National Film Studies

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The Faber Book of New South American Cinema
Demetrios Matheou
The first decade of the 21st century has seen a renaissance in South American cinema. This new generation of filmmakers has won prizes at major film festivals, been nominated for Oscars, and captured the imagination of audiences worldwide. This book features interviews with the most significant voices of this Latin new wave. Softcover, 421 pp. $30.00.

Turkish Cinema: Identity, Distance and Belonging
Gonul Donmez-Colin
Films often act as prisms that refract the issues facing a nation, and Turkish cinema in particular distills and reflects the cultural and social challenges of modern-day Turkey. In this, the first comprehensive study of the cinema of Turkey to be published in English, acclaimed film scholar Gonul Donmez-Colin examines the way that national cinema reveals the Turkish quest for a modern identity. Softcover, 268 pp. $42.00.

African Film and Literature
Lindiwe Dovey
Against a detailed history of film's savage introduction and exploitation by colonial powers in two very different African contexts, this book examines the complex ways in which African filmmakers are preserving, mediating, and critiquing their own cultures while seeking a united vision of the future. Softcover, 334 pp. $40.50.

Hollywood Undercover
Ian Halperin
Hollywood Undercover is a rollicking, name-dropping, often hilarious insider's chronicle by a man who accidentally became a movie star. Softcover, 235 pp. $21.95.

East Asian Cinema
David Carter
This book provides an ideal reference work on all the major directors, with details of their films and checklists for the films of each country, useful for both ardent fan and serious student alike. It explores the common cultural heritage of the countries and their mutual influence. The films of China, Japan and Korea, for example, reflect their shared Buddhist and Confucian heritage. The films of China and North Korea are conditioned by Communist ideology. Early Korean cinema was dominated by the effects of Japanese colonial domination, and the Japanese cinema greatly influenced that of Taiwan. Softcover, 254 pp. $24.95.

British War Films: 1939-1945
S.P. MacKenzie
The cinema was the most popular form of entertainment during the Second World War. Feature films about the forces, such as Target for Tonight, In Which We Serve and The Way Ahead, shaped the British people's perceptions of the conflict. British War Films: 1939-1945 relates how, with service participation, these pictures came to be made and how they were received. Softcover, 244 pp. $30.95.

The Cinema of Australia and New Zealand
Geoff Mayer & Keith Beatty
The Cinema of Australia and New Zealand celebrates the commercially successful narrative feature films produced by these two film cultures as well as key documentaries, shorts and independent films. This coverage also invokes issues involving national identity, race, history and the ability of two small film cultures to survive the economic and cultural threat from Hollywood. Softcover, 259 pp. $35.95.

The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union
Birgit Beumers
The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union ranges from the pre-Revolutionary period to the present day. It offers an insight into the development of Soviet film, from 'the most important of all arts' as a propaganda tool to a means of entertainment in the Stalin era, from the rise of its 'dissident' art-house cinema in the 1960s through the glasnost era with its broken taboos to recent Russian blockbusters. Softcover, 283 pp. $35.95.

A New Guide to Italian Cinema
Carlo Celli & Marga Cottino-Jones
This guide retains earlier editions' interest in renowned films and directors but is also attentive to popular cinema, the films which actually achieved box office success among the Italian public. The Guide introduces the Italian cinema not just as a 20th century phenomenon but as an expression of the deeper roots of Italy's historic, cultural, and literary past. The aim of the book is to provide the cinephile, student, teacher, or fan with a guide where points of interest may be identified and studied with clarity. Softcover, 234 pp. $27.95.

Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II Cinema
Jo Fox
In Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany, Jo Fox compares how each country exploited their national cinema for political purposes. Through an investigation of shorts and feature films, the author looks at how both political propaganda films and escapist cinema were critical in maintaining morale, and how this changed throughout the war. While both countries shared certain similarities in their wartime propaganda films -- a harking back to a glorious historic past, for example -- the thematic differences reveal important distinctions between cultures. This book offers new insight into the shifting pattern of morale during World War II and highlights a key moment in propaganda film history. Softcover, 358 pp. $36.95.

The Pocket Essential Australian Film
Saskia Vanderbent
Australia has always been at the forefront of the film industry, giving birth to the world's very first fiction and documentary features, and a host of international stars, directors and first rate crews. This book analyses over 80 significant works from silent through to contemporary cinema, considering their technical innovation and recurring themes. The diverse range of films include The History of the Kelly Gang, Walkabout, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Max, My Brilliant Career, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Dead Calm, Shine, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Chopper, Moulin Rouge and recent controversial horror, Wolf Creek. Softcover, 160 pp. $9.95.

The Pocket Essential Great British Movies
Don Shiach
Don Shiach has attempted to encapsulate in this volume the peaks of the British film achievement from the beginning of the sound era to the first decade of the 21st century. The giant figures of the 1930s, Alfred Hitchcock and Alexander Korda, set a standard for the domestic film industry in its attempt to challenge the domination of the Hollywood film. Great British Movies makes a fascinating read, a useful reference book and a must for all fans of British cinema. Softcover, 160 pp. $9.95.

Hollywood Politics and Society
Mark Wheeler
This book concludes with a look at the politics of show business, addressing links between Hollywood and political activism, and films such as The Candidate and Bulworth that have themselves engaged with the political process. Wheeler considers the irony that despite the fact that Hollywood is perceived as a bastion of liberalism the two most famous actors-turned-politicians have been Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Softcover, 188 pp. $36.95.

