Film: styles and genres Books

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Book SynopsisIT’S SHOW TIME! Celebrate Halloween, the holidays, or any special occasion with this official countdown enamel pin set inspired by the beloved horror comedy film Beetlejuice™. The set features 12 one-of-a-kind enamel pins, including fan favorites like the Handbook for the Recently Deceased™, Lydia, and of course Beetlejuice™! Experience one surprise a day and proudly wear or display these pins to show your love for the ghost with the most. DISCOVER 12 UNIQUE ENAMEL PINS: Open a pocket each day and discover 12 exciting pins featuring iconic characters and elements from the film. This deluxe advent calendar is a must-have for any Beetlejuice™ fan. HOLIDAY COUNTDOWN: Countdown to Halloween, Christmas, birthdays, or any special occasion by unwrapping one pin every day for the 12 days leading up to the big day. ADD TO YOUR COLLECTION: Add more fun Beetlejuice™-inspired pro

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Book SynopsisScience fiction has hosted some of the greatest minds and most innovative thinkers in human history. From H.G. Wells to Octavia Butler, Star Trek to Star Wars, in books, on television, and at the movies, science fiction has shaped our future, pushed the limits of human imagination, and guided us within ourselves to examine universal truths of life. In this smartly curated book, author Guy P. Harrison collects 1,001 of the most influential and transformative quotations spanning four centuries of sci-fi, such as:Better to make a good future than predict a bad one.?Isaac Asimov, Prelude to Foundation, 1988 novelHope clouds observation.?Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965 novelNo amount of money ever bought a second of time.?Avengers: Endgame, 2019 film, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeelyWhether you are a Dr. Who superfan, a diehard sci-fi reader, or an outer space film buffor are simply curious about the cosmosDamn You, Entropy! is an essential addition to every science fiction fan's library.

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Book SynopsisAs Nick and Nora Charles in the six Thin Man movies from 1934 to 1947, the husband-and-wife team of William Powell and Myrna Loy showed that marriage didn't have to mean the end of the romantic comedy. From the comedic delight that was the initial The Thin Man through its five sequels as well as eight other films (including the Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld and Manhattan Melodrama), Powell and Loy were cemented in the public imagination as Hollywood's happiest married couple.In Becoming Nick and Nora, comedy writer and Hollywood historian Rob Kozlowski follows the winding path that Powell and Loy's screen personas took over their careers. Studios originally cultivated the two as villains in the silent era: Powell as a mustachioed, swashbuckling fiend and Loy as an exotic adversary. With the rise of talkies, the two managed to broaden their range beyond villainous stereotypes, but it took several false starts before they achieved their lasting legacy as Nick and Nora. Packe

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Book SynopsisDavid Pirie is a screenwriter, film producer, film critic, and novelist. A former Film Editor of Time Out, Pirie has written for publications including Sight and Sound, Monthly Film Bulletin, The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. As a screenwriter, Pirie has achieved a reputation for his noirish original thrillers, classic adaptations and period gothic pieces including the hit ITV series Murderland starring Robbie Coltrane (2009). Pirie was nominated for a BAFTA for his adaptation of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White (BBC, 1997), and in 2018 he co-executive produced the BBC's five hour production of the same novel, starring Jessie Buckley. Pirie is the creator of the Murder Rooms novels and BBC TV dramas. His work for TV and film includes the New York TV Festival award-winning Rainy Day Women (1984); Element of Doubt (1996), Natural Lies (1992); Ashenden (1991), and Black Easter (1995) and he also worked (uncredited) on the screenplay for Lars von Trier's Oscar-nominated Breaking the Waves (1996).

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A marvelous bombshell of a book, by one of our most formidably knowledgeable and insightful writers on film, it is filled with surprises and witty asides. Though Thomson is quick to pounce on the hypocrisies and historical omissions of some of these war movies, there is nothing compromised about his own daredevil judgments. We are in the hands of a master critic/essayist." — Phillip Lopate “Praise the gods for giving us a writer with a deep moral sense and an epigrammatic prose style who writes as exquisitely about war as he does about film. Thomson's book brims with striking observations and provocative readings of crucial films, the great and the forgotten, from All Quiet on the Western Front to Apocalypse Now to Black Hawk Down and scores more. The Fatal Alliance is an absorbing, uproarious and essential book -- about war, about film, about us. And my God, the man can write!" — Mark Danner, author of Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War and Spiral: Trapped in the Forever War

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Book SynopsisHorror movies can reveal much more than we realize about psychological disorders—and clinical psychology has a lot to teach us about horror. Our fears—mortality, failure, loneliness—can be just as motivating as our wishes or desires. Horror movie characters uniquely reveal all of these to a wide audience. If explored in an honest and serious manner, our fears have the potential to teach us a great deal about ourselves, our culture, and certainly other people. From psychologist, researcher, and horror film enthusiast Brian A. Sharpless comes Monsters on the Couch, an exploration into the real-life psychological disorders behind famous horror movies. Accounts of clinical syndromes every bit as dramatic as those on the silver screen are juxtaposed with fascinating forays into the science and folklore behind our favorite movie monsters. Horror fans may be obsessed with vampires, werewolves, zombies, and the human replacements from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but even many medical professions may not know about the corresponding conditions of Renfield's syndrome, clinical lycanthropy, Cotard's syndrome, and the misidentification delusions. Some of these disorders are surprisingly common in the general population. For instance, a number of people experience isolated sleep paralysis, a disorder implicated in ghost and alien abduction beliefs.As these tales unfold, readers not only learn state-of-the-art psychological science but also gain a better understanding of history, folklore, and how Hollywood often—but not always—gets it wrong when tackling these complex topics.Table of ContentsIntroductionPart I: Movie Monsters from the Early Days of Cinema 1. Clinical Lycanthropy: The Werewolves and Were-Gerbils Among Us 2. You Suck, or, A (Diagnostic) Interview with the Vampire: Vampire Movies and Renfield’s Syndrome 3. I Am the Walking Dead, or, The Whiter Shade of Pale: Cotards Syndrome and Zombie MoviesPart II: Modern Day Movie Marvels 4. One Two the Dab Tsob’s Coming for You . . . : The Real-Life Mystery Behind A Nightmare on Elm Street 5. This Is Not My Beautiful House, This Is Not My Beautiful Wife: Horror Movies Related to the Misidentification Syndromes 6. Demons, Aliens, and Shadow People: The New Horror Subgenre of Sleep ParalysisPart III: Monstrous Behaviors 7. Are You Gonna Eat That? Cannibal Movies and Vorarephilia 8. Shuddersome Sex in the Movies: Attracted to the Big Sleep/Stillness of Death: Necrophilia and Somnophilia Conclusion: Better Living Through Horror Notes Index

