Individual film directors Books

Book SynopsisAlthough Stanley Kubrick adapted novels and short stories, his films deviate in notable ways from the source material. In particular, since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), his films seem to definitively exploit all cinematic techniques, embodying a compelling visual and aural experience. But, as author Elisa Pezzotta contends, it is for these reasons that his cinema becomes the supreme embodiment of the sublime, fruitful encounter between the two arts and, simultaneously, of their independence.Stanley Kubrick's last six adaptations--2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)--are characterized by certain structural and stylistic patterns. These features help to draw conclusions about the role of Kubrick in the history of cinema, about his role as an adapter, and, more generally, about the art of cinematic adaptations. The structural and stylistic patterns that characterize Kubrick adaptations seem to criticize scientific reasoning, causality, and traditional semantics. In the history of cinema, Kubrick can be considered a modernist auteur. In particular, he can be regarded as an heir of the modernist avant-garde of the 1920s. However, author Elisa Pezzotta concludes that, unlike his predecessors, Kubrick creates a cinema not only centered on the ontology of the medium, but on the staging of sublime, new experiences.

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Book SynopsisOver nearly sixty years, Agnès Varda (b. 1928) has given interviews that are revealing not only of her work, but of her remarkably ambiguous status. She has been called the ""Mother of the New Wave"" but suffered for many years for never having been completely accepted by the cinematic establishment in France. Varda's first film, La Pointe Courte (1954), displayed many of the characteristics of the two later films that launched the New Wave, Truffaut's 400 Blows and Godard's Breathless. In a low-budget film, using (as yet) unknown actors and working entirely outside the prevailing studio system, Varda completely abandoned the ""tradition of quality"" that Truffaut was at that very time condemning in the pages of Cahiers du cinema. Her work, however, was not ""discovered"" until after Truffaut and Godard had broken onto the scene in 1959. Varda's next film, Cleo from 5 to 7, attracted considerably more attention and was selected as France's official entry for the Festival in Cannes. Ultimately, however, this film and her work for the next fifty years continued to be overshadowed by her more famous male friends, many of whom she mentored and advised.Her films have finally earned recognition as deeply probing and fundamental to the growing awareness in France of women's issues and the role of women in the cinema. ""I'm not philosophical,"" she says, ""not metaphysical. Feelings are the ground on which people can be led to think about things. I try to show everything that happens in such a way and ask questions so as to leave the viewers free to make their own judgments."" The panoply of interviews here emphasize her core belief that ""we never stop learning"" and reveal the wealth of ways to answer her questions.

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Book SynopsisA pioneer of the New Queer Cinema, Todd Haynes (b. 1961) is a leading American independent filmmaker. Whether working with talking dolls in a homemade short (Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story) or with Oscar-winning performers in an HBO miniseries (Mildred Pierce), Haynes has garnered numerous awards and nominations and an expanding fan base for his provocative and engaging work. In all his films, Haynes works to portray the struggles of characters in conflict with the norms of society. Many of his movies focus on female characters, drawing inspiration from genres such as the woman's film and the disease movie (Far from Heaven and Safe); others explore male characters who transgress sexual and other social conventions (Poison and Velvet Goldmine).The writer-director has drawn on figures such as Karen Carpenter, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Bob Dylan in his meditations on American and British music, celebrity, and the meaning of identity. His 2007 movie I'm Not There won a number of awards and was notable for Haynes's decision to cast six different actors (one of whom was a woman) to portray Dylan.Gathering interviews from 1989 through 2012, this collection presents a range of themes, films, and moments in the burgeoning career of Todd Haynes.

