender book reminds us why Francis Ford Coppola's first episode in The Godfather trilogy has been accorded the top spot in numerous polls of the greatest film of all time. -- The Independent...the book most definitely provides readers with a wealth of detail and range of approaches which is surely what the BFI Film Classics series invariably does best. -- ScopeTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Foreword to the 2022 edition 1. Believe in America 2. I Believe in Hollywood 3. I Believe in the Mafia Notes Credits.

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Book SynopsisWhy are big budget films typically made across an array of seemingly dissociated sites? Supply Chain Cinema shows how the production journeys of such films exemplify the principles of the supply chain, whose core imperative is to nimbly and opportunistically manufacturing wherever is most amenable and efficient. Through extensive on-site investigations and in-depth interviews with film professionals, Kay Dickinson delivers nuanced insight into working practices in the UK and the UAE. Among the sites she examines is Warner Bros’ permanent base at Leavesden Studios near London. From tax breaks designed to attract foreign projects to infrastructures, logistical support and expertise offered, she considers why Hollywood giants elect to make more of their films in Britain than in the USA. Dickinson goes on to show how the UK’s ambitions to enlarge its creative economies has opened up a host of competitive advantages with British higher education increasingly fashioned to conform to the needs of border-hopping enterprise, thus generating a workforce keenly adapted to the demands of blockbuster moviemaking.Trade ReviewSupply Chain Cinema is a critical reconceptualization of blockbuster film production and a scathing indictment of the ways in which higher education and skills training schemes have become complicit in producing a workforce amendable to demands of global capital. This is essential reading and a cautionary tale that troubles how governments and universities are responding to the creative economy. -- Kevin Sanson, Queensland University of Technology, AustraliaSupply Chain Cinema is a vital contribution, arguing persuasively that global film production can now best be understood via supply chain logistics, with all the ‘just-in-time’ dynamics of inequity and extraction that this entails. Taking us on a journey to both the UK and the UAE, Dickinson foregrounds the voices and experiences of current and future film workers as they are swept up, trained up and then compelled to navigate the vagaries of the creative supply chain. -- Bridget Conor, University of Auckland, New ZealandTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Welcome (to) the Supply Chain: Competition, Adaptation and Compliance with Globalized Big Budget Cinema 2. Hollywood Offshores to British Shores: Warner Bros’ Leavesden Studios Rides the Rise of the Creative Economy 3. Training Creative Wizardry: How British Filmmaking Education Attracts Supply Chain Cinema 4. Greasing the Wheels of Transnational Media Production: The United Arab Emirates’ Post-Oil Vision for Education 5. Production Migrates to the Migrants: Precarious Film Labour in the UAE’s Free Zones Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book bridges the gap between film theory and filmmakers’ thoughts and poetics, and proposes a new way to address and elaborate film theory. It brings together primary sources by filmmakers themselves, drawing on their films, interviews, books, texts, and manifestos. Divided into three parts, the book covers the main aspects of this approach. Part one discusses the concepts of ‘author’ and ‘filmmaker’. Part two evaluates the creative processes of a broad range of filmmakers, including Víctor Gaviria (Colombia), Kleber Mendonça Filho (Brazil), Jean-Luc Godard and Agnès Varda (France), Abbas Kiarostami (Iran) Pa. Ranjith (India), Andy Warhol (USA), Maya Deren (Ukraine-USA) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey). The final part examines filmmakers’ various techniques, particularly the use of multi-images, after-(dialectical)-images, and the use of sound as a sensorial and narrative tool. This curated selection of writings, with contributors from a range of countries including the USA, UK, India, China, Portugal, Brazil, Belgium and New Zealand, reflects the global perspective of this new approach. The volume also discusses the ways in which filmmakers influence each other, the spectator as seen by filmmakers, and ways to critically address a filmography that takes into account filmmakers other than the director.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Contributors Foreword by Lúcia Nagib Introduction A proposal for approaching Film Theory and filmmakers - André Rui Graça, Manuela Penafria & Eduardo Tulio Baggio I FILMMAKERS ON FILM: SETTING THE FIELD 1. From the Concept of Author to the Concept of Filmmaker – Eduardo Tulio Baggio (Paraná State University, Brazil) 2. Film as thought: notes on the role of the researcher in the Filmmakers on Film approach, from the perspective of Karim Aïnouz’s films and interviews - Marcelo Carvalho (Paraná Tuiuti University, Brazil) 3. The spectator and the filmmaking process: reflections based on case studies- André Rui Graça (Lusófona University, Portugal) & Manuela Penafria (University of Beira Interior, LabCom-Communication and Arts, Portugal) II POETICS AND FILMMAKING PROCESSES 4. The dark light of poetry: Víctor Gaviria’s poetics of childhood - Liliana Galindo Orrego (Johns Hopkins University, USA) 5. Music in Kleber Mendonça Filho's Feature Films: An Analysis of the Creative Process - Rodrigo Carreiro (Pernambuco Federal University, Brazil) & Breno Alvarenga (Pernambuco Federal University, Brazil) 6. Films on Filmmaking: Jean-Luc Godard and Abbas Kiarostami's Auto-Commentaries Scénario du Film Passion (1982) and Ten on Ten (2004) - Karel Pletinck (Theatre, Film and Literature Studies, University of Antwerp, Belgium) 7. Andy Warhol's legacy and body representation in contemporary cinema - Edson Pereira da Costa Júnior (University of São Paulo, Brazil) 8. Madame Cinéma: Agnès Varda, or a Portrait of the Artist as an Ageless Woman - Fátima Chinita (Lisbon Polytechnic Institute, Portugal) 9. The Struggles and Rise of the Dalit Protagonists – Cinematic Representations in the Tamil Films of the Director Pa. Ranjith - Amutha Manavalan (Institute of Communications and Media Studies, St. Joseph's College, India) 10. From Photographic Servitude to Cinematic Emancipation: The Poetic Films of Maya Deren - Amresh Sinha (The School of Visual Arts, USA) 11. Establishing reality: mode of production and