Sam Girgus argues that Allen has consistently been on the cutting edge of contemporary critical and cultural consciousness. Allen continues to challenge notions of authorship, narrative, perspective, character, theme, ideology, gender and sexuality. This revised and updated edition includes two new chapters that examine Allen's work since 1992. Girgus thoughtfully asserts that the scandal surrounding Allen's personal life in the early 1990s has altered his image in ways that reposition moral consciousness in his work.

The Films of Vincente Minnelli examines the career of MGM's leading director of musicals, melodramas, and comedies in the 1940s and 1950s. Widely admired for his flamboyant sense of color and camera movement, Minnelli played a crucial role in maintaining the studio's reputation as the "home of the stars." Describing the director's contributions to some of the most celebrated works of Hollywood's golden era, this volume also includes a close analysis of five important films that represent the full range of Minnelli's career: Cabin in the Sky, Meet Me in St. Louis, Father of the Bride, The Bad...

The Films of Joseph Losey examines the career of the expatriate director through a close analysis of five of his most important and challenging films. When his leftist politics made him a target of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities in 1951, the blacklisted Losey left America and continued his film career in England. Concerned mainly with the use and abuse of power inherent in intimate relationships, Losey also examined these issues as manifested in institutions and social classes. His finest films attack the injustices and hypocrisy rooted in the privileges of the English class...

The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies is the first book to tell in detail the story of a maverick filmmaker who worked outside the studio system. Providing extended critical discussion on six of his most important films (Shadows, Faces, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Love Streams), Ray Carney argues that Cassavetes' work is a distinctly life-affirming form of modernist expression that is at odds with the world-denying modernism of many of the most important art works produced in this century. Cassavetes is...

This concise overview of the career of one of the modern masters of world cinema defines Ingmar Bergman's conception of the human condition as a struggle to find meaning in life as it is played out. After examining six existential themes explored repeatedly in Bergman's films--judgment, abandonment, suffering, shame, a visionary picture, and a turning toward or away from others--Jesse Kalin shows how these themes are expressed in eight of his films, including well known favorites such as Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night, and Fanny and Alexander. Other important...

The Cambridge Film Classics series provides a forum for the revisionist studies of the classic works of the cinematic canon from the perspective of the "new auteurism, " which recognizes that films emerge from a complex interaction of bureaucratic, technological, intellectual, cultural, and personal forces. Each volume provides a general introduction to the life and work of a particular director, followed by critical essays on several of the director's most important films, and a filmography.

The Films of Paul Morrissey is the first appraisal of one of the major figures of American independent cinema. An innovator in the narrative cinema that emerged from Andy Warhol's Factory, Morrissey, as established in this study, was also the force who shaped the most important films that have heretofore been attributed to Warhol. The director's experiments in the use of non-professional actors, controversial subject matter, and language are demonstrated through analysis of his most accomplished achievements, including Mixed Blood, 40 Deuce, and Spike of Bensonhurst. The Films of Paul...

The introduction gives an overview of Hitchcock's long career, with special attention to the varied influences on his work; themes that run through many of his films, from the "transference of guilt," to the connection between knowledge and danger; the overlooked importance of his presence within his films, including his famous cameo appearances and characters who represent him within the story; his fascination with performance and the ambiguities of illusion and reality; the question of viewing him and his work through the auteur theory; and other issues. Also discussed is the relationship...

The Films of Roberto Rossellini traces the career of one of the most influential Italian filmmakers through close analysis of the seven films that mark important turning points in his evolution: The Man with a Cross (1943), Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), The Machine to Kill Bad People (1948-52), Voyage in Italy (1953), General della Rovere(1959), and The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966). Beginning with Rossellini's work within the fascist cinema, it discusses his invention of neorealism, a new cinematic style that resulted in several classics during the immediate postwar period. Almost...

The Films of Mike Leigh is the first critical study of one of the most important and eccentric directors of British independent filmmaking. Although active since 1971, Leigh has only come to the attention of an international audience in the 1990s through films such as Secrets and Lies, and Career Girls. The authors examine Leigh's working method and films in the intellectual and social contexts in which they were created. All of Leigh's major box office successes are analyzed, interpreted, and shown to be among the finest examples of cinema.