In the Scene
Part of our new series of accessible introductory guides to significant contemporary filmmakers, this guide is a must for film fans and students of contemporary cinema alike. An introductory chapter highlights thematic and visual devices, followed by an exploration of British director Steve McQueen's work, from his short films and video art through his critically acclaimed feature films, including his masterpiece, the Academy Award-winning 12 Years A Slave, to his BBC TV series Small Axe and more. Londoner Steve McQueen shot to fame in 1999 when he won the prestigious Turner Prize for innovative art. In 2020, the Tate Gallery in London held an exhibition of over a dozen works spanning film, photography and sculpture, including his homage to the African American actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. Ranging across the visual arts, to advertising, documentary and drama, McQueen often tackles hard-hitting topics such as discrimination and injustice in powerful, cinematic ways.
Isle of Dogs
Isle of Dogs tells the story of Atari, twelve-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by executive decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage dump, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior Turbo-Prop and flies to Trash Island in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and the future of the entire Prefecture.Isle of Dogs uniquely combines bittersweet comedy and tense action with a stunning visual palette. The screenplay displays the subtle wit that has become Wes Anderson's trademark and has endeared his work to filmgoers around the world.In addition to the screenplay, this volume also contains a gallery of artwork created for the film.
Home Screens
How do film and television makers around the world depict public housing? Why is public housing so often chosen as the backdrop for drama, horror, social critique, rebellion, violence, artistic creativity, explorations of race relations and political intrigue? Home Screens answers these questions by examining the ways in which socialized housing projects around the world are represented on screen. The volume brings together a diverse group of interdisciplinary scholars, who explore documentary and fictional portrayals of the architecture of public housing, and the communities that inhabit it, ranging from the 1950s to the present. Examining international film and media texts such as Die Architekten (1990), Swagger (2016), Cooley High (1975), Mee-Pok Man (1995), Treme (2010-2013), Mamma Roma (1962), The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011), and Below the Lion Rock (1972-1976), essays within this book consider public and private attitudes toward socialised housing, explaining how onscreen representations shape perceptions of these ubiquitous, often-stigmatized urban locations.
Asteroid City
Asteroid City (adapted from a "hypothetical" play) takes place in a fictional desert town, circa 1955. Synopsis: the itinerary of the annual Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events. A theatrical ensemble character piece; a poetic meditation on the meaning of life.In addition to the screenplay, this volume also contains a gallery of images and a conversation about the film with Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Jake Ryan.One source of artistic inspiration describes the phenomena the movie attempts to illustrate: "For me, the American West is the place where things fall apart. Civilization simply passed through: first a century ago by rail, then in our own century by car... Only a few people stayed, leaving the gas stations and the unneeded cars rusting away everywhere. The decay goes rapidly in the heat, sun, and rain. You have the feeling that in another hundred years there will be nothing of all this left at all." -- Wim Wenders (1987)
The Non-Professional Actor
Provides the first critical overview of acting, stardom, and performance in post-war Italian film (1945-54), with special attention to the figure of the non-professional actor, who looms large in neorealist filmmaking. Italian post-war cinema has been widely celebrated by critics and scholars: films such as Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948) and Paisan (Rossellini, 1946) remain globally influential, particularly for their use of non-professional actors. This period of regeneration of Italian cinema initiated the boom in cinemagoing that made cinema an important vector of national and gender identity for audiences. The book addresses the casting, performance, and labour of non-professional actors, particularly children, their cultural and economic value to cinema, and how their use brought ideas of the ordinary into the discourse of stars as extraordinary. Relatedly, O'Rawe discusses critical and press discourses around acting, performance, and stardom, often focused on the 'crisis' of acting connected to the rise of non-professionals and the girls (like Sophia Loren) who found sudden cinematic fame via beauty contests.
