Film history, theory or criticism Books

Book SynopsisPaints a complex portrait of East German film art and representation through examining eighteen key DEFA films following the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, East Germany's DEFA filmmakers had a brief window in which to critique GDR society on either side of the Wende, the sweeping political turn that surrounded the fall of the Berlin Wall andthe opening of the border. Building on the DEFA Film Library's retrospective Wende Flicks series and Indiana University's DEFA Project, this study examines the newly rediscovered filmic artifacts of this transitional cinema, introducing eighteen key films from 1988 to 1994 in essays by German scholars, film professionals, and cultural figures. Accompanying interviews and historical film reviews present a complex portrait of East German film art, itscommunist bloc influences, and its legacy for contemporary German film culture. The resulting anthology combines historical, autobiographical, cultural-political, and journalistic discourses to explore the tension between the hopes and frustrations these films express, the historical exigencies that overshadowed their production and reception, and the politics of their revival. Contributors: Skyler J. Arndt-Briggs, Peter Blank, Claudia Breger,Barton Byg, Knut Elstermann, Peter Kahane, Jennifer M. Kapczynski, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Thomas Krüger, Helmut Morsbach, Benjamin Robinson, Katrin Schlösser and Frank Löprich, Nicholas Sveholm, Johannes von Moltke, Brigitta B. Wagner. Brigitta B. Wagner is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Film Studies at the Freie Universität and in Time-Based Media at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.Trade ReviewThe target audience of this book is above all English-speaking scholars of literature, culture, and film. But also from a German perspective it contains much interesting information. * HHPRINZLER.DE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Making History ReVisible Thoughts for Indiana Not a Bad Heritage: An Interview with Andreas Dresen Spectral Images in the Afterlife of GDR Cinema The Wende in Film Between Times: My Experience as a Director during the Wende "Look, People, Look!": An Interview with Eduard Schreiber The Theatricality of "Shard Films": An Interview with Jörg Foth Competing Archives: Intertextuality and Wende Narrative in the "Last Films from East Germany" The State of Being Done: Film at the End of the Second World Cinema after the GDR's Downfall: The Story of Ö-Film When Berlin-Brandenburg Met Kommerz-Keil: An Interview with Klaus Keil Performing the GDR: The Last DEFA Generation and the Tradition of Theatricality Surveillance States: Structures of Conspiracy in Wende Cinema Cleansing the System: East German Cinema Repurposed Historical Archaeology: Curating the Wende Flicks Series The DEFA Foundation, 2010: Rediscover the Past-Support the Future Activating an Archive of Inner Perspectives: Political Education with DEFA Films Vorspiel (1987) flüstern & SCHREIEN (1988) Coming Out (1989) Leipzig im Herbst (1989) and Östliche Landschaft (1991) Die Architekten (1990) Die Mauer (1990) Letztes aus der DaDaeR (1990) Der Tangospieler (1991) Verriegelte Zeit (1991) Das Land hinter dem Regenbogen (1992) Verfehlung (1992) Stilles Land (1992) Jana und Jan (1992) Herzsprung (1992) Sammelsurium-Ein ostelbischer Kulturfilm (1992) Miraculi (1992) Burning Life (1994) The Schlöndorff Controversy (2008) Selected Bibliography Notes on the Contributors and Curators Index

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Book SynopsisGerman history films that focus on utopianism and political dissent and their effect on German identity since 1989. Since unification, a radical shift has taken place in Germans' view of their country's immediate past, with 1989 replacing 1945 as the primary caesura. The cold-war division, the failed socialist state, the '68 student movement, and the Red Army Faction -- historical flashpoints involving political oppression, civil disobedience, and the longing for utopian solutions to social injustice -- have come to be seen as decisive moments in a collective history that unites East and West even as it divides them. Telling stories about a shared past, establishing foundational myths, and finding commonalities of experience are pivotal steps in the construction of national identity. Such nation-building is always incomplete, but the cinema provides an important forum in which notions of German history and national identity can be consumed, negotiated, and contested. This book looks at history films made since 1989, exploring how utopianism and political dissent have shaped German identity. It studies the genre - including popular successes, critical successes, and perceived failures - as a set of texts and a discursive network, gauging which conventions and storylines are resilient. At issue is the overriding question: to what extent do these films contribute to a narrative that legitimizes the German nation-state? Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien is Professor of Germanand The Courtney and Steven Ross Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College.Trade ReviewO'Brien successfully points to cinematic trends and shifts and highlights the thematic interplay between individual historic events and their cultural conversions. . . . O'Brien's study of post-Wall cinema provides thorough and thought-provoking readings of history films and convincingly presents utopianism and dissent as core concepts in the current debates about German national identity. * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *[S]ituates itself at the heart of contemporary debates about recent German history . . . . O'Brien's thematic and contextualist approach allows for an inclusive inquiry that overcomes binary models . . . . [W]ith its analyses of previously unexplored films, solidly rooted with a diverse set of critical responses . . . the book does great service to contemporary German film studies and offers some very suggestive socio-political insights. FILM CRITICISM Examining how Germany's divided past shaped its present, this study focuses on contemporary films that look back to the legacy of the postwar period. O'Brien argues that utopianism and dissent, as practiced in both German states, have emerged as a model for imagining German identity in the present. . . . [H]er close readings of 12 significant films are well written and accessible, providing a convincing overview of how contemporary cinema engages with Germany's contested past. Recommended. * CHOICE *16 powerfully expressive screenshots awake interest, a detailed index . . . makes locating things easy, the copious notes free up the discourse, which offers a convincing analysis of the corpus of the 'history film' genre. Looking back at the Wende, the trauma of the Wall, and the Red Army Faction, the films appear as seismographs of the time. The recalling of then-topical conflicts opens broad perspectives. * GERMANISTIK *Table of ContentsIntroduction Amnesia, Nostalgia, and Anamnesis as Reactions to the Wende In the Shadow of the Wall: Political Oppression and Resistance in the GDR The Wild West and East of Eden: The Red Army Factionand German Terrorism History Lessons: The Enduring Appeal of Utopianism and the Specter of Violence Epilogue Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisOffers not only an analytical study of the films of Herzog, perhaps the most famous living German filmmaker, but also a new reading of Romanticism's impact beyond the nineteenth century and in the present. Werner Herzog (b. 1942) is perhaps the most famous living German filmmaker, but his films have never been read in the context of German cultural history. And while there is a surfeit of film reviews, interviews, and scholarly articles on Herzog and his work, there are very few books devoted to his films, and none addressing his entire career to date. Until now. Forgotten Dreams offers not only an analytical study of Herzog's films but also a new reading of Romanticism's impact beyond the nineteenth century. It argues that his films re-envision and help us better understand a critical stream in Romanticism, and places the films in conversation with other filmmakers, authors, and philosophers in order to illuminate that critical stream. The result is a lively reconnection with Romantic themes and convictions that have been partly forgotten in the midst of Germany's postwar rejection of much of Romantic thought, yet are still operative in German culture today. The film analyses will interest scholars of film, German Studies, and Romanticism as well as a broader public interested in Herzog's films and contemporary German cultural debates. The book will also appeal to those interested in the ongoing renegotiation - by Western and other cultures - of relationships between reason and passion, civilization and wild nature, knowledge and belief. Laurie Ruth Johnson is Professor of German, Comparative and World Literature, and Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Trade Review[A] worthy addition to any interdisciplinary study of Herzog's films - and the influence of alternative German romanticism as well as formal romanticism on moviemaking . . . . [A]n impressive unravelling of Werner Herzog's valuable contribution to cinema through a viewpoint not previously attempted, shining a light on some intriguing cultural influences and their effects on this fascinating filmmaker. * FILM IRELAND *Laurie Johnson's book expands Herzog criticism in important aspects. * HANS-HELMUT-PRINZLER.DE *Johnson . . . offers a new perspective on the romanticism/Herzog connection. . . . Forgotten Dreams is an in-depth analysis of certain romantic tendencies and how one might read Herzog's films as visual and - to a lesser degree - aural representations of the same. [The book] is an engaging contribution to the philosophical and cultural history of German Romanticism . . . [and shows] how this movement may yield insights into film analysis and history. It is also a worthy resource for Herzog scholars for its discussion of his lesser-known films. Literary, cultural, and film scholars will find many valuable insights in Laurie Ruth Johnson's interdisciplinary study. * MONATSHEFTE *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: Werner Herzog's Films and the Other Discourse of Romanticism Image and Knowledge Surface and Depth Beauty and Sublimity Man and Animal Sound and Silence Conclusion: Herzog's Romantic Cinema Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA volume of essays marking out a new, historically and culturally specific model for contemplating autobiographical non-fiction film and video. There is a widespread notion in the scholarly literature on autobiographical nonfiction film that there are unchanging, universal models for the investigation of the self through audiovisual media. By insisting on the cultural andhistorical specificity of that self, the essays in this volume trace the range of politically and theoretically informed taboos, critiques, and proclivities that shape autobiographical filmmaking in German-speaking countries. Indoing so, they delineate a new model for contemplating autobiographical film and video. The essays in this volume examine the parameters shaping the audiovisual self in the Germanophone cultural context across a variety of practices and aesthetic modes, from contemporary artists including Hito Steyerl, Ming Wong, and kate hers to Rolf Dieter Brinkmann's multimedia experiments of the 1970s, and from Helke Misselwitz's challenges to the documentary tradition in the GDR to Peter Liechti's investigations of Swiss ambivalence toward the nation's iconic landscape. The volume thus takes up a number of historically and geographically specific iterations of autobiographical discourse that in each case remain contingent on the space and time in which they are uttered. Contributors: Dagmar Brunow, Steve Choe, Robin Curtis, Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Angelica Fenner, Marcy Goldberg, Feng-Mei Heberer, Rembert Hüser, Waltraud Maierhofer, Christopher Pavsek, Patrik Sjöberg, Carrie Smith-Prei, Anna Stainton. Robin Curtis is Professor of Theory and Practice of Audiovisual Media at the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf, Germany. Angelica Fenner is Associate Professor of German and Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto.Trade Review[N]ot only offers an introduction to a fascinating set of films and filmmakers; with its exploration of memory, history, identity, and the possibilities of the cinematic medium, Fenner and Curtis's volume offers an invaluable resource for scholars across a wide range of disciplines. -- Christina Kraenzle * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *Very interesting . . . . The twelve contributions are characterized by an international perspective and are very reflective . . . . Worth reading. * HHPRINZLER.DE *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Introduction "If people want to oppress you, they make you say 'I'": Hito Steyerl in Conversation The Impertinence of Saying "I": Sylvia Schedelbauer's Personal Documentaries Geography of a Swiss Body: Peter Liechti's Hans im Glück Reading Helke Misselwitz's Winter Adé as Multivocal Autobiography How Does It Feel to Be Foreign? Negotiating German Belonging and Transnational Asianness in Experimental Video Frankfurt Canteen: Eva Heldmann's fremd gehen. Gespräche mit meiner Freundin Mediated Memories of Migration and the National Visual Archive: Fatih Ak?n's Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren History Runs through the Family: Framing the Nazi Past in Recent Autobiographical Documentary Clearing Out Family History: Thomas Haemmerli's Sieben Mulden und eine Leiche Re-Authoring the Self: Brinkmann's Zorn From Death to Life: Wim Wenders, Autobiography, and the Natural History of Cinema "Ich bin's, Fassbinder," or The Timing of the Self Filmography and Sources Bibliography Notes on the Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisNew essays examining the differences and commonalities between late Weimar-era and early Nazi-era German cinema against a backdrop of the crises of that time. Hitler's Machtergreifung, or seizure of power, on January 30, 1933, marked the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the Third Reich, and German film scholarship has generally accepted this date as the break between Weimar and Nazi-era film as well. This collection of essays interrogates the continuities and discontinuities in German cinema before and after January 1933 and their relationship to the various crises of the years 1928 to 1936in seven areas: politics, the economy, concepts of race and ethnicity, the making of cinema stars, genre cinema, film technologies and aesthetics, and German-international film relations. Focusing both on canonical and lesser-known works, the essays analyze a representative sample of films and genres from the period. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Weimar and Third Reich cinema and of the sociopolitical, economic, racial, artistic, and technological spheres in both late Weimar and the early Third Reich, as well as to film scholars in general. Contributors: Paul Flaig, Margrit Frölich, Barbara Hales, Anjeana Hans, Bastian Heinsohn, Brook Henkel,Kevin B. Johnson, Owen Lyons, Richard W. McCormick, Kalani Michell, Mihaela Petrescu, Christian Rogowski, Valerie Weinstein, Wilfried Wilms. Barbara Hales is Associate Professor of History at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Mihaela Petrescu is Visiting Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh. Valerie Weinstein is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and German Studies at the University of Cincinnati.Trade Review[A] newly nuanced portrait of the interruptions and interconnections between the film cultures of late Weimar and early National Socialist Germany. . . . Each of the essays in the volume will find an eager readership for its particular topic; taken together, the articles . . . promise to have a significant impact on how German Studies as a field understands the critical period between the end of Weimar democracy and the rise of Nazism -- as an era of 'fluid' movement as well as crisis. -- Jennifer Kapczynski * MONATSHEFTE *[O]ffers several interesting essays. . . . * FILMBLATT *[S]ubstantial and innovative . . . . [O]ffers a fresh and interesting approach to two film-making periods that have intrigued academics for decades. The volume exposes countless surprising links between Weimar and Nazi culture and society that cause us fundamentally to rethink our understanding of the period covered. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction "Timid Heresies": Werner Hochbaum's Razzia in St. Pauli (1932) - Christian Rogowski Film as Pedagogy in Late Weimar and Early Nazi Cinema: The Role of the Street in Mobilizing the Spectator - Bastian Heinsohn "A Fairytale for Grown-ups": Financial and Cinematic Crises in Die Koffer des Herrn O.F. (1931) - Paul Flaig "Denn Gold ist Glück und Fluch dieser Welt": Examining the Trope of "Gold" in Gold (1934) and Der Kaiser von Kalifornien (1936) - Owen Lyons Degenerate Disease and the Doctors of Death: Racial Hygiene Film as Propaganda in Weimar and Early Nazi Germany - Barbara Hales "White Jews" and Dark Continents: Capitalist Critique and Its Racial Undercurrents in Detlef Sierck's April! April! (1935) - Valerie Weinstein The Zigeunerdrama Reloaded: Leni Riefenstahl's Fantasy Gypsies and Sacrificial Others - Anjeana Hans Regaining Mobility: The Aviator in Weimar Mountain Films - Wilfried Wilms Brigitte Helm and Germany's Star System in the 1920s and 1930s - Mihaela Petrescu Foreign Attractions: Czech Stars and Ethnic Masquerade - Kevin B. Johnson Objects in Motion: Hans Richter's Vormittagsspuk (1928) and the Crisis of Avant-Garde Film - Brook Henkel Seeing Crisis in Harry Piel's Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt (1933) - Kalani Michell Playing the European Market: Marcel L'Herbier's L'Argent (1928), Ufa, and German-French Film Relations - Margrit Frölich A Serious Man? Ernst Lubitsch's Anti-War Film The Man I Killed (a.k.a. Broken Lullaby, USA 1932) - Richard W. McCormick Selected Bibliography Notes on the Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThe first book-length study in any language of the "Berlin School," the most significant filmmaking movement to come out of Germany since the 1970s. The contemporary German directors collectively known as the "Berlin School" constitute the most significant filmmaking movement to come out of Germany since the New German Cinema of the 1970s, not least because their films mark the emergence of a new film language. The Berlin School filmmakers, including Christian Petzold, Thomas Arslan, Angela Schanelec, Christoph Hochhäusler, Ulrich Köhler, Benjamin Heisenberg, Maren Ade, and Valeska Grisebach, are reminiscent of the directors of the New German Autorenkino and of French cinéma des auteurs of the 1960s. This is the first book-length study of the Berlin School in any language. Its central thesis - that the movement should be regarded as a "counter-cinema" - is built around the unusual style of realism employed in its films, a realism that presents images of a Germany that does not yet exist. Abel concludes that it is precisely how these films' images and sounds work that renders them political: they are political not because they are message-driven films but because they are made politically, thus performing a "redistribution of the sensible" - a direct artistic intervention in the way politics partitions ways of doing and making, saying and seeing. Marco Abel is Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.Trade ReviewThe publication of Abel's book (now also available in paperback) represents a certain milestone, for bringing a cultural, historical, and aesthetic coherence and systematicity to the way these ?lms are now perceived. . . . Abel's interventions [ ] open new conversations within the discipline, while also bringing contemporary German cinema to the attention of scholars of affect whose gaze has otherwise seldom strayed beyond US, French, and British ?lm production . * SEMINAR *WINNER, GERMAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION BOOK PRIZE, 2014 * WINNER, GERMAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION BOOK PRIZE, 2014 *Impresses through its theoretical ambition, wide-ranging archival research-including in-depth interviews with many of its key directors-and lucid analyses of films, making a convincing case why these films matter. . . .This newest wave of German cinema has attracted its fair share of critics, but Abel can claim to have written its definitive account. [His book] has the makings of an instant classic. -GSA Prize Committee * . *They are bound together by no manifesto, have no common training, live in different places, and the directors even reject the label that has been given them. . . . [Yet] their films have aesthetic parallels; they distinguish themselves formally from the German mainstream. Abel . . . engages with them [here] on a high theoretical level: America has discovered the Berlin School. -Hans Helmut Prinzler * . *A seminal reference work for all scholars working in the field of German Studies. By virtue of his meditations on form, texture, and aesthetics, Abel's work deserves to be seen alongside the work of John Orr in its thoughtful reflections on contemporary cinema's innovative engagement with reality. * JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES *Abel considers each filmmaker's body of work in its entirety, a remarkable achievement in its own right. [This book] covers all the [Berlin School's] major films, filmmakers, and developments to date. Future scholarship will certainly need to reckon with it. . . . [It] puts the Berlin School on the map of film and media scholarship. * FILM QUARTERLY *The big payoff of the book is the care with which Abel devotes himself to the individual filmmakers. He applies no standard scheme, but instead thoroughly analyzes the career and most important films of each . . . . He succeeds in presenting portraits that are very rich. . . . Deep and convincing interpretations and insights arise into a film movement and its way of thinking. * FILMBLATT *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: So This Was Germany - A Preliminary Account of the Berlin School Note on Translations Thomas Arslan: Realism beyond Identity Christian Petzold: Heimat-Building as Utopia Angela Schanelec: Narrative, Understanding, Language Revolver Cinema and Électrons libres: Cinema Must Be Dangerous Christoph Hochhäusler: Intensifying Life Benjamin Heisenberg: Filming Simply as Resistance Valeska Grisebach: A Sharpening of Our Regard Maren Ade: Filming between Sincerity and Irony Ulrich Köhler: The Politics of Refusal Conclusion: A Counter-Cinema Filmography Bibliography

