Your Search Results
-
Promoted Content
The ArtsJune 2021Genre and performance: film and television
by Christine Cornea
Looking at contemporary film and television, this book explores how popular genres frame our understanding of on-screen performance. Previous studies of screen performance have tended to fix upon star actors, directors, or programme makers, or they have concentrated upon particular training and acting styles. Moving outside of these confines, this book provides a truly interdisciplinary account of performance in film and television and examines a much neglected area in our understanding of how popular genres and performance intersect on screen. Each chapter concentrates upon a particular genre or draws upon generic case studies in examining the significance of screen performance. Individual chapters examine contemporary film noir, horror, the biopic, drama-documentary, the western, science fiction, comedy performance in 'spoof news' programmes and the television 'sit com' and popular Bollywood films.
-
Promoted Content
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJune 2021Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre
by Jay Beck, Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
This volume is the first English-language collection exclusively dedicated to the study of genre in relation to Spanish cinema. Providing a variety of critical perspectives, the collection gives the reader a thorough account of the relationship between Spanish cinema and genre, drawing on case studies of several of the most remarkable Spanish films in recent years. The book analyses the significant changes in the aesthetics, production and reception of Spanish film from 1990 onwards. It brings together European and North American scholars to establish a critical dialogue on the topics under discussion, while providing multiple perspectives on the concepts of national cinemas and genre theory. In recent years film scholarship has attempted to negotiate the tension between the nationally specific and the internationally ubiquitous, discussing how globalisation has influenced film making and surrounding cultural practice. These broader social concerns have prompted scholars to emphasise a redefinition of national cinemas beyond strict national boundaries and to pay attention to the transnational character of any national site of film production and reception. This collection provides a thorough investigation of contemporary Spanish cinema within a transnational framework, by positing cinematic genres as the meeting spaces between a variety of diverse forces that necessarily operate within but also across territorial spaces. Paying close attention to the specifics of the Spanish cinematic and social panorama, the essays investigate the transnational economic, cultural and aesthetic forces at play in shaping Spanish film genres today.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJanuary 2019Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre
by Jay Beck, Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
This volume is the first English-language collection exclusively dedicated to the study of genre in relation to Spanish cinema. Providing a variety of critical perspectives, the collection gives the reader a thorough account of the relationship between Spanish cinema and genre, drawing on case studies of several of the most remarkable Spanish films in recent years. The book analyses the significant changes in the aesthetics, production and reception of Spanish film from 1990 onwards. It brings together European and North American scholars to establish a critical dialogue on the topics under discussion, while providing multiple perspectives on the concepts of national cinemas and genre theory. In recent years film scholarship has attempted to negotiate the tension between the nationally specific and the internationally ubiquitous, discussing how globalisation has influenced film making and surrounding cultural practice. These broader social concerns have prompted scholars to emphasise a redefinition of national cinemas beyond strict national boundaries and to pay attention to the transnational character of any national site of film production and reception. This collection provides a thorough investigation of contemporary Spanish cinema within a transnational framework, by positing cinematic genres as the meeting spaces between a variety of diverse forces that necessarily operate within but also across territorial spaces. Paying close attention to the specifics of the Spanish cinematic and social panorama, the essays investigate the transnational economic, cultural and aesthetic forces at play in shaping Spanish film genres today.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJanuary 2019Contemporary Spanish cinema
by Barry Jordan, Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas
Contemporary focus, right up to date with material from 1980s and 90s. Wide-ranging analyses of major directors, themes, genres and issues, including historical film, genre cinema, women in film and autonomies.
