Individual film directors Books

Book SynopsisDowntown Film and TV Culture 1975–2001 brings together essays by filmmakers, exhibitors, cultural critics and scholars from multiple generations of the New York Downtown scene to illuminate individual films and filmmakers and explore the creation of a Downtown Canon, the impact of AIDS on younger filmmakers, community access to cable television broadcasts, and the impact of the historic downtown scene on contemporary experimental culture. The book includes J. Hoberman’s essay ‘No Wavelength: The Parapunk Underground’, as well as historical essays by Tony Conrad and Lynne Tillman, interviews with filmmakers Bette Gordon and Beth B, and essays by Ivan Kral and Nick Zedd.Table of ContentsDowntown Cinema Revisited - Joan Hawkins Acknowledgements Downtown Body - Ward Shelley Part I: Moments Chapter 1: In the Movie-Viewing Machine: Essential Cinema and the 1970s - David Sterritt Chapter 2: No Wavelength: The Para-Punk Underground - J. Hoberman Chapter 3: At Last Real Movies: Super 8 Cinema from New York - Tony Conrad Chapter 4: Downtown’s Room in Hotel History - Lynne Tillman Part II: Scenes Chapter 5: The Blank Generation and Punk/Downtown History - Mark Benedetti Chapter 6: Birth of the Blank Generation - Ivan and Cindy Kral Chapter 7: Downtown Godard - Jonathan Everett Haynes Chapter 8: ‘A Crack in the Veneer’: A Conversation with Beth B - Beth B and Joan Hawkins Chapter 9: Lydia Lunch, The Right Side of My Brain - Chuck Kleinhans Chapter 10: Pleasure and Danger: Bette Gordon’s Variety - Joan Hawkins Chapter 11: Interview with Bette Gordon - Bette Gordon and Joan Hawkins Chapter 12: The Time of His Life: Spalding Gray - Laurie Stone Chapter 13: Mixing Blag Flag, DIY, Lo-Fi, and Oulipo: Jon Moritsugu’s Mommy Mommy Where’s My Brain - Jack Sargeant Chapter 14: Cast Iron TV and Friends: Artists’ Public Access in Manhattan - Terese Svoboda Chapter 15: TV Party: A Cocktail Party That Could Also be a Political Party - Benjamin Olin Chapter 16: The Case of Electra Elf: Towards New Possibilities of Underground Counterculture in the Twenty-First Century - Nick Zedd and David Sjöberg Chapter 17: Cock Worship: Todd Haynes, Fassbinder, and Queer Praxis - Chris Dumas Chapter 18: Downtown’s Queer Asides - Lucas Hilderbrand, Alexandra Juhasz, Debra Levine, and Ricardo Montez Part III: Memorials Chapter 19: Canonization and No Wave Cinema History - Mark Benedetti Chapter 20: The Downtown Scene in the Digital Era - Laurel Westrup Chapter 21: You Had to be There: The Downtown Archive and the Future of an Impossible Past - Richard Toon and Laurie Stone Chapter 22: The Centre Cannot Hold: Blank City (2010) and the Problems of Historicizing New York’s Independent Cinema of the Late 1970s and Early 1980s - Juan Carlos Kase Chapter 23: Experimental Film - Chris Kraus Filmography and Videography - Mark Benedetti

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Book SynopsisTHE ESSENTIAL AND EXPANDED UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE WHEDONVERSE!This revised and updated edition covers every aspect of his work, through insightful essays and in-depth interviews with key figures in the 'Whedonverse'.Trade Review “I stayed up all night reading this stuff!...Whether you’re a casual fan or a serious student of Joss Whedon’s worlds, you will enjoy every page of this volume. Go get it!” - Count Gore

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Book SynopsisFor the first time, Oscar-winning production designer and director Roger Christian reveals his life story, from his earliest work in the British film industry to his breakthrough contributions on such iconic science fiction masterpieces as Star Wars, Alien and his own cult classic Black Angel. This candid biography delves into his relationships with legendary figures, as well as the secrets of his greatest work. The man who built the lightsaber finally speaks!Trade Review"a refreshing in-the-trenches look at how stuff came together on set in the movie that shaped a generation" - Rolling Stone "...a fascinating, engrossing tale of the mad dash that leads to movie magic, a tribute to the passion and drive needed to make cinematic art. ...a magic window into the past that only enhances the originals." - San Francisco Book Review (Five Star Review) “A really important release...for all Star Wars fans who want to talk with authority about that production I think this is a book you’ve just gotta get” - Rebel Force Radio “After reading Cinema Alchemist, you will absolutely watch Star Wars and Alien differently, and notice details of the film you haven’t seen in your previous 300 viewings of the films. That is quite a feat.” - Borg.com “A wonderful resource for those interested in the movie business” - Adventures in Poor Taste“Roger is more than just a set designer and art director, he is a creative builder of visual dreams for films. Film historians and cinema buffs will want to pick-up this book as part of their film library.” - Retrenders

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Book SynopsisFew novelists have taken films as seriously, or been closely involved in so many aspects of the film business all their lives, as Graham Greene. Even at University he was touching on it. His long-term experience of the evolving art included producing, performing, script-writing and adaptation. Not to mention the libel case against him brought by Miss Shirley Temple for some disobliging words. Mornings in the Dark gathers some of Greene's best film criticism with a mass of related material: his film articles, interviews, lectures and radio talks, stories for film, letters and film proposals. With appendices on Greene's own films and unfulfilled film projects, and David Parkinson's introduction, this is an essential collection for readers of fiction and film enthusiasts alike.Trade Review'I well remember, when I was beginning as a film critic, reading with the most passionate envy the writings of Graham Greene in the Spectator... [I]t struck me that this was the kind of thing that film criticism should be.' - Dilys Powell, The Listener

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Book Synopsis'What started as a book on the frustration of funding led to the writing of an autobiography at forty... I had so little to do in the daylight hours, I stayed up late unbuttoning Levis in back rooms.'In 1984 at the age of 40, the polymath film-maker Derek Jarman began to write his journals. In the first of these diaries, Dancing Ledge, we see his origins as a young artist, written with Jarman's distinctive immediacy, curiosity, and candour. Behind-the-scenes of his first controversial films and stage designs, at glamorous launch parties with friends like David Hockney, Ossie Clarke and Patrick Proktor, to the trials of securing funding, Dancing Ledge is a coming-of-age memoir for all fledgling artists.Dancing Ledge also chronicles a unique time in British history, capturing gay nightlife from the end of the war to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.Trade ReviewJarman's light illuminates the wilderness as brightly as ever * New Statesman *Jarman [is] the sort of troublemaking visionary who one day may be compared with Blake * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisA fever-dream journal documenting the making of cinema's most infamous production, from the world's most infamously visionary director: Werner Herzog. In 1982, the visionary film director, Werner Herzog, released Fitzcarraldo, a lavish film about a would-be rubber baron who pulls a 320-ton steamship over a mountain. Hailed instantly by critics around the globe as a masterpiece, Fitzcarraldo won Herzog the 1982 Outstanding Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, affirming Herzog's reputation as one of the most revered and enigmatic filmmakers of his time. Conquest of the Useless is the diary Herzog kept during the making of Fitzcarraldo, compiled from June 1979 to November 1981. Emerging as if out of an Amazonian fever dream during filming, Herzog's writings are an extraordinary documentary unto themselves. Strange and otherworldly events are recounted by the filmmaker. The crew's camp in the heart of the jungle is attacked and burned to the ground; the production of the film clashes with a border war; and, of course, Herzog unravels the impossible logistics of moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. In his preface, Herzog warns that the diary entries collected in Conquest of the Useless do not represent reports on the actual filming but rather inner landscapes, born of the delirium of the jungle. Thus begins an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a genius during the making of one of his greatest achievements.

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Book SynopsisWith a twist on the practical movie-making genre, This Is How You Make a Movie brings the subject to life by explaining the terms and processes through the films you know and love. Using key scenes from some of the best-loved movies of all time, Tim Grierson explores everything from cinematography to the secrets of talking to camera. Deep focus is explored through Citizen Kane, forced perspective through Elf, and slow motion through Reservoir Dogs. A fascinating read for film buffs who want to understand what goes on behind the camera, and above all an essential read for students and beginners in the industry.

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Book SynopsisA lavish hardback containing Orson Welles' Portfolio, much of which has never been seen before. Orson Welles, famous as an accomplished actor, writer, producer and visionary director, had originally aspired to become a musician or artist. Having studied at the Art Institute of Chicago for one summer, he continued to draw and paint throughout his life. The majority of his artwork, including costume and set designs and caricatures, has been unavailable to the public. Until now.Trade Review“a treasure trove of previously unseen [work]” - Flavorwire Gallery Feature“[a] fascinating new coffee table book” - The Daily Beast“an essential read for Welles fans...Welles was a fascinating man for various reasons, and more than anything, this book highlights just how one-of-a-kind and unique he truly was” - Film School Rejects “Wondrously illuminating” - The Film Stage

