Film history, theory or criticism Books
Liverpool University Press Let the Right One In
Book SynopsisThese days it takes a very special vampire movie to stand out. Like Twilight, the Swedish film Let the Right One In is a love story between a human and a vampire but there the resemblance ends. Let the Right One In is not a romantic fantasy but combines the supernatural with social realism. Set on a housing estate in the suburbs of Stockholm in the early 1980s, it's the story of Oskar, a lonely, bullied child, who makes friends with Eli, the girl in the next apartment. 'Oskar, I'm not a girl,' she tells him and she's not kidding. They forge a relationship which is oddly innocent yet disturbing, two outsiders against the rest of the world. But one of these outsiders is, effectively, a serial killer. While Let the Right One In is startlingly original, it nevertheless couldn't have existed without the near century of vampire cinema that preceded it. Acclaimed film critic and horror novelist Anne Billson looks at how it has drawn from, and wrung new twists on, such classics as Nosferatu (1922), how vampire cinema has already flirted with social realism in films like Near Dark (1987) and how vampire mythology adapts itself to the modern world.Trade ReviewThis is a concise but penetrating volume on one of the most influential Swedish films in some considerable time; the intriguing analysis of Tomas Alfredson's Let The Right One may be delivered within only a hundred or so pages, but Billson still produces a remarkable number of aperçus on this highly influential adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's remarkable novel. (Crime Time)Anne Billson offers an accessible, lively but thoughtful take on the '80s-set Swedish vampire belter... a fun, stimulating exploration of a modern masterpiece. (Empire)...informative and eminently readable, hitting just the right note of intellectual engagement ... any vampire film aficionado will be able to revisit Let the Right One In with new eyes and appreciate so much more after reading [Anne Billson's] assessment of its undoubted merits. (Black Static) Table of ContentsIntroduction'Be Me, for a Little While'Textual AnalysisThe Other Swedish Vampire MovieThe Vampire's ArrivalMeeting the VampireThe Vampire as Serial KillerThe Vampire as MetaphorSex and the VampireBecoming a VampireThe Vampire's LifestyleThe Vampire's NemesisThe Vampire's AssistantVampire RulesThe Vampire's Departure
£23.63
Liverpool University Press Splice: Volume 6, Issue 3
Book SynopsisThe third issue of Splice Volume 6 is a 'Prison on film'-themed issue, which will include a long article on the film Bronson, which, in star Tom Hardy and director Nicolas Winding Refn, features two of the rising stars of contemporary cinema; and an essay on the cinema tradition of putting faith on film with particular reference to the prison-set movies, The Green Mile and Dead Man Walking.
£27.09
Liverpool University Press Studying The Hurt Locker
Book SynopsisIn this vibrant and dynamic book-length study drawing on a broad tapestry of research, Terence McSweeney offers an exploration of The Hurt Locker (2009), its stylistic and narrative devices, its cultural impact, its reception, and its relationship to the genre of the war film. McSweeney places the film in a richly textured historical, political, and industrial context, arguing that The Hurt Locker is part of a long tradition of films about American wars that play a considerable role in how audiences come to understand the conflicts that they depict. Thus, films about a nation’s wars are never “only a movie” but rather should be considered a cultural battleground themselves on which a war of representation is waged.
£22.33
Liverpool University Press Studying Feminist Film Theory
Book SynopsisThis book is aimed at helping media and film studies teachers introduce the basics of feminist film theory. No prior knowledge of feminist theory is required, the intended readers being university undergraduate teachers and students of film and media studies. Areas of emphasis include spectatorship, narrative, and ideology. Many illustrative case studies from popular cinema are used to offer students an opportunity to consider the connotations of visual and aural elements of film, narrative conflicts and oppositions, the implications of spectator "positioning" and viewer identification, and an ideological critical approach to film. Explanations of key terminology are included, along with classroom exercises and practice questions. Each chapter begins with key definitions and explanations of the concepts to be studied, including some historical background where relevant. Case studies include film noir, Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days and the work of directors Spike Lee, Claire Denis, and Paul Verhoeven. Studying Feminist Film Theory is a revised and expanded version of Feminist Film Studies: A Teacher's Guide, published by Auteur in 2007.
£27.96
Liverpool University Press Blood and Black Lace
Book SynopsisMario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964) is a legendary title, and is commonly considered as the archetypal giallo. A murder mystery about a faceless and menacing killer stalking the premises of a luxurious fashion house in Rome, Blood and Black Lace set the rules for the genre: a masked, black-gloved killer, an emphasis on graphic violence, elaborate and suspenseful murder sequences. But Blood and Black Lace is first and foremost an exquisitely stylish film, full of gorgeous color schemes, elegant camerawork, and surrealistic imagery, testimony of Bava’s mastery and his status as an innovator within popular cinema. This book recollects Blood and Black Lace’s production history, putting it within the context of the Italian film industry of the period and includes plenty of previously unheard-of data. It analyzes its main narrative and stylistic aspects, including the groundbreaking prominence of violence and sadism and its use of color and lighting, as well as Bava’s irreverent approach to genre filmmaking and clever handling of the audience’s expectations by way of irony and pitch-black humor. The book also analyzes Blood and Black Lace’s place within Bava’s oeuvre, its historical impact on the giallo genre, and its influential status on future filmmakers.Trade Review'Curti’s long and wide experience as a historian and analyst of Italian film, in particular horror film, is evident in this well structured, print monograph... Curti’s monograph makes a more concise starting point for both the enthusiast and the academic.'Tina Stockman, Media Education Journal
£16.49
Liverpool University Press Ex Machina
Book SynopsisEx Machina (2014) impressed critics and audiences alike with its bold ideas and all-too-realistic depiction of the unexpected consequences of constructing a sentient being. In his feature directorial debut, Alex Garland uses efficient storytelling, a compelling narrative, and heady concepts to create a modern science fiction masterpiece that explores gender, scientific advancement, and the very concept of humanity, all in a compelling, suspenseful film. Artificial intelligence has long been a sci-fi staple, but here, Garland posits what would happen if, for once, humans, rather than AI, were the real villains. In exploring Ex Machina’s ideas about consciousness, embodiment, and masculinity, all through the lens of a misogynist mad scientist, Joshua Grimm argues the result is a fascinating, truly unique film that immediately established Garland as a breakout voice in the landscape of science fiction film.
£21.84
Liverpool University Press Brainstorm
Book SynopsisThe makers of Brainstorm (1983) spent more than a decade transferring the revolutionary concept of an “empathy machine” from page to screen, only for the famously troubled production to be met with critical and commercial indifference on release. But since 1984 the film has continued to inspire viewers to imagine possibilities for the future. As a result, Brainstorm now seems less like a fixed piece of film history than an idea in evolution. The screen story embodies the ambitions of sci-fi cinema going back to the 1950s, as well as the turbulent culture of the western world in the 1960s and 1970s. It also foreshadows technological breakthroughs around the turn of the twenty-first century, making the film startlingly relevant to our digitally-enhanced information age. To fully appreciate the film’s “ultimate experience,” it helps to understand exactly how the film evolved. This book aims to provide context for such an understanding, beginning with a brief history of science fiction cinema and setting up a careful consideration of multiple drafts of the Brainstorm screenplay by three different screenwriters: Bruce Joel Rubin, Philip F. Messina, and Robert Stitzel. It will also briefly examine the production history of the film (including the tragic death of star Natalie Wood), the career of the director and special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull, the particulars of the completed film, and the film’s influence on future storytellers like James Cameron.
£21.84
AU Press Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in
Book SynopsisFor many years, Canadian cinema was dominated by the documentarytradition of the National Film Board, which tended to promote what filmscholar Jim Leach has called the “nationalist-realistproject”—films that privileged Canada’s naturallandscape and sought to conjure a unified sense of Canadian identityfrom images of empty, untrammelled wilderness and bucolic farmlands.Over the past several decades, however, the hegemony of thisfundamentally colonial, Anglo-centric vision has been challenged byfrancophone and First Nations perspectives and by the growth of cities,where most Canadians now reside, as economic and technological centres.In opposition to the mythic “Canada” shaped through thelens of rural nostalgia, Canadian urban identity asserts itself aspolyphonic, diverse, constructed through multiple discourses andmediums, as an ongoing negotiation rather than a monolithicorientation. Taking the urban as setting and subject, filmmakers areideally poised to capture this multiplicity, creating their own,idiosyncratic portraits of the Canadian urban landscape and of thepeople who inhabit it. Examining fourteen Canadian films produced from the late 1980sonward, including Denys Arcand’s Jésus de Montréal(1989), Mina Shum’s Double Happiness (1994), and GuyMaddin’s My Winnipeg (2007), Film and the Cityis the first comprehensive study of Canadian film and“urbanity”—the totality of urban culture and life asrefracted through the filmmaker’s prism. Drawing on insights fromboth film and urban studies and building upon issues of identityformation long debated in Canadian studies, Melnyk considers howfilmmakers interpret and employ the spatiality, visuality, and oralityof urban space and how audiences read the films that result. In thisway, Film and the City argues that Canadian narrative film ofthe postmodern period has contributed to the articulation of a new,multifaceted understanding of national identity.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema The City of Faith: Navigating Piety in Arcand’s Jésusde Montréal (1989) The City of Dreams: The Sexual Self in Lauzon’s Léolo(1992) The Gendered City: Feminism in Rozema’s Desperanto(1991), Pool’s Rispondetemi (1991), andVilleneuve’s Maelstrom (2000) The City Made Flesh: The Embodied Other in Lepage’s LeConfessional (1995) and Egoyan’s Exotica (1994) The Diasporic City: Postcolonialism, Hybridity, and Transnationalityin Virgo’s Rude (1995) and Mehta’sBollywood/Hollywood (2001) The City of Transgressive Desires: Melodramatic Absurdity inMaddin’s The Saddest Music in the World (2003) andMy Winnipeg (2006) The City of Eternal Youth: Capitalism, Consumerism, and Generationin Burns’s waydowntown (2000) and Radiant City(2006) The City of Dysfunction: Race and Relations in Vancouver fromShum’s Double Happiness (1994) to Sweeney’sLast Wedding (2001) and McDonald’s The Love Crimesof Gillian Guess (2004) Conclusion: National Identity and the Urban Imagination Notes Bibliography Index
£25.19
AU Press Familiar and Foreign: Identity in Iranian Film
Book SynopsisThe current political climate of confrontation between Islamistregimes and Western governments has resulted in the proliferation ofessentialist perceptions of Iran and Iranians in the West. Suchperceptions do not reflect the complex evolution of Iranian identitythat occurred in the years following the Constitutional Revolution(1906–11) and the anti-imperialist Islamic Revolution of 1979.Despite the Iranian government’s determined pursuance ofanti-Western policies and strict conformity to religious principles,the film and literature of Iran reflect the clash between a nostalgicpride in Persian tradition and an apparent infatuation with a moreEurocentric modernity. In Familiar and Foreign, Mannani andThompson set out to explore the tensions surrounding the ongoingformulation of Iranian identity by bringing together essays on poetry,novels, memoir, and films. These include both canonical and less widelytheorized texts, as well as works of literature written in English byauthors living in diaspora. Challenging neocolonialist stereotypes, these critical excursionsinto Iranian literature and film reveal the limitations of collectiveidentity as it has been configured within and outside of Iran. Throughthe examination of works by, among others, the iconic female poetForugh Farrokhzad, the expatriate author Goli Taraqqi, thecontroversial memoirist Azar Nafisi, and the graphic novelist MarjaneSatrapi, author of Persepolis, this volume engages with thecomplex and contested discourses of religion, patriarchy, and politicsthat are the contemporary product of Iran’s long andrevolutionary history.Table of ContentsFamiliar and Foreign: An Introduction • Manijeh Mannani andVeronica Thompson 3 1 The Development of the Artistic Female Self in the Poetry ofForugh Farrokhzad • Safaneh Mohaghegh Neyshabouri 17 2 Overcoming Gender: The Impact of the Persian Language on IranianWomen’s Confessional Literature • Farideh Dayanim Goldin 31 3 Autobiomythography and Self-Aggrandizement in Iranian DiasporicLife-Writing: Fatemeh Keshavarz and Azar Nafisi • Manijeh Mannani 61 4 Graphic Memories: Dialogues with Self and Other in MarjaneSatrapi’s Persepolis and Persepolis 2 • Mostafa Abedinifard83 5 Mr. and Mrs. F and the Woman: Personal Identities in ZoyaPirzad’s Like All the Afternoons • Madeleine Voegeli 111 6 Anxious Men: Sexuality and Systems of Disavowal in ContemporaryIranian Literature • Blake Atwood 129 7 Reading the Exile’s Body: Deafness and Diaspora in KaderAbdolah’s My Father’s Notebook • Babak Elahi 149 8 Persian Literature of Exile in France: Goli Taraqqi’s ShortStories • Laetitia Nanquette 173 9 Farang Represented: The Construction of Self-Space in GoliTaraqqi’s Fiction • Goulia Ghardashkhani 189 10 Film as Alternative History: The Aesthetics of Bahram Beizai• Khatereh Sheibani 211 11 Technologies of Memory, Identity, and Oblivion in Persepolis(2007) and Waltz with Bashir (2008) • William Anselmi and SheenaWilson 233 Contributors 261
£33.15
Duke University Press Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination
Book SynopsisSince the 1960s, Hong Kong cinema has helped to shape one of the world’s most popular cultural genres: action cinema. Hong Kong action films have proved popular over the decades with audiences worldwide, and they have seized the imaginations of filmmakers working in many different cultural traditions and styles. How do we account for this appeal, which changes as it crosses national borders?Hong Kong Connections brings leading film scholars together to explore the circulation of Hong Kong cinema in Japan, Korea, India, Australia, France, and the United States, as well as its links with Taiwan, Singapore, and the Chinese mainland. In the process, this collection examines diverse cultural contexts for action cinema’s popularity and the problems involved in the transnational study of globally popular forms, suggesting that in order to grasp the history of Hong Kong action cinema’s influence we need to bring out the differences as well as the links that constitute popularity.Contributors. Nicole Brenez, Stephen Chan Ching-kiu, Dai Jinhua, David Desser, Laleen Jayamanne, Kim Soyoung, Siu Leung Li, Adrian Martin, S. V. Srinivas, Stephen Teo, Valentina Vitali, Paul Willemen, Rob Wilson, Wong Kin-yuen, Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting, Yung Sai-shingTrade Review“As electrifying as the action cinema it illuminates, Hong Kong Connections delivers an elegantly choreographed and deadly volley of blows against the myth that global popular cinema begins and ends with Hollywood. These essays by a glittering array of leading scholars from around the world reveal Hong Kong cinema’s role in shaping other action cinemas, pioneering transnational filmmaking, and invigorating Chinese cultures. In the process, Hong Kong’s cinema becomes as firmly established as a global meeting as Hong Kong itself.”—Chris Berry, coeditor of Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia“This book examines the historical evolution of Hong Kong action cinema as well as its emergence as a transnational film genre in the era of globalization. It is the most well-organized, theoretically sophisticated, and critically engaging study of the subject that we have seen. It is a pleasure to read each of the essays, which are both erudite and interesting.”—Sheldon Lu, coeditor of Chinese-language Film: Historiography, Poetics, PoliticsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Contributors xi Introduction: Hong Kong Connections / Meaghan Morris 1 Part 1: History, Imagination and Hong Kong Popular Culture 19 1. Moving Body: The Interactions Between Chinese Opera and Action Cinema / Yung Sai-shing 21 2. Interactions Between Japanese and Hong Kong Action Cinemas / Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting 35 3. The Myth Continues: Cinematic Kung Fu in Modernity / Siu Leung Li 49 4. The Fighting Condition in Hong Kong Cinema: Local Icons and Cultural Antidotes for the Global Popular / Stephen Chan Ching-kiu 63 5. Order/Anti-Order: Representation of Identity in Hong Kong Action Movies / Dai Jinhua 81 Part 2: Action Cinema as Contact Zone 95 6. Genre as Contact Zone: Hong Kong Action and Korean Hwalkuk / Kim Soyoung 97 7. Hong Kong Action Film and the Career of the Telugu Mass Hero / S. V. Srinivas 111 8. Hong Kong-Hollywood-Bombay: On the Function of "Martial Art" in the Hindi Action Cinema / Valentina Vitali 125 9. Let's Miscegenate: Jackie Chan and His African-American Connection / Laleen Jayamanne 151 10. The Secrets of Movement: The Influence of Hong Kong Action Cinema upon the Contemporary French Avant-garde / Nicole Brenez 163 11. At the Edge of the Cut: An Encounter with the Hong Kong Style in Contemporary Action Cinema / Adrian Martin 175 Part 3: Translation and Embodiment: Technologies of Globalisation 189 12. Wuxia Redux: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a Model of Late Transnational Production / Stephen Teo 191 13. Hong Kong Film and the New Cinephilia / David Desser 205 14. Action Cinema, Labour Power and the Video Market / Paul Willemen 223 15. Spectral Critiques: Tracking "Uncanny" Filmic Paths Towards a Bio-Poetics of Trans-Pacific Globalization / Rob Wilson 249 16. Technoscience Culture, Embodiment and Wuda pian / Wong Kin-yuen 269 Notes 287 Index 327
£22.49
Duke University Press Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination
