Film: styles and genres Books

Book SynopsisDanger: Diabolik (1968) was adapted from a comic that has been a social phenomenon in Italy for over fifty years. This study examines its status as a comic-book movie, traces its production and initial reception in Italy, France, the U.S., and the UK, and its cult afterlife as both a pop-art classic and campy "bad film."Trade ReviewPacked with information, facts, figures, speculation, analysis, and cultural connections. * All Classical Portland *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Diabolik, chi sei?1. From fumetto nero to ‘wild and kooky cape-opera’: Production, promotion, initial reception2. ‘Uh-oh – it’s getting groovy!’: The cult afterlife of Danger: Diabolik3. Fantômas all’italiana: Analysis4. Genius of Crime: The place of the filmNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAvengers Assemble! explores the cinematic and televisual branches of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from a diverse range of critical perspectives. Beginning with Iron Man, the book considers them both as embodiments of the changing blockbuster film and as affective cultural artifacts that are immersed in the turbulent political climate of their era.Trade ReviewThe book engages with superhero films on a very deep level, making it not only informative but an extremely pleasurable read as well. -- Devapriya Sanyal Hindu College, University of Delhi * Journal of Popular Culture *A magnificent book. As insightful and comprehensive as it is engaging and timely, this full-length examination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a rewarding read for passionate superhero fans as well as researchers in the fields of film studies, political science, and cultural studies. -- Marc DiPaolo, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, author of War, Politics, and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and FilmThis is a timely and entertaining volume that will prove very useful in the development of genre courses in the next few years as the superhero genre finds its place in taught modules across film and media programmes. The work is scholarly and well referenced in ways that open it to further reading and research, but accessible to undergraduate readers. The author takes an epistemically specific approach that is not inappropriate given the avowed focus on the MCU specifically, rather than the superhero genre on the whole or its historical roots. As such, the range of contemporary readings on terrorism, conflict, and the power structures of the twenty first century (mainly American) is again both timely and informative. Intellectually, the breaking of the MCU into its industrially determined ‘phases’ again focuses the chronology but also opens new arenas of interrogation. The ‘phase two’ section demonstrates the degree to which the frames of reference change between 2008 and 2013, freeing the franchise (and scholarly debate) from some of the immediate trauma narrative tropes of the first phase, and allowing the discussion to delve into some of the more liminal spaces of the MCU, such as in Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy on gender and fantasy. The final section on the recent television incarnations of the franchise is useful without delving too deeply into the political economy of transmedia in the Netflix age (which is another topic entirely) -- Harvey O'Brien, University College. DublinTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsPrologue: The Heroes We Need Right Now?: Explaining ‘The Age of the Superhero’Introduction: Superheroes in the New Millennium and ‘The Example of America’PHASE ONE1. ‘That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it … and it’s worked out pretty well so far’: The Stark Doctrine in Iron Man and Iron Man 22. Allegorical Narratives of Gods and Monsters: Thor and The Incredible Hulk3. State Fantasy and the Superhero: (Mis)Remembering World War II in Captain America: The First Avenger4. ‘Seeing … still working on believing!’: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Destruction in The AvengersPHASE TWO5. ‘Nothing’s been the same since New York’: Ideological Continuity and Change in Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World6. ‘The world has changed and none of us can go back’: The Illusory Moral Ambiguities of the Post-9/11 Superhero in Captain America: The Winter Soldier7. Blurring the Boundaries of Genre and Gender in Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man8. ‘Isn’t that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?’: The Enduring American Monomyth in Avengers: Age of UltronTHE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE ON TELEVISION9. ‘What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for?’: The MCU on the Small Screen in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Agent Carter10. The Necessary Vigilantism of the Defenders: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron FistConclusion: ‘Whose side are you on?’: Superheroes Through the Prism of the ‘War on Terror’ in Captain America: Civil WarEpilogue: The Superhero as Transnational IconFilmographyBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisHerstories on Screen is a transnational study of feature narrative films from Australia, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand/Aotearoa that deconstruct settler-colonial myths. Kathleen Cummins offers in-depth readings of ten works by a diverse range of women filmmakers, revealing how they skillfully deploy genre tropes.Trade ReviewThis compelling study explores how mainstream narrative films about former white-settler nations, in the hands of an emerging generation of female filmmakers, were reshaped into critiques of dominant frontier myth-histories. Herstories on Screen articulates how these directors explore the contradictions in the project of nation building, bringing to the forefront the roles of women—white, Black, and indigenous—whose stories have long been overlooked. -- Susan White, University of ArizonaHerstories on Screen is a balanced and robust treatment of films by female directors who take up their home countries' national mythologies. Written in lucid prose, it engages with the feminist film theory canon and its revisions via queer, post-colonial and indigenous interrogations. Cummins deftly weaves theory with consistently astute textual analyses, making it an eminently teachable text. Urging the consideration of film as a political tool, this book addresses what these films do for representations of women, the subaltern, the maternal role, and landscape as metaphor, among many others. -- Berkeley Kaite, McGill UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Herstories in the Counter Narrative Tradition1. Women’s Storytelling—Narrative, Genre, and the Female Voice2. Debunking the Cult of True Womanhood/Motherhood on the Frontier3. Feminist Symbolic Frontier Landscapes ConclusionAppendix: The FilmsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisHerstories on Screen is a transnational study of feature narrative films from Australia, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand/Aotearoa that deconstruct settler-colonial myths. Kathleen Cummins offers in-depth readings of ten works by a diverse range of women filmmakers, revealing how they skillfully deploy genre tropes.Trade ReviewThis compelling study explores how mainstream narrative films about former white-settler nations, in the hands of an emerging generation of female filmmakers, were reshaped into critiques of dominant frontier myth-histories. Herstories on Screen articulates how these directors explore the contradictions in the project of nation building, bringing to the forefront the roles of women—white, Black, and indigenous—whose stories have long been overlooked. -- Susan White, University of ArizonaHerstories on Screen is a balanced and robust treatment of films by female directors who take up their home countries' national mythologies. Written in lucid prose, it engages with the feminist film theory canon and its revisions via queer, post-colonial and indigenous interrogations. Cummins deftly weaves theory with consistently astute textual analyses, making it an eminently teachable text. Urging the consideration of film as a political tool, this book addresses what these films do for representations of women, the subaltern, the maternal role, and landscape as metaphor, among many others. -- Berkeley Kaite, McGill UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Herstories in the Counter Narrative Tradition1. Women’s Storytelling—Narrative, Genre, and the Female Voice2. Debunking the Cult of True Womanhood/Motherhood on the Frontier3. Feminist Symbolic Frontier Landscapes ConclusionAppendix: The FilmsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisMalcolm Turvey examines Jacques Tati's unique comedic style and evaluates its significance for the history of film and modernism. Richly illustrated with images from the director's films, Play Time offers an illuminating and original understanding of Tati's work.Trade ReviewTurvey provides a sharply observant account of the scope and function of the more ‘cognitively challenging’ of these comic devices in Tati’s major films. -- David Trotter * London Review of Books *Turvey’s study of Tati’s context traces a fascinating continuity between the clown tradition, Charlie Chaplin’s construction of comic personas and the role of the 'living object' in Dada, Surrealism, Cubism and other interwar artistic movements. * Times Literary Supplement *Play Time is a subtle, intelligent—and wonderfully funny—book. It has much to offer both Tati novices and his connoisseurs. -- Pardis Dabashi * Modernism/modernity *The book is a delicious treat, and serious film students will appreciate it as a penetrating primer on the cinematic comic artisdt at work. * Choice *Play Time: Jacques Tati and Comedic Modernism must be warmly recommended reading for all lovers of Tati, particularly since it is written by one of them, which shows. And my recommendation gets only warmer for all those who, like myself, are interested in understanding comedy and its mechanisms. -- Gianni Barchiesi * Alphaville Journal *Malcolm Turvey’s exhilarating study of Jacques Tati is a precise, loving appreciation of the unique style and worldview of a great filmmaker. It’s also a history of avant-garde humor and a deep analysis of techniques of slapstick and satire. Turvey, one of our finest scholars of modernity in the arts, shows in detail how Tati’s comedy turned modernist experimentation into popular entertainment. -- David Bordwell, author of Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie StorytellingMalcolm Turvey’s Play Time is the best extended critical study of Tati I’ve encountered: persuasively argued, scrupulously observed, and beautifully illustrated. The writing is clear and graceful, and the research is impressive, especially regarding the relation of slapstick films to avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century and Tati’s critiques of modern architecture. Most critical books about Tati have been short on close analysis, but this one beats them all. -- Jonathan Rosenbaum, author of Cinematic Encounters: Interviews and DialoguesFew films deserve a book-length study as much as those of Jacques Tati. Malcolm Turvey has done them justice. His explanation of their context in the slapstick and modernist traditions is fascinating. Turvey takes Tati’s work seriously, not by spoiling the fun but by respecting its extraordinary complexity. His title comes from Tati’s masterpiece. No matter how many times you have seen Play Time—and it is a film made for many viewings—Turvey will reveal something new and make you want to see it yet again. -- Kristin Thompson, Honorary Fellow in the Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-MadisonThis book is an excellent, detailed study of the films of Jacques Tati that establishes how Tati’s work draws upon classical “comedian comedy” while also connecting with the interwar European avant-garde. Moreover, the author insightfully discusses Tati’s love/hate relationship with modernity as well as his passion for creating a participatory style in which the spectator works to find humor in his films and also in the real world. -- Lucy Fischer, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of PittsburghMalcolm Turvey’s Play Time is a completely joyful and entirely refreshing account of the films of Jacques Tati. It is also one of the finest, most nuanced accounts of comedic form that we have, a work that no one who studies comedy, or simply enjoys it, should be without. In tending so carefully to the structure of Tati’s gags—a seemingly infinite amount of them—Turvey does something that is as extraordinary as it is subtle. With Tati, he shows us how intelligence and popularity, structure and participation, aesthetic excellence and ordinary life, cannot be easily or gainfully opposed. -- Brian Price, University of TorontoTable of ContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Comedic Modernism2. Comedy of Everyday Life3. The Beholder’s Share4. Satirizing ModernityAfterword: Parade, Tati, and Participatory CultureNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisRochona Majumdar examines key works of Indian art cinema to demonstrate how film emerged as a mode of doing history and that, in so doing, it anticipated some of the most influential insights of postcolonial thought. She analyzes the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak as well as a host of film society publications.Trade ReviewFrom writer Rochona Majumdar comes this decidedly anti-colonialist read about the history of Indian cinema, with a specific eye towards post-independence India and the house of cards its democracy is built on. Highlight of the book is whenever Majumdar waxes philosophical about Ritwik Ghatak, a filmmaker worthy of much more discussion here stateside. -- Joshua Brunsting * CriterionCast *Rochona Majumdar, the historian, intervenes in the rich discourse surrounding the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak through her meticulously researched and compelling book, Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony. -- Swarnavel Eswaran * South Asian History and Culture *Majumdar’s brief comment on Ray’s Calcutta trilogy as an ethnographic turn in his career, for example, is a fine provocation to rethink the shifting significance of realism in Ray’s oeuvre. Such remarks invite scholars to study these filmmakers in a comparative vein across regional, national, and transnational concerns, a task set in motion by Majumdar’s book. -- TRINANKUR BANERJEE * Film Quarterly *Rochona Majumdar's book on Art Cinema is a compelling chapter on India's modern history recorded on screen. -- Tanushree Ghosh * The Indian Express *Rochona Majumdar's book is a pleasingly accessible academic study on Indian art cinema. -- Jel Arjun Singh * India Today *The book is nuanced and its arguments are complex. Yet, it is lucid and accessible, and makes for a compelling reading. It is a compulsory book for anyone interested in history and/or visual culture. -- Dr. Arvind Elangovan * Critical Collective *How does cinema apprehend its historical moment? With characteristic eloquence and insight, Majumdar gives us a vivid account of India’s art cinema and film societies to take the shifting pulse of a nation in the early decades of its independence. In Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures, a rigorous interrogation into the category of radical art extends archivally-rich readings of works by Ray, Sen and Ghatak, to ground a powerful vision of films that put the specious terms of India’s democracy under scrutiny. This book changes how we will think about histories of, and histories within, art cinema. -- Priya