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Book SynopsisWerner Herzog came to fame in the 1970s as the European new wave explored new cinematic ideas. With films like Signs of Life (1968), Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) and Fitzcarraldo (1982), Herzog became the subject of public debate, particularly due to his larger-than-life characters, often played by the mad Klaus Kinski. After the success of his documentary Grizzly Man (2005), Herzog began to lead a new form of hybrid documentary, and his tough attitude towards life and film made him a director’s director for a new generation. Kristoffer Hegnsvad’s award-winning book guides the reader through films depicting gangster priests, bear whisperers, shoe eating, revolutionary filmmakers. . . and a penguin. It is full of rare insights from Herzog’s otherwise secret Rogue film school, and features interviews with Herzog.Trade Review“Hegnsvad’s book about the German filmmaker Werner Herzog is not a journalistic examination of cinema, but a philosophical journey into the creative workshop of a remarkable artist. Through conversational partners like Benjamin, Adorno, Nietzsche, and Deleuze, the book deals with questions like: What is cinema? What is the relationship between imagery and truth? Different concepts of the movie director—as philosopher, ethnologist, explorer, and scientist—are also discussed. It’s a study about what it requires to be curious about the world, about life, and about pushing the limits when it comes to how this curiosity is pursued.” * Modern Times Review *“Hegnsvad has written an insightful and well-communicated book, which provides independent and new insights into Werner Herzog’s films.” * Danish Arts Foundation, "Ten Best Books of 2018," on the Danish edition *"Solitary searcher and skillful self-promoter Werner Herzog is an artist whose cinematic visions, fictional or not, are invariably documentaries about himself. Curious and awed, his erudite sometime student Hegnsvad reveals a recondite Herzog personality no less fascinating than his films." -- J. Hoberman, author of "Film After Film""Hegnsvad’s book is a breathtaking and beautifully illustrated journey through Herzog’s many conquests. It is meant for anyone who wants to know what goes on at the Rogue Film School or acquire insight into the director’s exploits without having to drag a ship over a mountain, walk from Vienna to Munich, or eat their own shoes. If you've ever found yourself longing to become a member of Herzog’s guerrilla band of gangster priests, you will probably enjoy this book." -- Brad Prager, professor of German and film studies, University of Missouri"In this lively and perceptive book, Hegnsvad stages a wonderful encounter between the work of cinema's most peripatetic master, and the nomadic thinking that can deepen our appreciation and solicit our participation in Werner Herzog's marvelous life journey." -- James Schamus

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Book SynopsisChristopher Nolan occupies a rare realm within the Hollywood mainstream, creating complex, original films that achieve both critical acclaim and commercial success. In The Traumatic Screen, Stuart Joy builds on contemporary applications of psychoanalytic film theory to consider the function and presentation of trauma across Nolan’s work, arguing that the complexity, thematic consistency and fragmentary nature of his films mimic the structural operation of trauma. From 1997’s Doodlebug to 2017’s Dunkirk, Nolan’s films highlight cinema’s ability to probe the nature of human consciousness while commenting on the relationship between spectator and screen. Joy examines Nolan’s treatment of trauma – both individual and collective – through the formal construction, mise en scène and repeated themes of his films. The argument presented is based on close textual analysis and a methodological framework that incorporates the works of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The first in-depth, overtly psychoanalytic understanding of trauma in the context of the director’s filmography, this book builds on and challenges existing scholarship in a bold new interpretation of the Nolan canon.Trade Review'Nolan's films have been explored in a number of critical works, but this is the first study to examine his work—from Doodlebug (1997) to Dunkirk (2017)—from a psychoanalytic perspective. The characters in Nolan’s films typically have undergone a traumatic experience and must reconcile past memories in order to move forward. [Joy's] synthesized approach to trauma [...] looks at themes of time, memory, identity, and narrative, motifs that are recurring elements in Nolan's films. For example, he takes a Freudian approach to exploring how the murder of the parents of the young Bruce Wayne (Batman) affected Wayne's development. A solid addition to the literature on Nolan.' -- CHOICE'Stuart Joy’s The Traumatic Screen provides a careful and accurate analysis of the films of one of the most important contemporary directors: Christopher Nolan. Nolan’s films are not without criticism, and the final analysis might reveal that only a few of the (justly) lauded works of Christopher Nolan are truly worthy of the appellation “great.” Nonetheless, the best of Christopher Nolan’s films are delightful intellectual puzzles that help provide a deeper understanding of human nature, and Stuart Joy’s The Traumatic Screen is a helpful guide to Nolan’s labyrinthian films.' -- Jesse Russell, Voegelinview'Overall, a good arc is drawn across the structure of the entire book, which repeatedly takes up the central themes of trauma, desire, time and melancholy and substantiates them using film examples. The analysis sections, each of which deals with the respective film in great detail, are written in a particularly comprehensible and clear manner. Even for readers who have not seen the films, Joy has been able to close gaps in the content with concise summaries and provides a very informative overall picture. [...] The author goes into great theoretical depth, which is why this work is definitely useful for further professional work.' -- David Brosch, MEDIENwissenschaft: Rezensionen | Reviews [translated]Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Traumatic Screen: Trauma, Psychoanalysis and Cinema 2. Revisiting the Scene of the Crime: Repressing the Past in Insomnia 3. Batman Begins, Again: The Temporality of Trauma in The Dark Knight Trilogy 4. Looking for the Secret: The Intersection between Trauma and Desire in The Prestige 5. The Dream has Become Their Reality: Acting-Out and Working-Through Trauma in Inception 6. Beyond the Void: Interstellar and the Possibilities of Post-Traumatic Growth 7. Keep Calm and Carry On: Combating Collective Trauma in Dunkirk 8. Conclusion – Ending at the Beginning with Doodlebug, Following and Memento

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Book SynopsisThe Naples-born director and screenwriter Paolo Sorrentino has, to date, written and directed nine films, winning an Oscar, a Bafta and a Golden Globe for The Great Beauty in 2013. In 2016, he created and directed his first TV series, The Young Pope, which starred Jude Law. John Malkovich joined the cast in 2020 for the follow-up series. He has established himself as a world-leading auteur with a list of critically acclaimed and award-winning films. This is an invaluable contribution to the existing literature on Sorrentino and is the first English language collection dedicated to this prolific director, who has emerged as one of the most compelling figures in twenty-first-century European film. International contributors from the UK, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Australia, Israel, Canada and the United States, Italy, Israel, France, UK, Australia, Canada, offer original interpretations of Sorrentino’s work. They examine his recurrent grand themes of memory, nostalgia, ageing, love, thirst for fulfilment, search for the self, identity crisis, human estrangement, marginality, irony and power. In so doing, they offer new perspectives and unique cues for discussion, challenging established assumptions and interpretations. Important and current themes such as eco-cinema and post-secularism are addressed as well as the links between Sorrentino’s highly visual cinema and artistic practice such as painting and architecture. While there are several books on Sorrentino available in Italian, none of these provide an authoritative account of his work; and language has restricted the readership. This is the first English-language collection focussed on Sorrentino, arguably the most successful and significant contemporary Italian filmmaker. The majority of the chapters included in this new book are original and it also includes a Foreword by Giancarlo Lombardi, Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at CUNY, and an interview with renowned costume designer Carlo Poggioli, who has worked with Sorrentino on many productions. Some of the chapters were previously published in a special issue of the journal JICMS – The Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies in 2019. The new collection makes a significant coherent contribution to the field. Primary readership will be academics, researchers and scholars of Italian film and media studies. Also post-graduate students and upper level under-graduates. Potential to be used as textbook or as supplementary reading for undergraduate and graduate courses Given the subject, there is a possibility for some crossover appeal to a broader readership, but this is primarily a scholarly text.Trade Review'This is an extremely valuable contribution to Sorrentino scholarship that, especially when read in conjunction with Kilbourn’s monograph, provides a provocative, wide-ranging and thought-provoking overview of Sorrentino’s originality and significance. Moreover, it does not fail to engage with the more controversial and divisive aspects of his work, such as his treatment of gender (addressed in essays by Russell Kilbourn and Nicoletta Marini-Maio) and alleged privileging of style over content (addressed in essays by Lydia Tuan and Michela Barisonzi). The book should be of great interest to anyone concerned with Italian cinema, contemporary Italian culture, or the state of global film and television today. Sorrentino has finally achieved the recognition he deserves within academia and I am sure this exciting new collection will only serve as a spur to further scholarship.' -- Alex Marlow-Mann, Modern ItalyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Illustrations Forward Giancarlo Lombardi Introduction: The Creative and Artistic Trajectory of Paolo Sorrentino Annachiara Mariani Part one: Examining and Deconstructing Sorrentino’s Ethos Chapter 1: Private Pain/Public Places: Sights, Sightings, and Sounds of Nostalgia in Youth and The Young Pope Ellen Nerenberg Chapter 2: Against Postmodernism. Paolo Sorrentino and the Search for Authenticity Mimmo Cangiano Chapter 3: A Journey from Death to Life: Spectacular Realism and the ‘Unamendability’ of Reality in Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty Monica Facchini Chapter 4: Paolo Sorrentino’s Cinematic Excess Lydia Tuan Part two: Sorrentino’s Real and Symbolic Spaces Chapter 5: Posthuman Sorrentino. Youth and The Great Beauty as Ecocinema Matteo Gilebbi Chapter 6: Interpolating the ‘blah, blah, blah’: Rome’s Vocalization Through Architecture in The Great Beauty Alex Gammon Chapter 7: The Great Beauty: A Journey Through Art and Relations in Search for Beauty Michela Barisonzi Chapter 8: The Urban Dimension as Film Character: Rome in The Great Beauty Carla Molinari Part three: A Journey into Sorrentino’s Psyche Chapter 9: The ‘Primal Scene’: Memory, Redemption and (The Image of) ‘Woman’ in the Films of Paolo Sorrentino Russell Kilbourn Chapter 10: Anxiety (of Influence) and (Absent) Fathers in Paolo Sorrentino Sandra Waters Chapter 11: ‘È solo l’alito di un vecchio’. Obscenity, Exchange Regimes, and the Catastrophe of Aging in Loro. Nicoletta Marini-Maio Part four: Sorrentino’s Postsecular Pope Chapter 12: The Young Pope’s Credit Sequence: A Postsecular Allegory in Ten Paintings. Russell Kilbourn Chapter 13: The ‘Fabrication’ of Religion in The Young Pope: the Double Irony of Post-Secular Iconicity Monica Jansen and Maria Bonaria Urban Chapter 14: The Young Pope Between Television and Celebrity Studies Anna Manzato and Antonella Mascio Interview with Carlo Poggioli (costume designer of Paolo Sorrentino) Annachiara Mariani Bibliography

