Individual film directors Books

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewColin Burnett's The Invention of Robert Bresson is a breathtaking act of scholarship. The portrait of Bresson that emerges here, in biographical, cultural and aesthetic terms, is the most complete one that we have to date and will likely ever see. Burnett is as concerned to trace Bresson's relation to figures like Max Ernst as he is to show us just how deep Bresson's involvement was with Coco Chanel and the world of advertising. This is not the Bresson most of us have imagined. But even beyond the book's contribution to Bresson scholarship and French film studies, which is already considerable, Burnett offers us a new way of thinking about what he calls "a cultural marketplace," a mode of inquiry that will invigorate single author studies by way of the painstaking detail Burnett's model gives to the aesthetic and industrial forces at work at the various stages in an auteur's development, which inform, but do not determine in any simple way, the kind of decisions that a filmmaker is forced to make. For those of us who believe in the importance of single author studies, this book comes as a massive breath of fresh air. For those of you who believe auteurism has run its course, I dare you to read The Invention of Robert Bresson. It will not be easy, I predict, to maintain your resistance. -- Brian PriceColin Burnett keeps historical questions front and center as he explains Bresson's creative role within the lively cultural marketplace of post-WWII French cinema. The Invention of Robert Bresson goes beyond the confines of the usual auteur study, revealing the many innovative ways that Bresson promoted his personal style, while also participating fully in the artistic and critical context of his era. Burnett re-energizes our interest in this rewarding auteur and his place within a rich, unprecedented cinéphilia. -- Richard NeupertAn essential book for those interested in cinema authorship, French film and visual culture, and the iconoclastic Robert Bresson. Burnett's bold intervention takes Bresson down off his marble plinth and makes him a flesh-and-blood practitioner once again, in fierce conversation with the artistic and industrial situations that nourished his work. Burnett's real achievement is to make us look at Bresson—and postwar French cinema in all its troubled creative ferment—profoundly anew again. -- Tim PalmerFrench director Robert Bresson is celebrated among cinephiles for his distinctively spare films, and with this volume Burnett contributes considerably to the scholarship on this auteur. . . . Essential. * Choice *Burnett offers us an important contribution to work on Bresson, which signicantly expands and complements existing, more tex trather-than-context-bound studies. * French Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart One: Alternative Institutions1. Under the Aegis of Surrealism: How a Publicity Artist Became the Manager of an Independent Film Company2. The Rise of the Accursed: When Bresson was Co-President of an Avant-Garde Ciné-ClubPart Two: Vanguard Forms3. Purifying Cinema: The Provocations of Faithful Adaptation and First-Person Storytelling in "Ignace de Loyola" (1948) and Journal d'un curé de campagne (1951)4. Theorizing the Image: Bresson's Challenge to the Realists—Sparse Set Design, Acting and Photography from Les anges du péché (1943) to Une femme douce (1969)5. Vernacularizing Rhythm: Bresson and the Shift Toward Dionysian Temporalities—Plot Structure and Editing from Journal d'un curé de campagne (1951) to L'argent (1983)AfterwordSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ably edited by Gillain and translated by Alistair Fox, the volume gathers nearly all of Truffaut's writings on his own films, from his breakthrough with The 400 Blows in 1959 to his final film, Confidentially Yours (1983). The writings reveal a Truffaut who was as incisive and direct in assessing his own work as he was in assessing the work of other directors." -W.W. Dixon, University of Nebraska—Lincoln * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPreface to the English Edition (2017)Preface (1988)AcknowledgmentsA Note on the Translation1. Childhood2. The New Wave3. The Auteur Theory4. 1954: Une visite; 1957: Les Mistons; 1958: Histoire d'eau5. 1959: The 400 Blows6. 1960: Shoot the Pianist7. 1962: Jules and Jim8. 1962: Antoine and Colette9. 1966: The Soft Skin10. 1966: Fahrenheit 45111. 1967: The Bride Wore Black12. 1968: Stolen Kisses13. May 196814. 1959-1968: Overview 115. 1969: Mississippi Mermaid16. 1970: The Wild Child17. 1970: Bed and Board18. 1971: Two English Girls19. 1972: A Gorgeous Girl like Me20. 1973: Day for Night21. 1969-1974: Overview 222. 1975: The Story of Adele H23. 1976: Small Change24. 1977: The Man Who Loved Women25. 1978: The Green Room26. 1979: Love on the Run27. 1980: The Last Metro28. 1981: The Woman Next Door29. 1983: Confidentially Yours30. 1975-1984: Overview 3SourcesList of Films Discussed by Truffaut Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ably edited by Gillain and translated by Alistair Fox, the volume gathers nearly all of Truffaut's writings on his own films, from his breakthrough with The 400 Blows in 1959 to his final film, Confidentially Yours (1983). The writings reveal a Truffaut who was as incisive and direct in assessing his own work as he was in assessing the work of other directors." -W.W. Dixon, University of Nebraska—Lincoln * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPreface to the English Edition (2017)Preface (1988)AcknowledgmentsA Note on the Translation1. Childhood2. The New Wave3. The Auteur Theory4. 1954: Une visite; 1957: Les Mistons; 1958: Histoire d'eau5. 1959: The 400 Blows6. 1960: Shoot the Pianist7. 1962: Jules and Jim8. 1962: Antoine and Colette9. 1966: The Soft Skin10. 1966: Fahrenheit 45111. 1967: The Bride Wore Black12. 1968: Stolen Kisses13. May 196814. 1959-1968: Overview 115. 1969: Mississippi Mermaid16. 1970: The Wild Child17. 1970: Bed and Board18. 1971: Two English Girls19. 1972: A Gorgeous Girl like Me20. 1973: Day for Night21. 1969-1974: Overview 222. 1975: The Story of Adele H23. 1976: Small Change24. 1977: The Man Who Loved Women25. 1978: The Green Room26. 1979: Love on the Run27. 1980: The Last Metro28. 1981: The Woman Next Door29. 1983: Confidentially Yours30. 1975-1984: Overview 3SourcesList of Films Discussed by Truffaut Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Boats on the Marne once and for all establishes Jean Renoir as the supreme artist of the 20th century's supreme art. With long-shots of startling philosophical backdrops that dissolve into delicate close-ups of Renoir's inimitable style, Prakash Younger shows how a staggering string of masterpieces progressively penetrated the conundrums of 1930s France until La règle du jeu grasped, like no other artwork let alone film, the full comic tragedy of our modernity."—Dudley Andrew, Author of 'What Cinema Is!'"In Boats on the Marne, Prakash Younger deploys a sophisticated philosophical approach to Renoir's films of the 1930s, demonstrating their coherent and reflective response to what he calls 'the historical dangers of the times'. His ambitious model of 'dialogic auteurism' melds innovative close analysis of Renoir's 'dispassionate' camerawork with a scrupulous understanding of his films' multiple cultural genealogies and historical contexts. In particular, the in-depth analysis of La Règle du jeu illuminates the film's structure as an evocative portrait of civilization that is then ruthlessly destroyed. Younger successfully reactivates a Bazinian model of Renoir criticism to propose a profoundly ethical understanding of cinematic ontology and its picturing of the contingency of human social relations. His erudite yet deeply personal work will be welcomed by Renoir and film-and-philosophy scholars alike."—Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau, Editors of 'A Companion to Jean Renoir'Table of ContentsPreface: The Enigma of La Règle du JeuIntroduction: Jean Renoir, Cinephilosopher1. Genesis and Style of the French Renoir2. Escaping from Flaubert or, Reflecting on Romanticism3. Loving the Distance or, Historical Experience and the Fruits of Reflection4. La Règle du Jeu or, Putting Modernity in QuestionConclusion: Why La Règle du Jeu MattersBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Boats on the Marne once and for all establishes Jean Renoir as the supreme artist of the 20th century's supreme art. With long-shots of startling philosophical backdrops that dissolve into delicate close-ups of Renoir's inimitable style, Prakash Younger shows how a staggering string of masterpieces progressively penetrated the conundrums of 1930s France until La règle du jeu grasped, like no other artwork let alone film, the full comic tragedy of our modernity."—Dudley Andrew, Author of 'What Cinema Is!'"In Boats on the Marne, Prakash Younger deploys a sophisticated philosophical approach to Renoir's films of the 1930s, demonstrating their coherent and reflective response to what he calls 'the historical dangers of the times'. His ambitious model of 'dialogic auteurism' melds innovative close analysis of Renoir's 'dispassionate' camerawork with a scrupulous understanding of his films' multiple cultural genealogies and historical contexts. In particular, the in-depth analysis of La Règle du jeu illuminates the film's structure as an evocative portrait of civilization that is then ruthlessly destroyed. Younger successfully reactivates a Bazinian model of Renoir criticism to propose a profoundly ethical understanding of cinematic ontology and its picturing of the contingency of human social relations. His erudite yet deeply personal work will be welcomed by Renoir and film-and-philosophy scholars alike."—Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau, Editors of 'A Companion to Jean Renoir'Table of ContentsPreface: The Enigma of La Règle du JeuIntroduction: Jean Renoir, Cinephilosopher1. Genesis and Style of the French Renoir2. Escaping from Flaubert or, Reflecting on Romanticism3. Loving the Distance or, Historical Experience and the Fruits of Reflection4. La Règle du Jeu or, Putting Modernity in QuestionConclusion: Why La Règle du Jeu MattersBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall1. Writer/Producer's Statement: The Making of The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Sam Greenlee2. "[D]uality is a survival tool. It's not a disease": Interview with Sam Greenlee on The Spook Who Sat By the Door / Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall3. Cinema as Political Activism: Contemporary Meanings in The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Marilyn Yaquinto4. Persistently Displaced: Situated Knowledges and Interrelated Histories in The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Samantha N. Sheppard5. Subverting the System: The Politics and Production of The Spook Who Sat By the Door / Christine Acham6. The Spook Who Sat By the Door, Screenplay / Sam Greenlee and Melvin ClayAppendix A: Press KitAppendix B: National Film Registry Entry, The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Michael T. Martin and David C. WallAppendix C: Sam Greenlee: Biography and Select BibliographyAppendix D: Ivan Dixon: Biography and Select FilmographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall1. Writer/Producer's Statement: The Making of The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Sam Greenlee2. "[D]uality is a survival tool. It's not a disease": Interview with Sam Greenlee on The Spook Who Sat By the Door / Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall3. Cinema as Political Activism: Contemporary Meanings in The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Marilyn Yaquinto4. Persistently Displaced: Situated Knowledges and Interrelated Histories in The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Samantha N. Sheppard5. Subverting the System: The Politics and Production of The Spook Who Sat By the Door / Christine Acham6. The Spook Who Sat By the Door, Screenplay / Sam Greenlee and Melvin ClayAppendix A: Press KitAppendix B: National Film Registry Entry, The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Michael T. Martin and David C. WallAppendix C: Sam Greenlee: Biography and Select BibliographyAppendix D: Ivan Dixon: Biography and Select FilmographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAt a time when belonging and identity in Europe is complicated by questions of race, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship, Berna Gueneli explores the transnational works of acclaimed Turkish-German filmmaker and auteur Fatih Akın, demonstrates how Akın's aesthetics intersect with politics to reshape notions of Europe, European cinema, and cinematic history. Trade ReviewFatih Akın's Cinema and The New Sound of Europe, the first book-length monograph on Akın, not only covers a missing part in the scholarship but also opens up new chapters in our understanding of Turkish German Cinema. * Journal of Religion and Film *Gueneli has provided a sound analysis of Fatih Akın's early work that will prove a stepping-stone for further research. -- Florian Gassner * Monatshefte *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Fatih Akın: A Contemporary Filmmaker From Germany1. Mapping Europe: The Road Movie Genre and Transnational European Space in Film2. The Sound of Polyphony: Multilingualism, Multiethnicity, and Linguistic Empowerment in Head-On3. The Sound of Music: Transnational Soundscapes4. Expanding the Scope of European Cinema: Akın's Cinematic Imagining of a Diverse Europe in ContextConclusion: Intertextual Film—Transnational Film—Transnational Film HistoryBibliography, Filmography/Discography, and Online SourcesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewGiven its emphasis on identites sexual and ethinc, queerness and Jewishness, and its power to reveal the resistant potential of a mainstream artist, McCormick's work is ideally conceived for today's intellectual priorities. -- Alan Lareua, University of Wisconsin-Oskosh * Monatshefte *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Transnational Jewish ComedyI. Berlin: Sex, Spectacle, and Anarchy1. From the Jewish "Bad Boy" to the "Bad Girl": Early Comedies, 1914–1919 2. Bad Girls and the Costume Epics: 1919–1922 3. Bad Girls Untamed: Anarchic/Fantastic Comedies (1919–1922)II. Hollywood: From European Sophistication to Anti-Fascist Screwball4. Sex & Sophistication: Comedies & Operettas, 1924–19345. Pushing the Boundaries in Pre-Code Hollywood, 1931–19346. Screwball Politics: American Populism & European Politics, 1935–417. Coming Out as Jewish: To Be or Not to Be (1942)Epilogue: Twilight of a Cosmopolitan, 1943–47BibliographyFilmography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewGiven its emphasis on identites sexual and ethinc, queerness and Jewishness, and its power to reveal the resistant potential of a mainstream artist, McCormick's work is ideally conceived for today's intellectual priorities. -- Alan Lareua, University of Wisconsin-Oskosh * Monatshefte *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Transnational Jewish ComedyI. Berlin: Sex, Spectacle, and Anarchy1. From the Jewish "Bad Boy" to the "Bad Girl": Early Comedies, 1914–1919 2. Bad Girls and the Costume Epics: 1919–1922 3. Bad Girls Untamed: Anarchic/Fantastic Comedies (1919–1922)II. Hollywood: From European Sophistication to Anti-Fascist Screwball4. Sex & Sophistication: Comedies & Operettas, 1924–19345. Pushing the Boundaries in Pre-Code Hollywood, 1931–19346. Screwball Politics: American Populism & European Politics, 1935–417. Coming Out as Jewish: To Be or Not to Be (1942)Epilogue: Twilight of a Cosmopolitan, 1943–47BibliographyFilmography Index