Jaikumar, author of Where Histories Reside: India as Filmed SpaceHistory and film criticism are profoundly imbricated in Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures. Even as the book uncovers new archives for postcolonial research, it triumphantly validates cultural criticism as historical method. An invaluable scholarly work. -- Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, coeditor of Commodities and Culture in the Colonial WorldThe tradition of art cinema in India has rarely been framed with such a rich archival ambition. Displaying an eye for detail and a strong conceptual drive, Majumdar creatively establishes a similarity between the art film maker’s capacity for historical reflection and the historian’s craft. -- Ranjani Mazumdar, author of Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the CityLike the incisive art cinema she unsheathes, Rochona Majumdar probes India in its painful passage beyond partition, staggering into modernity. Cinema has never been more ‘critical’ than in Bengal from 1960 to 1974 as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen exposed the innards of an immense ailing culture of which the brightness of Bollywood is but a fever symptom. Majumdar, to use her fertile word, apprehends the absolute necessity not just of art films like those she deftly analyses, but of the fragile film society movement that let them breathe. It’s an inspiring if tragic history, one she carefully remembers for a future that may still be possible. -- Dudley Andrew, Yale UniversityIn this engaging book, Majumdar has brought art cinema alive in a carefully contextualized study of Ray, Sen, and Ghatak—three Bengali directors who, she argues, anticipated critical historians. Her writing is evocative, thoughtful and illuminating. -- Partha Chatterjee, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Columbia UniversityTable of ContentsIntroductionPart I: The History of Art Cinema1. Art Cinema: The Indian Career of a Global Category2. The “New” Indian Cinema: Journeys of the Art Film3. Debating Radical Cinema: A History of the Film Society MovementPart II: Art Films as History4. Ritwik Ghatak and the Overcoming of History5. “Anger and After”: History, Political Cinema, and Mrinal Sen6. The Untimely Filmmaker: Ray’s City Trilogy and a Crisis of HistoricismEpilogue: Art Cinema and Our PresentAcknowledgmentsNotesSelect BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisRochona Majumdar examines key works of Indian art cinema to demonstrate how film emerged as a mode of doing history and that, in so doing, it anticipated some of the most influential insights of postcolonial thought. She analyzes the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak as well as a host of film society publications.Trade ReviewFrom writer Rochona Majumdar comes this decidedly anti-colonialist read about the history of Indian cinema, with a specific eye towards post-independence India and the house of cards its democracy is built on. Highlight of the book is whenever Majumdar waxes philosophical about Ritwik Ghatak, a filmmaker worthy of much more discussion here stateside. -- Joshua Brunsting * CriterionCast *Rochona Majumdar, the historian, intervenes in the rich discourse surrounding the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak through her meticulously researched and compelling book, Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony. -- Swarnavel Eswaran * South Asian History and Culture *Majumdar’s brief comment on Ray’s Calcutta trilogy as an ethnographic turn in his career, for example, is a fine provocation to rethink the shifting significance of realism in Ray’s oeuvre. Such remarks invite scholars to study these filmmakers in a comparative vein across regional, national, and transnational concerns, a task set in motion by Majumdar’s book. -- TRINANKUR BANERJEE * Film Quarterly *Rochona Majumdar's book on Art Cinema is a compelling chapter on India's modern history recorded on screen. -- Tanushree Ghosh * The Indian Express *Rochona Majumdar's book is a pleasingly accessible academic study on Indian art cinema. -- Jel Arjun Singh * India Today *The book is nuanced and its arguments are complex. Yet, it is lucid and accessible, and makes for a compelling reading. It is a compulsory book for anyone interested in history and/or visual culture. -- Dr. Arvind Elangovan * Critical Collective *How does cinema apprehend its historical moment? With characteristic eloquence and insight, Majumdar gives us a vivid account of India’s art cinema and film societies to take the shifting pulse of a nation in the early decades of its independence. In Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures, a rigorous interrogation into the category of radical art extends archivally-rich readings of works by Ray, Sen and Ghatak, to ground a powerful vision of films that put the specious terms of India’s democracy under scrutiny. This book changes how we will think about histories of, and histories within, art cinema. -- Priya Jaikumar, author of Where Histories Reside: India as Filmed SpaceHistory and film criticism are profoundly imbricated in Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures. Even as the book uncovers new archives for postcolonial research, it triumphantly validates cultural criticism as historical method. An invaluable scholarly work. -- Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, coeditor of Commodities and Culture in the Colonial WorldThe tradition of art cinema in India has rarely been framed with such a rich archival ambition. Displaying an eye for detail and a strong conceptual drive, Majumdar creatively establishes a similarity between the art film maker’s capacity for historical reflection and the historian’s craft. -- Ranjani Mazumdar, author of Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the CityLike the incisive art cinema she unsheathes, Rochona Majumdar probes India in its painful passage beyond partition, staggering into modernity. Cinema has never been more ‘critical’ than in Bengal from 1960 to 1974 as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen exposed the innards of an immense ailing culture of which the brightness of Bollywood is but a fever symptom. Majumdar, to use her fertile word, apprehends the absolute necessity not just of art films like those she deftly analyses, but of the fragile film society movement that let them breathe. It’s an inspiring if tragic history, one she carefully remembers for a future that may still be possible. -- Dudley Andrew, Yale UniversityIn this engaging book, Majumdar has brought art cinema alive in a carefully contextualized study of Ray, Sen, and Ghatak—three Bengali directors who, she argues, anticipated critical historians. Her writing is evocative, thoughtful and illuminating. -- Partha Chatterjee, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Columbia UniversityTable of ContentsIntroductionPart I: The History of Art Cinema1. Art Cinema: The Indian Career of a Global Category2. The “New” Indian Cinema: Journeys of the Art Film3. Debating Radical Cinema: A History of the Film Society MovementPart II: Art Films as History4. Ritwik Ghatak and the Overcoming of History5. “Anger and After”: History, Political Cinema, and Mrinal Sen6. The Untimely Filmmaker: Ray’s City Trilogy and a Crisis of HistoricismEpilogue: Art Cinema and Our PresentAcknowledgmentsNotesSelect BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisDr. No introduced the James Bond formula that has been a box-office fixture ever since. An explosive cocktail of action, spectacle, and sex, the film transformed popular cinema. James Chapman provides a lively and comprehensive study of Dr. No, marshaling a wealth of archival research to place the film in its historical moment.Trade ReviewDr. No: The First James Bond Film by James Chapman is particularly well researched. I especially appreciate the time the author took to dispel myths and legends about the movie. He delved into archives, first-hand sources, as well as unfinished scripts to separate fact from fiction. * Man of la Book: A Bookish Blog *Dr. No is a potentially invaluable resource for Bond scholars and cultural historians, as well as Bond fans keen to engage with the films at a more developed level. The lively writing and assured knowledge make the ideas and analysis feel fresh and revelatory. Chapman investigates and interrogates the many myths and half-truths surrounding the making of the film and the relationships between the key players in order to fully reassess the reputations and reception of the film both at its time of release and now. -- Laura Crossely, Bournemouth UniversityAn impressive and thoroughly enjoyable book. More than twenty years after the landmark volume Licence to Thrill, the author’s latest contribution to the field is meticulously researched and engagingly written. Merging the rigor of the historian with the enthusiasm of the aficionado and consistently illuminated by fresh archival discoveries, Chapman’s Dr. No reminds us that, in the field of Bond studies, nobody does it better. -- Jeremy Strong, author of James Bond UncoveredThe reward of James Chapman’s inquiry is that it explains how and why Dr. No "got it right" from the start while considering the “first” Bond film as a text on its own. Excavating a wealth of primary research, Chapman spearheads the archival and industrial turn in Bond studies to arrive at a new understanding of the ongoing appeal of the James Bond franchise. -- Jaap Verheul, editor of The Cultural Life of James BondJames Chapman's brilliant-realised study of the first Eon-produced James Bond film is a testament not only to the current renaissance of James Bond studies as a field but also the cultural significance of Dr. No in its own right, a film that arguably spawned the modern franchise blockbuster as we know it. Of course, Chapman's rigorous scholarship is the primary draw, here; he proves, once again, that, when it comes to matters of James Bond, "nobody does it better." Dr. No: The First James Bond Film breaks new ground, here, and is likely to pave the way for subsequent "deep-dive" scholarly examinations of specific films in the Bond series. This is film and cultural history scholarship at its finest. -- Ian Kinane, editor of the International Journal of James Bond StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Sex, Snobbery, and Sadism 2. Everything or Nothing3. Monkey Business4. Underneath the Mango Tree5. A Bizarre Comedy Melodrama 6. I’m Just LookingConclusionAppendix I: Dr. No Production CreditsAppendix II: Dr. No Production BudgetAppendix III: Dr. No Daily Progress ReportsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAdam Lowenstein offers a new account of horror and why it matters for understanding social otherness. He argues that horror films reveal how the category of the other is not fixed. Instead, the genre captures ongoing metamorphoses across normal self and monstrous other.Trade Review[Horror Film and Otherness] is certainly one of the most important recent attempts to rethink and reevaluate horror cinema. Even the readers who do not agree with all of its theses will find them worthy of discussion. -- Dejan Ognjanovic * Rue Morgue *A field-changing and heartfelt study of the horror film and social difference. The power of Lowenstein’s book can be captured by the words he uses to describe the particular impact of the horror film: “confrontational, insistent, transformative.” This will quickly join his earlier book, Shocking Representation, as an indispensable study of the genre. -- Aviva Briefel, coeditor of Horror after 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of TerrorLowenstein’s Horror Film and Otherness is instantly a classic, seminal study into the ways in which we understand notions of the Other and various progressive, reactionary, and violent reactions to it. Sparring with classic horror literature while drawing on a wealth of horror films, the author pulls no punches in demanding that we take responsibility for the social fears that we have constructed. The Other, be it monstrous or transformative, must be reconciled. Lowenstein sets us on the right path for such reconciliation. -- Robin R. Means Coleman, author of Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to PresentHorror Film and Otherness provides a theoretical culmination of Lowenstein’s thinking on horror cinema, radically resituating the genre in relation to spectatorship, spectacle, and identity. This is a bold, ambitious book that offers a compelling new paradigm for understanding the politics and aesthetics of horror. -- Rosalind Galt, author of Alluring Monsters: The Pontianak and Cinemas of DecolonizationLowenstein does several things in this superb volume. He considers our horror at the real-life violence and injustice that surrounds us against the horrors represented in fictional texts (fictional texts that we often read for their subversive content). At the same time, he wants to push Horror Studies out of a critical morass in which we've found ourselves for awhile. Horror Studies has moved from serious criticism and critique to theory, and Lowenstein here gives us some important tools for helping to consolidate some new trends in the field. Theoretically complex and also remarkably personal, the book helps us work through foundational horror studies texts and see them in new ways. He also provides compelling readings of contemporary films. It’s as though he were reaching out to all of us in this field, who have been struggling for ways to talk about horror in this very difficult sociopolitical moment—a way that's not reductive or dismissive. Excellent read and excellent book for classes. -- Joan Hawkins, author of Cutting Edge: Art Horror and the Horrific Avant-GardeWith Night of the Living Dead as a point of departure, Lowenstein offers a passionate analysis of horror cinema as it reflects American culture and society. He examines the evolving relationship between the social construction of otherness and horror cinema. Moving beyond familiar categories of difference and pathology, repression and oppression, Lowenstein develops the concept of transformative otherness, complicating the conventional dichotomy between normality and monstrosity. -- Mia Mask, author of Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film[Horror Film and Otherness] reevaluates traditional critical perspectives on the horror genre and offers provocative understandings of the aesthetic, allegorical, and historical fruitfulness of the genre as a narrative and formal exercise in addressing social difference in the real world. -- M. Sellers Johnson * Film Quarterly *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Situating Horror and Otherness: Tree of Life, Night of the Living Dead, PittsburghPart I: Transforming Horror and Otherness1. A Reintroduction to the American Horror Film: Revisiting Robin Wood and 1970s Horror2. The Surrealism of Horror’s Otherness: Listening to The ShoutPart II: Transforming the Masters of Horror3. Nightmare Zone: Aging as Otherness in the Cinema of Tobe Hooper4. The Trauma of Economic Otherness: Horror in George A. Romero’s Martin5. Therapeutic Disintegration: Jewish Otherness in the Cinema of David CronenbergPart III: Transforming Horror’s Other Voices6. Gendered Otherness: Feminine Horror and Surrealism in Marina de Van, Stephanie Rothman, and Jennifer Kent7. Racial Otherness: Horror’s Black/Jewish Minority Vocabulary, from Jordan Peele to Ira Levin and Curt SiodmakAfterword. Horror and Otherness in Anguished TimesNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAdam Lowenstein offers a new account of horror and why it matters for understanding social otherness. He argues that horror films reveal how the category of the other is not fixed. Instead, the genre captures ongoing metamorphoses