Film, television, radio, and theatre Books
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Under Milk Wood: Including Portrait of the Artist
Book SynopsisUnder Milk Wood is Dylan Thomas’s best-known and best-loved work, his radio play completed in 1953 at the very end of his life. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog is his first collection solely of short stories, published in 1940. These two works show us his remarkable creative brilliance at the start and at the end of a highly productive writing life. Thomas described Under Milk Wood variously as ‘a play, an impression for voices, an entertainment out of the darkness’. It had its most famous incarnation as a radio play, broadcast in 1954, only months after its author’s death. This is the text used for that broadcast. Full of the comedy of human existence, it also strikes notes of poignancy and loss as we travel through twenty-four hours in the company of those who inhabit the ‘multifariously busy little town’. It is an affectionate vision of the ‘drinks and loves and quarrels and dreams and wishes’ of people very much like ourselves. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog is a semi-autobiographical collection of stories set in and around the Swansea of Thomas’s youth. They are narratively engaging, full of a pleasure in ordinary existence, and an even greater pleasure in the power of the imagination.
£5.62
Headline Publishing Group How to Save a Life
Book SynopsisThe first inside story of one of TV''s most popular and beloved dramas, Grey''s Anatomy.''I''m a Black woman casting my own show. I wanted their world to look like the world that I live in. I don''t think about it in those terms [diversity], and I militantly think I don''t have to.'' Shonda Rhimes''Multiple generations have discovered Derek through Netflix. They are passionate around the world. It''s humbling.'' Patrick DempseyMore than 15 years after its premiere, Grey''s Anatomy remains one of the most beloved dramas on television in the US and the UK. It continues to win its time slot and has ranked in the Top 20 most watched shows in primetime for most of its 17-season run. It currently averages more than 9 million viewers each week. Now it''s time to hear from the people who made the show happen.A cultural touchstone, it introduced the unique voice and vision of Shonda Rhimes, it made Ellen Po
£11.69
Llewellyn Publications,U.S. Lights Camera Witchcraft
Book SynopsisExplores the history of witches and witchcraft in Hollywood films, starting with early depictions where the witch is ignored or demonized to more contemporary depictions where the witch is respected as an archetypal expression of unfettered womanhood and femininity.
£22.95
Oxford University Press Inc Hollywood Sports Movies and the American Dream
Book SynopsisThrough the heart of Hollywood cinema runs an unexpected current of progressive politics. Sports movies, a genre that has flourished since the mid-seventies, evoke the American dream and therefore represent the nation to itself in idealized form. Once considered mere credos for Reaganism''s fantasies of an atomized society, movies from Rocky (1976) to Ali (2001) dream of democratic participation and recognition more than individual success, for in every case, off-field relationships take precedence over on-field competition. Arranged chronologically, Hollywood Sports Films and the American Dream is a critical study of six major sports films that re-tells the story of multiculturalism''s gradual adoption in the latter third of the 20th century and rewrites contemporary understandings of the sports film. For author Grant Wiedenfeld, the mainstream''s first minority heroes are paradoxically white ethnic, rural, working-class men, exemplified by Rocky, Slap Shot (1977) and The Natural (1Trade ReviewWiedenfeld has produced a sustained, provocative reestimation of the Hollywood sports movie. From his rediscovery of the progressivism of Rocky's underdog status to his tour-de-force readings of League of their Own and Ali, he strives to think alongside—not against—these films and their politics, rallying with them and their heroes. For Wiedenfeld the sports movie is not merely a genre but a mode of civic participation, and this book amounts to the opening salvo of an Arendtian film criticism. * J.D. Connor, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, USC School of Cinematic Arts *Hollywood Sports Movies and the American Dream would create considerable discussion in a graduate school classroom, could be parsed for use as chapter examples in an undergraduate course, and may reach a broader readership due to the important topics of film for the public sphere. * Andrew James Kettler, Journal of Popular Culture *The monograph is quite engrossing and offers great fodder for the classic of all academic roles, debate. * Andrew James Kettler, University of South Carolina *It is remarkable that Wiedenfeld vividly elaborates how the sports-film genre fascinatingly nests what the American people have come to embody...this book's ultimate significance lies in that it reconsiders this ideology through the lens of sports movies and in doing so, reveals their progressive potential. * Film Quarterly *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction: America's Civic Screen 2. Rocky (1976): Tenderhearted Community and Racial Moderation in Bicentennial America 3. Slap Shot (1977): Deindustrialization, Goon Masculinity, and Yankee-Doodle-Disco Patriotism 4. The Natural (1984): Farm Crisis and Minority Culture in a New Deal Legend 5. White Men Can't Jump (1992): "Winning and Losing is One Big Organic Globule" 6. A League of their Own (1992): Egalitarian Women and Sideline Men 7. Ali (2001): Actions of the People's Champion 8. Conclusion Bibliography Index
