Films, cinema Books

Book SynopsisA unique, exhaustively researched viewers guide to movies about Jesus that takes readers film-by-film from Olcott's silent classic From the Manger to the Cross (1912) through Dornford- May's Son of Man (2006). Drawing on his experience as a biblical scholar and teacher on religion and film, Barnes Tatum looks at Jesus films in all their dimensions: as cinematic art, literature, biblical history, and theology. A fascinating analysis of all the Jesus movies that have been made since the beginning of cinematography.

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Book SynopsisFew European male actors have been as iconic and influential for generations of filmgoers as Alain Delon. Emblematic of a modern, European masculinity, Delon’s appeal spanned cultures and continents. From his breakthrough as the first on-screen Tom Ripley in Purple Noon in 1960, through two legendary performances in Rocco and His Brothers and The Leopard in the early 1960s, to his roles in some of Jean-Pierre Melville’s most celebrated films noirs, Delon came to embody the flair and stylishness of the European thriller as one of France’s most recognizable film stars. This collection examines the star’s career, image and persona. Not only focusing on his spectacular early performances, the book also considers less well documented aspects of Delon’s long career such as his time in Hollywood, his work as director, producer and screenwriter, his musical collaborations, his TV appearances, and his enduring role as a fashion icon in the 21st century. Whether the object of reverence or ridicule, of desire or disdain, Delon remains a unique figure who continues to court controversy and fascination more than five decades after he first achieved international fame.Trade ReviewIn ten essays from a respected pool of academic writers, [this] book teases out what made Delon such a success ... [A]n interesting read. * Media Education Journal *The book increases significantly the available scholarship on Delon ... and offer[s] unusual and stimulating premises ... which in the long run will prove to be useful take-off points for scholars wishing to further engage with the figure of Delon. * Celebrity Studies *Highly engrossing … The use of a wide range of cultural, geographical, and theoretical lenses is not only revolutionary for Delon scholarship, but also has broader implications for star studies and English-language publications on non-Anglo-American stars, further underscoring the importance of this collection’s fascinating exploration of Delon’s style, stardom, and masculinity. * Studies in European Cinema *[This collection] manages to cover the broad range of Delon’s career and persona in ways that are profoundly illuminating. There are excellent studies of his narcissism, his international profile and its relationship to French culture, his impact on fashion culture, his move into production and directing ... and two fascinating chapters on Delon dubbed in his Italian films, and Delon as singer. * French Studies *A bracing and wide-ranging set of essays on a vital French and international star celebrity. As these expert respondents consider Delon's career -- embodying culture, commerce and history -- they offer a richer understanding not only of this particular icon, but also the possibilities for star studies in general. * Tim Palmer, Professor of Film Studies, University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA, and author of Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema (2011) and Irreversible (2015) *At last, the best-looking, most charismatic French actor of the post-war period gets the sustained attention he deserves. In Alain Delon, Style, Stardom and Masculinity, Nick Rees-Roberts and Darren Waldron have gathered a splendid collection of texts that illuminate the star in his multifarious dimensions: his roles and career choices, performance, looks, voice, fashion sense and sexual attractiveness. Drawing on insights from a range of international scholars, the book also importantly examines and celebrates his presence not just in famous classics such as Rocco and his Brothers, The Leopard and Mr Klein, but also in popular French cinema, especially the thrillers of Henri Verneuil, Jacques Deray and Jean-Pierre Melville, of which he was a pillar for decades. Fans and students alike will relish a book that explains and documents the enduring appeal of one of the great stars of French and world cinema. * Ginette Vincendeau, Professor of Film Studies, King’s College London, UK *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Alain Delon, Then and Now Nick Rees-Roberts, University of Bristol, UK, and Darren Waldron, University of Manchester, UK On the Limits of Narcissism: Alain Delon, Masculinity and the Delusion of Agency Darren Waldron, University of Manchester, UK Delon and Performance: Emploi and the Interaction between Individual, Role and Character Laurent Jullier, Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle, France, and Jean-Marc Leveratto, Université de Lorraine, France France’s 'New Don Juan': The Representation of Delon’s Youth Gwénaëlle Le Gras, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, France Dubbing Delon: Voice, Body and National Stardom in Rocco and his Brothers Catherine O’Rawe, University of Bristol, UK Delon/Gabin/Verneuil: Modernity within Tradition Leila Wimmer, London Metropolitan University, UK Alain Delon, International Man of Mystery Mark Gallagher, University of Nottingham, UK The Star’s Script: Delon as Director, Producer and Screenwriter Isabelle Vanderschelden, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK The Singing Actor: Delon on Record Barbara Lebrun, University of Manchester, UK Dressed to Kill: Delon as Style Icon Nick Rees-Roberts, University of Bristol, UK Toujours Delon: The Script of Ageing Sue Harris, Queen Mary University of London, UK