surrealism in the cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylan - Sezen Gürüf Basekim (Kastamonu University, Turkey) III FILMS AND FILMMAKERS’ WRITINGS AS ACTS OF THEORY 12. Reflecting on a public debate and its aftermath: Jiang Hao, his writings in the 1980s and his film practices in the 1990s - Lingling Yao (School of Foreign Studies at the Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing, China) 13. Alexander Kluge’s ‘Film in the mind of the spectator’ or after-(dialectical)-images in News from Ideological Antiquity: Marx – Eisenstein – Capital - James Hellings (University of Reading, UK) 14. The multi-image: cinematic collage as revelation and revolution - Chris Gerrard (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Scotland) 15. Seeing through the kaleidoscope – Wim Wenders and his collaborators in Lisbon Story and Inventing Peace: A Dialogue on Perception - Olivier Delers (University of Richmond, USA) 16. Chantal Akerman's Words and Images: the avant-garde of theory and filmmaking - André Rui Graça (Lusófona University, Portugal) 17. ‘Sculpting everyday life’ and the lake as a metaphor: towards a documentary filmmaking history - Manuela Penafria (University of Beira Interior, LabCom-Communication and Arts, Portugal) 18. To Contest the Deafness of the Gaze: The Miseducation of the Senses and the Unreliable Reality in Lucrecia Martel's Films - Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha (UNICAMP-Campinas State University, Brazil) Bibliography Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisTomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) is a classic of Cuban revolutionary culture, and is hailed as a prime example of a radical style of 1960s political filmmaking that became known worldwide as Latin American “new cinema.” Darlene J. Sadlier’s detailed study approaches this much-written-about film from a new perspective. Her analysis situates the film in its historical context, considering how Cuban political history affected and informed the production of the film, particularly its use of archival footage. She discusses the film as an adaptation of Edmundo Desnoes’s novel Memorias del subdesarrollo (1965), exploring how the novel itself is “re-written” in significant ways by the film. Sadlier goes on to analyse the curious opening of the film on an outdoor scene of Afro-Cubans dancing to the “new” music of Pello del Afrokán, arguing that this opening scene prefaces the film’s exploration of both class and race. She focuses on the unique style of the film, particularly the use of voiceover, music and documentary footage to show how the themes of ennui, isolation, writing, and remembering are depicted. In doing so, she highlights the film’s lasting impact and its role in defining Latin American “new cinema”.Trade ReviewTomás Gutiérrez Alea's 1968 classic ... Memories of Underdevelopment was designed to challenge even viewers of its own time and place. Those far from both are likely to find it indecipherable, without some help. Thus, for today's English language-speaking cinephiles, the BFI Film Classics series has done a great service in turning its attention, and that of film scholar Darlene J. Sadlier, to this exemplar of the Latin American Third Cinema movement. * Cineaste Magazine *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Some Historical and Cinematic Contexts 2. Alea as Auteur 3. A Novel and Its Translation 4. Portrait of a Nobody 5. Sergio and Women 6. The Intellectual and the Revolution 7. The Intellectual and the Law 8. Cuba in Crisis 9. A Note on Reception Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisNew Screen Ecology in India is an open access book that provides an in depth exploration of the digital transformation of the Indian media industry. Smith Mehta takes a deep dive into the world of social media platforms and their impact on contemporary film and television production, arguing that they have fundamentally shifted the creator dynamics of these industries. Through first-hand research with creators, platform and portal executives, and intermediaries such as talent agents and multi-channel networks, Mehta develops the concept of the ‘new screen ecology’. He reveals how the Indian screen industries are affected by the social relations between these agents, and how industrial practices are blurring the amateur-professional divide through creator and content interdependencies. Mehta goes beyond theoretical analysis by interrogating the production practices of 13 different platforms and portals, including Hotstar, Netflix, YouTube, and TVFPlay. He analyses the extent to which they benefit from the lack of censorship and restrictive industrial practices that are characteristic of traditional media structures. By doing so, he provides a unique and insightful examination of the dynamics of digital transformation in the screen industries in a region-specific context. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. This book has been published open access thanks to the financial support of the Open Access Book Fund of the University of Groningen.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1.Studying Digital Transformation of Indian Media 2.Overview of the Indian Audio-Visual Media Ecology 3.Mapping the key Platforms and Portals 4.New Screen Ecology Narratives about Television 5.Indian Online Creator Culture 6.Regional and Localizing Online Content Practices 7.The Role of Intermediaries Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMarketed as more affordable and safer than film cameras, the Kinora system, launched in 1903, was one of the first amateur filmmaking devices and represents one of the earliest attempts to create a domestic market for moving images. In The Enchanting Kinora, Elizabeth Evans examines the Kinora in its technological, industrial and socio-cultural context to explore how early attempts to domesticate moving images were configured. She closely analyses 84 previously unexamined Kinora reels, filmed using the early motion picture device between 1908-1913 and held by the Smedley Collection. These include 23 reels that were produced for public consumption and others that were meant solely for private viewing by the Smedley family. She goes on to consider the reels as material objects, examining not only their content, but also how the collection was preserved and catalogued by members of the family. Finally, she reflects on her own connection to the reels as the Smedleys' great-granddaughter.In doing so, Evans expands our understanding of moving images' emergence as part of a wider network of cultural practices in Edwardian Britain that featured within domestic as well as public and professional spaces.