£27.07
Penguin Books Ltd Pandoras Box
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA binge-worthy book * Economist *Thoroughly entertaining… Pandora’s Box is essential viewing -- Rebecca Nicholson * Guardian *Biskind is the perfect person to chronicle how we got here … The writers and showrunners are compelling figures, and Biskind’s story is larded with stories of their triumphs, creative crises, neuroses and episodes of appalling behaviour * Financial Times *Pandora’s Box explains, in punchy, propulsive prose, how we went from Tony Soprano to Ted Lasso … Biskind is skilled at the quick character sketch … [and] lays out a sprawling, amoral ecosystem with the dispassion of an omniscient narrator * New Yorker *Peter Biskind's Pandora's Box is not only a richly detailed and colorful account of how TV has defiantly superseded the cinema in the last thirty years, but also an important historic document. Biskind brilliantly maneuvers his way through a panoply of cinematic and television endeavor with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. A gripping and compulsive read -- Brian CoxPeter Biskind has always been the most rigorous and amusing Hollywood historian we have, taking on the great men of the past--and now with his trademark cheeky intelligence he takes on the giants of the present age of television-as-cinema. Despite my having lived much of the book's arc, Biskind offers a fresh perspective on the new Wild West of home entertainment -- Lena DunhamThis brisk, blistering overview of how streaming has changed where we put our eyeballs is classic binge-worthy reading. I had no idea the people who created culture-altering shows are as entertaining as the shows themselves, but Peter Biskind did, and you'll never look at them same way again -- Steven SoderberghPeter Biskind takes on a wild, whirlwind tour of the birth, life, death, and rebirth of cable and streaming services, introducing us to the people behind them who turn out to be as ferociously nutty as the characters they put on the screen -- David Nasaw, author of The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold WarPeter Biskind catalogs real-life misbehavior by the principals responsible for an array of lauded series with the same unsparing eye that he detailed the excesses of New Hollywood in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls -- Fall 2023 Must-Reads * Entertainment Weekly *This gossip-filled overview of the past 40 years of television will keep readers glued to their seats * Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW *Biskind is known as much for his outspoken opinions as his insightful commentary, and Pandora’s Box is Biskind at his most candid. For readers interested in what goes on behind the scenes in the world of television, a must-read * Booklist *- - Praise for Peter Biskind -- -Who else can explicate the hidden politics of movies and make you laugh out loud at the same time? -- Barbara Ehrenreich on The Sky is FallingInsanely readable -- Slavoj Žižek on The Sky is FallingYou'll never look at your favourite movies and TV shows the same way again. And you shouldn't -- Steven Soderbergh on The Sky is FallingThoughtful, entertaining and occasionally profound * Spectator on The Sky is Falling *Spot on * Irish Times on The Sky is Falling *Dishy, teeming, superbly reported...packed with lively inside anecdotes...[a] juicy and fascinating exposé * Entertainment Weekly on Down and Dirty Pictures *Sensationally entertaining * Los Angeles Times on Down and Dirty Pictures *Peter Biskind's great, scathing, news-packed history...is one hell of an elixir-salty with flavorsome gossip, sour with the aftertaste of misspent careers, intoxicating with one revelation after another...an A * Entertainment Weekly on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls *Biskind's devourable book is that rarity, a Hollywood exposé that you can read mouth agape, slurping up scandal and titillation so fast you're in danger of choking-without feeling ashamed of yourself * Washington Post Book World on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls *Biskind is a magician at prying revealing yarns and juicy quotes out of his subjects. And the resulting scenarios are deliciously tawdry...moments of real intelligence and grace * San Francisco Chronicle on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls *
£22.50
Pennsylvania State University Press Fear and Nature
