Search results for ""Author Professor Ewa Mazierska""

Polanski is one of the most talented and distinguished of modern film makers. A well-informed cultural traveller, interested in the position of the outsider, he is hard to pigeonhole: he moves easily between mass audience and art-house tastes, between settings and genres; his films, including 'Two Men and a Wardrobe', 'Cul de Sac', 'Rosemary?s Baby', 'The Pianist' and 'Oliver Twist', represent diverse characters and cinematic influences. Like a magpie, he?s interested in everything he encounters, but then easily discards his treasures and moves onward. Covering all Polanski?s films as director, this welcome book addresses the eclecticism, ambiguity and paradoxes of his cinema, while seeking out the common elements in his films. Ewa Mazierska examines the autobiographical effect of Polanski?s films, his characters and diverse narratives, and the place of absurdism, surrealism and the ?double life? of things in his cinema. She looks into the function of music, of religion, power, patriarchy and racism in the films, as well as Polanski?s literary adaptations and his use and subversion of film genres. Herself a Polish emigre, she uncovers Polanski's Polish roots and the extent of their influence on the cinema of this mercurial film maker, at large in the world.

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What 'live music' means for one generation or culture does not necessarily mean 'live' for another. This book examines how changes in economy, culture and technology pertaining to post-digital times affect production, performance and reception of live music. Considering established examples of live music, such as music festivals, alongside practices influenced by developments in technology, including live streaming and holograms, the book examines whether new forms stand the test of ‘live authenticity’ for their audiences. It also speculates how live music might develop in the future, its relationship to recorded music and mediated performance and how business is conducted in the popular music industry.

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Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe is the first collection to discuss the ways in which popular music has been used cinematically, from musicals to music videos to documentary film, in Eastern Europe from 1945 to the present day. It argues that during the period of state socialism, moving image was an important tool of promoting music in the respective countries and creating popular cinema. Yet despite this importance, filmmakers who specialized in musicals lacked the social prestige of leading 'auteurs' and received little critical attention. The resulting scholarly prejudice towards pop culture created a severe shortage of critical studies of the genre. With the fall of state socialism - and with it, the need for economically viable film and media industries - brought about an unprecedented upsurge of films utilizing popular music, and a greater recognition of popular cinema as a legitimate object of study. Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe fills the gap and demonstrates why the popular music-cinema interface needs to be theorized with respect to the political, ideological, and social forces invested in popular culture.

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Niemen Enigmatic is the fourth album in the career of Czeslaw Niemen, arguably one of the greatest Polish musicians of all time (from pop and rock to jazz-rock and avant-garde). The book asks how significant was this album? How enduring is its popularity? Has the popularity and meanings changed over time? It does this by unpacking its production, which was unprecedented in the history of the Polish popular music due to its large number of musicians with varied backgrounds, including progressive rock, mixing jazz, rock and soul with classical music. It also examines its appeal to different segments of Polish population, and failure to reach foreign audiences, despite Niemen himself privileging this album, especially its centrepiece, Bema pamieci zalobny rapsod (Mournful Rhapsody in Memoriam of Bem aka A Funeral Rhapsody in Memory of General Bem aka Mourner’s Rhapsody), in his attempt to make a career abroad.

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