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Book SynopsisMovies have constantly pushed at the boundaries of sexual representation, outraging censors, transgressing taboos and opening up formerly forbidden realms of sensual pleasure. Whether through an exploration of our dreamiest fantasies or our darkest desires, films have expanded our repertoire of erotic images and challenged who we are as sexual beings. The first book to look at truly contemporary erotic cinema, this publication gives in-depth analyses of sex scenes from over 100 films, more than half of them released in the 21st century. Beginning with an overview of how depictions of sex on screen have changed over the last 40 years, with particular attention to censorship controversies, the book is divided into three main parts - erotic genres, themes and acts - and covers sex comedies, body horror, alien sex and erotic animation; gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans films, movies about youth, marriage and infidelity, films dealing with incest, blasphemy and death; on-screen nudity and voyeurism, masturbation, oral and anal sex, the ménage à trois and the orgy, and bestiality, rape and sadomasochism. The films discussed include 9 Songs, American Pie, Bad Education, Black Swan, Brokeback Mountain, Intimacy, Last Tango in Paris, The Reader, The Wayward Cloud, Y Tu Mamá También and many more.

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Book SynopsisScreenplays ... How to Write and Sell Them is an accessible yet comprehensive book aimed at those with a keen interest in writing feature film screenplays. Using case studies, creative exercises and interviews from the industry, the book will guide readers through the necessary stages of writing a screenplay, from finding and developing ideas to creating and executing characters to shaping structure and constructing scenes. It will also consider how a screenplay might be sold, or used to raise interest in the writer, looking at areas such as finding and working with an agent, networking, using competitions, and raising private production funds. The book's approach is both creative and reflective, giving readers the opportunity to learn a wealth of creative skills alongside skills that will encourage them to think about themselves as writers and the work that they are developing. As such, the book will empower readers in their own creative processes and allow them to successfully tell the stories they want to tell. Rich with analyses from classic and contemporary films, littered with practical models, paradigms and creative tasks, and enhanced by the views of key industry figures, the book is a must for any aspiring feature film screenwriter.Trade ReviewEssential, indeed -- Robin Mukherjeeresults-oriented exercises, spot-on case studies, workable options and professional insight -- Kathie Fong Yoneda

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Book SynopsisEuro Noir by Britain's leading crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw (author of Nordic Noir) examines the astonishing success of European fiction and drama. This is often edgier, grittier and more compelling than some of its British or American equivalents, and the book provides a highly readable guide for those wanting to look further than the obvious choices. The sheer volume of new European writers and films is daunting but Euro Noir provides a roadmap to the territory and is also a perfect travel guide to the genre. Barry Forshaw covers influential Italian authors, such as Andrea Camilleri and Leonardo Sciascia and Mafia crime dramas Romanzo Criminale and Gomorrah, along with the gruesome Gialli crime films. He also considers important French and Belgian writers such as Maigret's creator Georges Simenon to today's Fred Vargas, cult television programmes Braquo and Spiral, and films, from the classic heist movie Rififi to modern successes such as Hidden, Mesrine and Tell No One. German and Austrian greats are covered including Jakob Arjouni and Jan Costin Wagner, and crime films such as Run Lola Run and The Lives of Others. Euro Noir also covers the best crime writing and filmmaking from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Holland and other European countries and celebrates the wide scope of European crime fiction, films and TV.Trade ReviewAn informative, interesting, accessible and enjoyable guide as Forshaw guides us through the crime output of a dozen nations -- Marcel Berlins * The Times *An exhilarating tour of Europe viewed through its crime fiction -- P D Smith * Guardian *Entertaining, illuminating, and indispensable. This is the ultimate road map for anybody interested in European crime books, film, and TV -- Andy Lawrence * Euro But Not Trash *Exemplary tour of the European crime landscape... supremely readable -- Jane Jakeman * The Independent *This is a book for everyone and will help and expand your reading and viewing -- Jo Harding * We Love This Book *

