Film history, theory or criticism Books

Book SynopsisBarbara Hammer (b. 1939) is an American feminist artist known as a pioneer of queer experimental and documentary film. In October 2017, Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art will present a comprehensive solo exhibition to celebrate the depth and expa nse of Hammer’s five decades of art making. Bringing together both known and previously unseen works of film and video, installations, works on paper, and material from her archive, the exhibition addresses critical themes that appear in Hammer’s work, inc luding: lesbian representation, subjectivity, and sexuality; intimacy and sensation; and conditions and maintenance of life and illness. This exhibition highlights the resonating impact of Hammer’s artistic narrative and material experimentation across dis ciplines within queer art history. Additionally, as part of this exhibition, we are putting together a publication that will touch on different aspects of Hammer’s body of wor k and practice. The material included will look at her work in relationship to experimental queer cinema; lesbian sexuality and lesbian feminist history; hapticity and wildness; viruses, medicine, and environment; to name a few. We desire for the book to f eature a wide range of responses, from academic analysis to poetic interpretation, sprinkled with personal and artistic anecdotes. More of a hybrid monograph and catalogue raisonne, we are very excited that this book will be the first of its kind that cele brates five decades of Hammer's work.

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Book SynopsisSAVE THE DATE BOOK LAUNCH, NOVEMBER 9 at 20h00, PASSA PORTA BOOKSHOP, BRUSSELSThe first introduction of the seminal writings of a key Belgian writer and critic to an English-speaking audience.Radically subjective. Radically unapologetic. Radically demanding. These are the hallmarks of Dirk Lauwaert’s skill, attitude, and sensitivity, which are the result of radical attention.Belgian writer and critic Dirk Lauwaert (1944–2013) wrote about images, be they moving or still, historical or contemporary, overfamiliar or unseen. He experienced them intensely, studied them attentively, and connected them to ethical, philosophical, or social issues in texts that invited readers to do the same, whether they were leaving the movie theater, browsing a photo book, or visiting an exhibition.This selection presents the depth and scope of Lauwaert’s immense output through 15 key texts in which the Belgian author unfolds his central ideas and motifs, displaying his kaleidoscopic thinking and essayistic ability. The texts span 25 years – from 1983 to 2008 – and were originally published in various contexts over the course of three decades.Table of ContentsNote Acknowledgements A Culture of Showing. Firm Elegance in the Writing of Dirk Lauwaert by Herman Asselberghs NotesI Contemporary Sophistry and the Poor Experience Reports from a Classroom Critique of Enthusiasm. Culture, or the Event; The Accompanying Word: PassionII Barthes, the Perfect Bourgeois Portrait of a Role: the Intellectual The Sovereign Dandy The Rhythm of ThinkingIII Mise-en-Scène: The Most Beautiful Word about Film The Classic Film Body Seam and Pattern: Thinking Forms Dreaming of an ExpeditionIV Public/Publication/Publishing/Publicity The Blurred Photograph: An Old Debate The Image That Yields Up Everything (Because It Has Seen Nothing)V Moving HouseNotes

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Book SynopsisFor generations, members of the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood needed to be discreet about their lives but—make no mistake—they were everywhere, both in front of and behind the camera. On the eve of the twentieth century, in Thomas Edison’s laboratory, one of the earliest attempts at a sound film depicted two men dancing together as a third plays the violin. It’s only a few minutes long, but this cornerstone of early cinema captured a queer moment on film. It would not be the last. With Hollywood Pride, renowned film critic Alonso Duralde presents a history spanning from the dawn of cinema through the “pansy craze” of the 1930s and the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s, all the way up to today. He showcases the hard-working actors, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, art directors, and choreographers whose achievements defined the American film industry and charts the evolution of LGBTQ+ storytelling itself—the way mainstream Hollywood decided it would portray (or erase) their lives and the narratives created by queer filmmakers who fought to tell those stories themselves. Along the way, readers will encounter a fascinating cast of characters, such as the first generation of queer actors, including J. Warren Kerrigan, Ramon Novarro, and William Haines. Early cinema pioneers like Alla Nazimova and F. W. Murnau helped shape the new medium of moving pictures. The sex symbols, both male (Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, and Anthony Perkins) and female (Lizabeth Scott and Greta Garbo), lived under the threat of their private lives undermining their public personas. Underground filmmakers Kenneth Anger and John Waters made huge strides in LGBTQ+ representation with their off-off-Hollywood productions in the 1960s and ’70s. These screen legends paved the way for every openly queer figure in Hollywood today. Illustrated with more than 175 full-color and black-and-white images, Hollywood Pride points to the bright future of LGBTQ+ representation in cinema by revealing the story of the community’s inclusion and erasure, its visibility and invisibility, and its triumphs and tragedies.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“An entertaining and informative look at the troubled gestation of a film of both artistic and social significance.” —Kirkus Reviews“Kirk Douglas is many things . . . But he is, first and foremost, a man of extraordinary character. The kind that’s formed when the stakes are high. The kind we always look for at our darkest hour.” —George Clooney"A glorious book . . . Kirk Douglas is a wonderful writer and a courageous one, which should surprise no one. Courage has been his battle cry all his life." —Steven Spielberg"The making of I Am Spartacus! is a remarkable story told with the wit and charm of a great entertainer. Kirk Douglas revisits the complex political and social context surrounding the production of a cinema classic." —Henry Kissinger"Hugely entertaining." —Liz Smith, Chicago Tribune"I Am Spartacus! is a great read." —Bill O'Reilly"Kirk Douglas is a lion." —Bill Maher"A lively new memoir about one of [Douglas'] greatest triumphs." —Los Angeles Times"Carries the power of a self-made man who continues to meet life on his own terms but with grace and aplomb." —Associated Press

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Book SynopsisIn the decades following his death, many of those who knew James Dean best––actors, directors, friends, lovers (both men and women), photographers, and Hollywood columnists––shared stories of their first-person experiences with him in interviews and in the articles and autobiographies they wrote. Their recollections of Dean became lost in fragile back issues of movie magazines and newspapers and in out-of-print books that are extremely hard to find. Until now. The Real James Dean is the first book of its kind: a rich collection spanning six decades of writing in which many of the people whose lives were touched by Dean recall their indelible experiences with him in their own words. Here are the memorable personal accounts of Dean from his high school and college drama teachers; the girl he almost married; costars like Rock Hudson, Natalie Wood, Jim Backus, and Raymond Massey; directors Elia Kazan, Nicholas Ray, and George Stevens; entertainer Eartha Kitt; gossip queen Hedda Hopper; the passenger who accompanied Dean on his final, fatal road trip; and a host of his other friends and colleagues.Trade Review"A fascinating compendium..." Library Journal"Editor Peter L. Winkler provides cogent commentary on the validity of the various stories presented here." Edge Media Network"A rich and remarkably well-done anthology." The National Book Review" The Real James Dean by Peter L. Winkler is a fascinating read with each essay offering a unique reflection from one of Dean's contemporaries. It's much more approachable than a full in-depth biography." Out of the Past"The book reveals an individual of complexity, admired by some and despised by others, but always fascinating. It's a must read for anyone interested in James Dean and Hollywood." Twenty Four Frames"[A] corrective to fans, and crazies, who have done so much to keep Dean's flame alive and shape his image since he died." Critics at Large"[T]he most balanced and courageous portrait of Dean we've seen." Classic Movie Chat

