Film history, theory or criticism Books

An all star cast of academic experts offer an important and timely analysis of the pursuit of autonomy. They argue that it is key to move beyond the primarily normative debate about the rights or wrongs of autonomous regions on the basis of cultural...

What are cyborgs? How have they been represented in cinema? And why have they generated such an astonishing degree of critical and popular interest? These are the questions that underpin this book. It asks what relevance the cyborg has in exploring the...

Michael Mann's films receive a detailed analysis as existential dramas, includingHeat, Collateral, The Last of the Mohicans and Public Enemies. Thebook demonstrates that Mann's films perform critical engagement with existentialism, illustrating the...

A refreshing insight into a previously neglected area of popular British cinema - the holiday film - including historical information about the British holiday and analyses of key films from the 1800s to the recent past.

From the origins of the silent feature film and the creation of the star system, Italy has been at the forefront of the development of cinema as a mass phenomenon. Popular Italian genre films were among the most internationally successful Italian films...

Kristi McKim offers close-analyses of films in which attachment and detachment, intimacy and distance, ephemera and endurance become more visible and meaningful. Films discussed include Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, Agnès Varda's Jacquot de Nantes, Doris...

By 1920 one of the most recognised faces on the planet belonged to Charlie Chaplin, confirming the influence of a powerful new medium. Today's film fans turn to Facebook and Twitter to follow their heroes. While the ubiquitous smart phone enmeshes...

This collection focuses on the existential predicaments and choices that underpin current debates and developments in the governance of crime and criminal justice and argues for the relevance of existentialist thought for enhancing a critical and...

This book presents a unique insight into an extraordinary period of European history that had far-reaching significance for British cinema andfor the way history itselfis represented. The work collected in this volume draws from the best knowledge,...

Today's Hollywood screenplays have a uniform appearance, but it has not always been this way. The earliest film writing used theatrical plays and prose fiction as models, and the silent cinemas of Germany, Russia and the United States all developed their...

Indian cinematic traditions have always relied on eclectic ways of figuration that combine signs and affects of desire and abomination. That is, incarnations often emerge at critical interfaces between good/bad, Indian/western, self/other, virtue/vice,...

The North American Review V56 (1843) is a collection of essays and articles published by the North American Review Corporation. This volume features a variety of topics, including literature, politics, history, and science. The essays are written by...

This volume provides a comprehensive guide to the long tradition of American avant-garde cinema, from its origins in the 1920s to the work of contemporary film and video artists. The Reader addresses major movements and key figures of the avant-garde,...

Film Policy is the first comprehensive overview of the workings of the international film industry. The authors examine film cultures and film policy across the world, explaining why Hollywood cinema dominates the global film market, and the effects of...

The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films offers readers a long overdue, comprehensive look at the rich history of fairy tales and their influence on film, complete with the inclusion of an extensive filmography compiled by the author...

In The Citizen Audience, Richard Butsch explores the cultural and political history of audiences in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present. He demonstrates that, while attitudes toward audiences have shifted over time, Americans...

European Film Theory explores the 'Europeanness' of European film theory, its philosophical origins, the 'culture wars' between 'Continental' and 'Analytical' film theory and philosophy, the major discursive and epistemological shifts in the history of...

British Women's Cinema examines the place of female-centred films throughout British film history, from silent melodrama and 1940s costume dramas right up to the contemporary British 'chick flick'.

How can we queerly theorise and understand television? How can the realms of television studies and queer theory be brought together, in a manner beneficial and productive for both? Queer TV: Theories, Histories, Politics is the first book to explore...

Brazilian cinema is one of the most influential national cinemas in Latin America and this wide-ranging study traces the evolution of Brazilian film from the silent era to the present day, including detailed studies of more recent international...

Horror, The Film Reader brings together key articles to provide a comprehensive resource for students of horror cinema. Mark Jancovich's introduction traces the development of horror film from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to The Blair Witch Project, and...

South African National Cinema examines how cinema in South Africa represents national identities, particularly with regard to race. This significant and unique contribution establishes interrelationships between South African cinema and key points in...

Though many archival digital objects were not "born digital," film archives are now becoming important resources for digital scholarship as a consequence of digitization. Moreover, with advancements in digital research methods involving video annotation,...

When collective memory is a source of national debate, the public representation of history quickly becomes a locus of controversy and ideological struggle. Remembering the Occupation in French Film explores French identity as it is articulated through...

The Middle Ages depicted in Walt Disney movies have come, for many, to figure as the Middle Ages, forming the earliest visions of the medieval past for much of the contemporary western (and increasingly eastern) imaginary. The essayists of The Disney...

A collection of essays from scholars around the globe examining the ethical issues and problems associated with some of the major areas within contemporary international communication: journalism, PR, marketing communication, and political rhetoric.

It Came From the 1950s is an eclectic, witty and insightful collection of essays predicated on the hypothesis that popular cultural documents provide unique insights into the concerns, anxieties and desires of their times. The essays explore the...

Drawing on a wide range of examples, this book - the first devoted to the phenomenon of the film trilogy- provides a dynamic investigation of the ways in which the trilogy form engages key issues in contemporary discussions of film remaking, adaptation,...

Tracingthe rise of extreme art cinema across films from Lars von Trier's The Idiots to Michael Haneke's Caché, Asbjørn Grønstad revivesthe debate about the role of negation and aesthetics, andreframes the concept of spectatorship in ethical terms.

The Politics of Hollywood Cinema radically transforms our understanding of cinema's potential to be politically engaging and challenging. Examining several films from Hollywood's classical era, including Marked Woman, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Born...

Social realism has been a vital element of British culture over the past seventy years, yet it has not gained anywhere near the critical attention its impact warrants. It can be a highly responsive genre, one that confronts its contemporaneous social,...

Lombardo expands upon the intuitions of Baudelaire, proposing a new understanding of cinephilia as the interplay of the memory and the imagination of both filmmakers and spectators. Films by Scorsese, Lynch, Jarmusch and Van Sant are presented as...

An investigation of the history of Spanish guerrilla fighters (the maquis), concentrating on their cinematic representations in film and documentary from the 1950s onwards.

This volume provides a collection of original essays from leading scholars in the field exploring the contemporary debates, concerns and controversies ongoing in Spanish film industry, culture and scholarship. The essays reveal the far-reaching shifts...

Martin Dines explores the relationship between the physical and metaphorical spaces of suburbia and the evolution of modern gay identities across a range of British and American film and fiction, looking at the work of Dennis Cooper, Quentin Crisp, Todd...

In one of the first serious critical and theoretical studies of the screenplay, Steven Price looks at theories of authorship, modes of textual production and the formal elements of screenwriting, taking the reader on a lively and engaging journey through...