Book SynopsisSince the 1960s, Hong Kong cinema has helped to shape one of the world’s most popular cultural genres: action cinema. Hong Kong action films have proved popular over the decades with audiences worldwide, and they have seized the imaginations of filmmakers working in many different cultural traditions and styles. How do we account for this appeal, which changes as it crosses national borders?Hong Kong Connections brings leading film scholars together to explore the circulation of Hong Kong cinema in Japan, Korea, India, Australia, France, and the United States, as well as its links with Taiwan, Singapore, and the Chinese mainland. In the process, this collection examines diverse cultural contexts for action cinema’s popularity and the problems involved in the transnational study of globally popular forms, suggesting that in order to grasp the history of Hong Kong action cinema’s influence we need to bring out the differences as well as the links that constitute popularity.Contributors. Nicole Brenez, Stephen Chan Ching-kiu, Dai Jinhua, David Desser, Laleen Jayamanne, Kim Soyoung, Siu Leung Li, Adrian Martin, S. V. Srinivas, Stephen Teo, Valentina Vitali, Paul Willemen, Rob Wilson, Wong Kin-yuen, Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting, Yung Sai-shingTrade Review“As electrifying as the action cinema it illuminates, Hong Kong Connections delivers an elegantly choreographed and deadly volley of blows against the myth that global popular cinema begins and ends with Hollywood. These essays by a glittering array of leading scholars from around the world reveal Hong Kong cinema’s role in shaping other action cinemas, pioneering transnational filmmaking, and invigorating Chinese cultures. In the process, Hong Kong’s cinema becomes as firmly established as a global meeting as Hong Kong itself.”—Chris Berry, coeditor of Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia“This book examines the historical evolution of Hong Kong action cinema as well as its emergence as a transnational film genre in the era of globalization. It is the most well-organized, theoretically sophisticated, and critically engaging study of the subject that we have seen. It is a pleasure to read each of the essays, which are both erudite and interesting.”—Sheldon Lu, coeditor of Chinese-language Film: Historiography, Poetics, PoliticsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Contributors xi Introduction: Hong Kong Connections / Meaghan Morris 1 Part 1: History, Imagination and Hong Kong Popular Culture 19 1. Moving Body: The Interactions Between Chinese Opera and Action Cinema / Yung Sai-shing 21 2. Interactions Between Japanese and Hong Kong Action Cinemas / Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting 35 3. The Myth Continues: Cinematic Kung Fu in Modernity / Siu Leung Li 49 4. The Fighting Condition in Hong Kong Cinema: Local Icons and Cultural Antidotes for the Global Popular / Stephen Chan Ching-kiu 63 5. Order/Anti-Order: Representation of Identity in Hong Kong Action Movies / Dai Jinhua 81 Part 2: Action Cinema as Contact Zone 95 6. Genre as Contact Zone: Hong Kong Action and Korean Hwalkuk / Kim Soyoung 97 7. Hong Kong Action Film and the Career of the Telugu Mass Hero / S. V. Srinivas 111 8. Hong Kong-Hollywood-Bombay: On the Function of "Martial Art" in the Hindi Action Cinema / Valentina Vitali 125 9. Let's Miscegenate: Jackie Chan and His African-American Connection / Laleen Jayamanne 151 10. The Secrets of Movement: The Influence of Hong Kong Action Cinema upon the Contemporary French Avant-garde / Nicole Brenez 163 11. At the Edge of the Cut: An Encounter with the Hong Kong Style in Contemporary Action Cinema / Adrian Martin 175 Part 3: Translation and Embodiment: Technologies of Globalisation 189 12. Wuxia Redux: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a Model of Late Transnational Production / Stephen Teo 191 13. Hong Kong Film and the New Cinephilia / David Desser 205 14. Action Cinema, Labour Power and the Video Market / Paul Willemen 223 15. Spectral Critiques: Tracking "Uncanny" Filmic Paths Towards a Bio-Poetics of Trans-Pacific Globalization / Rob Wilson 249 16. Technoscience Culture, Embodiment and Wuda pian / Wong Kin-yuen 269 Notes 287 Index 327
£84.60
University Press of Mississippi Sam Peckinpah: Interviews
Book SynopsisSam Peckinpah (1925-1984), an accomplished writer and director of television westerns, did not attract media attention until the release of his second feature-length film, the award-winning Ride the High Country. Peckinpah revealed in early interviews his deep knowledge of film history, an uncompromising aesthetic, and an intolerance for any crew members who did not share his capacity for hard work. As his career progressed, he began having increasingly difficult times with producers who did not share his vision. His problems with them emerge as a major focus of his interviews. Sam Peckinpah: Interviews features the combustible director discussing his best-known films, including the gory western The Wild Bunch, the unsettling and controversial Straw Dogs (which Pauline Kael described as ""the first American film that is a fascist work of art""), and the crime thriller The Getaway. In these conversations, Peckinpah's candor--about himself, filmmaking, studios, male/female relations, violence, and contemporary politics--provides a thoughtful portrait of a polarizing filmmaker. Kevin J. Hayes is professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma. His previous books include Poe and the Printed Word, Folklore and Book Culture, and An American Cycling Odyssey, 1887, among others. He edited Charlie Chaplin: Interviews and Conversations with Jack Kerouac, both from University Press of Mississippi.
£37.46
University Press of Mississippi Sam Peckinpah: Interviews
Book SynopsisSam Peckinpah (1925-1984), an accomplished writer and director of television westerns, did not attract media attention until the release of his second feature-length film, the award-winning Ride the High Country. Peckinpah revealed in early interviews his deep knowledge of film history, an uncompromising aesthetic, and an intolerance for any crew members who did not share his capacity for hard work. As his career progressed, he began having increasingly difficult times with producers who did not share his vision. His problems with them emerge as a major focus of his interviews. Sam Peckinpah: Interviews features the combustible director discussing his best-known films, including the gory western The Wild Bunch, the unsettling and controversial Straw Dogs (which Pauline Kael described as ""the first American film that is a fascist work of art""), and the crime thriller The Getaway. In these conversations, Peckinpah's candor--about himself, filmmaking, studios, male/female relations, violence, and contemporary politics--provides a thoughtful portrait of a polarizing filmmaker. Kevin J. Hayes is professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma. His previous books include Poe and the Printed Word, Folklore and Book Culture, and An American Cycling Odyssey, 1887, among others. He edited Charlie Chaplin: Interviews and Conversations with Jack Kerouac, both from University Press of Mississippi.
£23.96
University of Nevada Press Make Waves: Water in Contemporary Literature and
Book SynopsisFrom ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology to modern times, water has symbolized life, wisdom, fertility, purity, and death. Water also sustains and nourishes, irrigates our crops, keeps us clean and healthy, and contributes to our energy needs. Increased energy demands, coupled with the effects of climate change, have put a strain on our fresh water supply and water resources. Individuals and communities around the globe increasingly face droughts, floods, water pollution, water scarcity, and even water wars. We tend to address and solve these concerns through scientific and technological innovations, but social and cultural analyses and solutions are needed as well.In this edited collection, contributors tackle current water issues in the era of climate change using a wide variety of recent literature and film. At its core, this collection demonstrates that water is an immense reservoir of artistic potential and an agent of historical and cultural exchange. Creating familiar and relatable contexts for their water dilemmas, authors and directors of contemporary literary texts and films present compelling stories of our relationships to water, water health, ecosystems, and conservation. They also explore how global water problems affect local communities around the world and intersect with social and cultural aspects such as health, citizenship, class, gender, race, and ethnicity.This transformative work highlights the cultural significance of water—the source of life and a powerful symbol in numerous cultures. It also raises awareness about global water debates and crises.Trade ReviewThis edited book underscores how water is a creatively transformative symbol through which we synthesize environmental concerns and a source of cultural and political tensions exacerbated by climate change." - Chris Travis, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature, Elmhurst College"The collection is highly accessible. It gives a view of the representation of water from a variety of perspectives and introduces readers to likely unfamiliar texts—the Stanza Stones art/poetry installation or the Niger Delta poets—while providing unique new interpretations and/or insight into more familiar texts such as Chinatown or The Milagro Beanfield War." - Scott DeVries, author of Creature DiscomfortTable of Contents Introduction Part 1: Water Natures: Culture, Identity, and Creativity Chapter 1. Liquidity Incorporated: Economic Tides and Fluid Data in Hito Steyerl's Liquidity, Inc. Christina Gerhardt and Jaimey Hamilton Faris Chapter 2. Material States of Poetry: The Stanza Stones Emma Trott Chapter 3. Preying on Water: Hunting Spiritual and Environmental Rebirth on the Kentucky River in Selected Essays from Wendell Berry's The Long-Legged House Andrew S. Andermatt Chapter 4. "Let everything that binds fall": The Significance of Water in David Vann's Fiction Sofia Ahlberg Chapter 5. Water-blind: Erosion and (Re)Generation in Colm Tóibín's The Heather Blazing Julienne H. Empric Part 2: Water Cultures: Nations, Borders, and Water Wars Chapter 6. A Clash of Water Cultures in John Nichols' The Milagro Beanfield War Susan J. Tyburski Chapter 7. Watershed Ethics and Dam Politics: Mapping Biopolitics, Race, and Resistance in Sleep Dealer and Watershed Tracey Daniels-Lerberg Chapter 8. Thomas King Tells a Different Story: Dams, Rivers, and Indigenous Literary Hydromythology Rebecca Lynne Fullan Chapter 9. Shifting Tides: A Literary Exploration of the Colorado River Delta Paul Formisano Chapter 10. Poetry and Revolution on the Brink of Ecological Disaster: Ernesto Cardenal and the Interoceanic Canal in Nicaragua Jeremy G. Larochelle Chapter 11. "Bad for the glass": Chinatown's Skewed Rendition of the California Water Wars Robert Niemi Chapter 12. The Cinematic Portrayal of Water Wars in Bolivia and Ecuador Laura Hatry Part 3: Arid and Awash: High Pollution, High Energy Demands, and High Waters Chapter 13. Troubled Waters: Unveiling Industrial Negligence in Three Deepwater Horizon Films Ila Tyagi Chapter 14. The River as Character in Niger Delta Poetry Idom T. Inyabri Chapter 15. Water and Mental Health in Three British Climate Fiction Novels Giulia Miller Chapter 16. There Will Be Blood: Water Futures in Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife and Claire Vaye Watkins' Gold Fame Citrus Paula Anca Farca Concluding Remarks About the Contributors
£28.46
Rutgers University Press Cinema between Latin America and Los Angeles:
Book SynopsisHistorically, Los Angeles and its exhibition market have been central to the international success of Latin American cinema. Not only was Los Angeles a site crucial for exhibition of these films, but it became the most important hub in the western hemisphere for the distribution of Spanish language films made for Latin American audiences. Cinema between Latin America and Los Angeles builds upon this foundational insight to both examine the considerable, ongoing role that Los Angeles played in the history of Spanish-language cinema and to explore the implications of this transnational dynamic for the study and analysis of Latin American cinema before 1960. The volume editors aim to flesh out the gaps between Hollywood and Latin America, American imperialism and Latin American nationalism in order to produce a more nuanced view of transnational cultural relations in the western hemisphere. Trade Review"Excavating previously marginalized histories of Spanish-language film culture in the United States and painstakingly tracing its transnational connections, the exhaustively researched anthology Cinema Between Latin America and Los Angeles embodies the most exciting directions in film and media studies today. The volume’s essays offer rich, fine-grained studies of the local informed by international perspectives, considering the political economy of Spanish-language production and distribution, the forging of film publics, and the cross-pollination between cinema and entertainments like musical theater, popular song, and even contemporary fusions of lucha libre and performance art. Deftly rendering the complexities of cross-border exchanges and the role of film consumption in shaping social identities, Cinema Between Latin America and Los Angeles unearths forgotten but fascinating precursors of today's vibrant Latino and Spanish-language media." -- Rielle Navitski * coeditor of Cosmopolitan Film Cultures in Latin America, 1896-1960 *"With essays on previously unstudied production and distribution companies, Mexican producers’ attempts to appeal to U.S. audiences, Spanish-language cinema, Edwin Carewe’s Ramona (1928), Mexican teatro de revista, and the Mayan Theater this volume makes a compelling case for viewing Los Angeles as a crossroads for Latin American (especially Mexican) cinema. The authors’ transnational perspective allows them to trace the history of a film culture shaped by intermediality, migration, and vibrant border crossing entertainment cultures. The essays in this volume offer nothing less than a prehistory of Latino media." -- Laura Isabel Serna * author of Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture *"Highly recommended." * Choice *"Cinema between Latin America and Los Angeles: Origins to 1960 is not just ‘another book about cinema’, but an original, eclectic and to some extent brave contribution to the field. Instead of limiting itself to an audience of film scholars and historians, the book widens its scope to cinema aficionados interested in knowing about the presence and the essence of Spanish- language films up to 1960." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *"Excavating previously marginalized histories of Spanish-language film culture in the United States and painstakingly tracing its transnational connections, the exhaustively researched anthology Cinema Between Latin America and Los Angeles embodies the most exciting directions in film and media studies today. The volume’s essays offer rich, fine-grained studies of the local informed by international perspectives, considering the political economy of Spanish-language production and distribution, the forging of film publics, and the cross-pollination between cinema and entertainments like musical theater, popular song, and even contemporary fusions of lucha libre and performance art. Deftly rendering the complexities of cross-border exchanges and the role of film consumption in shaping social identities, Cinema Between Latin America and Los Angeles unearths forgotten but fascinating precursors of today's vibrant Latino and Spanish-language media." -- Rielle Navitski * coeditor of Cosmopolitan Film Cultures in Latin America, 1896-1960 *"With essays on previously unstudied production and distribution companies, Mexican producers’ attempts to appeal to U.S. audiences, Spanish-language cinema, Edwin Carewe’s Ramona (1928), Mexican teatro de revista, and the Mayan Theater this volume makes a compelling case for viewing Los Angeles as a crossroads for Latin American (especially Mexican) cinema. The authors’ transnational perspective allows them to trace the history of a film culture shaped by intermediality, migration, and vibrant border crossing entertainment cultures. The essays in this volume offer nothing less than a prehistory of Latino media." -- Laura Isabel Serna * author of Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture *"Highly recommended." * Choice *"Cinema between Latin America and Los Angeles: Origins to 1960 is not just ‘another book about cinema’, but an original, eclectic and to some extent brave contribution to the field. Instead of limiting itself to an audience of film scholars and historians, the book widens its scope to cinema aficionados interested in knowing about the presence and the essence of Spanish- language films up to 1960." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *Table of ContentsTable of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction, Colin Gunckel, Jan-Christopher Horak, and Lisa Jarvinen El espectáculo: The Culture of the revistas in Mexico City and Los Angeles (1900−40), Jacqueline Avila Ramona in the City: Mexican Los Angeles, Dolores Del Rio, and the Remaking of a Mythic Story, Desirée J. Garcia Please Sing to Me: The Immigrant Nostalgia that Sparked the Mexican Film Industry, Viviana García Besné and Alistair Tremps A Mass Market for Spanish-language Films: Los Angeles, Hybridity, and the Emergence of Latino Audiovisual Media, Lisa Jarvinen Cantabria Films and the L.A. Film Market, 1938-1940, Jan-Christopher Horak A Cinema between Mexico and Hollywood: What We Can Learn from Adaptations, Remakes, Dubs, Talent Swaps and Other Curiosities, Colin Gunckel On the NUEVO TEATRO MÁXIMO DE LA RAZA: Still Thinking, Feeling and Speaking Spanish on and off Screen, Nina Hoechtl Notes Bibliography Index
£28.90
Rutgers University Press Hollywood Diplomacy: Film Regulation, Foreign
Book SynopsisHollywood Diplomacy contends that, rather than simply reflect the West’s cultural fantasies of an imagined “Orient,” images of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ethnicities have long been contested sites where the commercial interests of Hollywood studios and the political mandates of U.S. foreign policy collide, compete against one another, and often become compromised in the process. While tracing both Hollywood’s internal foreign relations protocols—from the “Open Door” policy of the silent era to the “National Feelings” provision of the Production Code—and external regulatory interventions by the Chinese government, the U.S. State Department, the Office of War Information, and the Department of Defense, Hye Seung Chung reevaluates such American classics as Shanghai Express and The Great Dictator and applies historical insights to the controversies surrounding contemporary productions including Die Another Day and The Interview. This richly detailed book redefines the concept of “creative freedom” in the context of commerce: shifting focus away from the artistic entitlement to offend foreign audiences toward the opportunity to build new, better relationships with partners around the world through diplomatic representations of race, ethnicity, and nationality.Trade Review"Deeply rooted in sound documentation and rigorous archival study but also imaginative and subtle in the interpretive work it accomplishes, Hollywood Diplomacy offers a fresh and vital account of the censorship and regulation that surrounds Asian and Asian American representation in film." -- Ellen Scott * author of Cinema Civil Rights: Regulation, Repression, and Race in Classical Hollywood *“The first comprehensive study of Hollywood’s regulation of East Asian representation. A rigorously-researched and important illumination of the impact of politics, protest, and profit on Hollywood’s representation of race.” -- Philippa Gates * author of Criminalization/Assimilation: Chinese/Americans and Chinatowns in Classical Hollywood Film *"The book provides a new and fresh understanding of how policies, censorship, and the propaganda machine can influence screenwriters, directors, and production companies. A deft combination of history and textual analysis, Hollywood Diplomacy provides insight into how Hollywood has often wrongly represented East Asian people and then attempted to save face and money by editing out those problematic representations. Essential." * Choice *"Hollywood Diplomacy provides great contribution to scholarship not simply on Asian representation on film, but toward providing a much-needed book-length contribution toward better understanding the tensions between foreign censorship boards as well as the progression of Hollywood’s foreign policy at large." * Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television *Table of ContentsIntroductionPart I: Diplomatic Representations in Classical Hollywood 1. Censorship as Cultural Resistance: The Chinese Government's "Uplift" of National Images in 1930s Hollywood 2. Justified Patricide and (Im)Properly Directed Hatred: Regulating the Representations of Chinese and Japanese in Doolittle Raid Films 3. Beyond Propaganda Model: The Pentagon as a Technical Advisor for Brainwashing Films of the Cold War EraPart II: The War on Terror, Contemporary Hollywood, and Its Global Discontents 4. From Die Another Day to "Another Day": The Anti-007 Movement, Pan-Asian Nationalism, and Protests as Censorship 5. The Interview as a Twenty-First-Century Great Dictator? Rethinking Film Regulation and Foreign Relations through the Sony CrisisConclusion: Chinese Censors Return to Hollywood Appendix Acknowledgments Notes Index