Book SynopsisA collection of essays analyzing ecohorror motifs in literature, manga, film, and television, illuminating ambiguities that arise from human encounters with nonhuman nature and examining the scale and effect of ecohorror in, and of, the Anthropocene.Trade Review“Fear and Nature expansively defines eco-horror as not only a sub-genre of literature but as a cohesive mode operating across genres and media. Whether talking about Algernon Blackwood or Algernon Swinburne, Bong Joon Ho or Junji Ito, this volume explores the rhizomatic connections that make eco-criticism something that transcends genre, and makes a convincing case for its relevance not only today but as a way of reconsidering what has come before.”—Brian Evenson,author of Song for the Unraveling of the World “Fear and Nature straddles popular culture studies, horror and gothic studies, film and literary studies, and cultural studies. It is an expansive, ambitious, and exploratory book that is working to move the field beyond earlier works of ecohorror criticism by considering fresh approaches to the subject.”—Bernice Murphy,author of The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture: Backwoods Horror and Terror in the Wilderness“This foundational text is an optimistic thrust of possible reimagination, one that does not “foreclose the future or discourage activism.””—ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment“This representative and symbolic book is highly recommended to readers as it can offer them the ethics and responsibilities towards nature.”—Tohidur Rahaman Journal of Ecohumanism“This book is definitely going to be one of the more authoritative texts in the field for a while, due to its sharp, language-building introduction, the chapters’ wide applications of ecohorror theory, and the scholars’ tendency to use their work to open up conversations rather than simply proving a statement and walking away.”—Jonathan W. Thurston-Torres SFRA ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Ecohorror in the AnthropoceneChristy Tidwell and Carter SolesPart 1: Expanding Horror1. Tentacular Ecohorror and the Agency of Trees in Algernon Blackwood’s “The Man Whom the Trees Loved” and Lorcan Finnegan’s Without NameDawn Keetley2. Spiraling Inward and Outward: Junji Ito’s Uzumaki and the Scope of EcohorrorChristy Tidwell3. “The Hand of Deadly Decay”: The Rotting Corpse, America’s Religious Tradition, and the Ethics of Green Burial in Poe’s “The Colloquy of Monos and Una”Ashley KnissPart 2: Haunted and Unhaunted Landscapes4. The Death of Birdsong, the Birdsong of Death: Algernon Charles Swinburne and the Horror of ErosionKeri Stevenson5. An Unhaunted Landscape: The Anti-Gothic Impulse in Ambrose Bierce’s “A Tough Tussle”Chelsea Davis6. The Extinction-Haunted Salton Sea in The Monster That Challenged the WorldBridgitte BarclayPart 3: The Ecohorror of Intimacy7. From the Bedroom to the Bathroom: Stephen King’s Scatology and the Emergence of an Urban Environmental GothicMarisol Cortez8. “This Bird Made an Art of Being Vile”: Ontological Difference and Uncomfortable Intimacies in Stephen Gregory’s The CormorantBrittany R. Roberts9. The Shape of Water and Post-pastoral EcohorrorRobin L. Murray and Joseph K. HeumannPart 4: Being Prey, Being Food10. Superpig Blues: Agribusiness Ecohorror in Bong Joon-ho’s OkjaKristen Angierski11. Zoo: Television Ecohorror On and Off the ScreenSharon Sharp12. Naturalizing White Supremacy in The ShallowsCarter SolesContributorsIndex
£26.96
Little, Brown Book Group Under Construction
Book SynopsisA heartfelt, humorous personal memoir and relatable guide to overcoming obstacles, wising up about romance, and getting ahead in your career from the star of Netflix''s hit reality show Selling Sunset.In this engaging, witty, and inspirational memoir, Chrishell Stause shares her story of living an unconventional childhood in small-town Kentucky marked by periods of homelessness, family addiction struggles and dreams of one day being on a daytime soap, all while managing the local Dairy Queen. Through resilience and grit, she overcame obstacles and pushed past every barrier in her path to become one of the most envied luxury realtors in Los Angeles and buzzworthy cast members in reality TV.She takes us behind the scenes of Selling Sunset, reveals never-before-told stories from her life in soaps, and even pulls back the curtain on her highly publicised love life, offering insight not before shared. With her signature honesty and charm, Stause also
£13.29
Little, Brown Book Group Under Construction
Book SynopsisA heartfelt, humorous personal memoir and relatable guide to overcoming obstacles, wising up about romance, and getting ahead in your career from the star of Netflix''s hit reality show Selling Sunset.In this engaging, witty, and inspirational memoir, Chrishell Stause shares her story of living an unconventional childhood in small-town Kentucky marked by periods of homelessness, family addiction struggles and dreams of one day being on a daytime soap, all while managing the local Dairy Queen. Through resilience and grit, she overcame obstacles and pushed past every barrier in her path to become one of the most envied luxury realtors in Los Angeles and buzzworthy cast members in reality TV.She takes us behind the scenes of Selling Sunset, reveals never-before-told stories from her life in soaps, and even pulls back the curtain on her highly publicised love life, offering insight not before shared. With her signature honesty and charm, Stause also
£10.44
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC British Film Studios 763 Shire Library