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Book SynopsisAsserting that race has been the cornerstone of most of Quentin Tarantino's films, this book uncovers the racial politics, progressive and regressive, hidden on the QT in the director's work from Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction to Inglourious Basterds aTrade ReviewNama’s book traces the racial topicality of Tarantino’s films to his fascination with the subversive and racially empowering features of Blaxploitation cinema. It confronts the racial frankness in Tarantino’s films rather than the man himself, examining what they say about race in America with a critical dynamism and a clarity of perspective that makes enjoyable and provocative reading. * Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Reservoir Dogs and True Romance Chapter 2. Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown Chapter 3. Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, and Death Proof Chapter 4. Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained Coda Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisPresents the most plausible solution yet to the mystery of who killed William Desmond Taylor. In the process the author paints a portrait of Hollywood in the 1920s - from its major stars to its bisexual subculture. He provides an answer to a mystery and a study of a place, and an industry, that has always let people reinvent themselves.Trade ReviewThe most thoroughly researched and carefully considered of all the books on the legendary William Desmond Taylor murder case. - James Curtis, author of W. C. Fields: A Biography ""Drawing on unpublished documents compiled by director King Vidor, and making witty, insightful comments as he does, Higham cuts through a thicket of suspects, motives, and cover-ups to point the finger where it had rather clearly been pointing all along, arguing that for some years a hypocritical, moralistic press did its best to point the finger in other directions. More than the solution, what impresses here are Higham's portraits of Taylor, Minter, et al, as scarred souls who believed Hollywood would be their Lourdes on the Pacific. They were mistaken."" - Kirkus Reviews ""Murder in Hollywood is engrossing, as much for chronicling the murder as it is for capturing an era as rollicking as a Keystone Cops two-reeler. Higham presents a persuasive argument for his favored suspect,... and the evidence is compelling. But inevitably, it is the time-capsule quality of the storytelling, and a peek at 'hiding in plain sight' homosexuality, that makes the book so interesting."" - Lambda Book Report ""Paints a dazzling picture of Los Angeles in a golden age of sleaze and corruption."" - Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisIn this biography, now translated into English for the first time, Bert Rebhandl provides a balanced evaluation of the work of Jean-Luc Godard. In this sympathetic yet critical overview, he argues that Godard’s work captured the revolutionary spirit of Paris in the late 1960s as no other filmmaker has dared, and in fact reinvented the medium.Trade ReviewA wonderfully fact-filled new biography of Godard. . . . You immediately want to watch the best of his films again as you read Rebhandl’s confidently narrated book about the filmmaker, which analyzes with genteel restraint." - Der Spiegel"Rebhandl has undoubtedly hit it big here." - Walter Gasperi, Die Furche"A wonderful, dense tapestry of cinematic knowledge, not without a pattern of personal enthusiasm, which lets one walk reasonably safely into the workrooms of a guy who doesn’t exactly welcome guests with open arms." - Georg Seeßlen, epd Film"Rebhandl’s lucidly written monograph offers a perfect introduction to Godard’s complex intellectual and cinematic world." - Stefan Grissemann, Profil "Rebhandl’s treatise lends itself to introductory reading, but also provides enough page-turners for Godard connoisseurs. . . . No small feat." - Andreas Busche, TagesspiegelTable of Contents List of Illustrations Preface Introduction 1 Modern Times: 1950 to 1959 2 Pop Art: 1959 to 1967 3 Revolutionary Cinema: 1967 to 1972 4 Video, Ergo Sum: 1973 to 1980 5 The Idiot of Cinema: 1980 to 1996 6 The Partisan of Images: 1997 to 2020 7 The Joy of Learning Notes Bibliography Filmography Chronology Index