across “normal” self and “monstrous” other.Trade Review[Horror Film and Otherness] is certainly one of the most important recent attempts to rethink and reevaluate horror cinema. Even the readers who do not agree with all of its theses will find them worthy of discussion. -- Dejan Ognjanovic * Rue Morgue *A field-changing and heartfelt study of the horror film and social difference. The power of Lowenstein’s book can be captured by the words he uses to describe the particular impact of the horror film: “confrontational, insistent, transformative.” This will quickly join his earlier book, Shocking Representation, as an indispensable study of the genre. -- Aviva Briefel, coeditor of Horror after 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of TerrorLowenstein’s Horror Film and Otherness is instantly a classic, seminal study into the ways in which we understand notions of the Other and various progressive, reactionary, and violent reactions to it. Sparring with classic horror literature while drawing on a wealth of horror films, the author pulls no punches in demanding that we take responsibility for the social fears that we have constructed. The Other, be it monstrous or transformative, must be reconciled. Lowenstein sets us on the right path for such reconciliation. -- Robin R. Means Coleman, author of Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to PresentHorror Film and Otherness provides a theoretical culmination of Lowenstein’s thinking on horror cinema, radically resituating the genre in relation to spectatorship, spectacle, and identity. This is a bold, ambitious book that offers a compelling new paradigm for understanding the politics and aesthetics of horror. -- Rosalind Galt, author of Alluring Monsters: The Pontianak and Cinemas of DecolonizationLowenstein does several things in this superb volume. He considers our horror at the real-life violence and injustice that surrounds us against the horrors represented in fictional texts (fictional texts that we often read for their subversive content). At the same time, he wants to push Horror Studies out of a critical morass in which we've found ourselves for awhile. Horror Studies has moved from serious criticism and critique to theory, and Lowenstein here gives us some important tools for helping to consolidate some new trends in the field. Theoretically complex and also remarkably personal, the book helps us work through foundational horror studies texts and see them in new ways. He also provides compelling readings of contemporary films. It’s as though he were reaching out to all of us in this field, who have been struggling for ways to talk about horror in this very difficult sociopolitical moment—a way that's not reductive or dismissive. Excellent read and excellent book for classes. -- Joan Hawkins, author of Cutting Edge: Art Horror and the Horrific Avant-GardeWith Night of the Living Dead as a point of departure, Lowenstein offers a passionate analysis of horror cinema as it reflects American culture and society. He examines the evolving relationship between the social construction of otherness and horror cinema. Moving beyond familiar categories of difference and pathology, repression and oppression, Lowenstein develops the concept of transformative otherness, complicating the conventional dichotomy between normality and monstrosity. -- Mia Mask, author of Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film[Horror Film and Otherness] reevaluates traditional critical perspectives on the horror genre and offers provocative understandings of the aesthetic, allegorical, and historical fruitfulness of the genre as a narrative and formal exercise in addressing social difference in the real world. -- M. Sellers Johnson * Film Quarterly *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Situating Horror and Otherness: Tree of Life, Night of the Living Dead, PittsburghPart I: Transforming Horror and Otherness1. A Reintroduction to the American Horror Film: Revisiting Robin Wood and 1970s Horror2. The Surrealism of Horror’s Otherness: Listening to The ShoutPart II: Transforming the Masters of Horror3. Nightmare Zone: Aging as Otherness in the Cinema of Tobe Hooper4. The Trauma of Economic Otherness: Horror in George A. Romero’s Martin5. Therapeutic Disintegration: Jewish Otherness in the Cinema of David CronenbergPart III: Transforming Horror’s Other Voices6. Gendered Otherness: Feminine Horror and Surrealism in Marina de Van, Stephanie Rothman, and Jennifer Kent7. Racial Otherness: Horror’s Black/Jewish Minority Vocabulary, from Jordan Peele to Ira Levin and Curt SiodmakAfterword. Horror and Otherness in Anguished TimesNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisSpanning the franchise’s entire history, from Sean Connery’s iconic swagger to Daniel Craig’s rougher, more visceral interpretation of the superspy, James Bond Will Return offers both academic readers and fans a comprehensive view of the series’s transformations against the backdrop of real-world geopolitical intrigue and sweeping social changes.Trade ReviewWith a stellar lineup of authors offering sharp, original analysis of every James Bond film to date, this book delivers a fascinating retrospective of the 007 franchise at a critical moment in the extended life of the series. -- Christoph Lindner, editor of The James Bond Phenomenon, Revisioning 007, and Resisting James BondFeaturing established Bond scholars and new voices, this collection offers new and exciting perspectives on the film franchise. While each of the Bond films are a product of the time they were made, these essays tell us that the series has relevance to the world we live in today. Well written and fun to read, James Bond Will Return will excite even the most seasoned Bond scholar and fan. -- Robert G. Weiner, coeditor of James Bond in World and Popular CultureJames Bond Will Return takes a chronological, anthological approach to the study of the cinematic Bond, enabling a totalizing view of the so-called ‘Bond experience.’ This is the most expansive and well-organized coverage of the Bond cinematic universe to date, representing film and cultural history par excellence. -- Ian Kinane, author of Ian Fleming and the Politics of Ambivalence and general editor of the International Journal of James Bond StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: James Bond—Agent of Continuity and Change, by Claire Hines, Terence McSweeney, and Stuart Joy1. Bond and the New Elizabethans: Tradition and Modernity in Dr. No (1962), by Laura Crossley2. “A Real Labour of Love, as They Say”: James Bond as a Sexual Plaything in From Russia with Love (1963), by Lucy Bolton3. The Midas Touch: Eastmancolor, the Bond Franchise, and Goldfinger (1964), by Keith M. Johnston4. The Popular Geopolitics of Thunderball (1965): Look Up, Look Down, and Look Everywhere!, by Klaus Dodds5. Bond in the East: Orientalism and the Exotic in You Only Live Twice (1967), by Robert Shail6. The Other Fellow: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), by James Chapman7. Diamonds Are Forever (1971): 007 and Transatlantic States of Emergency, by Ian Scott8. From Harlem to San Monique: Spatial Dichotomies, Voodoo, and Cultural Identity in Live and Let Die (1973), by Fran Pheasant-Kelly9. “We All Get Our Jollies One Way or Another”: The Perversity and Pleasure of Christopher Lee in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), by Julie Lobalzo Wright10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)—Nobody Does It Better: “Keeping the British End Up” at a Time of National Crisis, by Terence McSweeney11. Moonraker (1979) and the Canvas of Escapism, by Steven Gerrard12. The Spectre of Death: Revenge and Retribution in For Your Eyes Only (1981), by Stuart Joy13. The (Clown) Suited Hero: James Bond, Costume, Gender and Disguise in Octopussy (1983), by Claire Hines14. Scowls and Cowls: Grace Jones, Costume Design, and A View to a Kill (1985), by Randall Stevens15. “A Time When Indiscriminating Bed-Hopping Is Definitely Not Advisable”: Safe-Sex References in the UK Press Reception of The Living Daylights (1987), by Stephanie Jones16. Bond in the New World Orders: Licence to Kill (1989), by Stacey Peebles17. Cold War Nostalgia, (Geo)Political Progress, and James Bond in GoldenEye (1995), by Tatiana Konrad18. Bond by the Numbers: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), by Llewella Chapman19. Bond at the Crossroads: The World Is Not Enough (1999), by Tobias Hochscherf20. The Digital Domain of Die Another Day (2002), by Christopher Holliday21. What Matters More: Hierarchies of Value in Casino Royale (2006), by Christine Muller22. “Like a Bullet . . .”: Speed, Economy, and Canonical Continuity in Quantum of Solace (2008), by Estella Tincknell23. “Sometimes the Old Ways Are the Best”: Technology and the Body in a Gothic Reading of Sam Mendes’s Skyfall (2012), by Monica Germanà24. “It’s Always Been Me”: Spectrality, Hauntings, and Retcon in Spectre (2015), by James Smith25. No Time to Die (2021) and The Spy Who Loved #MeToo?, by Terence McSweeney and Stuart JoySelected BibliographyContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisSpanning the franchise’s entire history, from Sean Connery’s iconic swagger to Daniel Craig’s rougher, more visceral interpretation of the superspy, James Bond Will Return offers both academic readers and fans a comprehensive view of the series’s transformations against the backdrop of real-world geopolitical intrigue and sweeping social changes.Trade ReviewWith a stellar lineup of authors offering sharp, original analysis of every James Bond film to date, this book delivers a fascinating retrospective of the 007 franchise at a critical moment in the extended life of the series. -- Christoph Lindner, editor of The James Bond Phenomenon, Revisioning 007, and Resisting James BondFeaturing established Bond scholars and new voices, this collection offers new and exciting perspectives on the film franchise. While each of the Bond films are a product of the time they were made, these essays tell us that the series has relevance to the world we live in today. Well written and fun to read, James Bond Will Return will excite even the most seasoned Bond scholar and fan. -- Robert G. Weiner, coeditor of James Bond in World and Popular CultureJames Bond Will Return takes a chronological, anthological approach to the study of the cinematic Bond, enabling a totalizing view of the so-called ‘Bond experience.’ This is the most expansive and well-organized coverage of the Bond cinematic universe to date, representing film and cultural history par excellence. -- Ian Kinane, author of Ian Fleming and the Politics of Ambivalence and general editor of the International Journal of James Bond StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: James Bond—Agent of Continuity and Change, by Claire Hines, Terence McSweeney, and Stuart Joy1. Bond and the New Elizabethans: Tradition and Modernity in Dr. No (1962), by Laura Crossley2. “A Real Labour of Love, as They Say”: James Bond as a Sexual Plaything in From Russia with Love (1963), by Lucy Bolton3. The Midas Touch: Eastmancolor, the Bond Franchise, and Goldfinger (1964), by Keith M. Johnston4. The Popular Geopolitics of Thunderball (1965): Look Up, Look Down, and Look Everywhere!, by Klaus Dodds5. Bond in the East: Orientalism and the Exotic in You Only Live Twice (1967), by Robert Shail6. The Other Fellow: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), by James Chapman7. Diamonds Are Forever (1971): 007 and Transatlantic States of Emergency, by Ian Scott8. From Harlem to San Monique: Spatial Dichotomies, Voodoo, and Cultural Identity in Live and Let Die (1973), by Fran Pheasant-Kelly9. “We All Get Our Jollies One Way or Another”: The Perversity and Pleasure of Christopher Lee in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), by Julie Lobalzo Wright10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)—Nobody Does It Better: “Keeping the British End Up” at a Time of National Crisis, by Terence McSweeney11. Moonraker (1979) and the Canvas of Escapism, by Steven Gerrard12. The Spectre of Death: Revenge and Retribution in For Your Eyes Only (1981), by Stuart Joy13. The (Clown) Suited Hero: James Bond, Costume, Gender and Disguise in Octopussy (1983), by Claire Hines14. Scowls and Cowls: Grace Jones, Costume Design, and A View to a Kill (1985), by Randall Stevens15. “A Time When Indiscriminating Bed-Hopping Is Definitely Not Advisable”: Safe-Sex References in the UK Press Reception of The Living Daylights (1987), by Stephanie Jones16. Bond in the New World Orders: Licence to Kill (1989), by Stacey Peebles17. Cold War Nostalgia, (Geo)Political Progress, and James Bond in GoldenEye (1995), by Tatiana Konrad18. Bond by the Numbers: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), by Llewella Chapman19. Bond at the Crossroads: The World Is Not Enough (1999), by Tobias Hochscherf20. The Digital Domain of Die Another Day (2002), by Christopher Holliday21. What Matters More: Hierarchies of Value in Casino Royale (2006), by Christine Muller22. “Like a Bullet . . .”: Speed, Economy, and Canonical Continuity in Quantum of Solace (2008), by Estella Tincknell23. “Sometimes the Old Ways Are the Best”: Technology and the Body in a Gothic Reading of Sam Mendes’s Skyfall (2012), by Monica Germanà24. “It’s Always Been Me”: Spectrality, Hauntings, and Retcon in Spectre (2015), by James Smith25. No Time to Die (2021) and The Spy Who Loved #MeToo?, by Terence McSweeney and Stuart JoySelected BibliographyContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisThe unquenchable thirst of Dracula. The animal lust of Mr. Hyde. The acquiescence of Lewis Carroll's Alice. Victorian literature--with its overtones of prudishness, respectability, and Old World hypocrisy--belies a subverted eroticism. The Victorian Gothic is monstrous but restrained, repressed but perverse, static but transformative, and preoccupied by gender and sexuality in both regressive and progressive ways. Laura Helen Marks investigates the contradictions and seesawing gender dynamics in Victorian-inspired adult films and looks at why pornographers persist in drawing substance and meaning from the era's Gothic tales. She focuses on the particular Victorianness that pornography prefers, and the mythologies of the Victorian era that fuel today's pornographic fantasies. In turn, she exposes what porning the Victorians shows us about pornography as a genre. A bold foray into theory and other forbidden places, Alice in Pornoland reveals how modern-day Victorian Gothic pornography Trade Review"[Marks's] book will certainly be of interest to porn studies scholars. It also provides solid accounts of the ways that pornographers generate new erotic energies from classic texts. " --Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books"Through its in-depth investigation of the dialogue between the porn industry and the world of our supposedly 'prudish' forefathers, Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic represents an important contribution to the analysis of a cinematic genre (neo-Victorian porn) that has been partially neglected in scholarly works." --Neo-Victorian Studies"A giddy pleasure to read the future of porn studies unfolding in these pages."--Celine Parreñas Shimizu, author of The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene"Laura Helen Marks offers a persuasive exploration of the complexities of porn’s love affair with all things Victorian, particularly the fantasy invocations and reimaginings of Gothic sexualities. Her account moves across the pornographic genre and its seeming obsession with the earlier historical period in order to open some very contemporary concerns about sex, desires and technology."--Clarissa Smith, coauthor of Studying Sexualities: Theories, Representations, Cultures

