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Gay, Lesbian & Queer Criticism, Theory and History

See also: On Individual Films and Media > Film Criticism

 Queer Screen: A Screen ReaderQueer Screen: A Screen Reader
Jackie Stacey & Sarah Street
Queer Screen: A Screen Reader brings together a selection of key articles on queer audio-visual cultures published over the past two decades in the internationally renowned journal, Screen, with a new introduction by Jackie Stacey and Sarah Street. This book considers a wide range of case studies including mainstream films as well as experimental audio-visual work. Softcover, 304 pp. $40.50.

The View from HereThe View From Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers
Edited by Matthew Hays
The history of gay and lesbian cinema is a storied one, and one that has become much larger in the post-Brokeback Mountain era. But the history of gay and lesbian filmmakers is a story all its own. In The View From Here, some of the world's leading queer film directors and screenwriters speak passionately and eloquently about the medium, and the challenges they face overcoming the demands of the Hollywood studio system and "the market" to create films that are entertaining, engaging, and truthful. Softcover, 383 pp. $26.95.


The Romance of Transgression in CanadaThe Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas

Thomas Waugh
From pornography to autobiography, from the Cold War to the sexual revolution, from rural roots and mythologies to the queer meccas of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, The Romance of Transgression in Canada is a history of sexual representation on the large and small screen in English Canada and Quebec. Softcover, 599 pp. $34.95.


British Queer CinemaBritish Queer Cinema

Robin Griffiths
This anthology brings together a diverse range of innovative new essays that explore, for the first time, the provocative history of lesbian, gay and queer representation in British cinema. Through case studies of key films, performers, and issues, this timely collection maps the relationship between contemporary queer sexuality and its socio-historical, national and critical contexts. Softcover, 248 pp. $35.95.

Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American CinemaQueer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema
David William Foster
In this study of queer issues in Latin American cinema, David William Foster offers highly perceptive queer readings of fourteen key films. He examines each film in terms of the ideology of its narrative discourse, whether homoerotic desire or a critique of patriarchal heterosexism and its implications for Latin American social life and human rights. This book will be essential reading for everyone working in queer studies and film studies. Softcover, 186 pp. $29.95.

Ladies or GentlemanLadies or Gentleman: A Pictorial History of Male Cross-Dressing in the Movies
Jean-Louis Ginibre
In Ladies or Gentlemen, male cross-dressing goes to the movies. The product of some 30 years of research, the book's 700 rare photos, culled from archives all over the world and more than half of which have never been seen before, cover a panorama of over 90 years of international film production. As such, it is the first in-depth pictorial history of cinematic female impersonation. Hardcover, 408 pp. $87.95.

Queer Cinema: The Film Reader Queer Cinema: The Film Reader
Harry Benshoff & Sean Griffin
Queer Cinema: The Film Reader brings together key writings that use queer theory to explore cinematic sexualities, especially those historically designated as gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgendered. The collection examines the relationship between cinematic representations of sexuality and their social, historical, and industrial contexts. Softcover, 242 pp. $38.95.


FantabulosaFantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari & Gay Slang
Paul Baker
Paul Baker, a lecturer in Linguistics and Modern english Language at Lancaster University, exposes the secret language of gay men in the 20th century. Fantabulosa presents a lexicon of Polari and a more general dictionary of gay and lesbian slang. Informative, humorous and shocking by turns, this dictionary makes for an eye-opening read. Softcover, 242 pp. $14.50.

Fabulous!Fabulous! A Loving, Luscious, and Lighthearted Look at Film from the Gay Perspective
Donald F. Reuter
From the author of Gaydar comes a star-studded new tribute to the Hollywood moments that give gay culture its own saucy language. Fabulous! covers more than one hundred films and contains the most memorable one-liners, gender benders, tear-jerkers, nail-biters, and heart-stoppers from the world's most celebrated picture shows. Hilarious, witty, thoughtful, and always surprising, Fabulous! is the absolute source for all things gay in cinema. Softcover, 192 pp. $25.95.

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Celluloid GazeCelluloid Gaze
Boze Hadleigh
Interviews with Sal Mineo, Rock Hudson, George Cukor, Luchino Visconti, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Cecil Beaton constitute this elucidating volume. All famous for working in the entertainment industry, these men also share common ground in the fact that they managed to, during their lifetimes, conceal their homosexuality from the public eye. Author Boze Hadleigh manages to pull frank and candid answers from his fascinating subjects. Softcover, 219 pp. $27.95.


The Bad MirrorThe Bad Mirror
Jack Hunter
These 18 chapters, culled from each of the 18 volumes in the Creation Cinema library, represent the best in scholarship on the subject of cult, exploitation, and underground cinema. Subjects of focus run the gamut, from "meat movies" and beat cinema, to freak films and hard-core pornography. Softcover, 282 pp. $20.99.


Experimental Cinema: The Film ReaderExperimental Cinema: The Film Reader
Wheeler Winston Dixon & Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Divided into four section -- The Orgins of the American Avant-Garde, The 1960s Experimental Cinema Explosion, Structuralism in the 1970s, and Alternative Cinemas -- this anthology of essays illuminates the key periods in the evolution of experimental cinema. Filmmakers discussed include: Stan Brakhage, Michael Snow, Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, Hollis Frampton, Jack Smith, and many others. Softcover, 356 pp. $34.95.