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Book SynopsisIn the 1960s, Suzuki Seijun met with modest success in directing popular movies about yakuza gangsters and mild exploitation films featuring prostitutes and teenage rebels. In this book, Peter Yacavone argues that Suzuki became an unlikely cinematic rebel and, with hindsight, one of the most important voices in the global cinema of the 1960s.Trade Review“Fans, aficionados and, yes, even scholars will treasure this long-awaited study of the work of one of Japan’s greatest, and most wonderfully eccentric, directors. Yacavone demonstrates the startling originality of Suzuki’s cinema and continuity of his vision—a genuine auteur study that does not ignore other factors, like genre, industry, and social context.”—David Desser, Emeritus University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign“This is an excellent, passionate study that illuminates Suzuki’s work in its broad features as well as its nuances and striking idiosyncrasies. Yacavone develops an analytic template that he terms the ‘Suzuki Difference’ which deals with the manifold ways that Suzuki challenged, subverted, undercut, and blithely disregarded the norms of professional studio filmmaking that bound most other filmmakers in the period.”—Stephen Prince, Virginia TechTable of Contents List of Illustrations Introduction A Note on the Text and Translations Throughout this Book Chapter 1. The Recusant Chapter 2. The Dog (Rajo to kenjū, Ankokugai no bijo, Kagenaki koe, Kaikyō chi ni somete, Kutabare gurentai, Tokyo kishitai, Subete ge kurutteru, Akutarō, Toge wo wataru wakai kaze, Akutarō-den: warui hoshi shita demo) Chapter 3. The Mirror (Yajū no seishun, Tantei Jimusho 2-3: Kutabare akutō-domo, Kemono no nemuri) Chapter 4. The Tattoo (Kanto mushuku, Oretachi no chi ga yurusanai, Hana to doto, Irezumi ichidai) Chapter 5. The Flesh (Nikutai no mon, Shunpuden, Kawachi karumen) Chapter 6. The Break (Tokyo nagaremono, Kenka erejii, Sandanjū no otoko, Mikkō 0-Rain, 13-go taihisen yori sono gosōsha wo nerae) Chapter 7. The Hinge (Koroshi no rakuin, Pisutoru opera) Chapter 8. The Double (Zigeunerweisen, Kagerō-za, Yumeji, Hishū monogatari, Rupan sansei: Babiron no ōgon no densetsu) Bibliography Filmography Appendix: A Complete Filmography of Suzuki Seijun, Director

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Book SynopsisA collection which proceeds chronologically, from poetry and short stories which offer insights into the filmmaker, Luis Bunuel's life and thought.Trade Review"In this collection, Bunuel eloquently proves to be an intellectual and an ideologue and a jokester as well." -Publishers Weekly; "This book will be treasured by anyone who cares about cinema."-Sunday Tribune (Dublin); "A lovely, startling grab bag of jokes, insights, recollected dreams, superbly grave mini-essays, and general bits and pieces retrieved from Bunuel's life."-Artforum's Bookforum; "Bunuel is a filmmaker I have been stylistically haunted and influenced by for a very long time. After reading this collection of essays, some of which have never been published before, I am even more enthralled by this man. He remains my favorite voice of the surrealists."-Gus Van Sant; "This lively and diverse selection of Bunuel's literary work should provide the American reader with a much greater understanding of the man and his work, and with hours of enjoyment as well."-Julie Jones, University of New Orleans; "Bunuel didn't like to put words on paper, but thankfully he did, revealing the sly, shy, quirky, passionate, unpredictable genius whose superbly subversive films were everything but shy. This trove of reluctant writings is a rare and historical treat."-Charles Champlin, retired arts editor, Los Angeles TimesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Foreword by Jean-Claude Carriere Surrealist Writings An Unspeakable Betrayal Orchestration Suburbs: Motifs Unnoticed Tragedies as Themes for a Totally New Theater Why 1 Don't Wear a Watch Theorem Lucille and Her Three Fish Deluge Ramuneta at the Beach Cava/feria rusticana The Pleasant Orders of St. Huesca Letter to Pepin Bello on St. Valero's Day Idea for a Story La Sancta Misa Vaticanae Menage a trois A Decent Story On Love A Giraffe An Andalusian Dog For Myself I Would Like Miraculous Polisher It Seems to Me Neither Good nor Evil Upon Getting into Bed The Rainbow and the Poultice Redemptress Bacchanal Odor of Sanctity Palace of Ice Bird of Anguish Theater Hamlet Guignol On Cinema BUNUEL AS CRITIC A Night at the Studio des Ursulines Metropolis Fred Niblo's Camille Abel Gance's Napoleon Victor Fleming's The Way of All Flesh Buster Keaton's College Variations on Adolphe Menjou's Mustache News from Hollywood Our Poets and the Cinema Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc The Comic in Cinema BUNUEL AS THEORIST The Cinematic Shot Decoupage, or Cinematic Segmentation Cinema as an Instrument of Poetry BUNUEL AS SCRIPTWRITER Goya and the Duchess of Alba Un Chien andalou L'Age d'or Gags Hallucinations about a Dead Hand Illegible, the Son of a Flute Agon (Swansong) Bunuel on Bunuel Land without Bread Viridiana To PECIME Autobiographical Writings Fragments of a Journal from Bufiuel's Youth in Calanda Medieval Memories of Lower Aragon From Bufiuel's Autobiography Pessimism Afterword by Juan Luis Bufiuel and Rafael Bufiuel

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Book SynopsisEdgar G Ulmer is perhaps best known today for Detour, considered by many to be the epitome of a certain noir style that transcends its B-list origins. But in his lifetime he never achieved the celebrity of his fellow Austrian and German emigre directors - Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Fred Zinnemann, and Robert Siodmak.Trade Review"A page turner of a biography." -- Andrew O'Hehir New York Times "The story of his [Edgar G. Ulmer's] life is told with remarkable research and insight." -- Richard Brody New Yorker "The season's must read [for film buffs] ... Noah Isenberg's long-awaited biography 'Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins.' Ulmer-whose CV includes "People on Sunday," "The Black Cat," "Detour," four Yiddish talkies, a half dozen bargain basement classics and as many indescribable oddities-had a life that was every bit as interesting as his film. The writing is scholarly but, given the material, charged with irony and full of pep." -- J. Hoberman Artinfo "[A] cogent treatment of a singularly unlikely career. Isenberg's writing...allows the monumental eccentricities of Ulmer's underground journey to shine through." -- Howard Hampton Bookforum "Long considered as something of a guilty pleasure among filmmakers, critics, and fans, director Edgar G. Ulmer finally gets the attention and scholarship he deserves in Noah Isenberg's new book." -- Matthew Steigbigel The Credits "A rare coupling of intellectual treatise and entertaining biography that beckons to both the film scholar and the public." -- Miguel Rodriguez KPBS "With sober intrepidness, Isenberg tethers down to earth some of the more wild claims made by and about his subject. In recounting the filmmaker's amazing career, he moves easily between describing the drama going on behind the scenes and analyzing the provocative work that Ulmer put on screen... This fascinating biography gives us the chance to weigh the many frustrations in Ulmer's career against the joy he found in the act of creation." -- Betsy Sherman Arts Fuse "Operating mostly outside of the Hollywood system, Edgar G. Ulmer (the original King of the B's) is a fascinating character whose rather notorious mysterious life is somewhere between fact and fiction. All of this is explored and solved ... in scholar Noah Isenberg's brilliant new critical biography Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins." -- Caryn Coleman Vice "A most welcome book, which can lay claim to being a definitive study of Edgar G. Ulmer... Isenberg has given us more than an academic study of the filmmaker's eclectic career. He manages to paint a rounded, sympathetic but honest picture of the man whose endless dreams were so often dashed... Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins is scholarly but never dry. It is a valuable reference and a good read." -- Leonard Maltin Indiewire "As Isenberg reveals in this utterly necessary book, Ulmer was a nonpareil slinger of [exaggerated stories] even for a business that thrives on everything inauthentic except avarice... In so many ways he was the Micawber of Poverty Row, and the something that turned up was not the big budget spectaculars with A-list casts that he fervently hoped for, but the wormy little movies about failure that he actually made. They were more than good enough to justify a life, and this very good book." -- Scott Eyman ScottEyman.com "The first English-language biography of the studio-era director oft crowned 'King of Poverty Row,' Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins explores an itinerant, ramshackle, and occasionally brilliant career that encompassed proto-proto-New Wave experiments, Yiddish utopia, influential B-noirs, fly-by-night exploitation, and Cold War sci-fi super-cheese...Isenberg creates a picture of a filmmaker as ragtag and resourceful as the films he directed... [He] effectively traces Ulmer's artistic identity through the thematic (existential dread and rootlessness) and aesthetic (German Expressionism, classical music and opera) continuity of a body of work unified by little else." -- Michael Joshua Rowin Film Comment "Isenberg makes a scrupulously honest case for the director and 'l'aesthetique du cheap,' as a French critic called Ulmer's kind of style, avoiding injudicious praise and recognizing his weaknesses as well as his strengths. Then again, with Ulmer the weaknesses often are the strengths, and vice versa. That's what makes him so fascinating and Isenberg's energetic study so engrossing." -- David Sterritt Film Quarterly "While other authors are drawn to celebrities of greater stature whose lives are well documented, Isenberg preferred the challenge of unraveling the mystery of this European transplant who clearly had talent but never found success in Hollywood... Ulmer may not have had the resources given to his fellow emigre directors but that didn't stop him from endowing his films with a unique personal vision that may finally be finding the appreciation it deserves." -- Beth Accomando Brooklyn Rail "The Ulmer that emerges from the detail-packed, though rarely dry, pages of Isenberg's biography is tragicomic. During his lifetime, the emigre director was rightly renowned for his ability to spin straw into gold (or silver, at any rate), yet this meant that he became in many ways a victim of his own success." -- Eric J. Iannelli TLS "Now we have what is destined to become the definitive English-language critical biography from Noah Isenberg... The movies speak for themselves, but they have gained an eloquent companion." -- Nick Pinkerton Sight & Sound "This definitive study of fringe director Edgar G. Ulmer is also an anatomy of the B-movie industry... The stories of Ulmer's offscreen seat-of-the-pants artistry make for a delightful and inspiring read. Recommended." -- M. Yacowar Choice "Remarkable for its revealing of the hidden career of a minor genius is Noah Isenberg's Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins." Best Film Books of 2014 -- Thomas Gladysz Huffington Post "An authoritative new biography." -- Kenneth Turan Los Angeles TimesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface 1. Traces of a Viennese Youth 2. Toward a Cinema at the Margins 3. Hollywood Horror 4. Songs of Exile 5. Capra of PRC 6. Back in Black 7. Independence Days Postscript Filmography Notes Select Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisThree-time Academy Award nominee for best director, responsible for such film classics as A Room with a View and The Remains of the Day, James Ivory is a director known for the international scope of his filmmaking on several continents. This title features interviews with James. It comments on the many aspects of his world-traveling career.Trade Review"Ivory is a robust and intelligent man, interested in all sorts of things and a good observer of what goes on around him." - The Times "This series of conversations... informs and engages. Ivory charmingly speaks about a career that includes credits ranging from 'A Room with a View' to 'Surviving Picasso.' He offers insight into his technique and artistic approach, selection of subject matter, choice of actors, and interactions with associates like producer Ismail Merchant and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.... Illuminating and often humorous." - Carol J. Binkowski, Library Journal "James Ivory is one of our greatest living directors, and these pages, deliciously poised between diplomacy and indiscretion, brim with his vast experience of every nook and cranny of the film world. Offering precious insights into how the cinematic cultures of Europe, Asia and America, of Arthouse and Hollywood, came to be blended into a ravishingly beautiful body of work, Ivory also draws for us a vivid picture of what it really feels like to put together an independent movie." - Kazuo Ishiguro"Table of ContentsSetting the Scene The Early Years Documentaries, 1952--1972 Venice: Theme and Variations The Sword and the Flute The Delhi Way Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of Civilization FEATURE FILMS India The Householder Shakespeare Wallah The Guru Bombay Talkie Autobiography of a Princess Hullabaloo over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures Heat and Dust America Savages The Wild Party Roseland The Europeans The Five Forty-eight Jane Austen in Manhattan The Bostonians Slaves of New York Mr. and Mrs. Bridge England A Room with a View Maurice Howards End The Remains of the Day The Golden Bowl France Quartet Jefferson in Paris Surviving Picasso A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries Le Divorce List of Illustrations Index