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Book SynopsisFrom the vengeful ghosts of J-horror to the walking dead in 28 Days Later and World War Z, from the creepiness of Spain's haunted houses to the graphic gore of the New French Extremism, horror is everywhere in the twenty-first century. This lively and illuminating book explores over 100 contemporary horror films, providing insightful and provocative readings of what they mean while including numerous quotes from their creators. Some of these films, including The Babadook, The Green Inferno, It Follows, The Neon Demon, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Witch are so recent that this will be one of the first times they are discussed in book form. The book is divided into three main sections: 'nightmares', 'nations' and 'innovations'. 'Nightmares' looks at new manifestations of traditional fears, including creepy dolls, haunted houses and demonic possession as well as vampires, werewolves, witches and zombies; and also considers more contemporary anxieties such as dread of home invasion and homophobia. 'Nations' explores fright films from around the world, including Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Spain and Sweden as well as the UK and the US. 'Innovations' focuses on the latest trends in terror from 3D to found-footage films, from Twilight teen romance to torture porn, and from body horror and eco-horror to techno-horror. Parodies, remakes and American adaptations of Asian horror are also discussed.Trade ReviewMeticulously examining the most influential films from the last two decades, this guide provides an original perspective on today's culture for horror fanatics and cinema buffs alike -- Debi Moore * Dread Central *Keesey does an excellent job in his analysis... the material is surprisingly rich with information -- ZigZag * Horror Talk *

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Book SynopsisFrom the unbridled sensuality of silent Italian films, to the neorealist classic Bitter Rice, to the astonishing imagination of Fellini and the more cerebral and fascinating movies of Antonioni, Italy has a filmic legacy unlike that of any other nation. And then there are the popular movies: the lively sword and sandal epics of the peplum era through to the inextricable mix of sexuality and violence in the gialli of such directors as Mario Bava and Dario Argento. All the glory of Italian cinema is celebrated here in comprehensive essays, along with every key film in an easy-to-use reference format. This new and greatly expanded edition takes in major modern hits such as The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza. The new generation of Italian film and TV successes, important directors and movements of the past are are all given fresh and incisive evaluations, with every kind of film examined, from arthouse classics to the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone and co., and the stylish, blood-drenched thrillers and horror films that redefined their respective genres.Trade ReviewItalian cinema is celebrated here with astute analysis in the sharply informative essays of Barry Forshaw -- John Pitt * New Classics *The best concise guide to both popular and serious Italian cinema -- Sheridan MorleyNo one -- but no one -- composes brief essays on films that are as expert, as complete and as engaging as Barry Forshaw -- Donald SpotoForshaw casts a wide net on this loving examination of the country and its films... If you are looking for an introduction to the wonderful world of Italian cinema, or indeed wishing to further your knowledge, this makes for ideal reading * Kamera Film Salon *

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Book SynopsisBarry Forshaw is acknowledged as a leading expert on crime fiction and film. Following his books on Nordic Noir, Brit Noir and Euro Noir he now tackles the largest and, some might argue, most impressive body of crime fiction from a single country, the United States, to produce the perfect reader's guide to modern American crime fiction. The word 'Noir' is used in its loosest sense: every major living American writer is considered (including the giants Harlan Coben, Patricia Cornwell, James Lee Burke, James Ellroy and Sara Paretsky, as well as non-crime writers such as Stephen King who stray into the genre), often through a concentration on one or two key books. Many exciting new talents are highlighted, and Barry Forshaw's knowledge of - and personal acquaintance with - many of the writers, grants valuable insight into this massively popular field. But the crime genre is as much about films and TV as it is about books, and American Noir is a celebration of the former as well as the latter. US television crime drama in particular is enjoying a golden age, and all of the important current series are covered here, as well as key contemporary films.Trade ReviewThe book canters through American Crime fiction of the early 21st century, conveys information in an easily accessible manner and provides a readable overview of the whole area, one that can be dipped into at random, consulted for specific information or read for general interest -- Jo Hesslewood * Mystery People *a very good collection of well-written, critically astute, and almost always appreciative book reviews -- Jon L Breen * Mystery Scene *Forshaw makes a good case for crime fiction being the literature of social justice and morality -- Francis Phillips * Catholic Herald *A wonderful book to pick up and flick through and start reading the page it opens on. It is filled with fascinating facts to get your reading juices going! -- C.S. * Crime Squad *Forshaw's deep knowledge of noir ensures this is a fascinating guide, as well as a top-notch reading list -- Andre Paine * Crime Scene Magazine *

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Book SynopsisNight and the City (1950), directed by Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark, is the compelling story of a hoodlum on the make in postwar London. Andrew Pulver's study of the film traces the film's production history and places it in the context of British film noir and the urban mythology of its West End setting.