The Jurassic Park Book
The definitive 1990s blockbuster, Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park met with almost universal critical and popular acclaim, broke new ground with its CGI recreation of dinosaurs, and started one of the most profitable of all movie franchises. To mark the film's 30th anniversary, this exciting illustrated collection of new essays interrogates the Jurassic Park phenomenon from a diverse range of critical, historical, and theoretical angles. The primary focus is on Jurassic Park itself but there is also discussion of the franchise and its numerous spin-offs. As well as leading international scholars of film studies and history, contributors include experts in special effects, science on screen, fan studies, and palaeontology. Comprehensive, up to date, and accessible, The Jurassic Park Book appeals not only to students and scholars of Hollywood and contemporary culture, but also to the global audience of fans of the greatest of all dinosaur movies.
Sylvain Chomet’s Distinctive Animation
This open access book provides the first in-depth analysis of his animation films and his contribution to contemporary animation. Sylvain Chomet is a multifaceted French artist best known for his feature animation films The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist. Although the films have a highly recognized artistic value, the relevant literature is limited to a modest number of articles. Sylvain Chomet's Distinctive Animation examines important elements of the artist's life, his studies and previous works, along with his influences and important collaborations. Special attention is also paid to the production processes, as well as the historical and socioeconomic context in which they have been created, in order to provide the reader not only with a comprehensive study of the films, but also to highlight their contribution to the advancement of contemporary animation. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on www.bloomsburycollections.com.
Riddles of the Sphinx
A classic of feminist avant-garde cinema, Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen's Riddles of the Sphinx (1977) follows the life of Louise (Dinah Stabb), a white middle-class woman living in London in the 1970s, as she confronts the complex politics of motherhood, domestic labour and work. With a kaleidoscopic array of cinematic techniques and poetic devices, the film charts Louise's process as she questions her place within white patriarchal culture and finds her voice within the burgeoning Women's Liberation Movement. Reading Riddles as an essay film, Kimberly Lamm explores how it utilises voice, sound and writing to challenge Hollywood's dominant images of women and to portray maternal care as a legitimate form of work, rich in aesthetic pleasures and feminist possibilities. She examines the voice of the Sphinx, and, connecting it to feminism's engagement with psychoanalysis, argues that Mulvey and Wollen's film works-through long histories of patriarchal viewing practices and creates conditions in which the full range of women's voices can be listened to, heard and valued. Lamm explores how Riddles, the second collaboration between Mulvey and Wollen, drew inspiration from Wollen's influential work on 'counter-cinema' and Mulvey's foundational writing on 'the male gaze'.
Law & Order
A comprehensive, yet entertaining, examination of the Law & Order juggernaut. Over the course of more than 20 years, nearly 500 episodes, and six spinoffs, Law & Order changed the way we view police procedurals, the American justice system, and the men and women of the NYPD. The ubiquity of the show-from its iconic dun-dun sound to its all-star cast of characters and A-list guest stars-has not only made it part of the pop culture zeitgeist but has made society smarter about laws and policing in the United States. In the first-ever book of its kind, author and pop-culture critic Bernadette Giacomazzo celebrates the show and its creator, Dick Wolf, while providing a conscientious examination of the stories of the criminal justice system and the "two separate, yet equally important groups" that represent the people. Law & Order: A Cultural History follows the series' origins from its old New York grit and grime to the twenty-first-century high-tech surveillance in a more sterile Manhattan, highlighting how United States law has evolved and the show along with it and exploring America's fascination with the show that helped give birth to the true crime genre. Law & Order is more than just a police procedural: It is one of the few shows that effectively tackles the social, political, and economic issues that lead to crime. Moreso than its predecessors such as Dragnet and Hill Street Blues, Law & Order gives a first-hand, inside look at the police who investigate crimes and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. In so doing, it removes their mystique and gives them a humanity not seen before. This book finally gives the show and its creator the recognition they deserve for their role in changing the face of both law and order-and true crime television.
