The Vanishing (Spoorloos)
At the 1989 Sydney Film Festival, George Sluizer's little-known independent film, Spoorloos (The Vanishing), was an unexpected hit, winning the festival's audience award and gaining accolades at other international film festivals. The Vanishing has earned a reputation as a psychological thriller that shocked audiences with its unexpected twist ending. This is the first book-length study to examine The Vanishing as a film that complements and broadens generic expectations of psychological horror cinema. It delves into The Vanishing's production history, including Sluizer's adaptation of the film screenplay from the novella The Golden Egg (1984) by Dutch author Tim Krabb矇. Beyond exploring Sluizer's filmmaking style and The Vanishing's place in Dutch cinema, this book analyses how the film's plot, themes and symbolic imagery connect it to topics prevalent in prominent sub-genres of horror cinema, including the serial-killer sub-genre that rose to prominence in the late 1980s. Its themes are also echoed in contemporary films associated with arthouse cinema, which are variously dubbed 'post-horror' and 'elevated horror'. The book will illuminate The Vanishing's close associations with modern-day cinema, arguing that its particular type of psychological horror has consistently resonated with audiences in the decades since its release.
The Vanishing (Spoorloos)
At the 1989 Sydney Film Festival, George Sluizer's little-known independent film, Spoorloos (The Vanishing), was an unexpected hit, winning the festival's audience award and gaining accolades at other international film festivals. The Vanishing has earned a reputation as a psychological thriller that shocked audiences with its unexpected twist ending. This is the first book-length study to examine The Vanishing as a film that complements and broadens generic expectations of psychological horror cinema. It delves into The Vanishing's production history, including Sluizer's adaptation of the film screenplay from the novella The Golden Egg (1984) by Dutch author Tim Krabb矇. Beyond exploring Sluizer's filmmaking style and The Vanishing's place in Dutch cinema, this book analyses how the film's plot, themes and symbolic imagery connect it to topics prevalent in prominent sub-genres of horror cinema, including the serial-killer sub-genre that rose to prominence in the late 1980s. Its themes are also echoed in contemporary films associated with arthouse cinema, which are variously dubbed 'post-horror' and 'elevated horror'. The book will illuminate The Vanishing's close associations with modern-day cinema, arguing that its particular type of psychological horror has consistently resonated with audiences in the decades since its release.
One Frame Per Second
"One Frame Per Second: Graphic Design as Visual Storyteller" is a work that explores how graphic design has become an essential storyteller in film and television. From silent films, where images made up for the absence of sound, to the streaming era, where graphic interfaces create personalized experiences, this book reveals how every visual decision transforms stories into unforgettable narratives. Through in-depth analysis, it unveils the secrets behind opening titles, visual universes in franchises and graphic strategies on digital platforms, showing how design communicates emotions, builds identities and connects with audiences.The book inspires students, designers and audiovisual lovers to appreciate the cultural and narrative impact of graphic design. It is an invitation to rediscover the power of images and to value each graphic element as a bridge between stories and their audiences. This work is a celebration of design as an art that, frame by frame, creates worlds that transcend the screen and remain in the collective memory.
Women and Migration in Contemporary Italian Cinema
Women and Migration in Contemporary Italian Cinema: Screening Hospitality puts gender at the centre of cinematic representations of contemporary transnational Italian identities. It offers an intersectional feminist analysis of the ways in which transnational migration has been represented, understood, and constructed in the contemporary cinema of Italy. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's notion of hospitality and in dialogue with postcolonial and decolonial theory, queer studies, and feminist critiques, the six chapters of the book focus on a series of exemplary fiction films from the last twenty years, which both reflect and shape the nation's responses to the growing presence of transnational migrants in Italian society. The book shows how questions of gender, sexual difference, and reproductivity have been central to Italian filmmakers' approaches to stories of mobility and displacement. Gender is also enmeshed in the rhetoric and poetic of hospitality that filmmakers propose as a critical framework to condemn Italian border policies and politics. Women and Migration in Contemporary Italian Cinema: Screening Hospitality traces an arc that moves from the embrace of a humanitarian rhetoric of infinite hospitality toward migrants, apparent in films produced in the early 2000s, to a more fluid understanding of Italian identities from a transnational perspective.
Descriptive Analysis of Sound and Silence in the Audiovisual Translations of American and Japanese Movies
Screening Sherlock
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.