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Book SynopsisSince 1996, Alexander Payne has made six feature films and a short segment of an omnibus movie. Although his body of work is quantitatively small, it is qualitatively impressive. His movies have garnered numerous accolades and awards, including two Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay. As more than one interviewer in this volume points out, he maintains an impressive and unbroken winning streak. Payne's stories of human strivings and follies, alongside his mastery of the craft of filmmaking, mark him as a contemporary auteur of uncommon accomplishment.In this first compilation of his interviews, Payne reveals himself as a captivating conversationalist as well. The discussions collected here range from 1996, shortly after the release of his first film, Citizen Ruth, to the debut of his film Nebraska at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Over his career, he muses on many subjects including his own creative processes, his commitment to telling character-centered stories, and his abiding admiration for movies and directors from across decades of film history.Critics describe Payne as one of the few contemporary filmmakers who consistently manages to buck the current trend toward bombastic blockbusters. Like the 1970s director-driven cinema that he cherishes, his films are small-scale character studies that manage to maintain a delicate balance between sharp satire and genuine poignancy.

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Book SynopsisThough he has made only five films in two decades--Strictly Ballroom, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, and the Oscar-nominated films Moulin Rouge!, Australia, and The Great Gatsby--Australian writer-director Baz Luhrmann is an internationally known brand name. His Christian name has even entered the English language as a verb, as in ""to Baz things up,"" meaning ""to decorate them with an exuberant flourish."" Celebrated by some, loathed by others, his work is underscored by what has been described as ""an aesthetic of artifice"" and is notable for both its glittering surfaces and recurring concerns.In this collection of interviews, Luhrmann discusses his methods and his motives, explaining what has been important to him and his collaborators from the start and how he has been able to maintain an independence from the studios that have backed his films. He also speaks about his other artistic endeavors, including stage productions of La Bohème and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and his wife and collaborative partner Catherine Martin, who has received two Academy Awards for her work with Luhrmann.

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Book SynopsisHarmony Korine: Interviews tracks filmmaker Korine's stunning rise, fall, and rise again through his own evolving voice. Bringing together interviews collected from over two decades, this unique chronicle includes rare interviews unavailable in print for years and an extensive, new conversation recorded at the filmmaker's home in Nashville.After more than twenty years, Harmony Korine (b. 1973) remains one of the most prominent and yet subversive filmmakers in America. Ever since his entry into the independent film scene as the irrepressible prodigy who wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark's Kids in 1992, Korine has retained his stature as the ultimate cinematic provocateur. He both intelligently observes modern social milieus and simultaneously thumbs his nose at them. Now approaching middle age, and more influential than ever, Korine remains intentionally sensationalistic and ceaselessly creative.He parlayed the success of Kids into directing the dreamy portrait of neglect Gummo two years later. With his audacious 1999 digital video drama Julien Donkey-Boy, Korine continued to demonstrate a penchant for fusing experimental, subversive interests with lyrical narrative techniques. Surviving an early career burnout, he resurfaced with a trifecta of insightful works that built on his earlier aesthetic leanings: a surprisingly delicate rumination on identity (Mister Lonely, 2007), a gritty quasi-diary film (Trash Humpers, 2009) and a blistering portrait of American hedonism (Spring Breakers, 2013), which yielded significant commercial success. Throughout his career he has also continued as a mixed-media artist whose fields included music videos, paintings, photography, publishing, songwriting, and performance art.

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Book SynopsisI have never compromised in what I have done with what I think, what surrounds me. That's why my films cannot be taken out of the archives.""Krzysztof Kies?lowski's untimely death came at the height of his career, after his Three Colors trilogy of films garnered international acclaim (and an Oscar nomination), and he had been proclaimed Europe's most important filmmaker by many critics. Born in 1941, he was only fifty-four years old when he died.Kies?lowski himself tried to tell the story of his life and career in the 1993 book Kies?lowski on Kies?lowski. This collection, by contrast, reveals the shifting voice of a filmmaker who was initially optimistic about his social and cultural role, then felt himself buffeted by the turbulent politics and events of the People's Republic of Poland. As described in the chronology in this book, he found himself subject to the ""economic censorship"" of post-Communist filmmaking.How Kies?lowski responded at each moment of his life, what he tried to achieve with each of his films, is finely detailed in thirty-five selections. These pieces bring together his thesis from the famous ?o?dz? film school, a manifesto written just before the dark days of martial law in Poland, diary entries from the first time he was working outside Poland, and numerous rare interviews from Polish-, French-, and English-language sources.

