Richard Linklater's filmmaking choices seem to defy basic patterns of authorship. From his debut with the inventive independent narrative "Slacker, " the Austin-based director's divergent films have included the sci-fi noir "A Scanner Darkly, " the socially conscious "Fast Food Nation, " the kid-friendly "The School of Rock, " the teen ensemble "Dazed and Confused, " and the twin romances "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset." Yet throughout his varied career spanning two decades, Linklater has maintained a sense of integrity while working within a broad range of budgets, genres, and...
Richard Linklater's filmmaking choices seem to defy basic patterns of authorship. From his debut with the inventive independent narrative "Slacker,...
A key figure in the ongoing legacy of modern cinema, David Lynch designs environments for spectators, transporting them to inner worlds built by mood, texture, and uneasy artifice. We enter these famously cinematic interiors to be wrapped in plastic, the fundamental substance of Lynch s work. This volume revels in the weird dynamism of Lynch s plastic worlds. Exploring the range of modern design idioms that inform Lynch s films and signature "mise-en-scene, " Justus Nieland argues that plastic is at once a key architectural and interior design dynamic in Lynch s films, an uncertain way of...
A key figure in the ongoing legacy of modern cinema, David Lynch designs environments for spectators, transporting them to inner worlds built by mo...
John Sayles is the very paradigm of the contemporary independent filmmaker. By raising much of the funding for his films himself, Sayles functions more independently than most directors, and he has used his freedom to write and produce films with a distinctive personal style and often clearly expressed political positions. From "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" to "Sunshine State, " his films have consistently expressed progressive political positions on issues including race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability.In this study, David R. Shumway examines the defining characteristic of...
John Sayles is the very paradigm of the contemporary independent filmmaker. By raising much of the funding for his films himself, Sayles functions ...
Todd Haynes's films are intricate and purposeful, combining the intellectual impact of art cinema with the emotional accessibility of popular genres. They are also underpinned by a serious commitment to feminism and queer theory. From his 1985 student film about Arthur Rimbaud to his shapeshifting portrait of Bob Dylan in I'm Not There (2007) and the riveting HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011), Haynes has made films whose complex weave of stories and characters reveals dark, painful intensities. His taste for narrative experimentation and pastiche is haunted by anguish.Rob White's highly...
Todd Haynes's films are intricate and purposeful, combining the intellectual impact of art cinema with the emotional accessibility of popular genres. ...
Since his explosive debut with the indie sensation Hard Eight, Paul Thomas Anderson has established himself as one of contemporary cinema's most exciting artists. His 2002 feature Punch-Drunk Love radically reimagined the romantic comedy. Critics hailed There Will Be Blood as a key film of the new millennium. In The Master, Anderson jarred audiences with dreamy amorphousness and a departure from conventional story mechanics. Acclaimed film scholar and screenwriter George Toles approaches these three films in particular, and Anderson's oeuvre in general, with a...
Since his explosive debut with the indie sensation Hard Eight, Paul Thomas Anderson has established himself as one of contemporary cinema's mos...
In eleven feature films across two decades, Christian Petzold has established himself as the most critically celebrated director in contemporary Germany. The best-known and most influential member of the Berlin School, Petzold's career reflects the trajectory of German film from 1970s New German Cinema to more popular fare in the 1990s and back again to critically engaged and politically committed filmmaking. In the first book-length study on Petzold in English, Jaimey Fisher frames Petzold's cinema at the intersection of international art cinema and sophisticated genre cinema. This...
In eleven feature films across two decades, Christian Petzold has established himself as the most critically celebrated director in contemporary Germa...
Since the release of Do the Right Thing in 1989, Spike Lee has established himself as a cinematic icon. Lee's mostly independent films garner popular audiences while at the same time engaging in substantial political and social commentary. He is arguably the most accomplished African American filmmaker in cinematic history, and his breakthrough paved the way for the success of many other African Americans in film. In this first single-author scholarly examination of Spike Lee's oeuvre, Todd McGowan shows how Lee's films, from She's Gotta Have It through Red Hook Summer, address crucial social...
Since the release of Do the Right Thing in 1989, Spike Lee has established himself as a cinematic icon. Lee's mostly independent films garner popular ...
Called the most important British filmmaker of his generation, Terence Davies made his reputation with modern classics like Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, personal works exploring his fractured childhood in Liverpool. His idiosyncratic and unorthodox narrative films defy easy categorization; though they would seem to exist within the realms of realism and personal memory cinema, the films lay bare the director's personal pain in a daringly abstract way. Film critic Michael Koresky explores the unique emotional tenor of Davies' work by focusing on four paradoxes...
Called the most important British filmmaker of his generation, Terence Davies made his reputation with modern classics like Distant Voices, Still Live...
Acclaimed as one of the most influential and innovative American directors, Francis Ford Coppola is also lionized as a maverick auteur at war with Hollywood's power structure and an ardent critic of the postindustrial corporate America it reflects. However, Jeff Menne argues that Coppola exemplifies the new breed of creative corporate person and sees the director's oeuvre as vital for reimagining the corporation in the transformation of Hollywood. Reading auteur theory as the new American business theory, Menne reveals how Coppola's vision of a new kind of company has transformed...
Acclaimed as one of the most influential and innovative American directors, Francis Ford Coppola is also lionized as a maverick auteur at war with Hol...
Emir Kusturica is one of Eastern Europe's most celebrated and influential filmmakers. Over the course of a thirty-year career, Kusturica has navigated a series of geopolitical fault lines to produce subversive, playful, often satiric works. On the way he won acclaim and widespread popularity while showing a genius for adjusting his poetic pitch--shifting from romantic realist to controversial satirist to sentimental jester. Leading scholar-critic Giorgio Bertellini divides Kusturica's career into three stages--dissention, disconnection, and dissonance--to reflect both the historic and...
Emir Kusturica is one of Eastern Europe's most celebrated and influential filmmakers. Over the course of a thirty-year career, Kusturica has navigated...