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Book SynopsisConsiders over sixty Hollywood films set in Austria, examining the film industry, the influence of domestic factors on images of a foreign country, and the persistence of clichés. Maria von Trapp, watching the final scene of The Sound of Music for the first time as "her" family escaped into Switzerland, exclaimed, "Don't they know geography in Hollywood? Salzburg does not border on Switzerland!" Hadshe thought about the beginning of the film, which transports viewers to "Salzburg, Austria in the last Golden Days of the Thirties," when the country was in fact suffering from extreme political and social unrest, she might haveasked, "Don't they know history either?" In The Sound of Music as well as in Hollywood's many other "Austria" films, the projections on the screen resemble reflections in a funhouse mirror. Elements of a "real" place with a"real" history inhabited by "real" people can be found in the fractured distortions, which have both drawn from and contributed to the general public's perceptions of the country and its citizens. Austria Made in Hollywood focuses on films set in an identifiable Austria, examining them through the lenses of the historical contexts on both sides of the Atlantic and the prism of the ever-changing domestic film industry. The study chronicles theprotean screen images of Austria and Austrians that set them apart both from European projections of Austria and from Hollywood incarnations of other European nations and nationals. It explores explicit and implicit cultural commentaries on domestic and foreign issues inserted in the Austrian stories while considering the many, sometimes conflicting forces that shaped the films.Trade ReviewVansant's study is essential reading for students and scholars of film history and criticism, Austrian studies, and intellectual history. . . . It will be an important enhancement to library collections and a key entry on syllabi . . . . -- Felix Tweraser * CONTEMPORARY AUSTRIAN STUDIES *[Shows how] filmmakers drew on the American fascination with the empire, the aristocracy, the baroque, and classical music to address concerns of the day. . . . Students, teachers, and scholars can all draw on Vansant's focused, concise, and clear narrative, a novel and insightful examination of cinematic treatments of national cultures in historical context. -- Alan Lareau * MONATSHEFTE *[W]ould be an excellent addition to a syllabus for a history course on Europe and the United States, or as a country case study for a film course. This is the definitive book on the image of Austria and Austrians in American film. . . . An extraordinary achievement . . . . -- Michael Burri * AUSTRIAN HISTORY YEARBOOK *An immensely readable study: it persuasively illustrates how American films about Austria, both during Hollywood's golden age and at the present time, were and will continue to be projections, which often reveal much more about the contemporary concerns and values of the United States than they do about the Austria they are reconstructing on screen. -- Katya Krylova * AUSTRIAN STUDIES *As a rich source of information on often forgotten celluloid depictions of Austria, this book will be of value to scholars of Austria, and its careful readings of shifting Hollywood depictions of a single subject will make it of interest to many film scholars as well. -- Ted Dawson * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *[F]ills a gap in the history of the great migration of Nazi refugees from Europe to California by concentrating on the image of Austria in commercial products coming out of Hollywood. [Vansant] is most illuminating in her discussion of the generation from Erich von Stroheim to Otto Preminger, including Ernst Lubitsch, Michael Curtiz, Billy Wilder, and Josef von Sternberg. * CHOICE *Vansant's monograph about Hollywood's selection of Austrian topics and themes projected through the lens of the American political and sociohistorical perspective is meticulously researched and thus can serve as an excellent source book for teachers and students of film and literary studies. -- Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger * GERMAN QUARTERLY *[C]oncise [and] enjoyable to read and may inspire readers to search out films that they are not yet familiar with. It should definitely be of interest to film scholars and could potentially be useful with undergraduates or graduate students. And perhaps it will inspire a contemporary American filmmaker to reexamine Austria. -- Laura A. Detre * JOURNAL OF AUSTRIAN STUDIES *For far too long in German research on exile and film, Austria and Austrian-influenced works have been all too liberally integrated into the "German." It is exactly for this reason that Jackie Vansant's study is so important. Embedded in historical context and historically stamped motifs, she not only develops Austrian themes in the film production of Hollywood, but also the reasons for them. -- Ursula Prutsch * ZWISCHENWELT *Jacqueline Vansant's book . . . offers a unique look at how Hollywood has imagined Austria in its film production. . . . [It] has many strengths [. . . and] will be a useful reference for scholars of European and Hollywood film. -- Jason Doerre * STUDIES IN 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE *Table of ContentsIntroduction Erich Stroheim, His Austria(ns). and Their US Contexts Cross-Cultural Encounters of the Intimate Kind: Hollywood's Americans in Love with Austria(ns), 1932-60 The Empire Strikes Back: Imperial Austria Fights Nazis, 1938-41 Reflections and Refractions of the Anschluss on the Hollywood Screen, 1941-42 Confronting and Escaping History: The Cardinal (1963) and The Sound of Music (1965) Conclusion: Hollywood's Austria - Its Past, Present, Future Appendix: Hollywood Films Set in Austria Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA study of how Nanga Parbat, the ninth-highest peak on earth, became the German "mountain of the mind." Never has a mountain occupied the German imagination longer and more thoroughly than Nanga Parbat (8,125m), the world's ninth-highest peak, located in the extreme western part of the Himalaya chain in present-day Pakistan. Repeatedly referred to in the 1930s as the German "mountain of destiny," over a period of roughly two decades from 1932 to 1953 Nanga Parbat became not only the destination of six German mountaineering expeditions, but also the quintessential German "mountain of the mind" onto whose slopes German mountaineers, mountaineering officials, politicians, writers, and filmmakers projected some of the most pressing social, political, and cultural concerns of their times.This book is a detailed study of that process: of the initial motivations of post-First World War mountaineers for attempting to scale one of the tallest mountains in the world, of the appropriation of this epic mountaineering challenge by National Socialism, of the reappropriation of the Nanga Parbat project during the early years of the German Federal Republic. And most important - since to date such an approach is almost completely absent from existingstudies of Himalaya mountaineering of this era - it is a study of the means and mechanisms, the texts and contexts employed for communicating these high-altitude mountaineering exploits to the German public and thereby inscribingNanga Parbat into the German imagination. Harald Höbusch is Associate Professor of German and Associate Chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Kentucky.Trade ReviewThough the title suggests the book's common thread will be Nanga Parbat, in fact Höbusch has given us something far more wide-ranging. 'Mountain of Destiny' is a deeply sourced account of the co-development of mountaineering culture and Germany's modern self-identity, hinged around the rhetoric and trauma of National Socialism. . . . Students looking for introductory analyses of key primary sources in the history of mountaineering will find large parts of each chapter richly helpful. * JOURNAL OF AUSTRIAN STUDIES *Readers with interest in German mountaineering or film history will find value in the impressing amount of details the author presents. * GERMAN HISTORY *There is much to admire in Mountain of Destiny, a book that should take its place . . . as a classic of the intellectual history of mountaineering. * COLLOQUIA GERMANICA *'[A]bsorbing . . . . [W]ill naturally appeal to anyone interested in the history of mountaineering. It also offers an unusual perspective on some of the major themes of twentieth-century German history. * JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction Between the Wars (1919-39) The Postwar Years (1945-53) Reading Defeat Narrating Success Hiding the Obvious Seeing the Unseen Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisEssays showcasing Ali and Nino as particularly topical for today's readers both in and out of the classroom, and providing a number of diverse approaches to it. Ali and Nino is a novel published in German in 1937 under the alias "Kurban Said," a love story between a Muslim man and a Christian woman set in Baku, Azerbaijan, during World War I and the country's brief independence. Itwas a major success, translated into several other languages, but was forgotten by the end of World War II. Recent research by the journalist Tom Reiss has revealed the identity of the author as Lev/Leo Nussimbaum (1905-1942), aJewish man born in Baku who converted to Islam, worked as a journalist in Berlin, and died forgotten in exile. Reiss's discovery has spurred new interest in the novel, as has the fact that the book prefigures today's perceived conflicts between East and West or Islam and Christianity, but also suggests a more peaceful model of intercultural living in multiethnic Baku's melting pot of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The present volume collects twelve newessays on different aspects of the text by scholars from a variety of disciplines and cultural backgrounds. It is intended to showcase the suitability of Ali and Nino for inclusion in a curriculum focused on German, world literature, or area studies, and to suggest a variety of approaches to the novel while also appealing to its fans. Contributors: Sara Abdoullah-Zadeh, Cori Crane, Chase Dimock, Christine Rapp Dombrowski, Elizabeth WeberEdwards, Anja Haensch, Kamaal Haque, Lisabeth Hock, Ruchama Johnston-Bloom, Carl Niekerk, Elke Pfitzinger, Soraya Saatchi, Daniel Schreiner, Azade Seyhan. Carl Niekerk is Professor of German with affiliate appointmentsin French, Comparative and World Literature, and Jewish Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Cori Crane is Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of the Language Program in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature at Duke University.Trade Review[T]he contributors [to this volume] productively upset the notion of a traditional literary canon, which still lingers in the discipline of German Studies. . . . An intriguing aspect of this volume is the approach to the readings and the way these readings were framed in each chapter: namely, as springboards for further analysis and debate. . . . The volume will be a great resource for German Studies professionals and students alike. -- Ervin Malakaj * STUDIES IN 20TH- AND 21ST-CENTURY LITERATURE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Ali and Nino as World Literature - Carl Niekerk Notes on Editions of and References to Ali and Nino Introduction: Ali and Nino as World Literature - Cori Crane Ali and Nino: The Novel as/of Cultural Translation - Azade Seyhan Crossing Borders, Crossing Disciplines: Ali and Nino in the Twenty-First Century - Lisabeth M. Hock Crossing Borders, Crossing Disciplines: Ali and Nino in the Twenty-First Century - Soraya Saatchi Glowing Rubies and Persian Daggers: The Role of the Persian Poetry in Ali and Nino - Christine Rapp Dombrowski Gendered Stereotypes and Cross-Cultural Moral Values through the Eyes of Kurban Said - Sara Abdoullah-Zadeh Orientalist Itineraries: Cultural Hegemony, Gender, Race, and Relition in Ali and Nino - Anja Haensch Gendered Conflicts in Muslim and Christian Cultures: Honor (and Shame) in Ali and Nino - Elizabeth Weber Edwards Love and Politics: Retelling History in Ali and Nino and Artush and Zaur - Daniel Schreiner "Herr Professor, Please: We'd Rather Stay in Asia": Ali Khan Shirvanshir and the Spaces of Baku - Kamaal Haque The Female Body and the Seduction of Modernity in Ali and Nino - Chase Dimock Seeing the Unseen: Symbolic Writing in Ali and Nino - Elke Pfitzinger Ali and Nino and Jewish Questions - Ruchama Johnston-Bloom Between Orientalism and Occidentalism: Culture, Identity, and the "Clash of Civilizations" in Ali and Nino - Carl Niekerk Works Cited Notes on the Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisProvides new insights into German-language cinema around 1968 and its relationship to the period's epoch-making cultural and political happenings. The epoch-making revolutionary period universally known in Germany as '68 can be argued to have predated that year and to have extended well into the 1970s. It continues to affect German and Austrian society and culture to this day. Yet while scholars have written extensively about 1968 and the cinema of other countries, relatively little sustained scholarly attention has thus far been paid to 1968 and West German, East German, and Austrian cinemas. Now, five decades later, Celluloid Revolt sets out to redress that situation, generating new insights into what constituted German-language cinema around 1968 and beyond. Contributors engage a range of cinemas, spanning experimental and avant-garde cinema, installations and exhibits; short films, animated films, and crime films; collectively produced cinemas, feminist films, and Arbeiterfilme (workers' films); as well as their relationship to cinemas of other countries, such as French cinéma vérité and US direct cinema. Contributors: Marco Abel, Tilman Baumgärtel, Madeleine Bernstorff, Timothy Scott Brown, Michael Dobstadt, Sean Eedy, Thomas Elsaesser, IanFleishman, Christina Gerhardt, Lisa Haegele, Randall Halle, Priscilla Layne, Ervin Malakaj, Kalani Michell, Evelyn Preuss, Patricia Anne Simpson, Fabian Tietke, Andrew Stefan Weiner. Christina Gerhardt is Associate Professor of German and Film Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Marco Abel is Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.Trade Review[A]bly edited by [Christina] Gerhardt and Marco Abel, [this volume] auspiciously brings together the work of scholars based in Europe and North America (still a rarity in German film studies). . . . A particular strength of the collection is its detailed attention to film feminisms. -- Hester Baer * GERMAN QUARTERLY *Thrilling in intellectual rigor and scope, the book's accomplishment is an inestimable one for future studies of committed film and media, particularly those interested in Tricontinental theory, post-socialist Europe, and the worldwide South. -- Nace Zavrl * NECSUS *[P]rovides fresh perspectives on the participation of German-language film in . . . social, cultural and political campaigns [around 1968]. . . . [H]ighlights how the vitality and abundance of cultural production at the time goes well beyond, stands aside from, and/or critiques leftist politics. Given these features, the volume becomes an invaluable source for the study of German and Austrian screen cultures aligned to the events of 1968, while also stimulating new directions and approaches around this subject. -- Claudia Sandberg * STUDIES IN EUROPEAN CINEMA *[This book] deepens the reader's understanding of how German-language cinema engaged with the events of the long 1968. Most importantly, it subverts the usual narrative that associates the politics of this era exclusively with West Germany. . . . [S]uccessfully redefine[s] cinema's relationship with 1968 across the axes of politics and aesthetics. -- Catriona Corke * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *The essays and interviews in this collection focus exclusively on German-language films -- West German, East German, and Austrian films -- looking at how the revolutionary happenings in Europe in 1968 were captured in the cinematic imaginations of young and sympathetic moviemakers. * CHOICE *Scholarship surrounding this era will benefit immensely from these well-curated articles and interviews and the huge range of filmic texts that they explore. -- Rob McFarland * FEMINIST GERMAN STUDIES *[B]roaden[s] its coverage to "greater Germany" (the GDR and Austria) as well as the FRG. The four essays on the GDR (by Ian Fleishman, Sean Eedy, Patricia Anne Simpson, and Evelyn Preuss) combine to dispel the common perception that East German cinema was a wasteland untouched by what was happening in the world outside and that it was so tightly controlled that directors were in effect hamstrung. . . . [This volume and two others by the editor Christina Gerhardt, also reviewed] are an admirable achievement. -- Denise J. Youngblood * HISTORICAL JOURNAL OF FILM, RADIO, AND TELEVISION *Table of ContentsIntroduction: German Screen Cultures and the Long 1968 - Christina Gerhardt and Marco Abel PART I. ESSAYS Peter Zadek's Film Ich bin ein Elefant, Madame (1969): Discussing "1968" by Means of "1968 Thinking" - Michael Dobstadt "Break the Power of the Manipulators": Film and the West German 1968 - Timothy Scott Brown Ideological Rupture in the dffb: An Analysis of Hans-Rüdiger Minow's Berlin, 2. Juni - Priscilla Layne Helke Sander's dffb Films and West Germany's Feminist Movement - Christina Gerhardt Film Feminisms in West German Cinema: A Public Sphere for Feminist Politics - Madeleine Bernstorff A Laboratory for Political Film: The Formative Years of the German Film and Television Academy and Participatory Filmmaking from Workerism to Feminism - Fabian Tietke West Germany's "Workers' Films": A Cinema in the Service of Television? - Thomas Elsaesser Guns, Girls, and Gynecologists: West German Exploitation Cinema and the St. Pauli Film Wave in the Late 1960s - Lisa Haegele Mediation, Expansion, Event: Reframing the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative - Andrew Stefan Weiner Prague Displaced: Political Tourism in the East German Blockbuster Heißer Sommer - Ian Fleishman Animating the Socialist Personality: DEFA Fairy Tale Trickfilme in the Shadow of 1968 - Sean Eedy Allegories of Resistance: The Legacy of 1968 in GDR Visual Cultures - Patricia Anne Simpson "You Say You Want a Revolution": East German Film at the Crossroads between the Cinemas - Evelyn Preuss Cruel Optimism, Post-68 Nostalgia and the Limits of Political Activism in Helma Sanders-Brahms's Unter dem Pflaster ist der Strand (1975) - Ervin Malakaj Revolting Formats: Hellmuth Costard's Der kleine Godard An das Kuratorium: Junger Deutscher Film - Kalani Michell PART II. IN CONVERSATION: INTERVIEWS WITH FILMMAKERS An Interview with Harun Farocki: "Holger Thought Aesthetics and Politics Together" - Tilman Baumgärtel An Interview with Birgit Hein: "Art communicates knowledge that cannot be expressed in any other information system" - Randall Halle An Interview with Klaus Lemke: "Being Smart Does Not Make Good Films" - Marco Abel Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisFor both the film buff and the general moviegoer a handbook that unlocks the secrets of a hundred noir movies ""Gifford knows his noir. The essays are better than some of the films he writes about."" - Elmore Leonard For a tour of noir cinema this handbook is the perfect companion and Barry Gifford is an ideal guide. His choice selection of films exposes the menacing, moody, and oftentimes violent underbelly of this dark movie genre that occupies a favorite niche in American popular culture. Some are classics, some are little known and seldom seen, but all, once viewed, are deeply remembered by aficionados of noir. Gifford's roll call of unforgettables includes these, and more: The Asphalt Jungle, Body and Soul, Body Heat, Charley Varrick, Chinatown, The Devil Thumbs a Ride, D.O.A., Double Indemnity, High Sierra, Key Largo, Kiss of Death, Mean Streets, Mildred Pierce, Mr. Majestyk, Out of the Past, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Strangers on a Train, White Heat, along with several noir classics from Europe -- Repulsion, The Hidden Room, Shoot the Piano Player, The 400 Blows, Odd Man Out. Gifford identifies the directors and names the many noir stars, the greats and not-so-greats who were cast in the indelible roles of hoods, B-girls, psychopaths, grifters, gumshoes, waifs, tarts, femme fatales, mobsters, molls, and ex-cons. In an introduction novelists Edward Gorman and Dow Mossman applaud Gifford's selections and his insights: ""The movies discussed here range from the lowest of the B's to the biggest of the A's, and this book is going to make you want to run out and locate every one of them (and good luck to you; finding The Devil Thumbs a Ride could take you a lifetime). Through Barry Gifford's eyes we begin to see their similarities and their value. What Andrew Sarris did for the mainstream film in The American Cinema, Barry does here for the crime film."" With a connoisseur's insight and an offbeat sensitivity perfectly tailored to his subjects, Gifford's brief essays cover a hundred of the noir buff's favorites. His highly polished impressions take the reader through five decades of noir to find both the heart and the art of the plotline. Barry Gifford is a poet, novelist, and playwright. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among his books is Hotel Room Trilogy (University Press of Mississippi).