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Book SynopsisCollects a film critic's writings on Orson Welles - some thirty-five years of them - and makes a case for the seriousness of his work, illuminating both Welles the artist and Welles the man.Trade Review"The intellectually insatiable Rosenbaum is just the person to dissect the myths and expose the inaccuracies that have grown to define the Welles legend. [It] has both breadth and depth." American CinematographerTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. I Missed It at the Movies: Objections to "Raising KANE" 2. The Voice and the Eye: A Commentary on the HEART OF DARKNESS Script 3. Notes on a Conversation with Welles 4. First Impressions of F FOR FAKE 5. The Butterfly and the Whale: Orson Welles's F FOR FAKE 6. Prime Cut (The 107-Minute TOUCH OF EVIL) 7. Andre Bazin and the Politics of Sound in TOUCH OF EVIL 8. The Invisible Orson Welles: A First Inventory 9. Review of Biographies by Barbara Leaming and Charles Higham and a Critical Edition of TOUCH OF EVIL 10. Afterword to THE BIG BRASS RING, a Screenplay by Orson Welles (with Oja Kodar) 11. Wellesian: Quixote in a Trashcan (New York University Welles Conference) 12. Reviews of Citizen Welles and a Critical Edition of CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT 13. Review of Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography 14. Orson Welles's Essay Films and Documentary Fictions: A Two-Part Speculation 15. The Seven ARKADINs 16. OTHELLO Goes Hollywood 17. Truth and Consequence: On IT'S ALL TRUE: BASED ON AN UNFINISHED FILM BY ORSON WELLES 18. Afterword to THE CRADLE WILL ROCK, an Original Screenplay by Orson Welles 19. Orson Welles in the U.S.: An Exchange with Bill Krohn 20. The Battle over Orson Welles 21. TOUCH OF EVIL Retouched 22. Excerpt from "Problems of Access: On the Trail of Some Festival Films and Filmmakers" (On TOUCH OF EVIL) 23. Welles in the Lime Light: THE THIRD MAN 24. Orson Welles as Ideological Challenge 25. Orson Welles's Purloined Letter: F FOR FAKE 26. When Will--and How Can--We Finish Orson Welles's DON QUIXOTE? Appendix: The Present State of the Welles Film Legacy Index

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Book SynopsisMichelangelo Antonioni, who died in 2007, was one of cinema's greatest modernist filmmakers. This book demonstrates why the color films that followed are, in fact, Antonioni's greatest works. It discusses "The Red Desert," "Blow-Up," "Professione: Reporter (The Passenger)," and others to analyze the director's subtle and complex use of color.Trade Review"Superb, one-of-a-kind volume... required reading for anyone interested in Antonioni's life and work." -- W. W. Dixon ChoiceTable of ContentsList of Plates Acknowledgments Note on Images Introduction Beyond the Clouds Identification of a Woman The Red Desert The Dangerous Thread of Things The Mystery of Oberwald Zabriskie Point The Passenger Blow-Up Works Cited and Consulted Index

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Book SynopsisMakes a contribution to scholarship on Jean-Luc Godard, especially his films and videos since the late 1980s. Through detailed analyses of extended sequences, technical innovations, and formal experiments, the author provides an original interpretation of a series of several internally related films.Trade Review"[Morgan navigates] provocative claims ... with a rigorous logic that his lucid prose is able to explicate on both micro and macro levels." -- Clayton Dillard Slant Magazine "Valuable... An enormous boon for thinking about Godard's late work and an enjoyable read beyond that... Highly Recommended." -- R. P. Kinsman Choice "An essential tool for understanding Godard, and the essential resource on Godard's later years." -- James Harvey-Davitt Film-Philosophy "Compelling arguments [that] Morgan approaches with care and subtlety." -- Richard Rushton The Years Work in Critical and Cultural TheoryTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART ONE 1. The Work of Aesthetics 2. Nature and Its Discontents 3. Politics by Other Means PART TWO 4. Cinema without Photography 5. What Projection Does 6. Cinema after the End of Cinema (Again) Notes Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on a range of materials untapped by previous historians, this book offers an comprehensive study of Weber's remarkable career as director, screenwriter, and actress. It also provides a compelling evidence of the extraordinary role that women played in shaping American movie culture.Trade Review"A recommended work of early film scholarship... Lois Weber in Early Hollywood stands as one of the better filmmaker studies in recent years." * Journal of Film and Video *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Portrait of a Filmmaker 1. Creating a Signature 2. "Life's Mirror": Progressive Films for a Progressive Era 3. Women's Labor, Creative Control, and "Independence" in a Changing Industry 4. "Exit Flapper, Enter Woman"; or, Weber in Jazz Age Hollywood Conclusion: "Forgotten with a Vengeance" Notes Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the first full-length study in any language of the most significant film director of Italian Neorealism. Peter Brunette combines close analyses of Roberto Rossellini's formal and narrative style with a thorough account of his position in the political and cultural landscape of postwar Italy. More than forty films are explored, including Open City, Paisan, Voyage to Italy, The Rise to Power of Louis XIV, and films made in the director's later years that documented crucial epochs in human history. Brunette's book is based on eight years of research, during which he interviewed members of the director's family as well as Rossellini himself. Brunette also draws on an enormous body of European and American criticism and discusses the various intellectual debates spawned by the director's work. This landmark study is both a comprehensive introduction to one of the most influential practitioners of the contemporary cinema and a boldly original discussion of Italian Neorealism. This ti

