John Orr takes a critical look at the intriguing relationship between romanticism and modernism that has been neglected in the study of UK cinema and downplayed in the development of Western cinema. The book covers a broad selection of films, film-makers and debates but also brings a fresh perspective to how scholars might understand and the major traditions that have shaped British cinema history.Covering the period between 1929 and the present this book examines directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Carol Reed, Nicholas Roeg, Terence Davies and Bill Douglas and discusses two...

John Orr takes a critical look at the intriguing relationship between romanticism and modernism that has been neglected in the study of UK cinema and downplayed in the development of Western cinema. The book covers a broad selection of films, film-makers and debates but also brings a fresh perspective to how scholars might understand and the major traditions that have shaped British cinema history.Covering the period between 1929 and the present this book examines directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Carol Reed, Nicholas Roeg, Terence Davies and Bill Douglas and discusses two...

Hitchcock and Twentieth-Century Cinema looks at the work, influences, legacy and style of one of cinema's most famous directors. Alfred Hitchcock worked in Britain and America, in silent and sound films, and through and beyond the studio system, all the time appealing to mass audiences while employing his own distinctive style. This book examines how he was affected by German cinema, British writing, the Hays Code and his own upbringing to produce films that challenged key notions of acting, sexuality, mise-en-scene and narrative convention. John Orr contends that Hitchcock is a matrix...

Roman Polanski is a great maverick figure of world cinema who has lived a controversial and tragic life. Yet his notoriety has eclipsed the true importance of his long career, starting with his short films in the 1950s and continuing through to the recent Oliver Twist (2005). This collection highlights the bold and dazzling diversity of his work as well as recurrent themes and obsessions. Films discussed include Knife in the Water (1962), Repulsion (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974), Death and the Maiden (1994), and The Pianist...

Ingmar Bergman's films had a very broad and rich relationship with the rest of European cinema, contrary to the myth that Bergman was a peripheral figure, culturally and aesthetically isolated from the rest of Europe. This book contends that he should be put at the very center of European film history by chronologically comparing Bergman's relationship to key European directors such as Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Andrei Tarkovsky, and also looks at Bergman's critical relationship to key movements in film history such as the French New Wave. In so doing,...