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Book SynopsisIn many ways, Kamal Haasan is unique. One of the greatest actors India has ever produced, he has usually gone further than just enacting a role to completely immersing himself in it. Kamal Haasan: A Cinematic Journey explores some fifty films out of the 245 Haasan has been associated with and analyses his cinematic journey from his beginnings as a child star all the way to his latest blockbusters. It traces how, even at a young age, he took on roles other actors would be wary of, positioning himself as an object of female desire in the 1980s; balancing both comedy and tragedy with aplomb; playing formerly caricatured roles such as that of a dwarf in Apoorva Sagodharargal and a woman in Chachi 420 with dignity; and having a resurgence in 2022 with the blockbuster Vikram.

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Book SynopsisKristen Lopez is a pop-culture essayist, critic, and editor whose articles have been featured by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, MTV, TCM, and RogerEbert.com. She was previously the Film Editor for TheWrap and the TV Editor for IndieWire, where she was nominated for a SoCal Journalism Award and National Journalism Award by the LA Press Club. She is the author of But Have You Read the Book?: 52 Literary Gems that Inspired Our Favorite Films and the creator of the classic film podcast Ticklish Business.

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Book SynopsisThe Book of Horrorintroduces the reader to the scariest movies ever made and examines the factors that make them so frightening.

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Book SynopsisSpirited Away, directed by the veteran anime film-maker Hayao Miyazaki, is Japan's most successful film, and one of the top-grossing 'foreign language' films ever released. Set in modern Japan, the film is a wildly imaginative fantasy, at once personal and universal. It tells the story of a listless little girl, Chihiro, who stumbles into a magical world where gods relax in a palatial bathhouse, where there are giant babies and hard-working soot sprites, and where a train runs across the sea. Andrew Osmond's insightful study describes how Miyazaki directed Spirited Away with a degree of creative control undreamt of in most popular cinema, using the film's delightful, freewheeling visual ideas to explore issues ranging from personal agency and responsibility to what Miyazaki sees as the lamentable state of modern Japan. Osmond unpacks the film's visual language, which many Western (and some Japanese) audiences find both beautiful and bewildering. He traces connections between Spirited Away and Miyazaki's prior body of work, arguing that Spirited Away uses the cartoon medium to create a compellingly immersive drawn world. This edition includes a new foreword by the author in which he considers the world of animated cinema post-Spirited Away, considering its influence on films ranging from del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth to Pixar's Inside Out.Trade ReviewThe kind of poetic, insightful examination that Spirited Away deserves. -- Ain't It Cool NewsOsmond has done a fine job of conveying the sometimes complex traits of the film that have confused many Western (and Japanese) audiences since the film debuted in 2001 ... overall, the book is a definite must-read companion to the film. It does an excellent job of stripping away some of the layers and, at least for myself, has lead to a clearer understanding of the film. -- The Animation Anomaly (on the first edition)Persuasively and fluidly written. -- Time Out LondonTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Foreword to the 2020 edition 1. Being Spirited Away 2. On the Train 3. Background 4. The Origins of Spirited Away 5. Into the Woods: The Journey Begins 6. In the Bathhouse 7. Adventures in Wonderland 8. Conclusion Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisSpike Lee's Do The Right Thing (1989) is one of the most popular and celebrated examples of the African-American new black film wave. Set during the hottest day of a hot summer in New York City, the film's ensemble cast, including Lee himself, brilliantly play out the edgy negotiations and dramas of a racially and culturally diverse working-class Brooklyn neighborhood. Contrary to Hollywood's markedly cautious treatment of 'race' and its confinement to the South and the past, Do The Right Thing offers a nuanced portrayal of black urban life.From hip-hop fashions, Afrocentric colors and rap music, to police brutality, gentrification, non-white immigration, de-industrialization and joblessness, Do The Right Thing depicts it all, from a contemporary, African-American point of view. In his insightful study of the film, Ed Guerrero discusses how it epitomizes Spike Lee's powerful impact on the representation of race and difference in America, the progress of black film-making and the rise of multicultural voices in the media. This new edition includes a foreword by the author reflecting on Lee's subsequent film-making career and on an America in which African-Americans still contend with racial discrimination and police brutality. Guerrero emphasizes Lee's especially timely understanding of black film-making as a complex act, mixing the skills of art, politics, and business in order to fashion a creative practice that confronts institutional discrimination and power relations head on.Trade ReviewThis timely and concise exploration of Do the Right Thing is essential for any study of American cinema and its discontents. -- Isaac JulienThis is a rich and energetic exploration of a a Spike Lee ‘Classic’. Guerrero is to be congratulated on a triumphant tour of the inner world of Spike Lee’s film-making. -- Houston A. Baker, Jr., Distinguished University Professor (English and African American Diaspora Studies), Vanderbilt University, USA