Book SynopsisA beautifully illustrated introduction to the history of British film-making and the leading studios, such as Ealing, Pinewood, Shepperton and Elstree.The British film industry was already well established when Hollywood sprang to life in 1911, and has remained at the forefront of film-making ever since; from Cecil Hepworth and Alfred Hitchcock to Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan, and all the innumerable artistic and technical titans in between, the UK has never been far from the cinematic vanguard. Originally flat theatrical sets on temporary stages (often in gardens!), early British studios could be found everywhere from Glasgow to Brighton, and by the 1920s elaborately lit indoor production stages had developed. Stiff competition from the big five' US studios led to seismic upheavals over the coming decades, yet names like Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, David Lean and Richard Attenborough attest to Britain's enduring stature. From quintessentially British studios and productiTable of ContentsBritain and Early Film Gainsborough: from Hitchcock to Melodramas Denham: Korda’s Dream Pinewood Ealing: Comedies Shepperton Elstree: a British Hollywood Bray: Hammer Horror Onwards and Upwards Further Information Acknowledgements Index
£9.49
Running Press,U.S. Black TV
Book SynopsisWith iconic imagery and engrossing text, Black TV is the first book of its kind to celebrate the groundbreaking, influential, and often under-appreciated shows centered on Black people and their experiences from the last fifty years.Over the past decade, television has seen an explosion of acclaimed and influential debut storytellers including Issa Rae (Insecure), Donald Glover (Atlanta), and Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You). This golden age of Black television would not be possible without the actors, showrunners, and writers that worked for decades to give voice to the Black experience in America.Written by veteran TV reporter Bethonie Butler, Black TV tells the stories behind the pioneering series that led to this moment, celebrating the laughs, the drama, and the performances we''ve loved over the last fifty years. Beginning with Julia, the groundbreaking sitcom that made Diahann Carroll the first Black woman to lead a p
£24.00
Running Press,U.S. Pop Culture Pioneers
Book SynopsisCelebrate the empowering and inspiring women who helped create, shape, and make pop culture great, from the creator of SYFY WIRE's FANGRRLS and the podcast 'Forgotten Women of Genre'! In every medium in popular culture—from books, films, and video games to comics, television, and animation—women have been instrumental in creating and shaping the worlds, characters, and genres that we know and love. However, much of their hard work and innovation has gone largely unrecognized—until now. With a foreword by American Gods actress Yetide Badaki and essays exploring the history and transformation of pop culture's genres and mediums, Pop Culture Pioneers explores and pays respect to the women who played a crucial role in creating and influencing of some of the most famous worlds and characters in pop culture including: Directors & Producers like Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux,
£19.00
Ebury Publishing ScreenAge: How TV shaped our reality, from Tammy
Book Synopsis'Like a superheated kernel of corn, the world has gone Pop... Drag has become mainstream. Being gay became cool. From being the criminal outsider, being queer has even become representative of the way the outsider voice is common to us all.'When he moved to New York in 1982, Fenton Bailey saw the world go Pop. Together with filmmaking partner Randy Barbato, their production company World of Wonder would pioneer the genre of Reality TV and chronicle the emerging Screen Age through their extraordinary programs and outrageous subjects - from Bible Belt televangelists and conspiracy theories to pioneering drag queens.Working with icons such as Britney Spears, Tammy Faye Bakker and RuPaul, the production company's shows tell a wider story of how television has fundamentally shifted our reality.Packed with glorious insider gossip and amazing celebrity stories, these are the riotous tales behind the shows that would make ScreenAgers of us all.Trade ReviewScreenAge is a must-read. We FINALLY have a book that recognizes the profound and positive impact television has had on all our lives -- Michelle Visagel learned everything I know from television, and you can learn everything I know from this book -- RuPaul
£17.00
Quercus Publishing Screen Style
Book SynopsisScreen Style celebrates the beautiful, stylish and often covetable outfits and costumes featured in 50 iconic and diverse series of the small screen: from Mad Men to Call My Agent, Bridgerton to Empire.By organising the series into genres - Comedy, Coming of Age, Crime, Historical, Retro, Contemporary - the author shows how designers take different approaches when manipulating the latent power of dress to create convincing characters and enhance the experience of the viewer. She reveals how the characters themselves can become role models for what to wear, transforming actors into fashion influencers.The book is beautifully illustrated with over 250 screen stills, each accompanied by an extended caption, further demonstrating how TV series have helped to set the standard for fashion on and off screen.