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Book SynopsisBlumhouse Productions is the first book that systematically examines the corpus of Blumhouse’s cinematic output. Individual chapters written by emerging and established scholars consider thematic trends across Blumhouse films, such as the use of found footage, haunted bodies/haunted houses, and toxic masculinity. Blumhouse’s business strategies and funding model are considered – including the company’s high-profile franchises Paranormal Activity, Insidious, The Purge, Happy Death Day, and Halloween – alongside such key standalone films as Get Out and Black Christmas, and nonhorror films like BlackKklansman. Taken together, the chapters provide a thorough primer for one of the most significant drivers behind the contemporary resurgence of horror cinema.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Tables Notes on Contributors Introduction Blumhouse at the Box Office, 2009-2018 ‘Those Things You See Through’: Get Out, Signifyin’, and Hollywood’s Commodification of African American Independent Cinema Haunted Bodies, Haunted Houses Gothixity: Evoking the Gothic through New Forms of Toxic Masculinity Space Invaders: Aliens and Recessionary Anxieties in Dark Skies The (Blum)House Found Footage Horror Built Insidious Patterns: An Integrative Analysis of Blumhouse’s Most Important Franchise The Purge: Violence and Religion as Toxic Cocktail Happy Death Day: Beyond the Neoslasher Cycle Haunted Networks: Transparency and Exposure in Unfriended and Unfriended: Dark Web Blumhouse’s Halloween (2018) the Shifting Ethos of Slasher Remakes ‘Disobedient Women’ and Malicious Men: A Comparative Assessment of the Politics of Black Christmas (1974) and (2019) What Lies Behind the White Hood: Looking at Horror Through a Realistic Lens Through Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA new Star Wars Insider collection, featuring content previously printed in the Star Wars Insider magazine. Each volume brings together a collection of the best of the official Star Wars Insider magazine content, celebrating the complete Star Wars experience, from movies to books, video games to comic books, and more! Featuring rare cast and crew interviews, and exclusive behind the scenes pictures, this is an essential read for Star Wars fans of all ages.Trade Review"A great addition to fans’ collections ... set to be a collector’s item that will be treasured by many" - Women Write About Comics

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Book SynopsisA DETAILED STUDY OF THE CLASSICS OF CONTINENTAL HORROR CINEMA!From the Expressionist reveries of the Weimar Republic to the transgressive nightmares smuggled past the Franco regime, via surrealist Gallic fever-dreams and psychedelic shockers from Cinecittà, Jonathan Rigby brings his incisive scrutiny to bear on more than 100 key films, starting in the aftermath of World War I and winding up with the video revolution of the early 1980s.

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Book SynopsisExplore the evocative Star Wars concept art of legendary artist Ralph McQuarrie in this miniature art book.Hold a galaxy of legendary designs in the palm of your hand with Star Wars: The Concept Art of Ralph McQuarrie Mini Book.  Featuring over 100 stunning concept images from the original Star Wars trilogy as well as the many books and publications inspired by the Star Wars galaxy, this mini book is bound together at a readable pocket-book size and is the perfect collectible item for Star Wars fans of all ages.

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Book SynopsisThis is the first scholarly collection to focus on the special importance of British cinema to folk horror. The chapters consider the artistic styles, historical contexts, cultural tensions and cinematic fears that distinguish folk horror from other forms of horror and from traditional ways of viewing the folk. -- .

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Book SynopsisContains thirteen original essays and an expansive introduction, including contributions by some of the foremost scholars in the field.

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Book SynopsisPresents a backstage view of the author's own struggle, crisis, and discovery, revealing the early life and career that took place out of the public eye and before he became a nationally known star. In this title, he raises the curtain on the making of one of our most beloved actors.Trade Review"Drama is a cut above-touching, self-aware, and beautifully written." -- People "Warm and generous... Lithgow is relentlessly likable... A brisk book, packed with funny stories... A buoyant, heartwarming account of coming into one's own." -- The New York Times Book Review "Anyone interested in an actor's life-especially backstage-will find this book enlightening." -- USA Today "A memoir as finely crafted as one of Lithgow's performances. Lithgow tells of transgressions, indiscretions, and a tabloid-worthy affair that my PR people could only have wished for. An exciting and revealing book, and what's more, it's about ACTING!" -- Steve Martin "John Lithgow's memoir is more than an insider's view of his craft. The portrait of his father is as finely articulated as it is heartfelt, and the account of the young actor's struggles with his too-young, too-early first marriage is both moving and candid. I loved this book." -- John Irving "This book has all the drama we've come to expect from John Lithgow, the alternately dark, tender, romantic, dangerous, deranged actor we find in Drama, which is also a family tale of the richest variety. A great read." -- Mary Karr "John Lithgow's memoir is both unflinching and irresistible. It captures the long, hard road to the stage for any actor, or for virtually anyone trying to make it in New York, and shows how putting all of your hopes into the one thing you love isn't so crazy after all." -- Gay Talese "Drama recounts in graceful, considered prose a life that after a few wrong turns is now happier and more well adjusted than most."- -- Charles McGrath, The New York Times "Lithgow rises to the occasion with courageous honesty and fairness... There's something breath-catchingly poignant in the simple, hard-won wisdom he imparts before taking his final bow: 'Acting is pretty great. But it isn't everything.'" -- The Los Angeles Times "John Lithgow's memoir, Drama, reminded me that the world is indeed all a stage and that professionals have some great ideas about how to perform on it." -- Drew Gilpin Faust, The Wall Street Journal

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Book SynopsisTeaching the readers how to kick anyone's ass, this title includes sections on proper attire (acid-washed denim), nutrition, and how to relax after a successful fight.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Moving well beyond generic pronouncements and ‘rules’, Billy Mernit’s specific, well-tested exercises guide writers to create real, personal, credible characters and plots that speak to the romantic in all of us.” — Linda Venis, Director, UCLA Extension Writers' Program Mernit’s screenwriting knowledge shines through this highly readable volume. This is no “formula” book but an essential guide to finding your own voice. — Denver Rocky Mountain News “Insightful, thorough, and easy to use, this step-by-step guide expertly balances the craft and the art of writing the romantic comedy. Billy Mernit really knows his stuff, and after reading this book, you will too.” — Stephen Mazur, co-writer of Liar, Liar and The Little Rascals “Writing the Romantic Comedy is so much fun to read it could pop a champagne cork.” — Alexa Junge, writer/producer of Friends