The Documentary Audit
Documentary films are often celebrated with aural metaphors: they give "voice" to the "voiceless" and ask the public to "listen." But when did listening become synonymous with social justice? How exactly do documentaries train audiences to listen when they ask them to right historic wrongs or hold power to account? The Documentary Audit challenges the association of listening with accountability and charts oppositional modes of listening otherwise. Pooja Rangan develops a framework for understanding how documentary practices have, under the mantle of accountability, provided a moral cover for listening habits that are used to profile, exclude, and incarcerate. From the British Crown's promotional films to Zoom meeting recordings, from disability-informed filmmaking in Japan to forensic efforts to expose anti-Palestinian violence in Hebron, Rangan explores how historical and contemporary practitioners have challenged and refused the lures of normative documentary listening habits in order to listen with an accent, listen in crip time, and listen like an abolitionist. Through an interdisciplinary approach that bridges documentary and sound studies while considering raciolinguistics, disability access, and legal forensics, Rangan demonstrates how the question of listening is central to the study of documentary. Far from being a neutral ethic, The Documentary Audit shows, listening creates the reality it purports to verify--with transformative political possibilities.
The art of the Moving Picture ...being the 1922 Revision of the Book First Issued in 1915 ... by Vachel Lindsay
The art of the Moving Picture ...being the 1922 Revision of the Book First Issued in 1915 ... by Vachel Lindsay
The Documentary Audit
Documentary films are often celebrated with aural metaphors: they give "voice" to the "voiceless" and ask the public to "listen." But when did listening become synonymous with social justice? How exactly do documentaries train audiences to listen when they ask them to right historic wrongs or hold power to account? The Documentary Audit challenges the association of listening with accountability and charts oppositional modes of listening otherwise. Pooja Rangan develops a framework for understanding how documentary practices have, under the mantle of accountability, provided a moral cover for listening habits that are used to profile, exclude, and incarcerate. From the British Crown's promotional films to Zoom meeting recordings, from disability-informed filmmaking in Japan to forensic efforts to expose anti-Palestinian violence in Hebron, Rangan explores how historical and contemporary practitioners have challenged and refused the lures of normative documentary listening habits in order to listen with an accent, listen in crip time, and listen like an abolitionist. Through an interdisciplinary approach that bridges documentary and sound studies while considering raciolinguistics, disability access, and legal forensics, Rangan demonstrates how the question of listening is central to the study of documentary. Far from being a neutral ethic, The Documentary Audit shows, listening creates the reality it purports to verify--with transformative political possibilities.
Contemporary Post-Production
Contemporary Post-Production is an engaging and insightful guide through the often fraught and stressful phase of post-production. It brings the art and craft of editing to life, describes contemporary workflows, and demonstrates how to break the post-production process into manageable phases. It also explores editing approaches used by five award-winning filmmakers across fiction films, documentaries, and interactive works.This text addresses key questions about the editor's role in shaping a story, the roles of various members of the post-production team, when and how to delegate to specialists, and how to engage in the most efficient and constructive conversations with them. Another key focus is on career pathways, with each featured filmmaker sharing how they broke into the editing field and offering advice on building a lasting career.The featured filmmakers reflect a diversity of life experiences and work, and their interviews shed light on the people behind the process. They provide guidance on cutting-edge tools, such as the most essential software to know, how they incorporate GenAI into their work, and how they utilize remote workflows. A brief look at the past offers valuable context for understanding the future, including a section on key innovators in film history. Examples include Alice Guy-Blach矇's pioneering use of sync sound and Oscar Micheaux's re-editing techniques to navigate censorship - stories that illustrate past innovations and continue to inspire today's filmmakers to push creative and technical boundaries.Each technical chapter includes class activities and exercises to help readers practice specific skills. Additional resources provide ample opportunities for continued learning.This book serves as an invaluable resource for students in post-production courses and anyone looking to enter the industry or refine their skills.
Personal Voice
Offering a definitive approach by which any individual may learn to unleash the power of the personal, this book provides the reader with an exhaustive guide on how to tell the stories they're uniquely qualified to tell.Anchored in process and skills acquisition, this book shifts the paradigm for all storytellers - seasoned and emerging - as it empowers them to increase their creative and business acumen. Guiding creatives in recognizing the vital role of personal voice in their work, the book illuminates the process by which to discern and harness that voice, proffers the tools to incorporate voice into stories that resonate with audiences, and examines how voice translates to best industry practices in merging creative and business development. Unfolding in three parts, the chapters include practical exercises and mentor-like strategies to help transfer practice to industry. The text concludes with a revealing interview with a film industry expert, who sheds light on the knowledge and tools needed to thrive in an ever-evolving marketplace.This is the ideal guide for professionals and students alike, appealing to aspiring film & TV writers specifically.