Tv’s American Dream
TV's American Dream examines how the U.S. television industry in the 2010s pursued audiences whose ideas about hope, fairness, work, and economic class were shaped by the Great Recession. While Americans navigated the trauma of the economic meltdown, the television industry faced growing pressure stemming from new program distribution and viewing methods, increasingly fragmented audiences, shifts in methods of advertising, and regulatory changes. To cut through the clutter of television content to appeal to elusive viewers, television programming reimagined some of the traditional representations of the American Dream and continued to bolster others. Exploring shows on different platforms from legacy networks to Netflix, Selznick takes a deep dive into representations of the American Dream on television. Each chapter of this book focuses on a particular strategy mobilized in the second decade of the new century to speak to audiences about their expectations for and concerns about the Dream. Bringing together research on industrial practices with an examination of sociocultural context, TV's American Dream demonstrates how interconnected forces give rise to the television programs that reinforce and redefine audiences' ideas about the world in which they live.
Hotels
From Marienbad to the Bates Motel, cinematic hotels are more than a mere backdrop to a film's action. They actively scaffold the formal, aesthetic, and narrative possibilities of cinema. This book takes a journey through spaces of temporary dwelling--hotels, inns, and motels--to delve into the dynamics and contradictions that structure modern life. Along the way, O'Dwyer considers questions of plot and eroticism, labor and globalization, and the ethics and economics of hospitality. Drawing on a broad array of films from European art cinema to experimental adult media, and placing cinema into dialogue with film theory and media history, Hotels explores both how and why the hotel has such a strong purchase on the cinematic imaginary.
The Superhero Blockbuster
The Superhero Blockbuster: Adaptation, Style, and Meaning builds an innovative framework for analyzing one of the most prominent genres in twenty-first-century Hollywood. In combining theories of adaptation with close textual analysis, James C. Taylor provides a set of analytical tools with which to undertake nuanced exploration of superhero blockbusters' meanings. This deep understanding of the films attends to historical, sociopolitical, and industrial contexts and also illuminates key ways in which the superhero genre has contributed to the development of the Hollywood blockbuster. Each chapter focuses on a different superhero or superhero team, covering some of the most popular superhero blockbusters based on DC and Marvel superheroes. The chapters cover different aspects of the films' adaptive practices, exploring the adaptation of stylistic strategies, narrative models, and modes of seriality from superhero comic books, while being attentive to the ways in which the films engage with the wider networks of texts in various media that comprise a given superhero franchise. Chapter 1 looks back to the first superhero blockbuster, 1978's Superman: The Movie, examining its cinematic re-envisioning of the quintessential superhero and role in establishing Hollywood's emerging model of blockbuster filmmaking. Subsequent chapters analyze the twenty-first-century boom in superhero blockbusters and examine digital imaging and nostalgia in Spider-Man films, Marvel Studios' adaptation of a shared universe model of seriality in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the use of alternate timeline narratives in X-Men films. The book concludes by turning its analytical toolkit to analysis of DC Studios' cinematic universe, the DC Extended Universe.
Representations of Endymion and Selene
A focused study of an ancient myth and its reception, which provokes new consideration of how myth in general can challenge social norms.Analyzing the visual and literary transformations of the myth of Endymion and Selene, Anna Chiara Corradino argues that this myth becomes a valuable tool for understanding the cultural problematization and censorship of female sexuality, as well as the marginalization of alternative forms of male sexuality. The myth's key themes, of dominant femininity, reified masculinity and female necrophilia, are shaped through the centuries from the core story of Selene, the goddess of the Moon, falling in love with a mortal shepherd, Endymion, and granting him eternal sleep so she can kiss him every night. In five core sections focusing on the archaeology of the myth in the ancient world, the art of the Renaissance to Baroque periods, and modern art and film, Corradino traces the way the relationship between the two 'lovers' embodies the taboo topic of the eroticization of the sleeping and/or dead male body, and the suppressed desire of female domination and dominance. This research breaks new ground by displaying how these marginal desires have always challenged normativity and have had a profound impact on and through multiple receptions.