£26.25
Peter Lang Publishing Inc Space, Mirrors, Subjectivity in Angela Carter’s
Book SynopsisAngela Carter is known for her style—daring, disturbing, excessive—and her efforts to destroy and demystify every social norm. But she does more than dare. With sharp and subtle sensitivity, Carter disintegrates paradigms of temporality and mind enshrined by western philosophical tradition. She recognizes and illustrates how our modern alienation and disorientation derive more from spatial anxiety than time disorientation. Through her novels and short stories, Carter re-examines the human-space relation, unraveling the power discourses inscribed as the representation of space, and provides broader spatiotemporal imagination and possibilities. Focusing on spatiality in her works, this book explores Carter’s attempts to criticize, resist and rewrite hierarchical, gendered discourse—analyzing it through the lens of confining space, specular space and bodily space. I will show how Carter tries to build a new model of space that transcends the dominant/dominated paradigm and establishes a spatiality-subjectivity totality. Her model overcomes our state of alienation by embracing corporeality and excess, lived experience in everyday interactions with space, and a new construction of subject of becoming. This book is for literary critics, professors and students of literature, readers of Angela Carter, and all those who feel trapped by their bodies and space.Table of ContentsIntroduction – Confining Space: Space as Palimpsest of Power – Specular Space: Mirror as Façade and through the Looking Glass – Bodily Space: From Puppet to Flux Identity of Becoming – Conclusion.
£54.00
Poetry Wales Press Hollywood or Home
Book SynopsisWelcome to Kathryn Gray? s?Hollywood or Home, a collection with as much ruthless glamour as any Old Hollywood movie. These poems?reflect on the glamour and heartbreak of the movie industry,?questioning?celebrity culture, and ideas of success and failure.
£9.49
The Crowood Press Ltd Presenting for TV and Screen: The Essential Guide
Book SynopsisThe myriad TV stations, streaming platforms and social media channels available today make it an exciting time to be an up-and-coming presenter. Yet many people struggle to find their natural charisma and confidence, which can hinder their professional development. Presenting for TV and Screen is a step-by-step guide to how to understand your audience and communicate effectively on camera. Guiding the reader through key principles and essential techniques, experienced presenter Brian Naylor offers an in-depth look at why tonality, facial expressions and body language are vital for effective and engaging communication. Additional topics covered include: scripting vs ad-libbing, and how to do both effectively; mastering the teleprompter, and how to make it look effortless; self-shooting and creating professional homemade videos; working in a TV studio and the tools of the trade; how to make interviews informative and entertaining and, finally how to brand yourself and become a professional presenter. With personal insights from industry experts including agents, casting managers, presenters and BAFTA winning director Helen Sheppard, this practical guide is an essential tool for anyone who wants to become a natural, confident and engaging on-screen presenter.
£18.00
Ebury Publishing The Food Programme: 13 Foods that Shape Our
Book SynopsisVital stories for hungry minds.In the first official book from BBC Radio 4's hit series The Food Programme, award-winning writer Alex Renton tells the stories of 13 key staples such as spice, oil, cocoa, bread and tomatoes, exploring their history, evolution and how our ever-growing hunger for them continues to alter our world. Look at food in a new light - as a weapon, an art form, a tool of revolution, but also a bringer of pure happiness.Discover a kaleidoscope of fascinating facts and curiosities, including the forgotten joys of lard, the secret to perfect chips and how our love of pepper led to piracy.
£16.14
Ebury Publishing The Repair Shop: Tales from the Workshop of
Book SynopsisWe all have treasures hidden away in the attic, well-loved and well-worn belongings that have been passed down from generation to generation. They may be damaged or no longer working, but we can't bear to part with them. The expert craftspeople of hit BBC series The Repair Shop are dedicated to restoring and conserving these heirlooms. They know that the true worth of these possessions doesn't lie in their monetary value, but in the memories they hold and the stories they tell.In this fascinating book, you'll step inside The Repair Shop's Workshop of Dreams to explore some of the most moving family stories from the hit BBC series. From a glamorous sequinned dress that belonged to a popular travelling circus performer to a pump organ that was brought from Jamaica by a member of the Windrush generation, each family item is brought vividly to life - and lovingly restored by the team of Repair Shop experts who also contribute to these expanded stories. With a foreword by Jay Blades, Tales from the Workshop of Dreams is a heartfelt love letter to our collective past, and a fascinating slice of social history.This book features items fixed by Repair Shop experts Steve Fletcher, Will Kirk, Lucia Scalisi, Suzie Fletcher, Kirsten Ramsay, Dominic Chinea, Brenton West, Tim Gunn, Sara Dennis, Chris Shaw, Matt Nickels, Amanda Middleditch and Julie Tatchell. With great care and attention to detail, the Repair Shop team resurrect priceless pieces of family history and breathe new life into the stories they hold.Trade ReviewThe Repair Shop is here to save us all. A perfect show. -- Richard OsmanFar and away the best programme on British television. -- Stephen Fry