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Book SynopsisDavid Sterritt, film critic for the Christian Science Monitor and professor of film at Long Island University, is one of the most astute, acclaimed, and thought-provoking critics in America. Sterritt's sharp eye for telling detail and deep understanding of cinema and its history make his work appealing to scholars and lay audiences. Guiltless Pleasures: A David Sterritt Film Reader collects his most incisive essays from 1970 to the present. The collection emphasizes films and filmmakers that are often overlooked or undervalued because they stray from ordinary norms of commercial cinema. While focusing on such rewarding challenges as the avant-garde masterpieces of Stan Brakhage, the unsettling videos of Robert Wilson, and the violent, disturbing films of Gaspar Noé, Sterritt writes equally well and insightfully on mainstream Hollywood films. At a time when admitting to ""guilty pleasures"" has become a common pastime among serious moviegoers, Sterritt argues that there's no reason to feel guilty about the alchemy of cinema. After all, he maintains, the inner journeys we take by means of movies and other cultural works are a large part of what makes life worth living. David Sterritt is chairman of the National Society of Film Critics. He is the author of Screening the Beats: Media Culture and the Beat Sensibility, The Films of Jean-Luc Godard, and Mad to Be Saved: The Beats, the '50s, and Film, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Film Comment, and Cineaste. He lives in New York City.Table of ContentsFilms, Fatigue, and Why a Critic's Opinions Are Just as Iffy as Yours; Cinephilla, Cinemania, Cinema; Hollywood Players Who've Made a Difference; Novelists and Their Movies: Mailer, Doctorow, Irving; Allegories and Enigma: The Enduring allure of Fantasy; Life Isn't Sweet: Movies of Mike Leigh; Monty Python: Lust for Glory; Creepies, Crawlies,; Conundrums; Coppola, Vietnam, and the Ambivalent 1970s; Representing Atrocity; Time Code: Narrative Film and the Avant-Garde.