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Book SynopsisWhen Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli began making sexploitation films together in 1956, they provoked audiences by featuring explicit nudity that would increasingly become more audacious, constantly challenging contemporary norms. Their Argentine films developed a large and international fan base. Analyzing the couple's films and their subsequent censorship,Violated Frames develops a new, roughly constructed, and bad archive of relocated materials to debate questions of performance, authorship, stardom, sexuality, and circulation. Victoria Ruétalo situates Bó and Sarli's films amidst the popular culture and sexual norms in post-1955 Argentina, and explores these films through the lens of bodies engaged in labor and leisure in a context of growing censorship. Under Perón, manual labor produced an affect that fixed a specific type of body to the populist movement of Peronism: a type of body that was young, lower-classed, and highly gendered. The excesses of leisure in exhibition, enjoyment, Trade Review"Violated Frames: Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli's Sexploits is an essential read for anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating piece of World Cinema history and the fabulous icon that was Isabel Sarli." * CinemaRetro *Table of ContentsCONTENTS List of Illustrations Note on Translation Foreword by Annie Sprinkle Acknowledgments Introduction The Signature of a “Bad Cinema” Part I: Bodies and Archives 1. Bodies through Time . . . Time through Bodies 2. Reading Bad Cinema through “Bad Archives” Part II: Censoring Bodies in Labor and Leisure 3. Disciplining Bodies through Censors’ Shears 4. Collective Working-Class Male Bodies 5. Affective Intimate Interludes The Risky Female Body Conclusion “You won with the censors. . . . They couldn’t stop you!” Notes Selected Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisWhen Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli began making sexploitation films together in 1956, they provoked audiences by featuring explicit nudity that would increasingly become more audacious, constantly challenging contemporary norms. Their Argentine films developed a large and international fan base. Analyzing the couple's films and their subsequent censorship,Violated Frames develops a new, roughly constructed, and bad archive of relocated materials to debate questions of performance, authorship, stardom, sexuality, and circulation. Victoria Ruétalo situates Bó and Sarli's films amidst the popular culture and sexual norms in post-1955 Argentina, and explores these films through the lens of bodies engaged in labor and leisure in a context of growing censorship. Under Perón, manual labor produced an affect that fixed a specific type of body to the populist movement of Peronism: a type of body that was young, lower-classed, and highly gendered. The excesses of leisure in exhibition, enjoyment, and ecstasy in Bó and Sarli's films interrupted the already fragmented film narratives of the day and created alternative sexual possibilities. Trade Review"Violated Frames: Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli's Sexploits is an essential read for anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating piece of World Cinema history and the fabulous icon that was Isabel Sarli." * CinemaRetro *Table of ContentsCONTENTS List of Illustrations Note on Translation Foreword by Annie Sprinkle Acknowledgments Introduction The Signature of a “Bad Cinema” Part I: Bodies and Archives 1. Bodies through Time . . . Time through Bodies 2. Reading Bad Cinema through “Bad Archives” Part II: Censoring Bodies in Labor and Leisure 3. Disciplining Bodies through Censors’ Shears 4. Collective Working-Class Male Bodies 5. Affective Intimate Interludes The Risky Female Body Conclusion “You won with the censors. . . . They couldn’t stop you!” Notes Selected Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisThe Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, who died at the age of 88, has been internationally acclaimed as a giant of world cinema. This book discusses how Kurosawa furnished a template for some well-known Hollywood directors, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. It provides a comprehensive look at this master filmmaker.Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1991 "The Warrior's Camera is not only a thoughtful, stimulating and rigorous study but also a major addition to both Kurosawa and Japanese film scholarship. Its examination of the intersection of self, culture, and history is meticulously done; its extended close analysis of individual films, especially Ikiru, Yojimbo, High and Low, and Red Beard, is superbly confident."--Film Quarterly "The subtle nuances that enrich Akira Kurosawa's intense cinemagraphic imagery distinguish Stephen Prince's insightful study, The Warrior's Camera."--American Cinematographer "[Prince's] close analysis of the films generates many superb insights. This work is accessible, nicely illustrated and an essential text about a great subject."--ChoiceTable of ContentsIllustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv 1 Viewing Kurosawa 3 2 The Dialectics of Style 32 3 Willpower Can Cure All Human Ailments 67 4 Experiments and Adaptations 114 5 Form and the Modern World 155 6 History and the Period Film 200 7 Years of Transition 250 8 The Final Period 292 9 The Legacy 340 Notes 359 Films Directed by Akira Kurosawa 397 Bibliography 399 Index 411

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2021""Longlisted for the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award, Moving Image Category""Longlisted for the National Translation Award, American Literary Translators Association""A revelation, a trove of snappy pieces that give the reader tantalizing glimpses of the mature film satirist."---Marc Weingarten, Washington Post"The brightest moments here let you watch a little more of the human comedy through Billy Wilder’s eyes. Few saw it as clearly he did or had more fun writing it down."---Jeremy McCarter, Wall Street Journal"Readers who come to Billy Wilder on Assignment to find the seeds of the films for which he is famous—nearly all of them, one assumes—will not be disappointed."---Ryan Ruby, Bookforum"A delicious compilation."---Tobias Grey, Financial Times ​​​​​"The most successful story in this collection, ‘Waiter, a Dancer, Please!,’ about being a hoofer for hire at a big hotel, is waspish and (if you allow for the choppy sentences) jazz-era excitable, New Yorker–ish, with a self-deprecating turn and a fairly urbane sense of the perfectly ridiculous."---Andrew O'Hagan, New York Review of Books"Long before he became the celebrated filmmaker of 'Sunset Boulevard,' 'Some Like It Hot' and 'The Apartment,' a young Billy Wilder worked briefly as a dancer for hire in the ballroom of a fashionable Berlin hotel. As he described the endeavor . . . for a German newspaper in 1927, 'This is no easy way to earn your daily bread, nor is it the kind that sentimental, softhearted types can stomach. But others can live from it.' Wilder’s observations on his experience—from one of his many delightfully acerbic pieces of journalism anthologized in Billy Wilder on Assignment . . . get to the heart of our enduring obsessions with show business and the performing arts."---Dave Itzkoff, New York Times"Sharp and witty. . . . Full of glorious turns of phrase, entertaining narratives, and quirky characters. . . . . Thumbing through Wilder’s essays from the 1920s will make you feel as if you are enjoying yourself at a German coffeehouse, catching up on popular culture, and planning your next weekend adventure in the Weimar Republic. Isenberg and Frisch have done a great service for film historians and fans of classic Hollywood."---Chris Yogerst, Los Angeles Review of Books"An irresistible collection of articles, profiles, and reviews from Wilder’s salad-und-bratwurst days in Berlin, where he worked as a roving journalist, critic, and scene-maker between 1926 and 1930. . . . Isenberg is an expert guide to the Berlin-to-Hollywood axis, and Frisch is a veteran translator."---Thomas Doherty, Tablet Magazine"Billy Wilder on Assignment is, as my colleague, TIME Magazine film critic Stephanie Zacharek kvelled to me in an email, ‘the little book you didn’t know you needed.'"---Jordan Hoffman, Times of Israel"A must-read for film buffs and history aficionados alike."---Tobias Carroll, Inside Hook"This new volume takes in the most significant staging posts of Wilder’s early career."---Gavin Plumley, Literary Review"[Wilder] quickly moved on to Berlin and became a prolific writer of occasional pieces for papers such as Der Querschnitt and the Berliner Börsen Courier. Selections of these articles have been published before but are long out of print, and were never translated into English. Now, thankfully, Professor Isenberg of the University of Texas has put this frustrating situation to rights with a lively anthology, translated by Shelley Frisch into a brisk, punchy English which feels as though it must be an accurate reflection of the young Wilder’s original tone."---Jonathan Coe, Spectator"The opportunity to read Wilder’s journalism in English is welcome. . . . What’s particularly impressive, even slightly eerie, is how many times this young film buff and Americanophile wrote about people he would later work with in Hollywood." * Bookforum *"A delightful and illuminating collection."---Sam Wasson, Air Mail"There is no question that Billy Wilder on Assignment is the most historically important recent book exploring the early days of a major filmmaker. It compiles, for the first time, Wilder’s writings as a young freelance reporter in 1920s Berlin and Vienna. The result is an incredible glimpse of Wilder’s mind at a key age."---Christopher Schobert, The Film Stage"Billy Wilder On Assignment . . . explores the roots of one of Hollywood’s most accomplished and acclaimed directors in the fervid journalistic atmosphere of Central Europe between world wars. . . . Shelley Frisch—one of the nimblest and liveliest translators working today—renders Wilder’s journalism into an English that leaps off the page with deadline urgency. . . . Isenberg's collection offers those interested in the Golden Age of Hollywood valuable new insight into one of its most significant personalities. It is also a vivid account of the vanished world that helped shape Billy Wilder." * Wilson Quarterly *"Let it be said that Billy Wilder on Assignment – Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna, is an altogether wonderful read. In fact it reads as if a fine, literary, malt-whiskey."---David Marx, David Marx: Book Reviews"The new anthology Billy Wilder on Assignment proves Wilder's verbal and narrative gifts existed long before he set foot in Hollywood during the 1930s."---Dan Lybarger, Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette"Readers will have fun picking out elements, traits and incidents in these lively witty texts and attempting to match them with Wilder’s later cinematic masterpieces."---Alexander Adams, Alexander Adams Art"Billy Wilder on Assignment . . . provides a long-overdue translation of Billy Wilder’s early writings in German. . . . The anthology will be of interest to both the academic and general public."---Nora Gortcheva, EuropeNow"Very nice."---Tom Stoppard, Times Literary Supplement"In this first English-language compilation of Wilder’s early journalism . . . we can see the mischievous humour and love of snappy dialogue characteristic of his later movies."---Monica Porter, The Jewish Chronicle"Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna is a revealing collection of his lively reportage from those two cities. . . . [The book] create[s] a portrait of a man who is so much more complex than a mere cynic."---Kevin Lally, Cineaste Magazine"“Billy Wilder on Assignment is a beautifully assembled collection of the early writings of a master storyteller whose body of work has entertained moviemakers and movie watchers for generations."---Leonora Cravotta, American Spectator