Now You See ItNow You See It
Richard Dyer
In this revised and updated new edition of Richad Dyer's groundbreaking study of films by and about lesbians and gay men, Dyer continues to spotlight both well-known and obscure films, as he discusses them in relation to to both film type and tradition and the sexual subculture in which it was made. Featuring an afterword by Julianne Pidduck, outlining developments in lesbian and gay cinema since 1990, including the rise of the "New Queer Cinema." Softcover, 339 pp. $34.95.


Screened OutScreened Out
Richard Barrios
Screened Out is a fresh and exhilarating look at sexuality in the Great Age of Movie-making. Spanning popular American cinema from the early 1900's until today, Richard Barrios offers a compulsively readable analysis of how Hollywood has used and depicted gays, and of the mixed signals it has given us. Intelligent and well-researched, this account highlights the tragedy and oppression, as well as the moments of freedom and compassion. Hardcover, 402 pp., $44.95.


Hollywood's Revolutionary DecadeHollywood's Revolutionary Decade
Charles Champlin
In 1968 Hollywood adopted a ratings system that revolutionized the form and content of movies, allowing them to explore areas like sex, politics, and violence with bold visual images, shocking language, and new ideas about how films are made. As American movies in the 1970s captured a society in upheaval, Charles Champlin captured the movies in his reviews. Here are 50 reviews of what he considers the most important films of that decade. Softcover, $23.95.


He's All Man: Learning Masculinity, Gayness, and Love from American MoviesHe's All Man: Learning Masculinity, Gayness, and Love from American Movies
John M. Clun
Clum offers an energetic, intriguing, queer reading of both recent and past American movies. Softcover, 221 pp. $39.95.

MGM's Greatest Musicals: 
The Arthur Freed UnitMGM's Greatest Musicals:
The Arthur Freed Unit

Hugh Fordin
A turbulent, behind-the-scenes, film-by-film account of the making of the most outstanding series of musicals in motion picture history. From 1940 to 1970, M-G-M producer Arthur Reed produced The Wizard Of Oz, Show Boat, Singin' In The Rain, Meet Me In St. Louis, An American In Paris, Kismet and many others. Softcover, $34.95.


Criminal DesiresCriminal Desires: Jean Genet and Cinema
Jane Giles
Illustrated throughout, and featuring an introduction by acclaimed novelist and Genet biographer Edmund White, Criminal Desires is a compelling induction into Jean Genet's underworld of prisons, voyeurism and homosexual lust which starkly illuminates a fascinating zone of forbidden cinema. Softcover, 142 pp. $29.95.

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Sleazoid ExpressSleazoid Express
Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford
In this nostalgic look back to the bygone era of Times Square's grindhouse cinemas, authors Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford pay tribute to the best in exploitation filmmaking from the 60's and 70's. It's all here, gore epics, Euro-sleaze, shockumentaries, soft-core sex romps, and much more. Not simply a catalogue of a select group of films, this book manages to capture the zeitgeist of the period and the people who were invloved. For dedicated lovers of extreme cinema, this book is essential reading. Softcover, 315 pp. $25.00.

Dangerous MenDangerous Men
Nick LaSalle
In the five years preceding the implementation of the Production Code in 1934, the representation of masculinity in Hollywood films took a drastic turn. The smiling, confident hero of just a few years before fell out of favour, and the new heroes who emerged were gangsters, oppurtunists, sleazy businessmen, shifty lawyers, and shell-shocked soldiers. In this intriging account, Mick LaSalle chronicle this period in film, and highlights the contributions of several key figures. Hardcover, 258 pp. $36.95.


The GirlsThe Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood
Diana McLellan
Yes, Virginia, there were these girls...Nazimova, Garbo, Dietrich, Garbo and Dietrich (despite the denials), Bankhead, de Acosta, Cornell, la Gallienne, la Valentino (not one of the girls, but certainly close)...they're all players in McLellan's exhaustive, gossipy tale of life around the sapphic stars of the golden era of Hollywood and New York. "Risque scandals, sizzling secrets...sex, politics, secrets and lies...McLellan connects the dots." The Washington Post. $24.95.


All About Thelma and Eve: Sidekicks and Third WheelsAll About Thelma and Eve: Sidekicks and Third Wheels
Judith Roof
A meticulous rereading of Hollywood from the margins, All About Thelma and Eve offers an inventive look at female comic secondary characters who, though never on center stage, play an indispensible role in enriching and complicating the course of the narrative. Softcover, 212 pp. $28.95.



Fleshpot
Cinema's Sexual Myth Makers & Taboo BreakersFleshpot: Cinema's Sexual Myth Makers & Taboo Breakers
Jack Stevenson
Fleshpot
is an indispensible guide to the alternative realms of erotic cinema, and a delirious sampling of the genres, personalities and trends that have set screens aflame since the dawn of motion pictures. This anthology of texts by an international group of experts and cult film personalities provides a fascinating and informative introduction to this multifarious subject. Softcover, 256 pp. $32.95.


A Problem Like MariaA Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical
Stacy Wolf
Using popular titles such as South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Camelot, and The Sound of Music, this scholarly text focuses, through a lesbian feminist lens, how the musical theatre of the 50's and 60's subverted traditional ideologies by celebrating strong female characters who challenged gender expectations. Softcover, 289 pp., $32.95


Film and AuthorshipFilm and Authorship
Virginia Wright Wexman
During the 1960's when cinema first entered the acadamy as a serious object of study, the primary focus was on "auteurism" -- film authorship. Spanning approaches including poststructuralism, feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism, and cultural studies, the essays in this collection ask, what does auteurship look like today in light of all these developments? Includes an extensive bibliography. Softcover, 270 pp. $36.50.

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Last modified July 15, 2003 .
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