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Book SynopsisKinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing. This KinoSputnik on Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature Ivan's Childhood examines the production, context and reception of the film, whilst offering a detailed reading of its key themes. Through a close examination of its intricate narrative structure, unique stylistic approach and deep philosophical underpinnings, this KinoSputnik provides a thorough analysis of a truly remarkable debut film, from an artist now considered a towering figure of Russian culture. Primary readership will be among film studies students and film enthusiasts. A list of all books in the series is here on the Intellect website on the series page KinoSputnikTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Note on Transliteration ix Acknowledgements xi Production Information xiii Plot Summary xv Introduction 1 1. Production History and Context 13 2. Film Analysis 49 3. Themes and Motifs 97 4. Reception in the Soviet Union and Abroad 147 Conclusion 161 Notes 165 References 169

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Book SynopsisKinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing. This KinoSputnik about Fedor Bondarchuk's megahit Stalingrad (2013) examines the production, context and reception of the film, whilst offering a detailed reading of its key themes. Fedor Bondarchuk’s 2013 blockbuster film Stalingrad shattered box-office records and dazzled viewers with its use of special effects, enhanced by its 3D IMAX format. The film transported viewers back to 1942 and the bloody battle that would turn the tide of the Second World War. This new study situates the film within the context of ongoing debates about the meanings of the Second World War in Russia and previous films about the Battle of Stalingrad. Primary readership will be among film studies students and film enthusiasts, but will also be of interest to anyone researching or studying the Battle of Stalingrad and the course of the Second World War. A list of all books in the series is here on the Intellect website on the series page KinoSputnikTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Note on Transliteration xi Production Information xiii Plot Summary xv 1. Production History and Historical Context: Stalingrad as Memory Battleground 1 2. Cinematic Context: Battle of Stalingrad (1949), They Fought for the Motherland (1975) and Stalingrad (1989) 29 3. Film Analysis: Stalingrad Onscreen 67 4. Reacting to Stalingrad 121 Conclusion 163 Notes 167 References 17

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Book SynopsisKinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing. Ira Österberg's KinoSputnik on Aleksei Balabanov's cult film Brother (1997) examines the production history, context and reception of the film, and offers a detailed reading of its key themes. Balabanov’s Brother made a mark on the new Russia’s film history as its hero Danila Bagrov quickly gained cult status and the nostalgic rock soundtrack hit the nerve of the young post-Soviet generation. This study unravels the film’s effective and ingenious mixture of genre elements, art narration and almost documentary-style realism, which would become trademarks for Balabanov’s oeuvre. Primary readership will be among film studies students and film enthusiasts, but will also be of interest to anyone researching or studying film soundtracking. A list of all books in the series is here on the Intellect website on the series page KinoSputnikTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Note on Transliteration ix Acknowledgements xi Production Information xiii Plot Summary xv Introduction 1 1. Cinematic Context and Production History 7 2. Film Analysis 33 3. Reception 137 Conclusion: Brother over Twenty Years Later 159 Notes 163 References 171

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Book SynopsisThis new book explores aspects of Paris from the time of Baudelaire within the context of nostalgia and modernity. It seeks to see Paris, through written texts and movies, from the outside, and as both concrete reality and a collection of myths associated with it. This collection of essays contains original research on the intersections of several disciplinary approaches to Paris and modernity. It is designed to make these complex concepts speak to an academic audience, but also to an undergraduate readership. It will therefore create intersections and problematize what are otherwise considered the remit of single disciplines. The book springs from two interdisciplinary courses on Paris and modernity – Paris at Dawn, which looks at modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Paris at Midnight, which looks at left-bank culture following the Second World War – coordinated by Associate Professor Alistair Rolls (French studies) and Professor Marguerite Johnson (classics and classical reception) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. While it is driven by original research, notably by examining the intersections of any number of disciplinary lenses and positions on Paris and modernity, it is also designed to make these complex concepts understandable for a wider readership, including undergraduates. It will therefore create intersections and problematize what are otherwise considered the remit of single disciplines (with their monoliths and taxonomies); at the same time, it will also provide clarity and, importantly, make logical links between, for example, the past and present, myth and reality, poetry and history, and various schools and movements, including psychology, poetics, poststructuralism and critical theory, classical reception, feminism and existentialism. All contributors are academics working in the School of Humanities and Social Science, who have contributed to the development and delivery of these twinned courses. Remembering Paris investigates Paris as an urban and poetic site of remembrance. For Charles Baudelaire, the streets of Paris conjured visions of the past even as he contemplated the present. This book investigates this and other cases of double vision, tracing back from Baudelaire into antiquity, but also following Baudelaire forwards as his poetry is translated, received and referenced in texts and films in the twentieth century and beyond. Primary readership will be academics, educators, scholars and students – both undergraduate and postgraduate. The chapter structure and the relatively classic choice of authors and filmmakers is well suited to course use. Many universities are now turning to interdisciplinary courses, which combine historical, cultural, literary and artistic approaches to thematic studies. This book, therefore, will also be of interest to academics teaching courses on French language, literature and culture; literary studies; film studies; cultural studies; women studies, gender studies; LGBTQ+ studies; even human geography. Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: Remembering in Paris and Paris as Remembering 1. Charles Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen: Re-presenting Paris – Alistair Rolls 2. Baudelaire and the Classical Tradition: Virgil, Ovid and Sappho in Paris – Marguerite Johnson 3. Sappho in the Salons – Marguerite Johnson 4. Memory, Modernity and the City in Agnès Varda’s Paris Films – Felicity Chaplin 5. Looking (Back) at the Moon in Parisian Cinema – Alistair Rolls 6. Breathless in Paris – Christopher Falzon 7. As Sedate as Swans: The Parisian Side of Jean-Paul Sartre’s La Nausée – Alistair Rolls 8. ‘La forme d’une ville/Change plus vite, hélas! […]’: Translation and the Changing Modes of Urban Cognition – Clive Scott 9. Paris, Capital of the Australian Poetic Avant-Garde: Christopher Brennan’s ‘Musicopoematographoscope’, John Tranter’s ‘Desmond’s Coupé’ and Chris Edwards’ ‘A Fluke’ and After Naptime – David Musgrave 10. Forms of Remembrance in the Sculpted Verse of Louise Colet, Anaïs Ségalas and Some of their Male Contemporaries – Daniel A. Finch-Race and Valentina Gosetti Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisCahiers du Cinema: Interviews with Film Directors, 19531970 brings together eighteen directorsOtto Preminger, Roberto Rossellini, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Max Ophuls, Nicholas Ray, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Michelangelo Antonioni, Carl-Theodor Dreyer, Federico Fellini, Robert Bresson, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Jean Renoir, and Eric Rohmer -- who are among the leading auteurs in the history of the cinema. The interviews were all commissioned for the legendary movie journal Cahiers du Cinema (the oldest such French-language magazine in continuous publication), the first critical enterprise to treat films, particularly Hollywood films, as a serious art form. Co-founded in 1951 by Andre Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca, Cahiers was edited, after 1957, by Rohmer himself, including among its writers (and interviewers) Jacques Rivette, Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Truffaut -- all of whom went on to become highly influential filmmakers. Conducted in Cahiers famously in-depth, critical and engaged style, the interviews in this volume catch each director at a crucial juncture in his development as an artist, and stand as a historical record of the dominance of the Euro-American tradition in cinematic art. This is the first such collection of its kind in English, edited with a contextualizing introduction, critical biographies, career filmographies, and a comprehensive index by the American scholar James R. Russo.

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Book SynopsisJurassic Park (1993) is one of Steven Spielberg’s most beloved films. Over twenty-five years on from its original release, it has accrued four sequels, a legion of worldwide fans, and a wide range of merchandise covering everything from action figures and board games to comic books and video games. As such, the film is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant blockbusters of the 1990s, a position underlined by its pioneering use of CGI to resurrect the dinosaurs with more realism than ever before. However, there's much more to Jurassic Park than a simple special effects extravaganza. Spielberg’s career was in flux at the time of the film's release, and this contribution to the Constellations series explores this shift by analyzing the film in a number of ways. First, it considers how Spielberg blends science fiction and horror, and how the mix of those two genres affects the film and its message. Then it looks at what the film has to say about humanity's relationship with nature, its commentary on the bond between an audience and the fantasy of cinema, and, finally, its thoughts on the manifestation of violence and control in men. It does this through close analysis of key characters, story points, and scenes, and the film's place within the context of Spielberg's career as a whole.