£30.60
Rutgers University Press Some Kind of Mirror: Creating Marilyn Monroe
Book SynopsisAlthough she remains one of the all-time most recognizable Hollywood icons, Marilyn Monroe has seldom been ranked among the greatest actors of her generation. Critics have typically viewed her film roles as mere extensions of her sexpot star persona. Yet this ignores both the subtle variations between these roles and the acting skill that went into the creation of Monroe’s public persona. Some Kind of Mirror offers the first extended scholarly analysis of Marilyn Monroe’s film performances, examining how they united the contradictory discourses about women’s roles in 1950s America. Amanda Konkle suggests that Monroe’s star persona resonated with audiences precisely because it engaged with the era’s critical debates regarding femininity, sexuality, marriage, and political activism. Furthermore, she explores how Monroe drew from the techniques of Method acting and finely calibrated her performances to better mirror her audience’s anxieties and desires. Drawing both from Monroe’s filmography and from 1950s fan magazines, newspaper reports, and archived film studio reports, Some Kind of Mirror considers how her star persona was coauthored by the actress, the Hollywood publicity machine, and the fans who adored her. It is about why 1950s America made Monroe a star, but it is also about how Marilyn defined an era. Trade Review"Written with passion and verve, this meticulously researched and well-argued book is a valuable entry into our ongoing conversations about movie stars and their meanings in their original contexts as well as our own." -- Adrienne McLean * author of Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom *"Konkle brings fresh understanding to the Marilyn Monroe phenomenon, shedding light on her journey from sexpot to star, and revealing the complex construction and development of the Monroe image." -- Lucy Bolton * Queen Mary University of London *"Some Kind of Mirror is a fascinating study, a must-read for connoisseurs of Monroe's career, and a choice pick for public and college library Film Studies shelves. Highly recommended." * Midwest Book Review *"Highly recommended." * Choice *"Amanda Konkle has managed to add a fresh new angle to this ever-expanding topic area. From the outset, it is apparent that Konkle knows her subject extremely well and is committed to showing both Monroe’s underappreciated skills as an actress and how her constructed star persona reflected the timeframe in which she worked. The vast amount of research Konkle has employed to both her study of Monroe and American culture at the time is abundantly evident throughout." * Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television *Table of ContentsContents 1 Introduction: Playing Marilyn Monroe 2 Becoming a Star: The Publicity Buildup and Early Performances 3 Mrs. America: Marilyn Monroe and Marriage Anxiety 4 “It’s Kinda Personal and Embarrassing, Too”: Monroe, the Kinsey Reports, and the Double Standard 5 The Actress and Her Method: Resisting Playing Marilyn Monroe Conclusion: A Marilyn Monroe Type Filmography Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Index
£27.20
Rutgers University Press Border Cinema: Reimagining Identity through
Book SynopsisThe rise of digital media and globalization’s intensification since the 1990s have significantly refigured global cinema’s form and content. The coincidence of digitalization and globalization has produced what this book helps to define and describe as a flourishing border cinema whose aesthetics reflect, construct, intervene in, denature, and reconfigure geopolitical borders. This collection demonstrates how border cinema resists contemporary border fortification processes, showing how cinematic media have functioned technologically and aesthetically to engender contemporary shifts in national and individual identities while proposing alternative conceptions of these identities to those promulgated by the often restrictive current political rhetoric and ideologies that represent a backlash to globalization. Trade Review"While border aesthetics have attracted increasing attention over the last decade, this wide-ranging and innovative collection offers a dynamic argument about why border cinema has become a central direction in contemporary film. Intricately weaving the digital technologies that support it and the shifting global politics that are its target, the book intervenes precisely and provocatively in how we understand world cinema today.” -- Timothy Corrigan * author of A Short Guide to Writing about Film *"Examining media from around the globe, this collection of essays compellingly interrogates the relationship between the digital and border cinema aesthetics. As the editors show, the border has become multiple, even mobile borders; mediated representations of these third spaces call viewers to political action and ethical engagement while affording opportunities for re-imagining subjectivities in a post 9-11 world. Essential reading for those invested in the way cinema imagines liminal social spaces." -- Laura Isabel Serna * author of Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture *"Recommended." * Choice *"While border aesthetics have attracted increasing attention over the last decade, this wide-ranging and innovative collection offers a dynamic argument about why border cinema has become a central direction in contemporary film. Intricately weaving the digital technologies that support it and the shifting global politics that are its target, the book intervenes precisely and provocatively in how we understand world cinema today.” -- Timothy Corrigan * author of A Short Guide to Writing about Film *"Examining media from around the globe, this collection of essays compellingly interrogates the relationship between the digital and border cinema aesthetics. As the editors show, the border has become multiple, even mobile borders; mediated representations of these third spaces call viewers to political action and ethical engagement while affording opportunities for re-imagining subjectivities in a post 9-11 world. Essential reading for those invested in the way cinema imagines liminal social spaces." -- Laura Isabel Serna * author of Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture *"Recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsTable of Contents Introduction: “Moving Images: Cinematic Contestations of Global Borders in the Digital Age,” by Monica Hanna and Rebecca A. Sheehan “Composite Aesthetics as Cultural Cartographies of Europe-in-Transition,” Marina Hassapopoulou “Undocumation: Documentary Animation’s Unsettled Borders,” Rebecca A. Sheehan “The Art of Witness in Lourdes Portillo’s Señorita Extraviada (2001),” Rosa-Linda Fregoso “The Cinematic Borderlands of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel,” Monica Hanna “Challenging European Borders: Goran Paskaljevic’s Honeymoons,” Anita Pinzi “Remapping the Borderlands in ¿Quién diablos es Juliette?” Elena Lahr-Vivaz “Crossing through el Hueco: The Visual Politics of Smuggling in Colombian Migration Films,” Jennifer Harford Vargas “Toward a Transfrontera-Latinx Aesthetics: An Interview with Filmmaker and Artist Alex Rivera,” Frederick Luis Aldama “No-man's Land: Shifting Borders and Alternating Identities in Contemporary Israeli Cinema,” Anat Zanger and Nurith Gertz “Te Borders We Cross in Search of a Better World: On Border Crossing in Three of Amos Gitai’s Feature Films,” Yael Munk “Filipinos at the Border: Migrant Workers in Transnational Philippine Cinema,” José B. Capino
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Chinatown Film Culture: The Appearance of Cinema
Book SynopsisChinatown Film Culture provides the first comprehensive account of the emergence of film and moviegoing in the transpacific hub of San Francisco in the early twentieth century. Working with materials previously left in the margins of grand narratives of history, Kim K. Fahlstedt uncovers the complexity of a local entertainment culture that offered spaces where marginalized Chinese Americans experienced and participated in local iterations of modernity. At the same time, this space also fostered a powerful Orientalist aesthetic that would eventually be exported to Hollywood by San Francisco showmen such as Sid Grauman. Instead of primarily focusing on the screen-spectator relationship, Fahlstedt suggests that immigrant audiences' role in the proliferation of cinema as public entertainment in the United States saturated the whole moviegoing experience, from outside on the street to inside the movie theater. By highlighting San Francisco and Chinatown as featured participants rather than bit players, Chinatown Film Culture provides an historical account from the margins, alternative to the more dominant narratives of U.S. film history.Trade Review"Chinatown Film Culture is an impressive and exhaustively researched history of early film exhibition practices and filmgoing culture in San Francisco's Chinatown. It is a remarkable contribution to film history!" -- Philippa Gates * author of Criminalization/Assimilation: Chinese/Americans and Chinatowns in Classical Hollywood Film *"Original and compelling, Chinatown Film Culture fills a significant gap in cinema history. Drawing on fascinating and highly illustrative primary sources, Kim K. Fahlstedt explores the place of Asian American communities in the emergence of cinematic modernity in the United States." -- Zhang Zhen * editor of The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century *Table of ContentsContents Preface Introduction Part I: Early Film in San Francisco 1. Bold Visions and Frontier Conditions – The Emergence of Film in San Francisco 2. “If I Had the Power to Do So I Would Destroy Them with My Own Hands” – Film and Politics in Post-Quake San Francisco Part II: Chinatown Exhibition and Movie Theaters 3. “The Most Cosmopolitan City in the World” – Chinese San Francisco at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 4. “Eyes Darting Around, Spirit Dashing About” – Mapping Chinatown Film Culture, 1906 – 1915 5. The Chinesque Aesthetic -Orientalist Stereotypes in Post-Quake Film Culture Part III: Chinese American Audiences 6. “Where the People Aren’t All American” – Chinatown Audiences and Spectators 7. Chinatown Modernity – Revolutions and Movie Theaters 8. Trajectories and Concluding Remarks Bibliography Index
£30.40
Rutgers University Press Damsels and Divas: European Stardom in Silent
Book Synopsis2020 Best Early Career Research Monograph, Monash University MalaysiaDamsels and Divas investigates the meanings of Europeanness in Hollywood during the 1920s by charting professional trajectories of three movie stars: Pola Negri, Vilma Bánky and Jetta Goudal. It combines the investigation of American fan magazines with the analysis of studio documents, and the examination of the narratives of their films, to develop a thorough understanding of the ways in which Negri, Bánky and Goudal were understood within the realm of their contemporary American culture. This discussion places their star personae in the context of whiteness, femininity and Americanization. Every age has its heroines, and they reveal a lot about prevailing attitudes towards women in their respective eras. In the United States, where the stories of rags-to-riches were especially potent, stars could offer models of successful cultural integration.Trade Review"An excellent piece of film history, brilliantly researched and eloquently narrated, Damsels and Divas Sheds new light on well-known figures, while bringing less familiar stars back into the spotlight. It engages with some of the most exciting scholarship about 1920s American cinema, the study of celebrity and representations of the female body, ethnicity and Europeanness." -- Andrew Higson * co-editor of Film Europe and Film America *"Written with engaging clarity and scholarly vigour and founded on first-class archival research, Damsels and Divas is a hugely welcome addition to scholarship on Hollywood stardom in the 1920s. The book shines much-needed light on the extraordinary careers of European female stars Pola Negri, Vilma Bánky and Jetta Goudal as well as the discourses of ethnicity, gender and class that shaped the firmament in which they, as Frymus puts it, ‘shone briefly, but very brightly’." -- Michael Williams * author of Film Stardom and the Ancient Past *Lights, Camera, Author! podcast interview with Agata Frymus https://anchor.fm/the-junot-files/episodes/Lights--Camera--Author--26---Agata-Frymus-ecvpra * Lights, Camera, Author! *"An engaging writing style [and a] varied and highly accessible choice of artefacts for analysis." * Early Popular Visual Culture *"The immense amount of archival research Frymus has undertaken is evident throughout, along with the wonderful accompanying images, such as film stills, postcards, magazine articles and full-page colour photographs of magazine covers. Moreover, the vast range of notes supplementing each chapter is also impressive. A fascinating review study of similar but different European stars who worked during Hollywood’s early years and is a welcome addition to the ever-expanding work on film stars and extrafilmic material." * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *"Damsels and Divas ranks with the work of Richard Dyer and Jeanine Basinger as a valuable star study. Highly recommended." * Choice *"Damsels and Divas carves out a space next to Paula Marantz Cohen’s Silent Stars and the Triumph of the American Myth (2001) in regard to silent era stardom and its relationship to the national imaginary." * Quarterly Review of Film and Video *Table of ContentsContents Introduction 1 Pola Negri and Romance: “Ah Love! It’s Not for Me” 2 Pola Negri as the Vamp: “Temptatious Pola Assailed Picture Citadel by Storm” 3 Vilma Bánky and Whiteness: “The Almost Perfect Anglo-Saxon Type, More English Than the English” 4 Vilma Bánky as the Leading Lady: “Bedecked in Flowing Gowns . . . and Layers of Pearls and Jewels” 5 Vilma Bánky and Marriage: “My Mother Brought Me Up to Be a Wife” 6 Jetta Goudal and Exoticism: “She Looks Like a Beautiful Cossack. She Looks Like an Oriental Princess” 7 Jetta Goudal and Mystery: “A Riddle in the City of Eager Autobiographies” 8 Jetta Goudal and Temperament: “The Most Temperamental Actress” Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Index
£30.40
Rutgers University Press Damsels and Divas: European Stardom in Silent
Book Synopsis2020 Best Early Career Research Monograph, Monash University MalaysiaDamsels and Divas investigates the meanings of Europeanness in Hollywood during the 1920s by charting professional trajectories of three movie stars: Pola Negri, Vilma Bánky and Jetta Goudal. It combines the investigation of American fan magazines with the analysis of studio documents, and the examination of the narratives of their films, to develop a thorough understanding of the ways in which Negri, Bánky and Goudal were understood within the realm of their contemporary American culture. This discussion places their star personae in the context of whiteness, femininity and Americanization. Every age has its heroines, and they reveal a lot about prevailing attitudes towards women in their respective eras. In the United States, where the stories of rags-to-riches were especially potent, stars could offer models of successful cultural integration.Trade Review"An excellent piece of film history, brilliantly researched and eloquently narrated, Damsels and Divas Sheds new light on well-known figures, while bringing less familiar stars back into the spotlight. It engages with some of the most exciting scholarship about 1920s American cinema, the study of celebrity and representations of the female body, ethnicity and Europeanness." -- Andrew Higson * co-editor of Film Europe and Film America *"Written with engaging clarity and scholarly vigour and founded on first-class archival research, Damsels and Divas is a hugely welcome addition to scholarship on Hollywood stardom in the 1920s. The book shines much-needed light on the extraordinary careers of European female stars Pola Negri, Vilma Bánky and Jetta Goudal as well as the discourses of ethnicity, gender and class that shaped the firmament in which they, as Frymus puts it, ‘shone briefly, but very brightly’." -- Michael Williams * author of Film Stardom and the Ancient Past *Lights, Camera, Author! podcast interview with Agata Frymus https://anchor.fm/the-junot-files/episodes/Lights--Camera--Author--26---Agata-Frymus-ecvpra * Lights, Camera, Author! *"An engaging writing style [and a] varied and highly accessible choice of artefacts for analysis." * Early Popular Visual Culture *"The immense amount of archival research Frymus has undertaken is evident throughout, along with the wonderful accompanying images, such as film stills, postcards, magazine articles and full-page colour photographs of magazine covers. Moreover, the vast range of notes supplementing each chapter is also impressive. A fascinating review study of similar but different European stars who worked during Hollywood’s early years and is a welcome addition to the ever-expanding work on film stars and extrafilmic material." * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *"Damsels and Divas ranks with the work of Richard Dyer and Jeanine Basinger as a valuable star study. Highly recommended." * Choice *"Damsels and Divas carves out a space next to Paula Marantz Cohen’s Silent Stars and the Triumph of the American Myth (2001) in regard to silent era stardom and its relationship to the national imaginary." * Quarterly Review of Film and Video *"An excellent piece of film history, brilliantly researched and eloquently narrated, Damsels and Divas Sheds new light on well-known figures, while bringing less familiar stars back into the spotlight. It engages with some of the most exciting scholarship about 1920s American cinema, the study of celebrity and representations of the female body, ethnicity and Europeanness." -- Andrew Higson * co-editor of Film Europe and Film America *"Written with engaging clarity and scholarly vigour and founded on first-class archival research, Damsels and Divas is a hugely welcome addition to scholarship on Hollywood stardom in the 1920s. The book shines much-needed light on the extraordinary careers of European female stars Pola Negri, Vilma Bánky and Jetta Goudal as well as the discourses of ethnicity, gender and class that shaped the firmament in which they, as Frymus puts it, ‘shone briefly, but very brightly’." -- Michael Williams * author of Film Stardom and the Ancient Past *Lights, Camera, Author! podcast interview with Agata Frymus https://anchor.fm/the-junot-files/episodes/Lights--Camera--Author--26---Agata-Frymus-ecvpra * Lights, Camera, Author! *"An engaging writing style [and a] varied and highly accessible choice of artefacts for analysis." * Early Popular Visual Culture *"The immense amount of archival research Frymus has undertaken is evident throughout, along with the wonderful accompanying images, such as film stills, postcards, magazine articles and full-page colour photographs of magazine covers. Moreover, the vast range of notes supplementing each chapter is also impressive. A fascinating review study of similar but different European stars who worked during Hollywood’s early years and is a welcome addition to the ever-expanding work on film stars and extrafilmic material." * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *"Damsels and Divas ranks with the work of Richard Dyer and Jeanine Basinger as a valuable star study. Highly recommended." * Choice *"Damsels and Divas carves out a space next to Paula Marantz Cohen’s Silent Stars and the Triumph of the American Myth (2001) in regard to silent era stardom and its relationship to the national imaginary." * Quarterly Review of Film and Video *Table of ContentsContents Introduction 1 Pola Negri and Romance: “Ah Love! It’s Not for Me” 2 Pola Negri as the Vamp: “Temptatious Pola Assailed Picture Citadel by Storm” 3 Vilma Bánky and Whiteness: “The Almost Perfect Anglo-Saxon Type, More English Than the English” 4 Vilma Bánky as the Leading Lady: “Bedecked in Flowing Gowns . . . and Layers of Pearls and Jewels” 5 Vilma Bánky and Marriage: “My Mother Brought Me Up to Be a Wife” 6 Jetta Goudal and Exoticism: “She Looks Like a Beautiful Cossack. She Looks Like an Oriental Princess” 7 Jetta Goudal and Mystery: “A Riddle in the City of Eager Autobiographies” 8 Jetta Goudal and Temperament: “The Most Temperamental Actress” Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Ideal Beauty: The Life and Times of Greta Garbo
