University of Chicago Press: New Titles in Film Studies

Preserving and Exhibiting Media Art

Vinzenz Hediger; Barbara Le Maitre; Julia Noordegraaf; Cosetta G. Saba — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This vibrantly illustrated introduction to the emerging field of the preservation and presentation of media art brings together the contributions of authors from all over Europe and the United States. This volume can serve as a textbook for students in advanced degree programs in media art and museum studies, as well as an invaluable introduction for general readers. A potent combination of incisive scholarly articles and focused case studies, Preserving and Exhibiting Media Art offers a comprehensive overview of the history, theory, and practical skills of preserving media art.

Open Roads, Closed Borders

Michael Gott; Thibaut Schilt — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This is the first collection of essays about French-language road movies, a particularly rich yet critically neglected cinematic category. These films, the contributors argue, offer important perspectives on contemporary French ideas about national identity, France’s former colonies, Europe, and the rest of the world. Taken together, the essays illustrate how travel and road motifs have enabled directors of various national origins and backgrounds to reimagine space and move beyond simple oppositions such as Islam and secularism, local and global, home and away, France and Africa, and East and West.

Cinema Makers

Anna Schober — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The Cinema Makers investigates how cinema spectators in southeastern and central European cities became cinema makers through such practices as squatting in existing cinema spaces, organizing cinema "events," writing about film, and making films themselves. Drawing on a corpus of interviews with cinema activists in Germany, Austria, and the former Yugoslavia, Anna Schober compares the activities and artistic productions they staged in cities such as Vienna, Cologne, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Ljubljana, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica, Zagreb, and Sarajevo. The resulting study illuminates the differences and similarities in the development of political culture—and cinema’s role in that development—in European countries with pluralist-democratic, one-party socialist, and post-socialist traditions.

Portrait of the Artist as a Political Dissident

Vlastimir Sudar — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

In the liberal West as in socialist Yugoslavia, the films of Aleksandar Petrovic dramatize how enforced dogmatism can corrode any political system. A case study of the oft-overlooked Yugoslav director’s colorful and eventful career, A Portrait of the Artist as a Political Dissident explores how Petrovic developed specific political and social themes in his films. A response to the political vagaries of his time, these anti-dogmatic views were later to become a trademark of his work. Although interest in socialist Yugoslavia and its legacy has risen steadily since the 1990s, the history of Yugoslav cinema has been scarcely covered, and this book marks a fresh contribution to a burgeoning area of interest.

Photocinema

Neil Campbell; Alfredo Cramerotti — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Taking as its starting point the notion of photocinema—or the interplay of the still and moving image—the photographs, interviews, and critical essays in this volume explore the ways in which the two media converge and diverge, expanding the boundaries of each in interesting and unexpected ways. The book’s innovative approach to film and photography produces what might be termed a hybrid “third space,” where the whole becomes much more than the sum of its individual parts, encouraging viewers to expand their perceptions to begin to understand the bigger picture.

The latest edition in Intellect’s Critical Photography series, Photocinema represents a nuanced theoretical and practical exploration of the experimental cinematic techniques exemplified by artists like Wim Wenders and Hollis Frampton. In addition to new critical essays by Victor Burgin and David Campany, the book includes interviews with Martin Parr, Hannah Starkey, and Aaron Schumann, and a portfolio of photographs from various new and established artists.

Directory of World Cinema: France

Tim Palmer; Charlie Michael — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Artistic, intellectual, and appreciably avant-garde, the French film industry has, perhaps more than any other national cinema, been perennially at the center of international filmmaking. With its vigorous business and wide-ranging film culture, France has also been home historically to some of the most influential filmmakers and movements – and, indeed, the very first motion picture was screened in Paris in 1895.

This volume addresses the great directors and key artistic movements, but also ventures beyond these well-established films and figures, broadening the canon through an examination of many neglected but intriguing French films. Framing essays explore the salient stylistic elements, cultural contexts, and the various conceptions of cinema in France, from avant-gardes to filmmaking by women, from documentary and realism to the Tradition of Quality, as well as genres like comedy, crime film, and horror. Illustrated by screen shots, film reviews by leading international experts offer original approaches to both overlooked titles and acknowledged classics. Readers wishing to explore particular topics in greater depth will be grateful for the book’s reading recommendations and comprehensive filmography.

A visually engaging journey through one of the most dynamic, variegated, and idiosyncratic film industries, Directory of World Cinema: France is a must-have for Francophiles and cinema savants.

Spectacles of Blood

Swaralipi Nandi; Esha Chatterjee — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This superb collection of essays illuminates the film portrayal of violence, masculinity, and power in a postcolonial context, showing how the cinema challenges, normalizes, or contests these major issues. Taking an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, drawing from literature, sociology, and media studies, the essays shed light on films about societal violence in postcolonial cultures, whether it be terrorism, suicide bombings, the underworld, organized crime, or mob violence.