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Book SynopsisWith a sharp eye for social detail and the pressures of class inequality, Alfred Hitchcock brought to the American scene a perspicacity and analytical shrewdness unparalleled in American cinema. Murray Pomerance works from a basis in cultural analysis and a detailed knowledge of Alfred Hitchcock''s films and production techniques to explore how America of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s is revealed and critically commented upon in Hitchcock''s work. Alfred Hitchcock''s America is full of stunning details that bring new light to Hitchcock''s method and works. The American spirit of place, is seen here in light of the titanic American personality, American values in a consumer age, social class and American social form, and the characteristic American marriage. The book's analysis ranges across a wide array of films from Rebecca to Family Plot, and examines in depth the location sequences, characterological types, and complex social expectations that riddled AmericanTrade Review"A must-have for the shelves of any horror lover, film buff or teenager wondering where on earth the idea for the slasher genre could have been born and what cultural landscape could have fostered such ideas."—Film Ireland "Written with immense brio and an effortless command of its materials, Murray Pomerance provides surprising readings of both neglected and familiar films, but never strays from the overarching question of how Hitchcock's work, from 1940 till 1975, achieves an identifiably American character."—George Toles, University of Manitoba "This book is a treasure-trove for students of film, historians, and sociologists. Drawing on extremely close analysis, Pomerance leads us through the ways Hitchcock observed and took careful note of American topographies before exploiting complex technologies that he — Pomerance — explains to uninitiated readers with deft clarity. Written with flair and panache, Alfred Hitchcock's America brings to the reader dazzling insights about Hitchcock's studies of American life."—Tom Conley, Harvard University "What comes through most vividly in this stylish study is the physical poetry of Hitchcock's American films. With grace and insight, Murray Pomerance describes the colors, the rhythms of speech and movement, and the concrete spaces of Hitchcock's America in a way that makes these films new again. This is a book every cinephile will want to read."—Robert Burgoyne, University of St Andrews and author of Film Nation: Hollywood Looks at US History "Pomerance’s analysis is insightful, and his film analysis is superb. This book makes the reader want to watch these keynote films again and again: and as such, we join Pomerance in his celebration of the great master himself."—Ian Dixon, SAE Institute and Qantm College, MelbourneTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Alfred Hitchcock in America 1 1 Hitchcock's American Scapes 18 2 Hitchcock's American Personalities 71 3 Hitchcock and American Values 123 4 Hitchcock and American Social Form 176 5 Hitchcock and the American Marriage 225 Works Cited and Consulted 284 Index 305

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Book SynopsisLong before Sam Peckinpah finished shooting his 1973 Western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, there was open warfare between him and the studio. In this scrupulously researched new book Paul Seydor reconstructs the riveting history of a brilliant director fighting to preserve an artistic vision while wrestling with his own self destructive demons.

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Book SynopsisOffers a history and analysis of the essay film, one of the most significant forms of intellectual filmmaking since the end of World War II. Warner incisively reconsiders the defining traits and legacies of this still-evolving genre through a groundbreaking examination of the vast and formidable oeuvre of Jean-Luc Godard.Trade Review“Godard and the Essay Film is a first-rate piece of scholarship that makes substantial contributions on a variety of topics, including the essay as literary and cinematic form, film and philosophy, and the study of the indispensable oeuvre of Jean-Luc Godard." —Michael Renov, author of The Subject of Documentary"Godard and the Essay Film is an exceptionally innovative and fresh study that manages to rethink one of the most important and challenging filmmakers in cinema history. In the process, Warner has also engaged one of the most important and prominent waves in modern filmmaking, the essay film. While there is a growing body of scholarship on this subject, Warner's more focused engagement offers keen new insights that extend beyond Godard's work." —Timothy Corrigan, author of The Essay Film: From Montaigne, after MarkerTable of Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: Research in the Form of a Spectacle Chapter Two: A Critical Poetics of Citation Chapter Three: Refiguring the Couple: Love, Dialogue, and Gesture Chapter Four: To Show and Show Oneself Showing: Essayistic Self-Portrayal Coda Stereoscopic Essays for the New Century Notes Index

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Book SynopsisArgues that Alfred Hitchcock was as much a filmmaker of things and places as he was of people. Drawing on the thought of Bruno Latour, John Bruns traces the complex relations of human and nonhuman agents in Hitchcock's films with the aim of mapping the Hitchcock landscape cognitively, affectively, and politically.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Oumano's work shines—she offers the choicest nuggets and insights by filmmakers talking about their art." -- Wheeler Winston Dixon * coauthor of A Short History of Film *"Cinema Today is a fascinating look at film as an art form. Oumano's book is an outstanding contribution to the field, crammed full of essential information about the production process and enlightening details of personal experiences that any aspiring filmmaker can use." * Foreword Reviews *"Oumano's work shines—she offers the choicest nuggets and insights by filmmakers talking about their art." -- Wheeler Winston Dixon * coauthor of A Short History of Film *"Cinema Today is a fascinating look at film as an art form. Oumano's book is an outstanding contribution to the field, crammed full of essential information about the production process and enlightening details of personal experiences that any aspiring filmmaker can use." * Foreword Reviews *Table of ContentsIntroduction Acknowledgments 1. Cinematography 2. Cinema and Sound 3. Working with Actors 4. Cinematic Rhythm and Structure 5. The Process: Pre-Production, Production, and Post-Production 6. The Business: Financing, Distribution, and Exhibition 7. Cinema, Art, and Reality 8. The Viewer 9. Cinema and Society Profiles of the Filmmakers

