Return of the Epic Film
Return of the Epic Film

Author: Andrew Elliot

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2015-03-05

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1474402852

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With the success of Gladiator, both critics and scholars enthusiastically announced the return of a genre which had lain dormant for thirty years. However, this return raises important new questions which remain unanswered. Why did the epic come back, and why did it fall out of fashion? Are these the same kinds of epics as the 1950s and 60s, or are there aesthetic differences? Can we treat Kingdom of Heaven, 300 and Thor indiscriminately as one genre? Are non-Western histories like Hero and Mongol epics, too? Finally, what precisely do we mean when we talk about the return of the epic film, and why are they back? The Return of the Epic Film offers a fresh way of thinking about a body of films which has dominated our screens for a decade. With contributions from top scholars in the field, the collection adopts a range of interdisciplinary perspectives to explore the epic film in the twenty-first century.

Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe

Author: Helge Kragh

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0198722893

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This book tells the fascinating history of cosmology using a series of fictitious interview transcripts with the field's leading scientists, including giants such as Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, and George Gamow, to give the reader a lively and "almost authentic" impression of the problems that faced this early generation of cosmologists.

A Cinematic History of War & Epics
A Cinematic History of War & Epics

Author: Mark Wilshin

Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9781410920089

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Examines the development of the war film genre, from early works such as Ben Hur to realistic modern war films such as Saving Private Ryan.

Literature as Document
Literature as Document

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9004384251

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Literature as Document considers the relationship between documents and literary texts in Western Literature of the 1930s. More specifically, the volume deals with the notion of the “document” and its multifaceted and complex connections to literary “texts” and attempts to provide answers to the problematic nature of that relationship. In an effort to determine a possible theoretical definition, many different disciplines have been taken into account, as well as individual case studies. In order to observe dynamics and trends, the idea for this investigation was to look at literature, taking its practices, its factual-looking and concrete applications, as a point of departure – that is to say, then, starting from the literary object itself.

Walking on Air
Walking on Air

Author: Janann Sherman

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2011-08-01

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1496801911

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Aviation pioneer Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie (1902–1975) was once one of the most famous women in America. In the 1930s, her words and photographs were splashed across the front pages of newspapers across the nation. The press labeled her “second only to Amelia Earhart among America's women pilots,” and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt named her among the “eleven women whose achievements make it safe to say that the world is progressing.” Omlie began her career in the early 1920s when aviation was unregulated and open to those daring enough to take it on, male or female. She earned the first commercial pilot's license issued to a woman and became a successful air racer. During the New Deal, she became the first woman to hold an executive position in federal aeronautics. In Walking on Air, author Janann Sherman presents a thorough and entertaining biography of Omlie. In 1920, the Des Moines, Iowa, native bought herself a Curtiss JN-4D airplane and began learning how to fly and perform stunts with her future husband, pilot Vernon Omlie. She danced the Charleston on the top wing, hung by her teeth below the plane, and performed parachute jumps in the Phoebe Fairgrave Flying Circus. Using interviews, contemporary newspaper articles, archived radio transcripts, and other archival materials, Sherman creates a complex portrait of a daring aviator struggling for recognition in the early days of flight and a detailed examination of how American flying changed over the twentieth century.

Selling the Movie
Selling the Movie

Author: Ian Haydn Smith

Publisher: White Lion Publishing

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0711240248

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As long as there have been movies, there have been posters selling films to audiences. Posters came into existence just decades before the inception of film, and as movies became a universal medium of entertainment, posters likewise became a ubiquitous form of advertising. At first, movie posters suggested a film's theme, from adventure and romance to thrills and spine-tingling horror. Then, with the ascendancy of the film star, posters began to sell icons and lifestyles, nowhere more so than in Hollywood. But every country producing films used posters to sell their product. Selling the Movie: The Art of the Film Poster charts the history of the movie poster from both a creative and a commercial perspective. It includes sections focusing on poster artists, the development of styles, the influence of politics and ideology, and how commerce played a role in the film poster's development. The book is richly illustrated with poster art from many countries and all eras of filmmaking. From creating the brand of Charlie Chaplin's tramp and marketing the elusive mystique of Greta Garbo, to the history of the blockbuster, the changing nature of graphic design by the decade, and the role of the poster in the digital age, Selling the Movie is an entertaining and enthralling journey through cinema, art, and the business of attracting audiences to the box office.

Ratbag, Soldier, Saint
Ratbag, Soldier, Saint

Author: Lian Knight

Publisher: Hybrid Publishers

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1925736849

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Lian Knight has recreated the amazing life of her grandfather, a war hero. What has been published about him is extraordinary – 2000 newspaper articles, many printed more than a century ago. Yet almost nothing written about him is consistent. The press varied his name, his age, his place of birth, where he lived and what he did. There were whispers that he emerged from poverty, delivering fish before dawn in London’s East End in the markets and laneways of Jack the Ripper’s local haunts, before joining the army at just thirteen. Averse to authority, he was a military superior’s nightmare. He served in South Africa and India before migrating to Australia. When World War I broke out, he was despatched to the Western Front where, gassed, bombed and working against remarkable odds, he saved the lives of many and was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour. He became legendary, gaining medals and escaping death on numerous occasions. After the war he married and finally returned to Australia. He was famous in England and Australia for his bravery and kindness to his fellow man. Later as a movie star, a politician, a boxer, a celebrated Australian identity and a good Samaritan, his notoriety seemed to know no bounds. Which of these stories were real? A mixture of truth and fantasy has continued to be reported ... until now. ‘From page 1 of Ratbag, Soldier, Saint, I entered the magnificent maze of the life of Issy Smith, wonderfully led through that life by Issy’s granddaughter, Lian Knight.’ – General Sir Peter Cosgrove ‘This book brilliantly recounts the unusual life of Sergeant Issy Smith VC, a Jewish war hero of WWI, revealing the many challenges he and his family faced in Australia and England during the war and in the post-war years. A captivating read!’ – MAJGEN (Ret’d), Emeritus Professor Jeffrey V Rosenfeld

Spitfire Pilot
Spitfire Pilot

Author: Roger Hall

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

Published: 2013-09-15

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 1445609886

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An extraordinary true story of combat in the Battle of Britain. Includes some of the most graphic and atmospheric accounts of air combat between Spitfire and Nazi Messerschmitt fighters ever published.