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[Marks's] book will certainly be of interest to porn studies scholars. It also provides solid accounts of the ways that pornographers generate new erotic energies from classic texts. " --Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books"Through its in-depth investigation of the dialogue between the porn industry and the world of our supposedly 'prudish' forefathers, Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic represents an important contribution to the analysis of a cinematic genre (neo-Victorian porn) that has been partially neglected in scholarly works." --Neo-Victorian Studies"A giddy pleasure to read the future of porn studies unfolding in these pages."--Celine Parreñas Shimizu, author of The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene"Laura Helen Marks offers a persuasive exploration of the complexities of porn’s love affair with all things Victorian, particularly the fantasy invocations and reimaginings of Gothic sexualities. Her account moves across the pornographic genre and its seeming obsession with the earlier historical period in order to open some very contemporary concerns about sex, desires and technology."--Clarissa Smith, coauthor of Studying Sexualities: Theories, Representations, Cultures

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Book SynopsisMuscles, six-pack abs, skin, and sweat fill the screen in the tawdry and tantalizing peplum films associated with epic Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s.Using techniques like slow motion and stopped time, these films instill the hero's vitality with timeless admiration and immerse the hero's body in a world that is lavishly eroticized but without sexual desire. Thesesword and sandal films represent a century-long cinematic biopolitical intervention that offers the spectator an imagined form of the male bodyone free of illness, degeneracy, and the burdens of povertythat defends goodness with brute strength and perseverance, and serves as a model of ideal citizenry.Robert A. Rushing traces these epic heroes from Maciste in Cabiria in the early silent era to contemporary transnational figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian, and to films such as Zach Snyder's 300.Rushing explores how the very tactile modes of representation cement the genre's ideological grip on the Trade Review"One of the most unappreciated and oft-mocked genres of the 1960s, the Italian sword-and-sandal films are generally given the short shrift by critics, historians, and film fans alike. Therefore, anytime an entire book is devoted to the films of Hercules and his godlike brethren it is cause for celebration. [... Rushing] presents a fascinating historical overview of the genre." * Cinema Retro *Despite the broad swath of the cultural terrain covered, the book presents a meaningful analysis of the peplum genre's longitudinal engagement with nationalist ideologies. * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsA Note on Film Titles and Foreign Language CitationsIntroduction: Descended from Hercules: A Peplum Genealogy1. Nos Morituri: Time in the Peplum2. Pre/Post: Sexuality in the Peplum3. Skin Flicks: The Haptic Peplum4. Immune Systems: The Peplum as Biopolitical GenreConclusion: Biopolitical FantasyFilmographyWorks CitedIndex

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Book SynopsisExplores the status and authority of law and the nature of political allegiance through close readings of three classic Hollywood Westerns: Howard Hawks' "Red River" and John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and "The Searchers". The author treats these films as sophisticated mythic accounts of a key moment in American history.Trade Review"A trenchant and illuminating study of three great Westerns and a convincing case for their importance both to political psychology and to our own self-understanding as American citizens."—C. D. C. Reeve, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "Robert Pippin's study of three great Westerns is a fine meditation on the place of heroism in democracy and the ambiguous relationship between legend and history in the making of heroes. It can stand with the best recent books on the Western as a genre, but it is driven by a thought all its own: the difficulty of the search for order, and the elusive 'possibility of an American politics.'"—David Bromwich, Yale University “Pippin's marvelous book is a more than worthy successor to the classic essays on the Western by André Bazin and Robert Warshow. This volume is remarkable for its clarity and depth of argument.”—George Wilson, University of Southern California

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Book SynopsisA renowned movie critic on film’s treatment of one of mankind’s darkest behaviors: murderTrade Review“[Thomson’s] analysis of death in Hitchcock movies is gorgeous. His restlessness is palpable. There is an anxiety in this brief, hurried book that suits these political and medical times.”—Lisa Schwarzbaum, New York Times Book Review“David Thomson looks at how audiences become complicit in a cinematic ‘warped triangle’ in his provocative Murder and the Movies.”—Choice Magazine“In dissecting homicide’s screen allure, Thomson’s erudite insight dazzles.”—Kevin Harley, Total Film“Thomson’s dive into dependency of movies on murder leads to a surprisingly quiet tone, a conversation of lowered voices: a sense of film enacting some fated, circular history.”—Greil Marcus“Thomson, one of the world’s leading film critics and historians, in his polished, recognizable style (dancing writing, provocative gestures, first person participation), has produced a slim, smart, readable volume on murder, movies, and society.”—Jonathan Kirshner, author of Hollywood’s Last Golden Age“Completely unpredictable, always surprising, always deeply engaging, and always very entertaining. You never know where Thomson may take you. You just know that wherever he does take you will be a wonderful place he will let you discover for yourself.”—Richard Burt, University of Florida

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Book SynopsisA closer look at the captivating history of American cinema.