The contributors to Spectacles of Blood look at the dynamics of the representation of these issues as cinematic plots and techniques, drawing attention to the affective value of the films in generating and foregrounding the feelings invoked by the onscreen violence, and the impact of these emotions on the formation of national and cosmopolitan identity. International in scope, covering films from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, these essays enrich both literary studies and social studies with a nuanced borrowing and intermixing of their primary texts and modes of interpretation.

World Film Locations: Chicago

Scott Jordan Harris — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

While some call it the Second City, Chicago is no stranger to the silver screen. Director Christopher Nolan transformed Chicago into the darkly foreboding Gotham City for The Dark Knight. Ferris Bueller rode a parade float down Dearborn and made stops during his epic day off at a host of landmarks, from Buckingham Fountain to Wrigley Field. Everyone’s favorite foul-mouthed blues act ended their film’s climactic chase by taking the Bluesmobile through the plate-glass windows of the Richard J. Daley Center.

With World Film Locations: Chicago, critic Scott Jordan Harris takes readers on a cinematic tour of the city, featuring modern blockbusters and beloved classics. Along the way, scenes from almost fifty films made or set in the city are discussed, accompanied by full-color stills and interspersed with essays examining the city’s unique character onscreen. Among the contributors are Gordon Quinn, cofounder of Chicago’s Kartemquim Films; Elizabeth Weitzman, film critic for the New York Daily News; the BBC’s Samira Ahmed; and Steve James, director of the coming-of-age classic Hoop Dreams. For readers hoping to locate landmarks from favorite films, the book also includes detailed maps that point out key scenes.

A fun and fact-packed read, World Film Locations: Chicago will be welcomed by film fans and anyone planning a trip to the Windy City.

World Film Locations: Glasgow

Nicola Balkind — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

World Film Locations: Glasgow explores Scotland’s biggest city and the many locations in which its films are viewed, set, and shot. Taking in the important moments and movements in its rich cinematic history, this book seeks to discover the city’s culture, character, and comedy through its cinematic identity. Essays cover a variety of topics including a background of Glasgow’s cinema-goers and picture houses, the evolution of Scots comedy, and the role of the city as inspiration for grassroots and underground filmmakers, as well as big Hollywood productions. Thirty-eight films are featured, from classics like Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl and Loach’s Carla’s Song to cult hits like Boyle’s Trainspotting. Bollywood is also represented, alongside European titles and grim Scots realism like Sweet Sixteen, My Name is Joe, and Red Road, and new titles including Fast Romance, Perfect Sense, and NEDs, making this an essential guide to Scotland in film.

World Film Locations: Venice

Michael Pigott — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This book explores the rich history of films that have used the floating city as evocative backdrop and integral character. Few cities are as densely packed with picturesque cinematic locations. Extensively illustrated with maps, film stills, and present-day location photos, this book provides both a colorful guide to, and an incisive examination of, Venice on film. It contains insightful film entries describing carefully chosen scenes from each film, as well as six thematic essays, written by an impressive international selection of film critics, academics, and Venice experts. The grand and familiar tourist spots take on new significances, and the book highlights less well-known spots beyond the tourist trail, including gondola repair yards and legendary, but well-hidden, restaurants. From one of the earliest mobile shots in film history—a voyage up the Grand Canal shot in 1896—to classic depictions of the city like Summertime, Death in Venice, and Don’t Look Now, as well as recent big budget productions such as The Tourist, this book spans the history of filmmaking in Venice.

World Film Locations: Vancouver

Rachel Walls — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Vancouver, the fourth largest film and television production center in North America, has hosted Hollywood filmmakers from Robert Altman and Dennis Hopper to Jason Reitman and Brad Bird, and is home to independent talent such as Bruce Sweeney and Mina Shum. World Film Locations: Vancouver offers insight into how so-called “runaway” productions from Hollywood use Vancouver as a stand-in for other locations and it highlights the work of Canadian filmmakers who deserve more attention. Thirty-eight analyses of different film scenes reveal the cinematic city in its myriad forms, while spotlight essays provide insight into the creativity and contradictions of Vancouver’s film industry throughout the ages. The volume presents Vancouver’s rich diversity and complexity, where magnificent marine and mountain views are both showcased and masked, downtown landmarks provide the backdrop for thrilling sequences, and lesser-known neighborhoods frame intriguing characters and plotlines. This book offers new perspectives on the relationship between the movies and the metropolis.

World Film Locations: Marseilles

Marcelline Block — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

As France’s oldest city, Marseilles has a significant cinematic culture, dating back to the 1890s when the Lumière brothers shot many films there. Due to its prolific film industry in the 1920s, Marseilles was referred to as “the French Los Angeles.”