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Book SynopsisHollywood's Film Wars with France examines how Hollywood was able to establish a permanent dominance over the French market for motion pictures by using monopolistic trade practices and diplomatic pressure. Hollywood's Film Wars with France examines how Hollywood was able to establish a permanent dominance over the French market for motion pictures. This history of American film policy towards France is documented by a wealthof diplomatic correspondence, which reveals that American exports were promoted through close collaboration between the State Department, the United States Embassy in France, the Department of Commerce, and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America [MPPDA]. It is based on hitherto unstudied documents from these institutions. While European film production was at a standstill after World War I, Hollywood companies flooded the European marketwith hundreds of films at very low prices. Hollywood's dominant position should not be considered as solely the result of successful collaboration between corporate capitalism and the federal government in Washington, but also asthe failure of the French government to provide proper assistance to its film industry. The support French film producers obtained from their government did not begin to compare with the whole-hearted support Hollywood received from the MPPDA. This book shows how Hollywood has upheld its dominant position in France by using monopolistic trade practices and diplomatic pressure. Hollywood's prominence must be considered the result of manipulations of the international political economy involving the interplay of economics and politics in the world arena. Jens Ulff-Moller is in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen.Trade ReviewThis clearly argued, well-documented expose of the French model has application to the film industry around the globe. * CHOICE *Excellent book. * HISTORY *It deserves praise for disclosing a wealth of primary sources and statistical material, and for stressing dangers of European regulations towards new industries. Hollywood's Film Wars will undoubtedly be consulted by many future scholars trying to explain Hollywood's dominance and endurance. * THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN MARKETING *Table of ContentsStructural Differences The Effect of Cinema Law Export Trade Legislation and Administration Franco-American Film Diplomacy

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive analysis of the ways in which the black American experience has been depicted in film adaptations of popular literature. The cinematic representation of blacks, especially in silent and early film, was shaped not only by the sentimental racism of the culture but also by the popular literature that distorted black experience and restricted black characters to minor, stereotyped roles. By contrast, in the works of black writers from Oscar Micheaux to Toni Morrison, the black experience has been more fully, more accurately, and usually more sympathetically realized; and from the early days of film, select filmmakers have looked to that literature as the basis for their productions. This revised and expanded historical examination of the practice of such adaptation offers telling insights into the portrayal -- and progress -- of blacks in American movies and culture. This volume reveals that while blacks, on screen and behind the scenes, were often forced to re-create demeaning film stereotypes, they learned how to subvert and exploit the artificiality of their caricatures. It also reveals the ways that black filmmakers, beginning with Micheaux, Noble and George Johnson, and their less prominent colleagues like Emmett Scott, worked within the conventions of cinema and society yet managed to produce films that were, at their best, unconventional and pioneering. Lupack demonstrates that as far back as the 1920s and 1930s, black authors like Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes already recognized the need for involvement with film production in order to create pictures that were more representative of black life. The book illustrates the fact that, in recent years, as more black voices found their way to the screen, among the strongest were the voices of women. And above all, it confirms that within the rich tradition of black literature of all genres lie many exciting cinematic possibilities for audiences of all colors. Barbara Tepa Lupack has written extensively on the topic of literary adaptations in cinema and is coauthor (with Alan Lupack) of Illustrating Camelot and King Arthur in America.Trade ReviewA fascinating comprehensive journey. . . thoroughly recommended. * BLACK FILMMAKER *Lupack's book is full of engrossing behind-the-scene details. * VARIETY *Barbara Tepa Lupack's book is a fascinating comprehensive journey through the history of black American cinema. Having read many books on little known films and filmmakers I can fully endorse this book as one of the best I have come across and thoroughly recommend it. In fact, I would defy any self-respecting film historian, film institution or library not to stock it, as they will be failing in their duty to themselves and their patrons. * BLACK FILMMAKER *A well-crafted synthesis of the vast literature on African American cinema. . . . This is a worthwhile volume for all film collections. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsThe Birth of Defamation: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Beginnings of Black Stereotyping "A Credit to the Race": Oscar Micheaux and Early Race Filmmaking "We'll Teach Him Fear": Racial Representation in Sound Films of the 1930s and 1940s Uncle Tom Meets Uncle Sam: Wartime Developments and Postwar Progress From Eisenhower to Black Power: Radicalizing the Black Hero "Tell Them I'm a Man": Popularizing Black History History to Herstory: New Voices for a New Century Postscript: From Mammy to Medea

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Book SynopsisThis volume introduces a novel treatment of Polish cinema by discussing its international reception, performance, co-productions, and subversive émigré auteurs, such as Andrzej Zulawski and Walerian Borowczyk. The opening up of Poland economically and politically to global influences after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, coupled with the rise of transnational approaches to the study of film, presents ideal conditions for examiningPolish cinema from a transnational vantage point. Yet not only have studies of Polish cinema remained largely within a national framework but Polish cinema, as well as many other Eastern European cinemas, has been virtually excluded from new research in transnational cinema. Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context addresses this lacuna in film studies, offering extended analysis of this national cinema's global influence. Contributors assess the reception of Polish films in Europe and North America, Polish international coproductions, the presence of Polish performers in foreign films, and the works of subversive émigré auteurs like Andrzej Zulawski and Walerian Borowczyk. The collection presents familiar films and filmmakers in a new and revealing light, while also focusing on lesser-known filmmakers and aspects of Polish cinema. The resulting volume moves the discussion beyond the border of Polish national belonging. Contributors: Peter Hames, Darragh O'Donoghue, Helena Goscilo, Dorota Ostrowska, Charlotte Govaert, Eva Näripea, Izabela Kalinowska, Ewa Mazierska, Alison Smith, Lars Kristensen, Jonathan Owen,Michael Goddard, Robert Murphy, Kamila Kuc, Elzbieta Ostrowska Ewa Mazierska is professor of film studies at the University of Central Lancashire. Michael Goddard is senior lecturer in media at the University of Salford.Trade ReviewA ground-breaking and influential study of transnational Polish filmmakers and stars, while also re-evaluating critically neglected and/or negatively assessed Polish films and tendencies. * STUDIES IN EUROPEAN CINEMA *[T]his volume is an excellent start to tracing the history of Polish cinema . from a transnational perspective. As Mazierska and Goddard point out, seminal books on the topic of transnational cinema rarely include chapters on Eastern Europe . This volume begins to rectify this omission and therefore represents an important contribution to transnational film studies. SLAVIC AND EASTERN EUROPEAN JOURNAL The book edited by Ewa Mazierska and Michael Goddard is one of the most interesting publications on Polish cinema in recent years, and it opens a new methodological horizon for our research. * THE POLISH REVIEW *This interesting and lively book identifies and fills a gap in the study of cinema in general and Polish cinema in particular: that of Polish cinema's transnational dimension. Consideration of the long-standing relevance of transnationalism to this important cinematic tradition is overdue. --Paul Coates, professor of film studies, University of Western Ontario * . *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Polish Cinema beyond Polish Borders West of the East: Polish and Eastern European Film in the United Kingdom The Shifting British Reception of Wajda's Work from Man of Marble to Katyn Affluent Viewers as Global Provincials: The American Reception of Polish Cinema Polish Films at the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals: The 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s How Polish Is Polish? Silver City and the National Identity of Documentary Film Postcolonial Heterotopias: A Paracinematic Reading of Marek Piestrak's Estonian Coproductions Poland-Russia: Coproductions, Collaborations, Exchanges Train to Hollywood: Polish Actresses in Foreign Films Polish Performance in French Space: Jerzy Radziwilowicz a Transnational Actor Polish Actor-Directors Playing Russians:Skolimowski and Stuhr An Island Near the Left Bank: Walerian Borowczyk as a French Left Bank Filmmaker Beyond Polish Moral Realism: The Subversive Cinema ofAndrzej Zulawskii Polanski and Skolimowski in Swinging London The Elusive Trap of Freedom? Krzysztof Zanussi's International Coproductions Agnieszka Holland's Transnational Nomadism Selected Bibliography List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisFocuses on cinema in Eastern Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern BlocTrade Review"[A]n excellent collection of essays dealing with contemporary films of the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, the former East Germany, Romania, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia. Most of the films discussed are relatively unknown in the West, which is what makes the book so important; the book is also an excellent one-stop source for courses on recent eastern European cinema... [T]his book would be of immeasurable value to anyone working in the areas of eastern European cinema, the globalization of the international cinema marketplace, and the problems and promises arising from the privatization of national cinemas. Summing Up: Highly recommended."--Choice, August 2013 "This collection provides a much-needed comparative overview of recent developments in national cinemas in Central and Eastern Europe... [The] volume, which features some of the most notable scholars working on the cinemas of the region, strikes an effective balance between analyzing recent trends within the respective film industries and discussing film-makers and films. It usefully highlights important film-makers who may have otherwise slipped below the radar of the international film scene...[A]n excellent volume. It will prove an indispensable reference for anyone studying the cinemas of the region."--Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television "This collection provides a much-needed comparative overview of recent developments in national cinemas in Central and Eastern Europe... [The] volume, which features some of the most notable scholars working on the cinemas of the region, strikes an effective balance between analyzing recent trends within the respective film industries and discussing film-makers and films. It usefully highlights important film-makers who may have otherwise slipped below the radar of the international film scene...[A]n excellent volume. It will prove an indispensable reference for anyone studying the cinemas of the region." - Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and TelevisionTable of ContentsCatherine Portuges and Peter Hames, 'Introduction: Cinemas in Transition: East-Central Europe after 1989'; Dina Iordanova, 'Bulgarian Cinema: Optimism in Moderation'; Peter Hames, 'The Czech and Slovak Republics: The Velvet Revolution and After'; Barton Byg, 'Is There Still an East German Cinema?; Catherine Portuges, 'Memory and Re-invention in Post-socialist Hungarian Cinema'; Ewa Mazierska, 'Searching for Survival and Meaning: Polish Film Industry and Art after 1989'; Bogdan Stefanescu and Alexandra Foamente, 'Narratives of the Emerging Self Romania's First Years of Post-Totalitarian Cinema'; Bohdan Y. Nebesio, 'The First Five Years with no Plan: Building National Cinema in Ukraine, 1992-1997'; Andrew Horton, 'Cinema Haunts My Memory: Filmmaking in the Former Yugoslavia'