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Book SynopsisA visionary, Band was also at the vanguard of the transition to home video and streaming, making and distributing direct-to-video movies long before the major studios caught on.In this revealing tell-all, Band details the dizzying heights and catastrophic depths of his four decades in showbiz.Trade Review"One of the most entertaining film bios ever. You get zombies, Nazis, Marilyn Monroe - and that's just the first few pages! Band has made over 300 movies and he has enough crazy stories for at least that many books." — LARRY KARASZEWSKI, screenwriter, Ed Wood, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Big Eyes, Dolemite Is My Name "Welcome to the delightful, insane, and utterly joyous world of Charlie Band. The visionary behind Full Moon and Empire Pictures tells his story with all the energy and wit you would expect from him. It is all in these pages: the huge personalities; the tricks of the trade; the incredible let’s-make-a-movie-right-now-dammit persistence. Charlie is the ultimate Hollywood indie hustler and horror movie maverick, responsible for some of the wildest and most entertaining films in history. Thank God we have a guy like Charlie to keep the indie horror flame burning!" — JOHN LOGAN, screenwriter, Gladiator, Skyfall, The Aviator, Hugo "This book is a blast. It made me want to stay up all night and watch terrible movies." — PETER SAGAL, host, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! "Reads like a Tarantino film written by Hunter S. Thompson. ... Anyone with an interest in the film business from the '70s to the '90s will enjoy this memoir." — Booklist "Band [is] a master storyteller with a genius imagination, a flair for the macabre, and a killer instinct for creating art that crosses genres and boundaries. ... A wildly entertaining read." — Library Journal "Band is a B-movie legend, and this colorful book documents his approch." — The Film Stage "A must-purchase. ... Band's collected Confessions make for a delightful afternoon." — Bookgasm

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Book SynopsisA Telegraph, Evening Standard and Daily Mail Book of the YearFrom the acclaimed writer and critic Geoff Dyer, an extremely funny scene-by-scene analysis of Where Eagles Dare - published as the film reaches its 50th anniversaryA thrilling Alpine adventure starring a magnificent, bleary-eyed Richard Burton and a coolly anachronistic Clint Eastwood, Where Eagles Dare is the apex of 1960s war movies, by turns enjoyable and preposterous. ''Broadsword Calling Danny Boy'' is Geoff Dyer''s tribute to the film he has loved since childhood: an analysis taking us from its snowy, Teutonic opening credits to its vertigo-inducing climax. For those who have not even seen Where Eagles Dare, this book is a comic tour-de-force of criticism. But for the film''s legions of fans, whose hearts will always belong to Ron Goodwin''s theme tune, it will be the fulfilment of a dream.''Geoff Dyer''s funniest book yet. Who else would work in Martha Gellhorn on the first page of a book on the film Where Eagles Dare?'' Michael Ondaatje''One of our greatest living critics, not of the arts but of life itself, and one of our most original writers'' Kathryn Schulz, New York MagazineTrade ReviewBroadsword Calling Danny Boy is a hilariously funny, freewheeling rule-breaking wholly original scene-by-scene sprint through the crazy action from Where Eagles Dare. I defy anyone not to laugh at Dyer's description of Clint Eastwood's talent for squinting or when face-to-face with armed Nazis, 'not just swinging but squinting in German'. -- Craig Brown * Daily Mail, Books of the Year *Blissfully funny * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisOne film out of every five made anywhere on earth comes from India. From its beginnings under colonial rule through to the heights of Bollywood , Indian Cinema has challenged social injustices such as caste, the oppression of Indian women, religious intolerance, rural poverty, and the pressures of life in the burgeoning cities. And yet, the Indian movie industry makes only about five percent of Hollywood''s annual revenue.In this Very Short Introduction Ashish Rajadhyaksha delves into the political, social, and economic factors which, over time, have shaped Indian Cinema into a fascinating counterculture. Covering everything from silent cinema through to the digital era, Rajadhyaksha examines how the industry reflects the complexity and variety of Indian society through the dramatic changes of the 20th century, and into the beginnings of the 21st. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readableTable of ContentsPREFACE

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Book SynopsisRock 'N' Film presents a cultural history of films about US and British rock music during the period when biracial popular music was fundamental to progressive social movements on both sides of the Atlantic.Trade ReviewCovering rock n roll filmmaking in its entirety, this accomplished volume is readily accessible and written (as James himself notes) without the jargon that often mars film studies Illustrated with a host of frame blowups, this informed, sharp, inviting, and absolutely authoritative book will be the source to beat on the subject of rock n roll movies for quite some time Summing Up: Essential. All readers. * G. A. Foster, CHOICE *Table of ContentsTable of Contents ; 1. Introduction: Rock 'n' Film ; 2. Absolute Beginnings: Blackboard Jungle ; 3. Jukebox Musicals ; 4. Dirty Stars: Jayne Mansfield and Kenneth Anger ; 5. Rock 'n' Roll Noir: Elvis Before the Army ; 6. Sunshine Elvis: The Devil in Disguise ; (inc Morphology of the Elvis Movie) ; 7. Back in the UK: The English Elvises ; 8. Beatles I: Richard Lester and A Hard Day's Night ; 9. Beatles II: Next Morning ; 10. Bringing It All Back Home: Toward the Folk Documentary ; 11. D. A. Pennebaker: Documentary from Folk to Folk Rock and Rock ; 12. Utopia and Its Discontents: Woodstock ; 13. The Rolling Stones I: The Greatest Rock 'n' Film Band in the World ; 14. Mick Jagger, Demon Brother ; 15. The Rolling Stones II: The U.S. Tours, From Concert Film to Film Concert: ; 16. Back To Black ... : Soul ; 17... And White: Country ; 18. Retrospection and Reflexivity: Rock 'n' Film Suicide ; Index

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Book SynopsisOver the past fifty years, a unique hybrid genre of nonfiction cinema called the avant-doc has emerged in the world of independent film. Combining the unconventional techniques of avant-garde auteurs like Stan Brakhage with the verisimilitude of traditional documentaries, the avant-doc expands the way cinema captures and chronicles events. Drawing on firsthand interviews with nineteen of the form''s chief practitioners and participants, Avant-Doc constructs an oral history that provides the first insider''s perspective on the phenomenon.Trade ReviewA compelling achievement, Avant-Doc diagrams a new fluid geography of cinema, where traditional categories such as experimental,"documentary," and "fiction" dissolve. The insightful, probing conversations assembled so deftly here vaporize fixed cinematic modes. These filmmakers describe cinema as a living organism, pulsating in networks of politics, arts, philosophies, teachers, literature, communities, technologies, and aesthetics. * Patricia R. Zimmermann, author of States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracy *Scott MacDonald's groundbreaking and seminal new volume, Avant-Doc, illuminates correspondences between avant-garde cinema and documentary through a series of compelling interviews with major independent filmmakers and noted scholar Annette Michelson. This intimate and probing follow-up to MacDonald's Critical Cinema series creates a lively and deeply personal oral history. Avant-Doc broadens our understanding of connections between avant-garde and documentary film, while providing a rich treasure trove of research material that current and future scholars will find invaluable. * J.J. Murphy, author of The Black Hole of the Camera: The Films of Andy Warhol *Table of ContentsTable of Contents: ; Introduction ; Annette Michelson ; Robert Gardner ; Ed Pincus (and Jane Pincus, Lucia Small) ; Alfred Guzzetti ; Ross McElwee ; Nina Davenport ; Leonard Retel Helmrich ; Jonathan Caouette ; Pawel Wojtasik ; Michael Glawogger ; Susana de Sousa Dias ; Alexander Olch (on The Windmill Movie) ; Amie Siegel (on DDR/DDR) ; Arthur and Jennifer Smith (on Ice Bears of the Beaufort) ; Betzy Bromberg (on Voluptuous Sleep) ; Jen Proctor (on A Movie by Jen Proctor) ; Jane Gillooly (on Suitcase of Love and Shame) ; Godfrey Reggio (on Visitors) ; Todd Haynes ; Sensory Ethnography ; Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (on In and Out of Africa and Sweetgrass) ; Lucien Castaing-Taylor (on his installation work and on Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab) ; Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel (on Leviathan) ; Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez (on Manakamana) ; Filmographies ; Bibliographies

