Films, cinema Books

This work breaks new ground in the understanding of South Indian cinema and politics. Through incisive analysis and original concepts it illustrates the private, public and cinematic personas of MGR and Rajinikanth. It challenges the popular and...

Los Angeles was a cinematic city long before the rise of Hollywood. By the dawn of the twentieth century, photography, painting, and tourist promotion in Southern California provided early filmmakers with a template for building a myth-making business...

Victor Perkins (1936-2016) was a foundational figure for the study of film both as a writer and as an educationalist and teacher who played a key role in establishing film within British higher education. Best known for his 1972 book Film as Film,...

In New Approaches to Contemporary Adaptation, editor Betty Kaklamanidou defiantly claims that "all films are adaptations." The wide-ranging chapters included in this book highlight the growing and evolving relevance of the field of adaptation...

In this dynamic and practical volume, author Marilyn Beker provides methods for self-assessment of values, ideas, and ethical stances, and demonstrates the application of these values to the development of plot, character, and dialogue. Screenwriting

This series of absorbing case studies focuses on the portrayal of Pakistani women in the global media. Analyzing Hollywood films, British documentaries, newspapers and mainstream U.S. magazines, the book traces sensational female figures of...

Latinos have been part of the Hollywood film industry for more than 100 years, yet beyond the remarkable success of a few, their visibility and clout have generally not reflected their significance in American society. Worse, the Latino image has...

For many years, movie audiences have carried on a love affair with the American West, believing Westerns are escapist entertainment of the best kind, harkening back to the days of the frontier. This work compares the reality of the Old West to its...

In recent years, shapeshifting characters in literature, film and television have been on the rise. This has followed the increased use of such characters as metaphors, with novelists and critics identifying specific meanings and topics behind them...

This is a comprehensive comparative analysis of the screwball comedy and film noir genres--two popular Hollywood staples that emerged around the same time. Despite their contrast in tone and theme, "Screwball" and "Noir" have many narrative elements...

The popular success in 1967 of The Graduate was immediate and total; at the time, only Gone with the Wind and The Sound of Music were bigger box-office winners. Yet such phenomenal success came at a price: On the film's 40th anniversary, director Mike...

Although film noir is traditionally associated with the mean streets of the Dark City, this volume explores the genre from a new angle, focusing on non-urban settings. Through detailed readings of more than 100 films set in suburbs, small towns, on...

The films of Stanley Kubrick have left an indelible mark on the history of American cinema. This text explores the auteur's legacy, specifically positioning his body of work within the context of cultural theory. A single chapter is devoted to each of...

Mathematics has maintained a surprising presence in popular media for over a century. In recent years, the movies Good Will Hunting, A Beautiful Mind, and Stand and Deliver, the stage plays Breaking the Code and Proof, the novella Flatland and the...

This richly informed study analyzes how various cinematic tools and techniques have been used to create horror on screen--the aesthetic elements, sometimes not consciously noticed, that help to unnerve, frighten, shock or entertain an audience. The...

Though science fiction is often thought of as a Western phenomenon, the genre has long had a foothold in countries as diverse as India and Mexico. These fourteen critical essays examine both the role of science fiction in the third world and the role...

This is the first complete biography of actress Peg Entwistle, known as the "Hollywood Sign Girl" because of her suicide fall from the HOLLYWOODLAND sign in 1932. It details her childhood, stage and film career, marriage and divorce, and her suicide...

A sequel to the author's earlier work Plato and Popcorn: A Philosopher's Guide to 75 Thought-Provoking Movies, this book presents analyses of 95 movies from the Americas and 20 other countries. Each entry includes a brief introduction to the film...

Some film and novel revisions go so far beyond adaptation that they demand a new designation. This critical collection explores movies, plays, essays, comics and video games that supersede adaptation to radically transform their original sources...

The first edition of John Woo: The Films (McFarland, 1999) was the earliest English-language volume to address the motion picture output of the celebrated Hong Kong director. The book dealt with Woo's film career from his professional beginnings in...

For many years, conspiracy theories have been among the most popular story elements in Hollywood films. According to the "conspiracy culture," Government, Big Business, the Church, even aliens--all of which, bundled together, comprise the ubiquitous...