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Book SynopsisShadow of a Doubt (1943) was British-born Alfred Hitchcock’s sixth American film and the one that he at various times identified as his favourite and his best. It seems likely that one of the reasons he liked Shadow so much is that is an extraordinarily well-ordered narrative system, a meticulous cause and effect chain that melds its various scenes and sequences together to form a unified narrative that is highly effective in building suspense and cultivating identification with characters. This scrupulously organized film operates as a masterclass on principles of narrative design while generating resonant commentary on the nature of family life. This book redresses the deficit of sustained critical attention paid to Shadow even in the large corpus of Hitchcock scholarship. Analysing the film’s narrative system, issues of genre, authorship, social history, homesickness and ‘family values’, Diane Negra shows how the film’s impeccable narrative structure is wedded to radical ideological content, linking the film’s terrors to the punishing effects of looking beyond conventional family and gender roles. This book understands Shadow as an unconventionally female-centred Hitchcock text and a milestone film that marks the director’s emergent engagement with the pathologies of violence in American life and opens a window into the placement of femininity in World War II consensus culture and more broadly into the politics of mid-century gender and family life. Trade Review'This is a wide-ranging book that examines Shadow of a Doubt in all sorts of perceptive ways... [It] is extremely good at teasing out the significance of Shadow of a Doubt'Carl Sweeney, The Movie Palace'Diane Negra makes a compelling case for her expansive, comprehensive scrutiny... Through her encyclopedic, exceptionally thorough interrogation... Negra prompts appreciation of the breadth and depth of Shadow of a Doubt and implicitly encourages a further questioning of what has – or hasn't – changed in the America portrayed so dramatically, accurately and ominously by Hitchcock.' Hitchcock Annual #24

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Book SynopsisShadow of a Doubt (1943) was British-born Alfred Hitchcock’s sixth American film and the one that he at various times identified as his favourite and his best. It seems likely that one of the reasons he liked Shadow so much is that is an extraordinarily well-ordered narrative system, a meticulous cause and effect chain that melds its various scenes and sequences together to form a unified narrative that is highly effective in building suspense and cultivating identification with characters. This scrupulously organized film operates as a masterclass on principles of narrative design while generating resonant commentary on the nature of family life. This book redresses the deficit of sustained critical attention paid to Shadow even in the large corpus of Hitchcock scholarship. Analysing the film’s narrative system, issues of genre, authorship, social history, homesickness and ‘family values’, Diane Negra shows how the film’s impeccable narrative structure is wedded to radical ideological content, linking the film’s terrors to the punishing effects of looking beyond conventional family and gender roles. This book understands Shadow as an unconventionally female-centred Hitchcock text and a milestone film that marks the director’s emergent engagement with the pathologies of violence in American life and opens a window into the placement of femininity in World War II consensus culture and more broadly into the politics of mid-century gender and family life. Trade Review'This is a wide-ranging book that examines Shadow of a Doubt in all sorts of perceptive ways... [It] is extremely good at teasing out the significance of Shadow of a Doubt'Carl Sweeney, The Movie Palace'Diane Negra makes a compelling case for her expansive, comprehensive scrutiny... Through her encyclopedic, exceptionally thorough interrogation... Negra prompts appreciation of the breadth and depth of Shadow of a Doubt and implicitly encourages a further questioning of what has – or hasn't – changed in the America portrayed so dramatically, accurately and ominously by Hitchcock.' Hitchcock Annual #24

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Book SynopsisKubrick and Control is an examination of authority, order, and independence in the films directed by Stanley Kubrick, as well as in his personal life and working habits. This study explores the ways in which these central preoccupations develop and reformulate through the course of Kubrick's career, as he moved from genre to genre and shifted stories, locations, time periods, scope, and technical facilities. Separating the productions in accordance to their wider filmic classifications, the individual chapters examine a variety of productions, allowing for a categorical as well as a developmental approach to the works. In addition, following concurrently with each individual film discussed, details about Kubrick's life and evolving directorial practice are recounted in relation to these same concerns. In studying the stylistic and narrative features of his work, examples illustrate how Kubrick took these themes and applied them consistently yet with significant variation, manifest in relation to mise-en-scène construction (how Kubrick composed his images); characterization (individuals establishing, exerting, seeking, and/or abusing their authority); narrative (stories about characters and situations dependent upon order and control); and the actual filmmaking processes of the director (Kubrick was both praised and damned for his authorial management and obsession with order and perfection).

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Book SynopsisThe second of two official companion books for the Zack Snyder-directed Netflix films Rebel Moon taking an exclusive in-depth look at the heroes and villains, monsters and animals.

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Book SynopsisA NEW, REVISED EDITION OF THE ULTIMATE NORA EPHRON COLLECTION, PACKED WITH WIT, WISDOM AND COMFORT, WITH AN INTRODUCTION FROM CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS'The perfect introduction to the iconic writer' STYLISTINCLUDING:* Nora's much-loved essays on everything from friendship to feminism to journalism* Extracts from her bestselling novel Heartburn* Scenes from her hilarious screenplay for When Harry Met Sally* Unparalleled advice about friends, lovers, divorces, desserts and black turtleneck sweaters'It's got a little bit of everything, from witty essays on feminism, beauty, and ageing to profiles of empowering female figures' ELLE*PRAISE FOR NORA EPHRON*'So bold and so vulnerable at the same time. I don't know how she did it' PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE'Nora's exacting, precise, didactic, tried-and-tested, sophisticated-woman-wearing-all-black wisdom is a comfort and a relief' DOLLY ALDERTON'Nora Ephron is the funniest, cleverest, wisest friend you could have' NIGELLA LAWSON'I am only the one of millions of women who will miss Nora's voice' LENA DUNHAM

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Book SynopsisDelving into Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films, this book uncovers a plethora of conceptual paradigms. Apichatpong's films frequently utilize rural Thailand as a backdrop, showcasing daily life, interactions, rituals, and customs, all infused with a Southeast Asian essence. This utilization of local imagery provides a national quality to his works, allowing a global audience to explore both urban and rural aspects of Thai society, along with discourses on history, culture, politics, and practices. Beyond the surface, the films also address universal and intricate themes, transcending cultural boundaries. The book delves into a range of lesser-explored aspects regarding the films and filmmaking of Apichatpong, developing fresh perspectives on the representation of nonhumans, hybrid forms, transmedia plot, technique, production among others. With meticulous analyses of his key works this interdisciplinary study unveils the threads that bind Apichatpong’s creative practice, innovative techniques, and philosophical insights. An essential read for cinephiles, scholars, and seekers of cinematic depth, this book uncovers the vibrant tapestry of meaning within Apichatpong’s enigmatic film-worlds.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Open Cinema: The Films and Installations of Apichatpong Weerasethakul Anik Sarkar and Jayjit Sarkar Time 1.Time, Social Reproduction and the Precarious Body in the Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul Patricia Sequeira Brás 2.Representing Memory through Slowness: the Time-Images of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century and Cemetery of Splendour Francesco Quario Non-human 3.Stray Dogs and Strange Beasts: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Queer Animal Ethics Duncan Caillard 4.Imagining the Nonhuman in the cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul Çağatay Emre Doğan Mind 5.The Stillness Wandering Within: Notes on the Caesura of the Cinematic Image in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive Project Elizabeth Sikes 6.Dreams, Abstractions and Spectatorship in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Films and Videos Alessandro Ferraro 7.EFFULGENCES Particles in Motion: Cycling the Mindscapes of Apichatpong Weerasethakul Jeffner Allen Forms and Representations 8.Transmedia Plot in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive Jade de Cock de Rameyen 9.Home Away From Home: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Filmed Images of Home and Homeland Envisioned Palita Chunsaengchan 10.Between an Erased Past and an Uncertain Future: Hybrid Forms in the Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul Sivaranjini 11.Post-Interstitial Authorship in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cinema Anchalee Chaiworaporn Note on the Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTwenty years after its release, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut remains a complex, visually arresting film about marriage, jealousy, domesticity, adultery, sexual disturbance, and dreams. This was the final enigmatic work from its equally enigmatic creator. It has left an indelible mark on our popular culture and remains as relevant as ever. Much maligned and much misunderstood when it first came out, Eyes Wide Shut has since been the subject of an animated debate and discussion among critics, fans and academics. It has been explored from a wide variety of disciplines and methodological perspectives. This collection brings scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds together with those who worked on the film to explore Eyes Wide Shut’s legacy, discuss its impact, and consider its position within Kubrick’s oeuvre and the wider visual and socio-political culture.Table of ContentsList of illustrations Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Introduction, Nathan Abrams and Georgina Orgill PART ONE: PRODUCTION ‘Infidelity troubled him deeply’: A journey to the root of Eyes Wide Shut, Filippo Ulivieri A Choreographic Liaison: Collaborating with Stanley Kubrick on the Masked Ball for Eyes Wide Shut, Yolande Snaith Stanley Kubrick’s last film and the question of authorship, Manca Perko PART TWO: THE FILM ‘If You Men Only Knew’: Stanley Kubrick’s Failed Attempt to Explore Female Sexuality in Eyes Wide Shut, Catriona M. McAvoy and Karen A. Ritzenhoff What about the daughters? Parenthood in Eyes Wide Shut, Joy McEntee ‘Lucky to Be Alive’: Clockwork Models and the Logic of the Inanimate in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Ohad Landesman Eyes Re-opened: Elucidation and Enlightenment Through Music in Eyes Wide Shut, Marie Bennett PART THREE: RECEPTION Framing Eye Wide Shut as a Late-90s ‘Quality’ Blockbuster: Authorship and Stardom in Kubrick’s Final Film, Eddie Falvey A cloaked and masked film: some things Eyes Wide Shut may (really) be about, Jeremi Szaniawski Eyes Wide Shut: A Cult Film?, Matt Melia Afterword, Robert P. Kolker Index

