This volume examines some of the key historical issues raised by popular film, including what film might tell us about the past, the reliability of movies as sources of historical knowledge, and how the film might compare to more 'serious' works of history.
Bordwell scrutinizes the theories of style launched by various film historians and celebrates a century of cinema. The author examines the contributions of many directors and shows how film scholars have explained stylistic continuity and change.
Ferro discusses how film reveals the conscious values of its creators, the dominant ideology of the society in which the film was created, and also unconscious or subverted meanings and values. Marc Ferro argues that film is an "agent and source of history" and offers a comprehensive survey of the conceptual interrelations between cinema and history. In developing his arguments, he provides some dozen models, each focusing on a single film or set of films.
Cinema was the first, and is arguably still the greatest, of the industrialized art forms that came to dominate the cultural life of the twentieth century. Today, it continues to adapt and grow as new technologies and viewing platforms become available, and remains an integral cultural and aesthetic entertainment experience for people the world over. Cinema developed against the backdrop of the two world wars, and over the years has seen smaller wars, revolutions, and profound social changes. Its history reflects this changing landscape, and, more than any other art form, developments in technology. In this Very Short Introduction, Nowell-Smith looks at the defining moments of the industry, from silent to sound, black and white to colour, and considers its genres from intellectual art house to mass market entertainment. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
The Routledge Companion to New Cinema History presents the most recent approaches and methods in the study of the social experience of cinema, from its origins in vaudeville and traveling exhibitions to the multiplexes of today. Exploring its history from the perspective of the cinemagoer, the study of new cinema history examines the circulation and consumption of cinema, the political and legal structures that underpinned its activities, the place that it occupied in the lives of its audiences and the traces that it left in their memories. Using a broad range of methods from the statistical analyses of box office economics to ethnography, oral history, and memory studies, this approach has brought about an undisputable change in how we study cinema, and the questions we ask about its history. This companion examines the place, space, and practices of film exhibition and programming; the questions of gender and ethnicity within the cinematic experience; and the ways in which audiences gave meaning to cinemagoing practices, specific films, stars, and venues, and its operation as a site of social and cultural exchange from Detroit and Laredo to Bandung and Chennai. Contributors demonstrate how the digitization of source materials and the use of digital research tools have enabled them to map previously unexplored aspects of cinema’s business and social history and undertake comparative analysis of the diversity of the social experience of cinema across regional, national, and continental boundaries. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, The Routledge Companion to New Cinema History enlarges and refines our understanding of cinema’s place in the social history of the twentieth century.
Featuring nearly three thousand film stills, production shots, and other illustrations, an authoritative history of the cinema traces the development of the medium, its filmmakers and stars, and the evolution of national cinemas around the world.
A History of Three-Dimensional Cinema chronicles 3-D cinema as a single, continuous and coherent medium, proceeding from 19th-century experiments in stereoscopic photography and lantern projection (1839–1892) to stereoscopic cinema’s “long novelty period” (1893–1952). It proceeds to examine the first Hollywood boom in anaglyphic stereo (1953–1955), when the mainstream industry produced 69 features in 3-D, mostly action films that could exploit the depth illusion, but also a handful of big-budget films—for example, Kiss Me Kate (George Sidney, 1953) and Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)—until audiences tired of the process; the anaglyphic revival of 1970–1985, when 3-D was sustained as a novelty feature in sensational genres like soft-core pornography and horror; the age of IMAX 3-D (1986–2008); the current era of digital 3-D cinema, which began in 2009 when James Cameron’s Avatar became the highest-grossing feature of all time and the studios once again stampeded into 3-D production; and finally the future promise of Virtual Reality.
From the flickering silent images of the nickelodeon to the roaring vibrancy of today's digital video productions, independent cinema has always challenged the way films are created, released and viewed. The History of Independent Cinema presents an extraordinary journey that revisits the innovative men and women who stood up to the status quo and brought revolutionary new ideas and technologies to the motion picture world. The History of Independent Cinema celebrates the pioneers who introduced color, sound, widescreen projection and videography to the filmmaking process. You will meet the brave individuals who tore down racial and gender barriers behind the camera, challenged censorship taboos imposed on film production, formulated new strategies for film distribution, and created many of the greatest movies ever made. Spanning the full spectrum of the U.S. film experience, The History of Independent Cinema is a tribute to the legendary filmmakers and landmark films that reshaped - and continue to reshape - American popular culture.
A History of Italian Cinema, 2nd edition is the much anticipated update from the author of the bestselling Italian Cinema - which has been published in four landmark editions and will celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2018. Building upon decades of research, Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni reorganize the current History in order to keep the book fresh and responsive not only to the actual films being created in Italy in the twenty-first century but also to the rapidly changing priorities of Italian film studies and film scholars. The new edition brings the definitive history of the subject, from the birth of cinema to the present day, up to date with a revised filmography as well as more focused attention on the melodrama, the crime film, and the historical drama. The book is expanded to include a new generation of directors as well as to highlight themes such as gender issues, immigration, and media politics. Accessible, comprehensive, and heavily illustrated throughout, this is an essential purchase for any fan of Italian film.