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Book SynopsisThe Big Sleep: Marlowe and Vivian practising kissing; General Sternwood shivering in a hothouse full of orchids; a screenplay, co-written by Faulkner, famously mysterious and difficult to solve. Released in 1946, Howard Hawks' adaptation of Raymond Chandler reunited Bogart and Bacall and gave them two of their most famous roles. The mercurial but ever-manipulative Hawks dredged humour and happiness out of film noir. 'Give him a story about more murders than anyone can keep up with, or explain,' David Thomson writes in his compelling study of the film, 'and somehow he made a paradise.' When it was first shown to a military audience The Big Sleep was coldly received. So, as Thomson reveals, Hawks shot extra scenes, 'fun' scenes, to replace one in which the film's murders had been explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved. Thomson argues that, if this was accidental, it also signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema: 'The Big Sleep inaugurates a post-modern, camp, satirical view of movies being about other movies that extends to the New Wave and Pulp Fiction.'Table of ContentsForeword to the 2020 Edition Acknowledgements The Big Sleep Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAmy Sargeant's compelling and meticulous study of Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963) sets the film in the context of a long tradition of fictional depictions of the master-servant relationship, from Shakespeare to Cervantes, Henry James, Dorothy L. Sayers and P.G. Wodehouse. Sargeant points out that while many of these relationships are played for comic effect, that of the 'young master' Tony (James Fox) and his manservant Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) unfolds in a far more sinister manner, with Barrett coming to dominate and humiliate the hapless Tony. Sargeant's reading pays particular attention to the contribution not only of Losey and Harold Pinter, who adapted the screenplay from Robin Maugham's novella, but also of the cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, designer Richard Macdonald and costume designer Beatrice 'Bumble' Dawson. She analyses the performances of Sarah Miles as Barrett's lover Vera and Wendy Craig as Tony's fiancee Susan, as well as those of Fox and Bogarde, and gives careful consideration to how the film uses architectural form, interior design and decoration, and clothing to establish character and relationships. In the context of the collapse of the British Empire, and a beleaguered Establishment beset by spy and sex scandals, the film can be read, Sargeant argues, as a metaphor for the 'state of the nation' in the early 1960s. Finally, Sargeant considers the film's critical and commercial reception in Britain, Europe and the United States - its release, how it was received as one of a number of 'emigre' films, and Losey's surprising denial of a homoerotic intent in the Tony-Barrett relationship. In her new foreword to this edition, Amy Sargeant considers contemporary resonances of the film's depiction of a twisted master-servant relationship in recent TV and cinema including The Crown, Downton Abbey and The Trial of Christine Keeler.Table of ContentsForeword to the 2020 Edition Acknowledgements Plot Synopsis 1. Losey and Pinter 2. The House 3. Post-production: The Film in Other Houses - Cinema and Beyond Conclusion: Pushing on an Open Door? Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisGeorge A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is a cult classic that has resonated with audiences and independent filmmakers ever since its release in 1968. It redefined horror cinema and launched the modern zombie genre that continues with films and series like 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead and The Walking Dead. Ben Hervey’s illuminating study of the movie traces Night’s influences, from Powell and Pressburger to fifties horror comics, and provides the first history of its reception. Hervey argues that the film broke cultural barriers, fêted at New York's Museum of Modern Art while it was still packing 42nd Street grindhouses. Scene-by-scene analysis meshes with detailed historical contexts, showing why Night was a new kind of horror film: the expression of a generation who didn't want their world to return to normal.Trade ReviewBen Hervey makes an excellent fist of uniting all the tales of George A. Romero's genre-defining debut. * Empire *Within its short confine of pages ... manages to give the film's production history, narrative, reception, influences, and moral and political implications in an easy, flowing style free of jargon, and, though brief, is an essential newcomer to any horror fan or Romero buff's library. -- D.K. Holm * The Vancouver Herald *Night of the Living Dead is another worthy additon to the bookshelf. * Filmwerk *This particular volume of the 'BFI Film Classics' series is illuminating and educational. Anyone with an interest in horror films generally will find it fascinating and students of social history will find the analyses contained stimulating and informative...Highly recommended. -- Neale Monks * Crowsnest *Hervey’s text is worth reading by any fan… [and] any cinephile should have it on their shelves. * Sublime Horror *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Night of the Living Dead Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisJames Naremore's study of Max Ophuls' classic 1948 melodrama, Letter from an Unknown Woman, not only pays tribute to Ophuls but also discusses the backgrounds and typical styles of the film’s many contributors--among them Viennese author Stephan Zweig, whose 1922 novella was the source of the picture; producer John Houseman, an ally of Ophuls who nevertheless made questionable changes to what Ophuls had shot; screenwriter Howard Koch; music composer Daniéle Amfitheatrof; designers Alexander Golitzen and Travis Banton; and leading actors Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan, whose performances were central to the film’s emotional effect. Naremore also traces the film's reception history, from its middling box office success and mixed early reviews, exploring why it has been a work of exceptional interest to subsequent generations of both aesthetic critics and feminist theorists. Lastly, Naremore provides an in-depth critical appreciation of the film, offering nuanced appreciation of specific details of mise-en-scene, camera movement, design, sound, and performances, integrating this close analyses into an overarching analysis of Letter’s “recognition plot;” a trope in which the recognition of a character’s identity creates dramatic intensity or crisis. Naremore argues that Letter's use of recognition is one of the most powerful in Hollywood cinema, and contrasts it with what we find in Zweig's novella.Trade ReviewJames Naremore’s BFI Classic… [is] guaranteed a rewatch off the back of this succinct breakdown of its novella roots, feminist-theory legacy and ‘wheels within wheels’ aesthetic. * Total Film *[A] fine addition to the BFI Film Classics series … Naremore, an expert in adaptation and film noir, is well placed to capture the various elements that elevate this film beyond the stock conventions of Hollywood. -- Keith Hopper * Times Literary Supplement *James Naremore’s style and insights are as elegant as a Max Ophuls tracking shot. In this generous, nuanced, and impeccable work, a perfect film has found the ideal film scholar. -- Eric Smoodin, Professor, American Studies, UC Davis, USAWith a balanced approach and lucid prose, James Naremore does more than any other writer on Letter From an Unknown Woman to situate the film historically, technically, and aesthetically, in this way accounting for its intellectual and emotional importance to a broad range of critics and viewers -- Susan White, Professor, Film and Comparative Literature, University of Arizona, USATable of Contents1. Acknowledgements 2. Introduction 3. Production 4. Reception 5. Critical Appreciation 6. Notes 7. Credits 8. Bibliography

