The crime serials by French filmmaker Louis Feuillade provide a unique point of departure for film studies, presenting modes rarely examined within early cinematic paradigms. Made during 1913 to 1920, the series of six films share not only a consistency of narrative structure and style but also a progressive revelation of the criminal threat - a dislocation of both cinematic and ideological subjectivity - as it shifts realms of social, cultural, and aesthetic disturbance. Feuillade's work raises significant questions of cinema authorship, film history, and film aesthetics, all of which are...
The crime serials by French filmmaker Louis Feuillade provide a unique point of departure for film studies, presenting modes rarely examined within ea...
This volume contains twenty in-depth studies of prominent New Zealand directors, producers, actors, and cinematographers. New Zealand Filmmakers outlines and examines three major constituent groups who are responsible for the industry as it appears today: those involved in pioneering film in New Zealand, those associated with the New Wave of the 1970s and 1980s, and those post-mid-1980s visionaries and fantasists who have produced striking individual productions. A comprehensive introduction situates the New Zealand film industry in cultural, historical, and ideological contexts.
The...
This volume contains twenty in-depth studies of prominent New Zealand directors, producers, actors, and cinematographers. New Zealand Filmmakers ou...
In many ways a traditional western, The Searchers (1956) is considered by critics to be one of the greatest Hollywood films, made by the most influential of western directors. But John Ford's classic work, in its complexity and ambiguity, was a product of post-World War II American culture and sparked a deconstruction of the western film myth by looking unblinkingly at white racism and violence and suggesting its social and psychological origins. The film tells the story of the kidnapping of the niece of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) by Comanche Indians and Edward's long search to find her -...
In many ways a traditional western, The Searchers (1956) is considered by critics to be one of the greatest Hollywood films, made by the most influent...
Though it is often neglected in cinema scholarship, screen performance is a crucial element in the ideological and emotional impact of films. More Than a Method: Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Film Performance features twelve essays that analyze performance in post-1950s film, addressing distinct questions about the working relationships between actors and directors and discussing the interplay between performance and cinematic techniques. The authors explain the context for performance analysis as they address an international array of film genres, actors, and directors including...
Though it is often neglected in cinema scholarship, screen performance is a crucial element in the ideological and emotional impact of films. More Tha...
The Rifleman is perhaps the most significant and intelligent of the TV westerns from the late 1950s-an era when the western was the dominant television genre. With its story of a single father raising a son in 1880s New Mexico, The Rifleman offered many alternatives to the conventions of the western. It also embodied many of the genre's contradictions, setting its ideas about domesticity and level-headedness alongside the gun violence adopted by westerns as central to the settling of the West and the creation of America. With its initial episodes written and directed by celebrated auteur...
The Rifleman is perhaps the most significant and intelligent of the TV westerns from the late 1950s-an era when the western was the dominant televi...
The development of young masculine sexuality is still a cultural taboo of sorts, and until now there has been little scholarship available that discusses aspects of boyhood and its relation to cinema - in particular, the process whereby masculinities are socially, historically, economically, aesthetically, and psychologically created in male coming-of-age as depicted onscreen. Where the Boys Are, Cinemas of Masculinity and youth scrutinizes a broad corpus of films about boyhood within a cross-genre, trans-historical, cross-cultural framework. Unlike the filmic investigations before it, this...
The development of young masculine sexuality is still a cultural taboo of sorts, and until now there has been little scholarship available that discus...
His name is synonymous with -independent film, - and for more than twenty-five years, filmmaker John Sayles has tackled issues ranging from race and sexuality to the abuses of capitalism and American culture, aspiring to a type of realism that Hollywood can rarely portray. This collection offers unprecedented coverage of Sayles's craft and content, as it deploys a rich variety of critical methods to explore the full scope of his work. Together the essays afford a deeper understanding not only of the individual films-including his 1980 The Return of the Secaucus Seven (named to the National...
His name is synonymous with -independent film, - and for more than twenty-five years, filmmaker John Sayles has tackled issues ranging from race an...
Scholarly writing on Nordic cinema has historically focused on such auteurs as Carl Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman. Recent work has neglected to contextualize contemporary Nordic film within the increasingly global climate of the five Nordic countries. While each country retains idiosyncratic themes and cinematic identity, Nordic cinema also shows increasing homogenization in production strategies, aesthetics, and audience taste. At the same time, contemporary Nordic films have enjoyed renewed popularity at home while also vaulting to global prominence. From heritage films like Babette's Feast and...
Scholarly writing on Nordic cinema has historically focused on such auteurs as Carl Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman. Recent work has neglected to contextual...
Immediately following the Korean War, South Korea's film industry flourished with vibrant local production of high-quality films. Characterized by its stunning melodramas, this -Golden Age- of South Korean cinema produced a body of work as historically, aesthetically, and politically significant as that of other well-known national film movements such as Italian Neorealism, French New Wave, and New German Cinema. Conditions that fostered South Korea's cinematic Golden Age were short lived; a brief period of intense poverty and struggle-but also creative freedom-was ended by the...
Immediately following the Korean War, South Korea's film industry flourished with vibrant local production of high-quality films. Characterized by ...
From Intolerance to The Silence of the Lambs, motion pictures show crowds and power in complex, usually antagonistic, relationships. Key to understanding this opposition is an intrinsic capability of the cinema: transformation. Making unprecedented use of Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power, Lesley Brill explores crowds, power, and transformation throughout film history. The formation of crowds together with crowd symbols and representations of power creates complex, unifying structures in two early masterpieces, The Battleship Potemkin and Intolerance. In Throne of Blood, power-seekers become...
From Intolerance to The Silence of the Lambs, motion pictures show crowds and power in complex, usually antagonistic, relationships. Key to understand...