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Book SynopsisJean Renoir''s 1937 film La Grande Illusion is set during the First World War, butits themes of Franco-German conflict, divided loyalties in a time of war and therise ofanti-Semitism made itcompelling and controversial viewing. Julian Jackson traces the film''s historical context and its reception history.

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Book SynopsisTodd Haynes''s 2002 film Far From Heaven has been hailed as a homage to 1950s Hollywood melodrama, although anyone tempted to take the film at face value should be warned that it aims to subvert as much as celebrate that genre. Impeccably constructed, with a care for detail unknown in films from the era, it sets out to make key themes from the genre romance across racial barriers and class lines, and perhaps the period''s greatest taboo, romance between members of the same sex utterly explicit, when half a century ago those themes had to be encoded in allusion and metaphor. Haynes took as his main source Douglas Sirk''s 1955 classic, All That Heaven Allows, although Far From Heaven also references Rainer Werner Fassbinder''s bleak portrayal of inter-racial love, Fear Eats the Soul (1974). In the context of Haynes''s background in the New Queer Cinema movement, with films such as Superstar, Poison and [safe], this admixture makes Far From Heaven a rather more complex film than just an

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Book SynopsisSixty years after its release, Singin' in the Rain (1951) remains one of the best loved films ever made. Yet despite dazzling success with the public, it never received its fair share of critical analysis. Gene Kelly's genius as a performer is undeniable. Acknowledged less often is his innovatory contribution as director. Peter Wollen's illuminating study of Singin' in the Rain does justice to this complex film. In a brilliant shot-by-shot analysis of the famous title number, he shows how skilfully Kelly weaves the dance and musical elements into the narrative, successfully combining two distinctive traditions within American Dance: tap and ballet. At the time of the film's production, its scriptwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and indeed Kelly himself, were all under threat from McCarthyism. Wollen describes how the fallout from blacklisting curtailed the careers of many of those who worked on the film and argues convincingly that the film represents the high point in their careers. In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Geoff Andrew looks at the film's legacy and celebrates the passion, lucidity and originality of Wollen's analysis. Summing up its enduring appeal, Andrew writes: 'Singin' in the Rain isn't just a musical, it's a movie about the movies.'Table of ContentsForeword Geoff Andrew.- 'Singin' in the Rain'.- Notes.- Credits.- Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisPaolo Cherchi Usai provides a comprehensive introduction to the study, research and preservation of silent cinema from its heyday in the early 20th century to its present day flourishing. He traces the history of the moving image in its formative years, from Edison’s and Lumière’s first experiments to the dawn of ‘talkies’; provides a clear guide to the basics of silent film technology; introduces the technical and creative roles involved in its production, and presents silent cinema as a performance event, rather than a passive viewing experience. This new, greatly expanded edition takes the reader on a new journey, exploring silent cinema in the broader context of technology, culture, and society, from the invention of celluloid film and its related machinery to film studios, laboratories, theatres and audiences. Among the people involved in the creation of a new art form were filmmakers, actors and writers, but also engineers, entrepreneurs, and projectionists. Their collective efforts, and the struggle to preserve their creative work by archives and museums, are interwoven in a compelling story covering three centuries of media history, from the magic lantern to the reinvention of silent cinema in digital form. The new edition also includes comprehensive resource information for the study, research, preservation and exhibition of silent cinema.Trade ReviewSilent Cinema is a must-have book for everyone interested in cinema of all eras … If you’re not a silent fan, this giddy ride can make you one. * Observations on Film Art *Paolo Cherchi Usai, renowned film curator, filmmaker, and programmer, has created an engaging saga of the diverse ways in which people have made films—and rescued them for others to enjoy. Silent Cinema is a rare feast of information, ideas, and insights. Using Méliès’ moon-shot as a recurring example, Cherchi Usai surveys everything from perforations and acting performances to musical accompaniment, each treated with clarity and wit. Particularly valuable are the nuanced accounts of how digital technology has transformed our attitudes toward silent films. The reader comes away with a deeper appreciation of the patient curators who have dedicated themselves to making ‘old cinema’ perpetually new. * David Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA *For decades, Paolo Cherchi Usai’s book had been a definitive and inspiring guide to silent cinema—and stays so today when this formerly out-of-the-way and obscure field of study has entered the realm of mainstream entertainment. It stays so because Cherchi Usai has kept it up to date—by way of questioning rather than going along with contemporary dogmas and illusions. Silent film was a performative rather than a technologically reproductive medium; digitization of the photochemical is a deadly remedy instead of a hoped-for panacea. No stone unturned. I fully endorse Paolo Cherchi Usai’s daringly cautionary guide. * Yuri Tsivian, William Colvin Emeritus Professor at the University of Chicago, USA *This third edition of an already classic introduction to cinema’s ‘silent’ era may be the best of all. Instead of merely updating his pioneering text, Paolo Cherchi Usai has re-thought what the early period means to us today, and addresses the ‘digital natives’ who will be its main readers. It’s hard to imagine a more enthusiastic or authoritative introduction. * Ian Christie , Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History, Birkbeck, University of London, UK *Table of ContentsPreface to the Third Edition Acknowledgements Note Introduction Chapter 1 – Pixels Chapter 2 – Celluloid Chapter 3 – Chroma Chapter 4 – Machines Chapter 5 – People Chapter 6 – Buildings Chapter 7 – Works Chapter 8 – Show Chapter 9 – Acoustics Chapter 10 – Collections Chapter 11 – Evidence Chapter 12 – Duplicates Chapter 13 – Lacunae Chapter 14 – Traces Chapter 15 – Curatorship Bibliographic resources and research tools Appendix 1 – Film Measurement Tables Appendix 2 – Eastman Kodak Edge Codes on Motion Picture Film Stock, 1913–1928 Appendix 3 – Identification of Pathé Films by Their Edge Inscriptions Credits of Illustrations Index About the author

