This collection of papers examines the evolving relationship between the motion picture industry and television from the 1940s onwards. The institutional and technological histories of the film and TV industries are looked at, concluding that Hollywood and television had a symbiotic relationship from the start. Aspects covered include the movement of audiences, the rise of the independent producer, the introduction of colour and the emergence of network structure, cable TV and video recorders. Originally published in 1990.

This text outlines what sociologists need to know of the nature of communication and of mass culture, while also looking in some empirical detail at the workings of the Hollywood community and the psychology of the star system. It explores trends such as attempts to adapt semiology and psycholinguistics to our understanding of film 'language', using them to develop a paradigm for film analysis. The book goes on to offer a guide to comprehension of the relation between cinema and society through detailed analysis of the relation between the German silent cinema and its social context and...

Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko, Vertov: these Soviet film directors are acknowledged to be among the greatest in the history of cinematography. To Eisenstein we owe such films as Battleship Potemkin and October; to Pudovkin Mother and The End of St Petersburg; to Dovzhenko Earth and Zvenigora; and to Vertov The Man With a Movie Camera and The Three Songs of Lenin.

Herbert Marshall knew each of them personally, both as artists and as friends, and shared their cinema world when he was a student at the GIK (The Moscow State...

In 1989 alone, for example, there were some forty-five major motion pictures which were sequels or part of a series. The film series phenomenon crosses all genres and has been around since the silent film era. This reference guide, in alphabetical order, lists some 906 English Language motion pictures, from 1899 to 1990, when the book was initially published. A brief plot description is given for each series entry, followed by the individual film titles with corresponding years, directors and performers. Animated pictures, documentaries and concert films are not included but movies...

Collecting together some of the best thinking about the relationship between movies and politics, this book, originally published in 1993, encourages an awareness of the political dimension of film, both for film scholars and those entering the film industry. Eight essays are grouped into four parts addressing political ideology and movie narrative, political myth in the movies, political history and movie culture, and political communication and the movies. An introductory essay, as well as prefatory remarks to each of the four parts, brings additional insight and perspective and puts the...

This feminist anthology from Italy offers an enriching perspective on cinema studies. Focusing on women's engagement with political theory and film-making, the book never loses sight of the female experience of cinema. It examines how women have chosen to represent themselves and how they have been represented, and how they deal with the cinematic apparatus, as subjects of production, objects of representation, and spectators. A variety of approaches are offered, ranging from psychoanalysis and semiology to history. With an exhaustive filmography, this anthology of chapters by eminent...

This charming classic of film literature was originally published in 1914 and hence represents an early attempt to catalogue the allure of cinema and how the motion picture industry began. This tale of life in the early days of cinema will be of interest to film historians and anyone interested in that period of history. The book outlines the actors, the producers, the studios and the audiences as well as the advertising and regulation at the time with often amusing stories and facts along with the author's own drawings. Overall this serves as a fascinating introduction to the making of...

The secrecy in which the British Board of Film Censors enveloped itself until 1948 resulted in a glaring vacuum in British cinematic history. Originally published in 1985, this book filled this important gap, drawing on the detailed registers of films passed, cut and banned since 1913.

The book opens by tracing the events which led up to the creation of the BBFC and goes on to cover the Board's theoretical censorship principles concerning such matters as crime, religion and sex and to discuss how these principles were applied in practice to silent films. The advent of the talkies...

This study explores the model derived from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, via Marxism and semiotics, of looking at film. It retraces the steps of film theory from ideological criticism of the late '60s to spectator studies in 1988 when the book was originally published. Psychoanalysis enables a discussion of the cinema's role as a social and political force and this book enters a discourse of the politics of representation. Reconstructing discussion of basic issues, the book addresses our instincts and defences in reacting to cinema, the similarity between mental processes and...