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Book SynopsisHow Chinese cinema and global Chinese culture intersect over questions of identityTrade Review"According to its editors...Chinese Connections blazes a new trail, and it is easy to agree with them... At times, the eclecticism of the contributions threatens to thwart the attempts of the book's editors to impose order; but in a sense, it is the sheer scope and number of its essays which furnish this volume with its core strength. Chinese Connections contains 19 chapters in a volume just shy of 300 pages; and these pieces manage to cover essential films and essential filmmakers at the same time as straying into less tried terrain in stimulating ways. The result is a volume that has something to say to everyone from undergraduates to film specialists. Indeed, although the last few years have seen the publication of several high-quality, broad-sweep volumes on Chinese film - both nationally and transnationally - few have quite the reach and range of this one." - The China QuarterlyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Part I: Global Connections 1. False Consciousness and Double Consciousness: Race, Virtual Reality, and the Assimilation of Hong Kong 2. The Par-asian Cinematic Imaginary in Olivier Assayas's Irma Vep 3. The HK Venture: The Francophone Cine-logocentric Nexus 4. Wong Fei-Hung in Da House: Hong Kong Martial-Arts Films and Hip-Hop Culture 5. Same Difference: Racial Masculinity in Hong Kong and Cop-Buddy "Hybrids" 6. American Popular Music and Neocolonialism in the Films of Edward Yang 7. Hollywood and Taiwan: Connections, Countercurrents, and Ang Lee's Hulk 8. Becoming Hollywood? Hong Kong Cinema in the New Century Part II: Questions of Gender 9. "From Behind the Wall": The Representation of Gender and Sexuality in Modern Chinese Film 10. Beyond the Western Gaze: Orientalism, Feminism, and the Suffering Woman in Nontransnational Chinese Cinema 11. Disappearing Faces: Bisexuality and Transvestism in Two Hong Kong Comedies 12. Staging Gay Life in China: Zhang Yuan and East Palace, West Palace 13. Whose Fatal Ways: Mapping the Boundary and Consuming the Other in Border Crossing Films 14. Asian Martial-Arts Cinema, Dance, and the Cultural Languages of Gender Part III: At the Millennium and Beyond 15. Singapore as a Society of Strangers: Eric Khoo's Mee Pok Man 16. Chinese Cinema Revisits the City: Beijng Trilogy and Global Urbanism of the 1990s 17. Taiwan Fever? Tsai Ming-Liang and the Everyday Postnation 18. The Spirits of Capital and Haunting Sounds: Translocal Historicism in Victim (1999) 19. Zhang Yimou's Hero: The Temptations of Fascism Appendix A: On Chinese Names Appendix B: Chinese Names, Words, and Phrases Appendix C: Chinese-Language Filmography Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the important interconnections involving questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality on world screens by examining a range of films, videos, and digital works associated with global Chinese cultureTrade Review"Marchetti offers a sophisticated analysis of the thoroughgoing transformation of contemporary "Greater China" as mediated by an integrated international cinema system held in a curious interplay between state-controlled and 'free-market' institutions." Darrell Y. Hamamoto, University of California, Davis

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Book SynopsisReveals a crucial dimension of the history of American independent cinemaTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction The Documents 1. Conversation with Jack Stauffacher, 8/14/99 2. Letter to Arthur Rosenheimer Jr. from Richard Foster, 7/31/46 3. Letter to Lewis Jacobs from Frank Stauffacher, 8/1/46 4. Letter to Maya Deren from Frank Stauffacher, 8/2/46 5. Letter to Richard Foster from Maya Deren, 8/2/46 6. Letter to James and John Whitney from Frank Stauffacher, 8/3/46 7. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Maya Deren, 8/10/46 8. Letter to Arthur Rosenheimer Jr. from Frank Stauffacher, 8/20/46 9. Letter to Maya Deren from Frank Stauffacher, 8/20/46 10. Letter to Luis Buñuel from Frank Stauffacher, 8/22/46 11. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Douglass Crockwell, 8/24/46 12. Letter to Jay Leyda from Frank Stauffacher, 8/25/46 13. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Douglass Crockwell, 8/31/46 14. Letter to Peggy Guggenheim from Grace L. McCann Morley, 8/31/46 15. Letter to Man Ray from Frank Stauffacher, 9/5/46 16. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Hans Richter, 9/6/46 17. Letter to Hans Richter from Frank Stauffacher, 9/9/46 18. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's First Series, 9/46 19. Letter to James and John Whitney from Frank Stauffacher, 9/22/46 20. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James Broughton, 9/24/46 21. Letter to Mrs. Noble Hamilton from Edward J. Soph, 9/26/46 22. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James Broughton, 9/26/46 23. Letter to Edward J. Soph from Mrs. Noble Hamilton, 9/28/46 24. Alfred Frankenstein, "Art and Music," from the San Francisco Chronicle, 10/6/46 25. Letter to Richard Foster from Sara Kathryn Arledge, 10/9/46 26. Program Notes for the 10/11/46 Presentation 27. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Grace L. McCann Morley, 10/22/46 28. Letter to Richard Foster from Margaret Wright and Una Atkinson, 10/24/46 29. Program Notes for the 10/25/46 Presentation 30. Letter to Mrs. Noble Hamilton from Paul Ballard, 10/30/46 31. Program Notes for the 11/1/46 Presentation 32. Letter to Herman G. Weinberg from Frank Stauffacher, 11/8/46 33. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Hans Richter, 11/9/46 34. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Lewis Jacobs, 11/12/46 35. Letter to Paul Ballard from Frank Stauffacher, 11/46 36. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Robert Florey, 2/47 [?] 37. Letter to James W. Moore from Frank Stauffacher, 2/6/47 38. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James W. Moore, 2/7/47 39. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James W. Moore, 2/28/47 40. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Eli Willis, 3/7/47 41. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Second Series, 3/47 42. Program Announcement for the First University of California at Berkeley Series 43. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Emlen Etting, 3/26/47 44. Letter to James W. Moore from Frank Stauffacher, 3/27/47 45. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James W. Moore, 3/31/47 46. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Curtis Harrington, 4/3/47 47. Program Notes for the 4/4/47 Presentation 48. Letter to Curtis Harrington from Frank Stauffacher, 4/28/47 49. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Kenneth Anger, 4/29/47 50. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Curtis Harrington, 5/6/47 51. Facsimile of Art in Cinema Catalogue (published late 5/47) 52. Letter to Oskar Fischinger from Richard Foster, 6/8/47 53. Letter to Herman G. Weinberg from Frank Stauffacher, 6/21/47 54. Letter to Oskar Fischinger from Harry Smith, 7/25/47 55. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Kenneth Anger, 7/25/47 56. Letter to Kenneth Anger from Harry Smith, 7/28/47 57. Letter to Harry Smith from William Howe, 7/31/47 58. Letter to Harry Smith from Kenneth Anger, 7/31/47 59. Letter to Miss Bullitt from Hans Richter, 8/14/47 60. Letter to Art in Cinema from Amos Vogel, 9/7/47 61. Letter to Amos Vogel from Frank Stauffacher, 9/13/47 62. Letter to Harry Smith from Jim Davis, 9/14/47 63. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Third Series, 9/47 64. Letter to Curtis Harrington from Frank Stauffacher, 9/15/47 65. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Curtis Harrington, 9/24/47 66. Conversation with Jordan Belson, 7/22/00 67. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Elwood Decker, 5/48 68. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Elwood Decker, 6/48 69. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Fourth Series, 8/48 70. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Sidney Peterson, 8/4/48 71. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Maya Deren, 8/8/48 72. James Broughton, "Frank Stauffacher: The Making of Mother's Day," from SPIRAL, No. 1 (1984) 73. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Elwood Decker, 10/3/48 74. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Hans Richter, 10/13/48 75. Letter to Maya Deren from Frank Stauffacher, 1/10/49 76. Letter to Hans Richter from Frank Stauffacher, 1/49 77. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Hans Richter, 1/21/49 78. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Maya Deren, 2/8/49 79. Program Announcement for "Contemporary Experimental Films of Importance," 2/49 80. Letter to Hans Richter from Frank Stauffacher, 2/49 81. Letter to Theodore Huff from Frank Stauffacher, 2/49 82. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James Broughton, 3/49 83. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James Broughton, 3/8/49 84. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James Broughton, 3/16/49 85. Letter to Ralph K. Potter from Frank Stauffacher, 3/23/49 86. Letter to Arthur Knight from Frank Stauffacher, 4/2/49 87. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Arthur Knight, 4/16/49 88. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Arthur Knight, 5/30/49 89. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Amos Vogel, 6/7/49 90. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Theodore Huff, 6/20/49 91. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Theodore Huff, 7/16/49 92. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Arthur Knight, 7/17/49 93. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Fifth Series, Fall 1949 94. Letter to Hans Richter from Frank Stauffacher, 10/28/49 95. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Curtis Harrington, 12/1/49 96. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Jim Davis, 2/25/50 97. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Symon Gould, 3/1/50 98. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Jim Davis, 3/21/50 99. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Arthur Knight, 3/30/50 100. Letter to Grace L. McCann Morley from Frank Stauffacher, 4/50 101. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Sixth Series, Spring 1950 102. Letter to Elwood Decker from Frank Stauffacher, 5/17/50 103. Letter to Amos Vogel from Frank Stauffacher, 5/27/50 104. Arthur Knight, "Self-Expression," Saturday Review, 5/29/50 105. Letter to Elwood Decker from Frank Stauffacher, 6/7/50 106. Letter to Rosalind Kossoff from Frank Stauffacher, 6/14/50 107. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Amos Vogel, 9/4/50 108. Letter to Jim Davis from Frank Stauffacher, 10/4/50 109. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Jim Davis, 10/7/50 110. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Arthur Knight, 10/28/50 111. Letter to Arthur Knight from Frank Stauffacher, 11/1/50 112. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Amos Vogel, 11/28/50 113. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Hilary Harris, 12/1/50 114. Letter to Grace L. McCann Morley from Frank Stauffacher, 1/8/51 115. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Amos Vogel, 1/9/51 116. Letter to Amos Vogel from Frank Stauffacher, 1/13/51 117. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Anne Dubs, with Notes from Maya Deren, 1/30/51 118. Letter to Harold Leonard from Frank Stauffacher, 2/8/51 119. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Seventh Series, Spring 1951 120. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Maya Deren, 3/24/51 121. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from James Broughton, 4/18/51 122. Letter to Vincent Price from Frank Stauffacher, 5/22/51 123. Conversation with Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, 7/18/99 124. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Eighth Series 125. Program Notes for the 11/14/52 Presentation, by Frank Stauffacher 126. Program Notes for the 2/23/53 Presentation, by Frank Stauffacher 127. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Ian Hugo, 7/8/53 128. Letter to Raymond Rohauer from Frank Stauffacher, 8/31/53 129. Letter to Ian Hugo from Barbara Stauffacher, 9/15/53 130. Letter to Barbara Stauffacher from Ian Hugo, 9/18/53 131. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Ninth Series, Fall 1953 132. Letter to Frank Stauffacher from Ian Hugo, 9/27/53 133. Program Notes for the 10/2/53 Presentation, by Frank Stauffacher 134. Text of Talk by George Stevens Presented at Art in Cinema on 10/2/53 135. Letter to Ian Hugo from Frank Stauffacher, 10/9/53 136. Program Notes for the 10/9/53 Presentation, by Frank Stauffacher 137. Program Notes for the 10/16/53 Presentation, by Frank Stauffacher 138. Letter to Raymond Rohauer from Frank Stauffacher, 11/10/53 139. Letter to Ian Hugo from Frank Stauffacher, 11/10/53 140. Letter to Amos Vogel from Frank Stauffacher, 11/18/53 141. Letter to John Ford from Barbara Stauffacher, 12/17/53 142. Early Description of Art in Cinema's Tenth and Eleventh Series 143. Letter to Barbara Stauffacher from Vincent Minnelli, 1/18/54 144. Letter to Barbara Stauffacher from Willard Van Dyke, 1/25/54 145. Letter to Willard Van Dyke from Barbara Stauffacher, 1/27/54 146. Letter to Barbara Stauffacher from Fred Zinnemann, 1/29/54 147. Letter to Fred Zinnemann from Frank Stauffacher, 2/1/54 148. Letter to Barbara Stauffacher from Willard Van Dyke, 2/2/54 149. Letter to Fred Zinnemann from Barbara Stauffacher, 3/18/54 150. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Tenth Series, Spring 1954 151. Letter to Joseph Youngerman from Frank Stauffacher, 4/12/54 152. Luther Nichols, "Dissertations on the Arts of Movie-Making," New York Times, 4/25/54 153. Letter to Frank and Barbara Stauffacher from Fred Zinnemann, 5/7/54 154. Letter to Rouben Mamoulian from Frank Stauffacher, 5/12/54 155. Letter to Joseph Youngerman from Frank Stauffacher, 5/20/54 156. Letter to Lou Smith from Barbara Stauffacher, 5/28/54 157. Letter to Frank Capra from Barbara Stauffacher, 5/28/54 158. Letter to Frances H. Flaherty from Barbara Stauffacher, 7/8/54 159. Letter to Barbara Stauffacher from Frances H. Flaherty, 7/27/54 160. Program Announcement for Art in Cinema's Eleventh Series, Fall 1954 161. Letter to Francis H. Flaherty from Barbara Stauffacher, 10/18/54 162. Letter to Barbara Stauffacher from Amos Vogel, 8/22/55 Index

