Screening the East considers German filmmakers’ responses to unification. In particular, it traces the representation of the East German community in films made since 1989 and considers whether these narratives challenge or reinforce the notion of a separate East German identity. The book identifies and analyses a large number of films, from internationally successful box-office hits, to lesser-known productions, many of which are discussed here for the first time. Providing an insight into the films’ historical and political context, it considers related issues such as stereotyping, racism, regional particularism and the Germans’ confrontation with the past.
Film and television have been accepted as having a pervasive influence on how people understand the world. An important aspect of this is the relationship of history and film. The different views of the past created by film, television, and video are only now attracting closer attention from historians, cultural critics, and filmmakers. This volume seeks to advance the critical exploration scholars have recently begun. Barta begins by addressing the various ways the past is screened for our understanding and relates the art of film to other media. The essays that follow deal primarily with the changing perspectives of political and social developments—and changing concepts of ideology, gender, or culture—in films and television programs made for historically shaped reasons. Chapters by filmmakers explore issues of context and intent in their own projects. Scholars and general readers interested in film and cultural studies will find this an important volume.
This edited collection is the first book-length critical study of the Showtime-Sky Atlantic television series Penny Dreadful (2014-2016), which also includes an analysis of Showtime’s 2020 spin-off City of Angels. Chapters examine the status of the series as a work of twenty-first-century cable television, contemporary Gothic-horror, and intermedial adaptation, spanning sources as diverse as eighteenth and nineteenth-century British fiction and poetry, American dime novels, theatrical performance, Hollywood movies, and fan practices. Featuring iconic monsters such as Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature, the “bride” of Frankenstein, Dracula, the werewolf, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll, Penny Dreadful is a mash-up of familiar texts and new Gothic figures such as spiritualist Vanessa Ives, played by the magnetic Eva Green. As a recent example of adapting multiple sources in different media, Penny Dreadful has as much to say about the Romantic and Victorian eras as it does about our present-day fascination with screen monsters. Hear the authors talk about the collection here: https://nrftsjournal.org/monsters-all-are-we-not-an-interview-with-julie-grossman-and-will-scheibel/
The book takes as its theme the relationship between literature and the contemporary means of production and distribution collectively termed 'the media' - in particular, film and television. The intention of the book is to explore and evaluate the mutual opportunities and restrictions in this relationship. In the grammar of our culture there seems to be an accepted opinion that print is superior in terms of cultural production to film, radio or television, that to read a book is somehow a 'higher' cultural activity than seeing a play on television or seeing a film. By the same token, a novel is a 'superior' work of art to film or television. The longer perspective reveals that traditionally there always is a greater respect paid to the previous mode of literary production - poetry was superior to drama, poetic drama was superior to the novel, and film attained cult and classic status initially over television.
Contemporary screen industries such as film and television have become primary sites for visualizing borders, migration, maps, and travel as processes of separation and dislocation, but also connection. Migration, Dislocation and Movement on Screen pulls case studies in film and television industries from throughout Europe, North Africa, and Asia to interrogate the nature of movement via moving images. By combining theoretical, interdisciplinary engagements with empirical research, this volume offers a new way to look at screen media's representations of our contemporary world's transnational and cosmopolitan imaginaries.
Gilles Deleuze published two radical books on film: Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Engaging with a wide range of film styles, histories and theories, Deleuze's writings treat film as a new form of philosophy. This ciné-philosophy offers a startling new way of understanding the complexities of the moving image, its technical concerns and constraints as well as its psychological and political outcomes. Deleuze and Cinema presents a step-by-step guide to the key concepts behind Deleuze's revolutionary theory of the cinema. Exploring ideas through key directors and genres, Deleuze's method is illustrated with examples drawn from American, British, continental European, Russian and Asian cinema. Deleuze and Cinema provides the first introductory guide to Deleuze's radical methodology for screen analysis. It will be invaluable for students and teachers of Film, Media and Philosophy.
