Films recreating or addressing 'the past' - recent or distant, actual or imagined - have been a mainstay of British cinema since the silent era. From Elizabeth to Carry On Up The Khyber, and from the heritage-film debate to issues of authenticity and questions of genre, British Historical Cinema explores the ways in which British films have represented the past on screen, the issues they raise and the debates they have provoked. Discussing films from biopics to literary adaptations, and from depictions of Britain's colonial past to the re-imagining of recent decades...

Films set in the past - recent or distant, real or imagined - have been the mainstay of British cinema since the silent era, popular with audiences both at home and abroad. Yet this popularity has also been made the historical film one of British cinema's most controversial genres, and a target for critical derision.

A coherent decade-by-decade analysis of British cinema, ranging from Brunel's burlesques in the 1920s to films in the 21st century. British Cinema includes a wealth of detailed and pithy discussions of films usually overlooked in British cinema's canon with titles such as Fahrenheit 451, The Man Who Fell to Earthand Withnail& I."

Leon Moussinac, surveying the Soviet cinema scene in 1928, proclaimed Pudovkin, Eisenstein, and Vertov as its leading triumvirate. Yet there has been too little published on Pudovkin's significant work in Soviet cinema. Amy Sargeant's welcome book on Pudovkin assesses his career and his films, including the well-known features The Mother and The End of St. Petersburg, exploring their style and the circumstances surrounding their production. She also looks at the production and reception of his writings on film technique and performance, both inside the Soviet Union and in the...

Screen Hustles, Grifts and Stings identifies recurrent themes and techniques of the con film, suggests precedents in literature and discusses the perennial appeal of the con man for readers and viewers alike.