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Book SynopsisThe Frontier Club is Christine Bold''s name for the network of eastern aristocrats who created the western as we now most commonly know it. At the turn of the twentieth century, they yoked this most popular formula to their own elite causes-from big-game hunting to conservation, immigration restriction to Jim Crow segregation-and aligned themselves with cattle kings and quality publishers. This book tells the story of that cultural sleight-of-hand. It delves into institutional archives and personal papers to excavate the hidden social, political, and financial interests in the making of the modern western. It re-reads frontier club fiction in relation to the federal policies and cultural spaces (from exclusive gentlemen''s clubs to national parks to zoos) with which it was intimately connected; the centerpiece is Owen Wister''s bestselling novel The Virginian. It casts new light on nine key clubmen, both the famous and the forgotten-in addition to Wister, the network included Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, Silas Weir Mitchell, Henry Cabot Lodge, Madison Grant, Caspar Whitney, Winthrop Chanler, and Frederic Remington-while recovering the women on whom these men depended and without whom this version of the popular West would not exist. Bold also considers some of the costs of the frontier club formula, in terms of its impact on Indigenous peoples and its marginalization of other popular voices, including western writings by African Americans, white women, and non-elite white men. The book ends by briefly charting the frontier club''s enduring impression on western movies.Trade ReviewBased on archival research as well as the rich body of secondary material pertinent to the topic, The Frontier Club adds several new layers of insight into those who produced the 'western' and those who, from the beginning, noted its serious limitations. This, too, is a story too important to ignore. * Journal of American Studies *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ; Preface ; Acknowledgements ; The Frontier Club Western: An Introduction ; Frontier Clubmen ; Vigilante Clubmen ; The Virginian ; Chapter 1: Boone and Crockett Writers ; The Boone and Crockett Club, 1893 ; Boone and Crockett Clubmen ; Theodore Roosevelt ; George Bird Grinnell ; Owen Wister ; Winthrop Chanler ; Madison Grant ; Henry Cabot Lodge ; Caspar Whitney ; Frederic Remington ; The Books of the Boone and Crockett Club ; Shaping the Voice ; Clearing the Enclave ; Writing the Frontier Club Western ; Lobbying the Federal Government ; Conclusion ; Chapter 2: Cowboys and Publishers ; A Very Proper Philadelphian ; Frontier Club Neurasthenia ; A Man's Gotta Do ... ; Aristocrats Out West ; Frontier Club Investments ; The Cheyenne Club ; Cowboys and Vigilantes ; Showdown on Publishers' Row ; Frontier Club Investments ; The Frontier Club Western and the Literary Marketplace ; Conclusion: The Frontier Club vs Alkali Ike ; Chapter 3: Women in the Frontier Club ; Frontier Club Women and Families ; The Wister Women ; Molly Wister ; Women's Space in the Frontier Club Western ; Conclusion ; Chapter 4: Jim Crow and the Western ; Wister: "white for a hundred years" ; Roosevelt's Rough Riders ; Remington: With the Eye of the Mind ; Black Rough Riders Redux ; Conclusion ; Chapter 5: Immigrants and "Indians" ; Vanishing Acts ; Immigration Restriction ; Owen Wister ; Madison Grant ; Another Hank ; American Indian Assimilation ; George Bird Grinnell ; Jack the Young Frontier Clubman ; Conclusion ; Chapter 6: Outside the Frontier Club ; Princess Chinquilla ; Cheek by Jowl ; Rewriting 1902 ; Conclusion: Frontier Club Fingerprints

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Book SynopsisWhat does it mean for a cinematic work to be Chinese? Does it refer specifically to a work''s subject, or does it also reflect considerations of language, ethnicity, nationality, ideology, or political orientation? Such questions make any single approach to a vast field like Chinese cinema difficult at best. Accordingly, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas situates the term more broadly among various different phases, genres, and distinct national configurations, while taking care to address the consequences of grouping together so many disparate histories under a single banner. Offering both a platform for cross-disciplinary dialogue and a mapping of Chinese cinema as an expanded field, this Handbook presents thirty-three essays by leading researchers and scholars intent on yielding new insights and new analyses using three different methodologies. Chapters in Part I investigate the historical periodizations of the field through changing notions of national and political identity -Trade ReviewThe publication of this book represents an important mile marker in the academic study of Chinese cinema ... it is erudite, sophisticated, and self-reflective ... an outstanding work. * P. Lorge, Choice *Table of ContentsHISTORY ; 1) Jianhua Chen, ; "D. W. Griffith and the Rise of Chinese Cinema in Early 1920s Shanghai" ; 2) Kristine Harris, ; "Ombres Chinoises: Split-Screens and Parallel Lives in Love and Duty" ; 3) David Der-wei Wang, ; "Fei Mu, Mei Lanfang, and the Polemics of Screening China" ; 4) Jie Li, ; "A National Cinema for a Puppet State: The Manchurian Motion Picture Association" ; 5) Yomi Braester ; "A Genealogy of Cinephilia in the Maoist Period" ; 6) Poshek Fu ; "Cold War Hong Kong and Mid-twentieth Century Mandarin Cinema" ; 7) Tsungyi Michelle Huang ; "Conceiving Cross-Border Communities: Mobile Women in Recent Hong Kong Cinema" ; 8) Song Hwee Lim ; "Taiwan New Cinema: Small Nation with Soft Power" ; 9) Michael Berry ; "Chinese Cinema with Hollywood Characteristics, or How The Karate Kid became a Chinese Film" ; 10) Pheng Cheah, ; "World as Picture and Ruination: On Jia Zhangke's Still Life as World Cinema" ; FORM ; 1) Stephen Teo, ; "The Opera Film in Chinese Cinema: Cultural Nationalism and Cinematic Form" ; 2) Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, ; "A Small History of Wenyi" ; 3) Ban Wang, ; "Art, Politics, and Internationalism: Korean War Films in Chinese Cinema" ; 4) Gary Gang Xu, ; "Edification through Affection: The Cultural Revolution Films, 1974-76" ; 5) Michael Eng, ; "Reforming Vengeance: Kung Fu and the Racial Melancholia of Chinese Masculinity" ; 6) Sean Metzger ; "Desire and Distribution: Queer/Chinese/Cinema" ; 7) Yingjin Zhang, ; "Thirdspace Between Flows and Places: Chinese Independent Documentary and Social Theories of Space and Locality" ; 8) Ying Zhu, ; "From Anticorruption to Officialdom: The Transformation of Chinese Dynasty TV Drama" ; 9) Audrey Yue, ; "New Media: Large Screens in China" ; 10) Paola Voci, ; "Online Small Screen Cinema: The Cinema of Attractions and the Emancipated Spectator" ; STRUCTURE ; 1) Jason McGrath ; "Acting Real: Cinema, Stage, and the Modernity of Performance in Chinese Silent Film" ; 2) James Tweedie, ; "Edward Yang and Taiwan's Age of Auteurs" ; 3) Darrell William Davis, ; "A Marriage of Convenience: Musical Moments in Chinese Films" ; 4) Zhiwei Xiao ; "Policing Film in Early 20th Century China, 1905-1923" ; 5) Laikwan Pang, ; "Between Will and Negotiation: Film Policy in the First Three Years of People's Republic of China" ; 6) Rey Chow, ; "Fetish Power Unbound: A Small History of 'Woman' in Chinese Cinema" ; 7) Louisa Schein, ; "Ethnographic Representation Across Genres: The Culture Trope in Contemporary Mainland Media" ; 6) Andy Rodhekohr, ; "Conjuring the Masses: The Spectral / Spectacular Crowd in Chinese Film" ; 9) Kwai-Cheung Lo, ; "The Idea of Asia(nism) and Trans-Asian Productions" ; 10) Eugene Wang, ; "Film and Contemporary Chinese Art: Mediums and Remediation" ; 11) Ying Qian, ; "Crossing the Same River Twice: Documentary Re-enactment and the Founding of PRC Documentary Cinema" ; 12) Yiman Wang, ; "Remade in China: Chinese Cinema in the Age of Blockbuster" ; 13) Carlos Rojas, ; "Cinematic Encounters in Tsai Ming-liang's The River"