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title "Cover to cover, Screening Asian Americans, a collection of 15 essays, is fabulous."--AsianWeek.com "This scholarly book uses 15 contributors to explore the various images of Asians, many of which have been negative."-Burlington County Times This innovative essay collection explores Asian American cinematic representations historically and socially, on and off screen, as they contribute to the definition of American character. The history of Asian Americans on movie screens, as outlined in Peter X Feng's introduction, provides a context for the individual readings that follow. Asian American cinema is charted in its diversity, ranging across activist, documentary, experimental, and fictional modes, and encompassing a wide range of ethnicities (Filipino, Vietnamese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese). Covered in the discussion are filmmakers--Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Ang Lee, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Wayne Wang--and films such as The Wedding Banquet, Surname Viet Given Name Nam, and Chan is Missing. Throughout the volume, as Feng explains, the term screening has a twofold meaning-referring to the projection of Asian Americans as cinematic bodies and the screening out of elements connected with these images. In this doubling, film representation can function to define what is American and what is foreign. Asian American filmmaking is one of the fastest growing areas of independent and studio production. This volume is key to understanding the vitality of this new cinema. A volume in the Depth of Field Series, edited by Charles Affron, Mirella Jona Affron, and Robert Lyons Peter X Feng teaches English and women's studies at the University of Delaware.
This book provides a unique examination of the way Europe’s past is represented on contemporary screens and what this says about contemporary cultural attitudes to history. How do historical dramas come to TV and cinema screens across Europe? How is this shaped by the policies and practices of cultural institutions, from media funding boards to tourist agencies and heritage sites? Who watches these productions and how are they consumed in cinemas, on TV and online?, are just some of the questions this volume seeks to answer. From The Lives of Others to Game of Thrones, historical dramas are a particularly visible part of mainstream European film production, often generating major national debates on the role of the past in contemporary national identity construction.
Whether paying tribute to silent films in Hugo and The Artist or celebrating arcade games in Tron: Legacy and Wreck-It-Ralph, Hollywood suddenly seems to be experiencing a wave of intense nostalgia for outmoded technologies. To what extent is that a sincere lament for modes of artistic production that have nearly vanished in an all-digital era? And to what extent is it simply a cynical marketing ploy, built on the notion that nostalgia has always been one of Hollywood’s top-selling products? In Flickers of Film, Jason Sperb offers nuanced and unexpected answers to these questions, examining the benefits of certain types of film nostalgia, while also critiquing how Hollywood’s nostalgic representations of old technologies obscure important aspects of their histories. He interprets this affection for the prehistory and infancy of digital technologies in relation to an industry-wide anxiety about how the digital has grown to dominate Hollywood, pushing it into an uncertain creative and economic future. Yet he also suggests that Hollywood’s nostalgia for old technologies ignores the professionals who once employed them, as well as the labor opportunities that have been lost through the computerization and outsourcing of film industry jobs. Though it deals with nostalgia, Flickers of Film is strikingly cutting-edge, one of the first studies to critically examine Pixar’s role in the film industry, cinematic representations of videogames, and the economic effects of participatory culture. As he takes in everything from Terminator: Salvation to The Lego Movie, Sperb helps us see what’s distinct about this recent wave of self-aware nostalgic films—how Hollywood nostalgia today isn’t what it used to be.
This well-established and respected directory supports actors in their training and search for work on stage, screen and radio. It is the only directory to provide detailed information for each listing and specific advice on how to approach companies and individuals, saving hours of further research. From agents and casting directors to producing theatres, showreel companies, photographers and much more, this essential reference book editorially selects only the most relevant and reputable contacts for the actor. With several new articles and commentaries, Actors' and Performers' Yearbook 2021 features aspects of the profession not previously covered, as well as continuing to provide valuable insight into auditions, interviews and securing work alongside a casting calendar and financial issues. This is a valuable professional tool in an industry where contacts and networking are key to career survival. All listings have been updated alongside fresh advice from industry experts.