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Book SynopsisIn 1896, Maxim Gorky declared cinema "the Kingdom of Shadows." In its silent, ashen-grey world, he saw a land of spectral, and ever since then cinema has had a special relationship with the haunted and the ghostly. Cinematic Ghosts is the first collection devoted to this subject, including fourteen new essays, dedicated to exploring the many permutations of the movies’ phantoms. Cinematic Ghosts contains essays revisiting some classic ghost films within the genres of horror (The Haunting, 1963), romance (Portrait of Jennie, 1948), comedy (Beetlejuice, 1988) and the art film (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, 2010), as well as essays dealing with a number of films from around the world, from Sweden to China. Cinematic Ghosts traces the archetype of the cinematic ghost from the silent era until today, offering analyses from a range of historical, aesthetic and theoretical dimensions.Trade ReviewThere is much to interest readers and the book will (dare I say it) leave them in good spirits ... A thoughtful and entertaining addition to any film or religion studies collection, whether for personal or professional purposes, at undergraduate or postgraduate level. * Alphaville *The stand out feature of this collection is the diagnostic links between the content of ghost films and the ghostly techniques through which they are shot, a level of connection that puts Leeder’s text a step ahead of other purely thematic approaches to ghosts and haunted cinema. Cinematic Ghosts is just as much about ghostly cinematics, adding appeal to scholars of film production and spectral narratives alike. * Gothic Studies *Cinema has always been a ghostly medium. Now we finally have a book that explores film’s relation to ghosts with the breadth and depth it deserves, moving deftly across historical periods, genre classifications, and national origins. This is a rich and varied collection that will haunt – in all the right ways – a broad range of readers, scholars, and students. * Adam Lowenstein, Associate Professor of English and Film Studies, University of Pittsburgh, USA, and author of Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media *Ghosts have haunted film from its earliest years to the present day, as this volume admirably demonstrates. It is impressive for its chronological and geographical range, and for the consistent quality of the contributions. Breaking new ground in exploring the interlinked theoretical, cultural and national stakes of cinematic haunting, this invaluable collection is certain to be a standard reference point for all future work in the field. * Colin Davis, Research Chair in French, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, and author of Haunted Subjects: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis and the Return of the Dead *Murray Leeder’s strongly focused collection adds another exhilarating twist to the spectral turn by providing a welcome opportunity to reflect on the enduring notion of cinema as a haunted/haunting medium. Asking where non-figurative cinematic ghosts have been and where they might be going, a series of engaging contributions systematically charts the changing narrative, visual and sonic modes of haunting from the silent era to the digital age. Throughout, Cinematic Ghosts shows great sensitivity to the ghost’s cultural and historical specificity and, in terms of the films discussed, effectively–and fittingly–combines the expected with the unexpected. * Esther Peeren, Associate Professor in Globalisation Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and co-editor of The Spectralities Reader *Whether you've accepted a dare to spend one night in a haunted house or just have an interest in ghosts on the silver screen, Murray Leeder's Cinematic Ghosts is essential reading. Ranging from the origins of cinematic ghosts in nineteenth-century phantasmagoria to twenty-first century "glitch gothic," and from classic Western hauntings such as the The Innocents to the Asian onryo, this broad and engaging collection of essays--the first such collection specifically on cinematic ghosts--offers a lively, much-needed analysis of the history and appeal of movie phantoms. International in scope and historicist in approach, Cinematic Ghosts brilliantly showcases the depth and richness of supernatural film and will haunt all subsequent approaches to the topic. Ghostbusters, step aside. Murray Leeder is now the one to call if there's something strange in your neighborhood! * Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Professor of English, Central Michigan University, USA *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Murray Leeder, University of Calgary, Canada Ghosts of Pre-Cinema and Silent Cinema Chapter 1 Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography, Magic Theater, Trick Films and Photography’s Uncanny Tom Gunning, University of Chicago, USA Chapter 2 “Visualizing the Phantoms of the Imagination”: Projecting Haunted Minds Murray Leeder, University of Calgary, Canada Chapter 3 Specters of the Mind: Ghosts, Illusion, and Exposure in Paul Leni’s The Cat and the Canary Simone Natale, Humboldt University, Germany Chapter 4 Supernatural Speech: Silent Cinema's Stake in Visualizing the Impossible Robert Alford, University of California, Berkeley, USA Cinematic Ghosts from the 1940s through the 1980s Chapter 5 Bad Sync: Spectral Sound and Retro-effects in Portrait of Jennie René Thoreau Bruckner, University of Southern California, USA Chapter 6 “Antique Chiller”: Quality, Pretention and History in the Critical Reception of The Innocents and The Haunting Mark Jancovich, University of East Anglia, UK Chapter 7 Shadows of Shadows: The Undead in Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema Maurizio Cinquegrani, University of Kent, UK Chapter 8 Locating the Spectre in Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings Dara Downey, University College Dublin, Ireland Chapter 9 The Bawdy Body in Two Comedy Ghost Films: Topper and Beetlejuice Katherine A. Fowkes, High Point University, USA Millennial Ghosts Chapter 10 “I See Dead People”: Visualizing Ghosts in the Horror Film Before the Arrival of CGI Steffen Hantke, Sogang University, Korea Chapter 11 Spectral Remainders and Transcultural Hauntings: (Re)iterations of the Onryo in Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema Jay McRoy, University of Wisconsin – Parkside, USA Chapter 12 Painted Skin: Romance with the Ghostly Femme Fatale in Contemporary Chinese Cinema Li Zeng, Illinois State University, USA Chapter 13 “It’s Not the House that’s Haunted”: Demons, Debt and the Family in Peril in Recent Horror Cinema Bernice M. Murphy, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland Chapter 14 Glitch Gothic Marc Olivier, Brigham Young University, USA Chapter 15 Showing the Unknown: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Carleton University, Canada Afterword: Haunted Viewers Jeffrey Sconce, Northwestern University, USA

