Search results for ""british film institute""

Robert Murphy is Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University, Leicester. He is the author of Realism and Tinsel (1989), Sixties British Cinema (1992) and Smash and Grab (1993) and the editor of The British Cinema Book (1997).

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Widely believed to be Terry Gilliam's best film, Brazil's brilliantly imaginative vision of a retro-futuristic bureaucracy has had a lasting influence on genre cinema. Exploring its complex history and relationship with other dystopias, Paul McAuley explains why this satire on the unchecked power of the state is more relevant than ever.

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Released in 1968, the Maysles' Salesman is widely acknowledged as a landmark in documentary film. In his compelling and detailed study, J.M. Tyree discusses the film's various technical and artistic innovations, tracing their theoretical roots and enduring influence.

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Claude Lanzmann's epic 1985 film 'Shoah' tells the story of the Holocaust through interviews with survivors of theextermination camps, bystanders who watched or participated in mass murder, and some of the perpetrators of genocide. Sue Vice addresses Lanzmann's central role in the film and the issue of representing the unrepresentable.

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Ivan The Terrible (1944/46) was envisaged as a trilogy, but, its director Sergei Eisenstein died before begining the third part. This book offers an insight into Eisenstein's grand project. He reconstructs the director's mental film that underlies the finished work.

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Double Indemnity was a key film in the definition of the genre that came to be known as film noir.

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Mark Kermode, who describes Silent Running (1972) as his favourite sci-fi film of all time, traces Douglas Trumbull's sentimental masterpiece from its roots in the counter-culture of the sixties to its enduring appeal as a cult classic in the 21st century.

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On release in the 1930s, Snow White became a milestone in animated film, Disney production and the US box office. Today its fans cross generations and continents, proving that this tale of the loveable, banished princess and her seven outstanding friends possesses a special magic that makes it both an all-time Disney great and a true film classic.

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Laura Mulvey offers a fresh and original reading of one of the greatest films in all cinema. This new edition of Mulvey's study is published in the Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by the author, and a stunning new jacket design by Eric Skillman.

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A comprehensive guide to science fiction films, which analyzes and contextualizes the most important examples of the genre, from Un voyage dans la lune (1902), to The Road (2009).

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This major new collection, edited by the leading British authority in the field, provides a broad and thorough introduction to documentary cinema. Contributions from leading international scholars address the history and nature of documentary, debates about truth and ethics, and documentary cinema in different national contexts and genres.

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This study examines Rome Open City and its place in Roberto Rossellini's career. The film is based on events that took place in Nazi occupied Italy 1944, one year before the film was made. The author argues that the film has value as a commerorative piece and as a documentary record.

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A comprehensive guide to European actors in American film, this book brings together 15 chapters with A-Z entries on over 900 individuals. It includes case studies of prominent individuals and phenomena associated with the emigres, such as the stereotyping of European actresses in 'bad women' roles, and the irony of Jewish actors playing Nazis.

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Phillip Drummond offers a detailed account of 'High Noon's' troubled production context and its early public reception, along with career summaries of the key participants.

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Examines the role television played in providing news about the event of the Princess of Wales' death. The book goes on to explore the reasons why Diana's death affected so many people and suggests that TV is integral to culture.

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Went the Day Well? is one of the most unusual Ealing Studios pictures, a distinctly unsentimental war film made in the darkest days of WWII. Houston studies why the film avoids the cosy Ealing trademark. This Film Classics 20th anniversary edition comes with a new foreword by Geoff Brown, and a stunning new jacket design by Mark Swan.

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Manohla Dargis explores the careers of director Curtis Hanson and writer James Ellroy, based on interviews with both men, to dig deep into the film's obsession with the twinned, equally troubled histories of the Hollywood studio system and the city of Los Angeles.

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In this book, which includes a new interview with Ballard who wrote the book on which the film was based, Sinclair explores the temporal loop which connects film and novel, and asks questions such as to what extent is Crash a premonition of some of the more remarkable media events of recent times. In the BFI MODERN CLASSICS series.

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A selection of 100 films from one of the best-loved genres of Hollywood and world cinema, with entries ranging from 'Gold Diggers of 1933' to 'High School Musical' of 2006, and from the Reggae classic 'The Harder They Come' to Guru Dutt's 'Pyaasa' (1957). The authors' introduction outlines the history and key features of the film musical.

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An examination of the European art cinema piece l'Anne derniere a Marienbad, it was a collaboration between director Alain Resnais and enfant terrible Alian Robbe-Grillet. An abstract thriller and love story, this book attempts to show that the movie's deviations are a philosophical puzzle.

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This study provides a detailed account of the 1960s film, L'avventura, arguing that in order to appreciate its greatness it is necessary to understand not only that the film is a classic but also that it represents a revolution in cinema.

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The Wizard of Oz shows that imagination can become reality, that there is no such place like home, or rather that the only home is the one we make for ourselves. This new edition of Rushdie's study is published in the Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by the author.

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Richard Taylor asks to what extent the film can lay claim to authentic history. He then examines October's relationship to the politics of the period and explains the theory and its application, as well as placing October in the wider context of Eisenstein's career.