Book SynopsisOne of the silver screen’s greatest beauties, Greta Garbo was also one of its most profound enigmas. A star in both silent pictures and talkies, Garbo kept viewers riveted with understated performances that suggested deep melancholy and strong desires roiling just under the surface. And offscreen, the intensely private Garbo was perhaps even more mysterious and alluring, as her retirement from Hollywood at age thirty-six only fueled the public’s fascination. Ideal Beauty reveals the woman behind the mystique, a woman who overcame an impoverished childhood to become a student at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Academy, an actress in European films, and ultimately a Hollywood star. Chronicling her tough negotiations with Louis B. Mayer at MGM, it shows how Garbo carved out enough power in Hollywood to craft a distinctly new feminist screen presence in films like Queen Christina. Banner draws on over ten years of in-depth archival research in Sweden, Germany, France, and the United States to demonstrate how, away from the camera’s glare, Garbo’s life was even more intriguing. Ideal Beauty takes a fresh look at an icon who helped to define female beauty in the twentieth century and provides answers to much-debated questions about Garbo’s childhood, sexuality, career, illnesses and breakdowns, and spiritual awakening. Trade Review“In this scrupulously researched book, Lois Banner brings a novel and insightful approach to the study of film icon Greta Garbo by examining her life and relation to standards of beauty, as well as surfacing previously unheralded issues: those who found her unattractive, the role of “Garbo Maniacs” in her star discourse, her power at MGM, the toll of her hidden illnesses, the place of religion in her life, the celebrity world in which she circulated post-Hollywood retirement. Thus, Ideal Beauty combines biography, film analysis, and social/feminist history in a scholarly yet approachable fashion. A must for all Garbo aficionados.”— Lucy Fischer, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of Pittsburgh "While Garbo captivated audiences with her beauty and mysterious persona, [Ideal Beauty] offers an insightful portrait of her private life, interrogating her feminism, sexuality, mental health, and more. Garbo rose to fame on the silent screen, but this new biography gives voice to her life in unparalleled fashion."— Entertainment Weekly "[D]ifferent and highly worthwhile...[Ideal Beauty] captures well the milieu in which Garbo became a star, but, more to the point, places her in the context of what beauty meant in the era in which Garbo thrived."— Air Mail "[An] enriching and immersive biography...Banner meticulously examines Garbo’s 'ideal beauty' as a canvas onto which filmmakers could project their creative vision...The result is a rewarding look at an enigmatic star."— Publishers Weekly "[A] reconsideration of Greta Garbo as a template for analyzing tropes about 20th-century women...[Ideal Beauty] presents a truly different approach for both lay and academic readers. It expertly offers an understanding of an elusive figure within the context of the film industry."— Library Journal, STARRED Review Exclusive Excerpt: "Greta Garbo, the 'Furious Lesbian,' and a Classic Hollywood Love Triangle". — Vanity Fair "In this illuminating biography of Greta Garbo, Lois Banner brings her skills and talents as a perceptive feminist, accomplished historian, and keen cultural observer to move beyond the myths and stereotypes to uncover the life and times of this iconic Hollywood beauty. A great read!" — Lary May, author of Screening out the Past and editor of Recasting AmericaTable of ContentsPROLOGUE Who Was Greta Garbo? PART I. THE STEICHEN PHOTO 1 GARBO GLORIFIED AND DEMONIZED PART II. MATURING 2 CHILDHOOD 3 PUB, DRAMATEN, AND MIMI POLLAK 4 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Garbo and Stiller PART III. THE STAR 5 HOLLYWOOD 6 THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY Garbo and John Gilbert 7 FRIENDS AND LOVERS; ANNA CHRISTIE AND GARBO’S ACTING PART IV. CHOOSING SIDES 8 UNDERSTANDING ADRIAN From Flapper to Glamour 9 THE PRE-CODE ERA 10 BREAKING FREE Queen Christina 11 DENOUEMENT PART V. CELEBRITY 12 SUCCESS AND FAILURE 13 NEW YORK 14 SUMMING UP Acknowledgments Notes Index
£26.99
Rutgers University Press After Authority: Global Art Cinema and Political
Book SynopsisAfter Authority explores the tendency in art cinema to respond to political transition by turning to ambiguity, a system that ideally stems the reemergence of authoritarian logics in art and elsewhere. By comparing films from Italy, Hungary, South Korea, and the United States, this book contends that the aesthetic tradition of ambiguity in art cinema can be traced to post-authoritarian conditions and that it is in the context of a transition away from authoritarianism where art cinema aesthetics become legible. Art cinema, then, can be seen as a mode of cinematic practice that is at its core political, as its constitutive ambiguity finds its roots in the rejection of centralized and hierarchical configurations of authority. Ultimately, After Authority proposes a history of art cinema predicated on the potentials, possibilities, and politics of ambiguity.Trade Review“Confident, convincing, and timely, After Authority is a challenging and provocative work. Highly original, it adds significantly to current debates on cinema and politics.” -- Richard Rushton * author of The Politics of Hollywood Cinema: Popular Film and Contemporary Political Theory *"Kalling Heck makes the provocative claim that there is no apolitical art. More to the point, he affirms the possibility of politics and aesthetics without the determining role of authority. And therein lies the power of his magnificent engagements with the films he discusses: the possibility of a theory of political criticism emergent of the experience and affective dynamics of ambiguity." -- Davide Panagia * author of Rancière’s Sentiments *"The book is well researched and well written, and offers readers a new critical perspective Recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsAuthority year zero : on Germany year zero The image that waits : on Satantango The end of authority, the end of democracy : on woman on the beach Force, hope, and death : on medium cool Coda : political modernism and the possibility for action
£26.99
Rutgers University Press After Authority: Global Art Cinema and Political
Book SynopsisAfter Authority explores the tendency in art cinema to respond to political transition by turning to ambiguity, a system that ideally stems the reemergence of authoritarian logics in art and elsewhere. By comparing films from Italy, Hungary, South Korea, and the United States, this book contends that the aesthetic tradition of ambiguity in art cinema can be traced to post-authoritarian conditions and that it is in the context of a transition away from authoritarianism where art cinema aesthetics become legible. Art cinema, then, can be seen as a mode of cinematic practice that is at its core political, as its constitutive ambiguity finds its roots in the rejection of centralized and hierarchical configurations of authority. Ultimately, After Authority proposes a history of art cinema predicated on the potentials, possibilities, and politics of ambiguity.Trade Review“Confident, convincing, and timely, After Authority is a challenging and provocative work. Highly original, it adds significantly to current debates on cinema and politics.” -- Richard Rushton * author of The Politics of Hollywood Cinema: Popular Film and Contemporary Political Theory *"Kalling Heck makes the provocative claim that there is no apolitical art. More to the point, he affirms the possibility of politics and aesthetics without the determining role of authority. And therein lies the power of his magnificent engagements with the films he discusses: the possibility of a theory of political criticism emergent of the experience and affective dynamics of ambiguity." -- Davide Panagia * author of Rancière’s Sentiments *"The book is well researched and well written, and offers readers a new critical perspective Recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsAuthority year zero : on Germany year zero The image that waits : on Satantango The end of authority, the end of democracy : on woman on the beach Force, hope, and death : on medium cool Coda : political modernism and the possibility for action
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Haunted Homes
Book SynopsisHaunted Homes is a short but groundbreaking study of homes in horror film and television. While haunted houses can be fun and thrilling, Hollywood horror tends to focus on haunted homes, places where the suburban American dream of safety and comfort has turned into a nightmare. From classic movies like The Old Dark House to contemporary works like Hereditary and the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, Dahlia Schweitzer explores why haunted homes have become a prime stage for dramatizing anxieties about family, gender, race, and economic collapse. She traces how the haunted home film was intertwined with the expansion of American suburbia, but also explores works like The Witch and The Babadook, which transport the genre to different times and places. This lively and readable study reveals how and why an increasing number of films imagine that home is where the horror is. Watch a video of the author discussing the topic Haunted Homes (https://youtu.be/_irTEfvtZfQ).Trade Review"Dahlia Schweitzer's brilliantly-crafted book provides a perfect autopsy of the haunted house genre. Haunted Homes is not just a useful dissection of a popular subgenre of horror, it provides the perfect re-watch list for fans seeking to confront their inner fears." — Chris Gore, co-founder of Film Threat Dahlia Schweitzer’s “Haunted Homes” A Little Nerd News— The Mo'Kelly Show "Dahlia Schweitzer’s book Haunted Homes is a fascinating exploration of our culture's nearly insatiable desire for films that explore this genre. It is as hard to put down as it is to avert your eyes from the screen, even as you know you’re going to cower in fear." — Michael Grais, co-writer of Poltergeist New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture interview with Dahlia Schweitzer — New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture "Exclusive Excerpt from Dahlia Scweitzer's Haunted Homes"— Film Threat "In this highly entertaining book Dahlia Schweitzer takes readers on a tour of the American middle-class suburbs where true evil lurks, from The Cat and the Canary (1927) to The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix, 2018). The American dream to own one’s home has a flipside, namely to be stuck in a place that can be economically draining and literally the entrance to hell. Haunted Homes is one of those rare finds where state-of-the-art research and excellent prose go hand in hand and make you finish this book faster than a thriller.” — Rikke Schubart, author of Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror "Haunted Homes is a book for anyone who has ever awoken in the depths of the night, convinced that they heard someone–or something–lurking beyond their bedroom door. Through engaging analyses of American Horror Story (2011–) and Get Out (2017), amongst many others, Schweitzer proves that home ownership really is ‘a literal nightmare’."— Alison Peirse, editor of Women Make Horror SKYLIT: Dahlia Schweitzer, “HAUNTED HOMES”— Skylit: Skylight Books Podcast SeriesTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 The Suburbs 2 The Suburban Gothic 3 Gender, Horror, and the Family 4 Race, Horror, and the Family Conclusion Acknowledgments Further Reading Works Cited Index
£54.40
Rutgers University Press Transnational Korean Cinema: Cultural Politics,
Book SynopsisIn Transnational Korean Cinema author Dal Yong Jin explores the interactions of local and global politics, economics, and culture to contextualize the development of Korean cinema and its current place in an era of neoliberal globalization and convergent digital technologies. The book emphasizes the economic and industrial aspects of the story, looking at questions on the interaction of politics and economics, including censorship and public funding, and provides a better view of the big picture by laying bare the relationship between film industries, the global market, and government. Jin also sheds light on the operations and globalization strategies of Korean film industries alongside changing cultural policies in tandem with Hollywood’s continuing influences in order to comprehend the power relations within cultural politics, nationally and globally. This is the first book to offer a full overview of the nascent development of Korean cinema.Trade Review"The most comprehensive book available on South Korean Cinema, covering the complexities of the Korean film industry from 1919 onwards, both as an art form and as a business. It is destined to become required reading for anyone interested in Korean cinema especially in relation to the link between politics, economics and cultural expression." -- Colette Balmain * author of Introduction to Japanese Horror Film *"An ambitious, well-researched book that details how the complex interplay between cultural policy, socioeconomic development, competition with Hollywood and technological change led to the remarkable growth and increasing global reach of Korean cinema." -- Darcy Paquet * author of "New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves" *"Recommended." * Choice *"Although Transnational Korean Cinema: Cultural Politics, Film Genres, and Digital Technologies is concise, it contains a vast amount of information...a comprehensive review of various historical and social factors influencing [the] evolution [of South Korea films.” * Asiascape: Digitial Asia *Table of ContentsPreface Chapter 1. The Emergence of Contemporary Korean Cinema Chapter 2. State Film Policy and the Politicization of Censorship Chapter 3. Screen Quotas in the Era of the U.S.-Korea FTA Chapter 4. Conglomeration, Screen Oligopolu, and Cultural Diversity Chapter 5. Public Film Funding and Transnational Production Chapter 6. Coproduction and Transnationalization of Korean Cinema Chapter 7. Transnationalization of Film Genres Chapter 8. Transmedia Storytelling of Webtoons in Films in the Digital Era Chapter 9. Conclusion: Korean Cinema's Future in Digital Technologies Notes References Index About the Author
£26.99
Rutgers University Press Transnational Korean Cinema: Cultural Politics,
Book SynopsisIn Transnational Korean Cinema author Dal Yong Jin explores the interactions of local and global politics, economics, and culture to contextualize the development of Korean cinema and its current place in an era of neoliberal globalization and convergent digital technologies. The book emphasizes the economic and industrial aspects of the story, looking at questions on the interaction of politics and economics, including censorship and public funding, and provides a better view of the big picture by laying bare the relationship between film industries, the global market, and government. Jin also sheds light on the operations and globalization strategies of Korean film industries alongside changing cultural policies in tandem with Hollywood’s continuing influences in order to comprehend the power relations within cultural politics, nationally and globally. This is the first book to offer a full overview of the nascent development of Korean cinema.Trade Review"The most comprehensive book available on South Korean Cinema, covering the complexities of the Korean film industry from 1919 onwards, both as an art form and as a business. It is destined to become required reading for anyone interested in Korean cinema especially in relation to the link between politics, economics and cultural expression." -- Colette Balmain * author of Introduction to Japanese Horror Film *"An ambitious, well-researched book that details how the complex interplay between cultural policy, socioeconomic development, competition with Hollywood and technological change led to the remarkable growth and increasing global reach of Korean cinema." -- Darcy Paquet * author of "New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves" *"Recommended." * Choice *"Although Transnational Korean Cinema: Cultural Politics, Film Genres, and Digital Technologies is concise, it contains a vast amount of information...a comprehensive review of various historical and social factors influencing [the] evolution [of South Korea films.” * Asiascape: Digitial Asia *Table of ContentsPreface Chapter 1. The Emergence of Contemporary Korean Cinema Chapter 2. State Film Policy and the Politicization of Censorship Chapter 3. Screen Quotas in the Era of the U.S.-Korea FTA Chapter 4. Conglomeration, Screen Oligopolu, and Cultural Diversity Chapter 5. Public Film Funding and Transnational Production Chapter 6. Coproduction and Transnationalization of Korean Cinema Chapter 7. Transnationalization of Film Genres Chapter 8. Transmedia Storytelling of Webtoons in Films in the Digital Era Chapter 9. Conclusion: Korean Cinema's Future in Digital Technologies Notes References Index About the Author
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Fredric Jameson and Film Theory: Marxism,