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Book SynopsisThe pervasive image of New York’s 42nd Street as a hub of sensational thrills, vice and excess, is from where “grindhouse cinema,” the focus of this volume, stemmed. It is, arguably, an image that has remained unchanged in the mind’s eye of many exploitation film fans and academics alike. Whether in the pages of fanzines or scholarly works, it is often recounted how, should one have walked down this street between the 1960s and the 1980s, one would have undergone a kaleidoscopic encounter with an array of disparate “exploitation” films from all over the world that were being offered cheaply to urbanites by a swathe of vibrant movie theatres. The contributors to Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42nd Street, and Beyond consider “grindhouse cinema” from a variety of cultural and methodological positions. Some seek to deconstruct the etymology of “grindhouse” itself, add flesh to the bones of its cadaverous history, or examine the term’s contemporary relevance in the context of both media production and consumerism. Others offer new inroads into hitherto unexamined examples of exploitation film history, presenting snapshots of cultural moments that many of us thought we already knew.Trade ReviewThe Grindhouse is a fascinating phenomenon but it is too often seen as a wild and eclectic one, something that is praised for being chaotic and anarchic. The current collection goes beyond this celebratory rhetoric to examine the multiple forms and histories that converge in the Grindhouse. It unpicks and unpacks the phenomenon in ways that demonstrate its richness and variety, but also make sense of that richness and variety. Most significantly, it does so without destroying the pleasures of the Grindhouse. On the contrary it manages to question the experience while preserving its sense of fascination. And that is a very rare thing. * Mark Jancovich, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom *Grindhouse sets a new standard for the study of exploitation cinema history. In a time when grindhouse aesthetics have become retro chic, this book moves us beyond the seedy, cult mythologies of grindhouse. Examining grindhouse cinema beyond myth and morality, beyond genre conventions or industrial norms, and even beyond the U.S. context, this collection takes a nuanced look at this complex body—no cadaver—of film history. The book demands that we interrogate how the turbulent racial, national and sexual politics of the 1960s to 1980s gave birth to a movement in cinema whose significance to the popular and film cultures of today cannot be underestimated. A tour de force and a must read for anyone interested in film on the (not so) perverse margins of cinema history. * Mireille Miller-Young, Associate Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA *Table of ContentsTable of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: 42nd Street, and Beyond Austin Fisher and Johnny Walker Chapter 1 Grinding out the Grindhouse: Exploitation, Myth and Memory Glenn Ward Chapter 2 Where Did We Come In?: The Economics of Unruly Audiences, Their Cinemas and Tastes, From Serial Houses to Grind Houses. Phyll Smith Chapter 3 Temporary Fleapits and Scabs’ Alley:The Theatrical Dissemination of Italian Cannibal Films in Melbourne, Australia Dean Brandum Chapter 4 Run, Angel, Run: Serial Production and the Biker Movie, 1966-72 Peter Stanfield Chapter 5 “The Smashing, Crashing, Pileup of the Century”: The Carsploitation Film Robert J Read Chapter 6 Cars and Girls (and Burgers and Weed): Branding, Mainstreaming, and Crown International Pictures’ SoCal Drive-in Movies Richard Nowell Chapter 7 From “Sex Entertainment for the Whole Family” to Mature Pictures: I Jomfruens Tegn and Transnational Erotic Cinema Kevin Heffernan Chapter 8 ‘Bigger Than A Payphone, Smaller Than A Cadillac’: Porn Stardom in Exhausted: John C Holmes The Real Story Neil Jackson Chapter 9 From Opera House to Grindhouse (And Back Again): Ozploitation In and Beyond Australia Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Chapter 10 Go West, Brother: the Politics of Landscape in the Blaxploitation Western Austin Fisher Chapter 11 Red Power, White Movies: Billy Jack, Johnny Firecloud, and the Cultural Politics of the “Indiansploitation” Cycle David Church Chapter 12 Sleazy Strip-Joints and Perverse Porn Circuses: The Remediation of Grindhouse in the Porn Productions of Jack the Zipper Clarissa Smith Select Bibliography Contributors

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