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Book SynopsisClint Eastwood has appeared in virtually every major film genre and, at this late point in his career, has emerged as one of America’s most popular and respected—though controversial—filmmakers. Tough Ain’t Enough offers readers a series of original essays by prominent cinema scholars who explore the actor-director’s extensive career. Trade Review"The editors have assembled a diverse group of scholars and turned them loose to make sense of the vast array of contradictions that is Clint Eastwood. This is a unique and extraordinary collection with not a weak chapter in it." -- Dennis Bingham * author of Whose Lives Are They Anyway?: The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre *"Chronicle of Higher Education 'New Scholarly Books' Weekly Book List, August 31, 2018," compiled by Nina C. Ayoub * Chronicle of Higher Education *"Highly recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsChapter 1: The Teller and the Tale: An Introduction to the Films of Clint Eastwood Lester D. Friedman and David Desser Part I: Crosscurrents Chapter 2: “I Don’t Want Nobody Belonging to Me”: Riding the Post-Leone Western Stephen Prince Chapter 3: “God/Country/Family:” The Military Movies Lester D. Friedman Chapter 4: “A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations”: The Cop Films from Nixon through Reagan Jonathan Kirshner Chapter 5: “I’m Not So Tough”: Melodrama and Performance in the Later Films Diane Carson Chapter 6: “Heroes are Something We Create: The Biopics” David Sterritt Part II: Controversies Chapter 7: “I Am a Camera”: Clint Eastwood’s Performative Gaze Murray Pomerance Chapter 8: “You ain’t ugly like me; it’s just that we both got scars”: Women in Eastwood’s Films Lucy Bolton Chapter 9: “I know I'm as blind as a slab of concrete, but I'm not helpless”: Eastwood and the Aging Action Hero David Desser Chapter 10: “Seems like we can’t trust the White Man”: The Theater of Race in and out of Eastwood’s Films Alexandra Keller Chapter 11: Play Music for Me: Eastwood’s Film Scores Charity Lofthouse Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisClint Eastwood has appeared in virtually every major film genre and, at this late point in his career, has emerged as one of America’s most popular and respected—though controversial—filmmakers. Tough Ain’t Enough offers readers a series of original essays by prominent cinema scholars who explore the actor-director’s extensive career. Trade Review"The editors have assembled a diverse group of scholars and turned them loose to make sense of the vast array of contradictions that is Clint Eastwood. This is a unique and extraordinary collection with not a weak chapter in it." -- Dennis Bingham * author of Whose Lives Are They Anyway?: The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre *"Chronicle of Higher Education 'New Scholarly Books' Weekly Book List, August 31, 2018," compiled by Nina C. Ayoub * Chronicle of Higher Education *"Highly recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsChapter 1: The Teller and the Tale: An Introduction to the Films of Clint Eastwood Lester D. Friedman and David Desser Part I: Crosscurrents Chapter 2: “I Don’t Want Nobody Belonging to Me”: Riding the Post-Leone Western Stephen Prince Chapter 3: “God/Country/Family:” The Military Movies Lester D. Friedman Chapter 4: “A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations”: The Cop Films from Nixon through Reagan Jonathan Kirshner Chapter 5: “I’m Not So Tough”: Melodrama and Performance in the Later Films Diane Carson Chapter 6: “Heroes are Something We Create: The Biopics” David Sterritt Part II: Controversies Chapter 7: “I Am a Camera”: Clint Eastwood’s Performative Gaze Murray Pomerance Chapter 8: “You ain’t ugly like me; it’s just that we both got scars”: Women in Eastwood’s Films Lucy Bolton Chapter 9: “I know I'm as blind as a slab of concrete, but I'm not helpless”: Eastwood and the Aging Action Hero David Desser Chapter 10: “Seems like we can’t trust the White Man”: The Theater of Race in and out of Eastwood’s Films Alexandra Keller Chapter 11: Play Music for Me: Eastwood’s Film Scores Charity Lofthouse Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisStanley Kubrick reexamines this internationally renowned director’s work in the context of the unique cultural milieu from which he emerged. Digging deep into rare archives to reveal insights about Kubrick’s life and times, Nathan Abrams also offers an in-depth analysis of classics like Lolita, 2001, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket.Trade Review"Stanley Kubrick is outstanding in its approach and the material it covers. As a pioneer work, anyone investigating Kubrick in the future would not be able to overlook Abrams' findings and arguments." -- Marat Grinberg * coeditor of Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen *"With imagination and intellectual rigor, using archival research and close readings of the films, Nathan Abrams explores Stanley Kubrick’s relationship with his Jewishness in this exceptionally readable and convincing book." -- Robert P. Kolker * author of The Extraordinary Image *"Brilliantly documents and analyzes Kubrick's Jewish sensibility by locating him in the lifelong context of his Jewish cultural and intellectual milieu. Abrams breaks acres of new ground. Essential reading." -- Geoffrey Cocks * author of The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, and the Holocaust *“A must-read for anyone interested in Kubrick, this original and provocative study combines wonderfully perceptive film analyses with extensive archival research and a dazzling display of cultural-historical and biographical knowledge.” -- Peter Krämer * author of BFI Film Classics on Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey *"Written by Nathan Abrams, a superstar of contemporary Kubrick studies, this wonderfully knowledgeable and scholarly account of the great director’s Jewishness is the most original film book I’ve read for many years." -- I.Q. Hunter * author of Cult Film as a Guide to Life: Fandom, Adaptation, and Identity *"Stanley Kubrick’s films all had one thing in common: Jewishness" by Nathan Abrams * The Conversation *" [A] pathbreaking new book." * Tablet Magazine *"The Secret Jewish History Of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’" by Nathan Abrams * Forward *"In Nathan Abrams’s Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual, [an] exploration of the contradictions of Kubrick’s relation to Jewish identity, the film is seen through the lens of Biblical allusion and Kabbalistic interpretation." * Wall Street Journal *"Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, by Michael Benson" by Nathan Abrams * Times Higher Education *Jewish Views podcast interview with Nathan Abrams * Jewish Views Podcast *"An impressive work of original scholarship, Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual presents an exceptionally informative study of one of the twentieth century's most renowned and yet misunderstood film directors." * Midwest Book Review *"No film or Jewish history holding should be without this different approach to Kubrick's film magic." * Donovan's Literary Services *"Weekly Book List, May 25, 2018" by Nina Ayoub mention of Stanley Kubrick * Chronicle of Higher Education *"Kubrick's Universe," the Stanley Kubrick podcast - 9 Stanley Kubrick New York Jewish Intellectual with Nathan Abrams * Kubrick's Universe podcast *"[An] extraordinarily entertaining new book." * Village Voice *"Abrams combines close readings of the films with intensive, archival research into the source material— scripts, production documents, and Kubrick’s personal papers and artifacts—which collectively tell a Jewish story." * Jewish Review of Books *"Kubrick, the enigmatic Jew," by Nathan Abrams * Jewish Chronicle *"Lost Stanley Kubrick screenplay, Burning Secret, is found 60 years on" by Dan Alberge * The Guardian/Observer *"Scholar reveals morbid roots of lost Stanley Kubrick script," by JP O'Malley * The Times of Israel * "Abrams...[identifies] each and every Jewish allusion in Kubrick’s oeuvre that he can find." * Times Literary Supplement *"The power of the book as a whole...will be riveting reading for anyone who loves Kubrick's film." * Jerusalem Post Magazine *"Abrams asserts that if you look closely enough, the tension between being a cultural and religious Jew turns up frequently in Kubrick’s work." * Jewish Journal *"Abrams...makes a very convincing case that while Kubrick posed as an atheist technocrat filmmaker who wanted his films to appeal to worldwide audiences, among the many things he was burying in their subtexts were 'the concerns of Jewish intellectuals in the post-Holocaust world'....Ultimately though, are Abrams’ assumptions correct? Many of them ring true and likely are." * PJ Media *"How Jewish Was Stanley Kubrick?" by Nathan Abrams * Zocalo Public Square *"Every scholar and devotee of Kubrick will want to read Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual." * Film Quarterly *"Irresistible reading." * Cineaste *"Nathan Abrams’ recent and remarkably insightful book published by Rutgers University Press in 2018." * Senses of Cinema *"No stone is unturned, no link untraced. Fans will revisit Kubrick’s movies with increased appreciation of the depth and complexity that make them compelling, and new ideas to fuel speculations. Academics will find plenty to rekindle debates about matters such as authorship, genre, adaptation, context and audience address, making this a significant intervention beyond the sub-field of Kubrick studies." * Shofar *"No stone is unturned, no link untraced. Fans will revisit Kubrick’s movies with increased appreciation of the depth and complexity that make them compelling, and new ideas to fuel speculations. Academics will find plenty to rekindle debates about matters such as authorship, genre, adaptation, context, and audience address, making this a significant intervention beyond the subfield of Kubrick studies." * H-Judaic *"Abrams’s study—this is not the least of its virtues—encourages us to revisit the films with a refreshed, enlightened eye. This is what any serious and good work of film criticism should do." * Senses of Cinema *"We’re still finding Jewish clues in Kubrick’s work 20 years after his last film," by Nathan Abrams https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/were-still-finding-jewish-clues-in-kubricks-work-20-years-after-his-last-film/ * Times of Israel *"Readers interested in a systematic dissection of how Jewish themes are coded in Kubrick's work are directed to Nathan Abrams' Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual." * Pop Matters *"As he digs deep into rare Kubrick archives to reveal insights about the director’s life and times, film scholar Nathan Abrams also provides a nuanced account of Kubrick’s cinematic artistry. Each chapter offers a detailed analysis of one of Kubrick’s major films, including Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut. Stanley Kubrick thus presents an illuminating look at one of the twentieth century’s most renowned and yet misunderstood directors." * Jewish Book World *"Stanley Kubrick as American film master," by Aaron Howard * Jewish Herald-Voice *"Abrams’s book is a towering achievement in the ever-burgeoning literature on Kubrick. It genuinely reveals new perspectives on Kubrick through its ability to read the autobiographical allusions present in all of his films, and it provides a vital argument as to the importance of the director’s Jewish ancestry on his art." * Modern Jewish Studies *"Abrams offers fine-grained readings and interpretations of Kubrick’s career as a photographer and director, including insights into Kubrick’s process of development and production. Abrams is particularly attuned to the paradoxical pattern of Kubrick’s erasure of overt Jewish representation from source material while simultaneously interweaving Jewish themes, symbols, and cultural textures into his art." * Journal of Religion and Film *"Abrams dug through the archives to provide a detailed re-examination of Kubrick’s films through the context of his Jewish background. The book details themes and concepts such as masculinity and ethical responsibility. Abrams also explores Kubrick’s fraught relationship with his Jewish identity, and how his reluctance to be pegged as an 'ethnic' director manifested in the removal of Jewish references and characters from stories he adapted." * IndieWire *Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Looking to Killing2 The Macho Mensch3 Kubrick’s Double4 Banality and the Bomb5 Kubrick and Kabbalah6 A Mechanical Mensch7 A Spatial Odyssey8 Dream Interpretation9 Men as Meat10 Kubrick’s CodaEpilogueAcknowledgmentsNotesSelect BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisIntroduces readers to a vast menagerie of movie monsters. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, Grant presents us with an eclectic array of monster movies, from Nosferatu to Get Out. As he discovers, although monster movies might claim to be about “Them!”, they are really about the capacity for horror that lurks within each of us.Trade Review"Barry Keith Grant is an ideal guide in this wide-ranging survey of monsters in the movies. He leaps across genres, periods, and critical traditions with authority and verve."— Adam Lowenstein, author of Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film "This is far more than a very handy guidebook to monsters in the movies. Barry Keith Grant’s prose is lucid, and informed by a keen intelligence and exhaustive scholarship demonstrating his mastery of the genre. This is a great read!"— Christopher Sharrett, author of The Rifleman "Barry Keith Grant’s Monster Cinema is an 'unnaturally' fine book, providing readers with a concise, engaging, and perceptive historical and ideological overview that attests to the enduring power of this genre."— Lester D. Friedman, coauthor of Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives "The book is highly recommended, because, as Grant himself notes, our survival depends on understanding monsters—in other words, on understanding ourselves." — Science Fiction ReviewsTable of ContentsContents 1 Meeting Movie Monsters: Monsters R Us 2 Human Monsters 3 Natural Monsters 4 Supernatural Monsters Acknowledgments Further Reading Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisMonster Cinema introduces readers to a vast menagerie of movie monsters, from gigantic beasts to microscopic parasites, from grotesque demons to normal-looking serial killers. Film expert Barry Keith Grant considers what each type of movie monster might reveal about how we regard the natural, the supernatural, and the human. Trade Review"This is far more than a very handy guidebook to monsters in the movies. Barry Keith Grant’s prose is lucid, and informed by a keen intelligence and exhaustive scholarship demonstrating his mastery of the genre. This is a great read!" -- Christopher Sharrett * author of The Rifleman *"Barry Keith Grant’s Monster Cinema is an 'unnaturally' fine book, providing readers with a concise, engaging, and perceptive historical and ideological overview that attests to the enduring power of this genre." -- Lester D. Friedman * coauthor of Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives *"Barry Keith Grant is an ideal guide in this wide-ranging survey of monsters in the movies. He leaps across genres, periods, and critical traditions with authority and verve." -- Adam Lowenstein * author of Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film *"The book is highly recommended, because, as Grant himself notes, our survival depends on understanding monsters—in other words, on understanding ourselves." * Science Fiction Reviews *Table of ContentsContents 1 Meeting Movie Monsters: Monsters R Us 2 Human Monsters 3 Natural Monsters 4 Supernatural Monsters Acknowledgments Further Reading Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisContains twenty in-depth studies of prominent New Zealand directors, producers, actors, and cinematographers. This book displays the diversity of filmmaking in New Zealand and highlights the specific industrial, aesthetic, and cultural concerns that have created a film culture of international significance.

