ALSO NEW FROM WALLFLOWER PRESS
Edited by Jacqueline Furby and Karen Randell
A collection of essays that explores in detail the way in which Film Studies has been approached theoretically, culturally and historically and the ways in which this has changed in the twenty-first century. The book focuses on classical theories, culture-based approaches, early and modern theory, statistical approaches and the (potential) futures of critical film theory. Divided into three sections, the essays discuss ‘film form and method’, including notions of time, space and sound in cinema; ‘theory and method’, including the idea of spectatorship and portrayals of sex, sexuality and family; and ‘new technology and method’, which includes digital cinema, the influence of special effects and audience studies. Films discussed include Star Wars, A Room with a View, Philadelphia, Romance, American Beauty, and Gladiator, as well as the films of Jacques-Louis David and Ridley Scott.
Ewa Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli
Although a long-established and influential genre, this is the first comprehensive study of the European road cinema. Crossing New Europe investigates this tradition, its relationship with the American road movie and its aesthetic forms. It examines such crucial issues as individual and national identity crises, and phenomena such as displacement, diaspora, exile, migration, nomadism, and tourism in postmodern, post-Berlin Wall Europe. Drawing on the work of Said, Hall, Shields, Urry, Bauman, Deleuze and Guattari and other critical theorists, Crossing New Europe adopts a broad interpretation of ‘Europe’ and discusses directors who have long been associated with the road movie, such as Wim Wenders (Alice in the Cities, Lisbon Story) and Aki Kaurismäki (Leningrad Cowboys Go America!); authors with a distinctive vision of the road, such as Eric Rohmer, Werner Herzog and Patrick Keiller; and more recent contributions such as Morvern Callar, Calendar, Code Unknown, Dear Diary and The Last Resort.
Tanya Krzywinska
Whether laced in the rapturous rhetorics of romance or seeking to pack a harder erotic punch, cinematic representations of sex and sexual desire have provided cinema with one of its major attractions. Sex and the Cinema traces the numerous factors and contexts – artistic, institutional, political and socio-cultural – that have shaped the way that sex appears in film. How does cinema mediate sex? Why is sex presented often in transgressive terms? What ideals and values inform cinematic depictions of sex? Given that cinematic representations of sex have perhaps caused more controversy than any others, Sex and the Cinema charts the cultural norms and contestations that are often diversely in play. Formal conventions used to represent sex and desire in cinema, as well as themes such as adultery, incest, romance, sado-masochism and ‘real’ sex are explored. Films discussed include Don’t Look Now, Broken Blossoms, Emmanuelle, Secretary, Close My Eyes, Eyes Wide Shut, Ginger Snaps, Frenchman’s Creek, Baise Moi, Romance, The Story of O, Zandalee, Way Down East, Red Dust, The War Zone and Oedipus Rex.
Guy Westwell
An introduction to and overview of the Hollywood war movie, a lynchpin in American cultural imagination. The book considers the history of this genre, one of continuing significance from All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) to We Were Soldiers (2002). Guy Westwell focuses in particular on representations of the Vietnam War (Apocalypse Now (1979), Rambo (1985) and Platoon (1986)) and the more recent return to and reexamination of the Second World War (Saving Private Ryan (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001)).