Book SynopsisFrederic Jameson and Film Theory is the first collection of its kind, it assesses and critically responds to Fredric Jameson’s remarkable contribution to film theory. The essays assembled explore key Jamesonian concepts—such as totality, national allegory, geopolitics, globalization, representation, and pastiche—and his historical schema of realism, modernism, and postmodernism, considering, in both cases, how these can be applied, revised, expanded and challenged within film studies. Featuring essays by leading and emerging voices in the field, the volume probes the contours and complexities of neoliberal capitalism across the globe and explores world cinema's situation within these forces by deploying and adapting Jamesonian concepts, and placing them in dialogue with other theoretical paradigms. The result is an innovative and rigorously analytical effort that offers a range of Marxist-inspired approaches towards cinemas from Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America in the spirit of Jameson's famous rallying cry: 'always historicize!'. Trade Review"This exciting volume explicates the Jamesonian project while also extending and—sometimes—taking issue with it. It will be regarded as a major landmark in film studies." -- Carl Freedman * author of Critical Theory and Science Fiction *"This collection offers a thoughtful reckoning with the impact of Jameson's work on film studies to date while also charting a critical agenda for a Jamesonian film studies to come. Drawing on an international range of scholars Fredric Jameson and Film Theory answers Jameson's call to map the relation of individual films to the world-system of capitalism, illuminating along the way exciting new avenues for film theory and criticism." -- Derek Nystrom * author of Hard Hats, Rednecks, and Macho Men: Class in 1970s American Cinema *"The excellent essays collected here revisit some of Jameson’s explicit filmic engagements before scaling out to explore the wider utility of Jamesonian theoretical models in contexts that he did not necessarily address. In so doing, Fredric Jameson and Film Theory exemplifies one of its central claims, the importance of Jameson’s work for thinking about the 'global turn' in film studies." -- Joseph Jonghyun Jeon * author of Vicious Circuits: Korea's IMF Cinema and the End of the American Century *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Always Historicize the Moving Image! Fredric Jameson’s Place in Film Studies MICHAEL CRAMER, JEREMI SZANIAWSKI, AND KEITH B. WAGNER 1 Feeling Film as the Pulse of the Postmodern Condition: On Jameson’s “On Diva” DUDLEY ANDREW 2 Allegory and Accommodation: Vertov’s Three Songs of Lenin (1934) as a Stalinist Film JOHN MACKAY 3 Nostalgia, Melancholy, and the Persistence of Stalin in Polish Cinema JEREMI SZANIAWSKI 4 Jameson, Angelopoulos, and the Spirit of Utopia PAUL COATES 5 Jameson and Japanese Media Theory: A Virtual Dialogue NAOKI YAMAMOTO 6 Where Jameson Meets Queer Theory: Queer Cognitive Mapping in 1990s Sinophone Cinema ALVIN K. WONG 7 A Jamesonian Reading of Parasite (2019): Homes, Real Estate Speculation, and Bubble Markets in Seoul KEITH B. WAGNER 8 Strategies of Containment in Middle-Class Films from Mexico and Brazil MERCEDES VÁZQUEZ 9 The Neoliberal Conspiracy: Jameson, New Hollywood, and All the President’s Men MICHAEL CRAMER 10 The Conspiracy Film, Hollywood’s Cultural Paradigms, and Class Consciousness MIKE WAYNE 11 A Theory of the Medium Shot: Affective Mapping and the Logic of the Encounter in Fredric Jameson’s The Geopolitical Aesthetic PANSY DUNCAN 12 “An American Utopia” and the Politics of Military Science Fiction DAN HASSLER-FOREST Afterword FREDRIC JAMESON Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index
£25.19
Rutgers University Press Movie Minorities: Transnational Rights Advocacy
Book SynopsisRights advocacy has become a prominent facet of South Korea’s increasingly transnational motion picture output, especially following the 1998 presidential inauguration of Kim Dae-jung, a former political prisoner and victim of human rights abuses who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Today it is not unusual to see a big-budget production about the pursuit of social justice or the protection of civil liberties contending for the top spot at the box office. With that cultural shift has come a diversification of film subjects, which range from undocumented workers’ rights to the sexual harassment experienced by women to high-school bullying to the struggles among people with disabilities to gain inclusion within a society that has transformed significantly since winning democratic freedoms three decades ago. Combining in-depth textual analyses of films such as Bleak Night, Okja, Planet of Snail, Repatriation, and Silenced with broader historical contextualization, Movie Minorities offers the first English-language study of South Korean cinema’s role in helping to galvanize activist social movements across several identity-based categories. Trade Review“Movie Minorities addresses a gaping hole in the literature and offers an original contribution to Korean film studies. This book is groundbreaking in multiple ways.” -- Dong Hoon Kim * University of Oregon, author of Eclipsed Cinema: The Film Culture of Colonial Korea *"Movie Minorities is a pleasure to read. I am thrilled that this work will introduce a number of key political, ethical, and historical categories into our understanding of contemporary Korean cinema." -- Steve Choe * author of Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium *“Movie Minorities addresses a gaping hole in the literature and offers an original contribution to Korean film studies. This book is groundbreaking in multiple ways.” -- Dong Hoon Kim * University of Oregon, author of Eclipsed Cinema: The Film Culture of Colonial Korea *"Movie Minorities is a pleasure to read. I am thrilled that this work will introduce a number of key political, ethical, and historical categories into our understanding of contemporary Korean cinema." -- Steve Choe * author of Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium *Table of ContentsA Note on the Text Introduction: “I Am a Human Being”: The Question of Rights in South Korean Cinema Part I Institutional Foundations and Formal Structures 1 The Rise of Rights-Advocacy Cinema in Postauthoritarian South Korea 2 If You Were Me: Transnational Crossings and South Korean Omnibus Films Part II Movie Minors and Minor Cinemas 3 Hell Is Other High Schoolers: Bigots, Bullies, and Teenage “Villainy” in South Korean Cinema 4 Indie Filmmaking and Queer Advocacy: Converging Identities in Leesong Hee-il’s Films and Writings Part III Disability Rights in Mainstream and Minoritarian Filmmaking 5 Always, Blind, and Silenced: Disability Discourses in Contemporary South Korean Cinema 6 Barrier-Free Cinema: Caring for People with Disabilities and Touching the Other in Planet of Snail Part IV Representing Prisoners of the North and South 7 Beyond Torture Epistephilia: The Ethics of Encounter and Separation in Kim Dong-won’s Repatriation 8 Story as Freedom or Prison? Narrative Invention and Human Rights Interventions in Camp 14: Total Control Zone Part V Migrant Worker Rights in Hybrid Documentaries 9 Between Scenery and Scenario: Landscape, Narrative, and Structured Absence in a Korean Migrant Workers Documentary 10 “Powers of the False” and “Real Fiction”: Migrant Workers in The City of Cranes and Other Mockumentaries Part VI Nonhuman Rights in a Posthuman World 11 Animal Rights Advocacy, Holocaustal Imagery, and Interspecies Empathy in An Omnivorous Family’s Dilemma and Okja Coda: “I Am (Not) a Human Being”: The Question of Robot Rights in South Korean Cinema Acknowledgments Notes Index
£31.45
Rutgers University Press Movie Minorities: Transnational Rights Advocacy
Book SynopsisRights advocacy has become a prominent facet of South Korea’s increasingly transnational motion picture output, especially following the 1998 presidential inauguration of Kim Dae-jung, a former political prisoner and victim of human rights abuses who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Today it is not unusual to see a big-budget production about the pursuit of social justice or the protection of civil liberties contending for the top spot at the box office. With that cultural shift has come a diversification of film subjects, which range from undocumented workers’ rights to the sexual harassment experienced by women to high-school bullying to the struggles among people with disabilities to gain inclusion within a society that has transformed significantly since winning democratic freedoms three decades ago. Combining in-depth textual analyses of films such as Bleak Night, Okja, Planet of Snail, Repatriation, and Silenced with broader historical contextualization, Movie Minorities offers the first English-language study of South Korean cinema’s role in helping to galvanize activist social movements across several identity-based categories. Trade Review“Movie Minorities addresses a gaping hole in the literature and offers an original contribution to Korean film studies. This book is groundbreaking in multiple ways.” -- Dong Hoon Kim * University of Oregon, author of Eclipsed Cinema: The Film Culture of Colonial Korea *"Movie Minorities is a pleasure to read. I am thrilled that this work will introduce a number of key political, ethical, and historical categories into our understanding of contemporary Korean cinema." -- Steve Choe * author of Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium *“Movie Minorities addresses a gaping hole in the literature and offers an original contribution to Korean film studies. This book is groundbreaking in multiple ways.” -- Dong Hoon Kim * University of Oregon, author of Eclipsed Cinema: The Film Culture of Colonial Korea *"Movie Minorities is a pleasure to read. I am thrilled that this work will introduce a number of key political, ethical, and historical categories into our understanding of contemporary Korean cinema." -- Steve Choe * author of Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium *Table of ContentsA Note on the Text Introduction: “I Am a Human Being”: The Question of Rights in South Korean Cinema Part I Institutional Foundations and Formal Structures 1 The Rise of Rights-Advocacy Cinema in Postauthoritarian South Korea 2 If You Were Me: Transnational Crossings and South Korean Omnibus Films Part II Movie Minors and Minor Cinemas 3 Hell Is Other High Schoolers: Bigots, Bullies, and Teenage “Villainy” in South Korean Cinema 4 Indie Filmmaking and Queer Advocacy: Converging Identities in Leesong Hee-il’s Films and Writings Part III Disability Rights in Mainstream and Minoritarian Filmmaking 5 Always, Blind, and Silenced: Disability Discourses in Contemporary South Korean Cinema 6 Barrier-Free Cinema: Caring for People with Disabilities and Touching the Other in Planet of Snail Part IV Representing Prisoners of the North and South 7 Beyond Torture Epistephilia: The Ethics of Encounter and Separation in Kim Dong-won’s Repatriation 8 Story as Freedom or Prison? Narrative Invention and Human Rights Interventions in Camp 14: Total Control Zone Part V Migrant Worker Rights in Hybrid Documentaries 9 Between Scenery and Scenario: Landscape, Narrative, and Structured Absence in a Korean Migrant Workers Documentary 10 “Powers of the False” and “Real Fiction”: Migrant Workers in The City of Cranes and Other Mockumentaries Part VI Nonhuman Rights in a Posthuman World 11 Animal Rights Advocacy, Holocaustal Imagery, and Interspecies Empathy in An Omnivorous Family’s Dilemma and Okja Coda: “I Am (Not) a Human Being”: The Question of Robot Rights in South Korean Cinema Acknowledgments Notes Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press The Cinema of Rithy Panh: Everything Has a Soul
Book SynopsisNominated for 2022 South Atlantic Modern Language Association Book award Born in 1964, Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh grew up in the midst of the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal reign of terror, which claimed the lives of many of his relatives. After escaping to France, where he attended film school, he returned to his homeland in the late 1980s and began work on the documentaries and fiction films that have made him Cambodia’s most celebrated living director. The fourteen essays in The Cinema of Rithy Panh explore the filmmaker’s unique aesthetic sensibility, examining the dynamic and sensuous images through which he suggests that “everything has a soul.” They consider how Panh represents Cambodia’s traumatic past, combining forms of individual and collective remembrance, and the implications of this past for Cambodia’s transition into a global present. Covering documentary and feature films, including his literary adaptations of Marguerite Duras and Kenzaburō Ōe, they examine how Panh’s attention to local context leads to a deep understanding of such major themes in global cinema as justice, imperialism, diaspora, gender, and labor. Offering fresh takes on masterworks like The Missing Picture and S-21 while also shining a light on the director’s lesser-known films, The Cinema of Rithy Panh will give readers a new appreciation for the boundless creativity and ethical sensitivity of one of Southeast Asia’s cinematic visionaries.Trade Review"In this brilliant volume, sixteen scholars explore camera, voice, memory and witness in Rithy Panh’s extraordinary cinema. Frame by frame, their essays reveal Panh as a global director, and Cambodia’s most gifted chronicler." -- Penny Edwards * author of Cambodge: The cultivation of a nation 1860-1945 *Table of ContentsChronology Introduction: Rithy Panh and the Cinematic Image Leslie Barnes and Joseph Mai Part I: Aftermath: A Cinema of Post-War Survival 1. The “Mad Mother” in Rithy Panh’s Films Boreth Ly 2. Resilience in the Ruins: Artistic Practice in Rithy Panh’s The Burnt Theater Joseph Mai 3. The Wounds of Memory: Poetics, Pain, and Possibilities in Rithy Panh’s Exile and Que la barque se brise Khatharya Um Part II: From Colonial to Global Cambodia 4. Rithy Panh’s The Sea Wall: Reinventing Duras in Cambodia Jack A. Yeager and Rachel Harrison 5. Rithy Panh as Chasseur d’images Jennifer Cazenave 6. Aerial Aftermaths and Reckonings from Below: Reseeing Rithy Panh’s Shiiku, the Catch Cathy J. Schlund-Vials 7. Cambodia's "Wandering Souls": Migrant Labor and the Promise of Connection Leslie Barnes Part III: The Question of Justice 8. Archiving the Perpetrator Stéphanie Benzaquen-Gautier and John Kleinen 9. Creating Duch: The Projects of Duch, François Bizot, and Rithy Panh Donald Reid 10. Rithy Panh, Jean Améry, and the Paradigm of Moral Resentment Raya Morag Part IV: Memory, Voice, and Cinematic Practice 11. Looking Back and Projecting Forward from Site 2 Lindsay French 12. Bophana’s Image and Narrative: Tragedy, Accusatory Gaze, and Hidden Treasure Vicente Sánchez-Biosca 13. Memory Translation: Rithy Panh’s Provocations to the Primacy and Virtues of the Documentary Sound/Image Index David LaRocca 14. Rithy Panh: Storyteller of the Extreme Soko Phay Acknowledgments Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index
£999.99
Rutgers University Press The American Girl Goes to War: Women and National
Book SynopsisDuring the 1910s, films about war often featured a female protagonist. The films portrayed women as spies, cross-dressing soldiers, and athletic defenders of their homes—roles typically reserved for men and that contradicted gendered-expectations of home-front women waiting for their husbands, sons, and brothers to return from battle. The representation of American martial spirit—particularly in the form of heroines—has a rich history in film in the years just prior to the American entry into World War I. The American Girl Goes to War demonstrates the predominance of heroic female characters in in early narrative films about war from 1908 to 1919. American Girls were filled with the military spirit of their forefathers and became one of the major ways that American women’s changing political involvement, independence, and active natures were contained by and subsumed into pre-existing American ideologies. Trade Review"This exciting, well-researched work crosses multidisciplinary boundaries and will be of value to those interested in cinema, gender studies, propaganda, history, and political science. Recommended for academic libraries."— Library Journal New Books Network: New Books in Women's History interview with Liz Clarke— New Books Network: New Books in Women's History “Documenting the many heroic women who populated war films of this era, Liz Clarke shows the strength and vitality of female characters onscreen, while remaining attentive to the key role that white femininity played in narratives of American national identity during this period. Framing her analysis within a rich cultural context, Clarke show how essential cinema was to evolving ideas about both nationhood and femininity in the first decades of the twentieth century.”— Shelley Stamp, author of Movie-Struck Girls and Lois Weber in Early Hollywood "Brock prof’s new book explores women, war and silent film," by Amanda Bishop— The Brock NewsTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction 1 American Girls and National Identity 2 Fighting Femininity on Home Soil in Civil War Films, 1908–1916 3 The American Revolution and Other Wars 4 Featuring Preparedness and Peace: America and the European War, Part I 5 From Serial Queens to Patriotic Heroines: America and the European War, Part II 6 The American Girl and Wartime Patriotism Conclusion Appendix 1: Civil War Films, 1908–1916 Appendix 2: World War I Films, 1914–1919 Additional Filmography Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index
£25.19
Rutgers University Press Black Women Directors
Book SynopsisBlack women have long recognized the power of film for storytelling. For far too long, however, the cultural and historical narratives about film have not accounted for the contributions of Black women directors. This book remedies this omission by highlighting the trajectory of the culturally significant work of Black women directors in the United States, from the under-examined pioneers of the silent era, to the documentarians who sought to highlight the voices and struggles of Black women, and the contemporary Black women directors in Hollywood. Applying a Black feminist perspective, this book examines the ways that Black women filmmakers have made a way for themselves and their work by resisting the dominant cultural expectations for Black women and for the medium of film, as a whole. Trade Review"In showcasing the incredible range of films made by Black women directors from the silent era to the present day, Christina N. Baker masterfully reveals the rich diversity of their work, their astounding creativity, and their impressive resilience in the face of an often-hostile industry." -- Allyson Nadia Field * co-editor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema *"Christina N. Baker offers an engaging study on the vibrant and, yet, overlooked contributions of Black women directors. With astute and accessible prose, Baker deftly reveals a rich cinema history that highlights forgotten, groundbreaking, independent, and mainstream Black women filmmakers. This compact and resourceful text will inform and inspire." -- Samantha N. Sheppard * author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen *“This eloquently written book is an essential read for those who want to learn about Black women behind the camera. Baker skillfully weaves Black feminist theory with the ideals and goals of Black women directors from the beginnings of cinema to contemporary times. Her careful consideration of how pioneer Kathleen Collins influenced the women of the LA Rebellion and Ava DuVernay is thoughtful and illuminating.” -- Zeinabu irene Davis * Professor and Independent Filmmaker, University of California, San Diego *"Recent Books of Interest to Women Scholars" * Women in Academia Report *"In showcasing the incredible range of films made by Black women directors from the silent era to the present day, Christina N. Baker masterfully reveals the rich diversity of their work, their astounding creativity, and their impressive resilience in the face of an often-hostile industry." -- Allyson Nadia Field * co-editor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema *"Christina N. Baker offers an engaging study on the vibrant and, yet, overlooked contributions of Black women directors. With astute and accessible prose, Baker deftly reveals a rich cinema history that highlights forgotten, groundbreaking, independent, and mainstream Black women filmmakers. This compact and resourceful text will inform and inspire." -- Samantha N. Sheppard * author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen *“This eloquently written book is an essential read for those who want to learn about Black women behind the camera. Baker skillfully weaves Black feminist theory with the ideals and goals of Black women directors from the beginnings of cinema to contemporary times. Her careful consideration of how pioneer Kathleen Collins influenced the women of the LA Rebellion and Ava DuVernay is thoughtful and illuminating.” -- Zeinabu irene Davis * Professor and Independent Filmmaker, University of California, San Diego *"Recent Books of Interest to Women Scholars" * Women in Academia Report *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Recognizing the Pioneers 2. Women of the L.A. Rebellion 3. Moving into the Mainstream 4. More than Mainstream Acknowledgments Further Reading Selected Filmography Works Cited Index
