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Criticism, Theory & History
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See also: On Individual Films
and Media > Film
Criticism
 Indelible
Shadows: Film and the Holocaust
Annette Insdorf
In this third edition of Indelible Shadows, Annette Insdorf continues
to investigate questions raised by films about the Holocaust; for instance, how
does one make a movie that is both morally just and marketable? This intelligent
account analyzes theoretical issues and provides sensitive readings of individual
films. Softcover, 410 pp. $41.95.
 We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006
Esther Iverem
The year 2006 marked the twentieth anniversary of the "new wave" in black film. In We Gotta Have It, film and cultural critic Esther Iverem explores how the original new wave pioneers have morphed and branched into all manner and quality of films through the past twenty years. We Gotta Have It is a look at the cultural dissemination of African-Americans in films. Softcover, 610 pp. $22.50.
 What
Have They Built You To Do?
The Manchurian Candidate and
Cold War America
Matthew Frye Jacobson & Gaspar Gonzalez
In What Have They Built You To Do? Matthew Frye Jacobson and
Gaspar Gonzalez undertake an ambitious reexamination of The Manchurian
Candidate, the 1959 novel by Richard Condon on which it was based, and--critically
analyzed here for the first time--the 2004 remake by Jonathan Demme. Based on
close readings of the film and broad investigations into the eras in which it
was made and rediscovered, the authors decode the many layers of meaning within
and surrounding the film, from the contradictions of the Cold War it both embodies
and parodies to its construction of Asian villains, overbearing women, and male
heroes in a society anxious about race, gender, and sexuality. Softcover, 234
pp. $25.95.
 Cinema
at the End of Empire: A Politics of Translation in Britain and India
Priya Jaikumar
How did the imperial logic underlying British and Indian film policy change with
the British Empire's loss of moral authority and political cohesion? Were British
and Indian films of the 1930s and 40s responsive to and responsible for such
shifts? Cinema and the End of Empire illuminates this intertwined
history of British and Indian cinema in the late colonial period. Challenging
the rubric of national cinemas that dominates film studies, Priya Jaikumar contends
that film aesthetics and film regulations were linked expressions of radical
political transformation in a declining British Empire and a nascent Indian nation.
With its innovative examination of the colonial film archive, this richly illustrated
book presents a new way track historical change through cinema. Softcover, 320
pp. $29.95.
 Signatures of the Visible
Fredric Jameson
In Signatures of the Visible, Fredric Jameson turns his attention to the cinema: the artform that has replaced the novel as the defining cultural form of our time. Historicizing a form that has fluorished in a postmodern and anti-historical culture, Jameson explores the allegorical and ideological dimensions of such films as The Shining, Dog Day Afternoon and the works of Alfred Hitchcock, among many others. Softcover, 350 pp. $29.95.
 The
Place of the Audience
Cultural Geographies of Film Consumption
Mark Jancovich, Lucy Faire & Sarah Stubbings
It has been a recurring complaint both within and against Film Studies that it
has largely ignored the activities of audiences. This book aims to address this
absence and to explain its cause. Through unique use of archival materials and
ethnographic studies of the audience, The Place of the Audience examines
the meanings of film consumption from the earliest film showings up to the present
day. Softcover, 281 pp. $34.95.
 Shakespeare on Film: Such Things as Dreams are Made Of
Carolyn Jess-Cooke
Exploring the enduring popularity of Shakespeare's work throughout cinema history, Shakespeare on Film analyses the adaptation, production and popular success of a wide range of Shakespearean films, including Orson Welles' Othello, Roman Polanski's Macbeth, Akira Kurosawa's Ran and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. Softcover, 125 pp. $23.95.
 Physical Evidence: Selected Film Criticism
Kent Jones
The first collection from this distinguished American movie critic. An expert writer and thinker on movie history and directorial style, Kent Jones is among the most notable film critics of his generation. His sharp, informed analyses and cogent assessments of cinema and its practitioners have made him a significant voice both in America and internationally. Hardcover, 231 pp. $31.95.