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Book Synopsis“Lucid, lively and extremely knowledgeable.” Sight & Sound Catherine Fowler’s study positions Jeanne Dielman as a ‘contrary’ classic, its contrariness arising from director Chantal Akerman’s decision to frame an unliberated housewife through a kind of ‘slow looking’. By choosing to stay with Jeanne in the kitchen, the film both ‘differences’ the canon and diverges from Akerman’s liberated early films, which involved the rejection of domestic space, married life and the heterosexual script. Fowler draws on original footage, scripts, unmade and unseen projects, interviews and other documents to painstakingly piece together the making of the film, discovering an alternative origin story which centers upon female alliances, forged through a combination of shared film culture and lived sexism. Those viewers who take up Akerman’s invitation to spend time with Jeanne will find their expectations of cinema are changed. Because more than any other film before or since, it reminds us that we give our time to a film; and in making us look both harder and for longer it asks us to feel time slipping away, for ourselves as much as for its protagonist.Trade ReviewLucid, lively and extremely knowledgeable. -- Hannah McGill * Sight & Sound *Another must for the feminist bookshelf. Unprecedented and long-awaited, this detailed, comprehensive analysis of this first film “in the feminine” will, like the film itself, offer hours of endless contemplation and fascination. -- Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, Author of To Desire Differently: Feminism and the French CinemaCatherine Fowler’s intricate and compassionate reading of Jeanne Dielman’s feminist poetics, politics and aesthetics is a very welcome addition to the BFI Classics series. Long considered a cardinal work of art with regard to the feminist filmmaking canon, I am delighted to see this entirely unique and subversive film finally getting the attention it deserves from this series. This book will be a vital resource to feminist film scholars and students as well as film enthusiasts. It contains extensive historical and contextual detail that serves to re-position Dielman as a film brought into being through feminist collaboration and alliance. Fowler attends carefully to Seyrig’s astonishing gestural performance and the precise mechanics of Akerman’s use of space and time to build a profound and generous reading of this much-loved film. Highly recommended. -- Anna Backman Rogers. University of Gothenburg, SwedenTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. On Canons, Classics, Plots and Movie Theatres: A Challenge 2. The Making of Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 3. Choosing NO Liberation: The Housewife, Feminism and the Women’s Movement 4. Delphine Does the Dishes 5. Slow Looking Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisFritz Lang's 'M' (1931) is an undisputed classic of world cinema. Lang considered it his most lasting work. Peter Lorre's extraordinary performance as the childlike misfit Hans Beckert was one of the most striking of film debuts, and it made him an international star. Lang's vision of a city gripped with fear, haunted by surveillance and total mobillization, is still remarkably powerful today. And 'M' resonates too in the serial-killer genre which is so prominent in contemporary cinema. 'M' speaks to us as a timeless classic, but also as a Weimar film that has too often been isolated from its political and cultural context. In this groundbreaking book, Anton Kaes reconnects 'M''s much-studied formal brilliance to its significance as an event in 1931 Germany, recapturing the film's extraordinary social and symbolic energy. Interweaving close reading with cultural history, Kaes reconstitutes 'M' as a crucial modernist artwork. In addition he analyzes Joseph Losey's 1951 film noir remake and, in an appendix, publishes for the first time 'M''s missing scene.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Foreword to the 2021 Edition Introduction 1. Berlin, 1931 2. Serial Murder, Serial Culture 3. Total Mobilisation 4. Before the Law 5. Los Angeles, 1951 Appendix: The Missing Scene Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisMean Streets was Martin Scorsese’s third feature film, and the one that confirmed him as a major new talent. On its premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1973, the critic Pauline Kael hailed the film as ‘a true original of our period, a triumph of personal film-making’. The tale of combative friends and small-time crooks is set amid the bars, pool halls, tenements and streets of Manhattan’s Little Italy. Scorsese has said of his childhood neighbourhood, ‘its very texture was interwoven with organised crime’, and this quality would dramatically inform the tone and restless energy of his seminal film. Demetrios Matheou’s insightful study considers Mean Streets’ production history in the context of the New Hollywood period of American cinema, noting also the key roles played by John Cassavetes and Roger Corman. He analyses the importance of Scorsese’s background to the film’s characters and themes, including preoccupations with guilt, redemption and criminal subcultures; the development of the director’s film-making process and signature style; the way in which he both drew upon and invigorated the crime genre; his relationship with emerging stars Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel, and the film’s reception and legacy. Matheou argues that while Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980) are regarded as Scorsese’s greatest films of the period, Mean Streets is the more influential achievement. With it, Scorsese not only paved the way for a new kind of crime movie, not least his own GoodFellas (1990), but also inspired generations of independently-minded film-makers.Table of ContentsIntroduction “Twenty dollars! Let's go to the movies!” “I was raised with them, the gangsters and the priests” “Down these mean streets a man must go” Home Movies “You don’t make up for your sins in the church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit” “No. No, Joey Scallops is Joey Clams” “Mook? I'm a mook?” Godfathers and girlfriends Streets, rooftops and cemeteries The man in the back of the car “They’re not even killed. It’s worse” Bobby and Harvey Film release, short and long-term significance Conclusion Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAn extra-terrestrial alien, capable of replicating any living form it touches, infiltrates an isolated research base in the Antarctic, and sows suspicion and terror among the men trapped there. Which of them is still human, and which a perfect alien facsimile? John Carpenter’s The Thing, the second adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There?, received overwhelmingly negative reviews on its release in 1982, but has since been acknowledged as a classic fusion of the science fiction and horror genres. Now a regular fixture in lists of the greatest movies of all time, it is acclaimed for its inspired and still shocking practical special effects, its deftly sketched characters brought to life by a superb cast, elegant widescreen cinematography, ominous score, and a uniquely tense narrative packed with appropriately ever-changing metaphors about the human condition. Anne Billson’s elegant and trenchant study, first published in 1997, was one of the first publications to give the film its due as a modern classic, hailing it as a landmark movie that brilliantly redefined horror and science fiction conventions, and combined them with sly humour, Lewis Carroll logic and disturbingly prescient metaphors for many of the sociopolitical, scientific and medical upheavals of the past three decades. In her foreword to this new edition, Anne Billson reflects upon The Thing's changing fortunes in the years since its release, its influence on film-makers including Tarantino and del Toro, and its topicality in an era of melting ice caps and with humanity besieged by a deadly organism.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Back story 2. The set-up 3. The legend 4. 'I don't know what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off.' 5. First blood 6. Breaking the rules 7. 'You've got to be fucking kidding' 8. Endgame Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisReleased in 1990, The Silence of the Lambs is one of the defining films of late twentieth century American cinema. Adapted from the Thomas Harris novel and directed by the late Jonathan Demme, its central characters are now iconic. Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee investigating ‘Buffalo Bill’, a serial killer who flays his victims. Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer and former psychiatrist who assists Starling in exchange for personal details. With its pairing of a perverse, invasive anti-hero and a questing, proto-action heroine, The Silence of the Lambs unfolds as a layered narrative of pursuit. In this study, Yvonne Tasker explores the film’s weaving together of gothic, horror and thriller elements in its portrayal of insanity and crime, drawing out the centrality of ideas about gender to the storytelling. She identifies the film as a key genre reference point for tracking late twentieth century interests in police procedural, profiling and serial murder, analysing its key themes of reason and madness, identity and belonging, aspiration and transformation. A new afterword explores the legacies of The Silence of the Lambs and its figuring of crime and investigation in terms of gender disruption and spectacular violence.Table of ContentsDedication Acknowledgments 1. Birds, Lambs and Butterflies 2. The Sum and the Parts: Horror, Crime and the Woman’s Picture 3. Detection and Deduction 4. The Female Gothic 5. Under the Skin 6. Afterword to the 2021 Edition Credits

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Book SynopsisIn Seven Samurai (1954) a whole society is on the verge of irrevocable change. Akira Kurosawa’s celebrated film, regarded by many to be the major achievement of Japanese cinema, is an epic that evokes the cultural upheaval brought on by the collapse of Japanese militarism in the 16th century, but at the same time echoes also the sweeping cultural changes occurring in the aftermath of the American Occupation that followed Japan's defeat in the Second World War. The plot is deceptively simple. A village of farmers is beleaguered by a horde of bandits. In desperation, the farmers decide to hire itinerant samurai to protect their crops and people and defeat the bandits. There had never been a Japanese film in which peasants hired samurai, or an evocation of the social transformation that made such an idea credible. There are six samurai and one who is accepted as such. Together they reflect the ideals and values of a noble class near the point of extinction. Seven Samurai may be the greatest action film, a technical masterpiece unmatched in its depiction of movement and violence, but running beneath the sound and fury is a lament for a lost nobility, ‘a dirge for the spirit of Japan,’ writes Joan Mellen, ‘which will never again be so strong.’ Mellen's study contextualises Seven Samurai, marking its place in Japanese cinema and in Kurosawa’s film-making career. She explores the film’s roots in medieval history and, above all, the astonishing visual language in which Kurosawa created his elegiac epic.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Foreword to the 2022 Edition Seven Samurai Credits Biography