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsDecember 2022The cinema of Pedro Almodóvar
by Ana María Sanchez-Arce
This book offers a comprehensive film-by-film analysis of Spain's most famous living director, Pedro Almodóvar. It shows how Almodóvar's films draw on various national cinemas and genres, including Spanish cinema of the dictatorship, European art cinema, Hollywood melodrama and film noir. It also argues that Almodóvar's work is a form of social critique, his films consistently engaging with and challenging stereotypes about traditional and contemporary Spain in order to address Spain's traumatic historical past and how it continues to inform the present. Drawing on scholarship in both English and Spanish, the book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of film studies and Hispanic studies, scholars of contemporary cinema and general readers with a passion for the films of Pedro Almodóvar.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJanuary 2019European Film Noir
by Andrew Spicer
European Film Noir is the first book to bring together specialist discussions of film noir in specific European national cinemas. Written by leading scholars, this groundbreaking study provides an authoritative understanding of an important aspect of European cinema and of film noir itself, for too long considered as a solely American form. The Introduction reviews the problems of defining film noir, its key characteristics and discusses its significance to the development of European film, the relationship of specific national films noirs to each other, to American noir and to historical and social change. Eight chapters then discuss film noir in France, Germany, Britain and Spain, analysing both earlier developments and the evolution of neo-noir through to the present. A further chapter explores film noir in Italian cinema where its presence is not so well defined. Each piece provides a critical overview of the most significant films in relation to their industrial and social contexts. European Film Noir is an important contribution to the study of European cinema that will have a broad appeal to undergraduates, cinéastes, film teachers and researchers.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJanuary 2019Realist film theory and cinema
The nineteenth-century Lukácsian and intuitionist realist traditions
by Ian Aitken
'Realist film theory and cinema' embraces studies of cinematic realism and 19th century tradition, the realist film theories of Lukács, Grierson, Bazin and Kracauer, and the relationship of realist film theory to the general field of film theory and philosophy. This is the first book to attempt a rigorous and systematic application of realist film theory to the analysis of particular films. The book suggests new ways forward for a new series of studies in cinematic realism, and for a new form of film theory based on realism. It stresses the importance of the question of realism both in film studies and in contemporary life. Aitken's work will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of film studies, literary studies, media studies, cultural studies and philosophy.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJune 2021Medieval film
by Anke Bernau, Bettina Bildhauer
Medieval film explores theoretical questions about the ideological, artistic, emotional and financial investments inhering in cinematic renditions of the medieval period. What does it mean to create and watch a 'medieval film'? What is a medieval film and why are they successful? This is the first work that attempts to answer these questions, drawing, for instance, on film theory, postcolonial theory, cultural studies and the growing body of work on medievalism. Contributors investigate British, German, Italian, Australian, French, Swedish and American film, exploring topics such translation, temporality, film noir, framing and period film - and find the medieval lurking in inexpected corners. In addition it provides in-depth studies of individual films from different countries including The Birth of a Nation to Nosferatu, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Medieval Film will be of interest to medievalists working in disciplines including literature, history, to scholars working on film and in cultural studies. It will also be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and to an informed enthusiast in film or/and medieval culture.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJanuary 2019Medieval film
by Anke Bernau, Bettina Bildhauer
Medieval film explores theoretical questions about the ideological, artistic, emotional and financial investments inhering in cinematic renditions of the medieval period. What does it mean to create and watch a 'medieval film'? What is a medieval film and why are they successful? This is the first work that attempts to answer these questions, drawing, for instance, on film theory, postcolonial theory, cultural studies and the growing body of work on medievalism. Contributors investigate British, German, Italian, Australian, French, Swedish and American film, exploring topics such translation, temporality, film noir, framing and period film - and find the medieval lurking in unexpected corners. In addition it provides in-depth studies of individual films from different countries including The Birth of a Nation to Nosferatu, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Medieval film will be of interest to medievalists working in disciplines including literature, history, art history, to scholars working on film and in cultural studies. It will also be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and to an informed enthusiast in film or/and medieval culture.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJune 2021Lukácsian film theory and cinema
A study of Georg Lukács' writing on film 1913–1971
by Ian Aitken
Lukácsian film theory and cinema explores Georg Lukács' writings on film. The Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukács is primarily known as a literary theorist, but he also wrote extensively on the cinema. These writings have remained little known in the English-speaking world because the great majority of them have never actually been translated into English - until now. Aitken has gathered together the most important essays and the translations appear here, often for the first time. This book thus makes a decisive contribution to understandings of Lukács within the field of film studies, and, in doing so, also challenges many existing preconceptions concerning his theoretical position. For example, whilst Lukács' literary theory is well known for its repudiation of naturalism, in his writings on film Lukács appears to advance a theory and practice of film that can best be described as naturalist. Lukácsian film theory and cinema is divided into two parts. In part one, Lukács' writings on film are explored, and placed within relevant historical and intellectual contexts, whilst part two consists of the essays themselves. This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students working within the fields of film studies, literary studies, intellectual history, media and cultural studies. It is also intended to be the final volume in a trilogy of works on cinematic realism, which includes the author's earlier European film theory and cinema (2001), and Realist film theory and cinema (2006).