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Book SynopsisNigeria's Nollywood has rapidly grown into one of the world's largest film industries, radically altering media environments across Africa and in the diaspora; it has also become one of African culture's most powerful and consequential expressions, powerfully shaping how Africans see themselves and are seen by others. With this book, Jonathan Haynes provides an accessible and authoritative introduction to this vast industry and its film culture. Haynes describes the major Nigerian film genres and how they relate to Nigerian society its values, desires, anxieties, and social tensions as the country and its movies have developed together over the turbulent past two decades. As he shows, Nollywood is a form of popular culture; it produces a flood of stories, repeating the ones that mean the most to its broad audience. He interprets these generic stories and the cast of mythic figures within them: the long-suffering wives, the business tricksters, the Bible-wielding pastors, the kings in t

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Book SynopsisNigeria's Nollywood has rapidly grown into one of the world's largest film industries, radically altering media environments across Africa and in the diaspora; it has also become one of African culture's most powerful and consequential expressions, powerfully shaping how Africans see themselves and are seen by others. With this book, Jonathan Haynes provides an accessible and authoritative introduction to this vast industry and its film culture. Haynes describes the major Nigerian film genres and how they relate to Nigerian society its values, desires, anxieties, and social tensions as the country and its movies have developed together over the turbulent past two decades. As he shows, Nollywood is a form of popular culture; it produces a flood of stories, repeating the ones that mean the most to its broad audience. He interprets these generic stories and the cast of mythic figures within them: the long-suffering wives, the business tricksters, the Bible-wielding pastors, the kings in t

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Book SynopsisCoates presents the face in film as a place where transformations begin, reflecting both the experience of modernity and such influential myths as that of Medusa. This is exemplified by a wide range of European and American films, including Ingmar Bergman's Persona .Trade Review'Sharing Barthes' and Bergman's premise that the human face remains central to cinematic art, Coates' new book draws on film theory, philosophy, art history, and cultural studies to produce fresh, startling insights on the films that truly matter. The range of examples is as impressive as the erudition.' - Lloyd Michaels, Allegheny College, USATable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Faces and 'Faciality' The Fate of Contemplation: Closeness and Distance Masks and Metaphor: Doubles and Animals Invisibility, Medusa, and the Mask Dissonance and Synthesis: Persona, the Face, the Mask and the Thing Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisIs there more to 1970s British cinema than sex, horror and James Bond? This lively account argues that this is definitely the case and explores the cultural landscape of this much maligned decade to uncover hidden gems and to explode many of the well-established myths about 1970s British film and cinema.Trade Review'A substantial analysis of British film-making in the 1970s that will make a thoughtful contribution to the field of British cinema studies.' - Andrew Spicer, University of the West of England, UK 'British Film in the 1970s is a great companion text to any module teaching British cinema of the period, but it also is a useful text to encourage those working on other times and places to ask questions about the framing of other periods and national cinemas.' - Dr E. Anna Claydon, Viewfinder Online 'Barber's carefully researched volume will surely become the 'go to' book with regard to the industrial context of British film-making in this newly fashionable decade.' - Stephen Glynn, Journal of British Cinema and Television (Jan 2014)Table of ContentsList of abbreviations Acknowledgements Table of Figures Dedication Introduction Film and Cultural History Understanding the 1970s Film and Government Funding Innovation Movers and Shakers Institutions and Organisations The Films Sunday Bloody Sunday: Authorship, Collaboration and Improvisation The Go-Between: The Past, the Present and the 1970s Confessions of a Window Cleaner: Sex, Class and Popular Taste Stardust: Stardom, Performance and Masculinity Scum: Institutional Control and Patriarchy The Tempest: A Brave New World of Creative Endeavour? Conclusion