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Book SynopsisHitchcock's previously untold origin story. Alfred Hitchcock called The Lodger the first true Hitchcock movie,the one that anticipated all the others. And yet the story of how The Lodger came to be made is shrouded in myth, often repeated and much embellished, even by Hitchcock himself. The First True Hitchcock focuses on the twelve-month period that encompassed The Lodger's production in 1926 and release in 1927, presenting a new picture of this pivotal year in Hitchcock's life and in the wider film world. Using fresh archival discoveries, Henry K. Miller situates Hitchcock's formation as a director against the backdrop of a continent shattered by war and confronted with the looming presence of a new superpower, the United States, and its most visible exportfilm. The previously untold story of The Lodger's making in the London fogand attempted remaking in the Los Angeles sunis the story of how Hitchcock became Hitchcock.Trade Review'Henry K. Miller’s in-depth study of the production and impact of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film The Lodger is an essential addition to the Hitch canon." * The Film Stage *"Miller reminds us that film history consistently requires an understanding of past worlds that no matter how ‘fixed’ have long since vanished." * Sight & Sound *"The First True Hitchcock is an invigoratingly deep dive into the movie that launched one of world cinema’s most endlessly intriguing careers." * Hitchcock Annual *Table of ContentsPreface Map of London, 1926–1927 1. The Embankment at Midnight 2. The Reputation and the Myth 3. No Old Masters 4. The Autocrat of the Studio 5. To Catch a Thief 6. The First True Hitchcock 7. Stories of the Days to Come 8. Wilshire Palms Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe first full-length study of the iconic 1960s film The Great Escape and its place in Hollywood and American history.Escaped POW Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) on a stolen motorcycle jumps an imposing barbed wire fencecaught on film, the act and its aftermath have become an unforgettable symbol of triumph as well as defeat for 1960s America. Combining production and reception history with close reading, Dreams of Flight offers the first full-length study of The Great Escape, the classic film based on a true story of Allied prisoners who hatched an audacious plan to divert and thwart the Wehrmacht and escape into the nearby countryside. Through breezy prose and pithy analysis, Dana Polan centersThe Great Escapewithin American cultural and intellectual history, drawing a vivid picture of the country in the 1960s. We see a nation grappling with its own military history, a society undergoing significant shifts in its culture and identity, and a film industry in transition from Old HollywTrade Review"Dana Polan’s rich assessment of the film’s making coupled with a superb analysis of the film itself, script, style, themes and directorial bravura is filled with informative nuggets. Eschewing the standard star bio approach, Polan goes much deeper. . . . Written with tremendous authority and great style." * Cinema Retro *“Dreams of Flight is an act of devotion, a work of extreme connoisseurship.” * Air Mail *"Far more than just a love letter to a foundational film from an author and devoted fan, Dreams of Flight is a rewarding work of scholarly reclamation, a volume that is always precise in its observation of the hidden dimensions of The Great Escape. . . . Through careful attention to formal choices and an impressively broad engagement with memory, history, and cinematic legacies, Dreams of Flight uncovers the many textures of its popular subject." * Velvet Light Trap *"This book expands in myriad and often surprising directions. . . . Dreams of Flight is remarkable for the extent and imaginative richness of the research materials it brings to bear." * California History *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Engineering The Great Escape From Book to Film (and In Between) 2. Tunneling In The Great Escape: Style, Theme, and Structure 3. Afterlives Coda Appendix: "It Really Happened" Notes Index

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Book SynopsisFor centuries, the Arctic was visualized as an unchanging, stable, and rigidly alien landscape, existing outside twenty-first-century globalization. It is now impossible to ignore the ways the climate crisis, expanding resource extraction, and Indigenous political mobilization in the circumpolar North are constituent parts of the global present. New Arctic Cinemas presents an original, comparative, and interventionist historiography of film and media in twenty-first-century Scandinavia, Greenland, Russia, Canada, and the United States to situate Arctic media in the place it rightfully deserves to occupy: as central to global environmental concerns and Indigenous media sovereignty and self-determination movements. The works of contemporary Arctic filmmakers, from Zacharias Kunuk and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril to Amanda Kernell and Inuk Silis Høegh, reach worldwide audiences. In examining the reach and influence of these artists and their work, Scott MacKenzie and Anna Westerstahl Stenport reveal a global media system of intertwined production contexts, circulation opportunities, and imaginariesall centering the Arctic North.Table of ContentsContents List of Figures Acknowledgments 1 • Twenty-First-Century Arctic Cinemas and Global Media Studies, Media Sovereignty, the Anthropocene, and Interventionist Historiography 2 • New Arctic Explorers and Twenty-First-Century Ice Imaginaries: From Metrical Documentary to IMAX Spectacle 3 • Isuma and Indigenous Media Sovereignty 4 • The Arnait Collective, Feminist Practice, and Inuit Self-Determination 5 • Sámi Media Sovereignty and Interventionist Historiography:Environmental, Experimental, and Archival Politics 6 • Sámi Feminist First-Person Documentary and Women’s Activism 7 • Global Greenland and Postcolonial Cinema 8 • Greenlandic Reconciliation Cinema, Self-Determination, and Interventionist Historiography 9 • Russia’s Contemporary Arctic Cinema as Geopolitics 10 • From the Cold War to the Climate Crisis: The Russian North and Utopian Svalbard 11 • Looking Ahead: Global Arctic Cinemas in the Twenty-First Century References Index

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Book SynopsisFor centuries, the Arctic was visualized as an unchanging, stable, and rigidly alien landscape, existing outside twenty-first-century globalization. It is now impossible to ignore the ways the climate crisis, expanding resource extraction, and Indigenous political mobilization in the circumpolar North are constituent parts of the global present. New Arctic Cinemas presents an original, comparative, and interventionist historiography of film and media in twenty-first-century Scandinavia, Greenland, Russia, Canada, and the United States to situate Arctic media in the place it rightfully deserves to occupy: as central to global environmental concerns and Indigenous media sovereignty and self-determination movements. The works of contemporary Arctic filmmakers, from Zacharias Kunuk and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril to Amanda Kernell and Inuk Silis Høegh, reach worldwide audiences. In examining the reach and influence of these artists and their work, Scott MacKenzie and Anna Westerstahl Stenport reTable of ContentsContents List of Figures Acknowledgments 1 • Twenty-First-Century Arctic Cinemas and Global Media Studies, Media Sovereignty, the Anthropocene, and Interventionist Historiography 2 • New Arctic Explorers and Twenty-First-Century Ice Imaginaries: From Metrical Documentary to IMAX Spectacle 3 • Isuma and Indigenous Media Sovereignty 4 • The Arnait Collective, Feminist Practice, and Inuit Self-Determination 5 • Sámi Media Sovereignty and Interventionist Historiography:Environmental, Experimental, and Archival Politics 6 • Sámi Feminist First-Person Documentary and Women’s Activism 7 • Global Greenland and Postcolonial Cinema 8 • Greenlandic Reconciliation Cinema, Self-Determination, and Interventionist Historiography 9 • Russia’s Contemporary Arctic Cinema as Geopolitics 10 • From the Cold War to the Climate Crisis: The Russian North and Utopian Svalbard 11 • Looking Ahead: Global Arctic Cinemas in the Twenty-First Century References Index

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Book SynopsisWhat a century of border films teaches about the real and imagined worlds of the US-Mexico borderlandsand how this understanding helps build better relations across boundaries. Border Witness is an account of cultural collision and fusion between Mexico and the United States, as seen on the ground and in films from the past hundred years. Blending film studies with political and cultural geography, Michael Dear investigates the making of cross-border identity and community in the territories between two nations. Border Witness introduces a new border film genre just now entering its golden age. A geographer and activist, Dear adopts an accessible and engaged perspective, combining the stories told by these films with insights drawn from his own decades-long research and travel. From early silent films to virtual reality, and from revolution to the present global crisis, border films provide fresh evidence for real and imagined politics and for envisioning future transborder architectures carved from in-between spaces.In an era of global geopolitics that favors walls and war over diplomacy, Dear's insights have relevance for borders around the world.Trade Review"Dear’s book is a magnificent chronicle of borderlands films over a century that should be a “must-read” for border scholars and perhaps used not only in film classes but also in border studies courses to supplement the often-dry readings assigned in our twenty-first century visual world." * Journal of Borderlands Studies *"A deep historical context along with solid cinematic summaries of a less discussed cinematic genre: the border film. . . . The author devotes a good deal of the book to the US's relationship with immigrants, the border patrol, and Mexican officials, providing readers with a firm understanding of the difficulties surrounding the failed policies and procedures currently taking place at the border." * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction   Part 1 Origins 1. Border Witness: From the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico    2. Bisected Bodies: Early Silent Films 3. Making Filmscapes   4. Using Film as Evidence 5. Revolution and Modernization 6. The Great Migrations 7. Border Film Noir Part 2 Fusions 8. Borderlands before Borders 9. From Final Girl to Woman Warrior 10. Narco Nations: Men at War 11. Lives of the Undocumented 12. Moral Tales, Border Law 13. Border Walls: Screen Folly and Fantasy 14. The Mexican Dream/El Sueño Mexicano Part 3 Witness 15. A Golden Age for Border Film 16. Ways of Seeing the Border (Beyond Film) 17. Border Witness of the Future Acknowledgments Appendix 1: Chronological Filmography Appendix 2: Alphabetical Filmography Appendix 3: Map of US-Mexico Borderlands Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisWhat a century of border films teaches about the real and imagined worlds of the US-Mexico borderlandsand how this understanding helps build better relations across boundaries. Border Witness is an account of cultural collision and fusion between Mexico and the United States, as seen on the ground and in films from the past hundred years. Blending film studies with political and cultural geography, Michael Dear investigates the making of cross-border identity and community in the territories between two nations. Border Witness introduces a new border film genre just now entering its golden age. A geographer and activist, Dear adopts an accessible and engaged perspective, combining the stories told by these films with insights drawn from his own decades-long research and travel. From early silent films to virtual reality, and from revolution to the present global crisis, border films provide fresh evidence for real and imagined politics and for envisioning future transborder archiTrade Review"Dear’s book is a magnificent chronicle of borderlands films over a century that should be a “must-read” for border scholars and perhaps used not only in film classes but also in border studies courses to supplement the often-dry readings assigned in our twenty-first century visual world." * Journal of Borderlands Studies *"A deep historical context along with solid cinematic summaries of a less discussed cinematic genre: the border film. . . . The author devotes a good deal of the book to the US's relationship with immigrants, the border patrol, and Mexican officials, providing readers with a firm understanding of the difficulties surrounding the failed policies and procedures currently taking place at the border." * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction   Part 1 Origins 1. Border Witness: From the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico    2. Bisected Bodies: Early Silent Films 3. Making Filmscapes   4. Using Film as Evidence 5. Revolution and Modernization 6. The Great Migrations 7. Border Film Noir Part 2 Fusions 8. Borderlands before Borders 9. From Final Girl to Woman Warrior 10. Narco Nations: Men at War 11. Lives of the Undocumented 12. Moral Tales, Border Law 13. Border Walls: Screen Folly and Fantasy 14. The Mexican Dream/El Sueño Mexicano Part 3 Witness 15. A Golden Age for Border Film 16. Ways of Seeing the Border (Beyond Film) 17. Border Witness of the Future Acknowledgments Appendix 1: Chronological Filmography Appendix 2: Alphabetical Filmography Appendix 3: Map of US-Mexico Borderlands Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisAn expert on American culture explores how Christians can most profitably and critically hear, read, and view popular culture through the lens of film.Table of ContentsContents List of Movie Musings 1. Why a Christian Approach? 2. Culture Communicates: Biblical Principles for a Peculiar Means of Expression 3. Moviemaking Magic: Poetic Portals and the Power of Perspective 4. Creating an Illusion of Reality: Film Form and Content 5. Connecting the Dots: Style and Meaning 6. Redemption American-Style: The Melodramatic Vision 7. The Yellow Brick Road to Self-Realization: Classical Hollywood Cinema 8. A Man's Gotta Do What a Man's Gotta Do: American Action-Adventure Movies 9. Stop Taking My Hand! Gender and Mainstream Hollywood Epilogue Indexes

