Search results for ""Author Geoff King""

What defines quality in contemporary Hollywood film? Although often seen as inhospitable to such work, the studios of the blockbuster-franchise era continue to produce features that make claims to higher status. Films such as The Social Network, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Mystic River are marked as distinctive from the mainstream norm. But how exactly, and how are such qualities mixed with more familiar Hollywood ingredients, as found in larger doses in other examples such as Blood Diamond and the blockbuster-scale Inception? Quality Hollywood is the first book to address these issues, featuring close analysis of case study films, critical responses and the wider notions of cultural value on which these draw. Geoff King argues that such films retain a presence as a minority strand of studio output. The reasons for this combine factors relating to economics, the power of certain filmmakers and Hollywood s investment in its own prestige."

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In this book, the author has published extensively on American cinema. It covers a range of well-known films and film-makers. This is the first book to analyse the relationship and interaction between Independent film and Hollywood.Indiewood is the place where Hollywood and the American independent sector meet, where lines blur and two very different kinds of cinema come together in a striking blend of creativity and commerce. This is an arena in which innovative, sometimes challenging cinema reaches out to the mainstream. Or, alternatively, a zone of duplicity and compromise in which the 'true' heritage of the indie sector is co-opted as an offshoot of Hollywood."Indiewood" is the first book to provide objective analysis of this distinctive region of the contemporary American film landscape. Case studies include the work of Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman and Steven Soderbergh and the output of the studio 'specialist' divisions Miramax and Focus Features.From the stylized violence and cult film referencing of "Kill Bill" to the literary resonances of "Shakespeare in Love" and from the mind-bending scripts of Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") to Soderbergh's "Traffic" and "Solaris", Geoff King examines the way Indiewood features combine mainstream with more unconventional features in an attempt to have it both ways: to remain accessible while offering markers of distinction designed to appeal to more particular, niche-audience constituencies.

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Art cinema occupies a space in the film landscape that is accorded a particular kind of value. From films that claim the status of harsh realism to others which embody aspects of the tradition of modernism or the poetic, art cinema encompasses a variety of work from across the globe. But how is art cinema positioned in the film marketplace, or by critics and in academic analysis? Exactly what kinds of cultural value are attributed to films of this type and how can this be explained? This book offers a unique analysis of how such processes work, including the broader cultural basis of the appeal of art cinema to particular audiences. Geoff King argues that there is no single definition of art cinema, but a number of distinct and recurrent tendencies are identified. At one end of the spectrum are films accorded the most ‘heavyweight’ status, offering the greatest challenges to viewers. Others mix aspects of art cinema with more accessible dimensions such as uses of popular genre frameworks and ‘exploitation’ elements involving explicit sex and violence. Including case studies of key figures such as Michael Haneke, Pedro Almodóvar and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, this is a crucial contribution to understanding both art cinema itself and the discourses through which its value is established.

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A Companion to American Indie Film features a comprehensive collection of newly commissioned essays that represent a state-of-the-art resource for understanding key aspects of the field of indie films produced in the United States. Takes a comprehensive and fresh new look at the topic of American indie film Features newly commissioned essays from top film experts and emerging scholars that represent the state-of-the-art reference to the indie film field Topics covered include: indie film culture; key historical moments and movements in indie film history; relationships between indie film and other indie media; and issues including class, gender, regional identity and stardom in in the indie field Includes studies of many types of indie films and film genres, along with various filmmakers and performers that have come to define the field

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