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Book SynopsisSofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) brings two Americans together in Tokyo, each experiencing a personal crisis. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a recent graduate in philosophy, faces an uncertain professional future, while Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an established celebrity, questions his choices at midlife. Both are distant — emotionally and spatially — from their spouses. They are lost until they develop an intimate connection. In the film’s poignant, famously ambiguous closing scene, they find each other, only to separate. In this close look at the multi-award-winning film, Suzanne Ferriss mirrors Lost in Translation’s structuring device of travel: her analysis takes the form of a trip, from planning to departure. She details the complexities of filming (a 27-day shoot with no permits in Tokyo), explores Coppola’s allusions to fine art, subtle colour palette and use of music over words, and examines the characters’ experiences of the Park Hyatt Tokyo and excursions outside, together and alone. She also re-evaluates the film in relation to Coppola’s other features, as the product of an established director with a distinctive cinematic signature: ‘Coppolism’. Fundamentally, Ferriss argues that Lost in Translation is not only a cinema classic, but classic Coppola too.Trade ReviewFerriss finds precision amid ambiguity in her acute study of Sofia Coppola's second feature. . . . Sharp on the movie-wise banter between Bob and Charlotte, she's equally sensitive to the film's unspoken, unresolved feelings: in Ferriss' reading, Lost unfolds like a pop song, its fragments charged with lingering feeling. * Total Film *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Trip Planning 2. Arrivals 3. Accommodations 4. Sights 5. Departures 6. Reception Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis study offers a fresh approach to the remarkable German film The Lives of Others (2006), known for its compelling representation of a Stasi surveillance officer and the moral and ethical turmoil that results when he begins spying on a playwright and his actress lover. Annie Ring analyses the film's cinematography, mise-en-scène and editing, tracing connections with Hollywood movies such as Casablanca and Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain in the film's portrayal of an individual rebelling against a brutal dehumanising regime. Drawing on archival sources, including primary research from the Stasi files themselves, as well as Enlightenment philosophies of art and Brecht’s theories on theatre dating from his GDR years, she explores the film's strong but much-disputed claims to historical authenticity. She examines the way the film tracks the world-changing political shift that took place at the end of the Cold War – away from the collective dreams of socialism and towards the dreams of the private individual, arguing that this is what makes it at once widely appealing and fascinatingly problematic. In doing so, she highlights why The Lives of Others is a crucial film for thinking at the horizon between film and recent world history.Trade ReviewA considered study of the 2006 Oscar-winner. -- James Mottram * Total Film *What makes a classic film? Annie Ring offers intriguing answers to this question in an accessible and engaging volume with breath-taking range and intriguing depth. From surveillance to melodrama and from Brecht to Hitchcock, she covers the myriad facets of a modern-day classic, The Lives of Others. -- Barbara Mennel, University of Florida, USAThis original and fascinating analysis makes a compelling case for including The Lives of Others in the canon of contemporary classic cinema. Anyone who has watched von Donnersmarck’s Stasi melodrama will profit from reading Annie Ring’s well-researched and accessible book. -- Daniela Berghahn, Royal Holloway, University of London, UKTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. A Contemporary Classic - and a Conservative One? 2. The Authenticity of a Very Hollywood Film Mode 3. Depicting the Stasi's Surveillance Regime 4. The Good Spy of East Berlin: Captain Gerd Weisler 5. Brecht, Performance, and the Politics of an Aesthetic Education 6. 'Sister Art Is/Coming on Stage': Christa- Maria Sieland 7. Success? Georg Dreyman and German Unification Conclusion Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisRosemary’s Baby is one of the greatest movies of the late 1960s and one of the best of all horror movies, an outstanding modern Gothic tale. An art-house fable and an elegant popular entertainment, it finds its home on the cusp between a cinema of sentiment and one of sensation. Michael Newton's study of the film traces its development at a time when Hollywood stood poised between the old world and the new, its dominance threatened by the rise of TV and cultural change, and the roles played variously by super producer Robert Evans, the film's producer William Castle, director Polanski and its stars including Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes. Newton’s close textual analysis explores the film's meanings and resonances, and, looking beyond the film itself, he examines its reception and cultural impact, and its afterlife, in which Rosemary's Baby has become linked with the terrible murder of Polanski's wife and unborn child by members of the Manson cult, and with controversies surrounding the director.Trade ReviewMichael Newton’s lavishly illustrated volume on Rosemary’s Baby. Roman Polanski’s masterpiece from that tempestuous year, 1968, is one of the best in the whole [BFI] series. * Film at 11 *Rigorous, nimbly placing Mia Farrow’s diabolical pregnancy within a landscape of ’70s paranoia and employing four pages of colour stills to unpick the film’s hallucinatory rape scene. * Total Film *[An] excellent study of the classic Sixties horror film. * CHOICE *Michael Newton’s book ... has been a major influence on more recent films. For such a small book, there is a lot packed in here, including lots of colour photos. * SFcrowsnet *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements An Initiation 1. The Pledge 2. The Turn 3. The Prestige Notes Credits Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFirst released in 1987, Near Dark is a vampire film set in the contemporary American Midwest that tells the story of Caleb, a half-vampire trying to decide whether to embrace his vampire nature or return to his human family. The film, an early work of the now-established director Kathryn Bigelow, skilfully mixes genre conventions, combining gothic tropes with those of the Western, road movie and film noir, while also introducing elements of the outlaw romance genre. Stacey Abbott’s study of the film addresses it as a genre hybrid that also challenges conventions of the vampire film. The vampires are morally ambiguous and undermine the class structures that have historically defined stories of the undead. These are not aristocrats but instead they capture the allure and horror of the disenfranchised and the underclass. As Abbott describes, Near Dark was crucial in consolidating Bigelow’s standing as a director of significance at an early point in her career, not simply because of her visual art background, but because of the way in which she would from Near Dark onward re-envision other traditionally mainstream genres of filmmaking.Trade ReviewNear Dark is long overdue a critical reappraisal. In this lucid, accessible and scrupulously-researched book Stacey Abbott makes a compelling case for the film's importance as pivotal to both the vampire genre and Katherine Bigelow's career. Abbott's analysis is perspicacious and always illuminating: I came away with a renewed sense of why I Ioved the film in the first place and a fresh understanding of its continuing transgressive potential. -- Catherine Spooner, Professor of Literature and Culture, Lancaster University, United Kingdom.’Stacey Abbott is pretty much the Night Queen of Vampire Studies by now, and brings the authority of decades of scholarship and the enthusiasm of the fan to bear in this punchy, readable and illuminating account of Kathryn Bigelow's cult hybrid vampire Western. A must-read!’ -- Roger Luckhurst, author of BFI Classics Alien and The ShiningTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1 ‘Just a Couple More Minutes of Your Time, About the Same Duration as the Rest of Your Life’: Making a Cult Vampire Film 2 ‘The Sun is On the Rise’: A New Gothic Aesthetic 3 ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’: Genre Hybridity and the Action Vampire 4 ‘No You’ve Never Met Another Girl Like Me’: The Sympathetic, Not-So-Reluctant Vampire 5 ‘Fun Times’: Disrupting Narrative Resolution and Resisting the Status Quo Notes Credits