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Book SynopsisBalancing historical nuance with passion for cinematic narratives, Writing History with Lightning confronts how movies about nineteenth-century America influence the ways in which mass audiences remember, understand, and envision the nation's past.

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Book SynopsisAnalyses war movies for what they reveal about the narratives and ideologies that shape US national identity. The volume explores the extent to which the motion picture industry, particularly Hollywood, has played an outsized role in the construction and evolution of American self-definition.

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Book SynopsisBringing together superhero scholars from a range of disciplines, alongside key industry figures, The Superhero Symbol provides fresh perspectives on how characters like Captain America, Iron Man, and Wonder Woman have engaged with media, culture, and politics, to become the “everlasting” symbols to which a young Bruce Wayne once aspired.Trade Review"With contributions by an imposing list of scholars, The Superhero Symbol offers readers enlightening essays on the politics of the superhero, on the commercial branding, nationalism and national identity, on sexuality and sexual identity, and on the culture and mythology of the superhero; in short, everything about the superhero that you never asked because it never even occurred to you to ask." -- Trina Robbins * author of Pretty in Ink, North American Women Cartoonists 1896 - 2013 *"This extraordinary league of transmedial comics scholars pull off the impossible: the definitive tome on how global industries create and planetary consumers actively engage with the superhero symbol. The tack-sharp cross-disciplinary scholarship along with deep-probe interviews with industry titans take us on a wild journey through time and space to forcefully show how those costume-clad full-chested insignias and sky-beamed icons are much more than expressions of fan-boy wish fulfilment fantasies. Provocative. Field defining. A must read!" -- Frederick Luis Aldama * author of the Eisner Award winning Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics *"Throughout the essays cross-refer, giving the collection considerable unity. Combining fundamental concerns in superhero studies with a variety of thought-provoking special topics, and studded with color illustrations, this is a worthwhile collection for both knowledgeable scholars and newcomers to superhero studies. Recommended." * Choice *"There is a lot of ground covered in this book, much of which will make you think beyond your normal perimeters and that’s never a bad thing and makes for an interesting book." * SFcrowsnest *Table of ContentsContents Introduction: “Everlasting” Symbols: Unmasking superheroes and their shifting symbolic function, Liam BurkeSection 1: Superheroes, Politics, and Civic Engagement 1. “What Else Can You Do With Them?”: Superheroes and the Civic ImaginationHenry Jenkins 2. “America Is A Piece of Trash”: Captain America, Patriotism, Nationalism, and FascismNeal Curtis 3. “This Land is Mine!” Understanding the Function of SupervillainsJason Bainbridge Interview 1: Comics artist, writer, and "herstorian" Trina Robbins Section 2: The Superhero as a Brand 4. The Secret Commercial Identity of Superheroes: Protecting the Superhero SymbolMitchell Adams 5. Siegel and Shuster as Brand NameIan Gordon 6. Practicing Superhuman Law: Creative License, Industrial Identity, and Spider-Man’s HomecomingTara Lomax 7. The sound of the cinematic superheroDan Golding Interview 2: Former President of DC Entertainment Diane Nelson Section 3: Becoming the Superhero 8. ­­­­­­­­­Arkham Knave: The Joker in Game DesignSteven Conway 9. Being Super, Becoming Heroes: Dialogic Superhero Narratives in Cosplay CollectivesClaire Langsford 10. “From Pages to Pavements”: A Criminological Comparison Between Depictions of Crime Control in Superhero Narratives and “Real-Life Superhero” ActivityVladislav Iouchkov and John McGuire Interview 3: Dark Night: A True Batman Story writer Paul Dini Section 4: Superheroes and National Identity 11. Captain America, National Narratives, and the Queer Subversion of the RetconNaja Later 12. Apes, Angels, and Super Patriots: The Irish in Superhero ComicsLiam Burke 13. Missing in Action: The Late Development of the German-Speaking SuperheroPaul M. Malone 14. Chinese Milk for Iron Men: Superhero Coproductions and Technological AnxietyShan Mu Zhao 15. Age of the Atoman: Australian Superhero Comics and Cold War ModernityKevin Patrick Interview 4: Cleverman creator Ryan Griffen and star Hunter Page-Lochard Acknowledgements Notes on the Editors Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisBringing together superhero scholars from a range of disciplines, alongside key industry figures, The Superhero Symbol provides fresh perspectives on how characters like Captain America, Iron Man, and Wonder Woman have engaged with media, culture, and politics, to become the “everlasting” symbols to which a young Bruce Wayne once aspired.Trade Review"With contributions by an imposing list of scholars, The Superhero Symbol offers readers enlightening essays on the politics of the superhero, on the commercial branding, nationalism and national identity, on sexuality and sexual identity, and on the culture and mythology of the superhero; in short, everything about the superhero that you never asked because it never even occurred to you to ask." -- Trina Robbins * author of Pretty in Ink, North American Women Cartoonists 1896 - 2013 *"This extraordinary league of transmedial comics scholars pull off the impossible: the definitive tome on how global industries create and planetary consumers actively engage with the superhero symbol. The tack-sharp cross-disciplinary scholarship along with deep-probe interviews with industry titans take us on a wild journey through time and space to forcefully show how those costume-clad full-chested insignias and sky-beamed icons are much more than expressions of fan-boy wish fulfilment fantasies. Provocative. Field defining. A must read!" -- Frederick Luis Aldama * author of the Eisner Award winning Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics *"Throughout the essays cross-refer, giving the collection considerable unity. Combining fundamental concerns in superhero studies with a variety of thought-provoking special topics, and studded with color illustrations, this is a worthwhile collection for both knowledgeable scholars and newcomers to superhero studies. Recommended." * Choice *"There is a lot of ground covered in this book, much of which will make you think beyond your normal perimeters and that’s never a bad thing and makes for an interesting book." * SFcrowsnest *Table of ContentsContents Introduction: “Everlasting” Symbols: Unmasking superheroes and their shifting symbolic function, Liam BurkeSection 1: Superheroes, Politics, and Civic Engagement 1. “What Else Can You Do With Them?”: Superheroes and the Civic ImaginationHenry Jenkins 2. “America Is A Piece of Trash”: Captain America, Patriotism, Nationalism, and FascismNeal Curtis 3. “This Land is Mine!” Understanding the Function of SupervillainsJason Bainbridge Interview 1: Comics artist, writer, and "herstorian" Trina Robbins Section 2: The Superhero as a Brand 4. The Secret Commercial Identity of Superheroes: Protecting the Superhero SymbolMitchell Adams 5. Siegel and Shuster as Brand NameIan Gordon 6. Practicing Superhuman Law: Creative License, Industrial Identity, and Spider-Man’s HomecomingTara Lomax 7. The sound of the cinematic superheroDan Golding Interview 2: Former President of DC Entertainment Diane Nelson Section 3: Becoming the Superhero 8. ­­­­­­­­­Arkham Knave: The Joker in Game DesignSteven Conway 9. Being Super, Becoming Heroes: Dialogic Superhero Narratives in Cosplay CollectivesClaire Langsford 10. “From Pages to Pavements”: A Criminological Comparison Between Depictions of Crime Control in Superhero Narratives and “Real-Life Superhero” ActivityVladislav Iouchkov and John McGuire Interview 3: Dark Night: A True Batman Story writer Paul Dini Section 4: Superheroes and National Identity 11. Captain America, National Narratives, and the Queer Subversion of the RetconNaja Later 12. Apes, Angels, and Super Patriots: The Irish in Superhero ComicsLiam Burke 13. Missing in Action: The Late Development of the German-Speaking SuperheroPaul M. Malone 14. Chinese Milk for Iron Men: Superhero Coproductions and Technological AnxietyShan Mu Zhao 15. Age of the Atoman: Australian Superhero Comics and Cold War ModernityKevin Patrick Interview 4: Cleverman creator Ryan Griffen and star Hunter Page-Lochard Acknowledgements Notes on the Editors Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisFrom 1950 to 1989 East Germany's state-sponsored film company, DEFA produced over forty feature-length, live-action fairy-tale films based on nineteenth-century folk and literary tales. In The Politics of Magic, Qinna Shen analyses the films on thematic and formal levels and examines their embedded agendas in relation to the cultural politics of the German Democratic Republic.