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Book SynopsisLooking at the films of the prolific, often controversial, and always provocative directorTrade Review"The Spike Lee Reader includes new and several well-known pieces previously published about Lee's work. The previously published pieces work seamlessly with the newer additions. These pieces provide a foundation to remind readers of the discourse established in response to the first decade of his career concerning representations of gender, sexuality, and class... The Spike Lee Reader is a necessary addition to the library of researchers and scholars in film and cultural studies. It is also a theoretically rich, interdisciplinary text that will be of use for upper division undergraduate and graduate courses on film, popular culture, and Ethnic Studies." -American StudiesTable of ContentsThe Spike Lee Reader Table of Contents Acknowledgements We've Gotta Have It: Spike Lee, African American Film, and Cinema Studies Paula J. Massood Chapter 1'Whose Pussy is This': A Feminist Comment bell hooks Chapter 2 Programming with School Daze Toni Cade Bambara Chapter 3 Spike Lee and Black Women Michele Wallace Chapter 4 But Compared to What?: Reading Realism, Representation, and Essentialism in School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and the Spike Lee Discourse Wahneema Lubiano Chapter 5 The Double Truth, Ruth: Do the Right Thing and the Culture of Ambiguity James C. McKelly Chapter 6 Spike Lee and the Fever in the Racial Jungle Ed Guerrero Chapter 7'Spike, Don't Mess Malcolm Up': Courting Controversy and Control in Malcolm X-The Movie Anna Everett Chapter 8 Through the Looking Glass and Over the Rainbow: Exploring the Fairy Tale in Spike Lee's Crooklyn Mark D. Cunningham Chapter 9 Clockers (Spike Lee 1995): Adaptation in Black Keith M. Harris Chapter 10 Reel Men: Get on the Bus and the Shifting Terrain of Black Masculinities S. Craig Watkins Chapter 11 We Shall Overcome: Preserving History and Memory in 4 Little Girls Christine Acham Chapter 12 Spike Lee Meets Aaron Copeland Krin Gabbard Chapter 13 Race and Black American Film Noir: Summer of Sam as Lynching Parable Dan Flory Chapter 14 Racial Kitsch and Black Performance Tavia Nyong'o Chapter 15 I Be Smackin' My Hoes': Paradox and Authenticity in Bamboozled Beretta Smith-Shomade Chapter 16 De Profundis: A Love letter from the Inside Man David Gerstner Notes on Contributors Select Bibliography Filmography (including exec. prod. credits and television segments) Index

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Book SynopsisA look at Chinese filmmaking in the post-1989 American diasporaTrade Review"In her new book, Gina Marchetti expands the boundaries of Asian and Asian American media scholarship by shifting the focus from that of fixed identities to that of the concept of diaspora... Marchetti's project [is] an intriguing and important one... An added bonus to the analyses are interviews with filmmakers and authors that give another perspective to the films. This book makes an excellent addition to the slowly growing body of important scholarship on Asian and Asian American media studies in that it exemplifies, in its own methods and assumptions, the open boundaries inherent to this field."--Journal of Asian Studies, August 2013Table of ContentsAcknowledgements;; 1. Introduction: Race, Sex, and the Chinese Diaspora in American Film;; Part I In the Black Pacific; 2. Jackie Chan's Black Connections; Interview: Jeff Yang; 3. Interracial Romance in Action: Romeo Must Die; 4. Black in the Chinese Diaspora: Double-Consciousness in Yvonne Welbon's Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself; Interview: Yvonne Welbon;; Part II Sexuality, Gender and Generation in Diaspora; 5. Queering the Patriarchy: The Wedding Banquet, Toc Storee, and Dirty Laundry; Interview: Richard Fung; 6. Guests at the Wedding Banquet: The Joy Luck Club, Double Happiness, Siao Yu and Shopping for Fangs; Interview: Wayne Wang; 7. In Pursuit of Video Hapa-ness: Banana Split and Kip Fulbeck's Boyhood among Ghosts; Interview: Kip Fulbeck; Conclusion; 8. Screening the Chinese Diaspora in the New Millennium;; Endnotes; Bibliography; Filmography.

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Book SynopsisIn the 1950s and early 1960s, America imagined itself young and in love in Europe. And Hollywood films of the era reflected this romantic allure. From a young and naive Audrey Hepburn falling in love with Gregory Peck in "Roman Holiday" to David Lean's "Summertime", featuring Katherine Hepburn's sexual adventure in Venice, these glossy travelogue romances were shot on location, and established an exciting new genre for Hollywood. As Robert Shandley shows in "Runaway Romances", these films were not only indicative of the ideology of the American-dominated postwar world order, but they also represented a shift in Hollywood production values. Eager to capture new audiences during a period of economic crisis, Hollywood's European output utilized the widescreen process to enhance cinematic experience. The films - "To Catch a Thief", "Three Coins in the Fountain", and "Funny Face" among them - enticed viewers to visit faraway places for romantic escapades. In the process, these runaway romances captured American fantasies for a brief, but intense, period that ended as audiences grew tired of Old World splendors, and entered into a new era of sexual awakening.Trade ReviewQUOTE: “Shandley's careful analysis is informed by a wealth of relevant historical and critical studies. Runaway Romances is both conceptually interesting and original and it is a meaningful scholarly addition to the field.”—Antje Ascheid, Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia, and author of Hitler's Heroines: Stardom and Womanhood in Nazi Cinema (Temple)Table of ContentsPreface Introduction 1. Hollywood’s Move Abroad 2. How Rome Saved Hollywood 3. Foreign Affairs: Metaphors of Transatlantic Relations 4. Tourists with Big Cameras: Widescreen Runaways and Class Mobility 5. Marrying the Enemy: The Occupation Romance 6. The End of the European Romance Notes Filmography Bibliography Index Photographs follow page 110

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Book SynopsisWill the South rise again--this time cinematically? The answer to this question is among the subjects considered in this collection of essays. Though the South has provided the setting for outstanding and controversial films such as Gone With the Wind and The Birth of a Nation, these did not foster a genre of imitative films, and there never was a ""Southern"" as there was a ""Western."" This may have changed, however, in 1969-70 with the appearance of a film that suggested a set of stereotypes particularly congenial to films with southern settings. In Easy Rider, the characters departed not for the West on horseback but for the South on motorcycles, carrying with them the seeds of their own destruction, and since then the only credible films about the West have been parodies. Following Easy Rider, there have been several ""gasoline operas,"" and the South has been prominently featured in them. These attempts to create a Southern film genre and the fascinating question of how long it can be maintained is the focus of four of the essays in this collection. In addition, there are provocative reconsiderations of the Southern film classics Gone With the Wind, The Birth of a Nation, Jezebel, and The Southerner. Another group of essays looks at the ""vision"" of the South projected in the works of three renowned auteurs--John Ford, Robert Altman, and Martin Ritt. Any discussions about the South and film would be incomplete without a consideration of the importance of female characters and the relation of film to the works of William Faulkner, and these are the subjects of two groups of essays. The final section of essays focuses on the problems of capturing on film the unique qualities of a region and on the perils and pleasures of the search for authenticity when shooting in regional locations. These essays, which introduce a vast subject, were included in the Spring/Summer 1981 issue of The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South.

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Book SynopsisFew directors in the past three decades have produced movies more compelling, controversial, or confounding than David Lynch (b. 1946). And fewer still have been so reluctant to talk about what they do. In this collection, editor Richard A. Barney has chosen the rare interviews in which Lynch opens up to questions rather than deflecting them. Whether Lynch is talking about his earliest film shorts such as The Grandmother or the break-out surrealist feature Eraserhead, the hit TV series Twin Peaks or his Oscar-nominated The Elephant Man or Blue Velvet or his most recent experimental tours de force, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, he stresses the power of image and sound to communicate his vision.David Lynch: Interviews is the first survey of conversations with the director covering the broad spectrum of his artistic activities throughout his career, including filmmaking, painting, music production, and furniture design. It documents the evolution of Lynch's role in discussing his movies, from his self-described ""pre-verbal stage"" in the early years to his increasingly elaborate, though persistently elusive, articulations. It also registers the intense international interest in Lynch's work, with interviews from French and Spanish sources translated here for the first time.

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Book SynopsisIn Albert and David Maysles: Interviews, editor Keith Beattie has compiled a wide-ranging collection in which the brothers, together and separately, discuss all aspects of their filmmaking--the nature of collaboration, technical matters, contextual considerations, and more. They recount a personal history of cinéma vérité and modern documentary filmmaking. The prolific joint career of the brothers has defined documentary filmmaking in the United States. From their first films in the late 1950s until the recent films of Albert Maysles (b. 1926), the brothers' pioneering development of the ""direct cinema,"" or cinéma vérité, style of documentary filmmaking has significantly altered the ways in which the world appears in nonfiction representations. Their influential movies--including the early feature Salesman, the renowned foundational rock concert film Gimme Shelter, and the dual biography Grey Gardens--have affected the aesthetics of fiction filmmaking as well. Since the death of David Maysles (1931-1987), Albert Maysles has continued to make films and has further contributed to the development of the documentary form.

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Book SynopsisErrol Morris: Interviews is an irreverent and humorous collection of conversations with the acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Morris (b. 1948) has created some of America's most innovative, lasting cinematic works. Generations of filmmakers, scholars, cinephiles, and film fans turn again and again to such works as The Thin Blue Line; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Academy Award-winner The Fog of War; and Standard Operating Procedure.Throughout his career--which has included stints as a private eye, film programmer, and commercial director--Morris has honed a unique formal and technical cinematic approach. A Morris film is characterized by intense personal interviews; dramatic re-creations; a haunting, modernist musical atmosphere; and a keen sense of complexity, irony, and black humor. With each new film, Morris challenges and redefines what a documentary can be. This volume features startling interviews from throughout his career, as well as intimate, never-before-published discussions.

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Book SynopsisA humble man from humble beginnings, Danny Boyle (b. 1956) became a popular cinema darling when Slumdog Millionaire won big at the 2009 Academy Awards. Prior to this achievement, this former theater and television director helped the British film industry pull itself out of a decades-long slump. With Trainspotting, he proved British films could be more than stuffy, period dramas; they could be vivacious and thrilling with dynamic characters and an infectious soundtrack. This collection of interviews traces Boyle's relatively short fifteen-year film career, from his outstanding low-budget debut Shallow Grave, to his Hollywood studio films, his brief return to television, and his decade-in-the-making renaissance.Taken from a variety of sources including academic journals, mainstream newspapers, and independent bloggers, Danny Boyle: Interviews is one of the first books available on this emerging director. As an interviewee, Boyle displays an engaging honesty and openness. He talks about his films 28 Days Later, Millions, and others. His success proves that classical storytelling artists still resonate with audiences.

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Book SynopsisUntil the first edition of Steven Spielberg: A Biography was published in 1997, much about Spielberg's personality and the forces that shaped it had remained enigmatic, in large part because of his tendency to obscure and mythologize his own past. But in this first full-scale, in-depth biography of Spielberg, Joseph McBride reveals hidden dimensions of the filmmaker's personality and shows how deeply personal even his most commercial work has been.This new edition adds four chapters to Spielberg's life story, chronicling his extraordinarily active and creative period from 1997 to the present, a period in which he has balanced his executive duties as one of the partners in the film studio DreamWorks SKG with a remarkable string of films as a director. Spielberg's ambitious recent work--including Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, A. I. Artifucial Intelligence, Minority Report, The Terminal and Munich--has continually expanded his range both stylistically and in terms of adventurous, often controversial, subject matter.Steven Spielberg: A Biography brought about a reevaluation of the great filmmaker's life and work by those who viewed him as merely a facile entertainer. This new edition guides readers through the mature artistry of Spielberg's later period in which he manages, against considerable odds, to run a successful studio while maintaining and enlarging his high artistic standards as one of America's most thoughtful, sophisticated, and popular filmmakers.