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

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

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Book SynopsisThe films of John Akomfrah represent one of the most significant bodies of artistic production in the post-war era in Britain, yet little attempt has been made to analyse the consistencies and divergences across them. James Harvey’s John Akomfrah is the first comprehensive analytic engagement with these films, offering sustained close engagement with the artist’s core thematic preoccupations and aesthetic tendencies. His analysis negotiates the contextual and theoretical layers of Akomfrah’s rich and complex films, from the intermedial diaspora aesthetics of Handsworth Songs (1986) to the intersectional spatial ecopolitics of Purple (2017). Positioning Akomfrah in the burgeoning black British arts and cultural scene of the 1980s as a member of Black Audio Film Collective, Harvey traces the evolution of a critical relationship with the postcolonial archive in his early films, through analysis of documentaries made for television in the 1990s and up to more recent film installations in museums and galleries.Trade ReviewJames Harvey's dextrous, perceptive account of John Akomfrah's extraordinary contributions to cinema is a rich and invaluable work of scholarship. Spanning the full breadth of Akomfrah's career to date - from ground-breaking works with the Black Audio Film Collective to more recent gallery installation pieces - Harvey adopts a productive thematic approach, identifying formal and political links between individual works, and between Akomfrah and a variety of other artists, filmmakers and thinkers. Throughout, Harvey repeatedly returns to Akomfrah's deployment of archive materials and of montage techniques, pinpointing the manifold ways in which Akomfrah has innovated with both. This highly readable book is a significant contribution to the study of Black British cinema, experimental and avant-garde film, and the politics of the diaspora. -- Glyn Davis, University of St Andrews, UKThis is a timely and important book that traces the concerns and contexts of Akomfrah’s oeuvre from the early years of Black Audio Film Collective through to the Four Nocturnes commissioned for the the inaugural Ghana Freedom pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Through close readings and drawing from a wide range of sources this book explains Akomfrah’s central role as a commanding film maker of his generation in Britain. Harvey’s own theoretical fluency deciphers and explores Akomfrah’s preoccupations with iconicity, gesture, memory and montage, siting him finally as a neo expressionist for our epoch. -- Rachel Garfield, The Royal College of Art, London, UKTable of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Preface Introduction: Positioning John Akomfrah 1.The Ghosts of Other Stories: Thatcherism and Postcolonial Britain 2.Black Stars: From Racial Iconicity to Black Atlantic Collectivity 3.Memory-images: Catharsis, Embodiment and the Aesthetics of Remembrance 4.Why They Come: Migration Films in the Age of ‘Refugee Crisis’ 5.Changing Site, Changing Sight: The Spatial Turn 6.Water, Earth, Elephants: The Human Destruction Trilogy as Political Ecology 7.‘Staking Claims on the Real’: An Interview with John Akomfrah Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA Sight & Sound Book of the Year "Eye-opening and addictively readable." Total Film Who and what decides if a film gets funded? How do those who control the purse strings also determine a film's content and even its message? Writing as the director of award-winning feature films including Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People and The Road to Guantanamo as well as the hugely popular The Trip series, Michael Winterbottom provides an insider's view of the workings of international film funding and distribution, revealing how the studios that fund film production and control distribution networks also work against a sustainable independent film culture and limit innovation in filmmaking style and content. In addition to reflecting upon his own filmmaking career, featuring critical and commercial successes alongside a 'very long list' of films that didn't get made, Winterbottom also interviews leading contemporary filmmakers including Lynne Ramsay, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Asif Kapadia and Joanna Hogg about their filmmaking practice. The book closes with a vision of how the contemporary filmmaking landscape could be reformed for the better with fairer funding and payment practices allowing for a more innovative and sustainable 21st century industry.Trade ReviewSeeking to understand the obstacles that even notable names face trying to finance a British film these days, Winterbottom uses the first Covid lockdown to interview an enviable list of directors, including Steve McQueen, Lynne Ramsay and Mike Leigh… There’s fascinating candour… Eye-opening and addictively readable. * Total Film *The interviews’ focus on the busi­ness side of film production is relatively unusual and all the more valuable for it. Possibly liberated by the uncertainty of the moment, Winterbottom’s subjects are more frank about the industry than is customary. Their perspectives often converge, but the directors’ reasons for not directing vary as widely as their cir­cumstances. -- Henry K. Miller * Sight & Sound *A must-read for anyone interested in how films are made, and not made. * The Saturday Paper *Table of ContentsFOREWORDS Dark Matter The Starting Point More is More INTERVIEWS Pawel Pawlikowski Danny Boyle Joanna Hogg Asif Kapadia James Marsh Andrew Haigh Carol Morley Edgar Wright Steve McQueen Lynne Ramsay Stephen Daldry Ben Wheatley Peter Strickland Mike Leigh Ken Loach AFTER WORDS Production Companies: A Protected Space Some Numbers More Numbers British Cinema and Television A Note on the Author