£10.44
Luath Press Ltd Destination Time Travel
Book SynopsisWhere are we going? The future, Doc! Great Scott! Not forgetting the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey past. That’s right, ticket holders, Destination Time Travel is your journey into the many worlds of the time travel tale – exploring its tropes, its rules, its devices, its science, its values, its plots, its characters and, most importantly, its enduring – and timeless – appeal.Alongside their upcoming film seminar at the British Film Institution in October, join Steve Nallon and Dick Fiddy as they explore the world’s obsession with time travel in film and television. From the classics of Doctor Who and Back To The Future to the Netflix hit Dark, Nallon and Fiddy explore just what it is about time travel that makes us tick. This book will be a guaranteed hit with fans of time travel and the different film and television series that Nallon and Fiddy explore. It will also be key to film buffs and those interested in the medium. Trade ReviewHe has certainly hit on a rich vein of storytelling here.DAVID BROWN on The Time That Never WasA wonderful read of black and white TV.AMAZON USER on Missing, Believed Wiped
£16.69
Andrews UK Limited From Blitz to Glitz: The Autobiography of Jess
Book Synopsis
£22.94
Anthem Press Melodrama, Masculinity and International Art
Book SynopsisThis book presents a series of essays that reassess the role of melodrama in a number of touchstone films in the art-cinema tradition that explore the subjective experience of a central male protagonist, announcing the emergence of a genre that has progressively proliferated in contemporary cinema. Case studies by such notable auteurs as Vittorio De Sica, Satyajit Ray, Vincente Minnelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Luca Guadagnino demonstrate how the art-house male melodrama offers a vision of masculinity that is sexually fluid, fragmented, unstable, and often incapacitated to the point of paralysis, rather than the heroic stereotypes commonly found in popular genre cinema.Trade Review“Exploring the rich field of modern auteur cinema, Alistair Fox offers an incisive and unique study of ‘masculine interiority’ within movie melodrama, shedding new light on some of the most canonical films of the last eighty years" — Timothy Corrigan, Professor Emeritus of English, Cinema Studies, and History of Art, Fisher-Bennett Hall University of Pennsylvania."The breadth and depth of Alistair Fox’s work is nothing short of astonishing. Recruiting scholarship that is equally extensive, he ranges across multiple nations, eras and cinematic movements. With forceful and elegant writing, Fox provides a rich understanding of how filmmakers represent the male of the species"— KrinGabbard, author of Better Git It in Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus"Original, comprehensive, and insightful, this book complements superbly the rich corpus of feminist publications on women in cinema. Alistair Fox casts a brilliant light on a series of post WWII melodramas that reject the male stereotypes engineered by Hollywood and suggest a gender fluidity leading to an authentic expression of the gay experience. An important book on a long-neglected material" — Anne Gillain, Professor Emerita, Wellesley College."Alistair Fox’s sensitive use of Charles Mauron’s psychocritical approach illuminates the films of a range of directors whose films explore a fluid male sexuality. Paying close attention to form and music, as well as the directors’ personal histories, he makes a convincing case for male melodrama as a key genre" — Phil Powrie, Professor of Cinema Studies, University of Surrey, UK.“Alistair Fox argues persuasively for a new understanding of the generic dimensions of melodrama in the context of the international art film through richly detailed analyses of the work of nine important directors. Theoretically sophisticated and extensively researched from primary sources, it provides us with a history of the post-war “male melodrama” as a distinct but largely unrecognized cinematic form" — David A. Cook, Professor of Media Studies, University of North Carolina—Greensboro."This book is a tour de force, a new classic of gendered screen analysis. Fox’s canvas is broad and international, but these superbly subtle readings—from Ray to Bergman, Truffaut to Guadagnino—take us intimately close to some of world cinema's most iconic male filmmakers and their alter egos. Under Fox's illuminating critical eye, filmic masculinity is revealed in all its nuanced, complex, melodramatic fascinations"—Tim Palmer, Professor of Film Studies, UNC Wilmington, author of Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema and Irreversible.Table of ContentsList of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Italian Neorealism and the Emergence of the Male Melodrama: Vittorio De Sica’sBicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952); 2. The Migration of Male Melodrama into Non-Western Cultures: Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy (1955–59) and “Fourth Cinema” ; 3. Hollywood Melodrama as a Vehicle for Self-Projection: Vincente Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy (1956) and Home from the Hill (1960); 4. The Political Turns Personal: Neo-Neorealism and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone(1961); 5. Personal Cinema as Psychodrama: Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957), Winter Light (1963) and Hour of the Wolf (1968); 6. François Truffaut and the Tyranny of Romantic Obsession: The Soft Skin (1964), Mississippi Mermaid (1969) and The Woman Next Door (1981); 7. Figuring an Authorial Fantasmatic: Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), A Room In Town (1982) and Parking (1985); 8. Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the Emergence of Queer Cinema: The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975) and In a Year with 13 Moons (1978); 9. Visual Aestheticism and the Queer Prestige Melodrama: Call Me by Your Name (2017) and Luca Guadagnino’s Desire Trilogy; Conclusion; List of Films Cited; Select Bibliography; Index
£72.00
Anthem Press On The Figure In General And The Body In
Book SynopsisFilms fill our imagination with figures, figurines, and talismans. They ceaselessly rework the same archetypes and invent troubling prototypes – especially when they establish a deeper relationship to reality. How do we understand these presences that are both so characteristic and so diverse in cinema? How does film deal with bodies, movements, and gestures? Why are we so drawn to these shadows, silhouettes, and hypothetical beings? What organizes the figurative values at work in a film? How do cinematic creatures circulate from film to film and image to image? How does film articulate the links between the abstract and figurative? Is it possible to write a history of figurative forms? Starting from films themselves and works that are both classical (Sergei Eisenstein, Roberto Rossellini, Orson Welles) and contemporary (Abel Ferrara, Brian DePalma, Patricia Mazuy), celebrated (Robert Bresson, John Cassavetes, Ken Jacobs, Paul Sharits) and overlooked (Al Razutis, Jean Genet, Monte Hellman, and John Travolta), from auteurs as well as aesthetic questions (representations of dance, the naked body, character development…), the essays in this volume, most available for the first in English, aim to open a field that has been neglected by analysis, while also suggesting the tools necessary to understanding figurative phenomena specific to cinema.Trade Review“This is the most valuable volume by a French cinephile in English to have appeared since the translations of André Bazin and Serge Daney—a book that I believe filmgoers will still be learning from half a century from now. Brenez’s originality is as stupefying as her erudition.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, American film critic, USA.“At last, one of the true classics of 1990s film theory and analysis is available in English, superbly translated. This influential book redefines our formal, cultural, and historical understanding of cinema and related visual arts. Bridging popular genres and avant-garde experiments, it offers an open, speculative approach. An essential reference.”—Adrian Martin, Monash University, Australia.“This dazzling collection of essays, which brim with ideas and insights in relation to a wide variety of films and filmmakers, confirmed Nicole Brenez as one of the most original and exciting writers on cinema of her generation. It is wonderful that it is now available to an anglophone readership.” —Michael Witt, Professor of Cinema, University of Roehampton, UK.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part 1: Figurative Economies, 1. Why Must the Dead Be Killed?:Observations on John Woo, 2. Capitalism: Jack Smith, 3. “Unusual Approach to Bodies”: Robert Bresson with Jean Eustache, Philippe Garrel, and Monte Hellman, 4. Sketch/Skip/Excessive Synthesis: Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, John McTiernan’s Predator; Part 2: Adventures of the Classical Body in Modern Cinema, 1. S.M. Eisenstein, Bella Figura, and Formal Deflagration, 2. Anti-Bodies: Instances of the Classical Body in the Work of Jean Genet, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Gus Van Sant, 3. Short-Circuit: Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate; Part 3: New Abstractions in Figurative Invention, 1. The Contemporary Character, 2. The Being According to the Image: Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, 3. “’Cause it sounds more French”: On a Secondary Character in Maurice Pialat’s Police, 4. Thefts: Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket; Part 4: Summonses – Figures of the Actor, 1. The Actor as Affective Citizen: Fassbinder’s Beware of a Holy Whore, 2. Lassie, Unfaithful to Dogs: Fred M. Wilcox’s Lassie Come Home, 3. “Die for Mr. Jensen”: John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence, 4. John Woo by John Woo: The Take and the Shot; Part 5: Image Circuits, 1. Travolta Himself: Dance and the Circulation of Images – Fantasy, Phantasm, and Phantasmata, 2. Thirst: Barbara Loden’s Wanda, 3. The Visual Study: The Forces of a Cinematic Form – Al Razutis, Ken Jacobs, Brian De Palma, 4. The First Shot: Philippe Garrel’s Liberté, la nuit, 5. Anti-Oedipus: John Woo’s Heroes Shed No Tears; Part 6: Theoretical Invention, 1. “As You Are”: Representation and Figuration – Questions of Terminology in the Work of Barthes, Eisenstein, Benjamin, and Epstein, 2. The Physics of Cinema: Introduction to the Literary and Filmic Oeuvre of Paul Sharits, 3. In the Meantime: Kirk Tougas’ The Politics of Perception, 4. Epilogue: The Accident; Bibliography; Index
