Description
Book SynopsisFeaturing new essays on this important director and his films, this collection explores Hartley’s work from a variety of aesthetic, cultural, and economic contexts, while also looking closely at his collaborations with actors, his reworking of the romantic comedy and other genres, and the shifting economics of his filmmaking.
Trade ReviewHal Hartley has been at work for a quarter of a century and his films still seem like fresh discoveries. Independent, individualistic, idiosyncratic, and indefatigable, he defies all known pigeonholes, and this balanced, wide-ranging collection marks a welcome new stage in the exploration of his work. -- David Sterritt, author of The Cinema of Clint Eastwood: Chronicles of America This first collection to showcase the curiously under-celebrated independent filmmaker reminds us why Hartley and his films matter. Rich in original insights about conditions of authorship into the crowdfunding era, textuality and intertextuality, film style, critical reception, the local in location production, indie genericity, performance, and more across the past 25 years, this book brings Hartley's vibrant work back to the fore of film studies. -- Mark Gallagher, University of Nottingham
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Hal Hartley: A Quality of Attention, by Steven Rybin 1. Up Close and Impersonal: Hal Hartley and the Persistence of Tradition, by David Bordwell 2. 'Young. Middle-Class. College-Educated. Unskilled.': Hal Hartley in 1991, by Mark L. Berrettini 3. 'Some Things Shouldn't Be Fixed': Frameworks of Critical Reception and the Early Career of Hal Hartley, by Jason Davids Scott 4. The Locality of Hal Hartley: The Aesthetics and Business of Smallness, by Steven Rawle 5. Hal Hartley's Romantic Comedy, by Sebastian Manley 6. A New Man: The Logic of the Break in Hal Hartley's Amateur, by Daniel Varndell 7. Not Getting It: Flirt as Anti-Puzzle Film, by Steven Rybin 8. Poiesis and Media in The Book of Life and No Such Thing, by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns 9. Bodies, Space and Theatre in The Unbelievable Truth (and its American Precursors), by Zachary Tavlin 10. Parker Posey as Hal Hartley's 'Captive Actress', by Jennifer O'Meara 11. The Figure Who Writes: On the Henry Fool Trilogy, by Steven Rybin Filmography Bibliography Index