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Book SynopsisThe first computer-generated animated feature film, Toy Story (1995) sustains a dynamic vitality that proved instantly appealing to audiences of all ages. Like the great Pop Artists, Pixar Studios affirmed the energy of modern commercial popular culture and, in doing so, created a distinctive alternative to the usual Disney formula. Tom Kemper traces the film's genesis, production history and reception to demonstrate how its postmodern mishmash of pop culture icons and references represented a fascinating departure from Disney's fine arts style and fairytale naturalism. By foregrounding the way in which Toy Story flipped the conventional relationship between films and their ancillary merchandising by taking consumer products as its very subject, Kemper provides an illuminating, revisionist exploration of this groundbreaking classic.Trade ReviewI've read plenty of the BFI's excellent Film Classic series, but Tom Kemper's take on Toy Story is up there among the very best. -- The CrackOne of the many praiseworthy things about the BFI's Film Classics series is that it has not shafted animation... Toy Story inspired so many [animated films] as to be genre-defining, so it is often easy to lose sight of what made the film stand out on its first release twenty years ago. With Toy Story: A Critical Reading, Kemper has given the film the in-depth analysis it deserves. -- Toronto Film ReviewTom Kemper's new critical monograph on Toy Story stands out from its fellows in the British Film Institute's Film Classics series not only in its choice of subject — a beloved and massively successful children's film, as opposed to the established classics or "cutting-edge" modern films typically featured in the series — but in the sophistication and persuasiveness of its argument. Kemper offers a wealth of insight on this foundational film in the Pixar canon, contextualizes it within the history of animated films and the pictorial arts, and highlights the film's surrealist touches. Most importantly, it accomplishes what any good single-film monograph should do: make you want to go out and watch (or re-watch) the film immediately. -- Toronto International Film Festival * David Davison *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments.- 1. Power Pop.- 2. 'The Rat's Nest'.- 3. 'A Rebel Group'.- 4. 'What Would Walt Say?'.- 5. 'Hip loveable, urban. Think Simpsons'.- 6. Playtime: The Film.- 7. Stories.- Notes.- Credits.- Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisEric Ames is Professor ofComparative Literature, Cinema and Mediaat the University of Washington, USA. He is the editor of Werner Herzog: Interviews (2014) and the author ofFerocious Reality: Documentary according to Werner Herzog (2012).