Warfare + Civil War
Includes the screenplays for Warfare and Civil War, with an accompanying interview on screenwriting with Iraq War verteran Ray Mendoza, who co-wrote and co-directed Warfare with Alex Garland.Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy SEALs in the home of an Iraqi family, overwatching the movement of US forces through insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare, told like never before: in real time, and based on the memory of the people who lived it -- co-writer/co-director Ray Mendoza was a part of the platoon. From Alex Garland comes Civil War, a journey across a dystopian future America following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House. The film stars Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Nick Offerman.
That Very Witch
That Very Witch explores the cyclical rise and fall of the cinematic witch in American culture and her relationship to feminist movements over time.Through historical analysis and dozens of case studies, Payton McCarty-Simas demonstrates how the cinematic witch's evolution across decades reflects major shifts in how feminism is perceived politically and interpreted (counter-)culturally in America. From Mia Farrow to the Moral Majority, from the Satanic Panic to Riot Grrrl, from #MeToo to the 2024 election, the witch can be found at the heart of the zeitgeist. What can we learn from her presence?
Globalized Queerness
Has a global queer popular culture emerged at the expense of local queer artists? In this book, Helton Levy argues that global queer culture is indebted to specific, local references that artists carry from their early experiences in life, which then become homogenized by contemporary media markets. The assumption that queer publics live and consume only through a global set of references, including gay parades and rainbow flags, for example, erases many personal complexities. Levy revisits media characters that have caught the attention of the broader public - such as Calamity Jane (1953), the Daffyd Thomas character from the BBC comedy Little Britain (2003-2007), Brazilian drag queen Pabblo Vittar, French singer Christine and the Queens, and the Italian-Egyptian rapper Mahmood - and argues that they have gradually blended in the public's perception. This has often obscured the individual struggles faced by these characters, such as immigration, homophobia, poverty and societal exclusion. Levy also questions what happens when global media flows take queer culture to regions wherein the notion of LGBTQ+ rights are not entirely acceptable. Utilizing insights from media reports published across the world's ten biggest media markets, Levy argues that there are a series of conditions which artists and cultural actors negotiate once they achieve any kind of success in mainstream media, while local queer references remain unseen in the wider media world. For that reason, he argues for stronger incentives for communities to accept and acknowledge the work of queer people before and after commoditization.
Uncanny Landscapes in 21st Century British Cinema
A consideration of how some recent British films are defined by their atmospheres of unease, which grow out of a bold and distinctive treatment of landscape. An uncertain tendency in recent British cinema has been to conjure atmospheres of eerie unease, depicting landscapes through which lost figures wander. The films of, among others, Andrea Arnold, Clio Barnard, Paddy Considine, Shane Meadows and Ben Wheatley play out against these landscapes, which are formed of abandoned sites that are neither rural nor urban, but somewhere in between. These liminal spaces are disorientating enclosures from which the viewer infers something malign: the pestilence in the ditch. These contaminated metaphysical spaces are travelled by the films' characters and viewers alike.
The Creative Producing Handbook
Written by the head of physical production at New Line Cinema, The Creative Producing Handbook: An Insider's Guide to Production provides a detailed overview of creative film production and what it takes to make it as a producer or executive in today's industry.The book explains in detail the process of filmmaking, delving into the world of film and television production from script development through the entire production and postproduction process up to release.The book starts by providing an introduction to the key players on a production and explores the differences between the studio and production company worlds. Beyda explains the process of getting to and through production in a linear fashion, beginning with scheduling, location decisions, incentives, and budgeting. The book provides explanations and definitions of the various unions and guilds and outlines some of the rules that filmmakers will need to be aware of. It further discusses clearances and product placement and then proceeds to visual effects, postproduction and music before ending with the worlds of marketing and publicity. The book provides examples and assignments to teach a reader how to formulate a plan for production that can be used to pitch a project or run a set.This is a great resource for aspiring producers and creative executives who want to enter the film and television industry and provides an understanding of the filmmaking process for those who just want to know more.