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Book SynopsisCatalyzed by her notoriously dirty, fabulously successful bestseller Valley of the Dolls, the Jackie Susann Sixties brimmed with camp comedy that now permeates contemporary celebrations of the author, from Pee-wee''s Playhouse to RuPaul''s Drag Race and Lee Daniels''s Star. First christened camp by Gloria Steinem in an excoriating review of Valley of the Dolls and compounded by the publishing juggernauts The Love Machine (1969), Once Is Not Enough (1973), and Dolores (1976), the comedy of Jackie Susann illuminated conflicting positions about gender, sexuality, and aesthetic value. Through a writing formula that Ken Feil calls sleazy realism, Susann veers from gossip to confession and devises comedies of bad manners spun from real celebrities whose occasionally queer and always outré antics clashed with their official personas, the popular genres they were famous for, and the narrow, normative constructiTrade Review“For decades, only the die-hard film nerds and LGBTQIA+ pop culture fanatics recognized Suzann’s impact, but hopefully Feil’s book will open her legacy to a wider audience.” - Library Journal

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Book SynopsisCatalyzed by her notoriously dirty, fabulously successful bestseller Valley of the Dolls, the Jackie Susann Sixties brimmed with camp comedy that now permeates contemporary celebrations of the author, from Pee-wee''s Playhouse to RuPaul''s Drag Race and Lee Daniels''s Star. First christened camp by Gloria Steinem in an excoriating review of Valley of the Dolls and compounded by the publishing juggernauts The Love Machine (1969), Once Is Not Enough (1973), and Dolores (1976), the comedy of Jackie Susann illuminated conflicting positions about gender, sexuality, and aesthetic value. Through a writing formula that Ken Feil calls sleazy realism, Susann veers from gossip to confession and devises comedies of bad manners spun from real celebrities whose occasionally queer and always outré antics clashed with their official personas, the popular genres they were famous for, and the narrow, normative constructiTrade Review“For decades, only the die-hard film nerds and LGBTQIA+ pop culture fanatics recognized Suzann’s impact, but hopefully Feil’s book will open her legacy to a wider audience.” - Library Journal

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Book SynopsisIn defiance of the alleged ‘death of romantic comedy’, After ""Happily Ever After"": Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age edited by Maria San Filippo attests to rom-com's continuing vitality in new modes and forms that reimagine and rejuvenate the genre in ideologically, artistically, and commercially innovative ways.Trade ReviewThe essays in this book document a level of generic activity that belies the death notices so often read out for romantic comedy. Moreover, they do so with analytical skill and rhetorical force. With a fresh focus on rom-coms that make use of alternative distribution practices, disrupt conventional plotlines, or are non-traditional in representational content-featuring queer, ethnically diverse, and/or 'un-couples'-After 'Happily Ever After' cogently illustrates that there is still much to be learned from and about this oft-sidelined genre. A scholarly comedy in two prologues and three acts, this wonderful book starts by resisting the predictions of the doomsayers about the death of comedy and ends up being a song to the vitality, diversity, and apparently endless ability of romantic comedy to shift shape, to adapt, to survive-like life itself if viewed through a comic lens.

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Book SynopsisExamines how Tom Cruise's star image moves across genres and forms as a type of commercial product that offers viewers certain pleasures and expectations. Cruise reads as an action hero and romantic lead yet finds himself in homoerotic and homosocial relationships that unsettle and undermine these heterosexual scripts.

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Book SynopsisShows how politics and aesthetics merge in American film noirs made between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s; their oft-noted uncanniness betrays the fear that un-American foes lurk within the homeland.Trade Review“This terrific book offers fresh insight into both the genre of film noir and the cultural production of the postwar and early Cold War period. Through rich, historically contextualized readings of a range of noir films, Jonathan Auerbach shows how the genre captured the uncanniness of a time of suspicion and paranoia. By illuminating the uncanny figures (the immigrants, the aliens, the strangers) and spaces (national borders and urban zones) that characterize the noir affect, he shows how these films dramatized the national response to the changing terms of citizenship and subjectivity as the anxious fear of the stranger within.”—Priscilla Wald, author of Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative“While scholars have long attended to film noir as one of the preeminent genres of U.S. cinema, they ironically have rarely studied it in terms of its specific engagements with national self-identity and self-definition. Deftly employing his strong and reputed background in American studies to far-reaching ends, Jonathan Auerbach shows precisely how film noir was central to the country’s self-questioning in the fraught times of the Cold War. This is a groundbreaking study that comes up with trenchant insights about a genre that one might have thought had nothing new to yield to critical inquiry.”—Dana Polan, author of Julia Child’s The French Chef“Auerbach evokes the ever-present sense of fear existing in an early Cold War American public through his analysis of these films. Both insightful and unique in its undertaking, this book speaks openly and convincingly to the relationship between political agenda, disenfranchisement and art.” -- Laura Crawford * Media International Australia *“This insightful study wisely ranges beyond the genre’s usual suspects. Recommended. All readers.” -- M. Yacowar * Choice *“Auerbach provides unique close readings of a select group of films that assist us in seeing film noir in relation to concerns over citizenship and Cold War paranoia. It provides a valuable starting point from which we can hope future scholarship will further delve into such connections.” -- Christopher Robé * Journal of American History *“[A] wholly original, ground-level reconsideration of noir's cultural setting. . . . Auerbach's book augurs . . .a theory-to-come of U.S. film that can leam to disable those old tropes and inspire truly fresh lines of aesthetic and political questioning.” -- Matt Tierney * Film Criticism *“[I]f you have an abiding interest in film noir . . . you will find Dark Borders has a lot to offer. While most books on film noir take a rather broad approach in their examination of the genre, Auerbach chose a core of films to study in order to link the book’s overriding theme. By concentrating on a handful of films, he provides a comprehensive insight to each one, and therein lies the strength of the book.” -- Phil Stufflebean * American Film Noir *“]Auerbach’s] rigorous and creative readings of these films will prove indispensable for serious students of noir. . . . some of the most exciting moments to be noted in Auerbach’s compelling book demonstrate nuanced uses of cultural history to inform his film analysis. Such exciting subjects include Lucky Luciano and the Second World War, Hemingway’s annoyance over inefficient government help during the 1935 hurricane, and the emergence of corporate and managerial structures of power and identity.” -- Sam B. Girgus * American Literature *“Auerbach offers some significant fresh insights into territory one would have thought to now be fully excavated.“ -- Tony Williams * Screening the Past *“The book as a whole is exemplary in its analysis of the interrelation between film noir and the social and political history of the 1940s and early 50s.” -- Martin Fradley * Film Quarterly *Table of ContentsIllustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Un-Americanness of Film Noir 1 1. Gestapo in America: Confessions of a Nazi Spy and Stranger on the Third Floor 27 2. White Collar Murder: Double Indemnity 57 3. Cuba, Gangsters, Vets, and Other Outcasts of the Islands: The Chase and Key Largo 91 4. North From Mexico: Border Incident, Hold Back the Dawn, Secret Beyond the Door, and Out of the Past 123 5. Bad Boy Patriots: This Gun for Hire, Ride the Pink Horse, and Pickup on South Street 155 Postscript: Darkness Visible 185 Notes 205 Bibilography 245 Index 261

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Book SynopsisNapoli/New York/Hollywood investigates the work of Italian immigrant performers and the impact of the traditions of the Italian stage within the history of Hollywood cinema and of American media from 1895 to today.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 1. Italian Performers in American Silent Cinema 21 2. Aristocrats, Acrobats, Latin Lovers, and Waiters: Italians in American Silent Cinema 70 3. A Filmic Grand Tour: American Silent Films “Made in Italy” 100 4. American Cinema in Italian: The Formation of Italian American Culture 157 5. Italian Actors in Classical Hollywood Cinema 209 6. Transnational Neorealism: Toward an Italian American Film Hegemony 253 Acknowledgments 297 Notes 301 Index 349

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Book SynopsisNapoli/New York/Hollywood investigates the work of Italian immigrant performers and the impact of the traditions of the Italian stage within the history of Hollywood cinema and of American media from 1895 to today.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 1. Italian Performers in American Silent Cinema 21 2. Aristocrats, Acrobats, Latin Lovers, and Waiters: Italians in American Silent Cinema 70 3. A Filmic Grand Tour: American Silent Films “Made in Italy” 100 4. American Cinema in Italian: The Formation of Italian American Culture 157 5. Italian Actors in Classical Hollywood Cinema 209 6. Transnational Neorealism: Toward an Italian American Film Hegemony 253 Acknowledgments 297 Notes 301 Index 349

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Book SynopsisHow can we qualify slowness in cinema? What is the relationship between a cinema of slowness and a wider socio-cultural slow movement? A body of films that shares a propensity toward slowness has emerged in many parts of the world over the past two decades. This is the first book to examine the concept of cinematic slowness and address this fascinating phenomenon in contemporary film culture. Providing a critical investigation into questions of temporality, materiality, and aesthetics, and examining concepts of authorship, cinephilia, and nostalgia, Song Hwee Lim offers insight into cinematic slowness through the films of the Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based director Tsai Ming-liang. Through detailed analysis of aspects of stillness and silence in cinema, Lim delineates the strategies by which slowness in film can be constructed. By drawing on writings on cinephilia and the films of directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, he makes a passionate case for

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Book SynopsisBy studying Japanese films and their associated literature, this book reveals the covert stories of Japanese women of various statuses and time periods in an exegesis of their story versus orthodox history. Fifteen films are studied to bring this theme into focus. The five chapters represent categories the public used to code Japanese women in the pre-feminist age.

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Book SynopsisFilm Noir offers new perspectives on this highly popular and influential film genre, providing a useful overview of its historical evolution and the many critical debates over its stylistic elements.Trade Review“It is the most comprehensive and lucid study of the genre I have read … I was also impressed with Luhr's handling of the shift in Hollywood from the 1930s to 1940s. The morally compromised "heroes" of the 1940s were unthinkable in the 1930s. Like all good film critics, Luhr makes me want to see my favorite films again because he has shown me things I missed. And then there are all those films I didn't see that are now on my list because of William Luhr.” (Carl Rollyson, 16 June 2012) Table of ContentsList of Plates ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Historical Overview 20 3 Critical Overview 50 4 Murder, My Sweet 73 5 Out of the Past 100 6 Kiss Me Deadly 123 7 The Long Goodbye 146 8 Chinatown 171 9 Seven 191 Afterword 215 References 217 Further Reading 223 Index 225

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Book SynopsisThe Fantasy Film provides a clear and compelling overview of this revitalized and explosively popular film genre. Providing in-depth historical and critical overviews of the genre, The Fantasy Film explores the boundaries of fantasy throughout history and the expansion of this important genre in contemporary film.Trade Review"In true reflection of its straightforward—if generic—title, The Fantasy Film presents a useful foundation for deeper reflection on the complexities of the fantastic in film." (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 1 February 2014) "Written in prose that is careful and cogent, the book provides a defence of what Fowkes calls the "orphan" genre (unloved; neglected; even, perhaps, of questionable legitimacy), one which she argues has long been excluded from serious analysis by "dogmas of realism" that privilege "codes of . . . mimesis." (Times Literary Supplement, 18 February 2011)Table of ContentsList of Plates ix Acknowledgements xi 1 What’s in a Name: Defining the Elusive Fantasy Genre 1 2 Once upon a Time: A Brief Historical Overview 15 3 A Brief Critical Overview: Literary and Film Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror 38 4 The Wizard of Oz (1939): Over the Rainbow 55 5 Harvey (1950): A Happy Hallucination? 68 6 Always (1989): Spielberg’s Ghost from the Past 81 7 Groundhog Day (1993): No Time Like the Present 92 8 Big (1988): Body and Soul/‘‘Hearts and Souls’’ 104 9 Shrek (2001): Like an Onion 114 10 Spider-Man (2002): The Karmic Web 124 11 The Lord of the Rings (2001–3): Tolkien’s Trilogy or Jackson’s Thrillogy? 134 12 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005): A Joyful Spell 145 13 Harry Potter I–VI (2001–9): Words are Mightier than the Sword 156 14 Conclusion: Imagine That! 171 References 175 Index 186