 Teen
Dreams: Reading Teen Film and Television from Heathers to Veronica Mars
Roz Kaveney
Jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, goths and stoners - the American teen movie is peopled
with types and tribes yet manages to speak interestingly about hopes and dreams
that do not have just to do with skipping detention or going to the prom. Roz
Kaveney charts the development of the teen movie and TV show from a marketing
category to a full-blown genre obsessed with smart answers to its own past. Softcover,
191 pp. $19.95.
 CineTech: Film, Convergence and New Media
Stephen Keane
CineTech provides an introduction to the digital practices used in film. The text begins by considering the major changes in modern film and the impact of the transition from analogue to digital. Keane then moves on to consider the ways in which film has converged with new media and the resultant commercial and aesthetic implications. A variety of screen forms are explored, including films, websites, videogames and recent blockbuster franchises. Throughout the text, theory and debate are illuminated through a wealth of contemporary case studies. Examples, including the Star Wars saga and The Matrix Trilogy, provide readers with an insight into this unique area of study. Softcover, 181 pp. $38.95.
 Cinephilia
and History,
or The Wind in the Trees
Christian Keathley
Cinephiles have regularly fetishized contingent, marginal details in the motion
picture image: the gesture of a hand, the wind in the trees. Christian Keathly
demonstrates that the spectatorial tendency that produces such cinematic encounters
-- a viewing practice marked by a drift in visual attention away from the primary
visual elements on display -- in fact has clear links to the orgins of film as
defined by Andre Bazin, Roland Barthes, and others. Keathley explores the implications
of this ontology and proposes the "cinephiliac anecdote" as a new type
of criticism, a method of historical writing that both imitates and extends the
experience of these fugitive moments. Softcover, 212 pp. $27.95.
 Coming
Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers
Lisa Kernan
At the movies, on television, on videocassettes and DVDs, and on
the internet, movie trailers are an intergral part of film culture.
Starting from the premise that movie trailers can be considered a film
genre, this pioneering and highly original book explores the genre's
conventions and offers a primer for reading the rhetoric of movie trailers.
Softcover, 294 pp. $29.95.
 Dali, Surrealism and Cinema
Elliot H. King
Salvador Dali is one of the most widely recognised and most controversial artists of the twentieth century. He was also an avant-garde filmmaker - collaborating with such giants as Luis Bunuel, Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock - though the impetus and endurance of his fascination with film has rarely been given the attention it merits. In this book, King surveys the full range of Dali's eccentric activities with(in) the cinema. Softcover, 218 pp. $24.95.
 Indiewood, USA
Geoff King
"Indiewood" is the place where Hollywood and the American independent sector meet, where lines blur and two very different kinds of cinema come together in a striking blend of creativity and commerce. This book is the first to provide objective analysis of this distinctive region of the contemporary American film landscape. Softcover, 294 pp. $30.50.
 American
Independent Cinema
Geoff King
What exactly is independent cinema? In American Independent Cinema, Geoff King
argues that independence can be defined partly in industry terms but also according
to formal/aesthetic strategies and by distinctive attitudes towards social and
political issues, suggesting that independence is a dynamic rather than a fixed
quality. Chapters focus on distribution and relationships with Hollywood studios,
narrative and other formal dimensions, approaches to genre, and alternative sociopolitical
visions. King also traces the history of the independent sector from the days
of early cinema through the beginning of the 21st century. Softcover, 294 pp.
$39.95.
 The Fun Factory
Rob King
From its founding in 1912, the short-lived Keystone Film Company - home of the frantic, bumbling Kops and Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties - made an indelible mark on American popular culture with its high-energy comic shorts. The Fun Factory offers a unique studio history that views the changing politics of early films through the sociology of laughter. Softcover, 355 pp. $31.95.
 Beyond
the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home
Barbara Klinger
Since the mid-1980s, more audiences have been watching Hollywood movies at home
than in movie theatres, yet little is known about just how viewers experience
film outside of the multiplex. Balancing industry history with theoretical and
cultural analysis, Barbara Klinger argues that contemporary cinema's powerful
social presence cannot be full grasped without considering its prolific recycling
in post-theatrical venues: cable television, VHS, DVD, and the Internet. Softcover,
310 pp. $34.95.
 Film
Performance: From Achievement to Appreciation
Andrew Klevan
This beautifully conceived and elegantly written introduction to film performance
foregrounds the crucial contribution that performers make to narrative cinema.