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Book SynopsisOn the face of it, Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast (1989) is a film in which the eyes – and mouths – of religious zealots are opened to the glories of the sensual world. It is a critique of what Nietzsche called life-denying religion in favour of life-affirming sensuality. But to view the film in that way is to get it profoundly wrong. In his study of the film, Julian Baggini argues that Babette's Feast is not about the battle between religiosity and secularity but a deep examination of how the two can come together. Baggini's analysis focuses on themes of love, pleasure, artisty and grace, to provide a rich philosophical reading of this most sensual of films.Trade ReviewThe reader will be rewarded with ample food for thought. * Film at 11 *Digs in to every food-lover’s favourite film. This slender treat nourishes with every page — with never a hint of a recipe. * Financial Times *It will certainly offer food for thought. * Total Film *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Mortal Illusions 2. Love 3. Pleasure 4. The Artist 5. Grace Conclusion: Religion of the Immanent

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Book SynopsisThis groundbreaking book is an incisive and comprehensive analysis of Harun Farocki's oeuvre, shedding new light on his media experimentation and writings across platforms and venues.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Worlds of John Wick is a brilliant, wide-ranging, interdisciplinary, and theoretically savvy collection on one of the most compelling and successful phenomena of action cinema in recent years: the John Wick franchise. Using approaches ranging from the discussion of 'world-building' in the 'Wickverse,' to the films' striking use of games and play, and allusions to forms such as folklore and fairy tales, the contributors present a stellar case for (re-) engaging with these remarkable movies. The chapters offer groundbreaking readings referencing Frankfurt School 'Culture Industry,' gender performance and masculinity, and much more. Caitlin G. Watt and Stephen Watt are to be applauded for their bold, original, and exciting work."—Oliver Buckton, author of The World is Not Enough: A Biography of Ian Fleming, Florida Atlantic University"Especially because the John Wick franchise is largely viewed by the critical establishment as well-made, but fundamentally inconsequential, this volume is important in revealing the layers of meaning and significance."—James Kendrick, author of A Companion to the Action Film"This wide-ranging and thought-provoking collection of essays is essential reading. Its breadth and accessibility will appeal not only to fans of the John Wick franchise but also to anyone interested in film, gender studies, architecture, and popular culture as a whole."—David Schmid, Professor of English, University at Buffalo"The Worlds of John Wick explores the (first) three John Wick films. In fifteen richly referential essays, Caitlin and Stephen Watt and their contributors discuss the balletic fight choreography, allusive storytelling, underlying philosophies, folkloric roots, and more. An illuminating academic examination of one of the very best – and most popular – contemporary action film franchises."—Chris Holmlund, University of Tennessee, Knoxville"Through an inventive array of critical lenses, methodologies, and theoretical perspectives on gender, the body, and space and time, Watt and Watt's collection explicates the crucial importance of the John Wick franchise within contemporary action cinema, confirming its place alongside the enduring legacies of action cinema icons James Bond, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, and John Rambo."—Ian Kinane, editor of the International Journal of James Bond StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Worlds of John Wick, by Caitlin G. Watt and Stephen WattPart I: John Wick and Action Cinema1. Red Circle of Revenge: Anatomy of the Fight Sequence in John Wick, by Lisa Coulthard and Lindsay Steenberg2. Hidden in Plain Sight: Stunt-Craft Work in John Wick and the Networked Worlds of 87Eleven Action Design, by Lauren Steimer3. Killing in Equanimity: Theorizing John Wick's Action Aesthetics, by Wayne WongPart II: The Economies and Phenomenology of the Wickverse4. The Continental Abyss: John Wick vs. the Frankfurt School, by Skip Willman5. Bitcoin, Shitcoin, Wickcoin: The Hidden Phenomenology of John Wick, by Aaron JaffePart III: John Wick: Other Cultural Forms and Genres6. Fortune Favors the Bold: The State of Games and Play in the John Wick Films, by Edward P. Dallis-Comentale7. 'The One You Sent to Kill the Boogeyman': Folklore and Identity Deconstruction in the John Wick Universe, by Caitlin G. Watt8. Captain Dead Wick: Grief and the Monstrous in the John Wick and Deadpool Films, by Mary NestorPart IV: John Wick's Matrix: Space and Time9. Classical Orders, Modernist Revisions, Fantastical Expansions: Reading the Architecture of the John Wick Franchise, by Andrew Battaglia and Marleen Newman10. Out of Time and Going Sideways: John Wick, Time Traveler, by Charles M. Tung11. John Wick's Blank Cosmopolitanism and the Global Spatiality of the Wickverse, by Mi Jeong LeePart V: Gender and the Body in John Wick12. John Wick's Multiply Signifying Dogs, by Karalyn Kendall-Morwick13. Masculinity, Isolation, and Revenge: John Wick's Liminal Body, by Owen R. Horton14. Professionalism and Gender Performance in the John Wickverse, by Vivian Nun Halloran15. Style and the Sacrificial Body in John Wick 3, by Stephen WattBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThe only writing guide a film student will ever need.

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Book SynopsisOffering historical and theoretical positions from a variety of art historians, artists, curators, and writers, this book addresses a longer history of experimentation in video, net art, installation, new media, expanded cinema, visual music, and experimental film.Trade Review"Recommended." CHOICETable of ContentsAcknowledgments Foreword (Kate Mondloch) Preface: Abstract Video Art (Gabrielle Jennings) 1. Introduction: On the Horizon (Gabrielle Jennings) PART ONE. TRANSMISSION 2. Film Image / Electronic Image: The Construction of Abstraction, 1960- 1990 (John G. Hanhardt) 3. Joseph Kosuth's The Second Investigation in Vancouver (1969): Art on TV (John C. Welchman) 4. Abstract Transmissions: Other Trajectories for Feminist Video (Siona Wilson) 5. Abstract Video (Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe) PART TWO. INTERFERENCE 6. Visual Music's Influence on Contemporary Abstraction (Cindy Keefer) 7. Getting Messy: Chance and Glitch in Contemporary Video Art (Gregory Zinman) 8. Delirious Architectures: Notes on Jeremy Blake, Liquid Crystal Palace, and Digital Materialism (Michael Connor and Johanna Gosse) 9. Abstract Video: net.video.abstraction (Tilman Baumgartel, Sarah Cook, Charlotte Frost, and Caitlin Jones) 10. Interactive Abstractions: Between Embodied Exploration and Instrumental Control "Underneath Your Fingertips" (Katja Kwastek) PART THREE. RECEPTION 11. Real Time, Screen Time (Lumi Tan) 12. The Spreadability of Video (Christine Ross) 13. Spectral Projections: Color, Race, and Abstraction in the Moving Image (Maria-Christina Villasenor) 14. Go with the (Unregulated) Flow: Fluidity, Abjection, and Abstraction (Trinie Dalton and Stanya Kahn) 15. Sine Qua Son: Considering the Sine Wave Tone in Electronic Art (Philip Brophy) Mediography Bibliography List of Illustrations Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“The thesis of this unusually interesting book is that the German films of the twenties were filled with premonitions of the German totalitarianism of the thirties.”—Nation“One of the great works of film history, this look at early German cinema, first published in 1947, is still a must-have for cineastes and scholars alike.”—H. J. Kirchhoff, Toronto Globe and Mail“The book is an invaluable guide to a golden period of cinema.”—Christopher Wood, Times