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Book SynopsisIn a comprehensively revised and updated new edition, James Naremore provides an illuminating critical account of the films of Stanley Kubrick, from his earliest feature, Fear and Desire (1953), to the posthumously-produced A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001). Naremore offers provocative analyses of each of Kubrick's films, considering his emphasis on the absurdity of combat, as in Paths of Glory (1957) and Full Metal Jacket (1987), the failure of scientific reasoning, as in 2001 (1968), and the fascistic impulses in masculine sexuality, as in Dr Strangelove (1964) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He argues that while Kubrick was a voracious intellectual and a life-long autodidact, the fascination of his work has less to do with the ideas it espouses than with the emotions it evokes. Combining close readings with new insights into the production histories and cultural contexts of key films, Naremore provides a concise yet thorough discussion that will be useful to students of Kubrick's filmmaking and cinephiles who seek a deeper insight into the work of this perfectionist genius. Revised throughout, this new edition also includes a fully updated bibliography of critical writings on Kubrick's cinema.Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements for the Revised Edition Acknowledgements for the First Edition Introduction to the New Edition: Kubrick’s Cold Modernism and Major Themes PART I Prologue 1. Portrait of the Late Modernist as a Young Photographer 2. Silence, Exile and Cunning 3. Grotesque Aesthetics PART II Early Kubrick 1. No Other Country but the Mind 2. Dream City PART III Kubrick, Harris, Douglas 1. The Criminal and the Artist 2. Ant Hill 3. Dolores, Lady of Pain PART IV Stanley Kubrick Presents 1. Wargasm 2. Beyond the Stars 3. A Professional Piece of Sinny 4. Duelist 5. Horrorshow PART V Late Kubrick 1. Warriors 2. Lovers PART VI Epilogue 1. Summation 2. Some Unproduced Films 3. Love and Death in A. I. Artificial Intelligence Filmography Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book bridges the gap between film theory and filmmakers’ thoughts and poetics, and proposes a new way to address and elaborate film theory. It brings together primary sources by filmmakers themselves, drawing on their films, interviews, books, texts, and manifestos. Divided into three parts, the book covers the main aspects of this approach. Part one discusses the concepts of ‘author’ and ‘filmmaker’. Part two evaluates the creative processes of a broad range of filmmakers, including Víctor Gaviria (Colombia), Kleber Mendonça Filho (Brazil), Jean-Luc Godard and Agnès Varda (France), Abbas Kiarostami (Iran) Pa. Ranjith (India), Andy Warhol (USA), Maya Deren (Ukraine-USA) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey). The final part examines filmmakers’ various techniques, particularly the use of multi-images, after-(dialectical)-images, and the use of sound as a sensorial and narrative tool. This curated selection of writings, with contributors from a range of countries including the USA, UK, India, China, Portugal, Brazil, Belgium and New Zealand, reflects the global perspective of this new approach. The volume also discusses the ways in which filmmakers influence each other, the spectator as seen by filmmakers, and ways to critically address a filmography that takes into account filmmakers other than the director.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Contributors Foreword by Lúcia Nagib Introduction A proposal for approaching Film Theory and filmmakers - André Rui Graça, Manuela Penafria & Eduardo Tulio Baggio I FILMMAKERS ON FILM: SETTING THE FIELD 1. From the Concept of Author to the Concept of Filmmaker – Eduardo Tulio Baggio (Paraná State University, Brazil) 2. Film as thought: notes on the role of the researcher in the Filmmakers on Film approach, from the perspective of Karim Aïnouz’s films and interviews - Marcelo Carvalho (Paraná Tuiuti University, Brazil) 3. The spectator and the filmmaking process: reflections based on case studies- André Rui Graça (Lusófona University, Portugal) & Manuela Penafria (University of Beira Interior, LabCom-Communication and Arts, Portugal) II POETICS AND FILMMAKING PROCESSES 4. The dark light of poetry: Víctor Gaviria’s poetics of childhood - Liliana Galindo Orrego (Johns Hopkins University, USA) 5. Music in Kleber Mendonça Filho's Feature Films: An Analysis of the Creative Process - Rodrigo Carreiro (Pernambuco Federal University, Brazil) & Breno Alvarenga (Pernambuco Federal University, Brazil) 6. Films on Filmmaking: Jean-Luc Godard and Abbas Kiarostami's Auto-Commentaries Scénario du Film Passion (1982) and Ten on Ten (2004) - Karel Pletinck (Theatre, Film and Literature Studies, University of Antwerp, Belgium) 7. Andy Warhol's legacy and body representation in contemporary cinema - Edson Pereira da Costa Júnior (University of São Paulo, Brazil) 8. Madame Cinéma: Agnès Varda, or a Portrait of the Artist as an Ageless Woman - Fátima Chinita (Lisbon Polytechnic Institute, Portugal) 9. The Struggles and Rise of the Dalit Protagonists – Cinematic Representations in the Tamil Films of the Director Pa. Ranjith - Amutha Manavalan (Institute of Communications and Media Studies, St. Joseph's College, India) 10. From Photographic Servitude to Cinematic Emancipation: The Poetic Films of Maya Deren - Amresh Sinha (The School of Visual Arts, USA) 11. Establishing reality: mode of production and surrealism in the cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylan - Sezen Gürüf Basekim (Kastamonu University, Turkey) III FILMS AND FILMMAKERS’ WRITINGS AS ACTS OF THEORY 12. Reflecting on a public debate and its aftermath: Jiang Hao, his writings in the 1980s and his film practices in the 1990s - Lingling Yao (School of Foreign Studies at the Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing, China) 13. Alexander Kluge’s ‘Film in the mind of the spectator’ or after-(dialectical)-images in News from Ideological Antiquity: Marx – Eisenstein – Capital - James Hellings (University of Reading, UK) 14. The multi-image: cinematic collage as revelation and revolution - Chris Gerrard (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Scotland) 15. Seeing through the kaleidoscope – Wim Wenders and his collaborators in Lisbon Story and Inventing Peace: A Dialogue on Perception - Olivier Delers (University of Richmond, USA) 16. Chantal Akerman's Words and Images: the avant-garde of theory and filmmaking - André Rui Graça (Lusófona University, Portugal) 17. ‘Sculpting everyday life’ and the lake as a metaphor: towards a documentary filmmaking history - Manuela Penafria (University of Beira Interior, LabCom-Communication and Arts, Portugal) 18. To Contest the Deafness of the Gaze: The Miseducation of the Senses and the Unreliable Reality in Lucrecia Martel's Films - Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha (UNICAMP-Campinas State University, Brazil) Bibliography Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisThis collection of Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s film scripts vividly evokes the close connection between their influential work as theorists and their work as filmmakers. It includes scripts for all six of Mulvey and Wollen’s collaborative films, Wollen’s solo feature film, Friendship’s Death (1987), and Mulvey’s later collaborations. Each text is followed by a new essay by a leading writer, offering a critical interpretation of the corresponding film. The collection also includes Wollen’s short story Friendship’s Death (1976), the outlines for two unrealised Mulvey and Wollen collaborations, and a selection of scanned working documents. The scripts and essays collected in this volume trace the historical significance of a complex cinematic project that brought feminist, semiotic and psychoanalytic concerns together with formal devices and strategies. The book includes original contributions from Nora M. Alter, Kodwo Eshun, Nicolas Helm-Grovas, Esther Leslie, Laura Mulvey, Volker Pantenburg, Griselda Pollock, B. Ruby Rich and Sukhdev Sandhu.Trade ReviewThis noble and overdue compilation serves as a much-needed affirmation of their powerful cinematic oeuvre. -- Bruno Guaraná * Film Quarterly *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Contributors Introduction Oliver Fuke Introduction Laura Mulvey Section 1 - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s Collaborative Films 1. Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 2. Scorch the Earth, Start from Zero: Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons Nicolas Helm-Grovas 3. Riddles of the Sphinx Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 4. Towards New Theoretical Instruments: Riddles of the Sphinx Volker Pantenburg 5. AMY! Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 6. The Curse of Celebrity, Colonial Territory and the Flight to Freedom: AMY! Griselda Pollock 7. Crystal Gazing Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 8. Economic Forecasting and the End of the Avant-Garde: Crystal Gazing Esther Leslie 9. Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 10. Muse, Mutilation, Mastery, Martyr: Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti B. Ruby Rich 11. The Bad Sister Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 12. Timeshifting: The Bad Sister Sukhdev Sandhu Section 2 - Peter Wollen’s Friendship’s Death 13. Friendship’s Death (fiction) Peter Wollen 14. Friendship’s Death (script) Peter Wollen 15. ‘Aliens wherever they have to go’: Friendship’s Death Kodwo Eshun Section 3 - Laura Mulvey’s Later Collaborative Films 16. Disgraced Monuments Mark Lewis and Laura Mulvey 17. Preserving History: Disgraced Monuments Nora M. Alter 18. 23rd August 2008 Faysal Abdullah, Mark Lewis and Laura Mulvey 19. Two Portraits: 23rd August 2008 Laura Mulvey Section 4 - Outlines for Unmade Collaborative Films 20. Possible Worlds Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 21.Chess Fever Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen Section 5 - Working Documents Bibliography Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisThis collection of Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s film scripts vividly evokes the close connection between their influential work as theorists and their work as filmmakers. It includes scripts for all six of Mulvey and Wollen’s collaborative films, Wollen’s solo feature film, Friendship’s Death (1987), and Mulvey’s later collaborations. Each text is followed by a new essay by a leading writer, offering a critical interpretation of the corresponding film. The collection also includes Wollen’s short story Friendship’s Death (1976), the outlines for two unrealised Mulvey and Wollen collaborations, and a selection of scanned working documents. The scripts and essays collected in this volume trace the historical significance of a complex cinematic project that brought feminist, semiotic and psychoanalytic concerns together with formal devices and strategies. The book includes original contributions from Nora M. Alter, Kodwo Eshun, Nicolas Helm-Grovas, Esther Leslie, Laura Mulvey, Volker Pantenburg, Griselda Pollock, B. Ruby Rich and Sukhdev Sandhu.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction - Oliver Fuke Introduction - Laura Mulvey Section 1 - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s Collaborative Films 1.Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 2.Scorch the Earth, Start from Zero: Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons - Nicolas Helm- Grovas 3.Riddles of the Sphinx - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 4.Towards New Theoretical Instruments: Riddles of the Sphinx - Volker Pantenburg 5.AMY! - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 6.The Curse of Celebrity, Colonial Territory and the Flight to Freedom: AMY! - Griselda Pollock 7.Crystal Gazing - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 8.Economic Forecasting and the End of the Avant- Garde: Crystal Gazing - Esther Leslie 9.Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 10.Muse, Mutilation, Mastery, Martyr: Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti - B. Ruby Rich 11.The Bad Sister - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 12.Timeshifting: The Bad Sister - Sukhdev Sandhu Section 2 - Peter Wollen’s Friendship’s Death 13.Friendship’s Death (Fiction) - Peter Wollen 14. Friendship’s Death (Script) - Peter Wollen 15.‘Aliens wherever they have to go’: Friendship’s Death - Kodwo Eshun Section 3 - Laura Mulvey’s Later Collaborative Films 16. Disgraced Monuments - Mark Lewis and Laura Mulvey 17. Preserving History: Disgraced Monuments - Nora M. Alter 18. 23rd August 2008 - Faysal Abdullah, Mark Lewis and Laura Mulvey 19.Two Portraits: 23rd August 2008 - Laura Mulvey Section 4 - Outlines for Unmade Collaborative Films 20.Possible Worlds - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 21.Chess Fever - Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen Section 5 Working Documents Bibliography Filmography List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisIsaac Julien is one of Britain''s foremost artist film-makers, as equally acclaimed for his fluent and arresting single-screen works as his vibrant and inventive gallery installations. Moving deftly between filmworld and artworld, Julien remains one of the most original voices on the contemporary scene. This minigraph edition, published at the time of his nomination for the 2001 Turner Prize, features essays by Kobena Mercer and Chris Darke. Minigraphs is a series of publications developed by Film and Video Umbrella devoted to contemporary artists working with film and video. Fully illustrated, and with specially commissioned essays and an extensive lists of works, this series provides an attractive and indispensable introduction to some of Britain's most exciting contemporary artists.

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Book SynopsisIn 1983 visionary director John Cassavetes asked journalist Michael Ventura to write a unique film study - an on-set diary of the making of his film Love Streams. Cassavetes laid out his expectations. He wanted 'a daring book, a tough book'. In Ventura's words, 'All I had to do for 'daring' and 'tough' was transcribe this man's audacity day by day.' Cassavetes Directs describes the creation of Love Streams shot by shot, crisis by crisis. During production, the director learned that he was seriously ill, that this film might, as it tragically turned out, be his last. Starring alongside actress and wife Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes shot in sequence, reconceiving and revising his film almost nightly, in order that Love Streams could stand as his final statement. Both an intimate portrait of the man and an insight into his unique filmmaking philosophy, Cassavetes Directs documents a heroic moment in the life of a great artist.Trade ReviewMichael Ventura's stunning Cassavetes Directs - a caustic and boisterously detailed cine-biography -- David Jenkins * Vertigo Magazine Volume 3 *

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Book SynopsisRocliffe Notes is a compendium for screenwriters and filmmakers which brings together tips and opinions from over 140 film and TV industry professionals, and provides a step-by-step, common-sense guide on how writers and writer-directors can best present themselves to the industry. Including insider insights from award-winning industry players, it details their habits, writing processes, daily passions and preoccupations, whilst also looking at the nuts and bolts of the industry, aiming to motivate writers on their own creative journey, maximise networking opportunities and encourage a professional approach to writing. An essential armament in any writer's store, contributors include: Moira Buffini, Danny Huston, David Parfitt, Jack Thorne, Sarah Gavron, John Madden, John Yorke, Nik Powell, Peter Kosminsky, Christine Langan and Asif Kapadia.Trade ReviewA really useful guide to getting on in the world of film -- Richard EyreAn indispensable addition to the writer's bookshelf * Lock and load, brides of Christ *

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Book SynopsisPicasso apparently said, "when critics get together, they talk about theory. When painters get together, they talk about turpentine.' That has been my experience, as far as film and film studies are concerned. Critics, academics, and theoreticians talk theory. That is what they know. Artists talk about their processes in making art. This is my attempt to apply what I know to a beginning study of film. Emerging filmmakers need to know the basics of their art form: the language of the camera, and lenses, the different crew roles, the formats, the aspect ratios. They also need to know some bare-bones theory: what an auteur is, what montage is, what genres are. Words like these are our currency: they must be known. But, even more urgently, young filmmakers need answers to their questions -- what lens was used? how did they do that effect? who paid for that picture? how did they get it past the censor? Most important, all filmmakers require serious grounding in film. You cannot be a great artist if you aren't versed in great art. And this doesn't just apply to the cinema. I believe 100% that a reasonably educated and intelligent person in any country of the world should be able to have a conversation about Luis Buñuel, about Akira Kurosawa, about Stanley Kubrick, about Fellini or Bergman, and talk knowledgeably about at least one of their films. Read this book, watch the films, and you can!Trade ReviewThis book by Alex Cox will give you great insights into the filmmaking process, from idea to production to cinema * Lock and Load, Brides of Christ *A thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read -- Colin Odell and Michelle Le BlancAN INTRODUCTION TO FILM is setting out to reinvent film studies -- Simon Kennedy