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Book SynopsisThe Hollywood War Film introduces the theory, history, stars, and major films constituting this evergreen genre. From untested young recruits and battle-hardened warriors to ferocious drill instructors and stereotypical enemies, this volume offers readers lively entry into the major conventions of the war film genre.Trade Review"Free of theoretical jargon and labyrinthine argumentation, with long-winded yet stimulating plot summaries, The Hollywood War Film is first and foremost recommended to students of film and cinema buffs who are getting acquainted with critical perspectives on the genre." (Hollywood Enlisted, 2010)Table of ContentsList of Plates. Acknowledgments. Introduction. 1. Historical Overview. 2. Critical Issues. 3. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). 4. Destination Tokyo (1943) and Retaliation Films. 5. Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). 6. Glory (1989). 7. The Iraq Wars on Film. 8. Iwo Jima. Notes. Index.

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Book SynopsisThe Hollywood Film Musical examines the cross-fertilization between the genre and the popular music industry, tracing the function of this relationship in aesthetic, ideological and industrial terms, and outlining the influence of minstrel shows, vaudeville, the Broadway stage, the recording industry, and stardom.Trade Review“Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-and upper-division undergraduates; general readers.” (Choice, 1 November 2012)Table of ContentsList of Plates ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 1 Historical Overview 7 2 Critical Overview 38 3 Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) 55 4 Top Hat (1935) 70 5 The Pirate (1948) 85 6 West Side Story (1961) and Saturday Night Fever (1977) 99 7 Woodstock (1970) 116 8 Phantom of the Paradise (1974) 131 9 Pennies from Heaven (1981) and Across the Universe (2007) 146 References 165 Index 171

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Book SynopsisThe most up-to-date study of the Hollywood romantic comedy film, from the development of sound to the twenty-first century, this book examines the history and conventions of the genre and surveys the controversies arising from the critical responses to these films.Trade Review“Grindon’s contribution to the romantic comedy film bibliography is a valuable addition to the limited number of similar scholarly endeavors, and it seems well-designed for classroom use—not just for teaching the particular films he discusses, but also for teaching methodology. The romantic comedy genre has rarely received the sort of academic recognition it deserves, but students, film scholars, romance scholars, and rom-com enthusiasts all over the world will find The Hollywood Romantic Comedya fine introduction to this culturally and politically significant film genre.” (Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 1 October 2012) "The romantic comedy genre has rarely received the sort of academic recognition it deserves, but students, film scholars, romance scholars, and rom-com enthusiasts all over the world will find The Hollywood Romantic Comedy a fine introduction to this culturally and politically significant film genre." (Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 15 October 2012) "Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers." (Choice, 1 September 2011)Table of ContentsList of Plates ix Acknowledgements xi 1 Introduction 1 2 History, Cycles, and Society 25 3 Thinking Seriously About Laughter and Romance 67 4 Trouble in Paradise (1932): What is the Trouble in Paradise? 84 5 His Girl Friday (1940): Jailbreak! 96 6 The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944): The Home Front Romantic Comedy 106 7 Adam’s Rib (1949): Anatomy Lesson 117 8 Some Like It Hot (1959): Riding Sidesaddle 129 9 The Graduate (1967): Counter-Conventions and Cultural Change 139 10 Annie Hall (1977): The Trials of Partnership 150 11 When Harry Met Sally (1989): Friendship, Sex, and Courtship 160 12 There’s Something About Mary (1998): Parody and the Grotesque 171 13 Waitress (2007): Women’s Ambivalence 181 A Chronology of Prominent Hollywood Romantic Comedies 191 References 195 Index 201

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Book SynopsisCinema Wars explores the intersection of film, politics, and US culture and society through a bold critical analysis of the films, TV shows, and documentaries produced in the early 2000s Offers a thought-provoking depiction of Hollywood film as a contested terrain between conservative and liberal forces Films and documentaries discussed include: Black Hawk Down, The Dark Knight, Star Wars, Syriana, WALL-E, Fahrenheit 9/11 and other Michael Moore documentaries, amongst others Explores how some films in this era supported the Bush-Cheney regime, while others criticized the administration, openly or otherwise Investigates Hollywood's treatment of a range of hot topics, from terrorism and environmental crisis to the Iraq war and the culture wars of the 2000s Shows how Hollywood film in the 2000s brought to life a vibrant array of social protest and helped create cultural condiTrade Review"Notwithstanding the lack of surprise, Kellner is always challenging and provocative, and for that reason alone, Cinema Wars is worth reading." (Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 1 June 2011) "This volume will be a valuable source ... .The provocative political stances taken and wide range of films discussed here will stimulate debate for academics and students alike." (Times Higher Education, February 2010) Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii List of Plates ix Introduction: Film, Politics, and Society 1 Hollywood Film as a Contested Terrain 2 Cinema, Politics, and Social History: From Cinematic Realism to Allegory 13 Hollywood Film and the Contemporary Moment: Signs of the Times 18 Reading Film Diagnostically: Imagining Obama 34 In This Book 40 1 Confronting the Horrors of the Bush-Cheney Era: From Documentary to Allegory 51 The Golden Age of Documentary 52 Real Disaster Films: From An Inconvenient Truth and Environmental Documentaries to Animated Allegories 71 Allegories of Catastrophe: Social Apocalypse in Disaster, Horror, and Fantasy Films 80 2 Hollywood’s 9/11 and Spectacles of Terror 98 9/11 as Disaster Film and Spectacle of Terror 99 Representations of 9/11 in Hollywood Film: United 93 and World Trade Center 101 Disney Television Republican Propaganda: The Path to 9/11 108 Hollywood’s Terror War 118 3 Michael Moore’s Provocations 132 Michael Moore, Emile de Antonio, and the Politics of Documentary Film 133 Roger and Me and the Documentary of Personal Witnessing 136 Bowling For Columbine and Exploratory Documentary Montage 140 Fahrenheit 9/11 and Partisan Interventionist Cinema 146 Sicko and the Michael Moore Genre 155 4 Hollywood Political Critiques of the Bush-Cheney Regime: From Thrillers to Fantasy and Satire 163 The Hollywood Political Thriller Against the Bush-Cheney Regime 165 Star Wars Prequels as Anti-Bush-Cheney Allegory 173 From Satire to Dystopia 183 5 The Cinematic Iraq War 199 Documenting Iraq 200 Interpreting the Iraq Fiasco 208 Iraq and Its Aftermath in Fiction Films 219 Conclusion: Hollywood Cinema Wars in the 2000s 239 Critical Representations 240 History Lessons 250 Final Reflections 258 References 262 Index 269

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Book SynopsisBroad in scope, this interdisciplinary collection of original scholarship on historical film features essays that explore the many facets of this expanding field and provide a platform for promising avenues of research.Trade ReviewOverall, this work offers a serious and scholarly overview of several genres of historical film and would make a useful addition to academic collections in particular. (Reference Reviews, 1 June 2014) Ultimately, this important collection will prove a useful and accessible resource for researchers and pedagogues both and deserves to be a fixture in the reading lists of students of history as well as film and cultural studies. It would certainly be useful to hear what historians have to say about these analyses and how those in that discipline are coping with the idea that dramatic recreations, fictions and documentaries might be treated seriously for the theses they present on the experience and understanding of the past. (Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 1 March 2014) Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. (Choice, 1 August 2013)Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors viii Introduction 1Robert A. Rosenstone and Constantin Parvulescu Part 1 History and the Medium of Film 1 Politics and the Historical Film: Hotel Rwanda and the Form of Engagement 11Alison Landsberg 2 History as Palimpsest: Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975) 30Maria Pramaggiore 3 Flagging up History: The Past as a DVD Bonus Feature 53Debra Ramsay 4 The History Film as a Mode of Historical Thought 71Robert A. Rosenstone Part 2 Filmmakers as Historians 5 Julia’s Resistant History:Women’s Historical Films in Hollywood and the Legacy of Citizen Kane 91J. E. Smyth 6 Mark Donskoi’s Gorky Trilogy and the Stalinist Biopic 110Denise J. Youngblood 7 The Subjects of History: Italian Filmmakers as Historians 133Marcia Landy 8 Andrzej Wajda as Historian 154Piotr Witek Part 3 Telling Lives: The Biopic 9 Oliver Stone’s Nixon: The Rise and Fall of a Political Gangster 179Willem Hesling 10 Authorial Histories: The Historical Film and the Literary Biopic 199Hila Shachar 11 The Biopic in Hindi Cinema 219Rachel Dwyer 12 The Lives and Times of the Biopic 233Dennis Bingham Part 4 Cinema and the Nation 13 Gang Wars: Warner Brothers’ The Roaring Twenties Stars, News, and the New Deal 257Paula Rabinowitz 14 State Terrorism on Film: Argentine Cinema during the First Years of Democracy (1983–1990) 283Mario Ranalletti 15 Fossil Frontiers: American Petroleum History on Film 301Georgiana Banita 16 Sounding the Depths of History: Opera and National Identity in Italian Film 328Roger Hillman Part 5 Wars and Revolutions 17 Generational Memory and Affect in Letters from Iwo Jima 349Robert Burgoyne 18 Post-Heroic Revolution: Depicting the 1989 Events in the Romanian Historical Film of the Twenty-First Century 365Constantin Parvulescu 19 In Country: Narrating the Iraq War in Contemporary US Cinema 384Guy Westwell Part 6 Premodern Times 20 Heart and Clock: Time and History in The Immortal Heart and Other Films about the Middle Ages 407Bettina Bildhauer 21 The Anti-Samurai Film 425Thomas Keirstead Part 7 Slavery and the Postcolonial World 22 The Politics of Cine-Memory: Signifying Slavery in the History Film 445Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall 23 The African Past on Screen: Moving beyond Dualism 468Vivian Bickford-Smith 24 Colonial Legacies in Contemporary French Cinema: Jews and Muslims on Screen 490Catherine Portuges 25 ‘‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’’: Sympathy, Antipathy, and the Unsettling of Colonial American History in Film 513Louis Kirk McAuley Index 540

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