Virtual Production
This book, written by industry experts, provides a comprehensive understanding of virtual production processes, concepts, and technology - helping readers get to grips with this nascent technology.Topics covered are the history of virtual production, underlying technologies, creative potential, and production workflows. In addition, it delivers a detailed overview of the virtual production pipeline, from pre-production planning to post-production finishing. Each chapter explains specific aspects of virtual production, such as real-time rendering, motion capture, virtual cameras, LED screens, game engines, and collaborative workflows. Additionally, the book examines virtual production's ethical and cultural implications, including the impact on actors, the representation of diverse voices, and the democratization of filmmaking.Whether you're a student, teacher, or industry professional, Virtual Production will provide you with a solid foundation for comprehending the fundamental concepts behind a constantly evolving and intricate process.
Marleen Gorris
Dutch director Marleen Gorris is known chiefly for two films: A Question of Silence (1982), her fiercely feminist first film, in which three women meet by chance in a women's clothing boutique and ritually murder its male owner; and Antonia's Line (1995), her fourth film and winner of the 1996 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, which traces four generations of Antonia's female 'line' in the matriarchal community she establishes in postwar rural Holland. Both have been extensively discussed, though rarely together, and appear on university syllabuses. Her second Dutch language film, Broken Mirrors (1984), and her five films in English, however, have received far less, and in some cases no critical attention. Using feminist reformulations of ideas of vulnerability and resistance, this first book-length study of her films examines their revisionings of narrative, time and space, and the possibilities they present of other narratives, other subjectivities and other relationships.
Marketing for Microbudget Films
In Marketing for Microbudget Films, feature film director, producer and educator Nick Mackintosh-Smith shares a combination of blockbuster and indie techniques for targeting a dedicated audience. Mackintosh-Smith provides hands-on suggestions for strategies designed to match a variety of genres, territories and viewer tastes.Mackintosh-Smith, along with a diverse cross-section of industry veterans, offers advice on effective promotion, from building relationships with audience members to large-scale distribution companies. Readers will learn invaluable tactics, such as working with film commissions and other film-friendly organisations; the nuts and bolts of posters, trailers and bonus material; how to maintain audience interest during the postproduction process; as well as maximising the latest social media techniques in multiple territories.With indispensable facts, figures, case studies and resources, Marketing for Microbudget Films provides a wealth of techniques to use in a way that will inform, assist and motivate moviemakers of all levels.
Be the Bombshell
Date better, raise your standards, and learn to be true to yourself with these heartfelt lessons from the Villa. "Can I pull you for a chat?" "Where's your head at?" "Maybe we should call it the 'friendship island'?" "Do I put all my eggs in one basket?" "Am I a mug?" These are the questions that plague the Love Islanders competing for love in their sun-soaked villa--and those of us in the trenches of modern dating. They share the dilemmas that keep us up at night as we swipe, text, and ghost our way to finding a romantic spark. The #1 hit reality TV dating show does more than offer riveting poolside drama, genuinely touching romances (and bromances), and hours of contestants in bikinis having the most mundane conversations on the terrace. It provides an unvarnished portrait of dating, with plenty to say about love, self-worth, and putting yourself back together after a brutal recoupling. Be the Bombshell is a cheeky, laugh-out-loud playbook to navigating singlehood by embracing the absolute ten-out-of-ten, proper fit, total bombshell that you are. Feeling awkward about approaching people in public? Here's how to pull someone for a chat. Overcome by an "ick?" Maybe you just need to move beyond your "type on paper." Recently been pied--or dumped? Invest in yourself before choosing to go out there again. In this unofficial title, Rebecca Jennings takes the most iconic and unforgettable moments from Love Island to remind us dating should be fun--not just tolerable. A witty love letter to Love Island superfans, hopeless romantics, and serial swipers, Be the Bombshell will teach you to demand what you want unapologetically and to tell the difference between what's worth the compromise and what's settling for less than you deserve. Your very own group chat to the best, worst, and weirdest parts of dating, Be the Bombshell steers you through the highs, lows, and the DMs you probably shouldn't send. Are you ready? A hot new bombshell has entered the Villa! This book is not authorized, sponsored, or affiliated with the television show Love Island.