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Book SynopsisThis revised and updated edition gathers interviews and profiles covering the entire forty-five-year span of Woody Allen's career as a filmmaker, including detailed discussions of his most popular as well as his most critically acclaimed works. The present collection is a complete update of the volume that first appeared in 2006. In the years since, Allen has continued making movies, including Midnight in Paris and the Oscar-winning Blue Jasmine.While many interviews from the original edition have been retained in the present volume, nine new entries extend the coverage of Allen's directorial career through 2015. In addition, there is a new, in-depth interview from the period covered in the first edition. Most of the interviews included in the original volume first appeared in such widely known publications and venues as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. A number of smaller and lesser-known venues are also represented, especially in the new volume. Several interviews from non-American sources add an international perspective on Allen's work.Materials for the new volume include pieces focusing primarily on Allen's films as well as broader profiles and interviews that also concentrate on his literary talent. Perhaps Stephen Mamber best describes Allen's distinctiveness, especially early in his career: “Woody Allen is not the best new American comedy director or the best comedy writer or the best comedy actor, he's simply the finest combination of all three.”

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Book SynopsisOffers not only an analytical study of the films of Herzog, perhaps the most famous living German filmmaker, but also a new reading of Romanticism's impact beyond the nineteenth century and in the present. Werner Herzog (b. 1942) is perhaps the most famous living German filmmaker, but his films have never been read in the context of German cultural history. And while there is a surfeit of film reviews, interviews, and scholarly articles on Herzog and his work, there are very few books devoted to his films, and none addressing his entire career to date. Until now. Forgotten Dreams offers not only an analytical study of Herzog's films but also a new reading of Romanticism's impact beyond the nineteenth century. It argues that his films re-envision and help us better understand a critical stream in Romanticism, and places the films in conversation with other filmmakers, authors, and philosophers in order to illuminate that critical stream. The result is a lively reconnection with Romantic themes and convictions that have been partly forgotten in the midst of Germany's postwar rejection of much of Romantic thought, yet are still operative in German culture today. The film analyses will interest scholars of film, German Studies, and Romanticism as well as a broader public interested in Herzog's films and contemporary German cultural debates. The book will also appeal to those interested in the ongoing renegotiation - by Western and other cultures - of relationships between reason and passion, civilization and wild nature, knowledge and belief. Laurie Ruth Johnson is Professor of German, Comparative and World Literature, and Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Trade Review[A] worthy addition to any interdisciplinary study of Herzog's films - and the influence of alternative German romanticism as well as formal romanticism on moviemaking . . . . [A]n impressive unravelling of Werner Herzog's valuable contribution to cinema through a viewpoint not previously attempted, shining a light on some intriguing cultural influences and their effects on this fascinating filmmaker. * FILM IRELAND *Laurie Johnson's book expands Herzog criticism in important aspects. * HANS-HELMUT-PRINZLER.DE *Johnson . . . offers a new perspective on the romanticism/Herzog connection. . . . Forgotten Dreams is an in-depth analysis of certain romantic tendencies and how one might read Herzog's films as visual and - to a lesser degree - aural representations of the same. [The book] is an engaging contribution to the philosophical and cultural history of German Romanticism . . . [and shows] how this movement may yield insights into film analysis and history. It is also a worthy resource for Herzog scholars for its discussion of his lesser-known films. Literary, cultural, and film scholars will find many valuable insights in Laurie Ruth Johnson's interdisciplinary study. * MONATSHEFTE *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: Werner Herzog's Films and the Other Discourse of Romanticism Image and Knowledge Surface and Depth Beauty and Sublimity Man and Animal Sound and Silence Conclusion: Herzog's Romantic Cinema Notes Bibliography

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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 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 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 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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