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Book SynopsisA second book in the ROCLIFFE NOTES series, formed from the questions of newer filmmakers. This is a practical compendium for screenwriters and filmmakers in the form of notes and opinions. These provide a step-by-step, common-sense guide, with suggestions on how filmmakers package a film. The book covers everything you need to know to get a low-budget film made, from understanding budgeting and different types of finance, to casting, crewing, scheduling, production and festival strategy. This book explains how to turn your script into a film. It offers a unique insight by providing insider confidences, from established industry players to peers, on how you don't need permission to make films. A revelation for all would-be filmmakers, this is a guide to the nuts and bolts of making a film.Trade ReviewTakes you through every stage from conception to distribution in clear concise steps. Brilliant -- Colm Meaney, Actor & ProducerWritten in a clear, concise style - full of useful information. This is a must-have for any aspiring filmmaker -- Karol Griffiths, author of The Art of Script Editingacked full of really useful guidance and easy to understand chapters -- Anita Lewton-Moukkes, Screenwriter, Director & MD of Corazon Films UK an insightful and crystal clear read for anyone wanting to produce their first film be it a short or a feature -- Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly, ProducerA really useful guide to getting on in the world of film -- Richard Eyre, Writer & Director

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Book SynopsisA visually stunning and heartfelt riposte to the emotional sterility of Kubrick''s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull''s eco-themed Silent Running (1972) became one of the defining science-fiction films of the seventies. Bruce Dern excels as lonely hero Freeman Lowell, cast adrift in deep space with three robotic ''Drones'' who become his ''amazing companions'' on a journey ''beyond imagination''.Mark Kermode, writing on his favourite science fiction film of all time, traces Trumbull''s sentimental masterpiece from its roots in the counter-culture of the sixties to its enduring appeal as a cult classic in the 21st century. Drawing on a new interview with Trumbull, Kermode examines both the technical and thematic elements of this uniquely moving space adventure, which continues to be mirrored and imitated by film-makers today.This special edition features original cover artwork by Olly Moss.

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Book Synopsis"Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film" offers an extraordinary close-up of the hitherto overlooked golden age of Japanese cult, action and exploitation cinema from the early 1950s through to the late 1970s, and up to the present day. Having unique access to the top maverick filmmakers and Japanese genre film icons, Chris D. brings together interviews with, and original writings on, the lives and films of such transgressive directors as Kinji Fukasaku ("Battles Without Honour and Humanity"), Seijun Suzuki ("Branded to Kill") and Koji Wakamatsu ("Ecstasy of the Angels") as well as performers like Shinichi 'Sonny' Chiba ("The Streetfighter", "Kill Bill Vol. 1") and glamorous actress Meiko Kaji ("Lady Snowblood"). Bringing the story up-to-date with an overview of such Japanese 'enfants terrible' as Takashi Miike ("Audition") and Kiyoshi Kurasawa ("Cure"), this book also provides a compendium of facts and extras including filmographies, related bibliographies on genre fiction including Manga, and a section on female yakuzas. Illustrated with fantastic stills and posters from some of Japan's finest cult and action films, this is a veritable bible for fans and newcomers alike.Trade ReviewFor years now, Japanese movie mavericks have been confessing their secrets to Chris D. The resulting book is packed with information, resonant with insight, and a must for anyone who's ever wanted to explore the fringes of Japanese film and beyond.' - Patrick Macius, author of TokyoScope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion 'Profiling fourteen genre-defining and downright subversive filmmakers and actors who honed their craft on the wrong side of the cinematic tracks, Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film is long overdue. Chris D.'s boundless enthusiasm for and encyclopaedic knowledge of these films complement his probing interviews and informed commentary. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Japanese cinema.' - Stuart Galbraith IV, au thor of The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune ' Legends have a basis in both a perceived and a "virtual" reality. Chris D.'s book shows both sides, which is essential in understanding how filmmaking legends are born.' - Takashi Miike, director of Ichi, The Killer; Dead or Alive and Audition The Daily Yomiuri, 10th July 2005. Review by Colin Donald: 'With the fervour and diligence of the true film nerd, the tersely named Chris D. a writer, actor and rock band member, has collected the most comprehensive English guide in existence to this all-but-forgotten genre.' 'An excellent book by a knowledgeable and truly obsessed fan.' - The Japan TimesTable of ContentsAcknowledgements; Glossary; Introduction; 1. Kinji Fukasaku; 2. Eiichi Kudo; 3. Sinichi 'Sonny' Chiba; 4. Meiko Kaji; 5. Junya Sato; 6. Kihachi Okamoto; 7. Kazuo Ikehiro; 8. Masahiro Shinoda; 9. Yasuharu Hasebe; 10. Seijun Suzuki; 11. Teruo Ishii; 12. Koji Wakamatsu; 13. Takashi Miike; 14. Kiyoshi Kurosawa; Appendices; Selected Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisPioneer of political documentary and inventor of cinema verite, Dziga Vertov has exerted a decisive influence on directors from Eisenstein to Godard. Yet his reputation long rested upon a lone masterpiece, 'Man with a Movie Camera'. Recently, however Vertov has begun to be recognised as the creator of a body of innovative and distinct films and, as Jeremy Hicks argues, documentary as we know it today is unthinkable without the rediscovery of Vertov. This, the first book in English to cover the whole of Vertov's career, reveals him to be an auteur, allowing readers to combine the familiar and less familiar aspects of his filmmaking and thinking in a cohesive narrative. Jeremy Hicks demonstrates how Vertov draws on Soviet journalistic models for his transformation of newsreel into the new form of documentary film. Through analyses of "Cine-Pravda No 21" (Leninist Cine-Pravda), "Cine-Eye", "Forward Soviet!", "A Sixth Part of the Earth", "The Eleventh Year", "Man with a Movie Camera", "Enthusiasm", "Three Songs of Lenin", and "Lullaby", he shows how Vertov's greatest works combine authentic documentary footage ingeniously for tremendous rhetorical effect. Today, with the energetic revival of interest in documentary film, Vertov's reflexive and overtly partisan films are of great relevance; but they need to be better known and understood. This is the purpose of "Dziga Vertov - Defining Documentary Film".Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction: Dziga Vertov- Defining Documentary Film 1. The Birth of Documentary from the Spirit of Journalism. Cine-Pravda. Cine-Eye 2. Vertov and Documentary Theory: 'The Goal Was Truth, the Means Cine-Eye.' 3. 'A Card Catalogue in the Gutter.' Stride, Soviet! A Sixth Part of the World Contents 4. New Paths: The Eleventh Year. Man with a Movie Camera 5. Sound and the Defence of Documentary: Enthusiasm 6. Documentary or Hagiography? Three Songs of Lenin 7. Years of Sound and Silence: Lullaby 8. Forward Dziga! Foreign and Posthumous Reception Bibliography Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisDerek Jarman has been called the 'godfather' of the early 1990s cinematic movement now known as 'Queer Cinema'. 'Queer' rejects labels, challenges fixed ideas of gender and sexual identity and refuses the status of a tolerated minority, and queer imagery dominates Jarman's cinema. Yet there has been little attention given to this rich vein in his work.This is the first book to view Jarman's uniquely personal - and pleasurable - cinema through the analytical prism of 'queer'. Niall Richardson takes up queer theory and its debates, as well as the tension between theory and activism, to apply these issues to Jarman's cinema in critical readings of his films, with special attention given to "Caravaggio", "Edward II" and "Blue". Richardson enters the debates about queer sexuality and particularly the dynamics of sadomasochism in sexual relations. He considers alternative regimes of gender and sexuality, desire and its relationship to the body, and the political impact of such images. Although Jarman's films have often been praised for being allegories of political resistance, this book argues convincingly that the 'queer' status of his cinema is as much indebted to the representation of alternative paradigms of gender and sexuality as it is to his portrayal of tendentious political battles.Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. What's Queer; 2. Queer Cinema; 3. Masculinity 1: Rough Trade and Sugar Daddies; 4. Masculinity 2: The Masochistic Hero. 5. Femininity 1: The Queer Performance of Tilda Swinton; 6. Femininity 2: Sublime Femininity; 7. The Legacy of Jean Genet on Film; 8. AIDS and its Metaphors: (Re)Imaging the Syndrome; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe two essays in the volume follow a long tradition in critical discourse that turns to Art's domain as a source of inspiration, instruction, and as material for the construction of its concepts and the development of its problems. The case study of Suite Grunewald, 159+1 variations, by the artist Titus-Carmel, returns to a subject that has been eclipsed in past decades by the imperative to remember: namely, the creation of the new as an event, or rather, the event of the new as creation. This is an especially vexatious problem following, on the one hand, the massive displacement of the subject as the author and creator of its works and, on the other, the introduction of the influential Deleuzian-Bergsonian notion of the new as immanent continuity rather than -- as the commonsense notion would have it -- a rupture, interruption, and discontinuity. The first essay develops this problematic by working alongside with Titus-Carmel variations / deconstruction of Grunewald's original painting of the "Crucifixion" as an exemplary site where the creation of the new -- at once incalculable and necessary -- finds a living and urgent expression. The second essay stages an encounter and sets free the resonances between the writing of Jean-Luc Nancy on and around the "body" and the cinema of Claire Denis as a cinema that mobilises the force of bodies that it itself invents, and to which it gives a unique form of presence.