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Offering a fresh perspective on The General, arguably one of the most successful American films of the silent era, this insightful text analyses its initial critical reception and the thematic and stylistic characteristics of the film that made it difficult for critics to appreciate at the time, but led to its celebration by later generations.

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Alien, that legendary fusion of science fiction and horror, was born out of a terrible monster movie script called Star Beast. Tracing the constellation of talents that came together to produce the film, this book explores how and why this interstellar slasher movie, this old dark house in space, came to coil itself around our darkest imaginings.

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Il Conformist has mesmerised audiences by Bertulocci's mastery of the telling, the beauty of the images, the camera work, its soundtrack, and the intensity with which the characters convey powerful psychic energies. This unique European film classic deserves no less the unique perspective brought to it here by Christopher Wagstaff's expert eye.

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This is a study of the film Shadows, directed by John Cassavetes. The film tells the story of three beatnik siblings living together. The film deals with racial issues but the director wished it to be a human film concerned to rescue the small feelings of life.

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This intimate book draws extensively on research in the archives of Francois Truffaut's company, Les Films du Carrosse, and on interviews with many of La Nuit americaine's cast and crew. They bear witness to Truffaut's passion for film.

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This intriguing text overturns a myth of film history by examining new evidence surrounding the authorship of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari - a film that still exerts its gothic spell after nearly a century. A new introduction considers the place of German Expressionist cinema within the European revival of Gothic at the turn of the 20th century.

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James Naremore's insightfulstudy ofthis darkly satiric and much-admired film about the culture of celebrity in 1950s New York, starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, providesnew production information, a lively discussion of the film's historical context, and a close analysis of the work of its various contributors.

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Lively and illuminating guide to 100 key horror movies. Dissects classic films from directors and coutries particularly noted with horror production, as well asdelving into sub-genres such as zombie, cannibal and vampire movies and films by directors more commonly noted with art cinema, such as Bergman and Polanski. .

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An accessible and up to date guide to one hundred of World Cinema's most interesting and influential cult movies. Covering a diverse range of genres and films from 1920 to the present day, this lavishly illustrated volume includes entries on films ranging from 'This is Spinal Tap' to 'Donnie Darko'.

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John Gill provides a revealing insight into Todd Haynes' cult classic Far From Heaven (2002), the first single critical study of the film. Gill exploreshowHaynes confronts issues of race, sexuality and classin a surburban 1950s American neighbourhood, in a clear homage to director Douglas Sirk and his work of the period.

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Released to a muted reception in 1987, Withnail& I has since become one of Britain's best-known cult classics. Jackson analyses the mood and magic of the film, its aesthetics and sensibility, seeking to show, without ever detracting from the film's comic brilliance, how much more there is to Withnail& I than drunkenness and swearing.

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Traces the history of The Shawshank Redemption, originally a low-key prison movie,from the pages of Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemptionto the screens on which it became a phenomenon, as well as exploring the near-religious fervour that the film inspires in its devoted fans.

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When it was released, Dead Man puzzled many audiences and critics. Here, the author argues that the film is both a quantum leap and a logical step in the director's career, and it's a film that speaks powerfully of contemporary concerns.

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This study analyzes Chinatown in the context of the figure of the detective in literature and film from Sophocles to Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock.

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Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is the definitive film about the nuclear age. Peter Kramer analyses its key scenes and complex production history, highlighting major themes such as Strangelove's Nazi past and the film's close relationship with real-world nuclear strategy and politics.

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Nosferatu was one of the masterpieces of the New German Cinema. Herzog's film, with its terrifying coda in which the reincarnated fiend rides out into the world, is perhaps the most compelling screen treatment of the vampire myth. In this second edition, Brad Prager introduces S.S. Prawer's comprehensive account of the film with a new foreword.

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Night and the City (1950), directed by Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark,is the compelling story ofa hoodlum on the make in postwar London. Andrew Pulver's study of the film traces the film's production history and places it in the context of British film noir and the urban mythology ofits West End setting.

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Provides a detailed introduction to the essential themes, style, and aesthetics of Pedro Almodovar's films, put in the context of Spain's profound cultural transitions since 1980. This book covers the major concerns of the most successful of all Spanish film directors and makes direct, clear connections to the logic of Almodovar's choices.

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Amores Perros (2000) speaks to an international audience while never oversimplifying its local culture. This study of this film opens up that culture, revealing the film's relationship to television soap operas, pop music and contemporary debates about what it means to be Mexican.

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Wild Strawberries is probably Ingmar Bergman's most personal film and one which explores his relation to the history of Swedish cinema. This study is written by Philip French, film critic of The Observer. It features a brief production history and detailed filmography.

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This text looks at one of the masterpieces of French cinema, made under great difficulties during the German occupation in World War II, and set in the world of 19th-century Parisian theatre.

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Jill Poppy has taught English, Media and Film studies at GCSE and AS/A2 levels and Film Studies to undergraduates. She is principal examiner for Film Studies and is a mentor for the British Film Institute panel of tutors. She contributes regularly to the British Film Institute teacher training programmes and student events and has provided in-service training for the English and Media Centre, NATE and other professional organisations. She has written a range of study guides.

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