£16.19
Rutgers University Press Black Women Directors
Book SynopsisBlack women have long recognized the power of film for storytelling. For far too long, however, the cultural and historical narratives about film have not accounted for the contributions of Black women directors. This book remedies this omission by highlighting the trajectory of the culturally significant work of Black women directors in the United States, from the under-examined pioneers of the silent era, to the documentarians who sought to highlight the voices and struggles of Black women, and the contemporary Black women directors in Hollywood. Applying a Black feminist perspective, this book examines the ways that Black women filmmakers have made a way for themselves and their work by resisting the dominant cultural expectations for Black women and for the medium of film, as a whole. Trade Review"In showcasing the incredible range of films made by Black women directors from the silent era to the present day, Christina N. Baker masterfully reveals the rich diversity of their work, their astounding creativity, and their impressive resilience in the face of an often-hostile industry." -- Allyson Nadia Field * co-editor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema *"Christina N. Baker offers an engaging study on the vibrant and, yet, overlooked contributions of Black women directors. With astute and accessible prose, Baker deftly reveals a rich cinema history that highlights forgotten, groundbreaking, independent, and mainstream Black women filmmakers. This compact and resourceful text will inform and inspire." -- Samantha N. Sheppard * author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen *“This eloquently written book is an essential read for those who want to learn about Black women behind the camera. Baker skillfully weaves Black feminist theory with the ideals and goals of Black women directors from the beginnings of cinema to contemporary times. Her careful consideration of how pioneer Kathleen Collins influenced the women of the LA Rebellion and Ava DuVernay is thoughtful and illuminating.” -- Zeinabu irene Davis * Professor and Independent Filmmaker, University of California, San Diego *"Recent Books of Interest to Women Scholars" * Women in Academia Report *"In showcasing the incredible range of films made by Black women directors from the silent era to the present day, Christina N. Baker masterfully reveals the rich diversity of their work, their astounding creativity, and their impressive resilience in the face of an often-hostile industry." -- Allyson Nadia Field * co-editor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema *"Christina N. Baker offers an engaging study on the vibrant and, yet, overlooked contributions of Black women directors. With astute and accessible prose, Baker deftly reveals a rich cinema history that highlights forgotten, groundbreaking, independent, and mainstream Black women filmmakers. This compact and resourceful text will inform and inspire." -- Samantha N. Sheppard * author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen *“This eloquently written book is an essential read for those who want to learn about Black women behind the camera. Baker skillfully weaves Black feminist theory with the ideals and goals of Black women directors from the beginnings of cinema to contemporary times. Her careful consideration of how pioneer Kathleen Collins influenced the women of the LA Rebellion and Ava DuVernay is thoughtful and illuminating.” -- Zeinabu irene Davis * Professor and Independent Filmmaker, University of California, San Diego *"Recent Books of Interest to Women Scholars" * Women in Academia Report *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Recognizing the Pioneers 2. Women of the L.A. Rebellion 3. Moving into the Mainstream 4. More than Mainstream Acknowledgments Further Reading Selected Filmography Works Cited Index
£51.85
Rutgers University Press Projecting the Nation: History and Ideology on
Book SynopsisProjecting the Nation: History and Ideology on the Israeli Screen is a wide-ranging history of over seven decades of Israeli cinema. The only book in English to offer this type of historical scope was Ella Shohat’s Israeli Cinema: East West and the Politics of Representation from 1989. Since 1989, however, Israeli cinema and Israeli society have undergone some crucial transformations and, moreover, Shohat’s book offered a single framework through which to judge Israeli cinema: a critique of orientalism. Projecting the Nation contends that Israeli cinema offers much richer historical and ideological perspectives that expose the complexity of the Israeli project. By analyzing Israeli films which address such issues as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi divide, the kibbutz and urban life, the rise of religion in Israeli public life and more, the book explores the way cinema has represented and also shaped our understanding of the history of modern Israel as it evolved from a collectivist society to a society where individualism and adherence to local identities is the dominant ideology. Trade Review“In Projecting the Nation, Eran Kaplan ingeniously analyzes the interrelation of aesthetic, economic, and social forces that have influenced Israeli filmmaking since the state’s inception. Kaplan’s interpretations of genres and individual films are smart, sophisticated, and engaging.”— Derek Penslar, Author of Israel in HistoryTable of ContentsContents Introduction 1 Pioneers, Fighters and Immigrants 2 Looking Inward 3 Present Absentees 4 The Post-Zionist Condition 5 The Post-Political Turn in Israeli Cinema 6 Eros on the Israeli Screen 7 In the Image of the Divine Epilogue Big Screens, Small Screens Acknowledgments
£30.40
Rutgers University Press Projecting the Nation: History and Ideology on
Book SynopsisProjecting the Nation: History and Ideology on the Israeli Screen is a wide-ranging history of over seven decades of Israeli cinema. The only book in English to offer this type of historical scope was Ella Shohat’s Israeli Cinema: East West and the Politics of Representation from 1989. Since 1989, however, Israeli cinema and Israeli society have undergone some crucial transformations and, moreover, Shohat’s book offered a single framework through which to judge Israeli cinema: a critique of orientalism. Projecting the Nation contends that Israeli cinema offers much richer historical and ideological perspectives that expose the complexity of the Israeli project. By analyzing Israeli films which address such issues as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi divide, the kibbutz and urban life, the rise of religion in Israeli public life and more, the book explores the way cinema has represented and also shaped our understanding of the history of modern Israel as it evolved from a collectivist society to a society where individualism and adherence to local identities is the dominant ideology. Trade Review“In Projecting the Nation, Eran Kaplan ingeniously analyzes the interrelation of aesthetic, economic, and social forces that have influenced Israeli filmmaking since the state’s inception. Kaplan’s interpretations of genres and individual films are smart, sophisticated, and engaging.” -- Derek Penslar * Author of Israel in History *“In Projecting the Nation, Eran Kaplan ingeniously analyzes the interrelation of aesthetic, economic, and social forces that have influenced Israeli filmmaking since the state’s inception. Kaplan’s interpretations of genres and individual films are smart, sophisticated, and engaging.” -- Derek Penslar * Author of Israel in History *Table of ContentsContents Introduction 1 Pioneers, Fighters and Immigrants 2 Looking Inward 3 Present Absentees 4 The Post-Zionist Condition 5 The Post-Political Turn in Israeli Cinema 6 Eros on the Israeli Screen 7 In the Image of the Divine Epilogue Big Screens, Small Screens Acknowledgments
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Bollywood’s New Woman: Liberalization,
Book SynopsisBollywood’s New Woman examines Bollywood’s construction and presentation of the Indian Woman since the 1990s. The groundbreaking collection illuminates the contexts and contours of this contemporary figure that has been identified in sociological and historical discourses as the “New Woman.” On the one hand, this figure is a variant of the fin de siècle phenomenon of the “New Woman” in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the Indian context, the New Woman is a distinct articulation resulting from the nation’s tryst with neoliberal reform, consolidation of the middle class, and the ascendency of aggressive Hindu Right politics. Trade Review"There is an emerging gap in classical narrative or textual analysis which marked the early blossoming of film studies in India. Anwer and Arora’s edited volume on Bollywood’s New Woman addresses precisely this gap by taking the attention back to the text to comment on gender, history and society. This collection of articles, spread across fourteen chapters and four sections attempts to reconfigure screened womanhood from the post-liberalization era."— Studies in South Asian Film and Media "These authors deconstruct the tools that filmmakers use and how the characters themselves strategize to assert identity and individuality. Localized, globalized, and contextualized within the larger Indian landscape and yet focusing on the intersections of place, class, caste, and age, the book offers an overview of the New Bollywood Woman."— Uma Vangal, Quarterly Review of Film and Video "A timely and valuable collection, Bollywood’s New Woman offers a critical assessment of nearly three decades of post-economic liberalization India through a focus on the changes and consistencies, in female characters and stars in Hindi cinema. The close readings situate films in diverse industrial formations—big-budget, small films, multiplex, hatke—that shape the many manifestations of these ‘new’ women. And, the perceptive readings anchored in genres, star texts, and new media skillfully show how these ‘new’ women navigate, question, and/or embrace the tradition/modern dyad in neoliberal and Hindu nationalist India." — Monika Mehta, author of Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema "A sumptuous and well-rounded volume of essays by leading experts on Indian cinema. This book is recommended for all scholars and students for an in-depth understanding of the gender dynamics in post-globalization Bollywood." — Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, author of Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and Bollywood "Essays in this exciting and welcome collection show us how India’s economic liberalization ushers in new figurations of women. Tracking Bollywood’s New Woman across revised filmic tropes, unconventional screen bodies, emergent technological formats and cosmopolitan geographies, they reveal gender’s starring role in the unfolding story of India’s neoliberalism and cinema." — Priya Jaikumar, author of Where Histories Reside: India as Filmed Space "Insightful and wide-ranging, Bollywood’s New Woman brings together some of the most exciting new scholarship in South Asian film and cultural studies. The figure of the ‘New Woman’ has emerged as the site on which many of India’s current desires and anxieties come to be rehearsed and executed. This anthology is essential reading for anyone interested in gender, politics, and popular culture in contemporary India and beyond." — Meheli Sen, author of Haunting Bollywood: Gender, Genre and the Supernatural in Hindi Commercial CinemaTable of ContentsContents Introduction Part I Family and Nation 1. Koel Banerjee and Jigna Desai, “Mompreneur in the Multiplex: Entrepreneurial Technologies of the “New Woman” Subject in the Age of Neoliberal Globalization” 2. Sangita Gopal, “Lethal Acts: Bollywood’s new woman and the Nirbhaya Effect” 3. Baidurya Chakrabarti, “Beyond the Couple Form: The Space of the New Woman in Yash Raj Films” 4. Aparajita De, “Mera Saaya: Shadows of the Woman in Bollywood’s Cultural Imagination” Part II Body Matters 5. Gohar Siddiqui, “New Womanhood and #LipstickRebellion: Feminist Consciousness in Lipstick Under My Burkha” 6. Debadatta Chakraborty, “Queering Bollywood: Sexuality of the disabled Body – A Case Study” 7. Ajay Gehlawat, “Plus-size Femininity: The Multiple Figurations of Bhumi Pednekar” 8. Puja Sen, “The Many Bodies of Vidya Balan: The Dirty Picture, Kahaani, and Tumhari Sulu” Part III Geographies of the New Woman 9. Anjali Ram, “Out of India: Educating the New Woman in Queen, EnglishVinglish, and Badrinath ki Dulhaniya” 10. Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, “Learning to Love The(ir) World: Using Feminist Spaces and Cosmopolitan Impulses against the Heteropatriarchy in Queen and English Vinglish” 11. Namrata Rele Sathe, “Single in the City: The Female Flâneur in Queen” 12. Madhavi Biswas, ”Dedh Ishqiyaand Ishqiya “Glocal Women: Gender, Genre, and Performance in Abhishek Chaubey’s Part IV New Media and the New Woman 13. Kuhu Tanvir, “All Broken Up and Dancing: Looking at Katrina Kaif in eight GIFs” 14. Tanushree Ghosh, “Reshaping ‘Bollywood’: Dissident New Media Femininities and Hindi Cinema” Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index
£30.40
Rutgers University Press Before Bemberg: Women Filmmakers in Argentina
Book SynopsisBefore Bemberg: Argentine Women Filmmakers calls into question the historiography of Argentine women filmmakers that has centered on María Luisa Bemberg to the exclusion of her predecessors. Its introductory discussion of the abundant initial participation by women in film production in the 1910s is followed by an account of their exclusion from creative roles in the studio cinema, which was only altered by the opportunities opened by a boom in short filmmaking in the 1960s. The book then discusses in depth the six sound features directed by women before 1980, which, despite their trailblazing explorations of the perspectives of female characters, daring denunciations of authoritarianism and censorship, and modernizing formal invention, have been forgotten by Argentine film history. Looking at the work and roles of Eva Landeck, Vlasta Lah, María Herminia Avellaneda and María Elena Walsh and Maria Bemberg, the book recognizes these filmmakers’ contributions at a significant moment in which movements to eliminate gender-based oppression and violence in Argentina and elsewhere are surging.Watch some of the films discussed in the book with English subtitles (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF_6F4am5024rklIWwExUVA?view_as=subscriber).Trade Review“Before Bemberg excavates a fascinating history of Argentine women filmmakers that have rarely been acknowledged. The book promises to widen the framing of important filmmakers in the Argentine film canon including Maria Luisa Bemberg, Lucrecia Martel and other contemporary women directors. Matt Losada’s work presents an important contribution to the lesser known, but equally important women directors from earlier eras that are at last gaining wider recognition." -- Tamara Falicov * author of The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film *"Film production in Argentina had been very much a male affair until the emergence of María Luisa Bemberg in the 1970s. Losada has undertaken a significant documentary history of Bemberg’s predecessors, in a study that contributes to our understanding of both the difficulties women faced in the industry and their contributions to cinema." -- David William Foster * author of Queer Issues in Latin American Filmmaking *"Losada's contribution to the scholarship of Argentine cinema and Latin American women's cinema is invaluable. Specifically, his archival research into Argentine women directors before Bemberg is instrumental in understanding the true history of women's active participation in Argentine cinema from the very beginning." * The Americas *"In short, Losada presents us with a text full of information, destined to rewrite the history of the cinematographic directors who preceded Bemberg. Added to the archival work is the wide dissemination of the research carried out by Argentine critics, many of whom are linked in one way or another to AsAECA. Although the analysis of the films is excellent, this reader is left wanting to know more about the time and who marked it, but as long as that is the reaction, Losada has more than fulfilled its objective." * Imagofagia, Magazine of the Argentine Association of Film and Audiovisual Studies *"The book's initial claim to recuperation, one that would allow today's cinephiles and scholars to access a more complete history and acknowledge the past difficulties and possibilities for women', is substantiated by the critical reading of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, combined with impeccable textual analysis. What eventually enables the delivery of the far more complex story' that this study aims to accomplish, is the author's ability to navigate from the macro i.e., the working conditions of women within the industry, during the era of the studio system in Argentina), to the micro (i.e., the detailed examination of how the gendered mechanics of the cinematic apparatus are challenged and de-constructed in the films that form this study's corpus)." -- Constanza Burucúa * Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies *“Before Bemberg excavates a fascinating history of Argentine women filmmakers that have rarely been acknowledged. The book promises to widen the framing of important filmmakers in the Argentine film canon including Maria Luisa Bemberg, Lucrecia Martel and other contemporary women directors. Matt Losada’s work presents an important contribution to the lesser known, but equally important women directors from earlier eras that are at last gaining wider recognition." -- Tamara Falicov * author of The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film *"Film production in Argentina had been very much a male affair until the emergence of María Luisa Bemberg in the 1970s. Losada has undertaken a significant documentary history of Bemberg’s predecessors, in a study that contributes to our understanding of both the difficulties women faced in the industry and their contributions to cinema." -- David William Foster * author of Queer Issues in Latin American Filmmaking *"Losada's contribution to the scholarship of Argentine cinema and Latin American women's cinema is invaluable. Specifically, his archival research into Argentine women directors before Bemberg is instrumental in understanding the true history of women's active participation in Argentine cinema from the very beginning." * The Americas *"In short, Losada presents us with a text full of information, destined to rewrite the history of the cinematographic directors who preceded Bemberg. Added to the archival work is the wide dissemination of the research carried out by Argentine critics, many of whom are linked in one way or another to AsAECA. Although the analysis of the films is excellent, this reader is left wanting to know more about the time and who marked it, but as long as that is the reaction, Losada has more than fulfilled its objective." * Imagofagia, Magazine of the Argentine Association of Film and Audiovisual Studies *"The book's initial claim to recuperation, one that would allow today's cinephiles and scholars to access a more complete history and acknowledge the past difficulties and possibilities for women', is substantiated by the critical reading of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, combined with impeccable textual analysis. What eventually enables the delivery of the far more complex story' that this study aims to accomplish, is the author's ability to navigate from the macro i.e., the working conditions of women within the industry, during the era of the studio system in Argentina), to the micro (i.e., the detailed examination of how the gendered mechanics of the cinematic apparatus are challenged and de-constructed in the films that form this study's corpus)." -- Constanza Burucúa * Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies *Table of ContentsContents Introduction 1. A History of the Gendered Division of Labor in Argentine Cinema 2. Eva Landeck 3. Beauvoir Before Bemberg: Lah, Avellaneda-Walsh, Bemberg Acknowledgements About the Author Filmography Works Cited