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2022Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan
The cult of the Two Grand Elders
by Fabian Graham
In Singapore and Malaysia, the inversion of Chinese Underworld traditions has meant that Underworld demons are now amongst the most commonly venerated deities in statue form, channelled through their spirit mediums, tang-ki. The Chinese Underworld and its sub-hells are populated by a bureaucracy drawn from the Buddhist, Taoist and vernacular pantheons. Under the watchful eye of Hell's 'enforcers', the lower echelons of demon soldiers impose post-mortal punishments on the souls of the recently deceased for moral transgressions committed during their prior incarnations. Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan offers an ethnography of contemporary Chinese Underworld traditions, where night-time cemetery rituals assist the souls of the dead, exorcised spirits are imprisoned in Guinness bottles, and malicious foetus ghosts are enlisted to strengthen a temple's spirit army. Understanding the religious divergences between Singapore and Malaysia (and their counterparts in Taiwan) through an analysis of socio-political and historical events, Fabian Graham challenges common assumptions about the nature and scope of Chinese vernacular religious beliefs and practices. Graham's innovative approach to alterity allows the reader to listen to first-person dialogues between the author and channelled Underworld deities. Through its alternative methodological and narrative stance, the book intervenes in debates on the interrelation between sociocultural and spiritual worlds, and promotes the destigmatisation of spirit possession and discarnate phenomena in the future study of mystical and religious traditions.
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsDecember 2019Screening the Paris suburbs
From the silent era to the 1990s
by Philippe Met, Annie Fourcaut, Roland-François Lack, Jean-Louis Pautrot, Keith Reader, Margaret Flinn, Eric Bullot, Tristan Jean, Malcolm Turvey, Elisabeth Cardonne-Arlyck, Térésa Faucon, Philippe Met, Camille Canteux, Derek Schilling, Guillaume Soulez, David Vasse, Derek Schilling
Decades before the emergence of a French self-styled 'hood' film around 1995, French filmmakers looked beyond the gates of the capital for inspiration and content. In the Paris suburbs they found an inexhaustible reservoir of forms, landscapes and social types in which to anchor their fictions, from bourgeois villas and bucolic riverside cafés to post-war housing estates and postmodern new towns. For the first time in English, contributors to this volume address key aspects of this long film history, marked by such towering figures as Jean Renoir, Jacques Tati and Jean-Luc Godard. Idyllic or menacing, expansive or claustrophobic, the suburb served divergent aesthetic and ideological programmes across the better part of a century. Themes central to French cultural modernity - class conflict, leisure, boredom and anti-authoritarianism - cut across the fifteen chapters.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsDecember 2020The cinema of Pedro Almodóvar
by Nuria Triana-Toribio, Ana María Sanchez-Arce, Andy Willis
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsFebruary 2025Screening Sherlock
A cultural history of the Great Detective on film and television
by James Chapman
Screening Sherlock is the first book-length academic study of the film and television career of the most famous detective in fiction. Chapman explores the contexts, adaptation strategies and critical reception of Sherlock Holmes (and Dr Watson) on film and television in Britain and the United States. The book includes case studies of such famous Holmes impersonators as William Gillette, Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Jeremy Brett and Benedict Cumberbatch, as well as charting a path through many lesser-known productions. From early cinema to the Hollywood studio system, and from heritage drama to contemporary postmodern television, Screening Sherlock is an indispensible work for all aficionados of Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective of Baker Street.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJune 2021Contemporary French cinema
An introduction (revised edition)
by Guy Austin
Contemporary French cinema is an essential introduction to popular French film of the last 35 years. It charts recent developments in all genres of French cinema with analyses of over 120 movies, from Les Valseuses to Caché. Reflecting the diversity of French film production since the New Wave, this clear and perceptive study includes chapters on the heritage film, the thriller and the war movie, alongside the 'cinéma du look', representations of sexuality, comedies, the work of women film makers and le jeune cinéma. Each chapter introduces the public reception and critical debates surrounding a given genre, interwoven with detailed accounts of relevant films. Confirmed as a major contribution to both Film Studies and French Studies, this book is a fascinating volume for students and fans of French film alike.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJanuary 2019Contemporary French cinema
An introduction (revised edition)
by Guy Austin
Contemporary French cinema is an essential introduction to popular French film of the last 35 years. It charts recent developments in all genres of French cinema with analyses of over 120 movies, from Les Valseuses to Caché. Reflecting the diversity of French film production since the New Wave, this clear and perceptive study includes chapters on the heritage film, the thriller and the war movie, alongside the 'cinéma du look', representations of sexuality, comedies, the work of women film makers and le jeune cinéma. Each chapter introduces the public reception and critical debates surrounding a given genre, interwoven with detailed accounts of relevant films. Confirmed as a major contribution to both Film Studies and French Studies, this book is a fascinating volume for students and fans of French film alike.