This analysis of how filmmakers have portrayed England's Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), and the audience's perception of Elizabeth based upon these portrayals, examines key representations of the Tudor monarch in various motion pictures from the...

Jane Austen's novels are loved because they possess a comedic power that is often conveyed through the singular voice of the narrators. Film adaptations, however, have often been unsatisfactory because they lack or awkwardly render features,...

In the past two decades, Othello has tried out for the basketball team, Macbeth has taken over a fast food joint and King Lear has moved to an Iowa farm--Shakespeare is everywhere in popular culture. This collection of essays addresses the use of...

Film has become such an underpinning of art and pop culture that its potential for inspiring serious thought is often overlooked. Our intellectual involvement with film has been minimized as more in the audience want to be merely amazed and...

This new textbook is an abridgment of the author's earlier Woody Allen's Angst: Philosophical Commentaries on His Serious Films (McFarland, 1997; "invaluable"--Choice.) Five main topics are explored: the desire of many of his characters to ground...

A bipolar gangster, a naive, young film director and Batman. What could go wrong? Alex Ferrari is a first-time film director who just got hired to direct a $20 million feature film, the only problem is the film is about Jimmy, an egomaniacal gangster who...

This book argues that the fundamental shift in Chinese Cinema away from Socialism and towards Post-Socialism can be located earlier than the emergence of the "Fifth Generation" in the mid-eighties when it is usually assumed to have occured. By close...

Launched in 1980, cable network Black Entertainment Television (BET) has helped make blackness visible and profitable at levels never seen prior in the TV industry. In 2000, BET was sold by founder Robert L. Johnson, a former cable lobbyist, to media...

Boys, Boyz, Bois concerns questions of ethics, gender and race in popular American images, national discourse and cultural production by and about black men. The book proposes an ethics of masculinity, as ethnics refers to a system of morality and...

In this original study, Scharf investigates issues of national identity in films of the New German Cinema. Using a cultural studies analysis, Scharf argues that the conflict between this generation of critical filmmakers and their...

The liberal way of war and the liberal way of rule are correlated; this book traces that correlation to liberalism's original commitment to 'making life live'. Committed to making life live, liberalism is committed to waging war on behalf of life,...

The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film brings together a lively and experienced team of contributors to investigate the ways in which this exciting discipline is developing.

In Fifty Key British Films, Britain's best known films such as Clockwork Orange, The Full Monty and Goldfinger are scrutinised for their outstanding ability to articulate the issues of the time. This is essential reading for anyone interested...

Projected Shadows presents a new collection of essays exploring films from a psychoanalytic perspective, focusing specifically on the representation of loss in European cinema. This theme is discussed in its many aspects, including: loss of hope and...

Bringing together material from the areas of documentary, fandom and animation, Movie Music, the Film Reader comprises an important first collection of writings about film music. It is divided into four sections, each with an introduction by the editor...

Acknowledging the significance of Edward Said's Orientalism for contemporary discourse, the contributors to this volume deconstruct, rearrange and challenge elements of his thesis, looking at the new conditions and opportunities offered by globalization.

This book presents a critical cultural study of the Trans New Wave as a cinematic genre and explores its emergence in the twenty first century.

Understanding Korean Film: A Cross-Cultural Perspective explains the potential meaning of a selection of common Korean verbal and non-verbal expressions in a range of contexts in South Korean film that are often untranslatable for...

This book addresses a prominent group of virtues and vices as portrayed in popular films to further our understanding of these moral character traits. The discussions emphasize the interplay between the philosophical conception of the virtues and vices...

The Basics of Filmmaking is an introductory textbook tailored to the needs of beginning and intermediate film students and independent filmmakers that expertly guides you through the entirety of the craft, from screenwriting all the way through to...

Producing for the Screen is a collection of essays written by and interviews with working producers, directors, writers, and professors, exploring the business side of producing for film and television.In this book, over 30 industry professionals dispel...

Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound, 4th edition relies on the professional experience of the author and other top sound craftspeople to provide a comprehensive explanation of film sound, including mixing, dubbing, workflow, budgeting, and digital...