Hollywood and War : The Film Reader
J. David Slocum
This film reader broadens the reader's understanding of the longstanding and pivotal relationship between war and cinema by bringing together key theoretical texts from a range of critical perspectives. Contributors explore how the images, narratives, and myths of war cinema have influenced, and, in turn, been influenced by, American social, political, and economic development since the late nineteenth century. Softcover, 372 pp. $38.95.

Directors in British and Irish Cinema
Robert Murphy
This unique volume presents a comprehensive reference guide to directors who have worked in the British and Irish film industries between 1895 and 2006. The book is packed with fascinating facts, critical summaries and invaluable contextualising details. It will be an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in film-making in Britain and Ireland. Softcover, 644 pp. $55.95.

A Star Is Found
Janet Hirschenson & Jane Jenkins
Taking us from the first casting call through head shots, auditions, meetings, and desperate searches to fill a part, A Star Is Found gives readers behind-the scenes access to the machinery of star-making. Recounting their remarkable shared career that started at Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope studio, the authors tell the funny and fascinating stories of discovering and casting then-unknown stars like Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Cusack, Matt Damon, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Connelly, Brendan Fraser, Virginia Madsen, Joaquin Phoenix, Meg Ryan, and Benicio Del Toro, as well as share insights about the many famous directors for whom they've worked. Hardcover, 307 pp. $18.95.

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Cinema and Northern Ireland
John Hill
John Hill's groundbreaking study is the first book to focus solely on the cinema from and about Northern Ireland. Hill carefully examines the relationship between films and the political tensions within Northern Ireland, identifying the ways in which films have both reinforced and challenged social divisions. He considers the moral and religious controversies that have surrounded cinema in the North and describes the political censorship of films held to be seditious such as Ourselves Alone and The Plough and the Stars. He assesses the role of film-making in Northern Ireland during and after World War II, and considers how Northern Ireland's relationship with Britain and the rest of Ireland figured in feature films such as Odd Man Out as well as in government propaganda films and informational shorts. Both original and authoritative, Cinema and Northern Ireland is destined to become the standard work on the subject. Softcover, 262 pp. $36.95.

Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin
John Bengston
Explore the traces of early Hollywood hidden within Charlie Chaplin's timeless films. This stunning work of cinematic archeology combines Chaplin's movie images with archival photographs, vintage maps, and scores of then-and-now comparison photographs to conjure up the silent movie era from an entirely new perspective. Softcover, 300 pp. $33.95.

Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema
Hamid Dabashi
Over the last quarter century, Palestinian cinema has emerged as a major artistic force on the global scene. Deeply rooted in the historic struggles for national self-determination, this cinema is the single most important expression of a much-maligned people. In Dreams of a Nation, filmmakers, critics and scholars discuss the extraordinary social and artistic significance of Palestinian film. As such, it is, at the time of publication, the only volume of its kind in any language. Softcover, 213 pp. $33.00.

How I Broke into Hollywood: Success Stories from the Trenches
Pablo F. Fenjves & Rocky Lang
How I Broke into Hollywood shares the voices of nearly fifty Hollywood survivors as they revisit the highs and lows of their careers in their own words, dishing dirt and imparting the wisdom they gained along the way. We learn what drew them to the industry and what made them stay, what inspired and appalled them, and what secrets propelled them to professional stardom. Hardcover, 422 pp. $33.50.

British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda and Consensus
Tony Shaw
Cinema was one of the Cold War's most powerful instruments of propaganda. Movies blended with literary, theatrical, musical and broadcast representations of the conflict to produce a richly textured Cold War culture. Now in paperback, this timely book fills a significant gap in the international story by uncovering British cinema's contribution to Cold War propaganda and to the development of a popular consensus on Cold War issues. Softcover, 280 pp. $36.95.

Tears of Laughter: Comedy-drama in 1990s British Cinema
Nigel Mather
British cinema underwent a number of exciting transformations during the 1990s and Tears of Laughter identifies the interactions of comedy and drama that were a fundamental feature of many of the films that were produced during that decade. Nigel Mather explores three specific strands: comedies engaging with issues of class, culture and community in modern Britain; 'ethnic' comedy-dramas exploring complex issues of identity and allegiance in British society; and romantic comedies. Softcover, 211 pp $32.95.

The Cinema of the Balkans
Dina Iordanova
Here are twenty-four specially commissioned essays, each on an individual film from the Balkan region. This collection highlights some of the most important films that represent the rich and diverse culture of the Balkans, and reveals the stylistic and thematic affinities that characterise the cinemas of a region that is often perceived as a disconnected cultural space. Softcover, 291 pp. $35.95.

Shepperton Studios: A Visual Celebration
Morris Bright
Shepperton has been the home for maverick and independent film production for nearly seventy-five years. Owned by a succession of famous brothers, the Kordas, the Boultings, the Lees, and the Scotts, some of the most successful films ever produced have been made at the studios. With over 300 stunning images (many previously unpublished) and contributions from directors, actors, producers and those behind the scenes, this fully authorised book represents the first comprehensive illustrated account of Shepperton Studios. Hardcover, 384 pp. $99.00.

Theorising National Cinema
Valentina Vitali & Paul Willemen
Theorising National Cinema is a major contribution to work on national cinemas, by many of the leading scholars in the field. It addresses the knotty and complex relationship between cinema and national identity, showing that the nationality of a cinema production company, and of the films it made, have not always been seen as pertinent. Softcover, 326 pp. $33.95.

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Last modified July 18, 2012.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.