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Book SynopsisShows us that sex in art is as diverse as sex in everyday life. This book examines the reception and frequent misunderstanding of highly sexualized images, words, and performances. It offers an exploration of how and where art and sex connect, and reimagines the relationship between sex and art.Trade Review"Like a brassy fag hag crashing a gay sex party, Jennifer Doyle mixes it up here with a queer lot. Whether she's just watching or actively participating, whether turned on or bored, thinking or crying, or most likely all of these at once, Doyle shows how crucial a queer feminist perspective is to understanding the erotics of art." - Douglas Crimp, University of Rochester, author of Melancholia and Moralism"

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Book SynopsisBen-Hur (1959), Jaws (1975), Avatar (2009), Wonder Woman (2017): the blockbuster movie has held a dominant position in American popular culture for decades. In American Blockbuster Charles R. Acland charts the origins, impact, and dynamics of this most visible, entertaining, and disparaged cultural form. Acland narrates how blockbusters emerged from Hollywood''s turn to a hit-driven focus during the industry''s business crisis in the 1950s. Movies became bigger, louder, and more spectacular. They also became prototypes for ideas and commodities associated with the future of technology and culture, accelerating the prominence of technological innovation in modern American life. Acland shows that blockbusters continue to be more than just movies; they are industrial strategies and complex cultural machines designed to normalize the ideologies of our technological age.Trade Review“Charles R. Acland has written an astute, masterful genealogy of the film critic's kryptonite: the blockbuster. Bringing clarity to the massive films that hide from scholars in plain view, Acland shows just how complex and unstable ostensibly self-evident genre and trade terms can be. Beyond a film history, this wide-ranging book offers a prototype for multi-modal historiographic method and incisive film analysis in an era of big data and digital humanities. Far more than an origin story, Acland's reverse engineering lays bare the struggles behind the management of Hollywood's blockbuster category, the fabrication of overdone artlessness. A must-read in film and media studies.” -- John Thornton Caldwell, author of * Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television *“No other book traces the emergence of the stabilization of Hollywood's blockbuster strategy as deftly as American Blockbuster. Charles R. Acland's powerful synthesis of historical analysis and cultural theory, along with his assessment of Hollywood's blockbuster economy—and of the studios’ prevailing blockbuster aesthetic—will have a significant impact.” -- Thomas Schatz, author of * The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era *“This is a stunningly insightful and comprehensive study of the blockbuster that contributes new historical, cultural, and critical perspectives on a definitive phenomenon in American cinema. Through impeccable research and lucid writing, Charles R. Acland ultimately shows us how movie blockbusters have functioned to drive and to legitimate the ‘technological exhibitionism’ that lies at the heart not only of the film industry but also of society more broadly, offering a rich assessment of why these films are among the most consequential popular art forms in modern times.” -- Barbara Klinger, Indiana University"A crucial addition to the burgeoning scholarship on contemporary Hollywood cinema, this deeply researched, densely reasoned book explodes a number of well-worn myths about the blockbuster film while advancing a provocative new thesis about its role in modern society. Drawing on a wealth of historical data, Acland demonstrates conclusively that the origins of blockbuster cinema lie not in the 1970s—as critics pointing to the mammoth success of movies like Jaws have often argued—but in the 1950s with the creation of such Hollywood super-productions as Ben-Hur. . . . [T]his landmark book illuminates much about US cinema and culture. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." -- I. Olney * Choice *"Acland’s intelligent and unexpectedly absorbing book is the origin story of a World War II weapon that became synonymous with a postwar Hollywood economic strategy. . . ." -- Carrie Rickey * Film Quarterly *“American Blockbuster is an important study.... Acland successfully links midcentury Hollywood production history to today’s big budget spectacles and convincingly demonstrates their related appeal to audiences.” -- Richard Ravalli * Business History *"Acland's examination of the blockbuster film reveals much about not only the genre itself, but about the culture that produces and consumes this form of entertainment. For these reasons, and since the blockbuster has long-remained such a vital part of popular culture, Acland's American Blockbuster makes an important contribution to an ongoing dialog about the film category and its cultural impacts." -- Heather Duerre Humann * Journal of Popular Film and Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Part I. The Spectacle Industry 1. Blockbuster Ballyhoo 3 2. Industrial Regimes of Entertainment 35 Part II. The Rise of the Blockbuster 3. Delivering Blockbusters 87 4. The Business of Big 124 5. Hollywood's Return 160 6. Cosmopolitan Artlessness 191 Part III. The Technological Sublime of Entertainment Everywhere 7. The End of James Cameron's Quiet Years 233 8. The Technological Heart of Movie Culture 266 Epilogue. Exhausted Entertainment 296 Notes 305 Filmography 337 Bibliography 347 Index

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Book SynopsisIn Bigger Than Life Mary Ann Doane examines how the scalar operations of cinema, especially those of the close-up, disturb and reconfigure the spectator''s sense of place, space, and orientation. Doane traces the history of scalar transformations from early cinema to the contemporary use of digital technology. In the early years of cinema, audiences regarded the monumental close-up, particularly of the face, as grotesque and often horrifying, even as it sought to expose a character''s interiority through its magnification of detail and expression. Today, large-scale technologies such as IMAX and surround sound strive to dissolve the cinematic frame and invade the spectator''s space, “immersing” them in image and sound. The notion of immersion, Doane contends, is symptomatic of a crisis of location in technologically mediated space and a reconceptualization of position, scale, and distance. In this way, cinematic scale and its modes of spatialization and despatializatTrade Review“Matching her earlier, masterful treatment of cinematic time, Mary Ann Doane here offers a brilliant probing of cinematic space. She explores cinema’s dynamic use of scale, from the magnification of the face in close-up to new screen technologies ranging from the iPhone to IMAX. Drawing on a range of film styles and practices, including early cinema, avant-garde experiments, and Shanghai cinema of the 1930s, Doane reveals how cinema has shaped a modern abstract and even dematerialized world.” -- Tom Gunning, Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago“Mary Ann Doane’s highly innovative, theoretically brilliant, and eloquently incisive consideration of the history of the filmic close-up and its relation to scale will undoubtedly make Bigger Than Life a field-changing work.” -- Maggie Hennefeld, author of * Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes *"Bigger Than Life opens with a unique and crucial examination of the history and historiography of the close-up, its conclusion offers a look at cinema in its biggest and most impactful forms, even cinema beyond cinema itself – this is where Doane’s work becomes truly colossal." -- Harrison Whitaker * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *"Bigger Than Life’s wide-ranging interrogation of its subject makes for a thrilling and rewarding read. [It] is altogether awe-inspiring and overwhelming in ways appropriate to its subject, constituting an important meditation on the dialogue between new and old media." -- Alicia Byrnes * Film-Philosophy *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Scale, the Cinematic Image, and the Negotiation of Space 1 Part I. Close-Up/Face 1. The Delirium of a Minimal Unit 29 2. The Cinematic Manufacture of Scale, or Historical Vicissitudes of the Close-Up 53 3. At Face Value 89 Part II. Scale/Screen 4. Screens, Female Faces, and Modernities 135 5. The Location of the Image: Projection, Perspective, and Scale 189 6. The Concept of Immersion: Mediated Space, Media Space, and the Location of the Subject 239 Notes 283 Bibliography 325 Index 343