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Ferryman of Memories: The Films of Rithy Panh
Book SynopsisFerryman of Memories: The Films of Rithy Panh is an unconventional book about an unconventional filmmaker. Rithy Panh survived the Cambodian genocide and found refuge in France where he discovered in film a language that allowed him to tell what happened to the two million souls who suffered hunger, overwork, disease, and death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. His innovative cinema is made with people, not about them—even those guilty of crimes against humanity. Whether he is directing Isabelle Huppert in The Sea Wall, following laborers digging trenches, or interrogating the infamous director of S-21 prison, aesthetics and ethics inform all he does. With remarkable access to the director and his work, Deirdre Boyle introduces readers to Panh’s groundbreaking approach to perpetrator cinema and dazzling critique of colonialism, globalization, and the refugee crisis. Ferryman of Memories reveals the art of one of the masters of world cinema today, focusing on nineteen of his award-winning films, including Rice People, The Land of Wandering Souls, S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, and The Missing Picture.Trade Review"I do not know another film director today with a more complete understanding of human experience--of its precariousness and pain as well as its deepest joys. Rithy Panh presents the harshest of realities in a way that dwells on beauty, sensuality, and light. He paints with the lightest of touches, using music, pacing, and timing with the precision, emotion, and unity of an orchestra. Ferryman of Memories is a welcome introduction to his unique work.” -- Angelina Jolie * actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian *"Boyle focuses on Cambodian documentary director/screenwriter Rithy Panh, who has published five books, produced 20 feature films, established a film center in Cambodia, and been acclaimed worldwide. [Ferryman of Memories] examines each film, folding them into the narrative of Panh’s life. An admirable book that will likely increase visibility of Panh’s remarkable films." * Library Journal, STARRED *"Through her deep engagement with Rithy Panh and his films, Boyle offers us a timely reminder of Cambodia’s difficult history, of superpower complicity, and how the impact of the Khmer Rouge’s short brutal reign continues to mark Cambodian people today." -- Annie Goldson * professor and officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit at the University of Auckland * “Deirdre Boyle's training as both media historian and psychotherapist provides a major resonance in this outstanding book on one of current cinema's best directors, Rithy Panh. Moving between personal memoir and film analysis, Boyle sweeps the reader into the Cambodian genocide as an extraordinary chapter in twentieth-century history.” -- Raya Morag * professor of cinema studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and author of Perpetrator Cinema *"Like Claude Lanzmann regarding the Shoah, no other film director than Rithy Panh has managed to make visible, audible, and imaginable the uncanny world of the Khmer Rouge that brought Cambodia into hell. Seeing in Panh a modern Charon who transports human souls to the other side, Deirdre Boyle guides us through a disturbing journey where suffering and trauma, but also grieving and redemption, are pervasive." -- Vicente Sánchez-Biosca * professor of visual culture and author of The Death in Their Eyes *Table of Contents Preface Prologue 1 Uncle Rithy and the Cambodian Tragedy 2 The Return: Discovering the Gaze 3 The Khmer Rouge: Three Years, Eight Months, Twenty-One Days 4 Perpetrators and Survivors: The S-21 Trilogy Interlude: Dark Tourism 5 After the Wars: Fiction and Nonfiction 6 Colonialism: France and Cambodia 7 Remembering the Past, Mourning the Dead 157 Epilogue Acknowledgments Appendix 1. "Confronting Images of Ideology: An Interview with Rithy Panh by Deirdre Boyle" Appendix 2. "On a Morality of Filming: A Conversation between Rithy Panh and Deirdre Boyle" Notes Films and Books by Rithy Panh Index
£30.60
Rutgers University Press American Cinema of the 2010s: Themes and
Book SynopsisThe 2010s might be remembered as a time of increased polarization in American life. The decade contained both the Obama era and the Trump era, and as the nation’s political fissures widened, so did the gap between the haves and have-nots. Hollywood reflected these divisions, choosing to concentrate on big franchise blockbusters at the expense of mid-budget films, while new players like Netflix and Amazon offered fresh opportunities for low-budget and independent filmmakers. As the movie business changed, films ranging from American Sniper to Get Out found ways to speak to the concerns of a divided nation. The newest installment in the Screen Decades series, American Cinema in the 2010s takes a close look at the memorable movies, visionary filmmakers, and behind-the-scenes drama that made this decade such an exciting time to be a moviegoer. Each chapter offers an in-depth examination of a specific year, covering a wide variety of films, from blockbuster superhero movies like Black Panther and animated films like Frozen to smaller-budget biopics like I, Tonya and horror films like Hereditary. This volume introduces readers to a decade in which established auteurs like Quentin Tarantino were joined by an exceptionally diverse set of new talents, taking American cinema in new directions. Trade Review"American Cinema of the 2010s offers a lively compendium of insights about the complicated relationship between Hollywood cinema and the cultural zeitgeist." -- Virginia Wexman * editor of Directing *"American Cinema of the 2010s offers a lively compendium of insights about the complicated relationship between Hollywood cinema and the cultural zeitgeist." -- Virginia Wexman * editor of Directing *Table of ContentsTimeline: 2010s Introduction: Movies and the 2010s DENNIS BINGHAM 2010 Movies and Recessionary Gender Politics MICHELE SCHREIBER 2011 Movies and Masculinity at a Crossroads DAVID GREVEN 2012 Movies and Myths, Heroes, and History RAYMOND HABERSKI JR. 2013 Movies and Personhood ALEXANDRA KELLER 2014 Movies and the Unexpected Virtue of How the Sausage Gets Made DANIEL SMITH-ROWSEY 2015 Movies and Female Agency LISA BODE 2016 Movies and the Solace of Progressive Narratives CYNTHIA BARON 2017 Movies and the Right to Be Heard JULIE LEVINSON 2018 Movies and Revolution MIKAL J. GAINES 2019 Movies, Anniversaries, and the Limits of Looking Back DENNIS BINGHAM Select Academy Awards, 2010–2019 Acknowledgments Works Cited and Consulted Contributors Index
£55.25
Rutgers University Press Stanley Kubrick Produces
Book SynopsisStanley Kubrick Produces provides the first comprehensive account of Stanley Kubrick’s role as a producer, and of the role of the producers he worked with throughout his career. It considers how he first emerged as a producer, how he developed the role, and how he ultimately used it to fashion himself a powerbase by the 1970s. It goes on to consider how Kubrick’s centralizing of power became a self-defeating strategy by the 1980s and 1990s, one that led him to struggle to move projects out of development and into active production. Making use of overlooked archival sources and uncovering newly discovered ‘lost’ Kubrick projects (The Cop Killer, Shark Safari, and The Perfect Marriage among them), as well as providing the first detailed overview of the World Assembly of Youth film, James Fenwick provides a comprehensive account of Kubrick’s life and career and of how he managed to obtain the level of control that he possessed by the 1970s. Along the way, the book traces the rapid changes taking place in the American film industry in the post-studio era, uncovering new perspectives about the rise of young independent producers, the operations of influential companies such as Seven Arts and United Artists, and the whole field of film marketing. Trade Review"Author James Fenwick discusses his new book Stanley Kubrick Produces"— William Ramsey Investigates podcast "Centrally concerned with financing, project development, production logistics, management styles and marketing, this book is a groundbreaking contribution to the ever-expanding literature on Stanley Kubrick, a must-read for scholars and fans. Based on exhaustive archival research, this study skillfully relates Kubrick’s work on his films and on numerous unrealised projects to key developments in the American film business from the 1950s onwards, and tells a compelling story about the meteoric rise and, yes, the fall of one of the twentieth century’s most important filmmakers." — Peter Krämer, author of the BFI film classics on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove "Bolstered with a tremendous amount of research in the Stanley Kubrick Archives at the University of the Arts London, Fenwick highlights how dedicated Kubrick was to maintaining control of his work from the very beginning of his career."— Psychobabble "James Fenwick has combed the archives, including Kubrick’s own as well as others, to fill a missing gap in our knowledge of this legendary filmmaker, namely his role as a producer particularly in those early decades from the 1940s through the 1960s. By locating Kubrick in the economic, industrial and production contexts in which he worked, Fenwick provides an invaluable service to scholars, fans, and critics, adding a dimension to our understanding of his working practices hitherto unachieved. In so doing, Fenwick challenges the image of Kubrick as a controlling producer and future scholarship, including my own, will have to take his findings into account." — Nathan Abrams, author of Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual "We know about Kubrick the director, but this book digs into his production credits. By utilizing overlooked archives and lots of Kubrick projects including 'The Cop Killer,' 'Shark Safari,' and 'The Perfect Marriage,' Fenwick serves up a comprehensive account of the legendary director’s life and career from start to finish. "— IndieWire "The World Assembly of Youth and Archival Serendipity" by James Fenwick http://iamhist.net/2021/01/world-assembly-youth-archival-serendipity/— IAMHIST BlogTable of ContentsContents Introduction Part I The Emergence of a Film Producer 1928-1955 1 The Beginning, 1928-1951 2 The Unknown Early Years, 1951-1953 3 The New York ‘Film School’, 1953-1955 Part II The Harris-Kubrick Pictures Corporation 1955-1962 4 The New UA Team, 1955-1956 5 New Modes of Producing, 1957-1959 6 Swords, Sandals, Sex and Soviets, 1959-1962 Part III Polaris Productions and Hawk Films 1962-1969 7 The Establishment of a Producing Powerhouse, 1962-1964 8 Kubrick versus MGM, 1964-1969 Part IV The Decline of a Film Producer 1970-1999 9 Kubrick and Warner Bros., 1970-1980 10 The End, 1980-1999 Epilogue Appendix I: World Assembly of Youth credits Appendix II: Filmography Acknowledgements About the Author Notes Index
£30.60
Rutgers University Press Stanley Kubrick Produces
Book SynopsisStanley Kubrick Produces provides the first comprehensive account of Stanley Kubrick’s role as a producer, and of the role of the producers he worked with throughout his career. It considers how he first emerged as a producer, how he developed the role, and how he ultimately used it to fashion himself a powerbase by the 1970s. It goes on to consider how Kubrick’s centralizing of power became a self-defeating strategy by the 1980s and 1990s, one that led him to struggle to move projects out of development and into active production. Making use of overlooked archival sources and uncovering newly discovered ‘lost’ Kubrick projects (The Cop Killer, Shark Safari, and The Perfect Marriage among them), as well as providing the first detailed overview of the World Assembly of Youth film, James Fenwick provides a comprehensive account of Kubrick’s life and career and of how he managed to obtain the level of control that he possessed by the 1970s. Along the way, the book traces the rapid changes taking place in the American film industry in the post-studio era, uncovering new perspectives about the rise of young independent producers, the operations of influential companies such as Seven Arts and United Artists, and the whole field of film marketing. Trade Review"Author James Fenwick discusses his new book Stanley Kubrick Produces"— William Ramsey Investigates podcast "Centrally concerned with financing, project development, production logistics, management styles and marketing, this book is a groundbreaking contribution to the ever-expanding literature on Stanley Kubrick, a must-read for scholars and fans. Based on exhaustive archival research, this study skillfully relates Kubrick’s work on his films and on numerous unrealised projects to key developments in the American film business from the 1950s onwards, and tells a compelling story about the meteoric rise and, yes, the fall of one of the twentieth century’s most important filmmakers." — Peter Krämer, author of the BFI film classics on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove "Bolstered with a tremendous amount of research in the Stanley Kubrick Archives at the University of the Arts London, Fenwick highlights how dedicated Kubrick was to maintaining control of his work from the very beginning of his career."— Psychobabble "James Fenwick has combed the archives, including Kubrick’s own as well as others, to fill a missing gap in our knowledge of this legendary filmmaker, namely his role as a producer particularly in those early decades from the 1940s through the 1960s. By locating Kubrick in the economic, industrial and production contexts in which he worked, Fenwick provides an invaluable service to scholars, fans, and critics, adding a dimension to our understanding of his working practices hitherto unachieved. In so doing, Fenwick challenges the image of Kubrick as a controlling producer and future scholarship, including my own, will have to take his findings into account." — Nathan Abrams, author of Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual "We know about Kubrick the director, but this book digs into his production credits. By utilizing overlooked archives and lots of Kubrick projects including 'The Cop Killer,' 'Shark Safari,' and 'The Perfect Marriage,' Fenwick serves up a comprehensive account of the legendary director’s life and career from start to finish. "— IndieWire "The World Assembly of Youth and Archival Serendipity" by James Fenwick http://iamhist.net/2021/01/world-assembly-youth-archival-serendipity/— IAMHIST BlogTable of ContentsContents Introduction Part I The Emergence of a Film Producer 1928-1955 1 The Beginning, 1928-1951 2 The Unknown Early Years, 1951-1953 3 The New York ‘Film School’, 1953-1955 Part II The Harris-Kubrick Pictures Corporation 1955-1962 4 The New UA Team, 1955-1956 5 New Modes of Producing, 1957-1959 6 Swords, Sandals, Sex and Soviets, 1959-1962 Part III Polaris Productions and Hawk Films 1962-1969 7 The Establishment of a Producing Powerhouse, 1962-1964 8 Kubrick versus MGM, 1964-1969 Part IV The Decline of a Film Producer 1970-1999 9 Kubrick and Warner Bros., 1970-1980 10 The End, 1980-1999 Epilogue Appendix I: World Assembly of Youth credits Appendix II: Filmography Acknowledgements About the Author Notes Index
£58.40
Rutgers University Press Playful Frames: Styles of Widescreen Cinema
Book SynopsisA widescreen frame in cinema beckons the eye to playfully, creatively roam. Such technology also gives inventive filmmakers room to disrupt and redirect audience expectations, surprising viewers through the use of a wider, more expansive screen. Playful Frames: Styles of Widescreen Cinema studies the poetics of the auteur-driven widescreen image, offering nimble, expansive analyses of the work of four distinctive filmmakers – Jean Negulesco, Blake Edwards, Robert Altman, and John Carpenter – who creatively inhabited the nooks and crannies of widescreen moviemaking during the final decades of the twentieth century. Exploring the relationship between aspect ratio and subject matter, Playful Frames shows how directors make puckish use of widescreen technology. All four of these distinctive filmmakers reimagined popular genres (such as melodrama, slapstick comedy, film noir, science fiction, and horror cinema) through their use of the wide frame, and each brings a range of intermedial interests (painting, performance, and music) to their use of the widescreen image. This study looks specifically at the technological underpinnings, aesthetic shapes, and interpretive implications of these four directors’ creative use of widescreen, offering a way to reconsider the way wide imagery still has the potential to amaze and move us today. Trade Review“Until I began reading Steve Rybin’s surprising and steadily adventurous book, I had never thought of linking widescreen frames and their accompanying camera movements with playfulness. His bravura inquiry enlarges and richly complicates the ludic possibilities, in addition to offering fresh, provocative readings of four very different American directors’ works. Rybin writes with such infectious gusto and has a splendid ability to make the visual details whose mystery he probes come alive on the page.” — George Toles, University of Manitoba "With detailed and lively formal analyses, Rybin shows the often surprising ways in which four very different directors used the possibilities of the wider aspect ratio to orchestrate viewer attention for comedy, terror, drama, characterization, and spectacle. Playful Frames is an invaluable addition to our understanding of widescreen aesthetics, expanding beyond viewer immersion to questions of reflexivity, genre, and intermediality." — Lisa Bode, author of Making Believe: Screen Performance and Special Effects in Popular CinemaTable of ContentsIntroduction: A Scope Quartet 1 Jean Negulesco (1900-1993): CinemaScope Connoisseur 2 Blake Edwards (1922-2010): Panavision Pyrotechnics 3 Robert Altman (1925-2006): Diffusive Widescreen 4 John Carpenter (1948–): Anamorphic Haunting Acknowledgments Works Cited Index