£72.00
Batsford Ltd Atlas of Imagined Cities: Who lives where in TV,
Book SynopsisFrom the Ghostbusters HQ in New York to Nemo’s fish tank in Sydney, from the Phantom of the Opera’s Parisian lair to scenes from Grand Theft Auto in LA, this is an amazing atlas of imaginary locations in real-life cities around the world. Locations from film, TV, books, computer games and comics are ingeniously plotted on a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps.Feauturing 14 of the world’s greatest cities, the maps show exactly where your favourite characters lived, loved, worked and played, and where iconic scenes took place. The locations have been painstakingly tracked down, mapped, annotated and wittily divulged by the authors, and an extensive index helps you find them all. Within the pages of this book, you'll discover:• Where in London super-spies James Bond and George Smiley are neighbours.• The route of the exciting San Francisco car chase in Bullitt.• The Tokyo homes of all the magical girls from the classic Sailor Moon anime.And many more fascinating locations drawn from the world’s imagination.Accompanying the maps are illuminating essays that explain how the authors came to their decisions, along with explorations of the key locations and fun timelines of imaginary events. Find out how to get to Sesame Street, where to join Starfleet and thousands of other places besides, in this indispensable guidebook to all those places you always wanted to visit – if only they were real. Trade Review‘Oh what fun! … allows access to a creative world and is overflowing with information and beautifully drawn maps.’ LoveReading‘Brimful of intriguing curiosities … the maps are a thing of beauty’ Perceptive Travel
£21.25
Polaris Publishing Limited Local Hero: Making a Scottish Classic
Book Synopsis'It's not a high concept movie, there's actually no story there really. It’s what happens in between the story that’s important' – Bill Forsyth The story of an American businessman sent to buy the Scottish village of Ferness with the aim of turning it into an oil refinery, Local Hero is one of Scotland’s most beloved, and most misunderstood, films. When Bill Forsyth’s incredible success with the low-budget That Sinking Feeling and Gregory’s Girl found him collaborating with Britain’s best-known film producer, David Puttnam, he soon found his independent ethos clashing with Hollywood’s desire for superstar actors and a happy ending. Jonathan Melville checks into the MacAskill Arms and looks back at Bill Forsyth’s career with the help of new and archive interviews, before spending time with the cast and crew, including stars Peter Riegert and Denis Lawson, who made Local Hero on location in Houston and Scotland in 1982. With access to early drafts of the Local Hero script (including hand-written notes) that reveal more about Mac and mermaids, excerpts from a previously unpublished interview in which Bill Forsyth explains why he refuses to call his film 'feel-good', and a look at long-lost deleted scenes with exclusive commentary from those involved, this is the definitive history of the Scottish classic. ‘Genuine fairy tales are rare; so is film-making that is thoroughly original in an unobtrusive way. Bill Forsyth's quirky disarming Local Hero is both . . . it demonstrates Mr. Forsyth's uncanny ability for making an audience sense that something magical is going on, even if that something isn't easily explained’ – Janet Maslin, The New York Times 'Local Hero is kind of transcendent. It's poetic in a way that most films can't hope to be' – Frank Cottrell-Boyce 'Local Hero is one my favourite films of all time . . . A timeless masterpiece' – Mark Kermode
£15.29
![Over the Hills and Far Away [Sandstone]: My Life](//bookcurl.com/cdn/shop/files/9781914518058.jpg?v=1722291016&width=645)
Sandstone Press Ltd Over the Hills and Far Away [Sandstone]: My Life
Book SynopsisSay ‘Eh-oh!’ to Nikky Smedley and Laa-Laa Over the Hills and Far Away follows Nikky through the Teletubbies years, from her role as a bistro table during her audition to the show’s international success and the accompanying hounding by the press. In this warm, funny, affectionate look back at life on the Teletubbies set, Nikky reveals all, including tales about dogs and asthma, raging arguments about fruit, and the games the cast and crew played to amuse themselves during long shoots in their massive costumes. Join Nikky and Laa-Laa on their extraordinary journey from the very beginning to handing the torch to another performer for the next generation.Trade Review‘Puts us right inside those hellishly uncomfortable costumes, without trashing the magic or betraying the children who gave Laa-Laa their love.’ ‘Charming, funny, insightful, beautifully written.’My showbiz memoir of the year. A hit!Top notch insight into the woman within the puppet.Funny, poignant and heart-warming.This book is the reminder I didn’t know I needed.What a wonderful book! Beautifully written and Nikki’s sense of humour shines through the pages.
£16.99
![Over the Hills and Far Away [Sandstone]: My Life](http://bookcurl.com/cdn/shop/files/9781914518058.jpg?v=1722291016&width=645)