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Book SynopsisProlific director Howard Hawks made films in nearly every genre, from gangster movies like ""Scarface"" to comedies like ""Bringing Up Baby"" and ""Monkey Business"" and westerns like ""Rio Bravo."" This work explores the ways in which Hawks pushed the boundaries of each genre and transformed the traditional forms in interesting and creative ways.

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Book SynopsisOne of world cinema's most exciting filmmakers, Pedro Almodvar has been delighting, provoking, arousing, shocking, and-above all-entertaining audiences around the globe since he first burst on the international film scene in the early 1980s. All about Almodvar

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Book SynopsisOne of the most prolific and respected directors of the Japanese cinema, Naruse Mikio (1905-69) made eighty-nine films between 1930 and 1967. This book illuminates Naruse's contributions to Japanese and world cinema.Trade Review“The Cinema of Naruse Mikio presents not only a deft and subtle run-through of the world of an important auteur, but also a virtual encapsulation of the intellectual history of Japanese cinema during its most important period, the 1930s–60s. Catherine Russell contextualizes Naruse in the commercial situation in which he worked and in the historical, social, political, and intellectual project of mid-twentieth-century Japan. I came away firmly believing that Naruse was more attuned to how modernity was leaving its indelible marks on Japanese women than any other director of classical Japanese cinema. For students of feminist film criticism, Russell’s book is an absolute must.”—David Desser, author of Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema“A confluence of many forces produced the great (and stereotypical) triumvirate of Japanese cinema: Kurosawa/Mizoguchi/Ozu. However, even as these three took their positions at the forefront of auteurism, a fourth name was regularly invoked and too often ignored. Perhaps this was to be expected. Naruse Makio’s films lacked period color for those searching for Oriental spectacle. Likewise, scholars celebrating formal inventiveness mistook Naruse’s cinematic style for pedestrian convention. Those who looked at the director’s films closely, however, knew that this was an extraordinary body of films and for a good many reasons. Catherine Russell looked closer than anyone, and has discovered a critical framework that provides us solid footing for exploring Naruse’s modern world. Working meticulously through all sixty-seven extant films, Russell gradually reveals a director and team of technicians and actors exploring the contradictions, hopes, and disappointments of modern Japan—particularly for women, who participate in and contribute to modernity both on and off Naruse’s screen. The Cinema of Naruse Mikio is a vivid and long-needed survey of the director’s life work and the everyday landscape of twentieth-century Japan.”—Abé Mark Nornes, author of Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary“A confluence of many forces produced the great (and stereotypical) triumvirate of Japanese cinema: Kurosawa/Mizoguchi/Ozu. However, even as these three took their positions at the forefront of auteurism, a fourth name was regularly invoked and too often ignored. Perhaps this was to be expected. Naruse Makio’s films lacked period color for those searching for Oriental spectacle. Likewise, scholars celebrating formal inventiveness mistook Naruse’s cinematic style for pedestrian convention. Those who looked at the director’s films closely, however, knew that this was an extraordinary body of films and for a good many reasons. Catherine Russell looked closer than anyone, and has discovered a critical framework that provides us solid footing for exploring Naruse’s modern world. Working meticulously through all sixty-seven extant films, Russell gradually reveals a director and team of technicians and actors exploring the contradictions, hopes, and disappointments of modern Japan—particularly for women, who participate in and contribute to modernity both on and off Naruse’s screen. The Cinema of Naruse Mikio is a vivid and long-needed survey of the director’s life work and the everyday landscape of twentieth-century Japan.”—Abé Mark Nornes, author of Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary“Even for those who read Japanese and are familiar with Naruse Mikio’s work, Catherine Russell’s book contributes to a new understanding of his cinema. Russell shows how Naruse’s films contributed to Japanese modernity as a cultural movement, and, using feminist film criticism and Miriam Hansen’s influential concept of ‘vernacular modernism,’ she traces how his films illuminate female subjectivity throughout the studio era.”—Daisuke Miyao, author of Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational StardomTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Preface xi Introduction: The Auteur as Salaryman 1 1. The Silent Films: Women in the City, 1930-1934 39 2. Naruse as P.C.L.: Toward a Japanese Classical Cinema, 1935-1937 81 3. Not a Monumental Cinema: Wartime Vernacular, 1938-1945 131 4. The Occupation Years: Cinema, Democracy, and Japanese Kitsch, 1945-1952 167 5. The Japanese Woman's Film of the 1950s, 1952-1958 226 6. Naruse in the 1960s: Stranded in Modernity, 1958-1967 315 Conclusion 398 Notes 405 Filmography 431 Bibliography 435 Index 447

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Book SynopsisMax Evans, one of Sam Peckinpah’s best friends, experienced the director’s mercurial character and personal demons firsthand. In this enthralling memoir we follow Evans and Peckinpah through conversations in bars, family gatherings, binges on drugs and alcohol, struggles with film producers and executives, and Peckinpah’s abusive behaviour.Trade ReviewDirector Sam Peckinpah, the mad genius of film, managed to drive away almost everyone who worked with him or drank with him. Max Evans stayed loyal to the end. His graphic reflections in Goin' Crazy with Sam Peckinpah and All Our Friends make you wonder how he did it." —Richard Gaughran, James Madison University "A remarkable memoir by a true westerner, Max Evans, on the wild, turbulent life and career of the great Sam Peckinpah, a man who created so much, and destroyed so much, in his all-too-brief life." —John L. Simons, coauthor of Peckinpah's Tragic Westerns: A Critical Study

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Book SynopsisA Companion to Steven Spielberg provides an authoritative collection of essays exploring the achievements and legacy of one of the most influential film directors of the modern era.Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors x Acknowledgements xvii Film and Television Programs: Steven Spielberg (chronological) xviii 1 Introduction 1Nigel Morris Part One Industry and Agency 25 2 Spielberg as Director, Producer, and Movie Mogul 27Thomas Schatz 3 Producing the Spielberg “Brand” 45James Russell Part Two Narration and Style 59 4 Magisterial Juvenilia: Amblin’ and Spielberg’s Early Television Work 61Nigel Morris 5 Finding His Voice: Experimentation and Innovation in Duel, The Sugarland Express, and 1941 103James Kendrick 6 Creating a Cliff hanger: Narration in The Lost World: Jurassic Park 122Warren Buckland 7 Steven Spielberg and the Rhetoric of an Ending 137Michael Walker 8 The Spielberg Gesture: Performance and Intensified Continuity 159Steven Rybin Part Three Collaborations and Intertexts 173 9 Spielberg–Williams: Symphonic Cinema 175Jack Sullivan 10 Spielberg and Kubrick 195Peter Krämer 11 Spielberg and Adaptation 212I.Q. Hunter 12 “A very cruel death of innocence”: Notes Toward an Appreciation of Spielberg’s Film of Empire of the Sun 227Neil Sinyard Part Four Themes and Variations 241 13 “Who am I, David?”: Motherhood in Spielberg’s Dramas of Family Dysfunction 243Linda Ruth Williams 14 Close Encounters of the Paternal Kind: Spielberg’s Fatherhoods 258Murray Pomerance 15 Spielberg and Rockwell: Realism and the Liberal Imagination 276Frederick Wasser 16 Too Brave for Foolish Pride: Violence in the Films of Steven Spielberg 291Stephen Prince Part Five Spielberg, History, and Identity 305 17 Morality Tales? Visions of the Past in Spielberg’s History Plays 307Sarah Barrow 18 “Britain’s Secret Schindler”: The Impact of Schindler’s List on British Media Perceptions of Civilian Heroes 320Erin Bell 19 The (M)orality of Murder: Jews, Food, and Steven Spielberg’s Munich 336Nathan Abrams and Gerwyn Owen 20 You Must Remember This: History as Film/Film as History 353Lester D. Friedman 21 Violence and Memory in Spielberg’s Lincoln 374Robert Burgoyne and John Trafton Part Six Spielberg in the Digital Age 387 22 The Spielberg Effects 389Dan North 23 Spielberg and Video Games (1982 to 2010) 410Grethe Mitchell Part Seven Reception 433 24 Sharks, Aliens, and Nazis: The Crisis of Film Criticism and the Rise of Steven Spielberg 435Raymond J. Haberski, Jr. 25 Spielberg, Fandom, and the Popular Appeal of His Blockbuster Movies 452Lincoln Geraghty 26 Steven Spielberg and the Rise of the Celebrity Film Director 466Kirsty Fairclough and Andy Willis Index of Film and Television Programs 479 Index 488

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