The Superhero Blockbuster
The Superhero Blockbuster: Adaptation, Style, and Meaning builds an innovative framework for analyzing one of the most prominent genres in twenty-first-century Hollywood. In combining theories of adaptation with close textual analysis, James C. Taylor provides a set of analytical tools with which to undertake nuanced exploration of superhero blockbusters' meanings. This deep understanding of the films attends to historical, sociopolitical, and industrial contexts and also illuminates key ways in which the superhero genre has contributed to the development of the Hollywood blockbuster. Each chapter focuses on a different superhero or superhero team, covering some of the most popular superhero blockbusters based on DC and Marvel superheroes. The chapters cover different aspects of the films' adaptive practices, exploring the adaptation of stylistic strategies, narrative models, and modes of seriality from superhero comic books, while being attentive to the ways in which the films engage with the wider networks of texts in various media that comprise a given superhero franchise. Chapter 1 looks back to the first superhero blockbuster, 1978's Superman: The Movie, examining its cinematic re-envisioning of the quintessential superhero and role in establishing Hollywood's emerging model of blockbuster filmmaking. Subsequent chapters analyze the twenty-first-century boom in superhero blockbusters and examine digital imaging and nostalgia in Spider-Man films, Marvel Studios' adaptation of a shared universe model of seriality in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the use of alternate timeline narratives in X-Men films. The book concludes by turning its analytical toolkit to analysis of DC Studios' cinematic universe, the DC Extended Universe.
The Queer Coming of Age Film Genre
In The Queer Coming of Age Film Genre, Brad Windhauser argues for the existence of this genre and, using a genre and queer theory lens, investigates how the initial, classic cluster of this genre's films represent the unique issues experienced by queer people - including trans, non-binary, and intersex individuals - coming of age in society in the mid- to late 90s. As society evolved, the book posits, so too did the ways in which these films explored additional factors influencing the queer coming of age experience, such as race and economic status, in the genre's second stage. Windhauser explores how this genre depicts the way queer people often engage with the coming-of-age process earlier than their cis-het peers, due to their queer identity, but also how this process can extend beyond adolescence into emerging adulthood and adulthood itself. Ultimately, the book demonstrates how these films have become a tool to both further political goals of queer advocacy and acceptance and to offer guidance to queer people looking to gain a deeper understanding of their own lives and experiences. Scholars of film studies, genre studies, pop culture, and queer studies will find this book of particular interest.
Winning the Crowd
How are the films we watch shaping our political worldview? Studies show that films shape us--they affect our values, our beliefs, and our actions. Consequently understanding the messages reinforced by many popular films is vital for everyone, and especially for the student of politics.Winning The Crowd: The Politics of Popular Films showcases careful, close readings of recent, popular films as serious texts of political thought. Ten contributors select a film or small set of related films--from the John Wick franchise to Pixar's The Incredibles--and analyze the political orientations that these films convey. The volume will be a helpful introduction for those interested in what Hollywood is teaching its viewers about power and the good life. It will also be a valuable model for those wishing to sharpen their own ability to think critically about the meaning of their evening entertainment.How have your values and beliefs been formed by Hollywood? Winning The Crowd takes you on a guided journey through some of the smartest popular films of recent years.
Beyond the Bbfc
This work scrutinises British film censorship from a local perspective. Examining different regions and areas, the work of individual councils and their relations with one another and with the BBFC, it offers a broad historical exploration of the intricacies of film censorship in action. Drawing on local archival material and considering the activities of local government in enforcing Cinematograph legislation, this work considers the significance of film censorship apparatus and processes in shaping and informing responses to and control of film culture in different locations across the twentieth century.
The New Italian Cinema of Precarity
竄This is an excellent and innovative study of one of the most crucial topics of today. Using gender, sexuality, and race as theoretical frameworks, The New Italian Cinema of Precarity brilliantly enlivens the study of precarity and unemployment as portrayed in contemporary Italian cinema. A must-have for both students and scholars.罈 (Dr. Paolo Chirumbolo, Louisiana State University) The book provides one of the first explorations of contemporary Italian cinematic depictions of precarity. In 2008, the world faced a significant financial crisis, leading to the emergence of the socio-economic phenomenon known as precarity. In Italy, precarity is a national issue, primarily referring to the widespread prevalence of temporary work, impacting the lifestyles of many minorities due to Italian legislation. Precarity has consequently become a recurring theme in contemporary Italian cinema, portraying characters with precarious lives marked by unpredictability, lack of job security, and material or psychological well-being, thereby becoming existential precarious characters. This book analyses seventeen popular Italian contemporary films, revealing their complex interplay between cinema and society. This interplay challenges traditional notions of Italianness in cinema and illustrates how characters' precarity intersects with other issues such as gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, bringing further nuance to contemporary Italian identities, which are heterogeneous and plural.
