The Cinema of Latin America is the first volume in the new 24 Frames series of studies of national and regional cinema. In taking an explicitly text-centered approach, the books in this series offer a unique way of considering the particular concerns, styles and modes of representation of numerous national cinemas around the world. This volume focuses on the vibrant practices that make up Latin American cinema, a historically important regional cinema and one that is increasingly returning to popular and academic appreciation. Through 24 individual concise and insightful essays...

The Cinema of Italy, a new addition to the 24 Frames series, looks at the recurring historical, thematic and stylistic features of twenty-four of the most important Italian sound films. Viewing Italian cinema at the intersection of history, politics, art and popular culture, the 24 concise essays of this anthology contextualize each film within both Italian and Western film culture. Alongside the crucial lessons of neorealist masterpieces such as Rossellini's Paisan and De Sica's The Bicycle Thief, this collection looks at how Italian cinema has confronted both the nation's...

Films of the Low Countries have long been regarded as isolated texts. This book points to the interconnectedness between Low Countries films from different genres, regions, languages, and formats. Building on each film's relationship with its particular cultural context, the volume presents twenty-four especially commisioned essays by renowned writers, each one focusing on one key film. The volume covers the work of internationally acclaimed directors such as Joris Ivens, Henri Storck, Paul Verhoeven, and the Dardenne Brothers. Key films discussed include Turkish Delight, The Vanishing,...

A new volume in the "Twenty-Four Frames" series that focuses on twenty-four key films from Scandinavia - Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. Each of these national cinemas is able to boast directors of worldwide renown. Such as Ingmar Bergman, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Victor SjAstrom and more contemporary film-makers such as Lukas Moodysson, Aki KaurismAki and the co-founders of the Dogme 95 movement - Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and Tomas Kragh-Jacobsen. This book looks at the impact that film-makers from this region have had on their national cinema and the world of film. This book...

A fresh, concise, but wide-ranging introduction and overview to British and Irish cinema, this volume contains 24 essays, each on a separate seminal film from the region. Films ranging from 1928 to 2002 are featured from directors such as John Boorman, Nicolas Roeg, Sally Potter and Jack Clayton. As well as discussions of genre and influences, The Cinema of Britain and Ireland includes in-depth studies of films such as Room at the Top (1958), The Italian Job (1969), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), Orlando (1992),...

An in-depth look at some of the best and most influential French films of all time, The Cinema of France contains 24 essays, each on an individual film. The book features works from the silent period and poetic realism, through the stylistic developments of the New Wave, and up to more contemporary challenging films, from directors such as Abel Gance, Jean Renoir, Marcel Carne, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda and Luc Besson. Set in chronological order, The Cinema of France provides an illuminating history of this essential national cinema and...

From The Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906 to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Australia and New Zealand have made a unique impact on international cinema. This book celebrates the commercially successful narrative feature films produced by these cultures as well as key documentaries, shorts, and independent films. It also invokes issues involving national identity, race, history, and the ability of two small film cultures to survive the economic and cultural threat of Hollywood. Chapters on well known films and directors, such as The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir,...

This volume explores the cinema of the former Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, ranging from the pre-Revolutionary period to the present day. It offers an insight into the development of Soviet film, from 'the most important of all arts' as a propaganda tool to a means of entertainment in the Stalin era, from the rise of its 'dissident' art-house cinema in the 1960s through the glasnost era with its broken taboos to recent Russian blockbusters. Films have been chosen to represent both the classics of Russian and Soviet cinema as well as those films that had a more localised success and...

The Cinema of North Africa and the Middle East contains twenty-four essays, each concerning an individual film from Morocco all the way to Iran. The volume explores not only the established film cultures of Turkey, Egypt, and Israel, but also the nascent cinemas of Palestine and Syria. Selected films include Cairo Station (Egypt, 1958), The Runner (Iran, 1989), Once Upon a Time, Beriut (Lebanon, 1994), Ten (Iran, 2002), and Uzak (Turkey, 2003). With a preface by Cannes Palme d'Or-winning director Abbas Kiarostami, The Cinema of North Africa and the...

The Cinema of India examines in detail twenty-four landmark films from one of the world's largest national cinemas. Gathering writings by renowned scholars of Indian cinema, this collection provides a novel framework for reading film. Taken together, these essays act as a guide to deciphering the varied terrain of Indian film production and its reception both nationally and globally. The volume offers a comprehensive consideration of the histories of different regional cinemas; the role of studios; the place of "middle" cinema and its relationship to state subsidies; the style of...