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Book SynopsisA groundbreaking contribution to the study of non-theatrical film exhibition, Carceral Fantasies tells the story of how cinema found a home in the U.S. penitentiary system and how the prison emerged as a setting and narrative trope. Focusing on films shown before 1935, the book explores the experience of viewing cinema while incarcerated.Trade ReviewAlison Griffiths's examination of how movie exhibition came into prisons is truly groundbreaking. No one has studied the culture of movie-going behind bars in this fashion before. A unique and absolutely exciting work! -- Dana Polan, author of Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of Film Carceral Fantasies is a complex and highly original book that attends the intersections between various early cinema images of prisons and the real thing. Griffiths has a fascinating story to tell, in which she argues that we can view execution films as a kind of attraction-and in doing so are led to ponder: what constitutes an attraction? -- Jon Lewis, author of American Film: A HistoryTable of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: The Carceral Imaginary 1. Tableaux Mort: Execution, Cinema, and Carceral Fantasies 2. Prison on Screen: The Carceral Aesthetic Part II: The Carceral Spectator 3. Screens and the Senses in Prison 4. "The Great Unseen Audience": Sing Sing Prison and Motion Pictures Part III: The Carceral Reformer 5. A Different Story: Recreation and Cinema in Women's Prisons and Reformatories 6. Cinema and Prison Reform Conclusion: The Prison Museum and Media Use in the Contemporary Prison Notes Filmography Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAlison Griffiths's examination of how movie exhibition came into prisons is truly groundbreaking. No one has studied the culture of moviegoing behind bars in this fashion before. A unique and absolutely exciting work! -- Dana Polan, author of Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of FilmCarceral Fantasies is a complex and highly original book that attends the intersections between various early cinema images of prisons and the real thing. Griffiths has a fascinating story to tell, in which she argues that we can view execution films as a kind of attraction—and in doing so are led to ponder: what constitutes an attraction? -- Jon Lewis, author of American Film: A HistoryCarceral Fantasies paints a complex, rich portrait of the historical relationship between cinema and the American penal system that crosses disciplinary borders and engages with a diverse body of scholarship. Groundbreaking in its historical exploration, rigorous and acrobatic in its theoretical intervention, and provocative in its call to action, Carceral Fantasies is a rewarding and important read for anyone interested in the history of American cinema. * Film & History *Griffiths’s work uncovers hidden and rarely considered aspects of penal practice, media consumption and film history. * Prison Service Journal *A timely, challenging, and always thought-provoking text, Carceral Fantasies will become necessary reading for all working to map the medial administration of state terror and to imagine cinema’s capacities to glimpse beyond it. * Canadian Journal of Film Studies *Carceral Fantasies is a fascinating look at the history of cinema and the penitentiary. * Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books *The original research she has performed, especially in understanding the nature of the carceral spectator, makes a significant contribution to film history, particularly film as a cultural artifact. She provides a glimpse of a nearly invisible audience that may have discovered in film their only connection to the world at large. In doing so, Griffiths brings light to what remains one of the most hidden places in our society. * Wide Angle *Carceral Fantasies will certainly attract scholars who are interested in the development of this scholarship about the silent era. The book will also be of value for those who are interested by nontheatrical film exhibition and the unique experience of watching films in prison. * Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television *Carceral Fantasies is a provocative and engrossing read. Griffiths’s study also makes a significant contribution to histories of cinema-going and early twentieth-century visual culture, and to our understanding of the complexities that underpin the dynamics between spectator and spectacle. * Alphaville *Table of ContentsList of FiguresAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I: The Carceral Imaginary1. Tableaux Mort: Execution, Cinema, and Carceral Fantasies2. Prison on Screen: The Carceral AestheticPart II: The Carceral Spectator3. Screens and the Senses in Prison4. "The Great Unseen Audience": Sing Sing Prison and Motion PicturesPart III: The Carceral Reformer5. A Different Story: Recreation and Cinema in Women's Prisons and Reformatories6. Cinema and Prison ReformConclusion: The Prison Museum and Media Use in the Contemporary PrisonNotesFilmographyBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAn ambitious and important contribution to the study of European horror films. -- Francesco Di Chiara European Journal of Media StudiesTable of ContentsContributors Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley Reception and Perception of European Horror Cinemas Section Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley Resident Evil? The Limits of European Horror: Resident Evil Versus Suspiria, by Peter Hutchings Beyond Suspiria: The Place of European Horror Cinema in the Fan Canon, by Brigid Cherry Refusing to Look at Rape: The Reception of Belgian Horror Cinema, by Ernest Mathijs and Russ Hunter Depressing, Degrading! The Reception of the European Horror Film in Britain, 1957-68, by David Huxley British Horror Cinema Section Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley The Boundaries of Horror in Wolf Rilla's Village of the Damned, by John Sears New Labour, New Horrors: Genetic Mutation, Generic Hybridity and Gender Crisis in British Horror of the New Millennium, by Linnie Blake French Horror Cinema Section Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley Baise-moi and the French Rape-Revenge Film, by Emily Brick Subjectivity Unleashed: Haute Tension, by Matthias Hurst Spanish Horror Cinema Section Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley Paul Naschy, Exorcismo and the Reactionary Horrors of Spanish Popular Cinema in the Early 1970s, by Andy Willis History, Terrain and Tread: The Walk of Demons, Zombie Flesh Eaters and the Blind Dead, by Phil Smith Alejandro Amenabar and Contemporary Spanish Horror, by Barry Jordan Italian Horror Cinema Section Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley Live Ate: Global Catastrophe and the Politics and Poetics of the Italian Zombie Film, by Mark Goodall A Touch of Terror: Dario Argento and Deleuze's Cinematic Sensorium, by Anna Powell German and Northern European Horror Cinema Section Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley 'A Former Director of German Horror Films': Horror, European Cinema and the Critical Reception of Robert Siodmak's Hollywood Career, by Mark Jancovich World of Blood and Fire: Lang, Mabuse, and Bergman's The Serpent's Egg, by Samuel J. Umland 'Le Cineaste d'Horreur Ordinaire': Michael Haneke and the Horrors of Everyday Existence, by Catherine Wheatley Eastern European Horror Cinema Section Introduction, by Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley A Gaze from Hell: Eastern European Horror Cinema Revisited, by Christina Stojanova Taxidermia-a Hungarian Taste for Horror, by Patricia Allmer Horror Films in Turkish Cinema: To Use or Not to Use Local Cultural Motifs, That is Not the Question, by Kaya Ozkaracalar Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisEven in our increasingly sexualized culture hard-core pornography and the representation of explicit sex is still hard to swallow. This lively and provocative new collection of essays by leading scholars explores screen representations of pornography and sex in a variety of cultural, historical, and critical contexts. Contributions cover a wide range of topics from sex in the multiplex to online alt-porn, from women in stag films to the excesses of extreme pornography, and a variety of contemporary case studies including porn performance, fashion in hard-core, and gay and lesbian pornography.Trade ReviewAn excellent snapshot of porn studies as they are today and provides an insight into the range and quality of critical engagement with hardcore pornography in the industry, in the academy, and beyond. -- Laura Ellen Joyce New Review of Film and Television StudiesTable of ContentsNotes on Contributors Introduction: Is Hard-core Hard to Swallow?, by Claire Hines and Darren Kerr Part One. Turned On: Hard-core Screen Cultures 1. Pornography in the Multiplex, by Brian McNair 2. The Dark Side of Hard-core: Critical Documentaries on the Sex Industry, by Karen Boyle 3. Art School Sluts: Authenticity and the Aesthetics of Altporn, by Feona Attwood 4. Pornogogy: Teaching the Titillating, by Mark Jones and Gerry Carlin Part Two. Come Again? Hard-core in History 5. 'White Slavery', Or the Ethnography of 'Sexworkers', by Linda Williams 6. Lost in Damnation: The Progressive Potential of Behind the Green Door, by Darren Kerr 7. The Limits of Pleasure? Max Hardcore and Extreme Porn, by Stephen Maddison 8. Playmates of the Caribbean: Taking Hollywood, Making Hard-core, by Claire Hines Part Three. Fluid Exchanges: Hard-core Forms and Aesthetics 9. Fashionably Laid: The Styling of Hard-core, by Pamela Church Gibson and Neil Kirkham 10. Shortbus: Highbrow Hard-core, by Beth Johnson 11. Homespun: Finnporn and the Meanings of the Local, by Susanna Paasonen 12. Reel Intercourse: Doing Sex on Camera, by Clarissa Smith 13. Power Bottom: Performativity in Commercial Gay Pornographic Video, by John Mercer 14. Interrogating Lesbian Pornography: Gender, Sexual Iconography and Spectatorship , by Rebecca Beirne Selected Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisChallenges the primacy of motion in cinema and tests the theoretical limits of film aesthetics and representation.Trade ReviewAn ambitious undertaking, supported by admirably clear prose and an impressive range of research. -- Richard Dienst, Rutgers University Remes's concise writing eloquently recounts his sensitive attention to the screened films that he discusses. His subsequent, objectively based observations are often profound. His description and analysis of the implications of what he has seen in my own films is revealing even to me. Unique in its emphasis on the single frame as the core of cinema, this book is one of the best books ever written about 'experimental' film. -- Michael Snow Justin Remes' Motion(less) Pictures is written and argued so well that one can enjoy it and learn from it without much liking the cinema of stasis. Early on, the book grants us leave to view Warhol's Empire or Sleep in a state of high distraction, perhaps while munching panini and conversing with friends. We can even exit and take a stroll. Remes rightly links both films to Erik Satie's 'furniture music'--'music to which,' John Cage said, 'one did not have to listen' (Satie himself said that 'a man who has not heard Furniture music does not know happiness"). Other types of stasis cinema--"protracted cinema," "the textual film," and "the monochrome film'--invite more sustained attention. In every type, though, duration is more palpable than motion, and Remes recommends that duration rather than motion be considered the 'indispensable component' of all cinema. Yet mindful that cinema is richly diverse and ever changing, he resists reducing it to a single essence. He calls instead for 'a theory of film... as flexible and expansive as cinema itself,' and cites, as supporters as well as foils, multiple artists, theorists, and philosophers. Among them are Michael Snow, Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Tom Gunning, Steve Shaviro, Noel Carroll, Plato, Aristotle, Bergson, Wittgenstein, Barthes, and Deleuze. The result is a broad survey of aesthetic thought and practice that, while illuminating all of cinema, deftly transposes stillness from the margins of our attention to the center. -- Ira Jaffe, author of Slow Movies: Countering the Cinema of Action A brilliant book... Highly recommended. Choice A worthwhile examination of a small but notable canon. Prefix Photo MagazineTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction: The Filmic 2. Serious Immobilities: Andy Warhol, Erik Satie, and the Furniture Film 3. Stasis in Fluxus: Disappearing Music for Face and Protracted Cinema 4. Boundless Ontologies: Michael Snow, Wittgenstein, and the Textual Film 5. Colored Blindness: Derek Jarman's Blue and the Monochrome Film 6. Conclusion: Static Cinema in the Digital Age Appendix 1. The Cinema of Stasis Appendix 2. Films Relevant to Understanding the Cinema of Stasis Notes Index