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Book SynopsisThe two essays in the volume follow a long tradition in critical discourse that turns to Art's domain as a source of inspiration, instruction, and as material for the construction of its concepts and the development of its problems. The case study of Suite Grunewald, 159+1 variations, by the artist Titus-Carmel, returns to a subject that has been eclipsed in past decades by the imperative to remember: namely, the creation of the new as an event, or rather, the event of the new as creation. This is an especially vexatious problem following, on the one hand, the massive displacement of the subject as the author and creator of its works and, on the other, the introduction of the influential Deleuzian-Bergsonian notion of the new as immanent continuity rather than -- as the commonsense notion would have it -- a rupture, interruption, and discontinuity. The first essay develops this problematic by working alongside with Titus-Carmel variations / deconstruction of Grunewald's original painting of the "Crucifixion" as an exemplary site where the creation of the new -- at once incalculable and necessary -- finds a living and urgent expression. The second essay stages an encounter and sets free the resonances between the writing of Jean-Luc Nancy on and around the "body" and the cinema of Claire Denis as a cinema that mobilises the force of bodies that it itself invents, and to which it gives a unique form of presence.

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Book SynopsisDirek, a collection of essays on Filipino filmmakers, presents an accessible and provocative introduction to Philippine cinema. Notable Filipino critics write on the canonical Filipino film directors: Ronald Baytan on Ishmael Bernal; Patrick F Campos on Kidlat Tahimik; Clodualdo Del Mundo, Jr. on Manuel Silos, Eddie Romero, and Lamberto Avellana; Vicente Garcia Groyon on Peque Gallaga; Shirley O. Lua on Fernando Poe, Jr; Gil Quito on Marilou Diaz-Abaya and Lav Diaz; Anne Frances N Sangil on Mike de Leon; Agustin Sotto on Gerardo de Leon; Nicanor G Tiongson on Manuel Conde; Rolando B Tolentino on Lino Brocka; Noel Vera on Mario OHara; and Lito B Zulueta on Brillante Ma Mendoza. A compelling work, the first of its kind, it is filled with insight and critical provocation. The work is essential reading for all who are interested in film making in all its multiple aspects, and provides hitherto unavailable information on Philippine filmmakers and cinema.Trade ReviewDireks are the most mysterious creatures who walk the land of film. This book will take you down that secret garden path that opens the door to unknown memories, secret information and long-held insights of the direks who made, and make Philippine cinema so great today!Philip Cheah, Film Critic, Advisory Board Member of NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinemas)Both intimate and informative, Direk paints the portraits of our greatest Filipino filmmakers that helped shape Philippine cinema to what it is today with such heart and respect. This is definitely a must-have for film enthusiasts!Mary Liza B. Dino-Seguerra, Chairperson and CEO, Film Development Council of the Philippines

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Book SynopsisFollowing on from the New York Times-bestselling My Boring-Ass Life, Kevin Smith is back! In freewheeling conversations with his friend and producer Scott Mosier (as heard on their top-rated podcast, known as SModcast), we discover — to pick just four random examples of the riches therein — the genesis of Stalin’s Monkey Soldier army, the horrifying tale of Kevin vs. Steak Tartare, how to make bukkake eggs, and how Kevin was once willing to let Alanis Morissette get mugged... Defiantly lewd, crude and hilariously rude, Shootin’ the Sh*t with Kevin Smith is a must for all his fans! Adults Only!

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Book SynopsisWeaving together critical analysis and a filmic conversation, this book journeys through the multiple layers of Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno's thematically and aesthetically challenging body of work, framed here as a form of decolonial cinematic resistance. Co-winner African Literature Association Book of the Year - Scholarship Both a monograph and a critical dialogue between academic Melissa Thackway, author of Africa Shoots Back, and the Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno, this collaborative work takes the reader on a journey through Teno's multifaceted on-going filmic reflection on Cameroon and the wider African continent, its socio-political systems, history, memory and cultures. Presenting and contextualizing Teno's cinema, it addresses the notion of political commitment in art and of cinema as a form of resistance. It also considers Teno's filmmaking both in relation to the theoretical and aesthetic debates to have animated West and Central African filmmakers since the 1960s and 1970s, and n relation to documentary filmmaking practices on the continent and beyond. In so doing, the book offers an analysis of the predominant stylistic and thematic traits of Teno's work, examines the individual films and the collective oeuvre, and highlights the evolutions of his film language and concerns. It identifies and explores the committed socio-political and historical themes at play, such as violence, power, history, memory, gender, trauma and exile. It also considers Teno's unwavering focus, both thematically and in his filmmaking choices, on forms and instances of resistance, framing his cinema as a form of decolonial aesthetics.Trade ReviewReel Resistance is an exceptionally fruitful and reciprocally beneficial meeting of minds, a critical and aesthetic dialogue which is singular in tone; one in which the artist and his oeuvre continue to exist, fully and clearly, in themselves, rather that serving as pretexts and prime materials for scholarly investigation and performance of knowledge. Thackway's generous stance and critical analysis heightens the reader's grasp of the place and value of Teno's cinema in the international cultural arena, whilst Teno's bold and brilliant understanding of history and politics makes this work a must for readers, be they scholars or the general public. Reel Resistance is a treasure trove for understanding how the colonial past impacts the cultural present and future, in film and society, eliciting a wealth of creative resistance. * AFRICINE *The book makes an important contribution to the research of film history and the decolonization of Southern Africa. * MEDIENwissenschaft *The scope of their [Thackway and Teno's] exchange is extensive, while also focusing on specific aspects of image, sound, and the conceptualization of history. The tone is candid, with the kind of comfort and frankness that can exist between close intellectual friends. * African Studies Review *There are few monographs on an African filmmaker and even less on a documentary filmmaker, which is fundamentally what Jean-Marie Teno is apart from his only feature film, Clando. This more widely illustrated book therefore deserves to be a milestone. It is all the more so as it is fascinating from start to finish, summoning both the deep erudition of the academic Melissa Thackway in the first part and in the second the detailed answers provided by the filmmaker on his journey, its aspirations and its choices. It is through him a history of African cinema is being written, so much has his commitment never wavered. * Africultures *[I]t is a prime exemplar of solid scholarly research, a bona fide auteur study, not another eclectic digest or mishmash of festivalistic chatter and drawing-room speculations on African film and culture. [...] Reel Resistance is a timely addition to the growing body of critical studies of African filmmakers published over the last three decades. * Framework The Journal of Cinema and Media *This book is testimony to the long-standing collaborative relationship between Melissa Thackway and Jean-Marie Teno, as well as revealing a tremendous relationship even between Teno and the consistency of the message process of his cinema. The mutual assemblage of an incredibly unique text by a stellar scholar and remarkable filmmaker of global repute is a sufficiently complete book of history on documentary filmmaking on the continent. In addition, it equally shows how much further the scholarship and intellectual knowledge productions of African filmmaking can travel. -- African Studies QuarterlyModels an ethical and politically engaged partnership between filmmaker and film critic, revealing the potential such synergy produces. -- Carmela Garritano * Africa is a Country *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I Documentary Filmmaking in Africa: An Introduction. Defining Documentary - Documentary in Africa - Early African Cinema and the Documentary - Early African Documentary Practices - Into the Eighties... Critical Insights: Reading the Films of Jean-Marie Teno. Committed Cinema: A Poetics of Resistance - The Cinematic I: Subjectivity, Voice - (Hi)stories, Memory: Decolonial Readings of the Past - Spanning Borders: Transnationality, Circulations and Exile Conclusion: For a Decolonial Aesthetics? Part II In Conversation Appendix 1 - The Writings of Jean-Marie Teno Appendix 2 - The Films of Jean-Marie Teno: List of Works, their Technical Details and Synopses

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Book SynopsisKenji Mizoguchi is one of the three acclaimed masters - together with Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa - of Japanese cinema. Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema is the definitive guide to the life and work of one of the greatest film-makers of the twentieth century.Born at the end of the nineteenth century into a wealthy family, Mizoguchi's early life influenced the themes he would take up in his work. His father's ambitious business ventures failed and the family fell into poverty. His mother died and his elder sister was obliged to enter a geisha house to support the family. Her earnings paid for Mizoguchi's education. Weak and deluded men and strong, self-sacrificing women - these were to become the obsessive motifs of Mizoguchi's films.Mizoguchi's apprenticeship in cinema was peculiarly Japanese. His concerns - the role of women and the realist representation of the inequities of Japanese society - were not. Through two World Wars, Japan's culture changed. Though censored, Mizoguchi continued to produce films. It was only in the 1950s that Mizoguchi's astonishing cinematic vision became widely known outside Japan.Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema tells the full story of this famously perfectionist, even tyrannical, director. Mizoguchi's key films, cinematographic techniques and his social and aesthetic concerns are all discussed and set in the context of Japan's changing popular and political culture.Trade Review'Kenji Mizoguchi was unquestionably one of the very greatest of all film-makers and now at last there is a book in English from a distinguished Japanese critic that tells us why. Few in the West have seen so many Mizoguchi films as Tadao Sato, nor studied them so deeply and with such sympathy. This is an invaluable book about a genius of the cinema.' Derek Malcolm, Honorary President of the International Federation of Film CriticsREVIEWS OF MIZOGUCHI'S WORK 'One of the 20th century's greatest filmmakers'New York Times'On equal terms with Eisenstein, Griffith and Renoir'Jean-Luc Godard'The Japanese director I admire the most'Akira Kurosawa'No praise is too high for him'Orson Welles'He is capable of going beyond the limitations of coherent logic, and conveying the deep complexity and truth of the impalpable connections and hidden phenomena of life'Andrei Tarkovsky'The greatest of all cineastes'Cahiers du Cinema'When the name Kenji Mizoguchi is intoTable of Contents1. An Original Spirit 2. Encountering the New Theatre 3. From New Theatre to Naturalism-Realism 4. Social Realism -The Time of Leftist Films - Metropolitan Symphony 5. The Fate of Matinee Idols 6. Man Imitates Art in Life 7. The Three Traditional Art (Geidomono) Films 8. A Difficult Woman 9. Recreating the Classics 10. The Last Works 11. The Dialectic of Camera and Performance 12. Looking Up, Looking Down 13. Yoda Yoshikata Chronology of Life and Work

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