Product Description: During the Weimar Republic, Siegfried Kracauer established himself as a trenchant theorist of film, culture, and modernity, and he is now considered one of the key thinkers of the twentieth century. When he arrived in Manhattan aboard a crowded refugee ship in 1941, however, he was virtually unknown in the United States and had yet to write his best-known books, From Caligari to Hitler and Theory of Film...read more

Building on the groundwork laid by the AS Film Studies syllabus, A2 Film Studies: The Essential Introduction introduces students to the diversity of cinematic styles and to different film cultures as well as positioning film within wider political, cultural and artistic debates. The book is designed to support students through the transition from a focus on textual analysis to the consideration of the wider contexts that inform any study of Film. Individual chapters cover the following key areas: The Small Scale Research Project Practical Application of Learning Studies in World Cinema The Film Text and Spectator Producers and Audiences – Issues and Debates Messages and Values – Critical Approaches  Specially designed to be user-friendly, A2 Film Studies: The Essential Introduction includes: activities sample exam questions further reading a glossary of key terms and resources case studies

Traces the development of the film industry in the United States, Europe, and Asia, describes the careers of important film makers, and looks at the impact of technological developments

Product Description: Scholarly approaches to the relationship between literature and film, ranging from the traditional focus upon fidelity to more recent issues of intertextuality, all contain a significant blind spot: a lack of theoretical and methodological attention to adaptation as an historical and transnational phenomenon...read more

Product Description: Broad in scope, this interdisciplinary collection of original scholarship on historical film features essays that explore the many facets of this expanding field and provide a platform for promising avenues of research. Offers a unique collection of cutting edge research that questions the intention behind and influence of historical film Essays range in scope from inclusive broad-ranging subjects such as political contexts, to focused assessments of individual films and auteurs Prefaced with an introductory survey of the field by its two distinguished editors Features interdisciplinary contributions from scholars in the fields of History, Film Studies, Anthropology, and Cultural and Literary Studies...read more

Product Description: Reading films, television dramas, reality shows, and virtual exhibits, among other popular texts, Engaging the Past examines the making and meaning of history for everyday viewers. Contemporary media can encourage complex interactions with the past that have far-reaching consequences for history and politics...read more

Despite claims about the end of history and the death of cinema, visual media continue to contribute to our understanding of history and history-making. In this book, Marcia Landy argues that rethinking history and memory must take into account shifting conceptions of visual and aural technologies. With the assistance of thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Cinema and Counter-History examines writings and films that challenge prevailing notions of history in order to explore the philosophic, aesthetic, and political stakes of activating the past. Marshaling evidence across European, African, and Asian cinema, Landy engages in a counter-historical project that calls into question the certainty of visual representations and unmoors notions of a history firmly anchored in truth.

Product Description: Using an interdisciplinary approach, Film, History and Memory broadens the focus from 'history', the study of past events, to 'memory', the processes – individual, generational, collective or state-driven – by which meanings are attached to the past.

Hollywood movies are famous for promoting negative stereotypes of all kinds, especially against minorities, women, Southerners, and Christians. To what extent are biographical films selected for production according to certain biases, conscious or unconscious, among the Hollywood elite? An expert on the U.S. film industry gives readers brief synopses of Hollywood biopics produced and/ or released from 1912 through 1994. This survey provides the basis for discussion and analysis.Tracking these one-sided depictions over a longer period of time, the patterns of bias - and the source of the problem - become more clear. The problem appears to be that most of the people who have green-light authority in the U.S. film industry - for either the production and/or distribution of a motion picture - share a common ethnic/religious/cultural background. Thus, the stories of their own cohort and those of all other ethnic, religious and/or cultural groups (whose members seldom achieve positions of power in Hollywood) are being filtered through the cultural sensibilities of a single group.John Cones suggests that the solution could lie in increasing diversity at the highest levels in the U.S. film industry.

Product Description: "This title examines film's origins at the turn of the twentieth century, the ways and styles in which it has expanded and changed, and how it has grown into such an integral part of Western culture."--Publisher's website.

Product Description: Drawing on studio files, newspaper critiques, internet sources and scholarly studies of Mexican cinema, this critical history focuses on film depictions, in Hollywood and in Mexico, of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the era of Benito Juarez...read more

Product Description: One of the most popular presidents of the twentieth century, John F. Kennedy has been the subject of countless books, documentaries, and portrayals both on television and in feature films. Whether depicting his exploits during World War II (PT-109), capturing crucial moments during his presidency (Thirteen Days), or providing a fictionalized account of his assassination (Executive Action), films continue to portray Kennedy and his legacy...read more

An informal history of the movies told through some of cinema's best-loved scenes, from the early days of Hollywood to the present dayPithy put-downs, hard-boiled snarlings, words of love and regret—they're all here in this collection of 500 memorable movie quotes, embracing both one-liners ("My name is Pussy Galore") and slices of snappy dialogue from pictures as diverse as King Kong, Vertigo, The Magnificent Seven, Network, This Is Spinal Tap, Fight Club, Superbad, and Inglourious Basterds. Arranged under such timeless themes as "dreams," "friends," "libido," and "memories," the quotes juxtapose films and stars from every era and every genre. Throughout the text are feature capsules focusing on themes and stories in the movies from Goldwynisms to Mae West, plus a generous scattering of cinema anecdotes, making the book both a joy to browse and an authoritative reference. Lavishly illustrated, this collection will delight and entertain readers in equal measure, reacquainting them with favorite movies and introducing some forgotten classics.

Product Description: Between 1840 and 1940, more than one million people emigrated from Sweden to America. The fact that so many chose to leave to seek a better life across the Atlantic was a major trauma for the Swedish nation. Filmmakers were not slow to pick up on an exodus that proved to be of lasting importance for the Swedes’ national identity...read more