Film Performance concentrates on films from the "Golden Age" of Hollywood,
and moment-by-moment descriptions enable fresh interpretations to emerge and
evolve. Softcover, 114 pp. $25.95.
 Theatre
and Film: A Comparative Anthology
Robert Knopf
This comprehensive anthology assembles, for the first time in more than twenty-five
years, essays by and interviews with performers, directors, writers, and critics
that examine the complex connection between theatre and film. The text focuses
on the evolution of the historical, cultural, and aesthetic relationship between
the
two media. Softcover, 440 pp. $44.95.
 Sex
and the Cinema
Tanya Krzywinska
From the sanctioned to the forbidden, the suggestive to the blatant, evocations
of sex have saturated cinema with a heady distillation of fleshy passions. Sex
and Cinema traces the numerous factors and contexts -- artistic, institutional,
political and socio-cultural -- that have shaped the way sex appears in film.
Softcover, 256 pp. $32.95.
 Nobody's Perfect
Anthony Lane
With his articles in The New Yorker, Anthony Lane has
established a reputation as one of the wittiest and most
astute film critics in the business. Collected in this volume are
some of his best critical reviews, of both films and books, as well
as
a
selection
of topical essays. This is both an indispensible primer and a rich
resource to the verve and intelligence of one of today's most talented
cultural critics. Softcover, 752 pp., $22.00.
 Film
Genre: Hollywood and Beyond
Barry Langford
A comprehensive introduction, Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond provides
a detailed account of genre history and contemporary trends in film genre, alongside
the critical debates they have provoked. Writing in a sophisticated yet accessible
style, Barry Langford shows how notions of genre help shape the ways that filmmakers,
critics and audiences view films and how the often complex scholarly debates
around genre reflect important differences in the ways cinema is understood in
relation to its social and historical contexts. Softcover, $32.95.
 Red
Velvet Seat: Women's Writing on the First Fifty Years of Cinema
Antonia Lant & Ingrid Periz
As viewers, critics, actresses and directors, women have always been
central to cinema. However, full evidence of their roles has until now remained
scant and dispersed, eclipsed in historical opinion formed through the texts
of men. Using a collection of written accounts from the turn of the 20th
century to 1950 this anthology seeks to rectify this academic imbalance.
Comendious and absorbing, Red
Velvet Seat is an invaluable contribution to the history of cinema.
Softcover, 872 pp. $52.00.
 Landscape
and Film
Martin Lefebrvre
Landscape is everywhere in film, but it has been largely overlooked in theory
and criticism. This volume of new work addresses questions fundamental to the
study of landscape in cinema: What kind of landscape is cinematic landscape?
How is cinematic landscape different from landscape painting? What are the differences
between the use of landscape in Western filmmaking and in the work of Middle
Eastern and Asian filmmakers? How is cinematic landscape related to the idea
of national cinema and questions of identity? Landscape and Film will
be essential reading for anyone seeking a map to help them navigate through the
vast terrain of landscapes in early and modern cinema. Softcover, 361 pp. $31.95.
 Action Speaks Louder
Eric Lichtenfield
For more than thirty years, the action movie has been the film genre that most represents Hollywood to the world, as action films find blockbuster success at box offices around the globe. Still, the genre seldom receives the critical attention it deserves. Studying its trends, key components, and visual excesses, this new and expanded edition of Action Speaks Louder traces the genre's evolution to reveal how it has come to assume its place of prominence in American culture. Softcover, 383 pp. $29.95.
 American Movie Critics: An anthology from the silents to now
Edited by Philip Lopate
American Movie Critics, now published in an expanded edition,
is an anthology of unparalleled scope that charts the rise of movies as art,
industry, and mass entertainment. Softcover, 760 pp. $19.95.
 Framing
Female Lawyers
Cynthia Lucia
As real women increasingly entered the professions from the 1970s onward, their
cinematic counterparts followed suit. Women lawyers, in particular were the protagonists
of many Hollywood films of the Regan-Bush era. Yet, in film after film, the woman
lawyer herself ends up"on trial" for violating the norms of feminity
and patriarchal authority. Lucia convincingly demonstrates that making movies
about women lawyers and the law provides fertile ground for exploring patriarchy
in crisis. Softcover, 269 pp. $29.95.
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