'Álex de la Iglesia, initially championed by Pedro Almodóvar, and at one time the enfant terrible of Spanish film, still makes film critics nervous. The director of some of the most important films of the Post-Franco era - Acción mutante, El día de la bestia, Muertos de risa - r…
Daniel Calparsoro
by Davies, Ann, Manchester University Press
fromSpanish and Latin American filmmakers
Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has provided a crucial contribution to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude violence by those critics lamenting a 'lost golden age' of S…
Ostrannenie ('making it strange') has become one of the central concepts of modern artistic practice, ranging over movements including Dada, postmodernism, epic theatre, and science fiction, as well as our response to arts. Coined by the 'Russian Formalist' Viktor Shklovsky in 1…
"From mainstream blockbusters to art house cinema, narrative and narration are the driving forces that organize a film. Yet attempts to explain these forces are often mired in notoriously complex terminology and dense theory. Warren Buckland provides a clear and accessible intro…
Religion and cinema share a capacity for world making, ritualizing, mythologizing, and creating sacred time and space. Through cinematography, mise-en-scEne, editing, and other production activities, film takes the world 'out there' and refashions it. Religion achieves similar e…
A deeply textured and compelling biography of comedy giant Mel Brooks, covering his rags-to-riches life and triumphant career in television, films, and theater.
Cinema was the first, and arguably the greatest, of the industrialized art forms that dominated the cultural life of the 20th century. It continues to adapt and grow as new technologies and viewing platforms become available, and remains an integral cultural and aesthetic entert…
"In December 2016, the world was shaken by the sudden deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, two unspeakable losses that occurred in less than twenty-four hours of each other. In the aftermath, the stunned public sought solace from Debbie's only remaining child…
For the fiftieth anniversary of the film, W.K. Stratton's definitive history of the making of The Wild Bunch, named one of the greatest Westerns of all time by the American Film Institute. Sam Peckinpah's film The Wild Bunch, named one of the greatest films of all time by the Am…
"Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, named one of the greatest films of all time by the American Film Institute, is the story of a gang of outlaws who are one big steal from retirement. When their attempted train robbery goes awry, the gang flees to Mexico and falls in with a brutal…
An exploration of "Hollywood's glamorous golden age via the cinematic life of Howard Hughes and the women who encountered him--sometimes at the expense of their minds and souls"--Dust jacket flap Howard Hughes was obsessed with sex, power and publicity, and he used his power to…
Motivated by Woody Allen's brief comedic transformation into a Hasidic Jew in Annie Hall, cultural historian Shaina Hammerman examines the effects of real and imagined representations of Hasidic Jews in film, television, theater, and photography. Although these depictions could …
One of the most fascinating phenomena of 1960s film culture is the emergence of American sexploitation films--salacious indies made on the margins of Hollywood. Hundreds of such films were produced and shown on both urban and small-town screens over the course of the decade. Yet…
"In Film Blackness Michael Boyce Gillespie shifts the ways we think about black film, treating it not as a category, a genre, or strictly a representation of the black experience but as a visual negotiation between film as art and the discursivity of race. Gillespie challenges e…
Illuminates the enduring relevance of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in racially torn America, tracing the writing of the book and the creation of its film while sharing insights into its controversies and legacy.
"With forty million copies sold, To Kill a Mockingbird's poignant but clear-eyed examination of human nature has cemented its status as a global classic. Tom Santopietro's new book ... takes a 360-degree look at the Mockingbird phenomenon both on page and screen. Santopietro tra…
"Proceeding chronologically, from the beginning of Varda's career in the 1950s to the present, this book focuses on moments where Varda's invocation of different artistic traditions within film opens onto complex commentary on broader aesthetic, theoretical, feminist, and politi…
From New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff comes the definitive biography of Robin Williams - a compelling portrait of one of America's most beloved and misunderstood entertainers. From his rapid-fire stand-up riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his powerful Academy Aw…