Production Management on Location
Production Management on Location is your essential companion for mastering the complexities of international documentary production. Written by an experienced production manager who has spent years on location, this book offers a rare, hands-on look at the realities of producing unscripted documentaries in diverse global settings.From adrenaline-fueled adventures to projects featuring celebrity presenters, this guide demystifies the process of prepping, producing, and managing on-location shoots. Whether you're coordinating a small crew or handling high-profile talent, you'll find step-by-step guidance on pre-production planning, logistical coordination, and managing people under demanding circumstances. Featuring exclusive case studies and interviews with award-winning professionals and presenters, the book brings firsthand insights and practical advice from the field. It also delves into the latest trends in production, including sustainability practices and innovations that are becoming essential to good production management.Packed with actionable strategies and behind-the-scenes know-how, this is perfect for emerging and experienced professionals, documentary filmmakers, and students interested in documentary production.
Hopeful Vision
This monograph recuperates the concept of entertainment as a legitimate basis for 'small screen' criticism. It suggests that critical approaches to television might treat the text as an object of potential which actively engages and provides for aesthetic experience through entertainment. Aesthetic experience is characterised by emotion, and this study shows how the textual production of specifically forward feelings such as anticipation, aspiration, fear or dread may be mobilised and made sense of, shaping our sense of the future and its objects of hope. The argument is demonstrated by case studies arranged from 'light' to 'dark' in tone - as varied as Eurovision and Succession, The Repair Shop and The Leftovers - showing how these provide potentially significant, affecting encounters that are 'hopeful' in varying degrees and guises. Hope is adopted both as a theme of analysis and as a critical strategy of interpretation which privileges entertainment efficacy, and thus moves towards a more viewer-centric appreciation of cultural value.
Marleen Gorris
Dutch director Marleen Gorris is known chiefly for two films: A Question of Silence (1982), her fiercely feminist first film, in which three women meet by chance in a women's clothing boutique and ritually murder its male owner; and Antonia's Line (1995), her fourth film and winner of the 1996 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, which traces four generations of Antonia's female 'line' in the matriarchal community she establishes in postwar rural Holland. Both have been extensively discussed, though rarely together, and appear on university syllabuses. Her second Dutch language film, Broken Mirrors (1984), and her five films in English, however, have received far less, and in some cases no critical attention. Using feminist reformulations of ideas of vulnerability and resistance, this first book-length study of her films examines their revisionings of narrative, time and space, and the possibilities they present of other narratives, other subjectivities and other relationships.
God and the Devil
"Immensely insightful." The Guardian"A commanding portrait." Total Film "Indispensable . . . rich, engaging, thorough." Sight & Sound The first biography of Bergman in 40 years, containing exclusive extracts from workbooks and letters. 'Bergman's films stand alone as beacons in film history.' Wim Wenders A chronicle of the life and career of one of film's defining figures, God and the Devil draws on exclusive extracts from Bergman's diaries, letters and production workbooks. Peter Cowie brings us close to the man and the artist, as he wrestled with themes of love, sex and betrayal - with the figure of Death always hovering overhead.