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Book SynopsisIn Curating the Moving Image, influential curator and theorist Mark Nash draws on his work at Documenta11, the Venice Biennale, and elsewhere to explore the possibilities of contemporary curation. Constructing this richly illustrated book as a curatorial project in and of itself, Nash outlines several key concepts that range from exhibition architecture and curating as an affective and artistic practice to post-cold war aesthetics and contemporary Chinese art. Throughout these essays on contemporary art, film, and installation, Nash offers critical commentary and reflection on exhibitions he has curated, including those that focus on socialist and utopian ideals following the end of the Cold War. He also folds curating into a discussion of forms of artistic production that are connected to alternative trajectories of collective and collaborative practice. Ultimately, Nash demonstrates that the art world and contemporary curatorial practice constitute some of the most important tools for social and aesthetic exchange in the twenty-first century.Trade Review"As a well-established pioneer in curatorial studies, Nash provides copious notes and a well-stocked bibliography to enable expansion into this important area of research and scholarship." -- Mike Leggett * Leonardo Reviews *

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Book SynopsisArgues that the Delmer Daves' work warrants sustained scholarly attention. Examining all of Daves' films, his screenplays, scripts that were not filmed, and personal papers, Douglas Horlock argues that Daves was a serious and enlightened filmmaker whose work confronts the general conservatism of Hollywood in the mid-twentieth century.

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Book SynopsisAn important new approach to the study of laboratories, presenting a practical method for understanding labs in all walks of life From the “Big Science” of Bell Laboratories to the esoteric world of séance chambers to university media labs to neighborhood makerspaces, places we call “labs” are everywhere—but how exactly do we account for the wide variety of ways that they produce knowledge? More than imitations of science and engineering labs, many contemporary labs are hybrid forms that require a new methodological and theoretical toolkit to describe. The Lab Book investigates these vital, creative spaces, presenting readers with the concept of the “hybrid lab” and offering an extended—and rare—critical investigation of how labs have proliferated throughout culture.Organized by interpretive categories such as space, infrastructure, and imaginaries, The Lab Book uses both historical and contemporary examples to show how laboratories have become fundamentally connected to changes in the contemporary university. Its wide reach includes institutions like the MIT Media Lab, the Tuskegee Institute’s Jesup Wagon, ACTLab, and the Media Archaeological Fundus. The authors cover topics such as the evolution and delineation of lab-based communities, how labs’ tools and technologies contribute to defining their space, and a glossary of key hybrid lab techniques.Providing rich historical breadth and depth, The Lab Book brings into focus a critical, but often misunderstood, aspect of the contemporary arts and humanities. Trade Review"Lively, timely, and filled with vivid examples, The Lab Book is a highly readable and critically sophisticated account of current lab culture. Written by three distinguished practitioners, it examines the rhetoric that links real and imaginary ideas of experimentality with systems of power and authority across a surprising range of disciplines. A fun, smart, useful guide to ongoing work in media studies."—Johanna Drucker, author of Visualization and Interpretation: Humanistic Approaches to DisplayTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Everything Is a LabCase Study: The French Language Lab (Middlebury College, U.S.)1. Lab SpaceCase Study: Menlo Park Laboratory (Menlo Park, U.S.)Case Study: MIT Media Lab, Part 1 (MIT, U.S.)Case Study: Media Archaeological Fundus (Humboldt University, Germany)2. Lab ApparatusCase Study: The Signal Laboratory (Humboldt University, Germany)Case Study: The Media Archaeology Lab (University of Colorado Boulder, U.S.)3. Lab InfrastructureCase Study: Home Economics Labs and Extension on the Canadian Prairies (Manitoba, Canada)Case Study: Black Laboratories and Agricultural Extension4. Lab PeopleCase Study: MIT Media Lab, Part 2 (MIT, U.S.)Case Study: ActLab (University of Texas Austin, U.S.)5. Lab ImaginariesCase Study: Hybrid Spaces of Experimentation and ParapsychologyCase Study: Bell Labs, A Factory for Ideas6. Lab TechniquesConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisIn 1991, Jean-Luc Nancy''s heart gave out. In one of the first such procedures in France, a stranger''s heart was grafted into his body. Numerous complications followed, including more surgeries and lymphatic cancer. The procedure and illnesses he endured revealed to him, in a more visceral way than most of us ever experience, the strangeness of bodily existence itself and surviving the stranger within him. During this same period, Europe began closing its borders to those seeking refuge from war and poverty. Alarmed at this trend and drawn to a highly intimate form of strangeness with which he had been living for years, Nancy set out in The Intruder to articulate how intrusionwhether of a body or a borderis not antithetical to one's identity but constitutive of it. In 2004, Claire Denis adapted The Intruder into a film already hailed among the most important of our century. This edition includes Nancy's and Denis's accounts of turning philosophy into film

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"An exemplary book of criticism." * New Yorker *"This deep dive into three all-time great moviemakers is the perfect example of why eating your cultural vegetables can be endlessly rewarding, potentially even life-changing." * MovieMaker *“Reading Transcendental Style now, it’s impressive not just how vibrant and convincing a study of a cinematic aesthetics it is, but how prescient it feels.” * Art in America *"This is a joy to read, and all the more startling when discovering that Schrader was 24 years old when he wrote the original text." * Film Stage *"The second edition, particularly graced by Schrader’s new introduction, is especially salient not only for ongoing evaluation of Schrader’s work as critic and filmmaker, but also as a contribution from Schrader himself to the critical task of interpretation and reception of new cinema and burgeoning cinematic movements. Like any number of Schrader’s own screenplays or directed films, this volume rewards repeated visitations." * Journal of Religion & Film *"Schrader’s investigation of mid-century art cinema masters as extensions of spiritual art is worthy of our careful consideration, especially given the legacy of Yasujirō Ozu, Robert Bresson, and Carl Th. Dreyer. . . . Transcendental Style is a masterful work of structure, methodology, and art history." * Offscreen *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Rethinking Transcendental Style Introduction to the Original Edition Ozu Bresson Dreyer Conclusion Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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