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Book SynopsisChallenges the primacy of motion in cinema and tests the theoretical limits of film aesthetics and representation.Trade ReviewAn ambitious undertaking, supported by admirably clear prose and an impressive range of research. -- Richard Dienst, Rutgers University Remes's concise writing eloquently recounts his sensitive attention to the screened films that he discusses. His subsequent, objectively based observations are often profound. His description and analysis of the implications of what he has seen in my own films is revealing even to me. Unique in its emphasis on the single frame as the core of cinema, this book is one of the best books ever written about 'experimental' film. -- Michael Snow Justin Remes' Motion(less) Pictures is written and argued so well that one can enjoy it and learn from it without much liking the cinema of stasis. Early on, the book grants us leave to view Warhol's Empire or Sleep in a state of high distraction, perhaps while munching panini and conversing with friends. We can even exit and take a stroll. Remes rightly links both films to Erik Satie's 'furniture music'--'music to which,' John Cage said, 'one did not have to listen' (Satie himself said that 'a man who has not heard Furniture music does not know happiness"). Other types of stasis cinema--"protracted cinema," "the textual film," and "the monochrome film'--invite more sustained attention. In every type, though, duration is more palpable than motion, and Remes recommends that duration rather than motion be considered the 'indispensable component' of all cinema. Yet mindful that cinema is richly diverse and ever changing, he resists reducing it to a single essence. He calls instead for 'a theory of film... as flexible and expansive as cinema itself,' and cites, as supporters as well as foils, multiple artists, theorists, and philosophers. Among them are Michael Snow, Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Tom Gunning, Steve Shaviro, Noel Carroll, Plato, Aristotle, Bergson, Wittgenstein, Barthes, and Deleuze. The result is a broad survey of aesthetic thought and practice that, while illuminating all of cinema, deftly transposes stillness from the margins of our attention to the center. -- Ira Jaffe, author of Slow Movies: Countering the Cinema of Action A brilliant book... Highly recommended. Choice A worthwhile examination of a small but notable canon. Prefix Photo MagazineTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction: The Filmic 2. Serious Immobilities: Andy Warhol, Erik Satie, and the Furniture Film 3. Stasis in Fluxus: Disappearing Music for Face and Protracted Cinema 4. Boundless Ontologies: Michael Snow, Wittgenstein, and the Textual Film 5. Colored Blindness: Derek Jarman's Blue and the Monochrome Film 6. Conclusion: Static Cinema in the Digital Age Appendix 1. The Cinema of Stasis Appendix 2. Films Relevant to Understanding the Cinema of Stasis Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewHighly recommended. CHOICE The variety of voices contained within this slim volume celebrates the different kinds of discourse generated by and about avant-garde filmmakers. The result is a collection as formally experimental as many of the films in question-one that makes for exuberant reading. Slavic and East European JournalTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Notes on Contributors Introduction 1. The Themersons and the Polish Avant-Garde: Warsaw-Paris-London, by A. L. Rees 2. 'The Inexpressible Unearthly Beauty of the Cinematograph': The Impact of Polish Futurism on the First Polish Avant-Garde Films, by Kamila Kuc Excerpts from the 'Archives' of the Polish Avant-Garde 3. The Search for a 'More Spacious Form': Experimental Trends in Polish Documentary (1945-1989), by Mikolaj Jazdon 4. Avant-Garde and the Thaw: Experimentation in Polish Cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, by Marcin Gizycki 5. Avant-Garde Exploits: The Cultural Highs and Lows of Polish Emigre Cinema, by Jonathan L. Owen 6. The Mechanical Imagination-Creativity of Machines: Film Form Workshop 1970-1977, by Ryszard Kluszczynski 7. The 1980s: From Specificity to the New Tradition-Avant-Garde Film and Video Art in Poland, by Ryszard Kluszczynski Film Form Workshop Statements 8. A Rebellion a la Polonaise, by Mateusz Werner Bibliography Filmography Index of Names