Hearing Eyes, Seeing Ears
This book approaches music in audiovisual culture as a complex merged signal rather than as a simple 'addition' to the images of film. The audiovisual is central to modern culture, with screens and speakers (including headphones) dominating communication, leisure and drama. While this book mostly addresses film, it also deals with sister media such as television and video games, registering that there is a 'common core' of synchronized image and sound at the heart of these different but related media. The traditions of sound and what Michel Chion calls 'audiovision' (1994), including principles of accompaniment and industrial processes from film, have been retained and developed in other media. This book engages with the rich history, and varied genres, different traditions and variant strategies of audiovisual culture. However, it also points to and emphasizes the 'common core' of flat moving images and synchronized sound and music which marks a dominant in electronic media culture (what might be called 'screen and speaker/diaphragm culture'). Addressing music as both diegetic and non-diegetic, as both songs and score, the analyses presented in this book aim to attend the precise interaction between music and other elements of audiovisual culture as defining overall configurations. While many writings about music in audiovisual culture focus on 'what it communicates', its processes are more complicated and can form a crucial semi-conscious (or perhaps unconscious) background. While music's effect might be far from simple and unified, part of screen music's startling effect comes from its unity with the image. Cross-modal 'crosstalk' between sound and image forms a whole new signal of its own. Each chapter marks a case study making for a varied collection that embraces rich history and different traditions, as well as the distinct aesthetic boldness of different genres and formats.
The Sex Slave in Cinema
This book examines the visual politics of the cinematic figure of the 'sex slave' from its origins in silent film to its iterations in blaxploitation cinema, European art cinema, Nollywood, and, in its most concentrated form, the Hollywood blockbuster thriller. Through close analysis of several film texts that is informed by feminist theory, visual studies, critical race studies, and the political economy of sex work, this book argues that the sex slave has long functioned as a disciplinary spectacle that simultaneously commodifies and punishes female flesh. The sex slave is used to 'sell' a libidinal fantasy of rescue, not of the trafficked woman or child, but of the very economic and social order that exploits them.
A Quentin Tarantino Dictionary
Explore an A-Z of everything you need to know about the masterful movies of Quentin Tarantino, from AK-47 to "Zed's dead, baby" and everything in between. With hundreds of entries covering every facet of Tarantino's work - from inspiration and influences to his most frequent collaborators and little-known cameos - A Quentin Tarantino Dictionary is a stylish guide to the wonderful world of this visionary filmmaker. Written by author and film critic Helen O'Hara (Empire, BAFTA, the Telegraph) and with bespoke illustrations that bring the director's vision to life, this is a one-stop shop for all things Tarantino.
A Wes Anderson Dictionary
Explore an A-Z of everything you need to know about the iconic films of Wes Anderson, from Asteroid City to Steve Zissou and everything in between. With hundreds of entries covering every facet of Anderson's work - from inspiration and influences to his most frequent collaborators and little-known quirks - A Wes Anderson Dictionary is a stylish guide to the wonderful world of this iconic, unique filmmaker. Written by author and journalist Sophie Monks Kaufman (Little White Lies, Empire, Netflix, BBC) and with bespoke illustrations that bring the director's vision to life, this is a one-stop shop for all things Anderson.
Anita Loos Rediscovered
Anita Loos (1888-1981) was one of Hollywood's most respected and prolific screenwriters, as well as an acclaimed novelist and playwright. This unique collection of previously unpublished film treatments, short stories, and one-act plays spans fifty years of her creative writing and showcases the breadth and depth of her talent. Beginning in 1912 with the stories she submitted from her San Diego home (some made into films by D. W. Griffith), through her collaboration with Colette on the play Gigi, Anita Loos wrote almost every day for the screen, stage, books, or magazines. Film scripts include San Francisco, The Women, and Red-Headed Woman. The list of stars for whom she created unforgettable roles includes Mary Pickford, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, and Carol Channing. This collection has been selected by Anita's niece and close friend, the best-selling author Mary Anita Loos, together with the acclaimed film historian Cari Beauchamp. Their essays are laced throughout the volume, introducing each section and giving previously untold insights and behind-the-scenes stories about Anita--her life, her friendships, and her times.