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Book SynopsisProlific British director Michael Winterbottom (b.1961) might be hard to pin down and even harder to categorize. Over sixteen years, he has created feature films as disparate and stylistically diverse as Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People, In This World, Butterfly Kiss, and The Killer Inside Me. But in this collection, the first English-language volume to gather international profiles and substantive interviews with the Blackburn native, Winterbottom reveals how working with small crews, available light, handheld digital cameras, radio mics, and minuscule budgets allows him fewer constraints than most filmmakers, and the ability to capture the specificity of the locations where he shoots.In Michael Winterbottom: Interviews he emerges as an industrious filmmaker committed to a stripped-down approach whose concern with outsiders and docu-realist authenticity have remained constant throughout his career.Collecting pieces from news periodicals as well as scholarly journals, including previously unpublished interviews and the first-ever translation of a lengthy, illuminating exchange with the French editors of Positif, this volume spans the full breadth of Winterbottom's notably eclectic feature-film career.Damon Smith, Brooklyn, New York, is a film programmer and editor for Babelgum. His work has appeared in Reverse Shot, Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Cinema Scope, and several other publications.

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Book SynopsisKnockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema is the first book-length study of the Hollywood boxing film, a popular movie entertainment since the 1930s, that includes such classics as Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Raging Bull. The boxer stands alongside the cowboy, the gangster, and the detective as a character that shaped America's ideas of manhood. Leger Grindon relates the Hollywood boxing film to the literature of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Clifford Odets; the influence of ring champions, particularly Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali; and controversies surrounding masculinity, race, and sports.Knockout breaks new ground in film genre study by focusing on the fundamental dramatic conflicts uniting both documentary and fictional films with compelling social concerns. The boxing film portrays more than the rise and fall of a champion; it exposes the body in order to reveal the spirit. Not simply a brute, the screen boxer dramatizes conflicts and aspirations central to an American audience's experience. This book features chapters on the conventions of the boxing film, the history of the genre and its relationship to famous ring champions, and self-contained treatments of thirty-two individual films including a chapter devoted to Raging Bull.

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Book SynopsisNew Essays on Clint Eastwood is a companion to Engel’s previous book, Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: New Perspectives. It includes discussion of some of Eastwood’s most recent films as well as his earliest work, and deepens our overall appreciation of his artistry and his growth as an ever more accomplished storyteller. The contributors to this new volume examine Eastwood’s body of work as both actor and director: his portrayal of Rowdy Yates in the television series Rawhide, his directorial debut with Play Misty for Me, his directorial and starring role in Gran Torino, and his recent directorial successes with Hereafter and J. Edgar.A common thread throughout the volume is the respect for Eastwood’s commitment to cinematic storytelling. Individually and collectively, the essays highlight the variety and complexity of Eastwood’s themes and his accomplishments throughout a lifetime of endeavours. Examining his Westerns and detective films illustrates how Eastwood left his iconic stamp on those genres, while discussion of his more recent films expounds on his use of family, history, and myth to transcend generic conventions and to project a hard-won vision of a united humanity beyond the separation of ethnic, racial, and national conflicts. Cumulatively, the essays remind us of his lifelong devotion to perfecting his artistry and his powers as a storyteller.Trade Review“In this rich collection, we find almost all of Eastwood’s major movies reviewed, with excellent critical analysis and care for Eastwood’s cinematic rejection of simplistic closure. The director does not attempt to give us an ultimate vision that leaves no place for the imagination of the audience: the very opposite is the case. The texts in this volume address the richness of Eastwood in his extraordinary work, not only as a director, but also as an actor, and give rightful acknowledgment to his place of honor in the cinema of the United States.”—from the foreword by Drucilla CornellTable of ContentsForeword by Drucilla CornellAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. “Landscape as Moral Destiny”: Mythic Reinvention from Rowdy Yates to the Stranger - Robert Smart2. Thoroughly Modern Eastwood: Male/Female Power Relations in The Beguiled and Play Misty for Me - Brett Westbrook3. Clintus and Siegelini: “We've Got a System. Not Much, but We're Fond of It." - Mike Smrtic and Matt Wanat4. Rawhide to Pale Rider: The Maturation of Clint Eastwood - Edward Rielly5. Eastwood's Treatment of the Life of Creativity and Performance in Bronco Billy, Honkytonk Man, White Hunter Black Heart, and Bird - Dennis Rothermel6. “You Can’t Hunt Alone”: White Hunter Black Heart - Richard Hutson7. The End of History and America First: How the 1990s Revitalized Clint Eastwood - Craig Rinne8. A Man of Notoriously Vicious and Intemperate Disposition: Western Noir and the Tenderfoot’s Revenge in Unforgiven - Stanley Orr9. A Good Vintage or Damaged Goods?: Clint Eastwood and Aging in Hollywood Film - Philippa Gates10. Space, Pace, and Southern Gentility in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - Brad Klypchak11. Mystic River as a Tragic Action - Robert Merrill and John L. Simons12. Lies of Our Fathers: Mythology and Artifice in Eastwood’s Cinema - William Beard13. Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima: The Silence of Heroes and the Voice of History - John M. Gourlie14. Gran Torino: Showdown in Detroit, Shrimp Cowboys, and A New Mythology - John M. Gourlie and Leonard Engel15. Invictus: The Master Craftsman as Hagiographer - Raymond Foery16. Hereafter: Dreaming beyond Our Philosophies - John M. Gourlie17. Postscript, “Citizen Hoover: Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar” - Richard Hutson and Kathleen MoranFilmographyContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisDuring Hollywood's 'classic era,' from the 1920s to 1950s, roughly twenty major fan magazines were offered each month at American newsstands and abroad. These publications famously fed fan obsessions with celebrities such as Mae West and Elvis Presley. Film studies scholars often regard these magazines with suspicion; perhaps due to their reputation for purveying scandal and gossip, their frequent mingling of gushing tone, and blatant falsehood. Looking at these magazines with fresh regarding eyes and treating them as primary sources, the contributors of this collection provide unique insights into contemporary assumptions about the relationship between fan and star, performer and viewer. In doing so, they reveal the magazines to be a huge and largely untapped resource on a wealth of subjects, including gender roles, appearance and behavior, and national identity. Contributors: Emily Chow-Kambitsch, Alissa Clarke, Jonathan Driskell, Lucy Fischer, Ann-Marie Fleming, Oana-Maria Mazilu, Adrienne L. McLean, Sarah Polley, Geneviève Sellier, Michael Williams

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Book SynopsisGeorge A. Romero (b. 1940) has achieved a surprising longevity as director since his first film, Night of the Living Dead (1968). After recently relocating to Canada, he shows no signs of slowing up: his recent film, Survival of the Dead (2009), is discussed in a new interview conducted by Tony Williams for this volume, and still other films are awaiting release. Although commonly known as a director of zombie films, a genre he himself launched, Romero's films often transcend easy labels. His films are best understood as allegorical commentaries on American life that just happen to appropriate horror as a convenient vehicle. Romero's films encompass works as different as The Crazies, Hungry Wives, Knightriders, and Bruiser.The interviews in this collection cover a period of over forty years. In whatever format they originally appeared-the printed page, the internet, or the video interview-these discussions illustrate both the evolution of Romero's chosen forms of technology and the development of his thinking about the relationship between cinema and society. They present Romero as an independent director in every sense of the word.

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Book SynopsisMerchant-Ivory: Interviews gathers together for the first time interviews made over the past five decades with director James Ivory (b. 1928), producer Ismail Merchant (1936-2005), and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (b. 1927). Beginning with their earliest work in India, and ending with James Ivory's last film, The City of Your Final Destination (2009), the book traces their career, while offering valuable insights into their creative filmmaking process. The volume serves as a corrective to the prevailing critical orthodoxy attached to Merchant-Ivory's work, which tends to regard them as being solely concerned with historically accurate costumes and settings. As independent filmmakers, they have developed an idiosyncratic approach that resists facile classification. Merchant-Ivory have insisted on maintaining their independence. More importantly, this book shows how Merchant-Ivory have always taken considerable care in casting their films, as well as treating actors with respect. This is a deliberate policy, designed to bring out one of the triumvirate's principal thematic concerns, running throughout their work--the impact of the ""clash of cultures"" on individuals. Partly this has been inspired by their collective experiences of living and working in different cultures. They do not offer any answers to this issue; rather they believe that their task is simply to raise awareness; to make filmgoers conscious of the importance of cultural sensitivities that assume paramount significance in any exchange, whether verbal or nonverbal.

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Book SynopsisD. W. Griffith (1875-1948) is one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture. As director of The Birth of a Nation, he is also one of the most controversial. He raised the cinema to a new level of art, entertainment, and innovation, and at the same time he illustrated, for the first time, its potential to influence an audience and propagandize a cause. Collected together here are virtually all of the ""interviews"" given by D. W. Griffith from the first in 1914 to the last in 1948. Some of the interviews concentrate on specific films, including The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and, most substantially, Hearts of the World, while others provide the director with an opportunity to expound on topics of personal interest, including the importance of proper exhibition of his and other's films, and his search for truth and beauty on screen. The interviews are taken from many sources, including leading newspapers, trade papers, and fan magazines. They are often marked by humor and by a desire to please the interviewer and thus the reader. Griffith may not have been particularly enthusiastic about giving interviews, but he seems always determined to put on a good show. Ultimately, D. W. Griffith: Interviews provides the reader with a unique insight into the mind and filmmaking techniques of a director whose work and philosophy is as relevant today as it was when he was at the height of his fame in the 1910s and 1920s.

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Book SynopsisIn the early twentieth century, the art world was captivated by the imaginative, totally original paintings of Henri Rousseau, who, seemingly without formal art training, produced works that astonished not only the public but great artists such as Pablo Picasso. Samuel Fuller (1912-1997) is known as the ""Rousseau of the cinema,"" a mostly ""B"" genre Hollywood moviemaker deeply admired by ""A"" filmmakers as diverse as Jim Jarmusch, Martin Scorsese, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and John Cassavetes, all of them dazzled by Fuller's wildly idiosyncratic primitivist style. A high-school dropout who became a New York City tabloid crime reporter in his teens, Fuller went to Hollywood and made movies post-World War II that were totally in line with his exploitative newspaper work: bold, blunt, pulpy, excitable. The images were as shocking, impolite, and in-your-face as a Weegee photograph of a gangster bleeding on a sidewalk. Fuller, who made twenty-three features between 1949 and 1989, is the very definition of a ""cult"" director, appreciated by those with a certain bent of subterranean taste, a penchant for what critic Manny Farber famously labeled as ""termite art."" Here are some of the crazy, lurid, comic-book titles of his movies: Shock Corridor, The Naked Kiss, Verboten!, Pickup on South Street. Fuller isn't for everybody. His fans have to appreciate low-budget genre films, including westerns and war movies, and make room for some hard-knuckle, ugly bursts of violence. They also have to make allowance for lots of broad, crass acting, and scripts (all Fuller-written) that can be stiff, sometimes campy, often laboriously didactic. Fuller is for those who love cinema--images that jump, shout, dance. As he put it in his famous cigar-chomping cameo, acting in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou (1965): ""Film is like a battleground . . . love, hate, violence, death. In a single word: emotion."" After directing, Sam Fuller's greatest skill was conversation. He could talk, talk, talk, from his amazing experiences fighting in World War II to the time his brother-in-law dated Marilyn Monroe, and vivid stories about his moviemaking. Samuel Fuller: Interviews, edited by Gerald Peary, is not only informative about the filmmaker's career but sheer fun, following the wild, totally uninhibited stream of Fuller's chatter. He was an incredible storyteller, and, no matter the interview, he had stories galore for all sorts of readers, not just academics and film historians.

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Book SynopsisThe boxer stands alongside the cowboy, the gangster, and the detective as a character that shaped America's ideas of manhood. Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema is the first book-length study of the Hollywood boxing film, a popular movie entertainment since the 1930s, that includes such classics as Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Raging Bull. Leger Grindon relates the Hollywood boxing film to the literature of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Clifford Odets; the influence of ring champions, particularly Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali; and controversies surrounding masculinity, race, and sports.Knockout breaks new ground in film genre study by focusing on the fundamental dramatic conflicts uniting both documentary and fictional films with compelling social concerns. The boxing film portrays more than the rise and fall of a champion; it exposes the body in order to reveal the spirit. Not simply a brute, the screen boxer dramatizes conflicts and aspirations central to an American audience's experience. This book features chapters on the conventions of the boxing film, the history of the genre and its relationship to famous ring champions, and self-contained treatments of thirty-two individual films including a chapter devoted to Raging Bull.