£32.30
Rutgers University Press Playful Frames: Styles of Widescreen Cinema
Book SynopsisA widescreen frame in cinema beckons the eye to playfully, creatively roam. Such technology also gives inventive filmmakers room to disrupt and redirect audience expectations, surprising viewers through the use of a wider, more expansive screen. Playful Frames: Styles of Widescreen Cinema studies the poetics of the auteur-driven widescreen image, offering nimble, expansive analyses of the work of four distinctive filmmakers – Jean Negulesco, Blake Edwards, Robert Altman, and John Carpenter – who creatively inhabited the nooks and crannies of widescreen moviemaking during the final decades of the twentieth century. Exploring the relationship between aspect ratio and subject matter, Playful Frames shows how directors make puckish use of widescreen technology. All four of these distinctive filmmakers reimagined popular genres (such as melodrama, slapstick comedy, film noir, science fiction, and horror cinema) through their use of the wide frame, and each brings a range of intermedial interests (painting, performance, and music) to their use of the widescreen image. This study looks specifically at the technological underpinnings, aesthetic shapes, and interpretive implications of these four directors’ creative use of widescreen, offering a way to reconsider the way wide imagery still has the potential to amaze and move us today. Trade Review“Until I began reading Steve Rybin’s surprising and steadily adventurous book, I had never thought of linking widescreen frames and their accompanying camera movements with playfulness. His bravura inquiry enlarges and richly complicates the ludic possibilities, in addition to offering fresh, provocative readings of four very different American directors’ works. Rybin writes with such infectious gusto and has a splendid ability to make the visual details whose mystery he probes come alive on the page.” — George Toles, University of Manitoba "With detailed and lively formal analyses, Rybin shows the often surprising ways in which four very different directors used the possibilities of the wider aspect ratio to orchestrate viewer attention for comedy, terror, drama, characterization, and spectacle. Playful Frames is an invaluable addition to our understanding of widescreen aesthetics, expanding beyond viewer immersion to questions of reflexivity, genre, and intermediality." — Lisa Bode, author of Making Believe: Screen Performance and Special Effects in Popular CinemaTable of ContentsIntroduction: A Scope Quartet 1 Jean Negulesco (1900-1993): CinemaScope Connoisseur 2 Blake Edwards (1922-2010): Panavision Pyrotechnics 3 Robert Altman (1925-2006): Diffusive Widescreen 4 John Carpenter (1948–): Anamorphic Haunting Acknowledgments Works Cited Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Stellar Transformations: Movie Stars of the 2010s
Book SynopsisStellar Transformations: Movie Stars of the 2010s circles around questions of stardom, performance, and their cultural contexts in ways that remind us of the alluring magic of stars while also bringing to the fore the changing ways in which viewers engaged with them during the last decade. A salient idea that guides much of the collection is the one of transformation, expressed in these pages as the way in which post-millennial movie stars are in one way or another reshaping ideas of performance and star presence, either through the self-conscious revision of aspects of their own personas or in redirecting or progressing some earlier aspect of the culture. Including a diverse lineup of stars such as Oscar Isaac, Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton, and Tyler Perry, the chapters in Stellar Transformations paint the portrait of the meaning of star images during the complex decade of the 2010s, and in doing so will offer useful case studies for scholars and students engaged in the study of stardom, celebrity, and performance in cinema.Trade Review"Taking up stardom in the tumultuous teens, this volume shows that as 'the pictures got small' and film stars were experienced via streaming services and social media as much if not more than on cinema screens—and as the death of cinema was proclaimed again and again—stardom enlarged to include more diverse actors who could speak to both niche and global audiences in well-crafted actorly performances in films ranging from small independent features to global blockbusters." -- Pamela Robertson Wojcik * co-editor of Media Crossroads: Intersections of Space and Identity in Screen Cultures *“This is a brilliant collection featuring important performances during the 2010s, a decade marked by the emergence of an astounding number of ambiguously gendered and varied characters and performances. With readable, insightful analysis this volume strikes a balance between readability and in-depth analysis of celebrity, stardom and performance. A pleasure to read, this work is bound to attract both scholars and students who are fascinated with celebrity culture and its connection to the mysterious processes of embodiment and acting.” -- Rebecca Bell-Metereau * author of Transgender Cinema *"This illuminating volume examines a diverse selection of contemporary stars with varied career paths and personas, exploring how stardom is constructed, negotiated, and maintained in a rapidly changing industry." -- David R. Coon * author of Turning the Page: Storytelling as Activism in Queer Film and Media *Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments Introduction: Stardom in the 2010s Steven Rybin Chapter 1: Joaquin Phoenix: Ascendant Brenda Austin-Smith Chapter 2: Amy Adams and Emma Stone: Leaving the Ingénue Behind Karen Hollinger Chapter 3: Oscar Isaac: Melancholy By Degrees Rick Warner Chapter 4: Armie Hammer: The Elusive Appeal of a New Star David Greven Chapter 5: The Multiple Trajectories of Transnational Hollywood Stars: Marion Cotillard, Kristen Stewart, Diane Kruger Celestino Deleyto Chapter 6: Tilda Swinton: From Avant-Garde Androgyne to The Avengers Jennifer O’Meara Chapter 7: Tyler Perry: Madea Goes to Hollywood Danielle E. Williams Chapter 8: Jessica Chastain and Michelle Williams: Open Windows Daniel Varndell Chapter 9: The Predicaments of Queer Stardom: Ben Wishaw, Ezra Miller, Zachary Quinto Kyle Stevens Chapter 10: Timothée Chalamet: Refashioning Hollywood Masculinity Matt Connolly Chapter 11: Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan: Twenty-First Century Stars Cynthia Baron Chapter 12: Natalie Portman: Smart Star Steven Rybin In the Wings Works Cited Contributors Index
£26.35
Rutgers University Press Stellar Transformations: Movie Stars of the 2010s
Book SynopsisStellar Transformations: Movie Stars of the 2010s circles around questions of stardom, performance, and their cultural contexts in ways that remind us of the alluring magic of stars while also bringing to the fore the changing ways in which viewers engaged with them during the last decade. A salient idea that guides much of the collection is the one of transformation, expressed in these pages as the way in which post-millennial movie stars are in one way or another reshaping ideas of performance and star presence, either through the self-conscious revision of aspects of their own personas or in redirecting or progressing some earlier aspect of the culture. Including a diverse lineup of stars such as Oscar Isaac, Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton, and Tyler Perry, the chapters in Stellar Transformations paint the portrait of the meaning of star images during the complex decade of the 2010s, and in doing so will offer useful case studies for scholars and students engaged in the study of stardom, celebrity, and performance in cinema.Trade Review"Taking up stardom in the tumultuous teens, this volume shows that as 'the pictures got small' and film stars were experienced via streaming services and social media as much if not more than on cinema screens—and as the death of cinema was proclaimed again and again—stardom enlarged to include more diverse actors who could speak to both niche and global audiences in well-crafted actorly performances in films ranging from small independent features to global blockbusters." -- Pamela Robertson Wojcik * co-editor of Media Crossroads: Intersections of Space and Identity in Screen Cultures *“This is a brilliant collection featuring important performances during the 2010s, a decade marked by the emergence of an astounding number of ambiguously gendered and varied characters and performances. With readable, insightful analysis this volume strikes a balance between readability and in-depth analysis of celebrity, stardom and performance. A pleasure to read, this work is bound to attract both scholars and students who are fascinated with celebrity culture and its connection to the mysterious processes of embodiment and acting.” -- Rebecca Bell-Metereau * author of Transgender Cinema *"This illuminating volume examines a diverse selection of contemporary stars with varied career paths and personas, exploring how stardom is constructed, negotiated, and maintained in a rapidly changing industry." -- David R. Coon * author of Turning the Page: Storytelling as Activism in Queer Film and Media *"Taking up stardom in the tumultuous teens, this volume shows that as 'the pictures got small' and film stars were experienced via streaming services and social media as much if not more than on cinema screens—and as the death of cinema was proclaimed again and again—stardom enlarged to include more diverse actors who could speak to both niche and global audiences in well-crafted actorly performances in films ranging from small independent features to global blockbusters." -- Pamela Robertson Wojcik * co-editor of Media Crossroads: Intersections of Space and Identity in Screen Cultures *“This is a brilliant collection featuring important performances during the 2010s, a decade marked by the emergence of an astounding number of ambiguously gendered and varied characters and performances. With readable, insightful analysis this volume strikes a balance between readability and in-depth analysis of celebrity, stardom and performance. A pleasure to read, this work is bound to attract both scholars and students who are fascinated with celebrity culture and its connection to the mysterious processes of embodiment and acting.” -- Rebecca Bell-Metereau * author of Transgender Cinema *"This illuminating volume examines a diverse selection of contemporary stars with varied career paths and personas, exploring how stardom is constructed, negotiated, and maintained in a rapidly changing industry." -- David R. Coon * author of Turning the Page: Storytelling as Activism in Queer Film and Media *Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments Introduction: Stardom in the 2010s Steven Rybin Chapter 1: Joaquin Phoenix: Ascendant Brenda Austin-Smith Chapter 2: Amy Adams and Emma Stone: Leaving the Ingénue Behind Karen Hollinger Chapter 3: Oscar Isaac: Melancholy By Degrees Rick Warner Chapter 4: Armie Hammer: The Elusive Appeal of a New Star David Greven Chapter 5: The Multiple Trajectories of Transnational Hollywood Stars: Marion Cotillard, Kristen Stewart, Diane Kruger Celestino Deleyto Chapter 6: Tilda Swinton: From Avant-Garde Androgyne to The Avengers Jennifer O’Meara Chapter 7: Tyler Perry: Madea Goes to Hollywood Danielle E. Williams Chapter 8: Jessica Chastain and Michelle Williams: Open Windows Daniel Varndell Chapter 9: The Predicaments of Queer Stardom: Ben Wishaw, Ezra Miller, Zachary Quinto Kyle Stevens Chapter 10: Timothée Chalamet: Refashioning Hollywood Masculinity Matt Connolly Chapter 11: Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan: Twenty-First Century Stars Cynthia Baron Chapter 12: Natalie Portman: Smart Star Steven Rybin In the Wings Works Cited Contributors Index
£55.25
Rutgers University Press Women and New Hollywood: Gender, Creative Labor,
Book SynopsisThe 1970s has often been hailed as a great moment for American film, as a generation of “New Hollywood” directors like Scorsese, Coppola, and Altman offered idiosyncratic visions of what movies could be. Yet the auteurist discourse hailing these directors as the sole authors of their films has obscured the important creative roles women played in the 1970s American film industry. Women and New Hollywood revises our understanding of this important era in American film by examining the contributions that women made not only as directors, but also as screenwriters, editors, actors, producers, and critics. Including essays on film history, film texts, and the decade’s film theory and criticism, this collection showcases the rich and varied cinematic products of women’s creative labor, as well as the considerable barriers they faced. It considers both women working within and beyond the Hollywood film industry, reconceptualizing New Hollywood by bringing it into dialogue with other American cinemas of the 1970s. By valuing the many forms of creative labor involved in film production, this collection offers exciting alternatives to the auteurist model and new ways of appreciating the themes and aesthetics of 1970s American film. Trade Review"Women and New Hollywood provides the much-needed and long-awaited intervention on 1970s American movie industry mythologies, paying tribute to those whose talents, contributions, and perseverance were until now un(der)appreciated and, in so doing, modeling feminist media historiography at its finest."— Maria San Filippo, author of Provocauteurs and Provocations: Screening Sex in 21st Century Media "This ambitious and impressive edited collection, with contributions from some of the field’s most exciting scholars, is a much-needed feminist intervention into scholarship around the so-called 1970s Hollywood Renaissance. The essays place the women creators and collaborators—and vitally, their labor—back to the center of discussion where they belong. A stimulating and provocative read."— Julie Turnock, author of The Empire of Effects: Industrial Light and Magic and the Rendering of Realism "A major disruption of conventional narratives about New Hollywood in the 1970s, this collection demonstrates how essential women were to all levels of filmmaking and film culture during a period of fundamental transformation and transition."— Shelley Stamp, author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood and Movie-Struck GirlsTable of ContentsIntroduction AARON HUNTER AND MARTHA SHEARER Part I History 1 The Rothman Renaissance, or the Politics of Archival (Re)Discovery ALICIA KOZMA 2 Watering the Grapevine: Jessie Maple, Self-Narration, and the Trajectory of a Career in Community NICHOLAS FORSTER 3 “It Was a Little Late in the Day for All That Prissy Business”: The New Hollywood Career of Jay Presson Allen OLIVER GRUNER 4 “We Knew and She Knew That She Was Barbra”: Streisand in the 1970s NICHOLAS GODFREY 5 I Know Why: Maya Angelou and the Promise of 1970s Hollywood MAYA MONTAÑEZ SMUKLER Part II Text 6 Women Editors in New Hollywood: Cutting Down on the Raging Bullshit KAREN PEARLMAN 7 Elaine May’s Awkward Age JAMES MORRISON 8 “She’s a Professional, Now”: Girlfriends, Creative Labor, and the Challenge of Feminist Professionalization ABIGAIL CHEEVER 9 A Different Image: Studies in Contrasts by Women Filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion VIRGINIA BONNER 10 Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970): A Radically Negative Feminist Aesthetic ANNA BACKMAN ROGERS Part III Theory and Criticism 11 Genealogies of a Decade: Classifying and Historicizing Women of the New Hollywood AMELIE HASTIE 12 “Women’s-Movement Anger”: Pauline Kael and New Hollywood ADRIAN GARVEY 13 Feminism, Auteurism, and the 1970s, in Theory MARIA PRAMAGGIORE Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index
£25.19
Rutgers University Press Artificial Generation: Photogenic French
Book SynopsisArtificial Generation: Photogenic French Literature and the Prehistory of Cinematic Modernity investigates the intersection of film theory and nineteenth-century literature, arguing that the depth of amalgamation that occurred within literary representation during this era aims to replicate an illusion of life and its sensations, in ways directly related to broader transitions into our modern cinematic age. A key part of this evolution in representation relies on the continual re-emergence of the artificial woman as longstanding expression of masculine artistic subjectivity, which, by the later nineteenth century, becomes a photographic and filmic drive. Moving through the beginning of film history, from Georges Méliès and other “silent” filmmakers in the 1890s, into more contemporary movies, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), the book analyzes how films are often structured around the prior century’s mythic and literary principles, which now serve as foundation for film as medium—a phantom form for life’s re-presentation. Artificial Generation provides a crucial reassessment of the longstanding, mutual exchange between cinematic and literary reproduction, offering an innovative perspective on the proto-cinematic imperative of simulation within nineteenth-century literary symbolism. Trade Review“From a 'photogenic literary imperative' in 19th century literature through early cinema to Hitchcock’s Vertigo and on to contemporary cinematic fantasies of replication as translated in Blade Runner: 2049’s stunning digital effects, this thoroughly engrossing book demonstrates the persistence and the force of the artificial woman, and the male fantasies of reproductive power it grounds, across a formidable array of texts—from literature to photography to film—in an intermedial history of aesthetic 'generation.'” -- Sharon Willis * author of High Contrast: Race and Gender in Popular Film *“From a 'photogenic literary imperative' in 19th century literature through early cinema to Hitchcock’s Vertigo and on to contemporary cinematic fantasies of replication as translated in Blade Runner: 2049’s stunning digital effects, this thoroughly engrossing book demonstrates the persistence and the force of the artificial woman, and the male fantasies of reproductive power it grounds, across a formidable array of texts—from literature to photography to film—in an intermedial history of aesthetic 'generation.'” -- Sharon Willis * author of High Contrast: Race and Gender in Popular Film *"In Artificial Generation Christina Parker-Flynn skillfully explores the obsession with the artificial woman in nineteenth-century literature and early film. In close dialogue with film theory, she shows how the literary interest in female automatons, statues, and mummies in works by Gautier, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, and Wilde is replicated and reinterpreted in early cinema. With its cross-aesthetic perspective, Parker Flynn’s discussion advances our understanding of how various art forms grappled with questions regarding life, animation and generation. Artificial Generation uncovers a rich aesthetic tradition and deftly demonstrates its relevance for contemporary culture." -- Marit Grøtta * author of Baudelaire's Media Aesthetics *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction: Modernity’s Reori-gene-ation Part I Literary Simulations 1 The Literary Afterlife: Théophile Gautier’s Aesthetic of Resurrection 2 Book of Genesis: The Villi-fication of Woman in L’Ève future 3 Salomania: The Unnatural Order of (Beautiful) Things in Oscar Wilde’s Salomé Part II Cinematic Replications 4 Statuesque Cinema: Adapting Literature, Animating Film 5 See-Through Woman: Reproductive Delusions in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo Epilogue: Still Mother—Adapting to Life in Blade Runner 2049 Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£107.20