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Book SynopsisIn post-Franco Spain, a re-shaping of notions of the masculine has been under way for some time. The authors of "Live Flesh" demonstrate how contemporary Spanish films, during this modern period, have contributed to this process. They do so by visualizing the ways in which Spanish men have been abandoning old self images and adopting new ones, and they explain and explore the complexity and diversity of these fresh cinematic creations of masculine identities. The book's point of focus is Spanish films of the democratic period, both popular and auteur, made by directors of national and international prominence, such as Pedro Almodovar, Alejandro Amenabar, Bigas Luna or Julio Medem, as well as films featuring acclaimed actors who have contributed to the construction of contemporary ideas of the masculine in their country, including Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem. Using a fresh theoretical framework, embracing queer and feminist theory and concepts of nation, race and class, each chapter examines key films that represent the male body, highlighting notable elements - young, muscular, homosexual, (dis)abled, foreign and so on - and goes on to focus on recent case studies from the early 1990s to the present. An increasingly transnational Spanish cinema is a most promising field in which to explore questions of how male bodies are represented - and mediated - in film. "Live Flesh" more than fulfils this promise and goes further, to reveal how these representations have intervened in the Spanish cultural imagination.Table of ContentsCONTENTS Introduction CHAPTER 1: Stereotypical Bodies CHAPTER 2: Young Bodies CHAPTER 3: Muscular Bodies CHAPTER 4: (Dis)abled bodies CHAPTER 5: Homosexual bodies CHAPTER 6: Transformed Bodies CHAPTER 7: Foreign Bodies CHAPTER 8: The Genitals Filmography Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisCompleted with the enthusiastic support and participation of the late Laureate, Jean Antoine-Dunne’s lively and enriching study begins in a recognition of how important film has been in the whole of Derek Walcott’s career. It is not merely that Derek Walcott wrote a number independent film scripts such as The Rig, The Haitian Earth and To Die for Grenada and wrote film treatments of several of his plays such as for Marie Laveau, Ti Jean and O Babylon, and also a film treatment of his poetic epic Omeros, but that the whole of Walcott’s work, whether poetry, drama or painting, is infused with the sense of the filmic. As she says, “I see him as a film poet”.This study, written with unrivalled access both to Walcott and to his multiple library archives, moves in several directions. Firstly, it comprises a record of all Walcott’s work in film, extensively illustrated with his storyboards and quotation from this mostly unpublished work. Secondly, it tracks Walcott’s own commentary on the place of film in his aesthetics and on his ideas about reaching the widest possible audiences. Thirdly it tracks those explicit moments in the texture of his work (Omeros is a key focus in this regard) where Walcott references film and the filmic. Fourthly the study proposes ways of rereading Walcott’s work – its narrative modes, imagery and construction -- through the lense of the filmic and in particular through the work of Sergei Eisenstein and his conception of film montage. Finally, the book makes an important contribution to the underdeveloped area of reception in Caribbean literary and aesthetic studies, exploring the concept of hybrid forms and their capacity to reach audiences excluded by the exclusively literary. Here, in an immensely stimulating argument, she brings together both the theoretical work of Gilles Deleuze and Caribbean discussions of the role of oral and visual traditions in Caribbean culture.

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Book SynopsisOver the last 40 years, while the musical film has faded from its historical high-point to a more isolated and quirky phenomenon, the dance film has displayed refulgent growth and surprising resilience. A phenomena of modern movie-making, the dance film has spawned profitable global enterprises (Billy Elliot), has fashioned youthful angst as sociological voice (Saturday Night Fever, Footloose and Dirty Dancing) and acted as a marker of post-modern ironic camp (Strictly Ballroom). This modern genre has influenced cinema as a whole in the ways bodies are made dimensional, in the way rhythm and energy are communicated, and in the filmic capacity to create narrative worlds without words. Emerging as a distinct (sub)genre in the 1970s, dance film has been crafting its own meta-narrative and aesthetic paradigms that, nonetheless, display extraordinary variety. Ranging from the experimental, 'you are there' sonic explorations of Robert Altman's The Company and the brutal energy of David La Chappelle's Rize to the lighter 'backstage musical' form displayed in Centre Stage and Save the Last Dance, this genre has garnered both commercial and artistic success.Meanwhile, Bollywood has become a juggernaut, creating transportable memory for diasporic Indian communities across the world. This is an entire industry based on the 'dance number', where films are pitched around the choreography, where the actors are not expected to sing, but they must dance. This series of essays investigates the relationship between movement and sound as it is revealed, manipulated and crafted in the dance film genre. It considers the role of all aspects of sound in the dance film, including the dancer generated sounds inherent in Tap, Flamenco, Irish Dance and Krumping. Drawing on significant post-War dance films from around world, Movies, Moves and Music comprehensively surveys this mainstream genre, where image and sound meet in a crucial symbiosis.Table of Contents1. The Sonic World of Dance Films Mark Evans and Mary Fogarty 2. From Choreocinema To Experimental Screendance: A Personal Archaeology Greg Faller, Towson University, USA 3. From Beat Street to Step Up 3D: The Sound of Street Dance Films Mary Fogarty 4. Space, Authenticity and Utopia in the Hip-Hop Teen Dance Film Faye Woods, University of Reading, UK 5. The School and 'The Streets': Race, Class, Sound, and Space in Step Up and Step Up 2Brian Su-Jen Chung, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Afia Ofori-Mensa, Oberlin College, USA 6. The essence and momentum of Honey: An Interplay of Sound and Movement Diane Hughes, Macquarie University, Australia 7. Gone in a Flash(dance): The Estrangement of Diegetic Performance in the 1980s Teen Dance Film Kelly Kessler, DePaul University, USA8. 'Anything But Ballet': Individuality, Genre-Bending, and Sexual Expression in Center StageGillian Turnbull, Independent Scholar 9. Zoot Suit Mayhem: Swing Dance and the Politics of Revisionist History in Steven Spielberg's 1941Philip Hayward, University of Technology, Sydney, and Jon Fitzgerald, Southern Cross University, Australia 10. Across the Universe and Nostalgia: Re-presenting the Beatles Through Moving Images and Dancing Bodies Colleen Dunagan, California State University, Long Beach, and Roxane Fenton, Independent Scholar 11. Looking for the Past in Pastiche: Intertextuality in Bollywood Song-and-Dance Sequences Usha Iyer, University of the West Indies, St Augustine 12. The Call to RizeMegan Anne Todd, Independent Scholar 13. Resounding Neurological Ecologies: Choreographing the Body's Lost Interactions with the World Sarah-Mace Dennis, Independent Scholar

