Most widely known for his filmic productions, Ra?l Ruiz (1941-2011) was a highly prolific, erudite, and innovative artist, whose work is located at the intersection of diverse locations, languages, and aesthetic traditions. Ruiz's eclectic body of work includes over one hundred films (among them features, shorts, television serials, and videos), books on the theory of cinema, genre-defying fiction books, plays, a radio show, and a multimedia installation. Ra?l Ruiz's Cinema of Inquiry posits the unity of Ruiz's body of work and investigates the similarities between his very diverse...

The Berlin School and Its Global Contexts: A Transnational Art-Cinema came about in light of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)'s 2013 major exhibition of works by contemporary German directors associated with the so-called Berlin School, perhaps Germany's most important contemporary filmmaking movement. Christoph Hochh?usler, the movement's keenest spokesperson, stated that "the Berlin School, despite what the label suggests, is not a specifically German phenomenon. All over the world there are filmmakers exploring related terrain." In response to this "transnational turn," editors...

Transforming Harry: The Adaptation of Harry Potter in the Transmedia Ageis an edited volume of eight essays that look at how the cinematic versions of the seven Harry Potter novels represent an unprecedented cultural event in the history of cinematic adaptation. The movie version of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, premiered in 2001, in between publication of the fourth and fifth books of this global literary phenomenon. As a result, the production and reception of both novel and movie series became intertwined with one another,...

Stella Adler (1901-92) trained many well-known American actors yet throughout much of her career, her influence was overshadowed by Lee Strasberg, director of the Actors Studio. In Beyond Method: Stella Adler and the Male Actor, Scott Balcerzak focuses on Adler's teachings and how she challenged Strasberg's psychological focus on the actor's "self" by promoting an empathetic and socially engaged approach to performance. Employing archived studio transcripts and recordings, Balcerzak examines Adler's lessons in technique, characterization, and script analysis as they reflect the...

The Films of Jess Francolooks at the work of Jes's "Jess" Franco (1930-2013), one of the most prolific and madly inventive filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is best known as the director of jazzy, erotically charged horror movies featuring mad scientists, lesbian vampires, and women in prison, but he also dabbled in a multitude of genres from comedy to science fiction to pornography. Although he built his career in the ghetto of low-budget exploitation cinema, he managed to create a body of work that is deeply personal, frequently political, and surprisingly poetic. Editors...

Stella Adler (1901-92) trained many well-known American actors yet throughout much of her career, her influence was overshadowed by Lee Strasberg, director of the Actors Studio. In Beyond Method: Stella Adler and the Male Actor, Scott Balcerzak focuses on Adler's teachings and how she challenged Strasberg's psychological focus on the actor's "self" by promoting an empathetic and socially engaged approach to performance. Employing archived studio transcripts and recordings, Balcerzak examines Adler's lessons in technique, characterization, and script analysis as they reflect the...

The Berlin School and Its Global Contexts: A Transnational Art-Cinema came about in light of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)'s 2013 major exhibition of works by contemporary German directors associated with the so-called Berlin School, perhaps Germany's most important contemporary filmmaking movement. Christoph Hochh?usler, the movement's keenest spokesperson, stated that "the Berlin School, despite what the label suggests, is not a specifically German phenomenon. All over the world there are filmmakers exploring related terrain." In response to this "transnational turn," editors...

Transforming Harry: The Adaptation of Harry Potter in the Transmedia Ageis an edited volume of eight essays that look at how the cinematic versions of the seven Harry Potter novels represent an unprecedented cultural event in the history of cinematic adaptation. The movie version of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, premiered in 2001, in between publication of the fourth and fifth books of this global literary phenomenon. As a result, the production and reception of both novel and movie series became intertwined with one another,...

The Films of Jess Francolooks at the work of Jes's "Jess" Franco (1930-2013), one of the most prolific and madly inventive filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is best known as the director of jazzy, erotically charged horror movies featuring mad scientists, lesbian vampires, and women in prison, but he also dabbled in a multitude of genres from comedy to science fiction to pornography. Although he built his career in the ghetto of low-budget exploitation cinema, he managed to create a body of work that is deeply personal, frequently political, and surprisingly poetic. Editors...