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Book SynopsisShowcases film and television studies’ singular ability to expose and potentially disable the fantasies that sustain torture and the regimes that deploy itTrade ReviewOne of the clearest signs of the ethical regression that characterizes the last decade is the changed status of torture in public discourse: no longer a taboo, something that is to be done in secret, torture is today a topic of 'rational' legal, ethical, and medical debates. This renormalization of torture would not have been possible without movies and television series that gradually rendered it acceptable. This is why Hilary Neroni's The Subject of Torture reaches well beyond cultural studies and provides a courageous examination of the ongoing moral catastrophe-everyone who cares about our ethical predicament should read it. The book is not only very readable and simultaneously a work of highest academic standards, it is much more: an alarm call that should awaken us all from our moral slumber. -- Slavoj Zizek, author of Less Than Nothing and The Year of Dreaming Dangerously and coauthor of What Does Europe Want? Wonderfully astute, politically timely, and deeply engaging. Hilary Neroni undertakes the pressing task of destroying the logic that sustains contemporary justifications for torture. The Subject of Torture is truly pathbreaking in its lucid engagement with the torture debate from a psychoanalytic perspective. -- Jennifer Friedlander, Pomona College The suffering, tremulous body examined in this excellent book is not that of the torture victim, who must pay in the flesh for our access to truth, but that of the torturer, who conceals his obscene pleasure behind euphemisms such as 'enhanced interrogation' and rationalizations based on false scenarios of imminent threat. Hilary Neroni's expert and detailed readings of the Abu Ghraib photographs, documentary films about the events leading up to them, and the new genre of 'torture porn' that appeared in their wake execute a fine twist, one that completely revises the course of reflections on the body at stake in biopolitics. -- Joan Copjec, Brown University Neroni deftly illuminates the conspicuous uptick of post-9/11 media representations of torture by adopting the neglected but indispensable viewpoint of unconscious motives and distorting fantasies. A valuable contribution. -- Richard Boothby, Loyola University MarylandTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Confronting the Abu Ghraib Photographs 1. Torture, Biopower, and the Desiring Subject 2. The Nonsensical Smile of the Torturer in Post-9/11 Documentary Films 3. Torture Porn and the Desiring Subject in Hostel and Saw 4. 24, Jack Bauer, and the Torture Fantasy 5. The Biodetective Versus the Detective of the Real in Zero Dark Thirty and Homeland 6. Alias and the Fictional Alternative to Torture Notes Index

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Book SynopsisExamines the gangster film in its historical context with an emphasis on the ways the image of the gangster has adapted and changedTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. A Silent Era: From Gangs to Gangsters 2. The Racketeer and the Outlaw: Gangster Archetypes of the 1930s 3. Murder, Incorporated: Post-war Developments in the Gangster Film 4. La Famiglia: Coppola, Scorsese, and Gangster Ethnicity Conclusion Filmography Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFeaturing new essays on this important director and his films, this collection explores Hartley’s work from a variety of aesthetic, cultural, and economic contexts, while also looking closely at his collaborations with actors, his reworking of the romantic comedy and other genres, and the shifting economics of his filmmaking.Trade ReviewHal Hartley has been at work for a quarter of a century and his films still seem like fresh discoveries. Independent, individualistic, idiosyncratic, and indefatigable, he defies all known pigeonholes, and this balanced, wide-ranging collection marks a welcome new stage in the exploration of his work. -- David Sterritt, author of The Cinema of Clint Eastwood: Chronicles of America This first collection to showcase the curiously under-celebrated independent filmmaker reminds us why Hartley and his films matter. Rich in original insights about conditions of authorship into the crowdfunding era, textuality and intertextuality, film style, critical reception, the local in location production, indie genericity, performance, and more across the past 25 years, this book brings Hartley's vibrant work back to the fore of film studies. -- Mark Gallagher, University of NottinghamTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Hal Hartley: A Quality of Attention, by Steven Rybin 1. Up Close and Impersonal: Hal Hartley and the Persistence of Tradition, by David Bordwell 2. 'Young. Middle-Class. College-Educated. Unskilled.': Hal Hartley in 1991, by Mark L. Berrettini 3. 'Some Things Shouldn't Be Fixed': Frameworks of Critical Reception and the Early Career of Hal Hartley, by Jason Davids Scott 4. The Locality of Hal Hartley: The Aesthetics and Business of Smallness, by Steven Rawle 5. Hal Hartley's Romantic Comedy, by Sebastian Manley 6. A New Man: The Logic of the Break in Hal Hartley's Amateur, by Daniel Varndell 7. Not Getting It: Flirt as Anti-Puzzle Film, by Steven Rybin 8. Poiesis and Media in The Book of Life and No Such Thing, by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns 9. Bodies, Space and Theatre in The Unbelievable Truth (and its American Precursors), by Zachary Tavlin 10. Parker Posey as Hal Hartley's 'Captive Actress', by Jennifer O'Meara 11. The Figure Who Writes: On the Henry Fool Trilogy, by Steven Rybin Filmography Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFeaturing new essays on this important director and his films, this collection explores Hartley’s work from a variety of aesthetic, cultural, and economic contexts, while also looking closely at his collaborations with actors, his reworking of the romantic comedy and other genres, and the shifting economics of his filmmaking.Trade ReviewHal Hartley has been at work for a quarter of a century and his films still seem like fresh discoveries. Independent, individualistic, idiosyncratic, and indefatigable, he defies all known pigeonholes, and this balanced, wide-ranging collection marks a welcome new stage in the exploration of his work. -- David Sterritt, author of The Cinema of Clint Eastwood: Chronicles of America This first collection to showcase the curiously under-celebrated independent filmmaker reminds us why Hartley and his films matter. Rich in original insights about conditions of authorship into the crowdfunding era, textuality and intertextuality, film style, critical reception, the local in location production, indie genericity, performance, and more across the past 25 years, this book brings Hartley's vibrant work back to the fore of film studies. -- Mark Gallagher, University of NottinghamTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Hal Hartley: A Quality of Attention, by Steven Rybin 1. Up Close and Impersonal: Hal Hartley and the Persistence of Tradition, by David Bordwell 2. 'Young. Middle-Class. College-Educated. Unskilled.': Hal Hartley in 1991, by Mark L. Berrettini 3. 'Some Things Shouldn't Be Fixed': Frameworks of Critical Reception and the Early Career of Hal Hartley, by Jason Davids Scott 4. The Locality of Hal Hartley: The Aesthetics and Business of Smallness, by Steven Rawle 5. Hal Hartley's Romantic Comedy, by Sebastian Manley 6. A New Man: The Logic of the Break in Hal Hartley's Amateur, by Daniel Varndell 7. Not Getting It: Flirt as Anti-Puzzle Film, by Steven Rybin 8. Poiesis and Media in The Book of Life and No Such Thing, by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns 9. Bodies, Space and Theatre in The Unbelievable Truth (and its American Precursors), by Zachary Tavlin 10. Parker Posey as Hal Hartley's 'Captive Actress', by Jennifer O'Meara 11. The Figure Who Writes: On the Henry Fool Trilogy, by Steven Rybin Filmography Bibliography Index

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