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Book SynopsisPublishing alongside the world premiere of Christopher Nolan's third Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises", Will Brooker's new book explores Batman's twenty-first century incarnations. Brooker's close analysis of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" offers a rigorous, accessible account of the complex relationship between popular films, audiences, and producers in our age of media convergence. By exploring themes of authorship, adaptation and intertextuality, he addresses a myriad of questions raised by these films: did "Batman Begins" end when "The Dark Knight began? Does its story include the Gotham Knight DVD, or the 'Why So Serious' viral marketing campaign? Is it separate from the parallel narratives of the Arkham Asylum videogame, the monthly comic books, the animated series and the graphic novels? Can the brightly campy incarnations of the Batman ever be fully repressed by "The Dark Knight", or are they an intrinsic part of the character? Do all of these various manifestations feed into a single Batman metanarrative? This will be a vital text for film students and academics, as well as legions of Batman fans.Trade Review'A fascinating and incredibly detailed analysis of comic fiction's most powerful and successful hero.' - Pat Mills, author of Batman: The Book of Shadows 'Through the prism of poststructuralism, Will Brooker casts dazzling new light on Batman as myth, brand, and canon. Hunting the Dark Knight is, quite simply, a brilliant study of the Batman and contemporary processes of rebooting, franchising and shaping a cultural icon.' - Matt Hills, author of Triumph of a Time LordTable of ContentsPrologue Chapter 1 The Nolan Function: Authorship Chapter 2 The Batman Matrix: Adaptation Chapter 3 Dark Knight Lockdown: Realism and Repression Chapter 4 Carnival on Infinite Earths: Continuity and Crisis Chapter 5 The Never-Ending War: Deconstruction and the Dark Knight Epilogue: Time and the Batman Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1998, 'Inventing Ruritania' achieved a rare combination of critical success, broad readership and enduring academic influence. It is now recognised as a key contribution to the study of Balkan and European identity. Offered by Hurst in a long-awaited and updated paperback edition, 'Inventing Ruritania' is just as topical in the context of Europe's current turmoil as it was when it first appeared. Vesna Goldsworthy explores the origins of the ideas that underpin Western perceptions of the Balkans, the 'Wild East' of Europe. European and Oriental at the same time, the Balkans are tantalisingly ambiguous: simultaneously attracting and repelling outsiders, an exciting alternative to the familiar ennui of the West, both completely different from 'us' and exactly as 'we' used to be. Writers and filmmakers in Western Europe and America have found in the peninsula a rich mine of images for literature and the movies. In her prodigiously researched but very readable volume, Goldsworthy shows how this lucrative exploitation of Balkan history and geography by the entertainment industry has affected attitudes toward the region. She considers the religious, national, and sexual taboos and fears projected onto Balkan lands, and discusses the political exploitation and media uses of the Balkan archetypes.Trade Review‘Goldsworthy has done enough research to found an academic department… ‘Inventing Ruritania’ is a sober, thoughtful and perceptive examination of an entertainment industry.’ -- Washington Post‘Goldsworthy has certainly chosen a glorious topic. … There is a rich literary vein to be mined here, and Goldsworthy has a nice critical eye.’ -- Tony Judt, The New Republic‘Goldsworthy seeks to explain the peculiar form of literary and ideological imperialism visited on the Balkans. [She] explores this history of Western perceptions and prejudices by tracing the development of Balkan images in English literature from Byron through the Prisoner of Zenda, Dracula, Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy and beyond. It is thoroughly enjoyable and peppered with hilarious or hair-raising quotations from some of Britain’s most admired authors. … Remarkable.’ -- Misha Glenny, London Review of Books‘A wonderful study, which incisively analyses Western stereotypes about the region.’ -- Carlin Romano, Chronicle of Higher Education‘Her argument is energetically sustained, meticulous and gripping in its detail.’ -- Times Literary Supplement‘A stimulating book. … Goldsworthy’s subject is a fascinating one, and she has done scholars and commentators preoccupied with contemporary events in the region considerable service in identifying and assessing a lost or at least neglected body of literature. … Goldsworthy’s study stands out as a distinctive contribution to a host of urgent cultural and political debates.’ -- Brian Phillips, Literary Review‘A beautifully written and heavily researched book … that consistently makes connections between earlier and contemporary constructions of the Balkans. … Correspondences between literature and contemporary politics in Goldsworthy’s book are provocative, suggestive, and sparkling with knowledge of both British and Balkan history and culture, making ‘Inventing Ruritania’ a bold example of an engaged literary criticism.’ -- Goran V. Stanivukovic, ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature

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