The voice in cinema

How can a voice whose source is never seen—such as Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey or the mother of Norman Bates in Psycho—have such a powerful hold on an audience? When does "synchronized sound" fail to link bodies to their voices, and how do such great stylists of sound film as Jacques Tati, Kenji...

The cinema of john sayles

John Sayles is an inspiration to independent filmmakers in America and beyond, both for his engaged political filmmaking and as living proof that directors can survive and thrive without the need for mainstream financing. His 1980s films were the counter-punch to the special effects and blockbust...

The cinema of me

When a filmmaker makes a film with herself as a subject, she is already divided as both the subject matter of the film and the subject making the film. The two senses of the word are immediately in play – the matter and the maker—thus the two ways of being subjectified as both subject and object....

The trouble with men

A collection of original essays focusing on masculinity and film, particularly the representation of European masculinity. Spilt into four sections—stars, class and race, fathers and bodies—areas covered include the Carmen films, Yiddish cinema, romantic comedy and beur cinema.

Los angeles before hollywood

This study provides a meticulous account of the reception and regulation of cinema in the United States during a decade of upheaval, transition, and industrial consolidation that affected all aspects of film culture. Written in close dialogue with contemporary journalism, the volume focuses on Lo...

The cinema of central europe

This new volume in the Twenty-Four Frames series focuses on twenty-four key Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Polish films from the twenties to the present. Between the wars the cinemas of Hungary, Poland, and the former Czechoslovakia each claimed their pioneers of early cinema and attained signific...

Hitchcock and twentieth-century cinema

Hitchcock and Twentieth-Century Cinema looks at the work, influences, legacy and style of one of cinema's most famous directors. Alfred Hitchcock worked in Britain and America, in silent and sound films, and through and beyond the studio system, all the time appealing to mass audiences while empl...

Reading the french new wave

One of the most important movements in cinema history, the French New Wave of directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais not only revitalised French cinema, but permanently shifted cinema's aesthetic horizons by incorporating the narrative complexities of emerging modernist literature su...

Donnie darko

With its gothic tale of a troubled teen haunted by visions of a figure in a Halloween rabbit suit, Donnie Darko was among the first cult movie phenomena of the twenty-first century, making debut director Richard Kelly Hollywood hot property before he reached his thirtieth birthday. This study nar...

Millennial cinema

In spite of the overwhelming interest in the study of memory and trauma, no single volume has yet explored the centrality of memory to films of this era in a global context; this volume is the first anthology devoted exclusively to the study of memory in twenty-first-century cinema. Combining ind...

The cinema of italy

The Cinema of Italy, a new addition to the 24 Frames series, looks at the recurring historical, thematic and stylistic features of twenty-four of the most important Italian sound films. Viewing Italian cinema at the intersection of history, politics, art and popular culture, the 24 concise essays...

The cinema of sally potter

France on film

Jean-marie straub and danièle huillet

From their first film in 1963, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet distinguished themselves as two of Europe's most inventive, generous, and uncompromising filmmakers. From Machorka-Muff (1963) through These Encounters of Theirs (2006), and in the subsequent solo work of Jean-Marie Straub, they...

Films of fact

Britain has long been recognised for its proud contribution to documentary cinema, yet its long tradition of scientific and medical documentaries remains underrepresented in the literature on nonfiction film. Films of Fact is the first in-depth history of the genre, which began with amateur hobby...

Slow movies

"In all film there is the desire to capture the motion of life, to refuse immobility," Agnes Varda has noted. But to capture the reality of human experience, cinema must fasten on stillness and inaction as much as motion. Slow Movies investigates movies by acclaimed international directors who in...