Developing 007
Since his debut on the paperback rack in 1953, Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 has become a staple of pop culture. However, fans of the films far outnumber readers of Fleming's original novels, which is a shame. If you've ever wondered how closely the films followed the books they are based on, this is the tome for you as it charts the writing process of the novels and the screenplays based upon them. In the books, you'll see Bond save London from the Moonraker rocket, battle a giant squid on the island of Dr. No, and take down the diamond-smuggling Spangled Mob outside of Las Vegas. In discarded screenplays, you'll see 007 trail Hugo Drax to Loch Ness, team with Goldfinger's twin brother to take down Blofeld, and become a SPECTRE double agent. Lastly, in addition to EON's classic productions beginning with Dr. No (1962), this book also charts the history of forgotten outliers like the 1954 Climax! live TV episode devoted to Casino Royale along with the 1967 big budget spoof starring Peter Sellers and David Niven.
Television/Death
Television/Death intertwines the study of death, dying and bereavement on television with discussion of the ways that television (and the TV archive) provides access to the dead. Section One looks at the representation of death, dying and the afterlife on television, in historical and contemporary factual television (from around the world) and in US television drama. Section Two focuses on dramas of grief and bereavement and discusses how the long form seriality and narrative complexity of television, from family melodramas to the ghost serial, allows for an emotionally realist representation of experiences of grief, bereavement and death-related trauma. Finally, Section Three proposes that television has been overlooked in critical analyses of recorded sounds' and images' propensity to 'bring back the dead'. It argues that television is the posthumous medium par excellence and looks at how the dead return via incorporation into new television programmes or through projects to bring television out of the archive.
Film Style in Indonesian Cinema, 1998-2018
Film Style in Indonesian Cinema, 1998-2018 investigates the role of film style during the rebirth of Indonesian cinema following the collapse of General Suharto's New Order regime. Purnama argues that the renewal of Indonesian cinema was influenced by filmmakers who revamped the cinematic images of Indonesian film by foregrounding visual stylisation using cinematography and production design techniques. They transformed the aesthetic of Indonesian film to become stylistically complex with a pronounced degree of visual sophistication, offering local audiences pictorially appealing and engaging cinematic experiences.Through a close analysis of lighting, production design, and camera movement in contemporary films such as Sang Pencerah, Laskar Pelangi, and The Raid: Redemption, Purnama highlights the significance of film style and the art of film-making to the cinematographers and production designers who revitalised Indonesian cinema in the 21st Century.
Hong Kong Crime Films
Hong Kong Crime Films is the first book detailing the post-war history of the genre before the release of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986), the film that put Hong Kong action-crime on the global map. Focusing on what it calls the mode of 'criminal realism' in the crime film, the book shows how depictions of Hong Kong's social reality (including crime) were for decades anxiously policed by colonial censors, and how crime films tended (and still tend) to confound and transgress critical definitions of realism. Drawing on extensive archival research, Hong Kong Crime Films covers several neglected topics in the study of Hong Kong cinema, such as the evolving generic landscape of the crime film prior to the 1980s, the influence of colonial film censorship on the genre, and the prominence and contestation of "realism" in the local history of the crime film.
Iconoclasm in European Cinema
Exploring anti-mimesis and image destruction in Western European films, Iconoclasm in European Cinema: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Image Destruction offers the first comprehensive study of philosophical iconoclasm in cinema. Drawing on continental philosophy of the image, medieval theology and recent developments in film ethics, it investigates the aesthetic and ethical significance of destroying certain film images, both literally (via damages to the filmstrip) and metaphorically (through blank screens, altered motion and disruptive sounds). Analysing the work of various filmmakers, the book considers iconoclastic gestures against the film image's ability to mimetically represent contents on the verge of the invisible and the ineffable. This book demonstrates that the overlooked issue of iconoclasm in film is essential for understanding contemporary attitudes towards images and argues that cinematic iconoclasm can encourage an ethics of (in)visibility by questioning the limits of our right to see and show something on a screen.
Vampires in Silent Cinema
Despite the enormous cultural impact of Nosferatu (1922) on modern entertainment, the history of vampires in silent film is largely unknown. Vampires in Silent Cinema covers the subject from 1896-1931, reclaiming a large array of forgotten films from countries ranging from the United States and France to Hungary and Russia. Drawing on thousands of primary sources, Rhodes explores vampirism in all of its manifestations, from the supernatural undead to the natural vamp.