World Film Locations: Marseilles examines the representations of this port city in cinema, through essays and film scene reviews devoted to an exploration of its topography as depicted by Jean Epstein, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Renoir, Jean-Jacques Beineix, and many others. This volume showcases Marseilles’s diversity as articulated onscreen: from the winding streets of the Panier to the Old Port’s noisy markets, from the bustling Canebière to the dockyards of the Grand Port Maritime, from the cliffs of Provençal encircling the city to sun-drenched calanques leading to the dazzling cerulean sea. World Film Locations: Marseilles features maps of film scenes, high-quality screengrabs, and images of movie locations as they appear today, accompanied by original texts penned by leading international film scholars and critics and an interview with Marseillais director Robert Guédiguian. Marseilles has been named a 2013–14 European Capital of Culture and this book is a fitting and timely tribute.

Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine

Philippe D. Mather — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

From 1945 to 1950, during the formative years of his career, Stanley Kubrick worked as a photojournalist for Look magazine. Offering a comprehensive examination of the work he produced during this period—before going on to become one of America’s most celebrated filmmakers—Stanley Kubrick at "Look" Magazine sheds new light on the aesthetic and ideological factors that shaped his artistic voice.

Tracing the links between his photojournalism and films, Philippe Mather shows how working at Look fostered Kubrick’s emerging genius for combining images and words to tell a story. Mather then demonstrates how exploring these links enhances our understanding of Kubrick’s approach to narrative structure—as well as his distinctive combinations of such genres as fiction and documentary, and fantasy and realism.

Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, Stanley Kubrick at "Look" Magazine features never-before-published photographs from the Look archives and complete scans of Kubrick’s photo essays from hard-to-obtain back issues of the magazine. It will be an indispensable addition to the libraries of Kubrick scholars and fans.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Berlin-based artist Matt Saunders has in recent years captured the art world’s eye with a striking series of hybrid images and animated films produced using techniques from both photography and painting. Using movie stars such as German actress Hertha Thiele and British actor Patrick McGoohan as subjects, Saunders recasts historical film and television images into new discourses about portraiture, iconography, and spectatorship.

Matt Saunders: Parallel Plot is both an artist’s book and a catalog that documents and reflects on a 2010 exhibition held at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. Reproducing the stunning artwork from that show, the book also includes two conversations between Saunders and artist Josiah McElheny and an essay by experimental film scholar Bruce Jenkins that tackles the relationship among painting, photography, and film, as well as the dynamics of Saunders’s iconography. Offering insight into Saunders’s sophisticated working methods, this book is an evocative introduction to the work of this intriguing artist and the intertwined histories of film and photography.

Figuring the Past

Belén Vidal — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

This innovative analysis of period film presents a new way to examine the ways in which contemporary cinema recreates the historical past. Exploring the relationship between visual motifs and cultural representation, Figuring the Past is a selection of detailed case studies that explore three key figures—the house, the tableau, and the letter. Belen Vidal proposes a new aesthetic framework for the study of period film, looking at a number of important auteurs in the genre, including James Ivory, Martin Scorsese, and Jane Campion. This handsomely illustrated book seeks to position this popular but often understudied genre in its proper place within the academic discipline of cinema studies.

Directors

Susan Beth Lehman — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Despite the increasing popularity of academic filmmaking programs in the United States, some of contemporary America’s most exciting film directors have emerged from the theater world. Directors: From Stage to Screen and Back Again features a series of interviews with directors who did just that, transitioning from work on stage productions to work in television and on full-length features.

Taken together, these interviews demonstrate the myriad ways in which a theater background can engender innovative and stimulating work in film. As unique and idiosyncratic as the personalities they feature, the directors’ conversations with Susan Lehman range over a vast field of topics. Each one traces its subject’s personal artistic journey and explores how he or she handled the challenge of moving from stage to screen. Combined with a foreword by Emmy award–winning screenwriter Steve Brown, the directors’ collective knowledge and experience will be invaluable to scholars, aspiring filmmakers, theater aficionados, and film enthusiasts.

Locating Science Fiction

Andrew Milner — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

In Locating Science Fiction, Andrew Milner looks at science fiction within the context of a host of other genres—including fantasy, romance, and the thriller—and explores the historical and geographic contexts of science fiction’s emergence and development. Bringing in Raymond Williams’s cultural materialism, Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture, and Franco Moretti’s application of world systems to literary studies, he offers a persuasive, synthetic, and ultimately new mode of science fiction analysis that will become essential reading.

World Film Locations: Helsinki

Pietari Kääpä; Silja Laine — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Part of Intellect’s World Film Locations series, World Film Locations: Helsinki explores the relationship between the city, cinema, and Finnish cultural history. Cinematic representations of Helsinki range from depictions of a northern periphery to a space of cosmopolitanism, from a touristic destination to a substitute for Moscow and St. Petersburg during the Cold War. The city also looks different depending on one’s perspective, and World Film Locations: Helsinki illustrates this complexity by providing a visual collection of cinematic views of Helsinki.

This cinematic city is a collective work where individual pieces construct a whole, and one which we, as viewers, then shape according to our perspectives. The contributors emphasize the role of the city in identity and cultural politics throughout Finnish film history and its central role as the locus for negotiating Finland’s globalization.