Intimate Animation
In recent years there has been a surge of animated projects that have pushed boundaries, broken taboos, prompted discussions and wowed festival and online audiences alike through compelling storytelling and unmatched artistry.Join Ben Mitchell and Laura-Beth Cowley of Skwigly Online Animation Magazine and the Intimate Animation podcast as they take you on a tour of the landscape of contemporary animated films that deal with themes of love, intimacy, relationships, anatomy and sexuality - and the incredible artists behind them. Through research and firsthand interviews with trailblazers such as Signe Baumane, Andreas Hykade, Ruth Lingford, Michaela Pavl獺tov獺, Bill Plympton and Joanna Quinn as well as newer voices including Sawako Kabuki, Renata Gąsiorowska, Will Anderson, Sara Gunnarsd籀ttir, Michaela Mihalyi, David Stumpf, Levi Stoops, Lori Mal矇part-Traversy, Anna Ginsburg, Veljko Popovic, Renee Zhan and more, Intimate Animation looks deeply at the role animation has played in presenting elaborate and complex concepts relating to love and sexuality.Exploring the role animation has played in sex education, self-discovery, the body, lust and love, as well as how the medium can be used to visually represent emotions, feelings and concepts not easily described in words nor depicted through live-action filmmaking, Intimate Animation is the ideal book for professional animators, filmmakers, enthusiasts, researchers, academic and students of animation and film studies interested in the themes of love and sexuality.
Bunuel and Mexico
Though Luis Bu簽uel, one of the most important filmmakers of the twentieth century, spent his most productive years as a director in Mexico, film histories and criticism invariably pay little attention to his work during this period. The first book-length English-language study of Bu簽uel's Mexican films, this book explores a significant but neglected area of this filmmaker's distinguished career and thus fills a gap in our appreciation and understanding of both Bu簽uel's achievement and the history of Mexican film. Ernesto Acevedo-Mu簽oz considers Bu簽uel's Mexican films--made between 1947 and 1965--within the context of a national and nationalist film industry, comparing the filmmaker's employment of styles, genres, character types, themes, and techniques to those most characteristic of Mexican cinema. In this study Bu簽uel's films emerge as a link between the Classical Mexican cinema of the 1930s through the 1950s and the "new" Cinema of the 1960s, flourishing in a time of crisis for the national film industry and introducing some of the stylistic and conceptual changes that would revitalize Mexican cinema.
TV on Strike
TV on Strike examines the upheaval in the entertainment industry by telling the inside story of the first writers' strike--the hundred-day writers' strike that thwarted Hollywood in late 2007 and early 2008. The television industry's uneasy transition to the digital age was the driving force behind what seemed then to be the most significant labor dispute of the twenty-first century. Now, in 2024, we know it was only the first battle. The strike put a spotlight on how the advent of new media distribution platforms reshaped the traditional business models that governed the television industry for decades. The uncertainty that sent writers out into the streets of Los Angeles and New York with picket signs laid bare the depth of the divide between the media barons who rule the entertainment industry and the writers who are integral as the creators of movies and television shows. With both sides afraid of losing millions in future profits, a critical communication breakdown spurred a fierce battle with repercussions reverberated in the 2023 writers and actors strikes. The saga of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike is told through the eyes of the key players on both sides of the negotiating table and of the foot soldiers who surprised even themselves with the strength of their resolve to fight for their rights in the face of an ambiguous future. In the years since the strike ended, the rise of digital distribution platforms has continued to change the business landscape in ways that few could have predicted when Hollywood guilds were first feverishly trying to hammer out a contract template for a new era.
The Films of Walter Hill
In The Films of Walter Hill: Another Time, Another Place, Brian Brems explores how, as action emerged as a full-fledged genre of cinema, Walter Hill established his position in the genre, first as a screenwriter and then as a director. Hill, Brems argues, helped merge the thematic and stylistic concerns of the Western and film noir into a new action cinema, establishing a reputation for mythic, highly-stylized storytelling driven by a relentless pace. Through analyses of Hill's filmography, this book demonstrates his consistent use of the architecture of classical storytelling to help codify the language of the action movie. These observations are supported by extensive conversations with Walter Hill and several of his on-screen collaborators, including Lance Henriksen, Sigourney Weaver, David Patrick Kelly, James Renmar, and William Sadler. Ultimately, Brems positions Hill as a key American film artist, whose work has inspired countless imitations.