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Book SynopsisAlthough Stanley Kubrick adapted novels and short stories, his films deviate in notable ways from the source material. In particular, since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), his films seem to definitively exploit all cinematic techniques, embodying a compelling visual and aural experience. But, as author Elisa Pezzotta contends, it is for these reasons that his cinema becomes the supreme embodiment of the sublime, fruitful encounter between the two arts and, simultaneously, of their independence.Stanley Kubrick's last six adaptations--2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)--are characterized by certain structural and stylistic patterns. These features help to draw conclusions about the role of Kubrick in the history of cinema, about his role as an adapter, and, more generally, about the art of cinematic adaptations. The structural and stylistic patterns that characterize Kubrick adaptations seem to criticize scientific reasoning, causality, and traditional semantics. In the history of cinema, Kubrick can be considered a modernist auteur. In particular, he can be regarded as an heir of the modernist avant-garde of the 1920s. However, author Elisa Pezzotta concludes that, unlike his predecessors, Kubrick creates a cinema not only centered on the ontology of the medium, but on the staging of sublime, new experiences.

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Book SynopsisThroughout the 1940s, Zachary Scott (1914-1965) was the model for sophisticated, debonair villains in American film. His best-known roles include a mysterious criminal in The Mask of Dimitrios and the indolent husband in Mildred Pierce. He garnered further acclaim for his portrayal of villains in Her Kind of Man, Danger Signal, and South of St. Louis. Although he earned critical praise for his performance as a heroic tenant farmer in Jean Renoir's The Southerner, Scott never quite escaped typecasting.In Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad, Ronald L. Davis writes an appealing biography of the film star. Scott grew up in privileged circumstances--his father was a distinguished physician; his grandfather was a pioneer cattle baron--and was expected to follow his father into medical practice. Instead, Scott began to pursue a career in theater while studying at the University of Texas and subsequently worked his way on a ship to England to pursue acting. Upon his return to America, he began to look for work in New York.Excelling on stage and screen throughout the 1940s, Scott seemed destined for stardom. By the end of 1950, however, he had suffered through a turbulent divorce. A rafting accident left him badly shaken and clinically depressed. His frustration over his roles mounted, and he began to drink heavily. He remarried and spent the rest of his career concentrating on stage and television work. Although Scott continued to perform occasionally in films, he never reclaimed the level of stardom that he had in the mid-1940s.To reconstruct Scott's life, Davis uses interviews with Scott and colleagues and reviews, articles, and archival correspondence from the Scott papers at the University of Texas and from the Warner Bros. Archives. The result is a portrait of a talented actor who was rarely allowed to show his versatility on the screen.

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Book SynopsisEarly hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin' (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood's fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are also part of the broader history of teen cinema, and films such as Charlie Ahearn's Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions. As suburban teen films banished parents and children to the margins of narrative action, hip hop musicals, by contrast, presented inclusive and unconventional filial groupings that included all members of the neighborhood. These alternative social configurations directly referenced specific urban social problems, which affected the stability of inner city families following diminished governmental assistance in communities of color during the 1980s.Breakdancing, a central element of hip hop musicals, is also reconsidered. It gained widespread acclaim at the same time that these films entered the theaters, but the nation's newly discovered dance form was embattled--caught between a multitude of institutional entities such as the ballet academy, advertising culture, and dance publications that vied to control its meaning, particularly in relation to delineations of gender. As street-trained breakers were enticed to join the world of professional ballet, this newly forged relationship was recast by dance promoters as a way to invigorate and ""remasculinize"" European dance, while young women simultaneously critiqued conventional masculinities through an appropriation of breakdance. These multiple and volatile histories influenced the first wave of hip hop films, and even structured the sleeper hit Flashdance (1983). This forgotten, ignored, and maligned cinema is not only an important aspect of hip hop history, but is also central to the histories of teen film, the postclassical musical, and even institutional dance. Kimberley Monteyne places these films within the wider context of their cultural antecedents and reconsiders the genre's influence.

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Book SynopsisDangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture addresses the conflicted meanings associated with the figure of the action heroine as she has evolved in various media forms since the late 1980s. Jeffrey A. Brown discusses this immensely popular character type, the action heroine, as an example of, and challenge to, existing theories about gender as a performance identity. Her assumption of heroic masculine traits combined with her sexualized physical depiction demonstrates the ambiguous nature of traditional gender expectations and indicates a growing awareness of more aggressive and violent roles for women.The excessive sexual fetishization of action heroines is a central theme throughout. The topic is analyzed as an insight into the transgressive image of the dominatrix, as a reflection of the shift in popular feminism from second-wave politics to third-wave and postfeminist pleasures, and as a form of patriarchal backlash that facilitates a masculine fantasy of controlling strong female characters. Brown interprets the action heroine as a representation of changing gender dynamics that balances the sexual objectification of women with progressive models of female strength. While the primary focus of this study is the action heroine as represented in Hollywood film and television, the book also includes the action heroine's emergence in contemporary popular literature, comic books, cartoons, and video games.

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Book SynopsisIn Making and Remaking Horror in the 1970s and 2000s author David Roche takes up the assumption shared by many fans and scholars that original horror movies are more ""disturbing,"" and thus better than the remakes. He assesses the qualities of movies, old and recast, according to criteria that include subtext, originality, and cohesion. With a methodology that combines a formalist and cultural studies approach, Roche sifts aspects of the American horror movie that have been widely addressed (class, the patriarchal family, gender, and the opposition between terror and horror) and those that have been somewhat neglected (race, the Gothic, style, and verisimilitude). Containing seventy-eight black and white illustrations, the book is grounded in a close comparative analysis of the politics and aesthetics of four of the most significant independent American horror movies of the 1970s--The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, and Halloween--and their twenty-first-century remakes. To what extent can the politics of these films be described as ""disturbing"" insomuch as they promote subversive subtexts that undermine essentialist perspectives? Do the politics of the film lie on the surface or are they wedded to the film's aesthetics? Early in the book, Roche explores historical contexts, aspects of identity (race, ethnicity, and class), and the structuring role played by the motif of the American nuclear family. He then asks to what extent these films disrupt genre expectations and attempt to provoke emotions of dread, terror, and horror through their representations of the monstrous and the formal strategies employed? In this inquiry, he examines definitions of the genre and its metafictional nature. Roche ends with a meditation on the extent to which the technical limitations of the horror films of the 1970s actually contribute to this ""disturbing"" quality. Moving far beyond the genre itself, Making and Remaking Horror studies the redux as a form of adaptation and enables a more complete discussion of the evolution of horror in contemporary American cinema.

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Book SynopsisA distinguished writer in multiple genres—fiction, poetry, screenwriting, social documentary— James Agee first gained widespread recognition as a movie reviewer and critic. In October 1944, not quite two years after he became the film columnist for the Nation, no less an eminence than poet W. H. Auden judged Agee’s reviews to be “the most remarkable regular event in journalism today.” Scrupulously edited by Charles Maland, this volume stands as the definitive collection of Agee’s film writing. Not only does it include all of his bylined Nation reviews (December 1942–September 1948), but it also brings together for the first time the entirety of his unsigned reviews and cover stories for Time (September 1942–November 1948), as identified by the magazine’s archivist, Bill Hooper. Also included are various essays Agee produced for other publications—ranging from a prep school appreciation of F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh to his celebrated Life magazine pieces on director John Huston and the great comedians of the silent era—as well as several previously unpublished manuscripts found in the Agee collections at the Universities of Tennessee and Texas, which offer additional insight into Agee’s thoughts on movies and on film reviewing. A constant moviegoer since childhood, Agee wrote about film with wit, keen perception, and high standards, always quick to express disappointment when a movie failed, in his eyes, to live up to what it might have been. But when a movie truly worked for him—William Wellman’s The Story of G. I. Joe, Charles Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, and Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madreare key examples—Agee could be both generous with praise and brimming with insight about the precise features he found so laudable. Including an extensive introduction that details Agee’s years as a film reviewer, significant characteristics of his style and aesthetic, and his broad influence on later critics, this volume will encourage a fresh understanding of both a remarkable writer and the medium he loved so much.

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Book SynopsisThe book examines the links between literature and film in Latin America by using queer theory and a series of recent cultural productions whose arguments destabilize traditional gender roles and heteronormative masculinity. For many years, the connections between a literary text and its film adaptation have been considered only from the point of view of the latter’s fidelity to the written work, which many scholars imagined to be the original that filmmakers needed to respect. Within the last two decades, however, the idea of adaptation fidelity has been challenged by a number of critics who refute the existence of an original text and promote the notion of an ambiguous and complex relationship between a literary work and its film adaptation. Based on such developments and with the help of queer theory, this book questions and revises several crucial theoretical approximations that analyze the relations between the two art forms in an attempt to overcome the limitations of fidelity discourse. This is the first book-length study that seeks to examine, with the appropriate detail, the connections between film and literature in Latin America through the lenses of queer theory and by focusing on the representations of numerous practices that do not fit within the general framework of heteronormative sexuality.In Spanish.

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Book SynopsisThe book examines the links between literature and film in Latin America by using queer theory and a series of recent cultural productions whose arguments destabilize traditional gender roles and heteronormative masculinity. For many years, the connections between a literary text and its film adaptation have been considered only from the point of view of the latter’s fidelity to the written work, which many scholars imagined to be the original that filmmakers needed to respect. Within the last two decades, however, the idea of adaptation fidelity has been challenged by a number of critics who refute the existence of an original text and promote the notion of an ambiguous and complex relationship between a literary work and its film adaptation. Based on such developments and with the help of queer theory, this book questions and revises several crucial theoretical approximations that analyze the relations between the two art forms in an attempt to overcome the limitations of fidelity discourse. This is the first book-length study that seeks to examine, with the appropriate detail, the connections between film and literature in Latin America through the lenses of queer theory and by focusing on the representations of numerous practices that do not fit within the general framework of heteronormative sexuality.In Spanish.

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Book SynopsisA Special Relationship provides not only a historical overview of the British in Hollywood, but also a detailed study of the contributions made by American individuals and companies to British cinema from the beginning of the twentieth century onwards. The story begins with Ohio-born Charles Urban who came to London in 1898 and deserves credit for major involvement in the creation of a British film industry. While Ireland was still a part of Britain, the New York-based Kalem Company made films there from 1910 to 1913. British producers realized the importance of American stars, and many actors, beginning with Florence Turner (who was arguably also the first American star), made numerous British films. In the 1920s, such Hollywood stars as Mae Marsh, Betty Blythe, and Dorothy Gish remained active in Britain. In the 1930s, as their careers came to a halt, more than one hundred former American stars made the trip to England, partly as a vacation and partly in the hope of reenergizing their careers.Chapters discuss American cinematographers at work in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s and the introduction of Technicolor to British films. Diversity is represented by African American performers (most notably Paul Robeson), the Chinese American star Anna May Wong, along with female filmmakers from Hollywood. With Britain's declaration of war on Germany, there were Americans who stayed, such as Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, contributing to the war effort. America became actively involved in British cinema after World War II, with many Hollywood studios producing films there. As the years progressed, the British film industry became an international film industry. The book concludes with the Harry Potter and James Bond series, indicative of a new international cinema, with financing and behind-the-camera talent coming from the United States, but with British locales and British stars.

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Book SynopsisIn 1965, a young, up-and-coming illustrator by the name of Edward Sorel tore away layer after layer of linoleum from the floor of his $97-a-month Manhattan apartment until he discovered a hidden treasure: issues of The New York Daily News and the Mirror from 1936, each ablaze with a scandalous child custody trial taking place in Hollywood starring the actress Mary Astor—and the journal in which she detailed her numerous affairs. Thus began a half-century obsession that reached its peak in Mary Astor’s Purple Diary, “a thoroughly charming” (The New York Times Book Review/) account of the scandal in which Sorel narrates and illustrates the travails of the Oscar-winning actress alongside his own personal story of discovering an unlikely muse. Now in a stunning paperback, featuring more than sixty ribald and rapturous original illustrations, Mary Astor’s Purple Diary is the life’s masterpiece of one of America’s greatest illustrators.

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Book SynopsisDeconstructing Dr. Strangelove examines how well the Cold War crisis films stack up against historical reality, or at least as much of that reality as we can reconstruct with confidence.

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