Saul Goodman V. Jimmy McGill
The complete critical companion to AMC's Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated series Better Call Saul from the author of Breaking Bad 101 and The Sopranos Sessions "If you love Better Call Saul this book will be a great pal to hang out with while you muse upon it; if you like Better Call Saul then I think this book might make you love it!" --Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman) Timed to the 10th anniversary of the first season, this ultimate companion book serves as a guide to the series' greatness and place in pop-culture history as fans kick off celebratory rewatches and new fans discover the series for the first time. Saul Goodman v. Jimmy McGill: The Better Call Saul Critical Companion collects chief TV critic at Rolling Stone Alan Sepinwall's critical essays on every episode of the Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated series. Sepinwall covered Better Call Saul from start to finish, and conducted exhaustive interviews with creator Vince Gilligan and stars Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seahorn, reproduced here alongside new interviews with series cocreator Peter Gould. ​Across six critically acclaimed seasons, Better Call Saul surprised audiences and subverted Breaking Bad fans' expectations for what a prequel/sequel series could be. Bob Odenkirk reprised his role as the morally compromised defensive attorney and revealed the tragic and inevitable downfall of Jimmy McGill, a small-time con artist with big dreams and even bigger schemes. Audiences were introduced to now iconic characters, including Rhea Seahorn's Kim and Michael McKean's Chuck, as well as villains like Tony Dalton's Lalo, who rivaled Breaking Bad's most sinister creations.
Mixed Feelings in France
While multicultural comedies criticise hegemonic whiteness and outdated stances on race relations, they simultaneously perpetuate the colonial aesthetic register by deploying a 罈republican gaze竄 - an ironic meta-narrative perspective on ethnic minorities. Ewelina Pepiak analyses how gender and ethnicity are represented in seven contemporary French comedies (2008-2018) including mixed-race couples, focusing on a trope of m矇tissage (biological and cultural mixing) and white femininity. As analyses of ethnic and gender representations remain scarce due to the slow emergence of postcolonial studies in France, this study adds significant insights to the postcolonial debate.
Ingmar Bergman Out of Focus
Director Ingmar Bergman occupies a central place in the history of modern cinema. Credited with igniting a cinematic revolution, his ability to produce work which resonated with audiences globally has brought scholarly attention to the impact of Bergman's Swedish background on his oeuvre. Ingmar Bergman Out of Focus revises this question of Bergman's "familiarity" to produce a more expansive understanding of Bergman's cultural heritage. Considering the impact of Bergman's films on film festival organizers, critics, academics, and audiences all over the world, this volume illuminates how Bergman's film aesthetics simultaneously shaped modern culture and were themselves reshaped by the debates and concerns that preoccupied his viewers.
Rethinking the Cinematic Cold War
Historical consensus increasingly views the Cold War period as a multifaceted conflict which extended beyond the borders of the USSR and USA, encompassing both cultural and diplomatic history. Debate remains, however, about how best to balance the Cold War as a cultural event with the existence of Cold War culture. Rethinking the Cinematic Cold War provides a fresh reassessment of this period, highlighting how the convergence of geopolitical interests, cultural production and exchange, and technological and media history shaped a unique epoch. Consequently, this volume seeks to diagnose the role cinema played in expanding the ideological outlook of artists, audiences, and policymakers.
River Delta Futures
How are climate change, weather-related disasters, food and water insecurity, and energetic and infrastructural collapse narrated audiovisually in the most environmentally vulnerable areas of the Planet? This book addresses this and related questions by adopting a local and transdisciplinary perspective on river deltas from different areas of the world. River deltas have historically been hotspots for human civilizations, as populations settled in their fertile grounds seeking resources and opportunities for prosperity. Despite this, the terrains and livelihoods of those who rely on them are under threat from human exploitation, environmental degradation, and rapidly accelerating climate change. Inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, this book provides a range of focused audiovisual analyses of deltaic spaces. Ranging across a variety of media, including documentary filmmaking, animation, photography, collaborative comic making, participatory visual art practices, soundwalking, and film analysis, it examines the role that contemporary audiovisual media play in forging global environmental imaginaries. In doing so, it adopts a transdisciplinary approach to the Blue Humanities from countries across the world, including Canada, Bolivia, Brazil, Greece, Nigeria, Senegal, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The Metamodern Slasher Film
It is commonly proposed that since the mid-2000s, the slasher subgenre has been dominated by unoriginal remakes of "classics". Consequently, most original slasher films have been ignored by academics (and critics), leaving the field with a limited understanding of this highly popular subgenre. This book corrects that mischaracterisation by analysing contemporary slasher films that sincerely attempt to innovate within the subgenre. I argue that these films reflect broader cultural turns towards sincerity, optimism in the face of crisis, and an emphasis on felt experience that are indicative of a metamodern sensibility. This is the first book to use metamodernism to analyse film in a sustained way, and the first academic work to use metamodernism to examine horror. The Metamodern Slasher offers readers new ways to understand the slasher film, the horror genre, and also the cultural moment we find ourselves in.
